deelusions from afar

Hard to know from the outside but I actually think they are improving and he's a bit unlucky. Most developing sides struggle away from home but they have shown their best can mix it with the best (and they have lots of talent coming through). Surely they want to pounce on hardwick after regretting not being in the race for Clarkson last year. He'll need a break but if Dew is interested in being an assistant we should definitely look into it - surely we won't have the same coaching group next year. His close relationship with many of the suns players wouldn't go astray either!

Obviously for Clayton (and Petty / Bowser) to make it in we need to drop some player so maybe Spargo is on the chopping block. But I find it incredible that so many posters saying one of Spargo / ANB / Chandler / Kozzie need to be dropped. They may not have kicked goals but that isn't their role in the team - it is providing the pressure (17 I50 tackles compared to the pies 4) which means the opposition can't exit the defence. This is probably the most crucial aspect of our gameplan as everything falls into place once we're doing this well. We have been elite in this aspect of the game the last two week - and posters here want to change it up? I'd rather tell Bowey and Petty they need to come back through the VFL than be messing with our current forward mix. And maybe it's Sparrow / Brayshaw that need to make way for Clarrie? Most likely injuries will occur so all of these players will get their shot in any case... but the defensive pressure created by our small forwards is so underrated on this site.

Yes it's good to have depth - the best teams always have some good players miss out. Bowey was finding some of his best form prior to getting concussed. He might have to come back through the VFL as I can't see anyone in the backline being dropped. If Tomlinson and Smith can hold this form (and potentially grow it with some confidence) then Petty might be in the same boat! But it's a long season - would be very surprised if Petty isn't in the side by the end of the year.

Fair enough - I guess I remember (all too well) how we attacked them early when we played them the second time round last year. Our pressure was elite with so many turnovers in the forward half - we really should have put more goals on the board. But from half way in the 3rd and most of the 4th they got us time and time again on turnover going the length of the field in waves. We looked gassed and their foot skills (and Johnson's straight kicking for goal) carved us up. Arguably our fitness levels had dropped off (and a few key players were carrying things) - but I think part of the issue is we went soo hard with the forward pressure in the first half we couldn't keep going in the second. Re Max and Grundy, his points make sense and he might be right (in giving Gawn more like 80% ruck time and Grundy on Moore). But my hesitation is based on three things: 1. Gawn may be more effective in the ruck (particularly as he can double as the spare defender). But is the difference he provides more than what you lose in the forward half? I.e. If Gawn's value as Ruck / extra man in defence is 9 and Grundy in the ruck is 8 (just for arguments sake), what are Gawn / Grundy's value as forwards? I'd probably have them as 7 and 4 respectively. It is easy to say give more ruck time to Gawn - but what gives the best cumulative value for the team? 2. The idea that Grundy can keep Moore busy is laughable in my view (very happy to be proven wrong though). Grundy has surprised many with what he has shown as a forward - he hasn't been bad at all. But for mine he's done the most damage when he hasn't had someone close checking him / against poorer teams. He's a smart footballer - but he has played 90% of his career in the ruck. The idea that he can come in and know how to get Moore (the best defender in the comp this year) to follow him into spaces he doesn't want to go is a stretch. I can't see Moore being too worried about Grundy. I guess it comes down to us using Grundy (or whoever is on Moore) at every opportunity 3. From what I've seen, Gawn doesn't seem 100%. He's giving it his all but isn't quite there. I suspect that is why he has spent more time forward since returning from injury. However, last week he got more time on the ball in the last quarter and seemed to show he had his touch back with a number of contested marks and the big goal - hopefully he can go up another level this week. But would be very surprised to see him play 80% ruck time... especially against Cox who caused his injury last year.

Listened to this as well @Demon Dynasty and this is not a slight on you - but I found Sando's comments to be pretty vanilla. Things like no kicking ball inside 50 until 70 out or dialing up the forward pressure... does Sando really think that our game plan would be anything else? We want the forward pressure dialed up every week (as every team does). And launching into F50 from further out generally means you're under a lot of pressure. Similar re Moore - just like for May / Lever, every team needs a plan. Just because you have a plan, doesn't mean it will work. I think Gawn is the only player that would worry Moore in the air (provided the pies don't allow JVR to get a clean run at it). Win contested ball and clearance - of course we want to win it. But it's more what you do with it / whether we can get turnovers from when they win it.

I'd be interested to know how much of a say he has with our kick in (or is it kick out?) strategies. For example, we typically go to the left pocket to the ruckman (has been less rigid this year) - this is obviously the percentage play but is part of it so that we are best setup doing this if the opposition manage to force a turnover. And as a follow up, how has the addition of Hunter impacted our approach to moving the ball from our defence.

I want to agree with them too. But until I see it against a decent side I won't be convinced. Carlton were undermanned and low on confidence and so definitely not a decent side. Having said that, I think they played a lot better on Friday than in a lot of their losses (And McKay kicked some decent goals which he hasn't done recently). But their game style suits us. They weren't aggressive / creative in their ball use from the D50 and so we had the game on our terms. If we kicked straight (like we did earlier in the season) it would have been a shellacking. I don't mind most of the media not realising this. However, the way Collingwood and Carlton move the ball couldn't be more different - so we're kidding ourselves if we think we'll be able to get anywhere near the same amount of forward half turnovers against the pies. Collingwood's ball movement troubles most teams - I am hoping the work we have done over summer reaps the rewards. By this I mean: Having tall forwards in the forward line that have some mongrel and make a contest (in the air AND when the ball hits the ground). Last year Brown was hampered and TMac was injured and Jackson was out of form. For this reason I would be very surprised if Schache gets in ahead of Smith on the weekend. I think they also like having a forward with experience playing in our defence in the team (eg TMac, Petty or Smith with Petty the preference). Playing a shorter defence - since shifting Petty forward, it seems the match committee's preference to go smaller in defence (May, Lever, Hibbo). I suspect this is because they know we need to be more agile / mobile back there (as much as many supporters don't like it). Thomlinson was back last week to play the difficult role on McKay (which I think he did ok). However, with Hibbo back, I suspect Thomlinson will be out. We've mixed up the centre bounce rotations for the 1st half of the season - is this to ease the load on Oliver, Petracca and Viney for the end of the season? Or is it to develop the team? Will be interesting to see if they 'flick the switch' and give Trac, Clarry and Vines more time for this game or stick to the same approach. I want us to win this match so badly... and there were plenty of promising signs on Friday night. However I think the pies have our measure and I haven't seen enough of a shift in what we do to be convinced we can counter their 'all duck no dinner' approach (would LOVE to be proven wrong though).

Out of interest did he play his junior footy as a defender? Is he someone that will look to play further up the ground in time? Loving what he is doing

I actually reckon it will be TMac. I think they will be concerned that if one of May / Lever goes down we wouldn't have anyone else that can be shifted back with Petty out. Or would they give Smith a go given he can (apparently) play at both ends.

Until we can prove we can continue to do this against genuine top 8 sides, I think (unfortunately) Collingwood are deservedly the yardstick. We're yet to beat anyone of note and have had two slip-ups. Collinwood have had one of the same slip ups (though arguably Bris in Bris is just a very tough game)... but they've also beaten 4 sides in the top 8 versus our 1. I hate collinwood with a passion but they deserve to be the favourites at this point in time in my view. Still plenty of time for us to improve - I think we can already see that a number of our key deficiencies from last year are being worked on which should stand us in good stead for the back half of the year - e.g: not taxing our stars more than needed (eg more rotations in centre bounce) playing most in-form key forwards with added emphasis on those that will compete when the ball is in the air AND on the ground rewarding good VFL form and the kids that deserve a crack (JVR, McVee, Chandler). By extension this means that best 22 players from the 2021 GF are not walk up starts anymore if not 100% and in form. game style flexibility - two wingers and two genuine ruckman mean we are less predictable with what was previously defensive v fat side wing setup. The setup means we can take the game on more and score easier... but it also means that our defence is under more pressure and will inevitably concede more. Incidentally all the ppl saying May is off I think are forgetting that the tweaks to our game plan mean that our defence is under more pressure. I think this is ok if our aggressive attack is able to work against decent sides. We're about to have our audit!

As I said on another thread I hope this kind of commentary is right.... but our (limited) record against sides in contention isn't great so far this season - next 4-6 weeks will give us a proper indication of where we're at. All these stats are great but 7 of our first 9 games were against teams in the bottom 9 including 3 against the bottom 3 so of course it's going to look good on paper. Big game Friday night v port!

Dogs round 1 were believing in the 4-headed forward monster (Naughton, UH, Lobb and Darcy). I don't think it's been tried since. They also were missing all their small crumbing forwards. I'm not saying we wouldn't beat the dogs if we played now... but I think they have made a few structural personnel changes which have improved them. Sydney round 3 was arguably our best win of the year... but due to their subsequent injuries they haven't really got going and now look to be facing an uphill battle to make the 8. They've only got 3 wins (Rich, GC and Haw). They may still get it together, but they don't seem close to the side they were last year. The ladder is still sorting itself out but against the top 10, we are 1 W and 2 L (As a point of comparison the pies against the same top 10 are 5 W and 1 L). That's ok - we've got plenty of room to improve and premierships are not won in May... but I think we have to be careful reading too much into these stats when we haven't played (m)any teams of note in 2023.

This has been really interesting and heartwarming to read. BUUUUT... for mine we are too early in the season to get a proper gauge. In my view we got the dogs at the best time. We've beaten Sydney but they are not the team they were last year. We lost to Essendon and Bris - everyone drops some but who have we beaten really? I rate the suns (up there) but it will be an uphill battle for them making the finals. Of course we're kicking more goals and different ways - we're not playing the contenders. But they're coming up over the next 6-7 rounds.

Wow AI is getting quite good... I didn't know GC had any supporters!

I'm no advocate for tanking but imagine the following scenario: If the wheels completely fall off for Freo and they are in the mix to go as low as Hawks / North / WCE, In round 21 we play North at Blundstone Arena In round 23 we play the Hawks. Say we have top 4 sewn up (I'm not counting my chickens, this is just a hypothetical). Imagine 'managing' a few stars or doing a heavier training load v North and losing... to the extent that it moves them above Freo on the ladder. It would be tanking but not to get the lowest pick... it would be tanking so that our opponent gets a higher pick than Freo (who's pick we hold). I don't think that has been talked about in AFL before. At the same time, North beat Collinwood last year and Collingwood were better than us last year and North are much better this year than last year.

Yeah I agree - though I am also intrigued to see what Schache can bring. His VFL form at the end of last year was very strong - stronger than Weid for example (and Weid is getting games in a side that has performed better than us this year) and he's continued this year. He is an untapped talent but I fear he ultimately lacks the mongrel you need. But if he gets a good run at it, he has all the tools to be a great player. Given the opposition over the next 3 weeks (North Suns Hawks), he has a decent chance to build some confidence and belief - if he does this he could hold his spot.

Does he have speed? Can he genuinely play outside? Is he an elite kick? Even if he was the next Oliver or Petracca (as an example) - would that be what we actually need for our window (next 5 years)? I think the main weakness for us is the outside class in the midfield - we've improved on last year but when I watch the pies or sydney (when on song) they've got a lot more elite ball users running through their midfield. I just find it hard to understand trading 3 first round picks in a super draft - history shows that there's always hype around one player and they rarely end up as the best player in the draft. I like the idea of getting best available with first pick, JVR's brother and then a smoky with the highest ceiling. But I'm not Jason Taylor

I think Grundy gives us a lot more to play with than we had with Jackson last year. It's about maximising the strengths and minimising the weaknesses. My fear with Grundy is that he's not accountable if his opponent pushes forward. But I suspect Jacko would have been similar in that regard. Equally as good as Gawn is forward of centre, if he can't actually kick straight (like on the weekend and the second half of last year) then it's all for nothing. Hopefully not too many more injuries to the talls allows us to experiment to find the right mix.

We might need to have a new white and brown jumper for the future "family round" the AFL will inevitably bring in.

I think JVR is listed 193, Lever 194 and Petty 197. Obviously it's going to be hard to spot a cm difference from a bit of distance. Interestingly Lever and Petty are both listed as 94kg while JVR is listed as 96kg. He's a big lad!

I think that's a bit of revisionist history there - we got a bit of a run on but had struggled to beat most of the top 8 sides during the season (although had a number of close losses such as Geelong x2). We beat West Coast but only when our finals were on the line and it was already sewn up for them. Even our finals match against Hawthorn after starting strongly they stiffled our movement until well into the last quarter. We had a great season and on our day could mix it with most... but our key defenders were Frost and O Mac! We overperformed to get to the final 4.

I've been a fan of Chandler for a while now (when many others at least on here were not). While I'm not super surprised with his inside 50 tackles stats (6th in the league) or his goal assists (3rd in the league) I didn't expect him to be so reliable in front of goal. Chandler is playing one of the most important and difficult roles in the team and couldn't be going much better. Good story of persistence - he has one injury away from being a premiership player in 2021 and then Bedford had his nose in front last year. I'm so glad we hung on to him and he stayed on!

Is he named after Chris Judd? (heard he was from Chris Judd's grandmother - a most reliable source on DL)

I actually think the round looks great - other than our game, most of them have potential to be close games (maybe Geelong v WCE and potentially Hawthorn v GWS aside) eg Bris play North but Brisbane away from the Gabba have been rubbish Pies play without a ruckman against undefeated saints Suns v Freo is interesting for us - but the ramifications of the loser are enormous. can you confidently pick it? Carlton v Adelaide - the way the crows are playing I think they might get them Sydney v Tigers - both underperforming and have significant injuries so a crucial '8 pt' game for both Port v Dogs - hard to get a form line of these teams but both capable of top 4 if they play at their best.

really? Maybe they're thinking exactly what we are