Lucifers Hero

This deserves its own thread. Would you like to do the honours or shall I?

Fanastic! More details please! Can't find it anywhere on line!

I know that teams rarely line up as selected but I do like Salem and Baker on the wings. Both have nice kicks, have composure and aim at targets rather random bombs. And add Fristch as the attacking defender and we should see a marked improvement in delivery i50 from all three.

I think he is just very emotionally invested in the club eg In yesterday's video his voice gets shaky when asked about Lever's return. A few weeks ago it became shaky when asked about the return of key players. Both times it sounded like relief. His emotional reaction to the Sydney win (choked up a little) and (iirc) the Hawks win which is uncharacteristic (in a good way) of the usual calm persona. He said after the 'dizzy' spell a few weeks ago that the people around him advised to take it easy and look after himself. Maybe he has just been working too hard, too selflessly. Last week Mahoney and Chaplin took the pregame radio interviews in SA. Pure speculation but it looked to me the club was trying to spread the workload. It is not unusual for clubs to do this. Thompson at Geelong and Hardwick at Richmond come to mind. He will be fine. I'm sure the bye will be a welcome break, especially if we are really competitive vs the pies.

I noticed that at the beginning then it settled a bit. iirc, he usually does his mid week presser standing up. Hope he is well.

Buckley knows Viney can only play on his left side so he always parks a player there and takes him out of the game. They then get the ball out on his side of the ground and run it forward to an open fwd line. In many respects Viney is our weakest link vs the pies. Perhaps we should put Viney on the wing and Brayshaw back in the middle to counteract Buckley's plan and put Gus back where he belongs.

I'm happy with Sam and Tom. When May and Lever are back it will free Max up to rest/play fwd more instead as the intercept defender he has regularly played. The only reason I would go after another tall fwd is if Tom's toe is a ongoing issue: atm he can't jump, chase, bring the ball to ground or kick more than 40m. That cannot continue into next year. We really do need him to be 100% fit and effective for the best part of 22-26 games a season. If we went shopping I would go for two-metre-Pete at GCS. Yet to renew his contract and iirc we were very, very keen on him in his draft year. Played 60 games, soon to be 23 and at 203cm yet to reach his prime.

And Jeanie Pratt.

Generally I agree. But Tom didn't have surgery (his ankles were the previous year) and iirc from training reports he wasn't reported as being in rehab nor did he appear on an mfc injury list. He had a slight knee issue that kept him out of the AFLX by which time he had completed the preseason. In the following weeks he in both JLT's. Unlike many others his preseason wasn't 'interrupted' albeit it was shorter than prior years. So for mine any fitness issues should have been overcome long before now. So I don't see that as the reason for his form slump. My comments about Tom being disappointing were related to not doing the typical tall fwd things effectively rather than not scoring goals or cohesion with other fwds so training together wasn't relevant to my post.

With at least two (and at times 5) 1st choice defenders out injured in each game and poor midfield defence early in the season makes it tough to pressure the ops into errors: there have been quite a few clean snaps and relatively few rushed behinds. Both a sign of low pressure close to goal. Having said that it is not a good look and must improve with the key defenders coming back. It will be quite exciting when Lever, May, Hibberd, Jetta, Salem, Hore, Frost are on the field together!

TMac has played some of his best games when Hogan was not in the team even tho he got the best defender. Hogan injury in 2017 was the reason Tom went forward. His support in 2017 (iirc) was Pederson as Watts was also injured. Weid was his support last year when Hogan was absent. imv the absence of an experienced side kick doesn't explain Tom's alarming half season long form slump. If Tom is injured he should be rested. If not we should play him and Sam for the rest of the season so they get experience playing together. They both need to be up and about for our 2020 campaign.

That is bound to bring out all haters for their favourite whipping boy. For me it is TomMc. Lack of preseason fitness should have been overcome by now. The odd poor game is understandable but he has played one good game in 11 (vs GCS). We needed him to stand up this year but he has been ineffective in virtually every aspect of a tall fwd play.

Lewis on Retirement “I’m going to leave the game at the end of the year feeling really fulfilled in what I’ve achieved". He seems happy to finish in the the VFL. He will keep teaching the young guys. He seems genuine in this: “We’re going through a bit of a tough period at the moment, so I need to be there support these young kids and hopefully prolong their careers and make sure they understand the learnings you can get through the bad times can obviously help during the good times as well.” I'm very happy he came to the Dees. He has taught our players a lot. He kept them hungry after the first final last year. They have a better understanding of how to be a professional player. Gave us leadership when sorely needed. He may get to play off against his best mate Roughy, in the VFL. One to watch!

Malthouse looks more like Colonel Sanders these days

This has had almost no media exposure. Apparently 6-8 will be admitted to the HOF tonight. Any likely Dees? A quick search shows Neale Daniher is not in the HOF. Could be wrong. Would be a very, very worthy inductee: Champion player, club captain, Grand Final runner-up coach. Great champion of the very worthy MND cause. Inspiration to so many.

Why not include Todd Viney, the most senior of the List Management team, as your target. Or is he immune because he is a favourite son? Taylor reports to Viney Taylor only has the picks left after Viney, Mahoney and Goodwin have finished trading the chips. Anyway, he doesn't make the decisions on his own!

Dees missed shots Typical Max: Gawn tried to cheer Weideman up with a joke in the moments after the game ended, but it didn’t go down too well. "I did tell him, ‘Thanks for missing it’, because I was in a bit of pressure myself," he laughed. Max showed good leadership and care for a young teammate contacting Sam the next day: "I had a good chat to 'Weids' yesterday and we’re both feeling the same and it’s actually good for us to feel that we did cost the team because against Geelong last year [when Gawn missed a set shot to win the game] I used it as a driver for the next four or five weeks and played some really good footy. And on a spray from Goodwin: Gawn wanted to receive a spray from coach Simon Goodwin after their second-half capitulation, but it wasn’t forthcoming. Everyone could see they worked their butts off all game. Even in the last quarter - those missed shot opportunities weren't gifts they came from hard work. I don't doubt Goodwin can give players a decent spray when he has a mind to but he is smart enough to pick his moments and pick his targets. Spare the rod, they say! As an aside, empathetic coaches was discussed on FC last night. They were very strong on coaches developing a style to suit gen X and showed how even hardened coaches like Longmire and Lyon have really softened up, especially now they have really young teams. BT has little understanding of how clubs function these days and how to motivate players. He likes to make himself the news!

Well, that makes Taylor's strike rate even better, doesn't it?

To give a balanced view the post first round selections should include trade-ins as those picks would otherwise be available for the draft. Vince, Hibberd, Melksham, Frost were mid to late 20 picks and will all play 100 games for the dees. Their is a B&F winner, an AA and 4 prelim final players. Not too shabby don't you think? And the very late picks (gifts) of Garlett, Lewis and Preuss. There were some poor trades like Lumumba. I don't include Dawes as a poor trade as he gave his all to the dees. On balance Taylor has an trade-in strike is excellent!

Sam had played a very good game so he has a lot to be proud of, especially for a first game back after injury and being dropped. As a result his confidence would not have been top notch. He was shattered to miss that shot. Leaving him emotionally stranded with the camera focused on him was far worse than being empathetic.

There are good reasons that the 8 in bold did not make it. Thish means 22 of the 30 selected are still on our list so he has a pretty good batting average. And of the 16 on the list last year, 8 played in the finals. Again, a very good batting average. Anyway a bit early to judge the 2018 crop but 2017 selections are looking like a 100% strike rate! I get that you are trolling but a closer look at the selections show you are barking up the wrong tree.

Carlton got Stocker (pick #19 in 2018 from Crows) plus Crows' 2019 first round pick, currently # 11 in return for this years 1st round (currently #1). So they still have a 1st round pick this year. They effectively had two extra picks last year by selecting then trading out pre-listed players (Kreuger to Geelong and McAdam to Crows (plus some 2nd round picks) as part of the McGovern deal). They did very well from the extra help last year. So, no way they get a pp anywhere in the draft this year! As an aside: Ess is the other club that gambled badly with future picks: they traded last year's first pick (pick #8) and 2019 first pick (currently #9) to GWS for Shiel, expecting they would win some finals. Don't think the penny has yet dropped with their fans! Shows the danger of future trading. At least when we did it we ended up 4th on the ladder.

Who cares?

Agreed. I said a few weeks ago he can't jump, can't kick more than 40m and isn't competing in the air to get the ball to ground. Other worrying trends: just isn't getting the ball. has very few shots at goal (8 goals and 9 points in 11 games with 6 goalless games and 3 scoreless games). very little ruckwork which supports the 'he can't jump' question mark and means he is playing fwd nearly the whole game. has lost his speed so can't get separation from op or get up and down the ground to help mids. In the last month or two he has played around 90% game time, sometimes as high as 98%. This doesn't suggest a physical injury or if he is injured playing him the whole game is poor management and mightily counterproductive. After 11 weeks with one good performance it is no longer 'form'. We desperately need to sort out what is hampering him. Problem is we don't have any tall fwd depth. Having said that I haven't favoured playing Preuss but I feel he may be better than Tom until we get Tom 'fit' again.

Agreed, it shouldn't have been up to Sam. I was disappointed Max took the kick from nearly 50m with just 3 min to go. I get that he wanted to show leadership and get the team over the line. But he has a poor set shot history so the chance of him making it were probably 20:1 or worse. Wiser to give it off to someone closer/better kick. It should be one of our 'end game, close score, few minutes left', set plays. Not suggesting a kick to a pack but a player running past would help.