Lucifers Hero

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.

Both visit the site just not posted. They are probably waiting till we turn the corner, win a few games and come back to preach 'told you so'! So we may not hear from them for about another month!

Things I liked: We lowered our eyes and had some ripper 'bullet-like' kicks i50 from Hibberd, Fritsch, Viney, Jones. A proportionately higher no of shots for goal were take from the centre i50 whereas in the past they have been taken out wide. Helped our early accuracy. Some delightful goals were kicked: Petracca from 50m, Oliver from near 50m, Weideman from near the boundary. We didn't let up. Weideman took really good contested marks. Most of all, we got our ferocity back! Especially in the first half. That Tex had another bad game. We lost but those improvements will help win quite a few more games this year. A bit late for finals but am happy the season will end on a high.

We were ferocious vs Geelong in the first final. But we don't bump or bring players to ground so much these days. We go the tackle which often doesn't stick. I wonder whether all the hip and shoulder surgery our players had over the preseason makes them a bit gun shy of going in really hard. Not making excuses and not saying they are soft - it is understandable if their joints haven't fully recovered. Our physicality just isn't there anymore. Need to take a leaf out of the shinboner's book! Bring back the ferocity!

Sounds like us ?

With a bit of luck he will come in for Spargo whose selection is a head scratcher! And, thanks for your great reports.

Crows in Doubt Pike says Lynch and others may be in doubt. Could be just 'mind games'. I reckon we can win this. Tex might be like angry ant after last weeks embarrassing shirking of a contest but he isn't going to turn on a blinder; hasn't done so in years. Harmes to Sloane. Hore or Hibberd to Eddie. Frost 'sacrifices' his game to run everywhere with Lynch, wear him like a glove to shut down his linking game. They don't have a De Boer to shut down Oliver Our midfield to finally hit its straps. Go Dees!

Interviews with SA radio from club website below. Apologies for only posting the article link...don't have the expertise to post just the video link. Mahoney pre game Interview Chaplin pre game Interview Re Lewis, Mahoney says he needs to go back and play well at Casey and be ready to play later in the year. Not sure if that was a turn of phrase or he meant Lewis won't be in the seniors for a while. Re Goodwin's dizzy spell last week. They both said he had been working hard at his fitness training that morning and hadn't eaten and was fine in the afternoon. They said he is a very hard worker and Mahoney implied he may be working too hard. Mahoney said he Macca and others were helping Goodwin and he has some excellent mentors outside the club he turns to for advice. It occurred to me that Mahoney and Chaplin taking these interviews was a way of lessening the load for Goodwin. If so, a good move. Lessens the load and frees him to prepare for and focus on the game. On Brad Green, Mahoney said the club was getting around Brad in many ways. Also mentioned his mates had done so, some coming over from Perth, some taking days off work. Not surprising as Brad is such a good bloke but still heartening to hear. When asked about 'playing the kids' (Robbo had suggested it on AFL360) when we can't make finals, Mahoney said 'we can't get any younger can we'! He said we had played 35 different players. Great answer as Robbo had prefaced his suggestion with 'I won't use the word tanking'. It annoyed me as no-one in the media in recent years has use that word for other teams playing their kids. But its Melbourne, right? Well Mahoney has the perfect answer. We have to play them! Obvious for all to see. Chaplin surprised me when he said he had viewed vision of a Crows game the night before and would view another one today for ideas. Wouldn't that happen early in the week to incorporate ideas into training?

This was written on fox website for this week's preview: The midfield mix changed all day against GWS last week. Angus Brayshaw spent full quarters in the forward line, then the midfield, then defence. James Harmes had a quarter in all three areas too. Nathan Jones returned to the midfield having been a wingman or defender for almost the entire season; Jack Viney remains in the midfield even though he’s having his worst season (per the AFL Player Ratings) since his debut. Did anyone notice the musical chairs for Brayshaw and Harmes last week? Its damn difficult to get 'connection' with forwards if the midfield is being moved around every 30 minutes especially when we are playing new faces each week due to injuries. It looks like Goodwin has reverted to the hybrid mid/fwd roles of early last year when players were often played out of position. iirc the hybrid was abandoned after the mauling by the Hawks. I would prefer players be mainly in their natural positions to develop cohesion and be predictable to each other. Surely, the much sort 'midfield connection with forwards' would improve.

Not saying he doesn't deserve to reach 300. Not saying he shouldn't get another contract. Just saying it shouldn't come with a guarantee of at least 14 games. We haven't won a premiership in 55 years. imv the club owes supporters who have loyally stuck fat for many decades, to do everything in its power to get the next one. I would expect the club to put its and supporter interests ahead of any individual. Lets hope we do both: Jones to 300 and a tilt at the premiership in 2020!!