Ted Lasso

Smart to get Gawn absolutely cherry ripe now, let him be as close to full fitness as possible for a run at the finals. very confident we have everything we need to beat the doggies tomorrow. they haven't been in great form Tipping a big return to form for Tommy and Sammy to finally get a bag and kick 6

Growing up it was: Jeff White, Adam Yze, Cameron Bruce and Aaron Davey. of the current players Kozzie pickett, Steven May, Angus Brayshaw

Felt like Tommy had a nearly day. there were a couple of times particularly forward where he got first hands to the ball but didn't quite hold it. i think he's close to finding form. another day he could kick 4-5 if he clunks them a bit better

My guess is the team right now would be Sam Collins Harris Andrews Nick haynes Sam Docherty Darcy Moore Adam Saad Mitch Duncan Travis Boak Jackson McRae Dan Butler Josh Kennedy Tom Papley Charlie Dixon Tom Hawkins Charlie Cameron Todd Goldstein Lachie Neale Christian Petracca Jack Steele, Patrick Cripps, Dustin Martin, Nic Nat

Been playing with the old ladder predictor and i think 3 more wins and 9 in total with our healthy % should see us finish in the top 8 given the poor form/injuries of the pies and the challenging draw of the Giants. I also think there is a chance the Saints could drop out of the 8 which would be a disaster for them so if we beat Fremantle, Sydney and Essendon which we really should, we SHOULD be playing finals footy. one more win on top of that and we're just about a lock. in saying that, we're good enough to win 6/6 as none of these games are worse than 50/50 games and that would give us a serious chance at sneaking in to the top 4 with 12 wins depending on other results. This is the type of year where the team with the best form/healthiest list is a good chance to win the flag.

Surely you keep him on, base wage ala Jack Trengoves last year, if for nothing other than depth and leadership. he deserves to get to 300 and the club needs him to

We have a soft draw but i think we're still going to be lucky to play finals. i reckon we can beat the Dockers, Swans and Bombers for sure. that gets us to 9. which may be enough. but i think we need to beat one of the Dogs, Giants, Saints to be sure, and i think they're all winnable. i think really we should be backing ourselves to win 4 -5 of those 6 games. if not all of them

Gus's workrate has jumped quite a bit the last two weeks as well! for anyone who watches the replay, pay attention to where GUS is he's really moving well and working his [censored] off, and getting rewards. it's really encouraging signs that our mids seem to be all coming into form at the right time

The Patches plan to beat the dogs. Max Dominates English and gives our mids first look, win it out of the middle. Melksham plays as a defensive forward on Daniel. drags him to FF at every opportunity. his kicking sets up the play for them James Harmes completes a hard tag on Jackson McRae, he's struggled with tags and is very damaging in 2020 Isolate the Bulldogs undersized key backs. our big forwards have generally done well against the doggies. Keep defending as well as we have been. Make Naughton compete 1v1 with May. he's dangerous on a lead where he can run and jump. every time Bont gets the footy, SMASH HIM the Giants have used this tactic effectively, he starts worrying about contact. don't mind giving a free or two away to get inside his head.

Yes, i believe Tami came in semi regularly and did sessions with the boys.

the other thing that is no doubt hurting Gus is the shorter quarters ultimately means the best side in the coaches mind can spend a higher % of the game in their preffered positions without the need to rotate In saying that if we don't change the rotations to give GUS a look in, he'd be silly not to look elsewhere, he'd play his position every week at the blues and probably get paid significantly better to do it.

He's played literally 1 game with the same minutes of those two in his strongest position and he had 29 touches, a pile of contested and kicked a goal. in 2018 he played there consistently and finished 3rd in the brownlow. the kid can definitely play, and he's being played out of position by a stubborn coach in my humble opinion. Brayshaws game on the weekend was comfortably better than anything Sparrow has produced for the club, and certainly up there with the good footy of the other mids.

So frustrating. how about rewarding the bloke who stepped into that role and immediately dominated. Gus dominated the game without Gawn winning the taps. he's genuinely as good as Petracca or Oliver in that position, we're insane if we don't at least increase his time in the guts. I'd rather see Petracca/ oliver spend slightly more time forward to afford Gus more time than Gus be pushed out

I think Viney could spend a bit more time Wing/forward to allow Brayshaw more minutes in the guts and give the team a better overall balance

the Brayshaw vs Viney comparison urks me a bit to be honest, and i know you're just making a point on out and out quality. Jack really, is competing with oliver, not Brayshaw. Gus is more the inside/outside spreader, he adds something to the contest that Jack Doesn't. Viney and Oliver are both out and out inside bulls. i think the arguement is really between them, and if the coaches assumptions that both can play in the same team are correct.

I think you're missing the bigger picture, Our midfield functions better without Viney in it. he may be a fabric player culturally but there is a reality to his role in the team that requires either a change in game style, a change in role or a change of team for Jack. it's no coincidence we functioned well in the middle without him there, even without Max. Gus, Oliver, Track is our best starting 3 mids in terms of a midfield unit.

I'd be calling Tom Hawkins and offering him a deal/transition into coaching. it would help the development of Weideman, improve our best 22, provide another tall target and provide some on field experience/leadership especially if we as we're hoping push for a flag in the next 2-3 seasons. I'm less worried about our lack of pace than i am about our lack of polish so i'd be looking for really good ball users who can't quite crack a game at their clubs. I can't see us getting a big fish this year unfortunately but we may be able to find some more than handy role players to add some icing to the cake. Tom Papley would be a really great additon if the Swans are still keen on TMAC maybe we can work out a package, but i think it's unlikely

The scary thing is i think Gawn could be much more impactful if we could get the connection with his taps right

North Melbourne W Collingwood L Western Bulldogs L Essendon W Fremantle W GWS Giants L St Kilda L Sydney w 8/9 for the season sees us probably just miss finals. we probably need to win 2 of the 4 losses to make the 8

Reality is that we're a better side without Viney in the guts. so i feel we need to trial some things. the split Brayshaw and Viney have could be reversed and give Viney more time on the wing, ultimately though we're a better side with Gus, Petracca and Oliver at the bounces. even without Gawn there.

Weid has always had the marking, it's always been his big weapon but i think it's only probably been the last 6 weeks or so that he's really started to understand how hard a key forward has to work in the modern game. last night he outworked Robbie Tarrant at times, and that's something not many people do. really pleased for him, he's a lovely guy.

Ironically i feel like Watts has the attributes to really add to a team like Port. they've got the quality to cover his deficiencies and i can see him playing a role come finals

that's the real challenge, find a role that suits Viney where he doesn't impact that as much. i wouldn't be against trialing him on a wing. i think he's got a pretty good turn of speed

Going against consensus probably but i thought overall we were quite poor. Defensively we looked sound against a team that wasn't really capable of asking too many questions. we had multiple opportunities to put that game away much earlier and more bad skill errors cost us. i thought we gave away a few cheap free kicks. Not sure that performance beats many sides. Positives, Luke Jackson coming along nicely, think Gus is showing some signs things are starting to turn, Oliver back to his best. i thought Viney played a better team game. Harmes seems to be working a bit harder and May pushing hard to be included in the AA conversation

I have the same feeling unfortunately. zero confidence in us winning this one If Goody thinks he's under the pump now, it'll be 1000% worse if we lose this game