Ted Lasso

I personally probably would have liked to see Sparrow given chance and Melksham go back to the VFL and find some really good form, but can't do much about it

Ben Brown is pretty stiff i reckon. considering the two rounds before last round he was averaging 2.5 goals a game which is consistent with the elite forwards of the comp, and was really just building back into it. not sure Weid did enough to dislodge him in my opinion. and Chandler is stiff to not get another week, but it's difficult to assess the impact Melksham has in a leadership capacity out there, because if it's not something like that, i genuinely doesn't make sense

he certainly does seem to get a bit more of a look in than other guys, and performance doesn't seem to be a factor, not sure what the word for that would be.

I have a crows supporting mate who's giving them no chance and thinks it could be a blood bath. i hope he's right.

I think there is also a little bit of ignorance to Gus's role this year unfortunately as well which doesn't help when assessing his performance

we're a bit spoilt by Christian Salem i think, must admit i haven't been concerned by Gus at all, he's playing an extremely selfless role for us, a lot of the play is directed through Langdon's wing, Gus is brilliant at getting to the right spots at the right time. obviously not the perfect footballer, but outside one stretch in 2018 i'd say this is the best patch of football i've seen him play. stoked to have Jacko back

Gut feel is that Weideman will miss, and Jackson will come back in

Our current wins and % would have been enough to secure a finals birth last season, the consistency we've achieved is incredible. even if we only win 50% of our games from here, we very likely finish top 4 if not top 2.

I think the important thing to note from the article is that the very worst side in terms of losing clearance differential is the 2019 tigers who lost by 4.7 clearances per game. so these teams generally are breaking even or getting close to it, rather than winning that stat. we've lost by quite a lot the last two weeks, and i genuinely believe we'd be a better side and won by more today, and last week if by instead of losing clearance by 10 and 12 or whatever it was, we lost it by 4-5. achieving this doesn't mean we have to compromise our defensive strength, but i think it should be an aim of the coaches to tinker with the set up to try and get that number a little bit closer. if we lose clearance to the dogs by 10-12 they're a big chance to score 5-6 goals just from that.

Okay, i should be more clear haha, it's not as much of a priority as it once was imo, we used to bring in extra numbers and really roll the dice, we're not doing that anymore, but all things being equal i'd like to see us reach a point where we're at least breaking even out of there. and when we do that, some of these 4 goal wins like total potentially become 10 goals wins. In saying that our clearance numbers will simply improve when JV is back in there and in fact we do seem stronger in that area when Luke Jackson is in there as well. No surprise we've had a bad two weeks in that space with Jackson and Viney out of the team

Max's dominance certainly has the capacity to be significantly advantageous to us at center bounce, but i don't think we're quite getting it rght, i agree it's not the priority it has been in the past, but we really should be breaking even out of there with the players we have in the middle

I'm with you on the club shifting the importance it places on winning clearances in the sense that we've moved to a quality vs quantity approach, and that's fine, but i think we still have room to be better in that space, because regardless we still have one of the most dominant ruckmen that's played the game, and 2-3 of the very best midfielders in the entire competition, so getting smacked in there isn't ideal, i think we can break even without compromising anything else, and if we do that, we become a much better side again. I am concerned how this approach will stand up against a team like the Dogs who likely won't rush and waste the midfield dominance they're likely to get against us, ultimately the goal is to win a premiership and they're the blue print of the team we're likely going to have to beat to do that. i'm confident our system can stand up against any other side, but that's the one area i could see the Dogs getting us.

Viney back will help, and i've got no doubt Yze, Goody, Richo and Choco are on it, and capable of getting it right, but we've been smacked in there twice in a row now, we allow the dogs to dominate the clearances and it'll be over at 1/4 time. that said if we break even in there or better, we won't lose to anyone imo

I take your point, but we need to figure out the clearances, and Brayshaw is someone capable of helping that. and ideally we need to keep Weideman in if we can, but it's going to be hard because of how well McDonald is going, and i think Brown is playing pretty well as well.

I'm shocked how controversial this is, McDonald trained during the pre season as a wing, his strength was his ability to run hard forward and provide a target. and also push back and help the defense. he's doing something very similar now, it's just his starting position is slightly different, he regularly pushes right up the ground and runs forward hard.

McKay was incredible to do that, against arguably the best full back, and defence in the game, without him Carlton lose that by 10 goals. he kept them fighting and lifted the entire team every time he marked the ball

Given he regularly played on the wing when he dominated in 2018 and spent the entire pre season training for that role i'd probably look at knowing what i'm talking about before getting too sarcastic ?

I'd be tempted to move Tom McDonald up to the wing, get Brayshaw into the middle to help with Clearances and keep Weideman, Jackson and Brown all forward when Jackson is back

Any idea how far off Jackson and Viney are? no change, unless those guys are fit. if they are Chandler, Weideman out Viney, Jackson in

6. Oliver 5. Salem 4. Lever 3. McDonald 2. Neal-Bullen 1. Petracca

Blowout coming. Carlton are losing the plot

Boys haven't quite adjusted to all the talls up forward yet. not spacing super well yet. it'll come

#POSITIVELINGERS

Wouldn't mind seeing Petracca go forward, Neal-Bullen go into the middle. give us a bit of a different look

All the numbers are going to Brown, need to be smart kicking inside 50, if we can do that, we win this by plenty.