Earl Hood

The trouble with demanding excellence is you will only have a very few lining up, Max, Tracc.......the rest are mortal and need coaching and guidance.

Well the AFL did announce that they would reward the tackler if the ball carrier did not release the ball when tackled. He had to make a genuine attempt to release the ball and if he did that would be play on. So as usual on the first week of the new interpretation they got it wrong. The free against Petracca in front of goal was ludicrous! Then there were two similar frees for us that were just play on. But that is footy when you keep changing the interpretations.

But I don’t think Jennings did either!

The Rose in Fitzroy? My local.

Why blame Jones or Jetta for today’s debacle?

Think about it for a minute. Jones in next week might just provide some on field leadership but even more importantly Jones so often provides an option, a release for a player under pressure. That was a real problem today, players getting the ball surrounded by Tigers and either coughing it up or going for a laser like pass to a player that was often covered. Why did so many 50/50 chaos balls in contention that were slapped, punched or kicked to no target nearly always go to a Tiger on the outside? Says a lot about our game strategy.

On a related note I intend to watch the replay to count the number of times Reiwolt blocked a Demon defender, usually Smith to let Lynch take a mark unopposed in the forward 50. I thought with 3 umpires they were cracking down on this stuff but not this week.

Well I was saying that Goodwin should make a statement so I would drop Oliver myself. Brayshaw and Viney are limited players but trying hard. I am sure Oliver is trying but he is potentially elite but not getting better, something is not right, maybe he needs a wake up call? Give him a rest to reflect and get some hunger. We are shot for the season, let’s face it so I would be trying some new talent and maybe even Jones comes in because our on field leadership is rubbish.

Didnt have a great game and the smothered kick out of defence that resulted in an opportunist goal wasn’t all his fault, he made position for an Oliver handpass. Oliver was under some pressure and managed to give off a 7m handball to a running Smith’s feet that he gathered well but the delay was enough for Tigers to intercept. Not sure what was going on with Oliver but he had a 27 possession shocker! Repeated kicks and handballs to no one at best and opposition at worst. But OK he still gets to the contest, that is something Viney used to do, but he seems to have dropped off.

I think I would make a statement and drop one of Oliver or Brayshaw and bring in one of the young mids, Dunkley, Jordan or Sparrow and we have to bring in Weideman, let’s see what he has got.

Well I thought TMac did do that last week on a number of occasions and watching the game again he did. But he needs tall support to spread the defence, he was double teamed all day but was competitive. Our mid sized forwards struggle because our delivery is poor and they aren’t exceptional in the air or on the ground. Melk crumbed a couple for snaps but only kicked points. Kossie looks dangerous but needs more games under his belt and I wonder if we are better to have Bedford up forward for the chaos ball rather than one of Hunt, Melk, Hannan, AVB?

Interesting I watched the game again to look at our ball movement and we do seem to have a problem seeing the best loose man option down back and obviously up forward. I thought one of our problems for years is players who don’t present as an option forward of the ball carrier and I believe it is still not perfect. However watching the replay we often had players running into space but were ignored by the ball carrier who then kicked down the line. I noticed Lockhart repeatedly running into space to be an option only to be ignored by the carriers. Is it that hard to see free options at ground level? It’s too long since I played and back then you just kicked it forward so I can’t remember. Reminds me of when we used to see Jack Watts alone on the half forward line yelling out for the ball only to see Maloney or Jones bomb it long to a contest. Things don’t change much.

Christ remind me not to go to Wellsies place, how many doors are there?

Come on who amongst us hasn't got on the spirits, walked out the wrong door and found themselves naked in the street and then picked up by the cops? Well I might have but then that was a long time ago when streaking was all the rage and I wasn’t VC of an AFL team in COVID lockdown!

Why did we only have 14? We have 4 long term injured so have about 40 available. Of the 18 reserves did we have 4 emergencies for the ones?

Should be playing up at half forward not so deep and TMac has to contest deep if we are not playing a second tall. Hard to tell on TV but Fritsch is playing deep and Mac just trying to make a contest to every inside long bomb!

A Hawks friend said they are tending to minimise any changes and sticking with players who have played together a lot in previous seasons. It may be a bit unfair to those trying to get a game but it is due to the limitations of training this year. Makes some sense to me and we are going with 5 or 6 unforced changes each week playing newbies who may have ability but don’t instinctively know how their fellow line players play. So let’s limit the changes next week. I would say bring in Weid for forward structure and Bennell.

Indefinite! Osteo pubis I suspect.

Maybe not this game but we are not far off just playing the future to work out what we have got. But for the next game I think it is Weid in AVB out. Maybe OMac in down back as well but depends on matchups. I would like to see Sparrow get a run but who do you drop from the midfield and let’s face it given this years training, playing restrictions I say don’t make more than 2 changes per game. We made 12 changes in 2 games so the side struggles to know what players are going to do. I still have the feeling we have some good cattle but we are not instructed well and don’t have a great game plan.

6 Gawn 5 Brayshaw 4 Oliver 3 Tomlinson 2 Hibberd 1 TMac

Strewth you can argue TMac’s impact but lack of effort? Got too numerous contests, took one front on and kicked an important goal in a shizen game.

Will certainly be watching how we deliver the ball into our forward 50. We have gone with a smallish forward setup so we better not be bombing long to the square!

Hey Rusty I don’t think we have 6 on the bench this year but I am agreeing with you, Harmes should play a shutdown mid role and drift forward when he can because he can score. But they are struggling to fit in a number of contested mids who don’t naturally have a second string, e.g. Brayshaw, Viney, and Oliver to some extent.

Is all this a result of us drafting a similar player type over about 5 consecutive draft years? Under Roos and now Goodwin we have brought in a plethora of contested midfield types who largely have clicked. That is good but now we don’t know where to play them all.

They probably won’t push Smith forward I think as he has trained down back all preseason, so am hoping they go with Jackson to give us at least 2 talls up forward and take some heat off Fritsch and Melk.