Earl Hood

Balic was training on Tuesday and seemed to be moving freely.

Interesting isn’t it that after last year’s agonising miss of the finals, we were led to believe that the list was burning with desire to make amends this season. Well four games in they may be burning with desire but who is in form? Yes we have some important players injured but it seems nearly everyone is off their best form! It is easier to say who is in form, Max, Jones, Oliver, OMac. The rest seem to have dropped a cog or two. As someone pointed out we had 3 players in the AA squad last year in the back half but now we have Hibberd battling, Lever and Jetta struggling and Hunt at Casey. As is Pedo and the small forwards are all struggling. Why is this so, changes in coaches and game plan or just one of those things that afflict us but not top clubs, e.g. Hawthorn?

Balic was training this morning and looked to be moving OK. Also Dom Tyson was running around and looked good. The Casey boys were training didn’t see any seniors training. TMac was kicking footballs and doing sprints, no Viney or AVB but I only rode past and watched for about 5 minutes.

Certainly the Hawks were doing dictum 1 relentlessly, just pushing the ball forward at all costs, running in numbers, always keeping the ball in front of them. Once you let the ball through and behind you, you are in trouble and how many times did I see our players overrun the ball?

Still under therapy after witnessing such an horrific event, live. So I have been advised by my medical team not to comment further, nor indeed to even think about what happened.

Would not be dropping the Tracc or Jeffy any time soon. Others are up for discussion I suppose. Poor Jeffy he has a certain skill set that depends on finding himself one on one in an open forward line where he can exploit his speed and an uncanny ability to squeeze a goal from any angle. That depends on the team intercepting opposition attacks and rebounding the ball quickly over the back for Jeff. Do that and Jeffy will kick the goals. But against both Geelong and the Hawks we failed to execute one intercept and do a quite rebound. Game plan deficiencies big time I think.

Mods, Code Red! We have a run away poster on the loose.

Looking at those stats I would have assumed we got flogged. J Hunt best on ground for us with 73 dt points!

And what do we gain from such a high press? It’s one thing to rely on winning the contested ball in the midfield and relentlessly bomb the ball forward to rack up the inside 50 count and hope for a winning score, but does that need such a high press forward by the backs? As we have seen in our two loses the opposition can intercept and bomb back over our press with ease. On Sunday in the second half the Hawks set up a defensive ring behind our players in their half and we could not find a way out despite our attempts to barrel one out the back. However they were able to do so with ease. So after all that waffle my simple question is what do we gain from the high press and why is it part of our game plan?

Exactly TPF why was he so good at the Crows but struggling with us? I suggest we look at the backline set up and game plan first before we crucify a new player. As for today, we were woeful in the middle and the backline takes the brunt of it all. How do you think some one like Josh Gibson would have faired for us today down back? A player used to playing a roving, attacking game off half back, like Lever, suddenly under siege, having to go man on man with bigger bodies, time and time again.

After watching that debacle today the last player I would be questioning is Brayshaw! Not the best for us maybe, made some errors yes but kept battling on and getting a lot right by the way, while many of his more experienced team mates went missing in action. Can’t make mistakes when you aren’t in the contest, how often have we seen this over the last 12 years. We had quite a few older heads not in the action when needed. I suggest you watch the replay WTM.

6 OMac 5 Hogan 4 Oliver 3 Gawn 2 Brayshaw 1 Salem

Not sure what to make of his game today, 66 hit outs but there seems to an issue with midfield communications or set up. I saw him win numerous hit outs quite easily but how often to our full advantage? From boundary throw ins I saw him flip one out the back but to 2 Hawks, then flip a couple out wide to a nest of Hawks while our guys are on the inside, then when we had a throw in in our forward pocket in the 3rd but we had no one front and centre, all our guys lined up to the side and behind. Max then decisively knocked it straight forward down Sicily’s throat who promptly kicked long over our press and they scored a goal on the break, end to end. And that was the ball game. Dumb stuff but who is not talking to whom? Interestingly enough Max dominated the tap outs enough to just make sure he tapped to where Mitchell wasn’t and maybe Jones then did not need to tag Mitchell and could have been more a creator than negator.

His brother I presume. Both have blonde hair.

What’s your acceptable definition of rapid Wrecker, given you only measure trends in millions of years?

I really hope we win this one as I looked at the Hawks draw in the Age today and they are not likely to drop a game after us till round 15! They play the lowly sides at the MCG and interstaters down at Launceston and the occasional game at Etihad. Looks like a dream draw from rounds 5 to 15.

Daniel Bradshaw? Is he on our list?

What more development does the Gee need? Let’s build the northern stand higher to cast even more shadows over the ground. Can’t we spend State $millions on something else, someone or something that needs it? Millions for the elite, stuff all for grass roots sport.

What a problem to have eh? If Weid made a case that he could not be dropped then I would be forced to play TMac on the wing, drifting forward, if not needed down back. He has to play, he is too good not to when in form and he provides leadership as well. I also want him forward because he is our most accurate set shot at goal. If we can increase our set shot accuracy by 20% we win an extra 3 or 4 games in my opinion, given our inside 50 numbers are so high because of our game plan to kick forward at all costs.

Well actually our stats held up reasonably well right through the major injuries. It was after round 15 that all our contested stats and scoring efficiency fell off a cliff, after we were starting to get experienced players back into the team. The only variables after round 15 were the lose of Bugg and although Viney was still playing, he was hampered by his foot problem. Jones, Watts had all come back by round 15 but we kept losing.

Rode my bike past Gosch’s this morning expecting they would be training. No training wasn’t on for the team but noticed the rehab group was in action over on the Punt Road side of the oval. Viney, TMac and AVB under the watchful eye of Crossy and several other assistant coaches/physio’s. Tom and Jack were doing repeated timed 20 meter sprints but we’re actually running at least 100 metres if that makes sense. They were running about 100m but only being timed between 2 cones about 20m apart I guess as Tom was registering a consistent 4.2 sec as yelled out by the timer on each run, Jack was somewhat slower. AVB was doing a lot of agility work, silly walks, running on the spot, not much with the ball. I wandered over to look at the Rebels in training which was very entertaining, they got smashed on the weekend in the second half and I think the coach told the players to bring their mouth guards as they were doing a match simulation with two teams and it was full on stuff. Big boys hitting each other hard but they don’t look fit compared to AFL players but then the game is not about endurance but short, explosive play and battering ram stuff. I kept an eye on the rehab group and Tom and Jack were kicking short balls at each other, then doing a lot of leading and long kicking to Crossy and each other. Later they were doing goal kicking practice. When I left the boys were again running sprints with Crossy. AVB had left for AAMI by then with no ball use, I think he is a long way off although he looks to be in no way hindered in his movements. But that is the same for Jack and Tom they looked fine and unhindered on their movements so it must be so frustrating having these types of injuries!

Jetta walking a bit gingerly when I saw him at Coburg today so may not be available anyway. But ai thought his bump yesterday was OK but unfortunately he made contact with Brown’s head that he was lowering into the contest. Not sure what Nev was supposed to do but that doesn’t register with the MRP.

Re Oscar listening on the radio they said on a number of occasions that he had done everything humanely possible to stop Brown but couldn’t. Brown got 4 but 2 were from dubious frees by someone else. I think Oscar had a draw on the night.

Who is number 18? Did some great cameos, looks promising. any news on J Smith, went down with cramp or hamstring issue just before 3 quarter time, I had to leave early. Good game to watch, some great play but hard to gauge the caliber of the opposition.

Good to see Shaun Smith watching his son go around. Shaun looks like he could throw a jumper and run out himself. Joel took a nice one at centre half forward too, like his old man.