Earl Hood

On 3/5/2023 at 12:59 PM, Willmoy1947 said:

Dogs can either stack their forward line with talls and hope they kick enough goals, or their mouth from the west goes to their backline to nullify our height.

Or both.

I am worried now that they have added Lobb to their forward line.

20 minutes ago, Vipercrunch said:

Yep.  Had to be one.  Gawn was tackled during a marking contest prior to that with no free also.

That was a ridiculous miss by the umpires. Nankervis is getting frustrated and lining up Max whenever he can. 

No mention of Pickett! I was expecting him to do significant midfield time and draw some plaudits but seems he didn’t dazzle? 

Having lunch at Aireys Inlet pub this afternoon and note that our South Australian contingent has arrived and sitting outside in the wind with girlfriends and pet dogs. Petty, Chandler and now ANB. 

4 minutes ago, picket fence said:

Wandered around aimlessly till saw a gate open then took my chance and snuck in. Then as I was getting ready to leave a council worker was going to lock the gate meaning I would have been locked in and preyed on by Vipers through the night. Just managed escape route via same council employee🤩

Thought you would just use your sonic screwdriver to get through the locked gate surely? 

Good God I never realised that this site is riddled with fifth columnists! 

1 hour ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

The ground is called Princes Park, not Princess Park. 

Begs the question why isn’t it Prince’s Park? 

41 minutes ago, Earl Hood said:

Girls are looking sharp at training this morning at Princess Park. 

Good to see the President at training.

Girls are looking sharp at training this morning at Princess Park. 

Nail bitting last quarter coming up. 

45 minutes ago, Edward Langdon said:

I’ll get the thread back on track.

My username is inspired by Melbourne wingman Ed Langdon.

Gee I would never have guessed😁!

Still say something could be worked out with the endless Melbourne Tennis Centre upgrades that keep happening. That massive complex lies under utilised for 10 months of the year. We still train at the upgraded Gosch’s ground but we have social and admin facilities in existing MTC buildings and a state of the art training facility built at the MTC in their next upgrade for use by the world’s elite tennis players for 2 months a year, in December and January and the MFC for the rest. 

On 10/16/2022 at 2:56 PM, Sir Why You Little said:

@Sir Why You Littleis paying homage to the Warner Brothers Cartoons i grew up watching (and still watch today!) I decided to Knight myself a few years ago, when Tony Abbott was throwing them around Willy Nilly 

Still cannot believe that Abbott was Actually The Australian Prime Minister for a period of time. Sends shivers down my spine!!

Yes that’s the same time and reason I promoted myself to Earl! 

18 minutes ago, Wrecker46 said:

The reason he didn't get tried back is he would need to be able to take an intercept mark and that is unlikely.

 

Because he can’t read the play? 

13 hours ago, JJ Haydos said:

Petty played as a forward in juniors...  Can pack mark better than most (better than anyone else at MFC except perhaps for Gawny when in form).  I say try him early on in the season.  T Mac can play wing with his engine.  Get Turner in.  Looked good in his first game before the concussion.  JVR can be given some more time.  IMO he plays 10-12 games in 2023.  

Agree he has to be tried forward next season. Even if it’s a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul. IMO we can afford to leak a few extra goals down back if we convert more of our inside F50 entries and we usually win that stat in matches. I suspect Goody isn’t going to fundamentally change the game plan so we need players who can take contested marks up forward. 

13 minutes ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Brilliant get @La Dee-vina Comedia. But I suggest there is one even more Fd-U from the same era that, arguably, in the sliding-door moment, has repercussions today. Care to guess?

South Melbourne trading the Daniher brothers to Essendon for Neville Fields?

55 minutes ago, YesitwasaWin4theAges said:

I want this to happen but can you see Goody allowing this? 

Another defender has to be found for this to come to fruition.

We have Tomlinson but he is on the outer, then Smith and the young Turner as options to allow Petty to go forward. If they aren’t good enough, I would suggest a key back comes cheaper than a key forward. But then I don’t think either ready mades of these two types of Key Position Player are available for trading? 

32 minutes ago, picket fence said:

You must be kidding! HE WAS SUPERB 🤩

Yes he was but I thought Danger maybe as he was doing a lot of the inside hard ball get and distribute stuff that was tearing the Swans midfield and defence to shreds. 

13 minutes ago, Demon Dynasty said:

Yes ive never rated their mid field mix aside from Parker.

Still has me flummoxed how they beat us....twice!

Might have something to do with our game plan vs the frenetic attack at all costs stuff Geelong dished up to them in the first quarter, I suspect. 

2 minutes ago, Graeme Yeats' Mullet said:

Stupid tackle from Smith

Except it wasn’t a tackle or a push it was just body contact on a player over the ball. 

10 minutes ago, djr said:

Boy you hopped off our band wagon pretty quick. It was only 4 months ago they were saying we were unbeatable with our game plan. What changed….injuries. 

I hopped off the bandwagon slowly in the second half of the season as we went 6 wins/8 losses! If you think our static, defensive second half 2022 game plan will cut it in 2023 with a set of injury free players you are mistaken. The best Teams are moving the ball at breakneck speed through the corridor (as we saw tonight)  and delivering it fast and low into their forward lines all to negate our strengths, May, Lever intercept marking and Gawn’s marking down the line. The game evolves so do we need to review how we play. 

16 minutes ago, djr said:

If we weren't banged up like we were then I believe our gameplan and list would have delivered us another grand final. Yes I understand the excitement of using the corridor but boy it's risky. 

The game plan would not have delivered us anything. As the plan evolved or maybe a better description is degenerated over the second half of the season, banged up players or not, we were barely a top 8 team. 

Geelong is only doing to Brisbane what we did to Brisbane for 9.5 plus quarters of footy this year. It was that last 2 quarters last week where we inexplicably let the Lions off the leash and that stuffed us for the season. If we had flukes a win last week I suspect we would be copping exactly what the Lions are tonight. Geelong look very good. Hey the Cats keep moving the ball quickly and mostly through the corridor, that [censored] is not for us. 

10 minutes ago, Dodos Demons said:

Why does every team seem to bring their best pressure rating of the year when playing us (Bris last week, Syd, Bulldogs, Pies).  Hard to watch when our best is so much better. 

My theory is our predictable, defensive, static game plan invites it. Teams absorb the early assault from us and then as we slow down and play even more predictably and defensively they can apply maximum pressure around the ball carrier and run off us. 

9 hours ago, Redleg said:

I would imagine we would be examining him with our medical team pretty closely, before any deal is done.

Of course there are no guarantees. He could do his knee in a scratch match.

I am thinking that the FD see this as Grundy being the main ruck during the season, doing lets say 60-70% and Max maybe the rest, with only a small amount of time forward, maybe just to unsettle defences. This would allow Max to remain fitter and fresher for finals and hopefully to play on longer. If a key forward went down in a game, Max might play a bit more there.

I could also see him not playing some interstate games as well. 

I see this as a way to prolong Max's career and have him as a fresh weapon in finals, as opposed to the banged up Max we had this year, with multiple injuries that he played through. It is obvious to me that the Max of this year's finals, was a shadow of last year's.

This could all be down to us managing one of our key assets.

Another option to prolong Max’s career would be to change the game plan! This years “play to our strengths, kick down the line, hug the boundary & work for a boundary throw in” game plan is all designed around the dominance of Max as a tap ruckman and around the ground marking/spoiling target. It is very physically demanding on the main man. And we now know it doesn’t work against good sides. A new game plan might use more running players through the corridor, less throw ins and less demands on Max.