Imagine if Francis takes 11 intercept marks and Adelaide are like faaark why didn’t we offer two first rounders for this stud rather than a 30yr old mid
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Francis does have to play another 95 or so games before he’s of any stud value to us.
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At this stage it will only be happening in people’s imagination.
Hasn’t trained properly all preseason with niggles/injury.
Crows would be pretty happy with using their first rounder from the Cameron trade you’d expect.
I recall that it was Horsburgh who was president at that time. He gave a number of unconvincing doorstop interviews with the press outside Windy Hill for which he was clearly unprepared for.
McMahon was president during the salary cap breach debacle.
Pub crawl to Etihad!
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I remember thinking they didn’t plan at all for the PR.
Every question by the media should have been met with “we told you we’re not discussing this in the media so shut your clams! Keep asking the same questions, we’ll keep giving the same non-answer. Now f*ck off before we set the dogs on you!”
I’m still scarred by that Horsburgh intercept interview. Sooooooooo embarrassingly bad.
Sandgroper reckons we are good for top 6.
Mark Duffield’s crystal ball - every club’s chances going into the 2018 AFL season | The West Australian
https://thewest.com.au/mark-duffield
Essendon
The Bombers were big traders with Devon Smith, Adam Saad and Jake Stringer coming in. Smith will add depth midfield and forward, Saad is a dasher from defence, but Stringer is the big one here. If he comes off he adds punch to a forward line that is already threatening and on the improve, but “The Package” has been mediocre for 18 months and looks a hit-and-miss player. Joe Daniher looks awesome in attack, Zach Merrett is a gun on-baller and Andrew McGrath looks an emerging star. They lose Jobe Watson and Brent Stanton and Brendon Goddard is turning 33.
Prediction: Finalists last year, they should be top six in 2018. The Bombers are building.
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I would be surprised if we don’t finish top four to be honest.
We still have some work to do in midfield but all the reports are suggesting we are refining our contested work and defensive structures.
I know Skipworth has had his detractors over the years but based on what he did with the forwardline I think he has the tactical nous to make a difference with the midfield.
I would be curious about how much input Rob Harding has in setups.
Last year was the rust time in 15 years where I thought our game plan was starting to look like a top four game plan and that can’t be all down to the players. The exciting thing is we still have at least another 10% improvement in the playing list through natural development and another 10% improvement in our game plan refinement.
That puts us squarely in premiership calculations.
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I think top four is a bit of a stretch, but ya never know
A 5/6th place finish is about right for mine. Home final. That would be awesome
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Agree, if we can improve defensively in the midfield, be more accountable and put more pressure on (and maybe get the ball), we’ll be less reliant on scoring goals from the back line.
Guys like Hep, Langers, Zerrett and BJ are going to have to drive that. Must develop a harder edge.
The one time I saw training, it looked like pressure around the ground was a real focus, so hopefully the mids can pick up in that area. If they can, and still get the ball and use it well, look out.
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A lot depends on how early it clicks. Good sides win even when they aren’t playing their best footy. If we can win our fair share of games in the first third of the year then that will put us in a very strong position.
We started to do that towards the end of the yea, but we need to keep improving slow game play, particularly in the wet.
I think the mix of returning and young players made it really hard to build a complex gameplan. We often got caught off balance, or struggled to smother an opposition when they started dominating. We had our plan A, which looked really impressive wen it worked, but struggled to implement plans B, C, D ect…
This is where a lot of our improvement will come from in 2018. A deeper understanding by the player group and more complexity to the gameplan.
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I agree, that’s why I like the appointment of Skippy in midfield.
The cohesion he had going with the forwardline was impressive. There wasn’t a game that we looked one dimensional and could be shut down and I think a lot of that was down to how skippy had them working as a unit rather than individuals. The players worked for each other creating space and providing overlap and I have not seen that for a long time.
If he can get the midfield operating together and playing their roles then we will see a lot of improvement fast.
The fortunate thing is we have McGrath, Merrett, Parish, Smith and Heppel that are blue collar workers first and foremost, but with the added ability to be very dangerous. Of those five players only Heppel is playing at his peak.
Then we have the Stringers/Langfords of the world that will provide the upside.
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Of those players, I think only Parish is a genuine inside mid. Hep, Zerrett, Smith et al. are outside players who are playing inside roles. That’s a concern, unless they can develop that harder edge.
There is an opportunity for Begley or Mutch to become the inside mid we need. Begley could be a genuine bull.
I was under the impression that Smith was an inside mid in the TAC cup?
He looks like a bull to me even though he’s on the shorter side. I think size is overplayed a little around here.
I have watched Begley a lot and I see him as more a balanced mid rather that a bull.
Mutch and Clarke are the only guenuine bulls we have on our list in my opinion.
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Next draft, we need a big body gun mid, i.e. Cripps. That’s why I’m so pleased we got the three S’s, and kept a first and second rounder in a good draft.
True, but it’s been a while since he played TAC Cup. And he’s not that big compared to Cripps or Kennedy.
Begley could be anything. I’m really excited by him. Mutch showed enough in the VFL to suggest he’d be a handy AFL player, probably nothing more.
Clarke may only make it as a tagger. His kicking needs so much work.
I suppose you make a decent point about size. Richmond has one forward over 190cm.m, they made it work. No reason we can’t use our lack of size to our advantage, some way or another.
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