ANZAC Day build up and changes

I don’t. Hooker goes to their best. Hartley to the next best. Hurley to Stephenson and uses his smarts to play off as required to help whoever has the Seppo.
But to each his own…

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Stephenson is the quickest player on the Pies list.

I don’t think Hurls is the one for him. I’d expect he will go to Crocker who is their 3rd tall esque player, although same height

Saad most likely for Stephenson

I’d say our back 6 and if not whole team will be unchanged for Anzac Day. Fresh soldiers needed for game after on short break though.

Ambrose. LAV. Lang. Leuey. Clarke and others maybe will get a call up.

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-Begley +Lav/Langford/Clarke

Ports mids killed us and we were very lucky to have such a strong defence so I’d assume we’d be looking to add another inside/bigger midfielder to try and compete with one of the best midfields in the comp

Yeah, 3 games in 11 days as opposed to the 13 in 2017 which is on par with the number of games over a 13/14 day stretch. The AFL could’ve scheduled the 3rd for the Sunday but nope, Saturday, 6 day turnaround from their second game. The Hawks are loving it especially given their pathological desire to make amends for the round 1 hammering last year. Essendon will be fatigued and ripe for the picking unless the coaches do something real progressive and rotate the squad as previously suggested.

Ports mids hardly killed us.

Gray dominated (wasn’t that damaging as mainly handballed) and Polec was good. We had about 6 of our mids in the top 10 for the game, plus Belly.

I’d say we killed them hence it was in our fwd half for so much of game.

Begley I could only see going out for lack of pressure but long break should freshen him up and we don’t really have anyone banging down door as a pressure fwd or any others who help with our pace/spread.

McKenna back in (and Guelfi holds spot) or Colyer are going to be what he up against soon though.

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17 clearances between Gray and Wines with Dougal Howard in the ruck for 21HOs, hardly silver service. Justin Westoff had more contested possessions than all of our midfielders bar Heppell, 5 of their players had 10+ and only 1 of ours did. It depends what constitutes our midfield losing in your opinion though. My point stands that if we let a midfield like Collingwoods do the same to us this game, on the MCG, it will not be pretty. We should at least hedge our bets with an extra midfielder, even if they get 10 touches and lay 8 tackles.

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Collingwood doesn’t have the weapons ahead of the ball or on the ball that port does. It’s their pressure that will get us. If we start coughing it up we’ll be in all sorts.

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We are Essendon. We don’t do:

  • Milestone games
  • Blockbuster games (i.e. ANZAC day, Dreamtime)
  • Finals

We share those games with Essington.

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ha, Parish. I read it as McGrath (ummm, not sure why I did that since the names are so friggin different, just me being me dumb I guess). So to my original reply I think McGrath would be good to put on Sidebottom for the reasons I said.

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I expect we’ll see McGrath back again

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Ambrose reported in the VFL. 2 week ban, 1 with guilty plea.

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FKG LOL

anything to not be part of essington.

I don’t reckon anyone we’ve got in the side can go with Stephenson.
Hurley would beat him in the contest, but if he gets on his bike he’s cooked.

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How can you have a different system in the VFL if the penalty has ramifications for the AFL?

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No changes.

Reckon till Irish gets back.

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We had one forced change and that was after we played really poor.
We played great and got a win. Hard to see a reason for any unforced changes.

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Just hope Belcho can keep up with Grundy because some one like McKernan would match up well on him.

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Would Stewart keep up with him? Maybe send Bellchambers forward at times, and have Stewart run with Grundy. Belly goes well as a set shot.

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Probably right.
Hurls did play on N Reiwoldt once.
Would McGrath do the job you reckon, or too short? He has the nous.