But we’ve all been burnt so many times by this club in this same situation. How anybody could confidently tip us this week is either a) completely delusional, b) has a very short & selective memory on how these fixtured games have played out in the past or c) both a and b.
The last few years under Sheedy… Knights… Hird… now Worsfold… always the same. Totally engrained in club culture now to screw these games up. Could have Jock McHale, John Coleman, Norm Smith, Ron Barrassi (all in their prime) coaching us this week and we would find a way to make this very, very difficult.
Nothing to do with just ‘bad luck’. We’re just sh*t in this situation.
Tippa’s loss of form over that period strongly correlates to Fantasia’s absence from the side.
My view: Fantasia was drawing the oppositions’ best small defender; but, with him out injured, Tippa now does and is struggling to overcome the higher quality defender he is pitted against.
not saying no changes, but the week before against Adelaide people liked/were impressed by how Browne, Dea, Hartley played. Three changes to the backline is a lot. And to start off with Hooker back is not going to happen.
It’s going to be an interesting selection to see how the coaches are viewing the team.
Have to agree with a lot of people posting. We are not going to win a premiership with Dea, Hartley And Brown in our backline. A good defence can carry one maybe two for a few games but not all 3. It’s time to blood the kids and/or move Hooker back as we have lots of forward option now.
But our biggest problem remains contested ball winning and I’m increasingly frustrated that we do not target any contested ball players in the draft/trades. Then when we do get one, we baby them through their first 2-3 years of development.
Just look at Parish. We were forced to play him in his first year and he developed a lot, then when the players returned from suspension despite clearances being a huge problem we play him in the forward pocket more often then on the ball.
Then we pick McGrath and play him in defence for an entire year. While yes he was impressive back there thats a year he could have been learning to play in an AFL midfield winning clearances.
Most worrying is our trend for going for outside midfielders and still not spreading as well as freemantle did on the weekend. There was clearly an attitude problem last week, the team just didnt show up.
Whynott at this stage? It’s not like the guelf in class will be too mutch and his game ridleyed with errors - he might even go bezerk and kick a few long goals if he hits a purple patch.
I think the reason is that Hooker keeps on getting put in the back line by the supporters is that he is a very good defender which we dont have a lot of.
What we do have a lot of is good forwards.
And we have average mids…
I dont know about you but if you keep losing centre clearances then you need good defenders to get up to the forward line…but i’m just a passionate supporter who watches nearly every AFL game…so what would I know
Put Hooker back where he will have the biggest impact…simple as that
