Draper rucks alone, chop out from Cox.
Out, Perkins, Menzie, Goldie, Guelfie
In, Roberts, Hind, ADJ , Jayden Davey
Roberts replaces Martin at HB
Davey twins forward pockets.
Love the Stringer Sub idea whoever suggested that.
No more land of the giants, focus on pace and runners with forward pressure.
Good changes
Guelfi, defensive midsize forward. A genuine role player beyond kicking goals. Whoās the defensively minded replacement and how do they structure the forward line now to ensure defensive output isnāt compromised (in theory)?
I donāt necessarily disagree - in an ideal world, weād have a competent second ruckman like Wright helping out. Iām not an advocate for makeshift ruckman generally - Cripps does it at Carlton occasionally for little effect and with great risk. Jones and Cox are more able, but theyāre second-string at best.
What Iām wary of is bringing Peter Wright back after a week when our forward line performed pretty well and scored about 30 points more than average. Now, thatās not all down to the forward line. Quicker ball movement helped, and it may be purely coincidental that it happened when Wright was missing. But I think we need at least another week to get a better read on it.
I fully expect Wright to play a part in the future, as heās an important structural piece. But I think itās worth going light in the ruck for another week to learn. And we might find out something about Draper, too.
I agree with much of this. The Wright situation has many facets. For a start, bringing him back makes us too tall. The other structural element is him being out forces us to rethink forward entries. Finally, heās sadly out of form and not the player he used to be.
I wouldnāt give up on him completely, but he needs a few weeks in the twos to find form and confidence.
Jones, Caddy, Cox and Langers is tall enough imo.
4 points away from top four
lols what crazy season
Iād bring 2MP back personally (provided Goldy out). I think I his scapegoating was frankly silly and we would have won last week had he been playing instead of Goldy.
Otherwise, love to see Roberts, Hobbs snd ADJ in.
I wonder if we will rush Parish in as hes tracking to be available.
You would only rush him back if you were a resultist.
I wouldnāt call it scapegoating - heās completely out of form. We are too predictable with him in the lineup. If he was a reliable target, Iād think differently about it but, in many games this year, opposition players would camp at his feet and transition out.
Meanwhile, Iām not sure what is going on with Menzie. Heās in and out of the side and doesnāt appear to have a clear role. While itās true that he hasnāt shown much, perhaps he needs consecutive games to find form and contribute. Heās either not up for it or needs continuity and stability.
Itāll be punishment for thinking either the Essendon Bombers Football Club or St.Kilda Saints Football Club were capable of playing a good game of football.
I agree. Sticking Wright into the forward line that played last week isnāt going to work.
The way the team is set up is imbalanced all over the place.
I had reservations with going pretty much unchanged into the Melbourne game. The setup worked against Collingwood, but it doesnāt mean it works against Melbourne. Yes, the rain was a factor, but we still should have won that game with the team that went out. I feel the same about the Adelaide game. The setup wasnāt expected, but if we said that the setup we went with would produce a 2 goal lead in the last quarter with a shot at goal from 10m, 30m and another under pressure from 30m, weād take that. Remove the rhetoric of āthis is Essingtonā, if youāre planning produced that situation then youād be comfortable winning that game 75% of the time (if not more).
Should have won. But didnāt.
Weāve never seen what an injury free team looks like. And from the looks of the selections over the last six to eight weeks, the coaches are none the wiser either.
I get we can have a āhorses for coursesā approach but Iām not sure weāve getting that the last handful of games.
The coaches need to decide whether team role within a system gets a better output than shifting players around within the system.
I donāt think we will make the 8 anyway, canāt see us winning anymore than one game in next 5, which should eliminate us from Finaks calculations.
An away final against any interstate side would be horrificā¦ā¦we are just not ready for finals football, the ladder has flattered us all year
As I said in an earlier post, if we do make finals, weāll be good enough to win one. We have games against freo, Sydney and Brisbane - 3 of the top 4. Granted, two of those are at home and not interstate, but the opportunity is there. Iām actually looking forward to the swans game. Will be interesting to see their response this weekend
Wish I had your confidence but honestly we have been playing some awful footy the last 2 months so just canāt see it happening.
Agreed - on current form we wonāt. But the opportunity is there. Letās see.
I think he should stay in for one more game.
Iād bring in Davey Jnr to replace Guelfi and see how he goes with Gresham and Menzie in the forward line.
I think we need to go with three small forwards (even if one is rotating off the bench) to have a decent forward pressing team as well as having the opportunity to snag a few goals. Most teams have three small forwards, weāve been going with two the majority of the year and a few times playing with 3. But trying to fit 3 into our current setup (two rucks, tall wingman, Langford-Caddy-Stringer forwards) means tough decisions need to made on others. Who knows whether we get better output or not.