Will someone please ensure they sit Fantasia on his backside and misses the goal. Its almost worth a week off.
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I’m a little bit confused. Everyone in here is naming Perkins to play this week, yet the general consensus around here seems to be it’s better for his development to play reserves for several more weeks.
I get that it’s an awkward balancing act though, because Stringer and Perkins are quite clearly the two available players that we need in the most, by some distance. So what do you do? AFL performance wise, Stringer and Perkins appear to be in our best 22. But I’m still very hesitant to bring in an under-done Stringer after last season, he was nowhere for the rest of the season after we rushed his return. And Perkins, we don’t wanna affect his development just because our side is really bad and we need him in to help us lose by less.
With that in mind I’d probably just go:
OUT: Cahill, Cutler (Snelling to sub)
IN: Zerk-Thatcher, Waterman
We need a bit of extra height in defence against teams with better key forwards than Hawthorn, I think that’s obvious. I also think Cahill, whether it’s forward or back, needs more time in the reserves to develop his game for senior football. Zerk-Thatcher did get monstered a bit by Dixon last year, but who else is going to play on him? It appears that the opinion on him, internally and externally, has shifted very quickly over the last 12 months and he now seems on the outer. So we might as well just play him and give him a chance to do something instead of just cutting him without a chance, kinda like we did by just giving Ariel Steinberg a run of like 8 straight games in the back half of 2015 to see if he could do anything before cutting him at the end of that year.
Apparently Waterman has been playing in defence in the reserves. Not sure what that’s all about, but I’m playing him forward in place of Snelling. I don’t think Snelling offers much, whereas at least Waterman offers a forward target.
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Actually, this might be a big call and might ruffle a few feathers but I’d just about chuck Dev Smith in the outs instead of one of Snelling or Cahill. If it was Snelling then you’d bin the Cahill back experiment and send him back forward since his main draftable skill was his nose for goal.
I really think Dev Smith is proper cooked. Like Hooker, Zaharakis, arguably Heppell levels of cooked. Like Brent Stanton and Heath Hocking in 2017 levels of cooked. Like Adam Cooney levels of cooked when we decided it was a good idea to bring him to the club. His 2018 season was mighty, he wrecked his knee in 2019 and I honestly think his knee is ruined and he’s done.
That’s just my opinion, would love to be proved wrong and he returns to his 2018 form but I don’t see it happening.
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You’ve been saying the same thing for years. Why don’t you just finally ■■■■ off from the club and ■■■■ off from blitz as well?
Smith wasn’t bad at all. He was running harder than anyone else to put on pressure in our fwd half. Not cooked.
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We will get reamed this week.
Hard to think of a worse matchup at the moment. They are loaded up forward, our defence is a shambles. Allir Allir will take ten intercept marks judging by how we moved the ball last week (hawks 24-11 intercept marks).
We will win this week. Getting hungrier.
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I’d back and play the players that could or will have a future. If we don’t know then play them to find out
And go hard on those that don’t ( perform well ) e.g hooker, Zaka, Hurley, cutler, Phillips, Smith
Hooker should play on Dixon.
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Dixon. Cox off.
A few structural changes to balance team.
A few changes I would consider to balance the side
Ham to play as the 2nd small defender spot or 7th defender instead of Cahill (Cahill dropped for Perkins)
Hooker sent back and Redman defensive winger rather than having langford play wing.
Forward
Add Langford and Perkins to forward group alongside Jones/Wright including the smalls rotations, as they did last week minus Ham playing forward.
Langford permeant forward all game playing as defensive forward to minimise Jonas impact as sweeper/anchor defender. Give Langford this role and Wright/Jones are instructed to seperate Clurey and Allir.
Make this defence actually defend rather than zoning and pick/rolling off opponents.
In: Perkins
Out Cahill
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No changes.
Clear message you’ve had your chance to get it wrong. You don’t stick to the system this week youre going to be replaced by somebody who can. No exceptions.
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Massive opportunity for the club and the players. I reckon they will be pretty excited and think if they play their best footy they will surprise
Mate, we’re gonna get obliterated. Hopefully there’s some more positive signs like we had in patches on Saturday, but it’s gonna be a fair old mauling.
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In all likelihood yes, but I thought the Cats would smash the crows and the Lions would smash Sydney.
I’m really looking forward to seeing how we respond.
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Maybe the Cats trial game against us was more a reflection on them than it was us?
Guess we will see in the coming weeks
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Out Cahill, Snelling
In Stringer, Waterman
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Yeah I did think that. Didn’t watch the Cats game at all. Sounds like the crows played legit well though.
The Cats seem a bit unsettled at the moment.
Reminds me, I saw I reckon half the cats team out for coffee the other day. Sitting in seperate groups, was very cliquey, some players went to leave and didn’t acknowledge others. It was quite awkward. Just after their Collingwood praccy match.
Yeah nobody would’ve reasonably expect Geelong to go down the way they did, full credit to Adelaide who really served it up to the Cats. Their hard stuff in the contest and pressure was excellent.
But we’d have bring about a huge shift from one week to the next to get close to Port on their home deck. Be doing well to get within 5-6 goals.
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the problem is, and as others have pointed out, it feels eerily similar to the gws game last year (albeit not in front as much), and if you go back over other games across other seasons i’m sure you’ll find that certain players are indeed the main culprits.
the problem being it might not happen again for awhile, so it won’t be as relevant in their minds next time it happens, to not allow what happened, to happen again.
I mean supporters knew us being up for that sort of margin at half time was nothing but dangerous for the exact reasons you mention, got complacent and went away from doing what got them there, blind freddy of a supporter should have seen that coming.
Yet the only ones who didn’t see it coming, nor actually do anything about it in the time it mattered most (in game) were the coaches and players.
They should go back and look as best they can, find the biggest culprit/s and drop them to make a statement, don’t care who it is.
It’s a development year, develop good habits and punish the bad habits that have developed over so many years and are now just intrinsic nature to some players.
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