You can’t seriously think we got smacked because one player underperformed?!?
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So you had intel over the last week that Nank was going to be rested?
I’m suggesting we make a late change.
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Our two main mids just did not hit form v Dogs. Merrett floated forwards and could not impact when in the midfield. Caldwell was a shadow of what he can do. Both have been consistent over last 18 months to be impact players. I fully expect that to be the case soon… mainly Caldwell to improve.
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How much is the fine? 10k?
Durham played well despite their dominance. Setters was given a role and stuck to it against arguably the best player in the comp. Caldwell when in form is a clearance and defensive machine that compliments Durham perfectly. Merrett was also awful, Shiel has never played well as sub, but for some reason Scott keeps starting him as sub. Goldstein was outplayed.
It would be great if Elijah could be given a season to play. Time to get used to AFL and try to improve his impact. An informed decision could then be made. I suppose if he’s not up to it we may finish 14th not 12th.
No Brisbane have a number of injuries.
As much as that team is OK with what we have available, it is incredibly one-paced. Gresham and Guelfi just add to that lack of speed and spark
This would be year ~23 of an Essendon team that focuses so much on players negatives that they have forgotten that players also have positives.
Other teams play players to maximise their strengths, we have no idea about how to do that, and just crush any confidence out of our players one negative review at a time.
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Say ■■■■ it. We’ll deal with Port. Slater!
Adding more list cloggers into the side…… it’s very Essendon.
He and Johnson have been playing defence and wing.
I assume Clarke will be the third wing option with Duursma and Roberts, replacing SEH. Otherwise no clue who is doing that; I suppose Langford could.
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This is Scott though, he prefers to back in vanilla players with a low ceiling and scapegoat guys that have more talent but a flaw or two in their game. A flaw that could really be ironed out via coaching and experience at AFL level. Not by being sub, dropped, sub, dropped…
His eye for talent is really poor imo, he has also given a guy like Perkins a million chances despite being terrible defensively (including last week), but then other guys make a small error (Massimo, saad although I’m not even sure what the latter’s error was meant to be) that he’s not a fan of and he’ll use that as an excuse to sideline them. Also remember he’s likely the one that wanted tsatas in the draft, surely his flaws were obvious at under 18s level, they were to me.
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I dont think Caldwell is a clearance machine. He has 2 or 3 stand out games a year and that is it. … at the moment anyway.
His best game of his career was R1 this year however even r2 and r3 he only got a couple clearances per game and was really ineffectual.
Theres still potential there. Even though he is 25 soon, we have seen players break out later in their 20s… like Kennedy at the dogs playing his best footy at 28yo while Hewett at the blues is having a career year at 29yo.
Right now, i agree with a previous poster who said our midfield is too defensive right . Merrett usually relies on someone else to win the ground ball to then receive a handball, but we had nobody winning the ground balls on the weekend. Sure we might do better against an inexperienced tigers team but i predict we get smacked in that area again against brissy.
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Well said.
Brad coaches as if he is still at North. Shinboners with chips on their shoulders, scrapping to be “competitive” as if that’s an end in itself.
He is every bit as vanilla as Worsfold. The issue is that he is more articulate, and flat out lies, and it will take longer for the administration and membership base to realise he is not the guy.
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An alternative view might be that as a list management team we continually prioritise individuals with a diverse skill set over and above good role players who excel at their given abilities.
We’ve got a long and storied history of picking players and trying to turn them into something they clearly will never be.
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You are correct, I’d just make the minor addition that he’s not allowed out because he’s a coward-punching dog of the lowest order, a piece of ■■■■ human and should be behind bars instead of wandering around free because important people shouldn’t be sent down as easily as the general public.
What a ■■■■.
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Marketing department clearly had heavy input to selection this week.
Gresham saves us from being the Whitest Dreamtime team since Richmond sent a bloke named “White” to the press conference before fielding zero indigenous players.
Guelfi is better at social media and brand than he is at football.
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I legit forgot about Perkins. What round your ideal forward line be given what we have available?