I concur. I kind of feel like we have done pretty well but its easy to forget the horror shows against the bloos and crows and dees when your busy thinking about burying the hawks, winning on Anzac day then knocking off the cats and eagles in consecutive weeks. And the ladder clearly shows more than half the comp has performed better than us this year, so it’s no wonder the media aren’t interested yet, its not like we are tracking for more than 13 or may 14 wins at this stage, and our % sucks.
I reckon another concern at this stage is that our fast, intense gameplan might not be sustainable throughout the year, either due to injuries or fatigue.
Beating Richmond this week would be a nice step of course, 3 in a row would be habit forming.
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Watching the replay. Over halfway through the second quarter and the only thing of note Mitchell has done so far is get caught holding the ball but I’m convinced he has solved world hunger the way derm is frothing over him.
Despite being a ■■■■, Mitchell is a great player. I just don’t need derm reminding me every 5 minutes when he actually isn’t playing well and his team is being spifflicated.
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Yep, agree with all of that. The interesting thing with sustaining the way we are playing, in considering those early round dips, as you mentioned, is how much of that was fatigue from short breaks, how much of it was the returnees getting back up to speed and how much of it was everyone getting used to each other? If all of those things are on the upward swing now is it enough to keep us from falling in a hole some time after the middle of the season? General constitution across the team will be important but also the long term aspects of guys like Walla, Parish and McGrath. We can probably rest them when they need it but in the case of Walla, you take that guy out of the side and it will make an immediate difference. The pressure he creates continuously is really something. We don’t have a like for like replacement for him and opposition sides would feel more confident seeing a team sheet without his name on it. that’s one example, anyway.
Jobe did shake his hand. It’s how a real Brownlow medalist behaves.
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Come on…kipper civil tone, please!
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That piece of play from centre bounce to the goal that Lucas discusses at end of his review is farking awesome.
Leuey clean tap (WTF!) to Jobe, long handball out to McGrath steaming through off back of square, short back inside to Hep, out long to Zaka again who kicks to Hooker contested mark on 50.
He kicks long to square. Our talls get ball to ground and then TIPPA just hunts the footy and the man eventually running down Masten from behind and then getting into him after and the little ■■■■■ can’t get up from it!
Then TIPPA just kicks the goal. Bang!
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Yes. Imagine what they would be saying about cwood and ‘bucks’ if they had just beaten geel and wc. Anyway, it’s better that they ignore Ess and just keep blaming the opposition - majority are idiots. Who needs 'em.
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What did Joey do to Sam Mitchell to get a $1,000 fine?
Up by one at three-quarter-time, 80 at the end (Daniher 70m set shot after the three-quarter-time siren breaks them).
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“What the fans don’t realise about Mitchell is that booing him will just make him get the ball more and say stuff you”
*which he doesn’t do
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Anyone else notice how often we exited centre clearances through the back with a player running through the drop towards our opponents goals.
Last two weeks we have gone with 2 smalls and one tractor much more than we did earlier in the year.
Certainly seem to have adjusted our set up a bit
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Fxd
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We played an unshellfish game.
We broke lines.
We scaled heights.
We… oh please stop…
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The pisces are starting to fall into place…
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Absolutely changed things up.
One centre bounce it was Zerrett, Zaka & TIPPA
With Watson coming from the HFF/front of square.
This kind of thing really had to be done as other teams were murdering us out of middle due to lack of pressure.
Another time I also noted Watson on the offensive side of centre bounce, and Heppell & Zaka on the defensive side. We actually won that clearance directly to Watson running through the circle towards opposition goal and feeding out to runners.
If we’d lost it would have had two there on the defensive side who were the quickest of the trio. And also standing their men more closely.
Getting the balance right now
I think if we had a dominant ruck you could afford a far more attacking centre bounce/clearance set up but we don’t do have to play within limitations.
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Looney tends to win his taps forward anyway so playing jobe on the offensive side coming back through makes sense. Hepp did this a lot too.
Looney had something like 12 taps to advantage, around 30%, on the weekend which is huge for him or any ruckmen.
Reckon we generated near half our score from stoppages on the weekend which is just totally out of the box for us.
The idea of us getting on top at clearances and maintaining forward efficiency is pretty exciting and clearly what we’re looking to achieve.
I can’t remember seeing such a significant restructure of our stoppage set up mid season before.
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A good team will always make the opposition look bad…those commentators are stuck in a 4 year rut. It will take them a decade to move on. Commentators like Dermie, who I just consider just a dumb jock, are way out of their depth with the new games styles. Time for a change over to people who understand the game a bit better
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And shut the ■■■■ up during the match… just call the game. They can prattle on as much as they like during breaks… when at least I have the option to switch off until the next quarter starts.
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2012 and 2015 we “restructured” in the corporate sense of the word: from being competent to shizen
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Yep, that’s what I said. 
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