Their backline and forward line doesnt worry me in the least. Their midfield scares the hell out of me
9 Likes
yep. deep and full of talent. they’re a very good contested side also. this will be a huge challenge for us.
well that sucks… for them
our mids are going okay lately too. But anyway, the dogs still have to kick goals and their not a high scoring team. I doubt Pickens gonna kick 5 goals again. If they get into a shootout with us, we will blow them away.
I’m pretty confident about this game. I just can’t see them kicking a big enough score to win
2 Likes
I think are mids are going ok too. But our contested work still seems to be struggling and that is the biggest strength of the dogs.
I do agree if it becomes a shootout we should win easily
Pretty clearly we would beat just about anyone in a shootout… thus anyone we play will try to avoid that… the question is can we win if it’s not.
2 Likes
bring in bird.
2 Likes
Hopefully we can make the rebounds from half back count if their mids are in control.
One of things that has stood out this year has been our injury list. We haven’t had to bring in depth players like Hocking, Bird, Dea, McKernan, Howellet and even Stanton(sorry mate) a lot unless we want to rest or have minor injuries.
It’s unheard off to be honest with Essendon. Hats off the fitness team.
15 Likes
For?
One thing’s for sure, if we go at 55% by foot like we did against Norf for 3 qtrs the Dogs will cut us up on turnover.
2 Likes
We’re currently favourites with the corporate bookmakers. Would prefer if nobody gave us a chance.
1 Like
Honestly? and i’ll probably cop it for this.
Colyer. Has been dreadful the last 2 months. I think we need more grunt, we have a lot of outside/less constested runners and i think we need more grunt especially heading into September.
1 Like
The Dogs haven’t been too well in that regard this year either.
And so you should cop it…closer to 3 months I reckon
1 Like
I don’t disagree about the need for contested mids for finals, broadly I don’t think our game style at the moment is all that suited to finals, all be it that we did take it up to the Swans and their hard contested style up there.
But I still think Colyer’s pace is important. We’re not exactly a quick midfield, sure we’ve got some pace on the flanks and up forward but none of our genuine mids have a real burst of speed. Absolutely like to see him not butchering the footy though, as with all of them on Saturday. Merrett was going at 33% in the first half… That’s not even close to his best let alone AFL average.
Merrett goes for the elite kicks, colyer was butchering the stock standard short kicks that our game relies on.
1 Like
“going for elite kicks” can also be described as horrid decision making when it doesn’t come off… There was plenty of both on Saturday.
But again I don’t disagree that Colyer’s disposal this year has been nothing short of horrendous.
If we dont hit our targets like last week we are fecked. Bulldogs wont stuff up their targets like north did in return.
We were outworked by North for the first three quarters. It’s hard to hit targets when the kicker is under pressure and the potential targets are covered. Fortunately North couldn’t keep up that work rate for 4 quarters.
The AFL Live tracker data is interesting. 4 of the top 5 for ‘total distance covered’ where north players - Brown (!), Clarke. Hrovat & McDonald. 4 of the top 5 for ‘distance covered at high speed’ were also north players - Gibson, Clark, Atley & McDonald. And, 4 of the top 5 for ‘average moving speed’ were north players - Dumont, Brown (again!), Hrovat & Gibson. North also dominated the average speed in attack and defence stats.
When we outspread our opponents our DE is good. When we don’t, it’s s-h-i-t-e.
4 Likes