Elite!
At drinking…
We should still pick up him and brett Maloney
Ha ha! I thought about that today. Jeez. Blitz is classic.
We should still pick up him and brett MaloneyPerhaps even enquire about Brock McLean's availability so that we can help them get the band back together.
I wonder how Lyon's style is going to go in the brave new world of interchanged capped sub-less benches. I suspect the counter punching style might actually see a bit of a resurgence (for better or worse).Hard to write off a team this consistent, but equally hard to see them getting it done in September without heroics from Fyfe.
It could just as easily backfire on the AFL, and instead of having more open free flowing games, coaches like lyon could go full retard and just keep the majority of their side in the oppositions back half and clog it up even more.
I’ve always though the latter would happen
Team has no legs left, has a lead and the coach just throws 18 players behind the ball (heck, it’s what I used to do as coach at the end of quarters in games we had no bench lol)
yep, it’s like the afl has gone ok here’s a problem, we’ll solve it be making the players more tired so they can’t run up and down the field as much.
Despite the fact that the style of gameplay that makes the game so ugly, has yielded only 2 premierships, both to sydney so while it has it’s place, the tactic alone has never been a blueprint for success.
I half hope it does get worse, just to ■■■■ with the afl and people wanting to watch it.
If Sandilands stays fit this is their year. In cruise control right now. Knocking teams over in the first half and cruising home in the second.
I wonder how Lyon's style is going to go in the brave new world of interchanged capped sub-less benches. I suspect the counter punching style might actually see a bit of a resurgence (for better or worse).Hard to write off a team this consistent, but equally hard to see them getting it done in September without heroics from Fyfe.
It could just as easily backfire on the AFL, and instead of having more open free flowing games, coaches like lyon could go full retard and just keep the majority of their side in the oppositions back half and clog it up even more.
I’ve always though the latter would happen
Team has no legs left, has a lead and the coach just throws 18 players behind the ball (heck, it’s what I used to do as coach at the end of quarters in games we had no bench lol)
cRuptured disc?That’s a life-changer for a regular person, something that they’ll have to manage for the rest of their life. Dunno what the prognosis is for someone with the medical resources available to them that an afl footballer would, but it could actually end his career. Poor bugger.
Gumbleton, Winderlich. Recovered to varying degrees from prolapsed disk in 2008-2009. Winders 2015 was ruined by a prolapsed disk.
hardly best examples of players who recovered well though. then again who knows if it was player, bad medical treatment or the injury itself.
If you use those 2 as yardsticks for anything, it’d be for the fact fyfe would be very lucky to get back to anywhere near his best, esp for long periods of time.
I just can't see their upside.
same. I think they might just sneak into the 8. If Fyfe goes down they are screwed. Any team with Zac Dawson as their one of their main Key Defenders will never win a GF.
They will need their smalls to kick a big chunk of their score, as they really don’t have that many tall options up front that are going to do that much damage.
Negative: A Morabito has torn hamstring ruling him out of pre-season games.
Positive: Knee(s) still intact
These blokes are crazy. Missed out on a tall forward in the trade/free agency period and then last night at the draft did NOTHING to address their key forward issues.
If they think they are in their premiership window now they aren’t going to step up on last year’s prelim with a decrepit Pavlich as their only real key forward.
These blokes are crazy. Missed out on a tall forward in the trade/free agency period and then last night at the draft did NOTHING to address their key forward issues. If they think they are in their premiership window now they aren't going to step up on last year's prelim with a decrepit Pavlich as their only real key forward.
Lol you really think an 18 year old forward is going to carry them to a premiership?
I think Ross will try and shift Sandilands forward more often.
They’d also be hoping Taberner can develop further and be a key target.
They did get Collins who is a more developed defender.
I am surprised that they didn’t go with Brown and/or Hartley though.
I suspect they are going to try and play Yarran, Walters and Ballantyne as a mock version of Carlton’s Betts, Yarran and Garlett forward line. It’s the only option they really have.
To me, this team could finish anywhere between 5th and 8th and struggle their way through the finals.
I agree, its truly baffling. But I guess Sydney won a flag in 2012 with Sam Reid as their only real big key forward, so a LOT rests on Taberner and whether or not he can come on.
I agree, its truly baffling. But I guess Sydney won a flag in 2012 with Sam Reid as their only real big key forward, so a LOT rests on Taberner and whether or not he can come on.
Geelong 07 with Mooney and NAblett
09 Mooney and Lonergan maybe?
Pies had Leigh Brown and Cloke
I’d imagine the Freo game plan will be very rope-a-dope in the back half then relying on quick ball movement and their small forwards’ leg speed unless one of their current forwards really comes on
I agree, its truly baffling. But I guess Sydney won a flag in 2012 with Sam Reid as their only real big key forward, so a LOT rests on Taberner and whether or not he can come on.
Who?
I agree, its truly baffling. But I guess Sydney won a flag in 2012 with Sam Reid as their only real big key forward, so a LOT rests on Taberner and whether or not he can come on.
I can forgive you forgetting that Goodes bloke but Lewis Roberts Thompson?? For shame, sir.
By my count they’ve got 11 key position players on their list.
They just need one of them - Clarke’s played lots of games, Apeness, Taberner maybe - to improve from half-decent to actually decent.
Pav+another tall+Mayne + smalls, that could hold on for one more year. All over after that IMHO, Johnson/Sandy/Pav/Mundy all old.
He went later than expected in the draft but Harley Balic has joined Fremantle Dockers November 25, 2015 1:00pm Paul AmyMordialloc Chelsea LeaderFOR Harley Balic, it was a waiting game, played out with a knot in his stomach.
Pick was following pick, but nobody was picking him.
He and his family had been flown over to the Adelaide Convention Centre to watch last night’s AFL national draft, and there were expectations he would be chosen in the top 20 or 25.
But 25 had gone and he was still without a club.
When it got to 30, draft scribe Brett Anderson, commenting on radio, expressed surprise Balic had been overlooked and had become what the draft aficionados call a “slider’’. In his phantom order of selections Anderson had the Sandringham Dragon being taken by Gold Coast with its original pick 16.
Finally, the Mordialloc-Braeside Junior Football Club product’s name came: pick 38, to the Fremantle Dockers.
Balic, sitting with his girlfriend, Georgia Ward, his parents, Eddie and Nancy, and brothers Cooper and Jesse, felt a rush of emotions.
The first, he said, was relief. Then came the realisation of an interstate move. It daunted him and quickly reduced his mother to tears. Next was the excitement of fulfilling an ambition that took a burning hold of him last year, to make an AFL list.
“After pick 25, we were all looking at each other and we’re going, ‘What’s wrong, have I done something, why aren’t I getting picked up?’,’’ Balic said this morning.
“A lot of clubs who said they liked me were passing. It got to mid-30s and I was like, ‘Am I getting drafted?’ It got to the stage where everyone was looking at each other and wondering if it was possible to get invited but not get drafted. You’ve got so much media, so much speculation, your whole neighbourhood watching for you and texting you … I didn’t feel embarrassed, but I was very anxious about what was going to happen.
“So when my name did get called out, the relief was the first thing. Yeah, that was definitely the biggest thing, because I was just so nervous and anxious. A few seconds later it kicked in, Fremantle. I got a bit nervous and looked at the family. The next feeling was happiness, sort of a dream coming true, about to start a new chapter in my life.’’
Harley Balic’s decision to pursue football ahead of basketball has paid off.
Balic calls himself a “bit of mother’s boy’’. He’s particularly close to his mother and she was overwhelmed at the thought of him relocating to Perth.After his selection he went off to do some media with Fremantle. When he returned he saw his dad on the phone in tears. He jokingly said he would pay him $70,000 to stay in Melbourne. Later, as the family gathered for a dinner with Dockers officials, his mother’s eyes were red as she arrived in the foyer.
But Balic said he was happy to make the move.
“At the start I was a bit worried but thinking about it all night and this morning, it’s going to be a good thing for me,’’ he said.
“I won’t have all the distractions I may have here, friends, the antics, everything like that. I’ll be over there training and getting better … at the end of the day it doesn’t matter, because it depends on what you do with it (draft selection). If I can prove the clubs wrong who didn’t pick me, that’s the first thing I want to do.
“But overall I’m just grateful. I was one of the lucky ones. A few of my mates didn’t get picked up.’’
Balic was an accomplished under-age basketballer — he played as a point guard for a succession of Sandringham Sabres representative teams — before making the decision last year to focus on football with the Sandringham Dragons.
He rose quickly: a few months later he was in the AIS AFL Academy. This year he was an All Australian Under 18 player before a wrist operation ended his season early.
Balic attended Parkdale Secondary College and was in the AFL program overseen by former Carlton player Paul McCormack.
McCormack said this morning that Balic was one of the most athletically gifted young players he had seen and had “huge upside’’.
He believes Balic’s best position is at half-back.
“You have a look at what he does now and think of what he might be able to do in two years, when he’s bigger and stronger … it’s exciting for him,’’ McCormack said.
The college also produced a draftee last year in Tom Lamb (West Coast Eagles).
Having a deeper look at the way they drafted/traded…
I think they are going to go with a very small forward line next season.
With Ballantyne and Walters they already had two of the better small forwards in the comp. If Yarran is a genuine goal scoring threat, then that could be a third and acquiring Bennell who spends half his time forward and the rest in the middle makes it a very dangerous mix of small forwards.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if they manage Fyfe a bit more during the season so that he’s right come finals time so he’d probably split his time forward and in the middle.
They’ll still drop off in 2016. Probably 4th or 5th. Then they’ll get McCarthy and look at securing another tall forward for 2017. By then they’ll be more sure of where Taberner fits into their future.
I actually think their weakness is the backline. Against poor opposition, Zac Dawson and Michael Johnson are helped out well by the rest of their defenders. But against the best, they get isolated and picked apart. After Dawson and Johnson, they have Pearce and Silvagni along with recently drafted Collins. There’s some serious list clogging (excl Collins) happening there.
They have drafted talls the last couple of drafts prior to this
None of them of shown anything yet though
Agree that Fyfe almost HAS to play forward more
Mundy and Barlow still leaves them with at least 1 big bodied midfielder all the time