Wezza told me to come in here and tell you all how we’re gonna win the flag this year.
Personally I don’t want to get ahead of myself, so I’ve only booked my flight over for the Grand Final. I’ll worry about accomodation down the track somewhere.
Rocky, Watts & Motlop should all help out a little. If we stay relatively injury free we’ll smash it this year, we were as good as anyone last year, just butchered our opportunities a bit too often.
Should win the Granny by about 12 goals.
Will make good depth for the PADFL.
Hate Port,
Hate that they got rockcliff but he was just too short term a prospect for us.
They have added depth to a shallow list.
Hope they get smashed with injury this year.
See I don’t know if he’s what they have been lacking.
Does he work as hard back as he does forward?
To me, that’s where they’ve gone off track a bit. They used to be a lightning quick side, and very very good at flicking the switch from defending to attacking. That always kept them in games. And for the life of me I can’t see Rockliff adding to that.
For as highly as he’s rated on here and Supercoach - other clubs have treated him like a leper the past 2-3 years.
Can’t see them winning a game if Ryder or one of their key defenders goes down. They remind me of north Melbourne, not quite good enough and will be a bottom 4 side in a couple of years.
Every time we have beaten them the last few years, it’s because of our ability to extract the hard ball, while their blokes spectated. They have quite a few seagulls that hang outside the packs waiting for the ball to spring free, while not willing to do the hard stuff themselves.
I expect them to use Rockliff a lot in stoppages in the bottom of packs as an extractor, cause not many of their blokes are willing to do it.
Luckily they’ve also added Watts, Morlop and Lindsay thomas to balance it out.
I agree with most of this. For all the experts crowed over their recruiting coups, Rockliff was the only player of any great quality they picked up. The others have shown glimpses of their talent, but you wouldn’t feel confident heading into a finals campaign, that they were all going to show up, let alone perform at the required level to achieve much success.
Hopefully a sign of things to come with 3 hammy injuries already. Wingard and Thomas with strains only but Polec with a tear and won’t resume training for a few weeks
They’ve gone full North Melbourne, added a bunch of old blokes without rhyme or reason.
Rockliffe can play but not sure a midfield with Wines (who was a beast last year), SPP, Boak, was really crying out for another clearance specialist.
Motlop was much more suited to their needs, but has strong form as a disappointment.
Not sure what the point of Watts is in that side (or most sides tbh). He was there, so they took him. That was their strategy in the offseason.
Thomas. Lol.
They’re a decent side who’ve added experience, so they won’t get worse. But top 4 they ain’t. 8th.
The pundits rate Port as the next best thing for 2018
Based on the Port I saw against us last year, I just dont rate them. They looked inept, hapless and all at sea against our onslaught of fast ball movement. Ryder looked average against TBell, Tippa made Hartlett look absurd and their defence leaked like the backline at the Carrum Downs 3rds, not to mention that we beat their highly rated mids on clearances.
But then the same side that blew Port apart were themselves made to look inept in the Elimination final against Sydney and which ruckman ended up AA ?
Footy can be strange.
Agree with some of that except about Judas Ryder. He handed TBell his (arse)
You reckon? I remember Ryder as being insipid. And I don’t regard statistics as being a guide to how he played, if you’re thinking of trotting them out.
Really?
Ryder got embarrassed against us
I never look at stats.
TBell was aggressive and worked hard, but Ryder is a class act and beat him in the ruck contests. It meant nothing in the context of the game, and Ryder was his usual lazy self around the Ground, but he did beat TBell.
No he didn’t. Watch a replay of that game, and tell me that with a straight face
I was there and that is how I remember it.
But I have been wrong before.
Ryder won the hit outs but was close to worst on ground. Was absolutely pathetic around the ground
I went to the game and watched the full replay.
T-Bell won the duel comfortably IMO.
TBell beat Ryder in all areas of the game in the first quarter and was a strong contributor to us wiping them out before quarter time. After that, Ryder came back into the game and won most hitouts. But tbh Ryder was far too laconic in Q1.
