VFL - Prelim Final vs Casey @ Port Melbourne, 2:10pm Saturday 15 September 2018

Fair call.

In isolation I think our best football this year was top four worthy and still with lots of improvement to come.

Langford, Parish, McKenna, McGrath are just some of the players that still have more left in them.

Foot injury from last week.

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Drop you as quickly as mcniece is dropped from the AFL team.

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Melbourne’s 1sts & 2nds have both had a dream run with injuries this year, just out of the VFL side we lost 3 last week plus Laverde the week before.

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And over to the truth thread…

What’s a pure mid though? All of those hybrid guys will be playing midfield minutes (Stringer is for instance). Redman is one who wasn’t there who I think we all rate, and who we expect to play solid midfield minutes.

I think the concept of a “pure mid” is overblown on this forum a bit. Good midfields are made up of combinations of players who work well together. I’d back a centre square grouping of Stringer, Fantasia and Guelfi to be very very effective, but it’s not going to have anyone thinking “yeah, that’s a group of pure mids”. The messiah complex is driven by the media, but it hasn’t helped Geelong. What we need is a depth of quality mids who can play together and win games of football. Depth of mids starts by having 12 guys in the seniors who can do the job, then you need the guys 13-18 or so in the list of mids who can play a role. Mutch and Clarke are maybe 18 and 19 on the list at the moment. Next year they might by 15 and 16. We don’t need them coming in and being the game changer, we just need continued improvement from the guys at 1-12, and Clarke and Mutch to continue improving so that when needed they can become the 10th player in the midfield rotations. And if we add a guy at pick 8, or via trade that has the ability to become a long term top 5 on our list mid, then all the better.

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Yep, we have players in and out for the second half of the year.

I think they have shown a lot of courage to bounce back from 6 straight losses only just over a month ago.

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It is very seldom that a seconds side has class senior listed players on every line. We’re doing alright. Our VFL backline wouldn’t be embarrassed at AFL level (especially with Redman as well). We have a top young ruck.

Our forward line was poor today, but that was partly injuries to Begley and Laverde. Our midfield options are thin, but if we bring in two mids via draft or trade it may look good next year. Just have to nail whatever we do with pick #8, whether it’s via draft or trade.

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As I said I don’t disagree that we are a little light on in direct midfielders. In the AFL I think we need at least one very clean inside mid.

And we do need a couple more depth midfielders that we can grab later in the draft. I think we will doing that this year by all indications. We have bolstered our defensive end as Hurls and Hooker are getting older and it was the right call imo: Zerk, Ridley, Redman and Francis (with Ridley moving more ot the wing and to cover down back).

I just don’t agree we have a dearth of midfielders though.

Also Green carrying an injury and clearly underdone because of it, then the conditions were atrocious for someone like Stewart. Hind wasn’t at his best either.

Draper 186 hitouts from three finals…

Clarke 30 disposals
Mutch 21 disposals and 10 tackles

(Munro for them with 21 tackles!)

17 players across both teams failed to get to 10 disposals. Francis game-leading marker with just 6… that was the kind of day it was.

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Coaches Bests:
1 Clarke, 2 Ridley, 3 Lazzaro, 4 Mutch, 5 Long 6 Heppel.

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I have no issue with hybrids. Especially forward ones. The 2000 side was built off them. Geelong’s powerhouse team had multiple ones.

I have an issue of people referring to players as potential future mids because they have hybrid traits, despite never playing meaningful VFL minutes to date. Like Begley, Redman, Houlihan, Francis, Laverde or Ridley. They may become mids, but until they start getting some minutes there it’s theoretical at best.

If there not playing VFL mid it’s unlikely they’ll be playing AFL midfield within the next year.

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No Draper lol
His tapwork was sublime today and he was clearly one of the best few on the ground

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Melbourne Midfielders wore our players like gloves, tackled en mass an and throttled us. Thats how teams have to play when the opposing ruckman is dominant. There needed to be an instruction to Draper to spike the ball forward with some of his hitouts, he was dropping the ball in close too much and Melbourne locked us down.

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He was very good. It’s exciting to think what he could be. A smidge more work on tapping defensively and he’s just about there.

And a rant… because I’m grumpy… knowing the character of the man, who’s ■■■■■■■ idea was it to delist Josh Green THIS week?

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You are right. Go figure.
image

Still thinking of that goal by Draper and the commentator blowing his nut.

What a moment.

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Pretty kind to Long. He was more even than the first 2 finals, but didn’t have much influence

A good example of this is Tippa, who after never playing mid in VFL, now plays mid rotations in the AFL.

Or Fanta.

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