Mega Thread Port Forum 'General AFL Talk' Thread

[Dylan8]

 

[philreich]

Dogs are still a fair way off from genuinely challenging, and they haven't even played a game away from Etihad yet.

And they play there again next week - against the Crows. Yep 7 in a row: even Collingwood has seen the inside of a plane this year.

 

[Valentino]

North with three tall forwards all contributing, a mammoth ruckman and a pretty undersized defence.

Meanwhile Port go into the season with a MASSIVE lumbering defence, plodder ruckman and 1 tall forward.

Polar opposites.

Disagree all three of their forwards contributed.
Brown pretty invisible all night and Petrie only really bobbed up late, missing a sitter.

 

[Coobk001]

Dogs are still a fair way off from genuinely challenging, and they haven't even played a game away from Etihad yet.

Yep, they've got an unquestionable ball winning midfield, but their lack of tall defenders and tall forwards was glaring tonight. Additionally their ball use was comical tonight. Next week, that sort of ball use will get punished heavily by the Crows. They should beat the crows in the ball winning stakes, but they'll need to be significantly more effective with the ball to get the win.

 

[mic59]

If they published the stat for easy defensive marks inside 50 on the afl website instead of just the marks inside attacking 50, it would explain why the dogs lost tonight.

 

[PatientMental]

Disagree all three of their forwards contributed.
Brown pretty invisible all night and Petrie only really bobbed up late, missing a sitter.

to be fair they had like 16 marks(9 contested) between them 7 inside 50s. they did as they pleased.

 

[Far Kern]

Really enjoyed that game. North's delivery and marking up forward the difference. Great intensity, thought North set up really well to neutralise the Dogs at the contest and going forward . Plus one at the backed worked really well for them with the Dogs blazing away far too much.

Stringer's a great looking and young player, but he needs to grow up a bit if the Doggies want to go anywhere this year. Again tonight he's failed to give off and keeps going for the incredible when spoiling or holding it in is needed.

 

[Port01]

That seemed to me a victory of systems, both teams butchered the ball but neither got torched on the rebound.

 

[edgie]

And they play there again next week - against the Crows. Yep 7 in a row: even Collingwood has seen the inside of a plane this year.

It's all good, next week they take the perilous journey to the MCG. Some players might be lost to us forever whilst in transit. Even Sam and Frodo haven't seen such a formidable adventure. Those brave enough to make it can rejoice in returning to the safety of Etihad the week after.

Honestly, I have never seen a team looked after so much in terms of where they play. It was well established last year that the Bulldogs have one of the bigger home ground advantage and drop off away from home, so what do the AFL do? Seven games in a row at Docklands. Farcial. Even the great Collingwood teams of the Malthouse era had to mix it up between the two Melbourne grounds.

 

[SureBuddy]

We should just play westhoff behind the ball permanently. Loose man killed the dogs tonight.

 

[philreich]

Must admit I'm a bit jealous of North tonight - in the sense that I'd love to see us win a boring, low scoring scrap. But the way we leak high scores more often than not (round 3 against Essendon was the only time we've conceded under 100 points), I can't see it happening any time soon.

 

[Arsene Wenger]

I only caught the second half but one thing which was very obvious to me was Bulldogs lack of talls. Petrie, Brown, Waite took plenty of marks (contested) .. Bulldogs too short

 

[Grandaddy J]

North with three tall forwards all contributing, a mammoth ruckman and a pretty undersized defence.

Meanwhile Port go into the season with a MASSIVE lumbering defence, plodder ruckman and 1 tall forward.

Polar opposites.

Who/what exactly about our defence is massive?

 

[Jonts]

I know WB won the possession count but did they win meters gained?
Kicked the footy around a hell of a lot trying to maximize space at Etihad

 

[Dylan8]

Who/what exactly about our defence is massive?

Jack Hombsch's bald spot

 

[edgie]

FFS

"one of the good guys too a real good guy"

Wayne Carey about Fevola doing his countdown thing. I bet Tredrea doesn't get that sort of wrap.

 

[Full Credit]

Duck wheeling out the Fevola puns, 'Fevalenko, Fevolution'. Hame chips in with 'Fevalicious'.. Don't think that's how puns work Hamedog. 9 best forwards of the noughties to come, reckon Duck will find it in his heart to include Tredders in there somewhere..?

 

[Jonts]

Number 2 behind nvolt?

 

[JAlexG]

So that's it doggies? A couple of injuries, just manage to kick 6 goals for a match and skills go to water?
Haven't even played a game at a different stadium yet.

 

[TeeKray]

Why are North Melbourne good? It makes no ******* sense.

Three dangerous key forwards (Brown, Waite, Petrie). Dangerous small forwards (Higgins, Thomas). The best ruckman in the game (Goldstein). Strong inside mids (Cunnington, Ziebell). Skilful outside mids (Wells, Harvey, Dal Santo). Big bodies and experience on every line. Coach who keeps things simple and doesn't overload his players with a complicated game style.

I think the question should be why did people think North Melbourne weren't going to be good? I had them 3rd and they should be able to hold to that, even with the tough draw they have later on in the season.

 

[JimmyBeerCans]

I look at North and I see tall hulkish forwards & strong big ass midfielders aplenty & feel like we are skinny in-experienced adolescents in comparison.. North are in the now or never phase with the age profile of the list but jeepers I'm starting to wonder why I ever thought we were a contender.

 

[Grave Danger]

Lucky it's not our home game this week - let the 19th customer be to blame if the soccer pitch is a bit bumpy for the A-League final. Imagine the hue and cry if it was those Port Power ferals ruining it for everyone

Adelaide United boss Greg Griffin calls AFL “mindless bastards” for letting fans on Adelaide Oval before A-League final

 

[OneGreatClub]

So that's it doggies? A couple of injuries, just manage to kick 6 goals for a match and skills go to water?
Haven't even played a game at a different stadium yet.

Then unjuries tho

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

To think that North have made 2 preliminary finals in a row with no input from Daniel Wells in both Septembers. He is as good as Shaun Burgoyne when he is fully fit.

I was lucky enough to be at Manuka Oval in 2005 when Choco put Shaun on Wells to cut him out of the game. Shaun was brilliant in the first half and we were 40 pts up at the long break. The roles were reversed in the 2nd half, many of our players went to sleep and North won by 3 or 4 points. Another *en loss to North!

My mate who is a Carlton fan and I, have had long discussions about Waite for over a decade and how he has the potential to do anything, but a combo of injuries, suspensions and always getting the best and biggest and strongest defender has stopped him being an absolute star. Plus s**t delivery from Carlton's bum players didnt help. When we got Dixon last October and finally re-signed Schultz I wrote I can see Schulz doing what Waite did at North last year and benefitting from getting the 3rd best defender after Petrie and Brown. But that theory was predicated on Westhoff actually playing well as the heat went onto Dixon and the defenders giving Schulz less attention. But Schulz's back has put that theory in the bottom shelf.

Waite so far in 2016 is streets ahead of what he did last year.

 

[ozph1870]

Lucky it's not our home game this week - let the 19th customer be to blame if the soccer pitch is a bit bumpy for the A-League final. Imagine the hue and cry if it was those Port Power ferals ruining it for everyone

Adelaide United boss Greg Griffin calls AFL “mindless bastards” for letting fans on Adelaide Oval before A-League final

id dig the campaigner up so the sooks cant play there