Round 4: Changes v Pussy Cats

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Very tough team selection this week with JOD and Richards both needing to return.

Dale was uncharacteristicly inefficient in the first half but tidied things up and went at 100% in the second half.

Doc did everything required to hold his spot albeit not up against the same quality smalls that Geelong have.


Poulter and Macrae out for JOD and Richards with Daniel back down to sub.
 
In: Richards, JOD
Out: Duryea Poulter, Gallagher (unluckily) to sub
How or why would anyone drop gags? Young fella getting better every contest.
Ins and outs are tough.
Richards must come in and most likely poulter hoes out.
Another defender also must come in and for me that’s Keath. He has JOD covered for the moment.
Also Lobb could be in for Darcy but it’s a catch 22. That 3rd tall fwd ruck role is up for grabs.
 
How or why would anyone drop gags? Young fella getting better every contest.
Ins and outs are tough.
Richards must come in and most likely poulter hoes out.
Another defender also must come in and for me that’s Keath. He has JOD covered for the moment.
Also Lobb could be in for Darcy but it’s a catch 22. That 3rd tall fwd ruck role is up for grabs.
If you think it'll help, sure.
 
Wow very unenviable week to be on the Match Committee, will be one or two very unlucky boys. Great for competition for spots and keeping everyone on their toes.

Darcy was just ok but was still solid and showed some good things in the ruck. You can't just drop him every time he has a quietish game though, that can really mess with young player's confidence and he needs a good 4-6 weeks at least at AFL level to build that confidence, continue to get up to the speed and physicality of the AFL and to get the most out of himself.

I think JOD needs to come in and I know Bevo wants him as the 2nd tall especially once we start playing better teams, I wonder if he sees Buku as 3rd tall still or with all of the other options available, only wants to roll with JOD or Buku currently?

I would personally go

IN : JOD, Richards OUT : Duryea, Poulter with Baker an unlucky but good sub option. Bevo talking him up makes it seem unlikely Duryea is dropped, but again, someone is going to be very unlucky because Richards is coming straight back in.
 
5 mins into the replay and Brereton is unbearable. If he knows so much, why doesn’t he put his money where his mouth is and do some coaching?

Everything he says is excruciating. He just has to come up with something obscure about each play that he liked because he knows sooooo much more about footy than anyone else watching.
 
If Bont's ankle isn't right, I'd rest him.

Out: Darcy, Duryea, Bont

In: Lobb, Richards, Garcia
 
Very tough team selection this week with JOD and Richards both needing to return.

Dale was uncharacteristicly inefficient in the first half but tidied things up and went at 100% in the second half.

Doc did everything required to hold his spot albeit not up against the same quality smalls that Geelong have.


Poulter and Macrae out for JOD and Richards with Daniel back down to sub.

I’m really not sure about Dale anymore. He has large patches of games where he’s just unreliable by foot, and he doesn’t have the pure leg speed of others where he can use that instead.

I think he’s still a member of our best back line atm, but he’d want to play better than he has been.
 
Also just realised that the Cats get a 5 day break with travel. Slight break to us in that regard.
Would be a first that it’s in our favour. We always seem to cop them on the short break off the back of a trip to Perth and usually at their shithole
 

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It’s a very foreign feeling. I'm used to us arguing over whether we should play Will Hayes, Robbie McComb or Stef Martin as the second wing. Having more than 22 players fit and in form at once is just bizarre.

I hope one day we can look back fondly on the time when an injury to Roarke Smith was a terminal blow to our depth.
 
We really need Naughton to play that half forward role for the rest of the season. He just doesn't have enough impact most of the time when he plays deep forward. Getting up the ground and being that link up player allows him to play to his strengths a lot more and have much more impact. He's not that good when he's standing shoulder to shoulder with a defender waiting for the ball to come to him; he's at his best when he's loping around, launching at the ball and fighting for hard ball gets when it hits the deck. We have the luxury of Marra and either Darcy or English to play deep. At worst Naughton should be able to negate Tom Stewart while roaming the half forward line, which would go a long way to helping us win.

Hawkins and Cameron are terrifying. No one on our side can match Hawkins for strength so it might be better to just play Buku on him and hope that his athleticism is a point of difference. Jones is probably the better match up for Cameron. I'm feeling hesitant to bring in JOD because our current backline are in a nice rhythm.

Our midfield needs to be better than it was today. I'd throw Westy and Weightman into a few centre bounces to mix things up.

English was absolutely dominant against the Cats last year despite us losing. We'll need him to do his part. His form today was very promising.

I think we should have enough scoring power if we can get the ball in there. I reckon 80 points will be a winning score in this one.
 
I’m so sick of Stewart taking 10 intercepts against us.

In - Harmes (tasked with being a defensive forward vs Stewart), Richards, JOD (if ready)

Out - Weightman (give his elbow a week off), Poulter, Duryae
 
In Richards, Garcia

JOD as a maybe/potential/hopeful

Out Poulter Duryea

By the end of this year I'm hoping the Darcy vs Lobb conundrum has a clear cut solution towards the younger guy with the far higher ceiling. In the mean time the way to us getting there is to play Darcy as long as he's healthy as far as I'm concerned.

We've seen plenty of this team with Lobb as the second ruck/marking utility already.
 
I’m so sick of Stewart taking 10 intercepts against us.

In - Harmes (tasked with being a defensive forward vs Stewart), Richards, JOD (if ready)

Out - Weightman (give his elbow a week off), Poulter, Duryae
Just as a recent reference, the crows used a scrub to tag Stewart and we know how that worked out. You need a forward like naughton and to use him on the lead up. I reckon we've done it before...
 
Keen to see how Khamis goes against an A grade forward set up. He had good moments against Melbourne despite playing out of position imo. Has been great in the past 2 matches. Big test this week with two genuine athletic talls.

Hopefully JOD can release him a bit further.

Garcia has been seriously good in the VFL. I don't think he's played any better.

With Naughton playing a bit higher, that should only benefit Lobb if he were to come in.

Big decisions this week.
 
We really need Naughton to play that half forward role for the rest of the season. He just doesn't have enough impact most of the time when he plays deep forward. Getting up the ground and being that link up player allows him to play to his strengths a lot more and have much more impact. He's not that good when he's standing shoulder to shoulder with a defender waiting for the ball to come to him; he's at his best when he's loping around, launching at the ball and fighting for hard ball gets when it hits the deck. We have the luxury of Marra and either Darcy or English to play deep. At worst Naughton should be able to negate Tom Stewart while roaming the half forward line, which would go a long way to helping us win.

Hawkins and Cameron are terrifying. No one on our side can match Hawkins for strength so it might be better to just play Buku on him and hope that his athleticism is a point of difference. Jones is probably the better match up for Cameron. I'm feeling hesitant to bring in JOD because our current backline are in a nice rhythm.

Our midfield needs to be better than it was today. I'd throw Westy and Weightman into a few centre bounces to mix things up.

English was absolutely dominant against the Cats last year despite us losing. We'll need him to do his part. His form today was very promising.

I think we should have enough scoring power if we can get the ball in there. I reckon 80 points will be a winning score in this one.
I can't agree on English being dominant v cats last year - if memory serves correctly, he was getting dominated in the ruck up to half time, then lobb was put in there to take the majority of duties. Lobb turned the game momentum out of the middle with second and third efforts. I remember it well because it was his most impressive game of the year!
 
Out Poulter. Dale to Sub.
In Richards.
I'll back Buku as a KPD (given the way the team is working as a unit)

Pluses:
Cats traveling on a 5-day break.
No Dangerfield .
Matt Egan: oppo insights

Dogs by 10 points.
 
I can't agree on English being dominant v cats last year - if memory serves correctly, he was getting dominated in the ruck up to half time, then lobb was put in there to take the majority of duties. Lobb turned the game momentum out of the middle with second and third efforts. I remember it well because it was his most impressive game of the year!

I was talking about the first game against them that we lost. 27 disposals, 12 marks 5 inside 50s seems like a pretty good game in the ruck...
 

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