AFL 2018 R9: North Melbourne v GWS: Saturday 13:45 AEST Blundstone Arena

[_Mike_]

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SUMMARY
The next test in the Roo-vival is how Brad Scott's men handle the expectation their good performances will bring, after North Melbourne was a popular pre-season wooden spoon tip. The Kangas are suddenly considered a finals threat, thanks largely to impressive wins over Hawthorn and Sydney and pushing Richmond within 10 points last week. So the timing of their Hobart 'homecoming' – they have won 11 of their past 13 matches at Blundstone Arena – could hardly be better to maintain the rage. Healthy-again North midfielders Ben Jacobs and Jed Anderson have been revelations this year and loom as important again for the club's round nine battle with Greater Western Sydney. Jacobs might get the job on key Giants onballer Stephen Coniglio, who will need support from the likes of Callan Ward, Dylan Shiel and Tim Taranto if they are to arrest the team's two-game slide. Jeremy Cameron is due for a big bag of goals, too.

WHERE AND WHEN: Blundstone Arena, Saturday, May 19, 1.45pm AEST



LAST FIVE TIMES
R3, 2017, Greater Western Sydney 15.19 (109) d North Melbourne 10.7 (67) at Blundstone Arena
R23, 2016, Greater Western Sydney 14.16 (100) d North Melbourne 9.9 (63) at Etihad Stadium
R12, 2015, North Melbourne 18.9 (117) d Greater Western Sydney 8.13 (61) at Spotless Stadium
R20, 2014, North Melbourne 19.12 (126) d Greater Western Sydney 7.9 (51) at UNSW Canberra Oval
R14, 2013, North Melbourne 19.16 (130) d Greater Western Sydney 6.8 (44) at Etihad Stadium

THE SIX POINTS

1. The Kangaroos had more disposals and took more marks when the teams last played, but the Giants dominated the inside 50s 71-49 and ran away with the game in the second half – kicking nine goals to five.

2. Greater Western Sydney's scoring has dropped dramatically in recent weeks. After averaging 99 points per game in their first four games, the Giants have since averaged only 60 points in their last four.

3. After North won the first five contests between the sides, including three wins by more than 70 points, GWS has won the last two comfortably.

4. No team has received more free kicks this season than the Roos with 193 at 24.1. The Giants haven't been popular with the umpires, ranking equal 16th with just 18.4 per game.

5. North Melbourne has won 11 of its last 13 games at Blundstone Arena, including an 86-point thrashing of Carlton in round four. GWS has played twice in Hobart for one win.

6. Kangaroos ruckman Todd Goldstein was as high as No.3 in the Schick AFL Player Ratings two years ago, but his steady decline continues and is now 41st. That still makes him the fourth-highest big man, with Dawson Simpson the Giants' top-rated ruckman at No.569.

IT'S A BIG WEEK FOR…
Star midfielder Stephen Coniglio has been one of the Giants' top performers this year and he needs to keep performing at a high level – with several key members on the sidelines – if his team wants to get its season back on track. Could Roos minder Ben Jacobs be heading his way?

PREDICTION: North Melbourne by 15 points.

 

[gavaniacono]

Cant see north choking in this one.

 

[Snake_Baker]

The epitome of an 8 point game for both sides. Norths forwards should make the difference in a grind against a badly undermanned GWS.

North by 19 points.

 

[puntking]

North over 15 gws in bad way and cant win away from home atm

 

[Colonial]

20 point win to North.

Jezza will be better for the game last week and Mohr is a good return.

But North in form while we are a long way off.

Would fail a back yard kick to kick our efficiency is so bad.


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[Isaac Cumming No 1]

Bellerieve wont win it for North, their team might.

I'm actually getting more confident as the game gets closer. Still not sure we can turn around our problems with ball movement around quickly enough though. If we win it will be a low scoring affair. If Lobb has improved his fitness and Jezza is over his toe problems we might get enough goals. Keefe will probably still have to ruck a lot of the game.

North mids are tough, but so are ours. Our inside brigade can handle any group in the contest, skills in disposal are currently the challenge. Lenny Hayes says we have plans to handle Jacob's and I suspect that's to get someone like Hopper between him and his target at the clearances. Interesting to see who he goes to, I'm not sure who our best mid is. In any case we're a lot less reliant upon an individual than we were in 2015 when he took Shiel out.

Would prefer Davis in but I think we'll cover his loss ok. More important to our backs is that the mids hold the ball up. Great to have Mohr get an opportunity

North deserve favouritism but I'm thinking this'll be close, whatever happens our mids should keep us in the contest.

 

[Colonial]

GAME DAY.

Ok despite being downtroddin this week I am very excited.

1st game attendance for the year and both of us all geared up.

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[Gavin Excell]

North to win easily

GWS will struggle to break 50 points

 

[A Swallow]

Davis out made me change my tip from GWS to North. I just think our forwardline might be tough to handle without GWS’ premier defender.

 

[Isaac Cumming No 1]

Davis out made me change my tip from GWS to North. I just think our forwardline might be tough to handle without GWS’ premier defender.

Corr is actually our best tall back. He took Kennedy last week.

 

[Rod Stroker]

Just looking at the Giants team in the OP, they will still have enough quality talent on the park today to do some damage. So I give them a big chance to win.

We will need to be on our game. If we turn up complacent and our players think they'll get it done because the Giants have too many injuries, we'll get rolled.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

Bellerieve wont win it for North, their team might.

I'm actually getting more confident as the game gets closer. Still not sure we can turn around our problems with ball movement around quickly enough though. If we win it will be a low scoring affair. If Lobb has improved his fitness and Jezza is over his toe problems we might get enough goals. Keefe will probably still have to ruck a lot of the game.

North mids are tough, but so are ours. Our inside brigade can handle any group in the contest, skills in disposal are currently the challenge. Lenny Hayes says we have plans to handle Jacob's and I suspect that's to get someone like Hopper between him and his target at the clearances. Interesting to see who he goes to, I'm not sure who our best mid is. In any case we're a lot less reliant upon an individual than we were in 2015 when he took Shiel out.

Would prefer Davis in but I think we'll cover his loss ok. More important to our backs is that the mids hold the ball up. Great to have Mohr get an opportunity

North deserve favouritism but I'm thinking this'll be close, whatever happens our mids should keep us in the contest.

Plans to handle Jacobs?

All teams have tried and pretty much failed in that regard. If you have to sacrifice Hopper to get rid of a tagger, that's already a win for North.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

Just looking at the Giants team in the OP, they will still have enough quality talent on the park today to do some damage. So I give them a big chance to win.

We will need to be on our game. If we turn up complacent and our players think they'll get it done because the Giants have too many injuries, we'll get rolled.

Their backline is the land of the giants. Lower our eyes going inside fifty and maintain the forward pressure and they should crumble.

 

[Isaac Cumming No 1]

Plans to handle Jacobs?

All teams have tried and pretty much failed in that regard. If you have to sacrifice Hopper to get rid of a tagger, that's already a win for North.

I never said he isn't a threat,clearly he is. I think you've underrated Jacobs if you don't think he isn't worth opposition teams using resources trying to stop him. We have threats of our own though, and our inside mids work very well as a group.

 

[Rod Stroker]

Their backline is the land of the giants. Lower our eyes going inside fifty and maintain the forward pressure and they should crumble.

Our forward line isn't exactly the mosquito fleet with Brown, Waite, Wood, and even Daw who played forward last week. We'll both be tall in that part of the ground, assuming Waite plays.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

I never said he isn't a threat,clearly he is. I think you've underrated Jacobs if you don't think he isn't worth opposition teams using resources trying to stop him. We have threats of our own though, and our inside mids work very well as a group.

I haven’t underrated him at all, even merely stating that all plans against have thus far failed demonstrates this point. My question mark is in relation to you sacrificing one of your better mids to take him out of the game.

Our forward line isn't exactly the mosquito fleet with Brown, Waite, Wood, and even Daw who played forward last week. We'll both be tall in that part of the ground, assuming Waite plays.

They have five 190cm+ defenders. Daw would barely be forward as the pinch hitter ruck, Wood is more of a winger than a lumbering tall and Waite’s pressure is well known. Atley, Turner and Simpkin need big games for us to succeed.

 

[Isaac Cumming No 1]

I haven’t underrated him at all, even merely stating that all plans against have thus far failed demonstrates this point. My question mark is in relation to you sacrificing one of your better mids to take him out of the game.

We will have mids primarily positioned defensively to block and shepherd at every clearance. That takes into account who the opposition mids are. This surprises you?

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

We will have mids primarily positioned defensively to block and shepherd at every clearance. That takes into account who the opposition mids are. This surprises you?

Not at all, but if it is hopper for the majority of clearances, it demeans his attacking play on the inside and frees up his man. It’s the same effect or concept when there is a two-on-one in an attacking area, if the two don’t win the ball back, it really hurts you. Does this concept surprise you?

There’s an attacking mid, a neutral mid and a defensive mid for centre clearances. From watching Hopper, he doesn’t seem to be the one to be that defensive mid to lay down blocks and is much better suited to be that neutral or attacking mid. Ward makes more sense as he’s bigger, smarter defensively and he knows how to negate a tagger.

 

[Isaac Cumming No 1]

Not at all, but if it is hopper for the majority of clearances, it demeans his attacking play on the inside and frees up his man. It’s the same effect or concept when there is a two-on-one in an attacking area, if the two don’t win the ball back, it really hurts you. Does this concept surprise you?

There’s an attacking mid, a neutral mid and a defensive mid for centre clearances. From watching Hopper, he doesn’t seem to be the one to be that defensive mid to lay down blocks and is much better suited to be that neutral or attacking mid. Ward makes more sense as he’s bigger, smarter defensively and he knows how to negate a tagger.

I wouldn't necessarily categorize it the way you do, but it could be. I do note from watching them closely and from stats Ward is usually much more focussed on getting the ball in his hands and clearing it. Last year without Cogs, Griffen and Hopper for most of the year he did focus more defensively and kind of disappeared in the stats.

 

[juss]

North by 20. Too good in Tassie especially against an undermanned Giants.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

I wouldn't necessarily categorize it the way you do, but it could be. I do note from watching them closely and from stats Ward is usually much more focussed on getting the ball in his hands and clearing it. Last year without Cogs, Griffen and Hopper for most of the year he did focus more defensively and kind of disappeared in the stats.

Fair enough, I know at north, we rotate our defensive and attacking clearance mids around a lot last year, with Cunnington experiencing a decline in his stats during the periods of the game that he had to play as the defensive mid and Ziebell the attacking mid. Thankfully, Ziebell barely plays in the midfield anymore and it’s helped both Higgins and Cunnington as Anderson acts as that semi-permanent defensive inside mid. It would be similar to how you guys have set up this year compared to last year.

Your midfield has kept you in every game this year for long periods, it’s the forward half (backline rebound too, but that’s more to do with injuries) that GWS are struggling with.

 

[Rabman]

What sought of crowd in Hobart will it be, hopefully better than last years.

 

[Isaac Cumming No 1]

Fair enough, I know at north, we rotate our defensive and attacking clearance mids around a lot last year, with Cunnington experiencing a decline in his stats during the periods of the game that he had to play as the defensive mid and Ziebell the attacking mid. Thankfully, Ziebell barely plays in the midfield anymore and it’s helped both Higgins and Cunnington as Anderson acts as that semi-permanent defensive inside mid. It would be similar to how you guys have set up this year compared to last year.

Your midfield has kept you in every game this year for long periods, it’s the forward half (backline rebound too, but that’s more to do with injuries) that GWS are struggling with.

I think our backines fine. The forward line is absolutely why we shouldn't be favourites today though

It doesn't help that Patton has had to be sent back to the NEAFL. Many of us are nonplussed why his role wasn't simplified and he be left to focus on just catching the ball and passing it along or getting it through the sticks when in range. He did that well last year. Some of the dropped marks againstGeelong were really awful. Leon said in his presser players in the modern game need to be able to play multiple positions, so that isn't gonna happen though.

In last weeks game Himmelburg double fisted a kick in space about 30m out from goal, that's just inexplicable and suggests he might need some time there too.

Loyd and Langdon are both low value recruits adding great defensive pressure. They need to kickgoals for us to win games though. Poor ball movement and the lack of big target bringing it to ground effectively makes the small forwards job hard. Jezza isn't the guy for that, Lobb has to do it.

 

[A Swallow]

Corr is actually our best tall back. He took Kennedy last week.

Yeah maybe as a lockdown defender, I just think Davis marshals the troops and directs people around, particularly on rebounds out of the 50 or kick-ins.

 

[Isaac Cumming No 1]

Yeah maybe as a lockdown defender, I just think Davis marshals the troops and directs people around, particularly on rebounds out of the 50 or kick-ins.

Captains presence is important no doubt. I doubt whether he can make his voice heard much over Heater though. No one will ever shut him up when he thinks something needs to be said.