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Unofficial Preview Changes and pre match discussion vs Carlton

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who gets the cripps matchup?

LDU.

Considering LDU was significantly limited after Freo put on the hard tag, I think we have to assume that Carlton will try the same tactic.

Therefore we can kill two birds with one stone by telling LDU to play a run-with role on Cripps. He's out only midfielder with the size to do it, too.
 

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Is that really the conclusion to draw from last game?

Yes.

Freo aren't considered a good ball using team going inside 50, but they went inside 50 48 times and scored 10.13, so that is roughly every 2nd inside 50 resulted in a score. We were a bit fortunate their key forwards missed some fairly easy shots.

It was so bad Clarko thought it was a better idea to sub off Dawson than to replace a fairly immobile Zurhaar due to injury or Simpkin who barely had any time on ground.

Daniels is really poor defensively, but he is important as he takes a lot of the difficult kicks coming out of the back half.

Comben was obviously missing with injury and Logue has missed a lot of footy with his ACL. Corr is also missing and whilst I am not his biggest fan, he is better than a VFL defender. None of our first wish defenders are full backs though and this is a major issue, we haven't been able to replace Tarrant since he left.

McDonald had a really good game but he rarely strings good games together. Hardeman and FOS were really good but are very inexperienced and can't rely on them to hold things together.

The Comben/Logue/Corr thing isn't going to be changing in the near future. Comben is listed as 2-3, Corr 3-4 and I doubt Logue will get back to where he was prior to his ACL until another uninterrupted pre-season.

We are rebuilding, rebuilding sides tend to have zero mature/experienced depth in the reserves. Lists just aren't deep enough to allow you have a competitive team plus the depth you need and enough room to pack in a whole bunch of kids so every team has to make compromises, choose two areas and be deficient in the third. Not all injuries are equal as well, we could probably lose 10 flankers and it would be less of an issue than losing a key defender, key forward or our ruckman.

Going forward I still think we need a good full back and by good that means being able to get to contests, Dawson had zero defensive one on ones against Freo because he couldn't get to a contest. I think given the pressure we were putting on around the ground, our back line should have held up better than it did, and probably would have if we had our first choice back six.

Nothing is going to be dramatically different against Carlton in terms of availability.
 
They took our contested game away from us last time.

Good test to see where we’re at.

Highly doubt we win.

Inside 4 goals would be good.
We're a different side to that game and so are they but those changes benefit us I reckon. We're a better side right now and they seem to have gone backwards.

We just lost a game against a top eight side who put up a very strong performance in the midfield and there were plenty of things we could improve on from that game. Including the captain's performance.

Inside four goals would be the minimum expectation. They are beatable.
 
Yes.

Freo aren't considered a good ball using team going inside 50, but they went inside 50 48 times and scored 10.13, so that is roughly every 2nd inside 50 resulted in a score. We were a bit fortunate their key forwards missed some fairly easy shots.

It was so bad Clarko thought it was a better idea to sub off Dawson than to replace a fairly immobile Zurhaar due to injury or Simpkin who barely had any time on ground.

Daniels is really poor defensively, but he is important as he takes a lot of the difficult kicks coming out of the back half.

Comben was obviously missing with injury and Logue has missed a lot of footy with his ACL. Corr is also missing and whilst I am not his biggest fan, he is better than a VFL defender. None of our first wish defenders are full backs though and this is a major issue, we haven't been able to replace Tarrant since he left.

McDonald had a really good game but he rarely strings good games together. Hardeman and FOS were really good but are very inexperienced and can't rely on them to hold things together.

The Comben/Logue/Corr thing isn't going to be changing in the near future. Comben is listed as 2-3, Corr 3-4 and I doubt Logue will get back to where he was prior to his ACL until another uninterrupted pre-season.

We are rebuilding, rebuilding sides tend to have zero mature/experienced depth in the reserves. Lists just aren't deep enough to allow you have a competitive team plus the depth you need and enough room to pack in a whole bunch of kids so every team has to make compromises, choose two areas and be deficient in the third. Not all injuries are equal as well, we could probably lose 10 flankers and it would be less of an issue than losing a key defender, key forward or our ruckman.

Going forward I still think we need a good full back and by good that means being able to get to contests, Dawson has zero defensive one on ones because he couldn't get to a contest. I think given the pressure we were putting on around the ground, our back line should have held up better than it did, and probably would have if we had our first choice back six.

Nothing is going to be dramatically different against Carlton.
Sure, but what I saw was a withering burst that won them the game, where our midfield couldn't get near it, and ricochets/rebounds kept going their way.

Someone said Freo were the best transition team. Whether that means turning defensive half possessions into inside 50s or actual scores, I don't know. But they moved the ball fast at times and we managed to neutralise the final entry.

We didn't lose that game through the backline. Look at our own inside 50 efficiency numbers. How many long bombs was it? Felt like a ton. No one was ever going to mark those balls, but we kept hammering away at the same useless strategy, as we always do.

The mid-fwd connection is still our biggest issue. If that was even AFL quality in our side, we probably walk away from three further games so far with a win.

I think saying we don't have a backline does a disservice to the players currently back there. Reckon they did a sterling job with dodgy ground level chaos balls and did ok in the air, Treacy's outpointing of Pink aside. Again, if the opposition team are rebounding at speed through half-forward, you've already lost the defensive battle for that passage. The most you can do is damage control, such as what LMac did when he found himself alone against three Freo runners, and forced Amiss to at least think through his next decision
 

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LDU.

Considering LDU was significantly limited after Freo put on the hard tag, I think we have to assume that Carlton will try the same tactic.

Therefore we can kill two birds with one stone by telling LDU to play a run-with role on Cripps. He's out only midfielder with the size to do it, too.
Don’t mind that as Hewitt smashed LDU last time and got over 30 touches himself.
 
Sure, but what I saw was a withering burst that won them the game, where our midfield couldn't get near it, and ricochets/rebounds kept going their way.

Someone said Freo were the best transition team. Whether that means turning defensive half possessions into inside 50s or actual scores, I don't know. But they moved the ball fast at times and we managed to neutralise the final entry.

We didn't lose that game through the backline. Look at our own inside 50 efficiency numbers. How many long bombs was it? Felt like a ton. No one was ever going to mark those balls, but we kept hammering away at the same useless strategy, as we always do.

The mid-fwd connection is still our biggest issue. If that was even AFL quality in our side, we probably walk away from three further games so far with a win.

I think saying we don't have a backline does a disservice to the players currently back there. Reckon they did a sterling job with dodgy ground level chaos balls and did ok in the air, Treacy's outpointing of Pink aside. Again, if the opposition team are rebounding at speed through half-forward, you've already lost the defensive battle for that passage. The most you can do is damage control, such as what LMac did when he found himself alone against three Freo runners, and forced Amiss to at least think through his next decision

I didn't blame the back six for the loss, I agree our bigger issue is the lack of system in transition.

BUT this is the pre-match discussion so this is what can change in a week type of discussion, not something you can address existential problems, the meaning of life, etc.

The reality is, if we had 100% availability and nobody missed massive chunks of games due to injuries then Comben, Corr, Archer and Goater would be in the side and out would be Pink, Dawson, Hardeman and Fisher and FOS would spend more time up the ground. The only guys remaining in the back half mix would be Logue, Daniels and McDonald

To me, this is a fundamental difference between playing people out of necessity and playing people who you think are best for the job.

If you did the same exercise for the midfield and the forward line there wouldn't be much change, if any.

So when I say we have no back line, I am saying it is what it is and things aren't changing dramatically between last week's game and this game against Carlton.

I didn't say anywhere that I blame the defensive group for last weeks loss.
 
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Apologies I rushed the post. Broadly I don't understand why some are so confident given the beating Carlton gave to us not that long ago.
I wouldn’t call it confident per se. However, we all know that, in footy, very subtle improvements/changes can totally alter the outcome. I remember, back in Spider Burton’s time, we flogged Carlton by 120+ points in the final round of the season. Early the following season, we had to depend on a piece of Wellsy brilliance to drag ourselves over the line against them. The complete lack of anything remotely related to structure on GF was very evident. To me, that’s our improvement area.
 
I didn't blame the back six for the loss, I agree our bigger issue is the lack of system in transition.

BUT this is the pre-match discussion so this is what can change in a week type of discussion, not something you can address existential problems, the meaning of life, etc.

The reality is, if we had 100% availability and nobody missed massive chunks of games due to injuries then Comben, Corr, Archer and Goater would be in the side and out would be Pink, Dawson, Hardeman and Fisher and FOS would spend more time up the ground. The only guys remaining in the back half mix would be Logue, Daniels and McDonald

To me, this is a fundamental difference between playing people out of necessity and playing people who you think are best available for the job.

If you did the same exercise for the midfield and the forward line there wouldn't be much change, if any.

So when I say we have no back line, I am saying it is what it is and things aren't changing dramatically between last week's game and this game against Carlton.

I didn't say anywhere that I blame the defensive group for last weeks loss.
Fair enough. You're right, you never claimed that. I shouldn't have suggested it was the case, though I've got plenty of existential problems I'd be happy to air to an unwilling listener.

I'm not sure Hardeman would be out. I'd say, half a game in or whatever he is, he's almost already our most capable two-way player who plays as a natural defender. FOS is already a sound defender but is a kind of def/mid hybrid.

I also think, with Curnow and McKay's troubles, our 'lack of a backline' doesn't overly factor in. We should be able to cover them, even if Curnow has a recovery back to something approaching a decent level of fitness. Frankly, I'd prefer him to be close to full fitness so that we're switched on and alert.

Course, I might be wrong and Curnow might destroy us in a half on a bung leg or not on a bung leg, but we have to be approaching this believing we can go with them in all parts of the ground. Because we can
 
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Reckon we’ll come out sluggish this week and it’ll cost us the match.

We match last weeks defensive energy, and we’ll win by 35+
I would do unforgiveable things for a win by a margin that doens't have me at max heart rate with 2 minutes to go (refer almost every win we've had for the last 5 years)
 

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Unofficial Preview Changes and pre match discussion vs Carlton


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