Preview Changes for Rd 11 v Essendon

[ep2018]

I think it was Dylan who said this last season but, we're actually fairly good in rainy games. The problem is, when its dewy (like in QLD games especially at night) we tend to still play dry weather footy without adapting to the slippery ball and get shown up. Essendon looked like a dogs breakfast against Brisbane in the rain about a month ago, and they will be soft after thumping North, not to mention they may keep a key player or two back (like how Adelaide rested Tex) for the Perth trip. Winning is non negotiable.

 

[Chris_6678]

I rate waterman but feel he missed too much of the pre-season and played 1 game of WAFL as a forward and then plays AFL as a HHF/wing with a lack off fitness evident. He played his best game v Crows but looked cooked after 1 1/4 on the weekend. Id be sending him back to play on a wing to nut that role down and get some serious Ks into him. Jones for him is a no brainer.

 

[MrWoollie]

Unfortunately one of the things killing us this year is the BEagles setup. The WAFL have screwed us so badly that we can't even develop guys around a core of mature WAFL bodies. This is destroying the chances of guys like LEdwards and Trew.

The only answer we have at the moment is to play these guys in the AFL for a couple of games each as development mids while Shuey and Duggan are out. It's not ideal but both those guys are hard enough at it and have shown they can work hard in the WAFL while the team is being destroyed to be given a chance to step up.

We seem to be overly ready to reward under-performing established players who have a good game.
Ah Chee is rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, kicks 4 goals, rubbish, rubbish etc. Keeps his spot.
Cripps is fumbles, fumbles, fumbles and selfish, selfish and fumbles, clean and kicks a few, fumbles etc. And keeps his spot. Rename the guy Fumbledore; who's magic trick is keeping his spot.
I'm not calling for wholesale changes, but I am at a point where we have to admit that for some the time as an automatic selection is over and they have become fringe/outside best 22.

We also need to address the tall issue. If Allen is banged up, give him a rest. If not, rest/omit Waterman.
Bring Witherden in if fit. He takes the kick ins and during play works as the attacking half back delivering to Brander as the attacking wing/mid.

Jones comes in.

We were basically a mid down and a tall too many vs. GWS so to fix that let's play LEdwards for Waterman and Jones for Ah Chee. Slot Witherden in for Cole or Nelson.
Cripps falls into the extremely lucky area. Only injuries, stupidity and inability to develop in the WAFL keeps him in.

 

[Chris_6678]

I do hope we can give ledwards and trew a game this season.

 

[EdCurnowRules]

Yes, we will give you Matt Guelfi for Jake Waterman.

Yuk

 

[kranky al]

Waterman and Ah Chee out for Jones and Yeo, ideally.

Brander had a crack but was damn frustrating yesterday. He was getting caught in the tackle time and time again. Either too slow to get it away or trying to take on tackles which he just isn't strong enough to break. A couple of brainfarts thrown in for good measure. He stays in for mine but another sub-par performance and I'd think real hard about giving an opportunity to a young mid.

He also got called htb for tackles that a fkxtonne of players on the oppo team got away with.

Also The umpires seem to have a separate “dusty” rule for how long you can swing around in circles before handballing out.

There are the dusty in crowd who get 720°

And then theres other teams who get 360°

And then us who a half minute of one degree over 270° is htb

 

[PremiershipNo4]

2018 GF talls in the team
Barrass, Darling, Kennedy, Lycett, McGovern, Schofield, Vardy. That’s 7 players.

2021 vs Giants
Barrass, Darling, Kennedy, NicNat, Allen, Rotham, Brander, Waterman, Edwards, Williams. That’s 10

We have a serious team imbalance and gets really shown up against teams with very strong midfields, we really need to address this ASAP. Just playing way too many talls.
Selection panel have just plain got it wrong, asking Sheed and Kelly to perform miracles, they’re good but not that ****ing good.

 

[WCErevival]

Hutch is now an ‘in case of emergency break glass’ player.

Not there yet.

Much rather XON - give Yeo another week or two and then if his body is holding up, pull the trigger.

Hutch is the glass

 

[Happy Mastenator]

We need to keep Williams in. The worst thing we could do is play Oscar all season as the second ruck, just asking to break him. Save Oscar as the second ruck for finals (unless against Gawn).

 

[Bacchus]

We need to keep Williams in. The worst thing we could do is play Oscar all season as the second ruck, just asking to break him. Save Oscar as the second ruck for finals (unless against Gawn).

Agree with this, although I wouldn’t be dropping Williams for finals if he’s been playing there all year. Although he is a good player at his best, Waterman is the one who has to be dropped. If Brander is to play on the wing and in the midfield he has to play this role as a midfielder not as a 6’5 player. Rotham is a tall flanker, a third tall backman.

 

[ep2018]

Will be interesting to see what happens if Essendon aren't allowed into the state. Perhaps an early bye?

 

[Bacchus]

Will be interesting to see what happens if Essendon aren't allowed into the state. Perhaps an early bye?

Oh no, don’t say this, ****ing COVID.

 

[Doashuey]

I rate waterman but feel he missed too much of the pre-season and played 1 game of WAFL as a forward and then plays AFL as a HHF/wing with a lack off fitness evident. He played his best game v Crows but looked cooked after 1 1/4 on the weekend. Id be sending him back to play on a wing to nut that role down and get some serious Ks into him. Jones for him is a no brainer.

Waterman was second only to Gaff in kms run over the weekend. He does tend to look knackered at times but the lad has a tank.
That said, I would rather Jones in for him this week, he had very little impact.

 

[Eagle Wrath]

A lot of rain forecast for our game on Saturday. Picking a tall side again will really show this week.

 

[SloppyJoe]

He also got called htb for tackles that a fkxtonne of players on the oppo team got away with.

Also The umpires seem to have a separate “dusty” rule for how long you can swing around in circles before handballing out.

There are the dusty in crowd who get 720°

And then theres other teams who get 360°

And then us who a half minute of one degree over 270° is htb

Yeah he did get hard done by on 1 or 2 occasions - particularly that one in the first quarter. But he also bit off more than he could chew at other times.

He has a great step and can be quite evasive if he has a bit of space. It's when someone is right near him as he takes possession that he struggles to get his arms up and get rid of it. Like I said, at least he has a crack. Needs to play to his strengths though and the contested stuff isn't it (yet).

 

[southcoast]

Will be interesting to see what happens if Essendon aren't allowed into the state. Perhaps an early bye?

There is no need to change plans for this weekends game.

Coz we corral, and don’t tackle, no risk of transmission.

Edit - Essendon to hub in Perth. Comment pls Gerard?

 

[Eagle Wrath]

In - jones, O'neill
Out - Waterman, Ah Chee

We lost the GWS game partly due to lack of midfield rotations. Sheed, Redden and Kelly were in there most of the game. I only saw Ah chee swap once with them.
And it showed in the last quarter.

I watched Yeo in the WAFL game and would love to include him but he needs another week at least. By his own words, he had trouble reading the play at times and gassed quickly.

 

[kranky al]

Yeah he did get hard done by on 1 or 2 occasions - particularly that one in the first quarter. But he also bit off more than he could chew at other times.

He has a great step and can be quite evasive if he has a bit of space. It's when someone is right near him as he takes possession that he struggles to get his arms up and get rid of it. Like I said, at least he has a crack. Needs to play to his strengths though and the contested stuff isn't it (yet).

Personally i think a developing midfielder/ winger should be caught holding the ball once or twice a game - shows they are trying to find the best option or take the tackler on rather than just hot potato the ball.

Remember that final against collingwood where shuey got caught twice. He doesnt get caught any more…. sfa anyway…

as a player develops that core strength they will shrug tackles - especially when they have decent pace.

Im prepared to be patient there.

 

[Nuke Fremantle]

So apparently Sheppard's ankle is still sore and he's waiting on the result of scans. I can't remember any player being sent for a medical scan and the result being "nothing to see here, must be just a bit of pain".

If he's out the defence is looking undermanned; McGovern,Duggan,Sheppard and possibly Witherden out.

Foley's been closed to being picked before, will it finally be his debut this week?

 

[squashface]

So apparently Sheppard's ankle is still sore and he's waiting on the result of scans. I can't remember any player being sent for a medical scan and the result being "nothing to see here, must be just a bit of pain".

If he's out the defence is looking undermanned; McGovern,Duggan,Sheppard and possibly Witherden out.

Foley's been closed to being picked before, will it finally be his debut this week?

No obsessed, just a fan? Foley debuted last year and has already played this season as well.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Foley would probably be next in if both Shep and Witherden are unavailable. But geez that’d be an inexperienced backline. Foley, Hedwards and Rotham all sub 25 games and only Hurn having played more than 100 (albeit a lot more)

 

[Carbine Chaos]

Am I alone on the Johnson bandwagon?

I'd love to see him be given a chance to add the rebound we've been sorely lacking since Jetta. Or doesn't that fit into our slow chip, chip plan that basically every other flanker on the list offers us?

 

[darksquare]

Jones in for Waterman improves the height and pressure in the forward line.
We still have AhChee (forward/utility) running through the midfield; it seems likely he'll get a reprieve until a mid we trust (Yeo) is fully fit. I'd still consider replacing him with a partly-fit Yeo, or Hutchings, or Nelson as a tagger if Witherden is fit.

There are some obvious changes once players return: Gov for Edwards, Duggan for a medium defender, Shuey for a midfielder, Rioli for a small forward.

The obvious conundrum is the ruck. I'm not sure whether we would get more out of Allen ruck/forward and Waterman forward, than Williams ruck/forward and Allen forward. The first combination is more mobile, but the second is probably better for the long-term development of both Allen and Williams. I suspect we don't have the answer now, but let's start finding out by playing only two of them instead of all three.

 

[Happy Mastenator]

No obsessed, just a fan? Foley debuted last year and has already played this season as well.

 

[Yippy Yi Yeo]

The amount of talls we're playing is having a knock on effect onto everything else, and I think it's our biggest problem right now and needs to be addressed. By picking so many talls it limits the amount of time NN or more so Williams can spend forward so as a result those 2 guys have only spent on average 58.75% TOG between them the last 2 weeks. When you then consider we're already playing a couple of mids short so our primary mids are probably spending more time on ball than they should they're tiring out later in games and this is then compounded by the fact they aren't able to spend as much time on the bench as they might need because we have 2 guys taking up a large chunk of our total bench time.

Rainy game this week so definitely can't go in as tall, and GWS are taller than essendon from memory. Need to bring in Jones and another mid, either O'neill or Trew. I wouldn't worry about how they went in the WAFL, the team is in shambles so I don't think you can take too much from it and any of them would likely perform better playing in the AFL side. Drop waterman and maybe Ah Chee.