Preview Changes vs Essendon

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Young Gun #6

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How come Butcher or Shaw aren't even emergencies? Are either any chance at all of a playing a game this year if Schulz doesn't get injured?
 

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Shaw isnt ready. I doubt we'll see him this year at all even if he kicks 6 goals every week

Based on what? He's our best performing reserves forward right now by a mile, fitness isn't an issue since he reportedly ran 15kms in the game where he kicked 6, and size isn't a problem for him either. On what basis is he 'not ready', other than on some general statement that no young key forward is 'ready' (in which case Jeremy Cameron would like a word with you)?
 
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Based on what? He's our best performing reserves forward right now by a mile, fitness isn't an issue since he reportedly ran 15kms in the game where he kicked 6, and size isn't a problem for him either. On what basis is he 'not ready', other than on some general statement that no young key forward is 'ready' (in which case Jeremy Cameron would like a word with you)?
Obviously mentally not ready for afl or may have gameplan and structure issues
 
Based on what? He's our best performing reserves forward right now by a mile, fitness isn't an issue since he reportedly ran 15kms in the game where he kicked 6, and size isn't a problem for him either. On what basis is he 'not ready', other than on some general statement that no young key forward is 'ready' (in which case Jeremy Cameron would like a word with you)?

Pretty sure one of the coaches was on radio in the last week saying his defensive work and fitness is a long way from AFL ready?
 
Based on what? He's our best performing reserves forward right now by a mile, fitness isn't an issue since he reportedly ran 15kms in the game where he kicked 6, and size isn't a problem for him either. On what basis is he 'not ready', other than on some general statement that no young key forward is 'ready' (in which case Jeremy Cameron would like a word with you)?

I would have liked him to play but I think from a coaches stand point they would like for him to play a few more games at SANFL level because of the injury that had him out for half the season.
 

Ambrosia

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As a Port Adelaide supporter I wouldn't be too worried about our tall forwards. Just take a look at the Melbourne game and you'll see we just can't deliver the ball inside 50 even when under no pressure. You guys will push numbers back and get a third man up and then kill us on the rebound. Where I give Essendon a chance is if we can get on top in the back line and free up Hooker to play loose across half back and continually chop of Port's forward entries.

That being said I expect you're run to be too much for us especially in red time.
 

Smithy7

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Pretty sure one of the coaches was on radio in the last week saying his defensive work and fitness is a long way from AFL ready?
Heard that as well.. he is working on his defensive work and fitness and watching the Sturt game replay again I would say he is on track, but I think a bit more work to do.
He will make AFL that's for sure, but lets not rush him and stuff him up... Ken will know when he is ready.
 

El_Scorcho

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As a Port Adelaide supporter I wouldn't be too worried about our tall forwards. Just take a look at the Melbourne game and you'll see we just can't deliver the ball inside 50 even when under no pressure. You guys will push numbers back and get a third man up and then kill us on the rebound. Where I give Essendon a chance is if we can get on top in the back line and free up Hooker to play loose across half back and continually chop of Port's forward entries.

That being said I expect you're run to be too much for us especially in red time.

My biggest fear for this week is precisely what you guys did to beat us last time. We'll be way too short up forward, and you'll have a mobile tall playing loose in defence taking a heap of marks and cutting off all of our attacking thrusts.

Your tall forwards don't bother me at all. Your tall defenders are potentially an absolute nightmare, especially with the fact that all of your talls can basically play both ends.
 

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Ambrosia

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My biggest fear for this week is precisely what you guys did to beat us last time. We'll be way too short up forward, and you'll have a mobile tall playing loose in defence taking a heap of marks and cutting off all of our attacking thrusts.

Your tall forwards don't bother me at all. Your tall defenders are potentially an absolute nightmare, especially with the fact that all of your talls can basically play both ends.

With news that Hurley's out helps your cause as he would have played on Shulz freeing up Hooker whereas now we'll have to play Hooker on Shulz and hope Fletcher has a good game.
 

Coobk001

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Mitchell does not make us stronger
He is a better player than Clurey at the moment by a long way. I wonder if people have actually seen Clurey playing at the Magpies or they just want to give him games. He is a 2nd year player and still very raw. He can play AFL but he has a long way to develop yet.
My biggest fear for this week is precisely what you guys did to beat us last time. We'll be way too short up forward, and you'll have a mobile tall playing loose in defence taking a heap of marks and cutting off all of our attacking thrusts.

Your tall forwards don't bother me at all. Your tall defenders are potentially an absolute nightmare, especially with the fact that all of your talls can basically play both ends.
Where are they plucking this extra mobile tall from? We are already 1:1 in height Vs their selections. They dont and wont have extra talls to play with except for the couple mins we send Westy into the ruck, and even then at the exact same time they will be down a tall up forward as well as they will have to use their 2nd tall forward in ruck as well. They have exactly the same 2 tall fwd, 1 ruck, 2 tall back structure for this game that we do, how are we vulnerable to anything other than our own gameplan which might benefit from a 3rd tall fwd. The issue certainly wont come from their height.
 
Apr 27, 2008
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Chael Sonnen: Moral Champion
Sam Gray did himself no favours when he took that speccy last week. There will be none of that! No marking targets, only run and carry goals count from now on. Matt White takes top spot in the goal kickers.

Sent from my Lumia 800 using Tapatalk
 

El_Scorcho

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He is a better player than Clurey at the moment by a long way. I wonder if people have actually seen Clurey playing at the Magpies or they just want to give him games. He is a 2nd year player and still very raw. He can play AFL but he has a long way to develop yet.

He is a better player than Clurey but it's situational. Jake Neade is a better player than Renouf, but if i'm picking a ruckman i'm probably going with Renouf.

Where are they plucking this extra mobile tall from? We are already 1:1 in height Vs their selections. They dont and wont have extra talls to play with except for the couple mins we send Westy into the ruck, and even then at the exact same time they will be down a tall up forward as well as they will have to use their 2nd tall forward in ruck as well. They have exactly the same 2 tall fwd, 1 ruck, 2 tall back structure for this game that we do, how are we vulnerable to anything other than our own gameplan which might benefit from a 3rd tall fwd. The issue certainly wont come from their height.

Not counting rucks, their talls are Daniher, Hurley, Carlisle and Hooker.

Jonas and Hombsch are both looking at giving up 10cm in height to their direct opponent. Given that, if Essendon's midfield get on top at all we'll need to be moving Westhoff back very, very quickly. Not only have we lost a lot of height and class in defence, we've lost a lot of leadership. Both generals are gone.

I predict that Westhoff will be spending more than just the odd minute here or there playing outside the forward line. He'll either be leading up, providing a chop out in defence or rucking for long periods in this game.

While that is happening, we'll see Hooker and Hurley/Carlile double teaming Schulz, and every time the ball goes in, one of them will hold Schulz in a contest while the other takes an uncontested mark. If you want further evidence of this, watch the Essendon game from last year, or the Showdown, Melbourne or Sydney games from this year.
 
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Coobk001

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He is a better player than Clurey but it's situation. Jake Neade is a better player than Renouf, but if i'm picking a ruckman i'm probably going with Renouf.

Agreed, if we were without tall forwards and tall backs then I could certainly see us Bringing in the Clurey's and Shaw's if we had to. Lucky given the oppositions selections we still have a couple keys and can afford to try and use that extra spot for run rather than height.

Not counting rucks, their talls are Daniher, Hurley, Carlisle and Hooker.

Jonas and Hombsch are both looking at giving up 10cm in height to their direct opponent. Given that, if Essendon's midfield get on top at all we'll need to be moving Westhoff back very, very quickly. Not only have we lost a lot of height and class in defence, we've lost a lot of leadership. Both generals are gone.

I predict that Westhoff will be spending more than just the odd minute here or there playing outside the forward line. He'll either be leading up, providing a chop out in defence or rucking for long periods in this game.

While that is happening, we'll see Hooker and Hurley/Carlile double teaming Schulz, and every time the ball goes in, one of them will hold Schulz in a contest while the other takes an uncontested mark. If you want further evidence of this, watch the Essendon game from last year, or the Showdown, Melbourne or Sydney games from this year.

We have 2 defenders that are giving away height, but we have no better option for a defensive spot and we have no taller options. So what that sounds like is you're angry at is our drafting not selection. At the end of the day there's no point bringing in another tall so we have 3 talls V 2 down back. That isn't going to magically solve the height issue and they are just going to play through the man that gets left by our 3rd tall back.

You're also making the assumption that we are getting beaten in the midfield and thus have no choice but to send Westy back. If we are getting beaten in the middle we are probably in trouble regardless. At the end of the day we have a good enough midfield to win that battle convincingly and put enough pressure on their ball users to give our defenders a good chance. If we can't do that it is unlikely to matter whether we have Sandilands or Rodan back there defending the talls. Westy may go back once or twice in the game if they get a run on but not heaps. In fact if we get into big trouble it may be more likely that we release O'Shea to float and fill the back half with Jonas, Hombsch, Cassisi, Pittard, Broady and Impey.

At the end of the day, they've gone small and for run/speed. They have not tried to exploit our weakness in the height department and it has played into our hands. The only concern we have is whether another tall forward would've helped us over Mitchell. That is our only question. The rest of the structure is right and the more we run through all these scenarios the more obvious it becomes that the coaching staff have actually thought through this all a lot better than is being done in this thread.
 

ScooterBrother

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especially with the fact that all of your (Essendon) talls can basically play both ends.
This is the point I think a few people are missing.

Yes, 1 for 1, we match up height wise OK with the Bombers, but they have much greater flexibility with their tall options than we do. Carlisle, Hurley and Ryder can play forward and back. Our talls cannot. Even Westhoff is a chop out player when in defense, not an actual defender. They can at any time get a match up to their advantage in their forward line. Dangerous.

The above combined with their actually very good midfield makes me massively worried about this game. If the Bombers are anywhere close to $4 get on it.
 

El_Scorcho

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Agreed, if we were without tall forwards and tall backs then I could certainly see us Bringing in the Clurey's and Shaw's if we had to. Lucky given the oppositions selections we still have a couple keys and can afford to try and use that extra spot for run rather than height.
We have 2 defenders that are giving away height, but we have no better option for a defensive spot and we have no taller options. So what that sounds like is you're angry at is our drafting not selection. At the end of the day there's no point bringing in another tall so we have 3 talls V 2 down back. That isn't going to magically solve the height issue and they are just going to play through the man that gets left by our 3rd tall back.

You're also making the assumption that we are getting beaten in the midfield and thus have no choice but to send Westy back. If we are getting beaten in the middle we are probably in trouble regardless. At the end of the day we have a good enough midfield to win that battle convincingly and put enough pressure on their ball users to give our defenders a good chance. If we can't do that it is unlikely to matter whether we have Sandilands or Rodan back there defending the talls. Westy may go back once or twice in the game if they get a run on but not heaps. In fact if we get into big trouble it may be more likely that we release O'Shea to float and fill the back half with Jonas, Hombsch, Cassisi, Pittard, Broady and Impey.

At the end of the day, they've gone small and for run/speed. They have not tried to exploit our weakness in the height department and it has played into our hands. The only concern we have is whether another tall forward would've helped us over Mitchell. That is our only question. The rest of the structure is right and the more we run through all these scenarios the more obvious it becomes that the coaching staff have actually thought through this all a lot better than is being done in this thread.

Quite obviously, if we play Clurey we can play him one on one with a forward and use Hombsch or Jonas as a chopout instead of having to send Westhoff back.

Playing another tall (any other tall) gives us flexibility. Flexibility that we absolutely don't have with the current selections. The Showdown showed how quickly things can go wrong if you don't have room to move with your talls, and we've gone in even shorter than that. Yes, Essendon don't have the tall forwardline that the Crows have, but given our strength in run and carry, i'd always always always rather not take risks on height.

If we get an injury of any sort to a tall in this game, we have absolutely nowhere to go. It was bad enough when we were playing two more talls than we are now.

You can assume our midfield will beat theirs and you'll probably be right, but we've lost plenty of midfield battles this year where we've been saved by our ability to turn the ball over and rebound. Without Trengove and Carlile we lose a lot of that ability, and that much should have been very very obvious in the 2nd half of the Showdown.

Essendon have the ability to really badly expose us if they get any sort of run on at all. People can claim "Oh we're actually playing a really good structure" all they like, but if Trengove and Carlile were fit, they'd both be playing and in the place of a small.

This is the point I think a few people are missing.

Yes, 1 for 1, we match up height wise OK with the Bombers, but they have much greater flexibility with their tall options than we do. Carlisle, Hurley and Ryder can play forward and back. Our talls cannot. Even Westhoff is a chop out player when in defense, not an actual defender. They can at any time get a match up to their advantage in their forward line. Dangerous.

The above combined with their actually very good midfield makes me massively worried about this game. If the Bombers are anywhere close to $4 get on it.

They're currently at $4.75 on Sportsbet.

The rest of your post is bang on the money.
 

Power Girl

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Well it's time for Young and OShea to stake their claim and i think a few other regular players owe one so if we don't play out of our skins i will be pissed and we deserve to drop down the ladder.
cant wait for next weeks changes
In Neade, Gray
Out Westhoff Hombsch

speed baby!
In: Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay and Yohan Blake
Out: anybody over 170cm tall
 
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