Opinion Changes vs Richmond

[Valentino]

You can't use the "well they are the professionals" line when we're losing in embarrassing fashion. It's a shit argument. The people on this board in general watch a lot of football and know a bit about it. If Kern and the coaches got everything right we'd win the flag every year.

There is also the pretty important fact that height doesn't make you a KPP.

Schulz is a marking target but is only 193cm. Similarly, Hombsch is a gun KPD despite only being 193. O'Shea is the same height and is 5cm taller than Tom Jonas, but who plays better as a tall defensive stopper?

Going line for line is meaningless in that sense, but you'd still find Richmond with a pretty significant advantage for talls. They'll have 3 guys who can genuinely go through the ruck against our 2nd gamer, and one of those guys is going to sit in the hole in front of Dixon all game while he is marked by another tall.

Richmond will have the ability to throw their talls back or forward much more freely than we will and if they get on top of us tactically, we don't have the flexibility to adjust. We are currently selecting 3 less KPPs than we selected in round 1. How's that for being brave with the gameplan and strategy?

Maybe I don't watch enough football, but it would seem to me that height and the number of KPPs isn't our biggest problem, it's effort and workrate.
I would love to see Butch make it but I don't think he has done enough to demand a call up yet. Same goes for Logan Austin. Lobbe needs to go back and find form so I have less of a problem than many with the 22 selected with question marks over Neade and Gray.
Yes, they appear to be rolling the dice with gameplan and strategy but this may just be the game to do it. We will know by 9.30 tonight.

 

[bos10]

When was t he last time we bought in a player from the sanfl and they actually performed well and then kept their spot by playing consistent, good football? And we all thought, geez we might have found a player here?

It just doesnt ******* happen

DBJ

 

[SureBuddy]

Any word on reiwoldt's ankle? Am assuming cause I haven't heard anything he'll get up

Doc Larkins on SEN last night said he is still a 50/50. He wants to get up and play, but hasn't actually fully tested it out yet. Will be given every chance right up until the game. His ankle is still apparently the size of a balloon.
Actually be better if he stupidly plays, he will not have his electric speed or leap.

 

[mic59]

Doc Larkins on SEN last night said he is still a 50/50. He wants to get up and play, but hasn't actually fully tested it out yet. Will be given every chance right up until the game. His ankle is still apparently the size of a balloon.
Actually be better if he stupidly plays, he will not have his electric speed or leap.

If there was a rumour like this about one of our players, I'd expect the truth to be something like that they had a 3-week injury, or that the Port medicos wanted to be careful with it. With Richmond I get the impression it may be smoke and mirrors and Riewoldt will play at full capacity.

 

[1954]

You can't use the "well they are the professionals" line when we're losing in embarrassing fashion. It's a shit argument. The people on this board in general watch a lot of football and know a bit about it. If Kern and the coaches got everything right we'd win the flag every year.

There is also the pretty important fact that height doesn't make you a KPP.

Schulz is a marking target but is only 193cm. Similarly, Hombsch is a gun KPD despite only being 193. O'Shea is the same height and is 5cm taller than Tom Jonas, but who plays better as a tall defensive stopper?

Going line for line is meaningless in that sense, but you'd still find Richmond with a pretty significant advantage for talls. They'll have 3 guys who can genuinely go through the ruck against our 2nd gamer, and one of those guys is going to sit in the hole in front of Dixon all game while he is marked by another tall.

Richmond will have the ability to throw their talls back or forward much more freely than we will and if they get on top of us tactically, we don't have the flexibility to adjust. We are currently selecting 3 less KPPs than we selected in round 1. How's that for being brave with the gameplan and strategy?

Agreed, 3 tigger talls with the potential to rotate on a 2nd game ruckman ( who as far as I am aware didn't spend much time in the ruck for the Maggies last week ) has to be a huge gamble, and while I have no issue with Lobbe's eventual omission, I'm not so sure it should have been done with Wacko Jacko on the sidelines.

Maybe ( hopefully ) the midfield set ups will be better suited to the ruck situation, and/or a number of the midfielders will lift way beyond what most of them have shown for the first 5 rounds.

If Ken has any tricks left up his sleeve, tonight may be the night to use them.

 

[philthy05]

Maybe I don't watch enough football, but it would seem to me that height and the number of KPPs isn't our biggest problem, it's effort and workrate.
I would love to see Butch make it but I don't think he has done enough to demand a call up yet. Same goes for Logan Austin. Lobbe needs to go back and find form so I have less of a problem than many with the 22 selected with question marks over Neade and Gray.
Yes, they appear to be rolling the dice with gameplan and strategy but this may just be the game to do it. We will know by 9.30 tonight.

1. Yes our midfield is the biggest problem. That does not make it OK to forget about structure and talls. If anything it makes it harder for the midfield. Anytime they do get it right their efforts will be for nought because there is a free tall defender sitting in space marking every forward entry. That is demoralising and more often then not when you blast a team for how they move the ball , it's because of what is happening downfield.

2. If butcher doesn't have the form then neither does half the team that is getting picked. Why does he have a harsher criteria then the rest?

3. Even if we win tonight this is not a strategy that will help us win finals in long run. What are we here to achieve? I know what I want. Finals football has shown time and time again. Even hawthorn , who probably have been said to be one of the weakest team of talls has had 2 of Campbell/ renouf / hale / McEvoy going through the rucks and Roughead as well. Have had Roughead , hale , Franklin and Gunston in its forward line and continually shopping to bring in tall defenders that can stop the aerial ball.

4. Regardless of whether we win or not tonight we are also missing out on so much. Butcher has improved greatly in the off season. Can he show that at afl level? Maybe should we find out before the end of the season and the option is to cut an untested butcher and the only chance we have of another key forward to pair with Dixon next year is to do what ? Carlile is 29 next season. Does any of our next batch of defenders have something to show at afl level ? Wouldn't that be handy to know?


If we ever want to win finals football , we are going to need to play a good spine. No one is going to hand us those players on a silver platter. We are going to have to develop them ourselves.

This might sound horrible to you , but I would rather lose this game and half of the rest of them if it meant building a team that could win finals football then win this game and others with a side that can never take us forward in finals.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Maybe I don't watch enough football, but it would seem to me that height and the number of KPPs isn't our biggest problem, it's effort and workrate.

You can have more than one big problem.

I'd also argue that our effort and workrate comes down to the fact that the players don't believe in the gameplan, which is directly related to how we're structuring up.

I would love to see Butch make it but I don't think he has done enough to demand a call up yet.

He's been performing at a consistently good level and we need a KPF to replace Schulz, who went out of the team 5 weeks ago, and now just general talls to replace the KPDs we've lost so we can shuffle people around and move Westhoff down back.

He's been in the bests for 2 out of his 4 games and is averaging more than 2 goals a game at this point.

At what point do we just pick him because he's playing well? Does he have to be in the bests every single week? Does he have to average 3 goals a game? 4?

How about we just pick him when he'd make our AFL side a better team, like right now.

Same goes for Logan Austin. Lobbe needs to go back and find form so I have less of a problem than many with the 22 selected with question marks over Neade and Gray.

So your genuine argument at this point is that we should persist with Neade over Butcher because Butcher hasn't played quite well enough to get selected, despite Neade having had zero impact all year? Come on. We're bad. We need to change something up. We don't have the luxury at the moment of carrying a player so woefully out of form when we have players performing in the reserves.

Yes, they appear to be rolling the dice with gameplan and strategy but this may just be the game to do it. We will know by 9.30 tonight.

This was a fine argument when I started making the "We really need to start picking Butcher" posts in 2014, because we were winning. It was hard to argue when people said what Ken knew what he was doing and it was a bad idea to change a winning formula.

Well we're 9 wins and 13 losses over our last 22 games or 12-15 stretching back to the start of 2015. Butcher has played in 5 of those games for a 4-1 record.

We're not playing good footy, we're playing absolute garbage, where the gameplan looks awful and players are woefully out of form.

 

[port always]

You can have more than one big problem.

I'd also argue that our effort and workrate comes down to the fact that the players don't believe in the gameplan, which is directly related to how we're structuring up.



He's been performing at a consistently good level and we need a KPF to replace Schulz, who went out of the team 5 weeks ago, and now just general talls to replace the KPDs we've lost so we can shuffle people around and move Westhoff down back.

He's been in the bests for 2 out of his 4 games and is averaging more than 2 goals a game at this point.

At what point do we just pick him because he's playing well? Does he have to be in the bests every single week? Does he have to average 3 goals a game? 4?

How about we just pick him when he'd make our AFL side a better team, like right now.



So your genuine argument at this point is that we should persist with Neade over Butcher because Butcher hasn't played quite well enough to get selected, despite Neade having had zero impact all year? Come on. We're bad. We need to change something up. We don't have the luxury at the moment of carrying a player so woefully out of form when we have players performing in the reserves.



This was a fine argument when I started making the "We really need to start picking Butcher" posts in 2014, because we were winning. It was hard to argue when people said what Ken knew what he was doing and it was a bad idea to change a winning formula.

Well we're 9 wins and 13 losses over our last 22 games or 12-15 stretching back to the start of 2015. Butcher has played in 5 of those games for a 4-1 record.

We're not playing good footy, we're playing absolute garbage, where the gameplan looks awful and players are woefully out of form.

Butcher would do better than Neade but so would Joel Cross

 

[Schulzenfest]

Call me crazy but I'm actually cautiously optimistic about this game. The structure still concerns me, but the personnel could be a blessing in disguise. Remember how well we played against the Swans in the NAB without our stars? Notice how well the Crows are playing without Dangerfield?

This mob have been sitting back and letting Gray and/or Wingard do all the work for them since 2015. There's no sitting back on Saturday. Hopefully this is the collective kick up the arse they need. We need 22 contributors out there, not two stars and 20 passengers.

PM me for next week's Lotto numbers

 

[JHF1870]

We will win this one.

Just saying

 

[Forzaport]

PM me for next week's Lotto numbers

I see your post and raise you mine:

It's true that we're missing a lot of talent out of our 22, although I think our Ins have been a little understated.

Polec and Krakouer are easily best 22, you could argue Impey is as well. Ah Chee is borderline but got an AFL start in 2016 after a strong finish to 2015. Howard is really the only depth player and even then, given Lobbe's form, the bar hasn't been set high.

Losing R.Gray and Wingard would be bad if they were in AA form but both of them have been terrible the past 2 weeks so on current form their replacements are probably upgrades. There's a real chance we could be the most competitive we've been all year.

 

[Seanybruz]

I along with plenty others were wrong, superstitiously i'm not sure if I should melt again next week just to not change what I did this week or not because I would love repeat efforts like that for the rest of the season thanks.

 

[Humdot]

Reading over this thread will be hilarious after we win on Saturday night.

Yeah, this is pretty gold.