Preview Lions 2019 Discussion

[mpal6]

The next three games; Dogs away, Crows Home and Freo away will shape the rest of our season I think.

Crows and dogs feel winnable, Freo no so much as they are playing very good football right now.

These games are huge modifiers of our season. If we lose all three I find it hard to find a scenario where we make finals. Win 2/3 and with the games we've got coming up it's really easy to find a couple of situations where we are in.

If we find ourselves 7-3 after the Freo match with games against Carton, North (at Gabba), dogs (at Gabba), Hawks (at Gabba) and the suns still in play it's really easy to see a path to finals even if you write off the games against Port, GWS, Richmond and Geelong as losses right now.

Reckon we'll know in 3 weeks if we're a chance to genuinely launch for finals this year. Probably the biggest run of genuine 50/50 games that have the chance to shape our season.

Exciting times ahead and weird to even be talking about this.

I like our chances against teams who play with big bodies, contested footy and talls at either end. Our playing style match up well against these type of teams and if we produce for 3 quarters, we win. More confident on Adelaide and Fremantle games, even against GWS and Geelong we will compete very well in my opinion.

I still don't know whether we have a game style to counter nimble, fleet footed teams who are precise in ball movement. They usually beat us to ground ball and we get caught in fast break on the outside. So far we have lost against Essendon and Collingwood who play this style. Bulldogs and Richmond will also fall in this group.

I am looking forward to see how our coaching group evolve the game plan to counter this fast movement style - whether it means we bring certain players in for particular games, how are we getting the balance between runners and talls, are we just going to back ourselves in with 3 tall forwards (Hippy, McStay, Oscar) and a slow tallish defense (Hodge, Andrews, Walker) etc. Interesting times.

 

[RU_]

I still don’t really rate Freo.
Smashed North which isn’t much this season, got done by the Gold Coast, albeit away, limped by the Saints, had a close loss to the Eagles who aren’t much chop at the moment and they somehow beat the Giants and got by the doggies at home.

The only real impressive one to me here is the Giants win, I want to see how they go over the next few weeks before I make my mind up on them.

 

[mpal6]

I still don’t really rate Freo.
Smashed North which isn’t much this season, got done by the Gold Coast, albeit away, limped by the Saints, had a close loss to the Eagles who aren’t much chop at the moment and they somehow beat the Giants and got by the doggies at home.

The only real impressive one to me here is the Giants win, I want to see how they go over the next few weeks before I make my mind up on them.

It's scary they are going 4-2 while fine tuning their forward line. Hogan's biggest plus apparently is that he takes opposition's best defender away and runs them ragged further up the ground, while rest of the forward line benefit from it.

If they get their balance right by the second half of this season, it's exciting times for Freo fans.

 

[RU_]

It's scary they are going 4-2 while fine tuning their forward line. Hogan's biggest plus apparently is that he takes opposition's best defender away and runs them ragged further up the ground, while rest of the forward line benefit from it.

If they get their balance right by the second half of this season, it's exciting times for Freo fans.

Our fitness is top notch, bring it on!

 

[POBT]

I still don't know whether we have a game style to counter nimble, fleet footed teams who are precise in ball movement. They usually beat us to ground ball and we get caught in fast break on the outside. So far we have lost against Essendon and Collingwood who play this style.

I don’t know that I agree with this entirely. Or, maybe more accurately, I don’t know that the Essendon and Collingwood game is enough evidence to draw the conclusion.

I think we lost to Essendon and Collingwood because our contested game was poor and our pressure was non-existent for large parts of the game. We allowed them to play their preferred way, rather than their style beating our best endeavours. If our pressure was that poor against West Coast and Port, we’d have lost those games too. Conversely, had we applied the sort of pressure we did in Q1 v Sydney and Q2 v West Coast, I reckon we’d have beaten Essendon and at least put up a better fight against Collingwood.

I think modern footy success depends on two things - your ability to apply pressure and your ability to cope with pressure. Perhaps that’s a simplistic way of looking at the game but every time I watch the game, the team that applies the greatest amount of pressure has the highest chance of winning.

Long story short, when we get our pressure game going and provided we don’t turn the ball over too often, it really doesn’t matter how the opposition sets up and likes to play.

 

[Jivlain]

Full marks to Cuts on this one

 

[BRAB]

Full marks to Cuts on this one

Looks like Neale just rocked up in what he usually wears.

 

[Hollow Knight]

Think Oscar didn’t get the memo.

 

[dlanod]

Phew no one in blackface.

 

[Jivlain]

Phew no one in blackface.

Cleverly they didn't have Archie in the photo

 

[Gadzorks]

Our fitness is top notch, bring it on!

And every one of those blokes who stayed in Brisbane and cranked their fitness in the off season now knows what it takes to get, and stay, elite. I am certain they will do it again next year.

And pretty sure Cam will be joining them next time around.

 

[Hollow Knight]

And every one of those blokes who stayed in Brisbane and cranked their fitness in the off season now knows what it takes to get, and stay, elite. I am certain they will do it again next year.

And pretty sure Cam will be joining them next time around.

On top of the brutal boxing sessions he did on the side?

 

[Gadzorks]

On top of the brutal boxing sessions he did on the side?

Lol Good point - but yep. Even on top of that.

 

[BangyBangy]

On top of the brutal boxing sessions he did on the side?

Pfft. He doesn't seem any tougher to me. How brutal were they?

 

[BangyBangy]

And every one of those blokes who stayed in Brisbane and cranked their fitness in the off season now knows what it takes to get, and stay, elite. I am certain they will do it again next year.

And pretty sure Cam will be joining them next time around.

Is there an unofficial list of our players who did the 'cranked their fitness' program? Is this actually a thing or just something we've made up on BF? I did see aside from the boxing, that a few of the players (including Cam) were playing basketball. Was there much else?

 

[bungalow_bill]

If every single player doesn't 'train the house down' I'll be deeply disappointed

 

[Scubaveg]

So, um, sign a contract Clugga!


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[Hollow Knight]

So, um, sign a contract Clugga!


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He extended his original contract by three years which means he still has two years after this one. I don’t think there is any massive hurry for him to extend further yet, especially as he is on a serious rise right now. Dude is gonna get paid on his next contract.

 

[Tom14]

He extended his original contract by three years which means he still has two years after this one. I don’t think there is any massive hurry for him to extend further yet, especially as he is on a serious rise right now. Dude is gonna get paid on his next contract.

Even if we offered him a very generous original extension for his age he’s still going to be underpaid relative to performance. Makes total sense for him to wait until next year at the earliest for any sort of extension and maximise his value.

 

[Dalions]

Pfft. He doesn't seem any tougher to me. How brutal were they?

Hows the whiplash on his right ear?

 

[Gadzorks]

Is there an unofficial list of our players who did the 'cranked their fitness' program? Is this actually a thing or just something we've made up on BF? I did see aside from the boxing, that a few of the players (including Cam) were playing basketball. Was there much else?

Multiple players have mentioned it in interviews - in particular hodge has talked about how he had heard a group were training when he got home from being in Victoria and he showed up to a session to see what was happening. He said there were more than 20 players t the sessions and pushing hard. He did mention a couple of names - Mathieson was one but he didn’t list the names. Others here might remember the names he gave.

Fagan has talked about how the group got into contested work earlier than expected due to the condition the players came back in after their dedication during the break.

Heaps of stuff around.

 

[dlanod]

Cleverly they didn't have Archie in the photo

Reuben was the culprit last time - good thing he's gone.

 

[M Malice]

Gary Lyon and Tim Watson asking the question- Can the Lions win the flag this season?

Apparently both the Bulldogs and the Tigers were 5-2 in their flag seasons and would have been looked on as no hope at that stage of the season as well.

 

[Scubaveg]

He extended his original contract by three years which means he still has two years after this one. I don’t think there is any massive hurry for him to extend further yet, especially as he is on a serious rise right now. Dude is gonna get paid on his next contract.

Actually wasn’t aware of that, thank you! Going to get paid a motsa and rightly so!


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[Nunez]

Gary Lyon and Tim Watson asking the question- Can the Lions win the flag this season?

Apparently both the Bulldogs and the Tigers were 5-2 in their flag seasons and would have been looked on as no hope at that stage of the season as well.

If (and it's a big if) we can have our best 22 out there, Mcstay can finally break out and we can keep having 30 shots a game then sure we could win.

Will we? Very, very unlikely.