Preview Rd 9 vs Melbourne Changes

[I drive a truck]

You want Ladhams out? I understand wanting someone to support him.

he’s still our best choice with Lycett out though

Is he though? He was destroyed by young Saints ruck, Marshall and the other youngster, Ryder. How will he go against Gawn. He gave away 127 free kicks last week. Had 20 disposals but what did they achieve? We don’t need another ruck rover, we need a ruckman. Hayes is our best tap ruckman. Watched him beating Lycett in pre-season at centre and around the ground ball ups but not at boundary throw ins. Just lacks a little strength. He is a ruck though!!


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[Power Raid]

Rockliff I can understand, if Lycett isn't ready then a capable ball winner is okay.

But Westhoff I don't even. It goes against basically every principle.

Westhoff originally dropped because he's been crap. Plays his worst game of the season... gets rewarded to being the second option up forward.

Port played Tom Hawkins into form all those years back. Perhaps we can do the same for Westhoff.

 

[Spadge]

Im not playing this year but anyone playing supercoach would be ****ing stupid not to make Gawn captain this week. He is going to have a field day

Not feeling good about this game at all. In fact im less confident this week than i was last week and i had a feeling we'd shit the bed against the saints

 

[PJ Power]

I reckon our form line over the past four weeks is a sign that we’re going to stay a 6-8 goal team for the next few weeks and will struggle to post a winning score against any of our next four opponents.
An exceptional turn around in Boak, Rozee, Gray and Wine’s form is required.

 

[RossFC]

Bonner being an emergency makes me think Ken is going to pull a Hoff and bring him in late.

 

[snozulu]

We will lose this the same way as last week. Smashed by the umps and midfield battle

 

[afl2004]

Thank god this match is tomorrow.
No putting up dreading the game for another 2 to 3 days

 

[Mutha F]

So I guess it's Hoff forward to replace Marshall.
Lienert to replace Hoff as the 3rd tall defender.
Houston to replace Bonner in the backline.
Rockliff to replace Houston in the middle.

Sounds about right.
And all so so stupid.
Lienert may go ok but height still an issue back.
Houston one of the only performing mids replaced by Captain slow.
Hoff. Playing so badly that the gold pass he has must make our talls waiting for a chance get straight on the phone to their managers.

 

[Mutha F]

Its no secret I am not in Westhoff's fan club, but for some reason he is beloved by most fans.
I think he is in serious danger of ending his career on a sour note.
He'd want to play well. But to be honest I don't think he gives a crap about what people think or how the team goes. Still gets paid.

 

[Kingfish73]

Start of year, the young enthusiasm generated a spark to enjoy our football and play attacking football as a team. Now our solution is to back ageing players out of form. Out of all weeks, this was the time to inject a Hayes, Bergman, Williams or Garner. Not ready? When is ready? When you play 4 poor games in a row, you are a primed to keep your spot? This game will be a boring slogfest of congested contested football won at stoppages and scoring through those small occasions where the sling shot exposes a team. And that exposed team will be port. Excitement level = meh

Sack Hinkley

 

[PJ Power]

I can’t see how our selected side can win this unless there are some extraordinary individual heroics.
We couldn’t have selected two more plodding, static players than Rockliff and Lienert.

We know what will happen in the ruck.
They have in form mids, we don’t.
They have a tall defender in May who will probably quell Dixon’s influence. We have a third game pseudo tall forward to support him aerially.
Our backs will be horribly undersized again.
Our two small trump cards in Gray and Rozee are out of form. I don’t think Rozee’s kicked a goal in five weeks.

Short of Gray, Rozee or Dixon having an excellent game and Wines and Boak dominating at Gawn’s feet, I just can’t see how we kick enough goals to win.

Too many players out of form.

 

[gbear]

I can’t see how our selected side can win this unless there are some extraordinary individual heroics.
We couldn’t have selected two more plodding, static players than Rockliff and Lienert.

We know what will happen in the ruck.
They have in form mids, we don’t.
They have a tall defender in May who will probably quell Dixon’s influence. We have a third game pseudo tall forward to support him aerially.
Our backs will be horribly undersized again.
Our two small trump cards in Gray and Rozee are out of form. I don’t think Rozee’s kicked a goal in five weeks.

Short of Gray, Rozee or Dixon having an excellent game and Wines and Boak dominating at Gawn’s feet, I just can’t see how we kick enough goals to win.

Too many players out of form.

Too many players that need to be rested. Port should roll the dice and play some of the youngsters, as we have all seen the movie before and we know what is ahead. It is time to develop new blood and stop selecting players like Westhoff and Bonner.

 

[Dalfino]

So I guess it's Hoff forward to replace Marshall.
Lienert to replace Hoff as the 3rd tall defender.
Houston to replace Bonner in the backline.
Rockliff to replace Houston in the middle.

This all actually makes quite a lot of sense structurally on paper if you don't consider the following:

• Westhoff is in the worst form of his career and has shown time and time again he can't play forward or ruck, especially against a bloke like Gawn
• Lienert is more of a flanker than a third tall, although not much else we can do with McKenzie still out
• Without Houston in the middle we become slow and inefficient rolling with Wines, Rockliff and an out-of-form Boak.
• Rozee, Gray and numerous others look spent and need a spell

I understand going with the experience they have, it makes some sort of sense, but it's just more golden pass and playing-it-safe bullshit at the end of the day. We're in a crazy year, time to do something a little crazy at the selection table.

 

[Leaveit2charlie]

I can see Rozee being a late out. Would not hurt he's going to be largely ineffective until that heel is right.

 

[RossFC]

I can see Rozee being a late out. Would not hurt he's going to be largely ineffective until that heel is right.

What does Ken gain by murdering best 22 players that need time off while perfectly good depth players are left sitting on their thumb, with the odd AFLX scratch match every few weeks.

 

[bomberclifford]

Considering we have a game on Monday night as well, perhaps we’ll make some significant changes after tonight’s game?

The next two weeks is going to be interesting in terms of seeing the rolling selections. We’d want our best team possible ready for the Saturday Richmond game, which is 9 days away with a FIFO game tonight and a Monday night home game in the interim.

 

[Willsy10]

Good to see we’ve gone from premiership contenders to zero chance of beating Melbourne in the space of a week.

There’s fickle and then there’s Port fans on big footy. Will we be a flag favourite again if we beat Melbourne?

Look I’m not confident either, but I haven’t been confident all season. They’re playing okay but not at a level that gives you confidence of them definitely winning. But they’re a big chance to win this game, they should and deserve to be favourites.

Some of the white flag waving on here is ridiculous.


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[TeeKray]

Good to see we’ve gone from premiership contenders to zero chance of beating Melbourne in the space of a week.

There’s fickle and then there’s Port fans on big footy. Will we be a flag favourite again if we beat Melbourne?

Look I’m not confident either, but I haven’t been confident all season. They’re playing okay but not at a level that gives you confidence of them definitely winning. But they’re a big chance to win this game, they should and deserve to be favourites.

Some of the white flag waving on here is ridiculous.


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It's almost like looking a million bucks early in the season before dropping off but still winning less convincingly and finally dropping our bundle completely mid season is something we've seen our team do in 5 of the past 7 years and by now some of us can see the big red flashing warning lights well before the inevitable collapse begins.

 

[Port Adel Proud]

It's almost like looking a million bucks early in the season before dropping off but still winning less convincingly and finally dropping our bundle completely mid season is something we've seen our team do in 5 of the past 7 years and by now some of us can see the big red flashing warning lights well before the inevitable collapse begins.

They call it an endless loop. But, pro tem, never ever overestimate MFC. Cheer up Teekray.

 

[Willsy10]

It's almost like looking a million bucks early in the season before dropping off but still winning less convincingly and finally dropping our bundle completely mid season is something we've seen our team do in 5 of the past 7 years and by now some of us can see the big red flashing warning lights well before the inevitable collapse begins.

When did we look a million bucks? We have been far from convincing all year. The game last Saturday was probably no different to the week before and even the week before that just the last 5-10 minutes went one way against the saints but the other way against the giants and blues.

The fact that we haven’t played that well for 3 weeks but have won 2 out of 3 against opponents I rate higher than Melbourne means I still give us a chance tonight.

I’ll worry about the collapse when it happens.


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[Spadge]

Good to see we’ve gone from premiership contenders to zero chance of beating Melbourne in the space of a week.

There’s fickle and then there’s Port fans on big footy. Will we be a flag favourite again if we beat Melbourne?

Look I’m not confident either, but I haven’t been confident all season. They’re playing okay but not at a level that gives you confidence of them definitely winning. But they’re a big chance to win this game, they should and deserve to be favourites.

Some of the white flag waving on here is ridiculous.

The issue here is we have all seen this movie before.. multiple times..

I dont blame ANY Port supporter (myself included) for thinking and feeling that the wheels are going to fall off. In fact they are a bit wobbly already

 

[Adz2332]

Very uninspiring changes.
Can see us getting belted in the ruck and midfield.
Im expecting another saints like game and result.

 

[Chizza12]

So Drew has been injured all year, plays 1 trial game and is named as an emergency, what is that all about!

 

[gbear]

Good to see we’ve gone from premiership contenders to zero chance of beating Melbourne in the space of a week.

There’s fickle and then there’s Port fans on big footy. Will we be a flag favourite again if we beat Melbourne?

Look I’m not confident either, but I haven’t been confident all season. They’re playing okay but not at a level that gives you confidence of them definitely winning. But they’re a big chance to win this game, they should and deserve to be favourites.

Some of the white flag waving on here is ridiculous.


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Hey I am just a realist. Same different year really.

 

[Willsy10]

The issue here is we have all seen this movie before.. multiple times..

I dont blame ANY Port supporter (myself included) for thinking and feeling that the wheels are going to fall off. In fact they are a bit wobbly already

My issue is that we were never actually playing really good footy, we’ve just been okay and managed to bank some wins. If anything this is the most consistent we’ve been in a long time, we’ve been okay to good in every quarter thus year besides 2. A howler quarter against Brisbane and st kilda, the rest all pretty similar.

If the wheels are falling off it might be because they were never securely fitted in the first place.


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