Preview Rnd 1 - Melbourne vs Port Adelaide 23th March 1:45pm
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ponsdale
Premiership Player
Sydney Swans - Jake Lloyd 2020 Player Sponsor
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yeah there's that too.
Do you think Weideman will be in the Dee’s starting 22 for the majority of the season?
Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
In all likelihood yep
Djcjdees
Premiership Player
I'm actually pretty confident we're good enough these days to not get thumped by pretty much anyone. Sure, bad days can happen (hawthorn last year, but we even led that by 5 goals at one point?) but I think if we have anywhere near our best midfield in, it almost assures we're not going to get belted.
We'll obviously lose games but I'm confident we'll be in the hunt in every game. No real excuse not to be. Top 4 should be the standard this year. Pretty much cost us a GF spot last year. Anything less and we haven't really improved and the somewhat controversial trade period we had should be questioned.
Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
Trading someone out who wanted to leave was controversial?
Proper Gander
Owl whisperer and secret agent
I thought he meant Pruess?
I’m starting to love P with a kind of blind, cult adoration.
Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
Ive read that 4 times and I cant see where Preuss has anything to do with it
Proper Gander
Owl whisperer and secret agent
I thought his recruitment was the only real controversial point in our trading period
Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
Proper Gander
Owl whisperer and secret agent
I’ve looked at that chicken four times and still can’t see what it has to do with Preuss
Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
Controversial
Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
You have never turned me on so much
Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
Pass me a cigarette
Djcjdees
Premiership Player
Nah I was more referring to losing our key forward (even though we had not much of a say in it, I still think we could have got ourselves a better deal) and replacing him with a key back. If Weid/TMac goes down, and with TMac, surely that is more a 'when' rather then an 'if' (he just had surgery) what is the plan? Preuss?
In any case, I seem to remember quite a few opposing views on our trade period on this board. If you disagree though, fair play.
The point of my post though, which I thought was pretty clear, was that we are good enough these days not not get flogged in basically any game. Which means we should be looking at top 4. Anything less and questions should be asked.
Demonkings
Team Captain
I reckon the Hogan trade may have given us a better balanced list, but it definitely weakened our forward line. I’d say last year we had a A class forward line, A class midfield, and B+ backline when Lever was firing, but his injury probably had us go back to a B- backline. Now with May and no Hogan, I’d say the strength has been moved from our forward line to the backline. Still need Lever back fit though to shore it up. Hopefully this gives our mids the confidence to push forward more and make up for any loss of firepower from Hogan’s trade.
pjfairbairn
AFL Premiership Supporter, 2021
The reality is that without Hogan, we're looking or his 40+ goals to come from a combination of Weid, Joel Smith, Bull Smith & resting Preuss/Gawn. Really probably need 60+ from that group to be Top 4, unless our small and medium forwards and midfielders increase their goals output dramatically.
- Thread starter
- #96
Why would we need 60+ to be top 4? We need to defend better against the good sides to improve this year, everyone forgets we kicked 25 more goals than the next best side last year and had the 2nd best percentage in the comp.
Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
Yeah the notion we have to replace Hogans goals is ridicolous.
Our defending was crap an that's reason we lost games. Even without Hogans goal we would still be top 4 for scoring. I'd rather us tighten up at the other end.
harry000
Brownlow Medallist
Exactly. The teams that beat us last year were teams with mature defenders (Hawthorn, Richmond, West Coast) or at least elite intercept markers (Tom Stewart, Tom Jonas). Teams that stopped us from locking the ball forward were able to beat us too easily on transition. Adding Lever and May will mean that we have a couple of extremely smart defenders who are able to chop teams off in transition and help us reset without being scored on as heavily. Its not the goals that need replacing, its the jelling of a new defensive set up and getting May and Lever on the park ASAP that will be the key to us being top 4. After all we had 13 goal kickers yesterday. That is not the issue.
Demonkings
Team Captain
I don’t believe in this notion of tallying/ replacing goals either, football has way too many variables to reduce it to something so simple. But like him or loathe him Hogan contributed a lot to our forward line dynamic throughout the year and I’m worried that we will see a reduction in Tmac’s output without Hogan there, working around the ground and creating space. Sure he had faults in his game, but we can’t overlook how important he was for our forward structure in the games he did play. Opposition teams would have always looked at stopping Hogan first before Tmac last year, or they at least would have split the attention, but now all oppo will be locked on stopping Tmac first, not as concerned with Weid yet. And I’m not convinced Weid and Tmac will necessarily work as well as a combination, even though both have more aesthetically pleasing styles as classic marking forwards. But time will tell I suppose, they may well end up as a better combination. I’m not panicking yet.
