Preview Round 21: Geelong vs Port Adelaide, - Saturday 5 August 7:25pm @ KP

[TheCatStevensExperience]

I assume Parfitt will be sub…unless as you say there are late changes

if I am right, it probably shows Menegola may be done as a Cat? If he isn’t one of the “do things differently” moves this week into a midfield that has been smashed the last few weeks (understanding he is more wing)… I suspect we may have seen the last of him at AFL level for the Cats? I thought that if he was going to get a shot it would be this week

Menegola seems to be pretty content riding his bike around

 

[TheCatStevensExperience]

Port slapped with $100k fine for concussion protocols.

The Pepsi Max budget will need to be slashed

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Jack Henry is one who’s escaped scrutiny from last weeks game.
He was awful and this effort from him against Walters is ridiculously soft - (1:10 mark)
And wtf is Stewart thinking while chasing Freddrick? He holds back. Surely tackle him.

Didn't look great from Stewart but I think he was expecting Frederick to kick inboard to a team mate because the shot on goal was such a low % outcome. He was steadying to pick the smother. 99 times out of 100 he's made the right decision there.

A lot of henry's work there seems to be him sticking to a set structure but the ball is moving quick because Freo have options everywhere. Henry has his face on the footage because he's the last line of defence but the reason for the goal is our midfield allowing so many loose Freo players.

Blaming Henry is like blaming a guy losing an eye with a grinder on the lack of safety glasses when all the guards have been taken off and he's using a disc that flogged out and the wrong size. Should he have been better? Yes, but there's a lot going on

 

[Play it Sam]

I assume Parfitt will be sub…unless as you say there are late changes

if I am right, it probably shows Menegola may be done as a Cat? If he isn’t one of the “do things differently” moves this week into a midfield that has been smashed the last few weeks (understanding he is more wing)… I suspect we may have seen the last of him at AFL level for the Cats? I thought that if he was going to get a shot it would be this week

Me too, and that's why the disappointment at not elevating Knevitt might be over the top just yet. As much as I'm not a fan, Menegola is a hard nut, been a good servant and deserves a go, and with those VFL recent results might just boost our failed midfield. Might be moves afoot game day?

 

[Mr Meow]

Jack Henry is one who’s escaped scrutiny from last weeks game.
He was awful and this effort from him against Walters is ridiculously soft - (1:10 mark)
And wtf is Stewart thinking while chasing Freddrick? He holds back. Surely tackle him.

Our defenders have had more sloppy moments than usual this season, even from the ones who have by and large played well. Contesting in the air and on the ground has been a weakness. No matter which back 6 we've gone with.

 

[PowerBaz]

Port slapped with $100k fine for concussion protocols.

The Pepsi Max budget will need to be slashed

Yeah we should probably just get rid of the coach!

So how many do you have out?, Dixon and Farrell out now too.

Lycett
Dixon
Farrell
Aliie Aliir
Jones

 

[Play it Sam]

Port slapped with $100k fine for concussion protocols.

The Pepsi Max budget will need to be slashed

No sympathy, no excuses, beggars disbelief the incompetence that allowed the game to take priority over a players welfare.
Anyway, they got 5 mil more than us in AFL funding this year, so use some of that and learn.

 

[Scottland2007]

Sav also cant kick for goal.

Sav back and henry boys fwd.

Stewart in to the midfield too. We may still get a best 22 of nothing but defenders….

 

[Mr Meow]

Yeah we should probably just get rid of the coach!

So how many do you have out?, Dixon and Farrell out now too.

Lycett
Dixon
Farrell
Aliie Aliir
Jones

Hawkins
Blicavs
C.Guthrie

Cameron is running at about 50% and there are rumours around Rohan carrying a niggle.

Probably pretty even, given how important these players are to us.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

It happened the pocket below where I sit

It honestly seemed like Stewart must have called him out with some hope that Frederick would try centring the ball is he was able to take clean possession - thus O'Connor could be in a better position to helping a secondary contest

Problem is that Frederick had a shot on goal for a genuine goal of the year contender, and Stewart never got close enough to have an impact

The smart option for Frederick would have been to centre the ball. What they did would've gotten then a turnover or behind against 90% of the time.

 

[Play it Sam]

Didn't look great from Stewart but I think he was expecting Frederick to kick inboard to a team mate because the shot on goal was such a low % outcome. He was steadying to pick the smother. 99 times out of 100 he's made the right decision there.

A lot of henry's work there seems to be him sticking to a set structure but the ball is moving quick because Freo have options everywhere. Henry has his face on the footage because he's the last line of defence but the reason for the goal is our midfield allowing so many loose Freo players.

Blaming Henry is like blaming a guy losing an eye with a grinder on the lack of safety glasses when all the guards have been taken off and he's using a disc that flogged out and the wrong size. Should he have been better? Yes, but there's a lot going on

Cool analogy. I always remember Scarlett and Enright saying we (defenders) are absolutely livid when the opposition scores.
There's a lot to be angry about lately, and each of them at fault at times. I'm more concerned about SDK to be honest.
Oh, and moving hell and earth to get to this game, watching Sav play 10 metres off his man.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Cool analogy. I always remember Scarlett and Enright saying we (defenders) are absolutely livid when the opposition scores.
There's a lot to be angry about lately, and each of them at fault at times. I'm more concerned about SDK to be honest.

Yeah, he's a kid, he'll get more consistent. I think he has the opposite face to Bruhn.

Bruhn could be having the best day ever and he'd look furious. SDK could be fuming and you'd think he was stoned. I think it's just his face

 

[And_ROOS]

They'll promote Dempsey and Knevitt first, simply on the basis of the future over the present.

I'm not sure exactly which player would fall out of the first 22, though - Isaac Smith perhaps? Maybe Bowes, though he's not really playing in the middle.

I mean, you say that, but they had a golden opportunity this week to select one of Dempsey and Neale and instead went with the worst possible option in Esava, who is the answer to a question no one asked.

So we lose a mid and a key forward, and our master stroke is to bring in a key defender.

Make it make sense. I hope that is Dixon is a late out then we go a late change of either Parfitt or Neale for Esava because we were light in midfield before we lost Blicavs and we are now even worse.

The only positive might be seeing Jezza playing out of full forward, a position he is very good at and we obviously seldom see due to Hawkins being the big dog. Cameron at FF means he might be taking shots a lot closer to goals and we could see him kick 5 or 6 if he gets a good look at it.
But thats a challenge in itself, as our depleted midfield got more depleted and hasn't been restocked...

 

[Play it Sam]

Once a whipping boy, always a whipping boy in the eyes of some

The funny thing is that ALL players have bad games & ones they'd rather forget - there's no reason to create some sort of fantasy of a particular match being poor when there's other, real examples

Even funnier the list over a few years of thrashed whipping boys on here; Kolo, Bews, Atkins, Blics, Meirs, Stanley, Rohan, Menegola....ad infinitum, no team left . Not to mention, Scott.
Although it's a venting forum, patience is really not a BF virtue.

 

[Grimoz]

If we dont beat Port with all their outs then play the kids for the rest of the year and tap a few on the shoulder because its time for a proper rebuild

 

[STPer18]

Parfitt sub?

Chris Scott on… team structure without Hawkins and Blicavs​

That is the intriguing puzzle for us.

It was only brought to my attention by Jeremy (Cameron) that he's never played for the Cats without Hawkins there, which took me by surprise a little bit. He's a unique player, Tom, so we're not going to try and replace him like for like but a different structure... Even Blicavs in his role is unique in my mind as well, so those two players structurally force us to shift the way we go about it, which is exciting as well.

We’ve got some young guys in there who have got some opportunity throughout the year that may not have if we had of been at full availability, so in the midfield without Blicavs, [I’m] looking forward to Bruhn, and Parfitt will come into the 23 as well, so I’m looking forward to those guys playing together. they're different to our big midfielders so that's exciting for us.

And then ahead of the ball, it'll be a different look, and we're not going to forecast that just yet, but we're excited about.. we always prefer to have Hawkins in, I hope he plays until he's 40, but there is some upside to having a slightly different look in there.

 

[Cataholic]

Parfitt sub?

Sigh.

 

[STPer18]

Sigh.

We need all the midfield reinforcements we can get. I thought he was a sneaky chance to get into the 22.

 

[CHAWKTS]

Hawkins
Blicavs
C.Guthrie

Cameron is running at about 50% and there are rumours around Rohan carrying a niggle.

Probably pretty even, given how important these players are to us.

I agree that it is pretty even outs between Port and us…but certainly not as negative now to us as it looked a few days ago.

I don’t think if we lose it will be a real factor? Both missing key forward (some would argue Charlie more important to them given we have Jezza still. I would argue even issue on both of us) - our midfield is missing core players as is their defense.

Neither team in good form and not at full strength so almost impossible to pick how each team will play. But when it is all said and done we should be winning this game at home I think

 

[Bevoman]

Hawkins
Blicavs
C.Guthrie

Cameron is running at about 50% and there are rumours around Rohan carrying a niggle.

Probably pretty even, given how important these players are to us.

That is Port's recent outs, injuries includes;
Tom Clurey
Orazio Fantasia
Mitch Georgiades
Sam Hayes
Josh Sinn

 

[iameviljez]

I mean, you say that, but they had a golden opportunity this week to select one of Dempsey and Neale and instead went with the worst possible option in Esava, who is the answer to a question no one asked.

So we lose a mid and a key forward, and our master stroke is to bring in a key defender.

Make it make sense. I hope that is Dixon is a late out then we go a late change of either Parfitt or Neale for Esava because we were light in midfield before we lost Blicavs and we are now even worse.

The only positive might be seeing Jezza playing out of full forward, a position he is very good at and we obviously seldom see due to Hawkins being the big dog. Cameron at FF means he might be taking shots a lot closer to goals and we could see him kick 5 or 6 if he gets a good look at it.
But thats a challenge in itself, as our depleted midfield got more depleted and hasn't been restocked...

The reason will be because Esava can relieve Stanley in the ruck.

 

[CHAWKTS]

Parfitt sub?

Chris Scott on… team structure without Hawkins and Blicavs​

That is the intriguing puzzle for us.

It was only brought to my attention by Jeremy (Cameron) that he's never played for the Cats without Hawkins there, which took me by surprise a little bit. He's a unique player, Tom, so we're not going to try and replace him like for like but a different structure... Even Blicavs in his role is unique in my mind as well, so those two players structurally force us to shift the way we go about it, which is exciting as well.

We’ve got some young guys in there who have got some opportunity throughout the year that may not have if we had of been at full availability, so in the midfield without Blicavs, [I’m] looking forward to Bruhn, and Parfitt will come into the 23 as well, so I’m looking forward to those guys playing together. they're different to our big midfielders so that's exciting for us.

And then ahead of the ball, it'll be a different look, and we're not going to forecast that just yet, but we're excited about.. we always prefer to have Hawkins in, I hope he plays until he's 40, but there is some upside to having a slightly different look in there.

I am not sure I agree that Tom is a “unique player”…isn’t he really just an amazingly good Full Forward?. Jezza is unique in the way he plays but Tom is just good at presenting as a Full Forward. Maybe his uniqueness is that he is an unselfish forward - and a really good one.

So to me replacing him with a like-for-like is actually an option - Neale - even though of course it is a massive downgrade at this stage. But throwing our whole structure around (moving our back glue forward) because we use a “unique” player? To me we had a choice to put Neale in and keep structure the same. We chose differently which is ok - but we did have that choice.

On Blitz I understand he is unique as he adds flexibility in various options

On Parf being sub - that was obvious to me once they named the emergencies. As I said on different post, I think it speaks Volumes for where they see menegola - I just can’t see the circumstances where he gets another game at the Cats

 

[CHAWKTS]

The reason will be because Esava can relieve Stanley in the ruck.

I agree that is a reason for them to do it. But I have to say I loved Rohan doing the pinch hit rucking last week and would like him doing it over Sav any day. Sav looked uncomfortable to me at VFL ruck on the weekend against very small and poor opposition. Yes he got tap outs but Rohan adds so much more

 

[And_ROOS]

The reason will be because Esava can relieve Stanley in the ruck.

Would rather SDK do it instead of Esava. He showed a bit there earlier in the season.

 

[catsfootyfan89]

Blaming Henry is like blaming a guy losing an eye with a grinder on the lack of safety glasses when all the guards have been taken off and he's using a disc that flogged out and the wrong size. Should he have been better? Yes, but there's a lot going on

We need some kind of "analogy of the year" award or something for posts like this