Preview Round 6, 2021: Port Adelaide v St.Kilda - Adelaide Oval, Sunday 25th April, 6:40PM AEST

[kernelT]

Hi everyone, as has been made public, Jones & Marshall are coming back in.

At this stage (barring any unforeseen circumstances in the next few days), the two coming out will be Hunter & Webster.

Not sure what Dunstan did to deserve another game but there you go.

The other noise is Monty byrnes shaping for a game.

 

[ScrappyDo]

Yep, Clark played a game worthy of a mid on the weekend and you can totally see the numbers are getting to the point that he's ready. The way Coffield plays isn't looking like a mid. His potential with kicking might make him a dangerous forward in a Robby Gray iceman way but right now he looks like intercept marking defender.

His physique and skill set lends itself to any place on the ground. It's what goes on between his ears that holds him back..

 

[Mowman]

His physique and skill set lends itself to any place on the ground. It's what goes on between his ears that holds him back..

Haven’t seen any of that hold him back
Just needs a coach to play him in the midfield

 

[bird_man]

His physique and skill set lends itself to any place on the ground. It's what goes on between his ears that holds him back..

How so?

Looked pretty good between the ears round one

 

[ScrappyDo]

To be fair we did get rid of Hind and Savage, who would both be far better than Sinclair, McKenzie and Long as small defenders. Very poor list management.

Even given our current injuries, we'd look a lot better fielding this backline:

B: Savage, Howard, Wilkie
HB: Coffield, Carlisle, Hind

Savage really rounded out his game defensively in his last couple of seasons and Hind has been one of the form half backs in the comp.

Hind was poached.

 

[ScrappyDo]

How so?

Looked pretty good between the ears round one

He's too much of a confidence player ATM.
A bit more fortitude of self belief and he'll be a star.

 

[prophetic1]

I know I'm a hypocrite but we probably have to wait until we see what he can do with a fitter list. He's getting let off for now because injury but his honeymoon period is definitely drying up.

Richo in reality didn't have good enough lists to do much with and he made the most of what he had. he was good at holding us mid table against the tide with extracting a lot from his poor lists. I still think Richo probably deserves a bit of credit for Richmond's success too. We beat them resoundingly playing a frenetic run and gun style of footy. Richmond reinvent themselves to make the most of their list, deficiencies and all and go on to win a premiership. Then we moved away from that when we tried to start playing players in position.

To me Richo's biggest issue is that he was coaching to hold his job and not for the future. He should have recognised that we had an ordinary list and demanded that we recruit him better players and start a rebuild that would actually work. Probably the wrong coat for the wrong list at the wrong time.

Ratts is really there to play positive winning footy while still shuffling through the list and building into something. Anyone that thinks our list is ready for a premiership would have to be crazy. At the very least we need the players we do have to become elite or we'll stay in Richo woman's land for longer or flags are just a fantasy.

Totally have to agree ...........just one thing , What is "Richo's Women's Land' i 'm not sure I understand is that meant to be Wonder Land or something else?
i

 

[bird_man]

He's too much confidence player ATM.
A bit more fortitude of self belief and he'll be a star.

He'd probably have more confidence if Ratten showed confidence in him by backing him on the ball.

He had a cracking game round one and then didn't go in for a centre bounce until almost qtr time and spent half the game in the back line the following week.

He could well be the best mid from 2017 draft but the footy world wouldn't know it because while players like Cerra, Brayshaw and LDU get massive midfield minutes we just refuse to back him in, even after he shows he can do it.

 

[gringo2011]

Totally have to agree ...........just one thing , What is "Richo's Women's Land' i 'm not sure I understand is that meant to be Wonder Land or something else?
i

no man's land. I love auto correct.

 

[True Blue Saint]

The other noise is Monty byrnes shaping for a game.

As much as I would like that, I'm hearing he's being geared towards another VFL game.

Hopefully him and Ryder back in the mix for next week.

 

[Hubnester]

The other noise is Monty byrnes shaping for a game.

 

[prophetic1]

no man's land. I love auto correct.

Of course sorry now thats obvious...duh!...yeah i looked i thought that doesn;t sound like something you'd say...

 

[gringo2011]

Of course sorry now thats obvious...duh!...yeah i looked i thought that doesn;t sound like something you'd say...

After a few beers I wouldn't put it past me.

 

[mad-saint-guy]

With word that Ryder isn't going to play, I think this has to be the team

Out: Webster (inj), Dunstan, Hunter
In: Jones, Marshall, (Wood)

B: Long, Howard, Wilkie
HB: Coffield, Carlisle, Clark
C: Hill, Steele, Sinclair
HF: Higgins, Battle, Billings
F: Butler, King, Membrey

Foll: Marshall, Crouch, Jones
Int: Bytel, Ross, Lonie, McKenzie

Sub: Wood

Would like to drop Lonie, Long, McKenzie and Hill but there's nothing to bring in.

 

[tomjoad]

After a few beers I wouldn't put it past me.

"Richo's women's land..." Pleasing, workmanlike, and strong in the contest...but still not a place many would find appealing...let alone venture to.

 

[Max the great]

Really wouldn't be surprised if Carlisle is dropped. Just reading between the lines of Ratten's comments, don't think he was impressed with Carlisle last week. I think they might go with McKernan again and see how he goes with Marshall.

Frawley and Ryder back next week, it will be interesting to see how selection goes over the next few weeks.

My tips-
In: Marshall Jones McKernan
Out: Hunter Dunstan Carlisle

Really hope we don't make Long sub again. Either play him or get him to go down to the 2s.

Obviously it's a massive game for us. We need to at least be competitive and set ourselves up for the next fortnight. If we can win then the season is massively back on track.

Haha what? McKernan isn't getting picked. Honestly this joint is a twilight zone.

 

[Max the great]

Hi everyone, as has been made public, Jones & Marshall are coming back in.

At this stage (barring any unforeseen circumstances in the next few days), the two coming out will be Hunter & Webster.

Not sure what Dunstan did to deserve another game but there you go.

If we play Dunstan again you just know we are not serious. Was nearly the worst individual game I've seen and hurts us more than anything holding others back from playing on the ball.

 

[Diehard Saint]

Not everything happens in an open forum.

I think I alluded to it in a previous post.

I thought you didn’t do PMs?

 

[True Blue Saint]

If we play Dunstan again you just know we are not serious. Was nearly the worst individual game I've seen and hurts us more than anything holding others back from playing on the ball.

Agreed.

The game's gone past him. He seems to have almost regressed with each season.

If my mail is correct I'm hoping that this is the last we see of him and Byrnes is in from next week. He will give the midfield a point of difference too.

 

[Plugger35]

Yeah Dunstan looked well off the pace against Richmond, he's never been quick but he looked even slower than usual.

Stepping up to AFL level against a team like Richmond when you've been playing VFL for so long would have been hard to adjust to though and maybe he'd be better prepared for it if he gets another go against Port. He's from SA so maybe playing back at home would help him too.

That being said I wouldn't be picking him.

 

[Munga]

Agreed.

The game's gone past him. He seems to have almost regressed with each season.

If my mail is correct I'm hoping that this is the last we see of him and Byrnes is in from next week. He will give the midfield a point of difference too.

Yeah I hate feeling sad for Dunstan, a good clubman and not his fault the selectors choose him.

We would be better off playing pretty much anyone else from Sandy. Byrnes, Connolly, even Clavarino, it doesn't really matter. Playing Dunstan benefits the opposition every week, playing our kids benefits US in the long run. Whether they are ready or not, they will be better than the alternative, and fast track their development.

 

[stavro#4]

 

[True Blue Saint]

The worrying part is when you hear members of our coaching staff talk about how the players tend to shut down when opponents get a couple of goals and everything subsequently turns to s**t.

Well what are we doing to address this? I don't really want to sit hear listening to the same rubbish this time next week or the week after.

 

[aussierulesrules]

To be fair we did get rid of Hind and Savage, who would both be far better than Sinclair, McKenzie and Long as small defenders. Very poor list management.

Even given our current injuries, we'd look a lot better fielding this backline:

B: Savage, Howard, Wilkie
HB: Coffield, Carlisle, Hind

Savage really rounded out his game defensively in his last couple of seasons and Hind has been one of the form half backs in the comp.

Firstly, we didn’t “get rid of Hind”, he was out of contract and requested a trade, and presumably would have walked into the PSD had we not complied with his request.

Secondly, sure, in hindsight, we could have done with an excessive number of “small defenders” on our list again, given we’re currently ravaged by injuries in that area, but was there a single one of us at the end of last year who was saying “yeah even though Savage, McKenzie and Webster played just 2 games between them this year (and Roberton, who could play smaller, just 1), I think we need all of them on our list again next year, so that we can have a serious list imbalance again”?

I don’t remember anyone saying anything along those lines, and with the COVID situation meaning list sizes were reduced for this year, and Sav being the unlucky one to be OOC, our hands were pretty tied, with regards to who we would keep and who we would let go.

I dare say we would have ideally preferred to have kept Sav, but the chips just didn’t fall that way with COVID list reductions and contract statuses and it made it really hard.

Regardless though, while Sav did improve the defensive side of his game in recent years, he was still far from an ideal candidate for the “lockdown small defender” type role, so having kept him wouldn’t have made much difference to our current situation, if at all.

Webster has done an excellent job in that role, so Sav presumably still would have been in the VFL, for most, if not all of this year.

 

[aussierulesrules]

The rule changes seem to favour quick ball movement too. Both those guys would speed up the ball arriving in our forward line. The slow build up off half back gives teams the ability to set defence in front of us and so we don't have the same advantage as others.

Not that we had much say in the matter, given that Hind was OOC and wanted out, but the new rules for this year were not announced until after he’d been traded, so it would have taken some special sort of foresight to have seen the game evolving this dramatically this year, and in this way.

I reckon if the AFL are going to make rule changes they should give clubs 12 months notice, so that there’s less chance of clubs having the rug pulled out from under their legs, by planning their whole list/gameplan strategy around the game being played a certain way, only for that to change at short notice.