This will be another game in which we get a really good feel for the quality of the team.
Cats are probably my pick of the teams I've watched all year as they've sorted our the contested side of their midfield game and now have a mobile forward line that applies a good amount of pressure. They're much better balanced at all 3 parts of the ground.
It's very unlikely that they'll give us the corridor or let us play quick. The Collingwood performance says that we can at least slog it out which is good.
Our contested work remains a concern and nothing is likely to change in the next 10 days. I think this is encapsulated by the reality that we really only created only a small amount of scoring opportunities against the Pies, there was little in the way of clean breaks of the previous 3 weeks, it was really some freakish finishing by Stringer and Daniher that kept us within striking distance when we struggled in the first half. If we get Fantasia back it will help because he has a way of tying the midfield and forwards together.
All indications are that we'll carry Myers, Baguley, Parish and Brown (I doubt Brown will get the space he needs and if he gets Blicavs he's cooked) into the game which is always fun.
We need to give serious consideration to bringing in Draper. Daniher's ruck work is horrible and we really need him to just be a forward (particularly when he is the only guy who looks like getting onto the wing to take a contested mark). There is also the question of whether we want a guy who is basically a top 10 player in the competition as a forward playing in the ruck.
I wouldn't play Draper, Brown, Daniher and Stringer in a team - that's the beauty of Stringer he's a selection criteria of his own (and is a tall in every sense of the word except for the ability to hit up at the ball and take an overhead mark - his defending of the ball in the air and on the ground is deplorable). There is also no way we drop Brown 1 bad game after 2 good games so we're not going to change things.
We've upset the Cats big time the last two times we've played them, when they've been completley unable to shut down our transition.
It's weird, it seems like this is our game to lose because I almost have to see the Cats close us down to believe they'll do it (even if I think they should).