Preview Semi Final - Geelong vs GWS, Fri 3 Sept @ 1950 (AEST), Optus Oval

[Two Planks]

What I expect is
In : Touhy
Out : O'Connor

What I want is

Bews Krueger Henry
Atkins Blicavs Rohan
Duncan Parfitt Smith
Clark Ratagolea Holmes
Close Hawkins Cameron
Stanley Dangerfield Selwood
Menegola C Guthrie
Narkle Touhy
Medical Sub : Miers

In : Narkle Krueger Ratagolea Holmes Clark Touhy
Out : Henderson Kolo O'Connor Higgins Dalhaus Simpson Miers

Backline
Henderson simply can't play again after that horrible game on Friday.
Need to pick 3 bigs and 4 smalls and try and be a little quicker across the ground.
Kolo can't ever play on a small forward again.

Forwards
Need a marking target who will actually compete in the air and that's why Ratagolea gets in. Hawkins and Cameron are both incapable of splitting a pack and giving our smalls a chance.
Picked the 3 quickest forwards I could find in Holmes, Close and Clark to put defensive pressure on.

 

[BORIS332]

What I expect is
In : Touhy
Out : O'Connor

What I want is

Bews Krueger Henry
Atkins Blicavs Rohan
Duncan Parfitt Smith
Clark Ratagolea Holmes
Close Hawkins Cameron
Stanley Dangerfield Selwood
Menegola C Guthrie
Narkle Touhy
Medical Sub : Miers

In : Narkle Krueger Ratagolea Holmes Clark Touhy
Out : Henderson Kolo O'Connor Higgins Dalhaus Simpson Miers

Backline
Henderson simply can't play again after that horrible game on Friday.
Need to pick 3 bigs and 4 smalls and try and be a little quicker across the ground.
Kolo can't ever play on a small forward again.

Forwards
Need a marking target who will actually compete in the air and that's why Ratagolea gets in. Hawkins and Cameron are both incapable of splitting a pack and giving our smalls a chance.
Picked the 3 quickest forwards I could find in Holmes, Close and Clark to put defensive pressure on.

Rohan was putrid down back. If he's not good enough to play his role up forward then he needs to be dropped.

 

[Jumping Jack]

Now JJ, it's time you got over the Jordan Clark shank.

I'm confident that I can recover - I'm just not entirely sure that Jordan will.

Genuinely like him as a player and would love if he could have established himself as a regular 22 .... particularly if we knew that Stewart was going out. We were so exposed on Fri night for slow ball movement off half back and it was the root cause of most of our problems further up the field.

Every time a Geelong defender got the ball, it was almost ingrained that they first looked to chip the ball sideways rather than go long or direct. Clearly that's a coaching mantra.

 

[ShaunWDT]

Id keep Rohan down back to actually give us some pace out of the back half and bring Sav in up forward, but in all likelihood Tuohy and Higgins for O'Connor and Simpson.

 

[cats_09]

Can I ask why Kreuger is being suggested by a few as a potential in for this clash when he was embarrassed against GWS just a few weeks ago?

I know he didn't look too bad against North and it was good for him to get a second match, but he looked off the pace the following week against GWS and surely the GWS forwards would love the opportunity to line up on him again

One of his big issues that night was poor positioning and he lost his feet on more than a few occasions - no shit that Henderson didn't have his best night against Port, but I'd put more trust in him to bounce back than the performance we'll get from Kreuger

 

[Two Planks]

Rohan was putrid down back. If he's not good enough to play his role up forward then he needs to be dropped.

Couldn't be any worse than Kolo has been for 3 years

 

[Grimoz]

I think having Duncan this time against GWS will help greatly, they killed us on the outside last time and that's where Duncan does his best work so im hoping he can force them to play our game.

 

[My Tilly]

As long as the captain doesn’t come out with a smirk again and say “the real stuff starts next week” or the coach doesn’t say “we are galvinised, we are ready”.
Like they both did after the Melbourne game.
Talking yourselves up then producing what they did against Port is nothing short of embarrassing.

Should win this but either way we won’t be making the GF.
Please just show some mental strength.

You knew we were in trouble when we started talking during the week. Heard little to nothing from the opposition camp.
Hopefully we are quiet and razor focused this week. You really don't want to hear from Dangerfield at all to be honest. Just get to Friday night, win the game and then talk themselves up.

 

[Two Planks]

Am I right in saying the Giants have beaten us the last 3 times.

 

[Grimoz]

Am I right in saying the Giants have beaten us the last 3 times.

Yep you are correct

 

[Sire of Claude]

Agree JJ, the ball movement from the back half is putrid. They only kick it long and direct when we're being flogged ha ha. I saw Kolo stand at CHB for what seemed ages with plenty of our players in front of him, then do a short slow up and under to Simpson, which Allir marked. It typified our game. It is an indictment of our coaching group, as you suggest.

 

[Footy Smarts]

Dropping the one guy who won his position last week? No.

It's amazing how Stanley has gone from being utterly hated around here to being untouchable because Scott left him out of a final.

Stanley's game on Friday:
6 touches (previous lowest for the season was 10)
0 clearances (averages 3.4 and never had 0 before this year)
0 tackles
3 free kicks against (equal most for the season)
1 contested possession (previous lowest 4)

Lycett didn't do much but he beat Stanley in every stat except for hitouts which Stanley shaded 20-16. If you want to praise Stanley because his opponent didn't do much fine but Stanley did 2/5ths of **** all.

 

[Two Planks]

The only time we look dangerous is when we win centre clearances and get the ball in quickly.

 

[Sire of Claude]

And two planks, I love your team selection - bold, enterprising, not solely based on reputation. Adds dash and kicking prowess. But we know it won't happen: our selectors are convinced all our best players are our oldest players. They like old players, especially ones over 30.

But at this point of repeated epic finals failure I would prefer to watch us play with some of our (apparently) ordinary younger players on the park than many of our now utterly proven very ordinary old players on the park.

 

[Grimoz]

I would love to beat GWS just to get a crack at the Dees at a neutral venue, they are the team to beat and we all know that if we play to our potential we can beat anyone, it only takes 20 good minutes by us and a dropoff in intensity by them to put them to the sword as seen a couple of weeks ago. Im not saying that will happen, we have to beat GWS first but bloody hell it would be good to knockoff the flag favorites in a prelim.

 

[My Tilly]

The only time we look dangerous is when we win centre clearances and get the ball in quickly.

This is why if I were the GWS Giants, I am tagging Guthrie. Dangerfield will be battling his own fight if his hand is busted. Let him get it 30 times as you know 10 of them will not be effective
Menegola, Parfitt and Higgins don't hurt you.

Duncan, Smith and Selwood will have to be the guys who carry us.

 

[Drunkcat]

I think having Duncan this time against GWS will help greatly, they killed us on the outside last time and that's where Duncan does his best work so im hoping he can force them to play our game.

2nd game back Duncan will not have as good game,

 

[Chinacats]

Any Danger Dangerwood and Guthrie can get competitive in an important finals match this week? At least they can't tag Stewart this time...Cameron won the coaches box last time as did Hinkley last week. Really shouldn't be blown away or surprised with 1-2 tactical shifts in opposition game plans.. Coaches need to sharpen up!

 

[thecatattack]

Collingwood have a 45% record in finals history. Geelong are now down to 43.7% and that has been due to the last 6 or so years of continual finals failures.

We are quickly becoming the new Colliwobbles of the competition.

They're the Colliwobbles because they've made 44 Grand Finals for a record of 17-27-2.

Not because of their finals record.

 

[Drunkcat]

Holmes is a kid but the one thing good he does is tackle well, so should play before pea heart Higgins

 

[cats_09]

Dropping the one guy who won his position last week? No.

Glad I'm not the only one questioning that fan selection and one I've repeatedly seen suggested since the weekend

Various reasons I've read for dropping Stanley & replacing him with Ratugolea include:
- he’s (Mumford) gonna topple Stanley!
- good lord Stanley’s a whip, both are stronger than Stanley (same person as above)
- need Sav against Mumford

And basically repeat that last one

I know Stanley can be frustrating, but having watched both Stanley & Ratugolea in the ruck this season, I'm not sure how some have come to the conclusion that Ratugolea is going to be the better option against Mumford.

I'm also curious how one came to the conclusion that Stanley is the weakest of the three, and I'd back him in as being stronger compared with Ratugolea. Mumford is the type of guy who tries to push any opponent around, which I think Stanley has a better chance of competing against and where we need to utilise Stanley's athleticism against that style - he needs to make sure he gets on his bike we every opportunity & not let Mumford control the style of play for the ruck.

And one of the real good things we've seen from Stanley over recent weeks is he's willingness to jump over the top of his ruck opponent, and not sure we can say the same for Ratugolea in ruck contests good season

 

[Jhye Clark 13]

Enough of the Dahlhaus experiment.

Close HF, Miers at the feet of Hawkins.

I'd also bring in Holmes. We need more leg speed and toughness at the contest.

In: Holmes, Tuohy

Out: O'Connor, Dahlhaus

 

[Drunkcat]

Enough of the Dahlhaus experiment.

Close HF, Miers at the feet of Hawkins.

I'd also bring in Holmes. We need more leg speed and toughness at the contest.

In: Holmes, Tuohy

Out: O'Connor, Dahlhaus

But some will tell you Dahlhaus is so important to our game plan and we can not win without him

 

[cats_09]

It's amazing how Stanley has gone from being utterly hated around here to being untouchable because Scott left him out of a final.

Stanley's game on Friday:
6 touches (previous lowest for the season was 10)
0 clearances (averages 3.4 and never had 0 before this year)
0 tackles
3 free kicks against (equal most for the season)
1 contested possession (previous lowest 4)

Lycett didn't do much but he beat Stanley in every stat except for hitouts which Stanley shaded 20-16. If you want to praise Stanley because his opponent didn't do much fine but Stanley did 2/5ths of fu** all.

Not sure anyone's said Stanley is untouchable, but he's actually been in good form since his return from being omitted earlier in the year

One of the key positives from him over recent weeks is his willingness to repeatedly jump over the top of his ruck opponent, and he's winning the hitouts which is giving out midfielders first use of the ball

On Friday night we won but clearances 36-30, and more importantly the centre clearances 15-3; not Stanley's fault his midfielders failed to take advantage of that and make better use of our centre clearances

 

[Jhye Clark 13]

If we can't get up for the captain breaking our games record then heads need to roll.

Well done to the skipper too. Deserves every accolade he gets.

All Time great of the club.