Strategy Changes and Pre-match discussion (Freo 15/7, MCG 1.45pm)

[Snuggles]

Not at the moment, he’s no where it.

Yeah i hadnt realised VFL had been played. He will be a little while yet

 

[Dead Eye Didak]

Tough selections for next weekend.......

In: Mihocek, Maynard, Sidebottom

Out: Frampton, WHE, Bianco (sub), Lipinski

I would then play Lipinski as the sub against Freo.....

 

[VinnieB]

On our defence: we've conceded less points than any team. We play aggressive defence though, so there will be times where out defenders do not stick to their man. It's a tradeoff and OJ the stats so far is working in our favour.

yep. That's why each game our scoring from defensive is so high. Not sure what the issue is to be honest.

 

[VinnieB]

There is no VFL next week, so Mcstay comes in for Freo.

what's going on with the VFL? It seems like they play a few games and then get a weekend off?

 

[mocamagic]

Is Sidebottom confirmed to be available?

 

[CasuallyDressed]

I'd rather see Cox or Cameron out than Frampton then just move Billy around... he can play fwd/ruck/def.

 

[Scodog10]

Based on Fly’s presser and everything we’ve heard up til now.

In: Steele, McStay and Maynard
Out: WHE, Frampton and Bianco

I’ve got next to no idea who’s the sub perhaps one of McStay, AJ or, and it kills me because he played a huge role in turning the momentum, Markov. McStay returning isn’t mission critical to some, but my take is that sr36 was just about right that our tall forward group last night was league worst and will look different come finals. IMO, solving that puzzle needs to be our priority over the next month.

 

[Scodog10]

I'd rather see Cox or Cameron out than Frampton then just move Billy around... he can play ruck/def.

EFA. Last night told us everything we need to know about Frampton the forward in a big match. Sure he’ll probably get through without being exposed against a lesser team, but that’s not cutting it when the whips are cracking.

 

[Chrispiesssss]

I think our “ideal” forward mix involves choosing 4 of the following:
Cox, Cameron, Mihocek, Mcstay, Frampton & AJ.

Cox, Cameron & Mihocek are guaranteed (unless injured).

If injuries/suspensions happen:

I think Frampton replaces Cox or Cameron. AJ replaces McStay or Mihocek.

In: Sidebottom, Mihocek & (maybe) McStay
Out: WHE, Frampton & (maybe) AJ

 

[Finnishpie]

In: Mihocek, Maynard
Out: WHE (finally?), Frampton

I think Frampton is not going to make our 23 as a forward. I think he should be in the side as a key tall back, but Murphy seems to be preferred, so Frampton goes out for Mihocek.

WHE finally? You don't want us to win the Premiership? WHE is one of the best role players in the comp. Flexible and can play multiple roles.

 

[Finnishpie]

I think our “ideal” forward mix involves choosing 4 of the following:
Cox, Cameron, Mihocek, Mcstay, Frampton & AJ.

Cox, Cameron & Mihocek are guaranteed (unless injured).

If injuries/suspensions happen:

I think Frampton replaces Cox or Cameron. AJ replaces McStay or Mihocek.

In: Sidebottom, Mihocek & (maybe) McStay
Out: WHE, Frampton & (maybe) AJ

Ideal forward mix for me: Mihocek, Johnson, McStay with Cox and Cameron alternating.

I think last night showed that Frampton is the one to go out, unfortunately for him... if he can't lock down a portion in defence.

 

[JC83]

I think we’ll see Maynard and Mihocek miss one more week, not often you see a one week hammy injury and bruz needs to get that shoulder good for finals…. I’d prefer McStay has another VFL game but after seeing AJ come straight in after his avg VFL performance and Frampton showing he’s more a back than a fwd, I think McStay will play. If we’re sticking with Moore, Murphy and Howe, Frampton gets pushed out to sub and comes on if McStay isn’t bringing the ball to ground enough, AJ is having one of his quiet games, or if we need ruck/back support.

In - Sidebottom, McStay
Out - WHE, Bianco (sub)
Sub - Frampton

Ps - zero chance Mitchell or Adams are dropped. Mitchell can’t do it alone, just like Adam’s couldn’t do it alone last year, their combo in and under is working well bar the occasional skill error. Both bulls and all heart.

 

[Sweeetleftfoot]

Gonna be really tight for spots next week hard to even hazard a guess.
Sidebottom, Mcstay, mihocek, Maynard all possibly available.
Only guarantee out is WHE.

 

[Finnishpie]

Based on Fly’s presser and everything we’ve heard up til now.

In: Steele, McStay and Maynard
Out: WHE, Frampton and Bianco

I’ve got next to no idea who’s the sub perhaps one of McStay, AJ or, and it kills me because he played a huge role in turning the momentum, Markov. McStay returning isn’t mission critical to some, but my take is that sr36 was just about right that our tall forward group last night was league worst and will look different come finals. IMO, solving that puzzle needs to be our priority over the next month.

I can't imagine McStay coming in after his VFL performance. You can't disrupt the integrity of selection or you breed resentment. McStay has only played well for us in the pre-season. I'm now starting to wonder if he gets back in the team after all. At his best, sure. But when will that be?

 

[Jelly Bean]

WHE finally? You don't want us to win the Premiership? WHE is one of the best role players in the comp. Flexible and can play multiple roles.

He may very well be, but I honestly think we have 22 players that would better contribute to us winning a game of football (including a grand final), and so i am saying that I personally don't think that WHE is in our best 22. I think his is in the 23-25 range.

I don't know where you interpreted that I don't want us to win a premiership, but it seems like from your comment you are drawing a direct correlation between WHE playing and winning premierships, which I think history has probably shown isn't quite there.

 

[Finnishpie]

He may very well be, but I honestly think we have 22 players that would better contribute to us winning a game of football (including a grand final), and so i am saying that I personally don't think that WHE is in our best 22.

I don't know where you interpreted that I don't want us to win a premiership, but it seems like from your comment you are drawing a direct correlation between WHE playing and winning premierships, which I think history has probably shown isn't quite there.

Yeah sorry, the premiership comment was glib and uncalled for. Sunday morning and being influenced too much by rash comments on BF. My bad.

I do think he's best 22 though. I get that he maybe has a year left, but for me he's in the 22.

 

[Vankri]

Based on Fly’s presser and everything we’ve heard up til now.

In: Steele, McStay and Maynard
Out: WHE, Frampton and Bianco

I’ve got next to no idea who’s the sub perhaps one of McStay, AJ or, and it kills me because he played a huge role in turning the momentum, Markov. McStay returning isn’t mission critical to some, but my take is that sr36 was just about right that our tall forward group last night was league worst and will look different come finals. IMO, solving that puzzle needs to be our priority over the next month.

For sure. Even if McStay isn’t a world beater we need to trial different mixes of talls especially when it comes to marking contests forward of the ball (defensively we’re good in that department thanks to our elite intercept skills).

At some point during the game I commented that I was pretty sure we had won the last 10 ground ball contests and lost the last 10 aerial ones forward of the ball.

On paper we should have been better. Cox on a good day clunks them, Cameron has great contested marking ability (think 3 CM a game is achievable), AJ can do it despite forgetting to finish his marking effort often and we also played 200cm Frampton. And it’s not Checkers’ strength so can’t blame it on his absence.

All we needed to do yesterday to get a 40pt win was to kill aerial contests coming out of defence even just to the boundary, but we let the opposition back in as a result. And not to bring up old wounds but that was also a big reason we lost 2018 either our inability to take a mark coming out from deep defence.

Got a feeling Frampton will take a sub vest at some point due to versatility. Maybe that’ll work better as a way to try McStay. Plus against Freo it gives us some flex if our rucks getting done is the difference in the game.

 

[Chrispiesssss]

Ideal forward mix for me: Mihocek, Johnson, McStay with Cox and Cameron alternating.

I think last night showed that Frampton is the one to go out, unfortunately for him... if he can't lock down a portion in defence.

I don’t think we can play Mihocek, McStay & AJ together especially if we already have Cox & Cameron playing.

 

[Jelly Bean]

Yeah sorry, the premiership comment was glib and uncalled for. Sunday morning and being influenced too much by rash comments on BF. My bad.

I do think he's best 22 though. I get that he maybe has a year left, but for me he's in the 22.

Yep, it's going to be really tough to see what our best 23 is in week 1 of the finals.

WHE is a wingman mostly, and I think J Daicos and Sidebottom will play most of the time on the wings.
He has been seen playing HB this year also, but with only room for 3 non-talls, they are owned by Quaynor, Noble, Maynard. Maybe Howe.
He has played as a forward, but with three non-talls there, he is probably behind Hill, Elliott, McCreery, and the rotating mid (Adams/Lipinski).
He could be a legitimate rotation into any of these areas, but then has the likes of Crisp, Pendles, Lippa/Adams, maybe Markov, maybe a Murphy/Frampton.

I think he is probably a really good profile for the sub role, i can see others in that space as well.

 

[Pendlebeams]

These doubts over McStay (in multiple threads) are ridiculous. As the mum in Derry Girls would say, catch yourself on, because what Dan provides structurally brings so many more scoring opportunities regardless of if he's scoring himself. He takes their #1 defender, frees up other grabtakers (Brody, Jamie, AJ, Cox), and leads to areas that often free up space closer to goal. We are better with him than without.

I understand footy is stressful, but this amnesia from posters is grinding my gears. Rewatch the first couple of games and look at the scoring power that his inclusion allows us inside 50.

Missing piece of the 16 puzzle. Carn the f*n pies.

 

[Scodog10]

I can't imagine McStay coming in after his VFL performance. You can't disrupt the integrity of selection or you breed resentment. McStay has only played well for us in the pre-season. I'm now starting to wonder if he gets back in the team after all. At his best, sure. But when will that be?

I can on the basis of Frampton’s night last night and what we know the club has in mind as our best mix which includes McStay.

I’m not going to buy in on the selection integrity stuff and I’ll back in Fly and co who are certainly talking up McStay’s return. The cold hard reality is Frampton didn’t do enough of the competitive stuff which will kill us next week against the Dockers.

On McStay’s actual performance it was no worse than Ginnivan’s or AJ’s last week and we all saw what that meant for AJ last night. I think we need to keep in mind he played 75% of the final 3/4’s (or roughly 50% of the match overall), with some pretty shoddy use in transition and against an AFL quality defender. He’s not the saviour, but he’s absolutely an improvement on Frampton the forward.

Edit: I think I should add some context around the standard of VFL v AFL. Bianco is a guy who is considered a good user at that level and last night he was a long way off it. I have no doubt there was a mental aspect to that, but I think you’d be mad to look only at stats and not consider the difference in ball movement between the two levels. There’ll be times where you’ve done everything right as a fwd have your man dead to rights only for the final possession to be with Tardrew or Hustwaite, who are decent VFL types, but infinitely far behind Hill and the Daicos’. I’m not blind to the possibility we don’t pick McStay, but I seriously doubt it’s down to output in that case.

 

[Jen2310]

what's going on with the VFL? It seems like they play a few games and then get a weekend off?

Final bye.
yeah its not ideal, hard to get consistency with so many byes

 

[Scodog10]

For sure. Even if McStay isn’t a world beater we need to trial different mixes of talls especially when it comes to marking contests forward of the ball (defensively we’re good in that department thanks to our elite intercept skills).

At some point during the game I commented that I was pretty sure we had won the last 10 ground ball contests and lost the last 10 aerial ones forward of the ball.

On paper we should have been better. Cox on a good day clunks them, Cameron has great contested marking ability (think 3 CM a game is achievable), AJ can do it despite forgetting to finish his marking effort often and we also played 200cm Frampton. And it’s not Checkers’ strength so can’t blame it on his absence.

All we needed to do yesterday to get a 40pt win was to kill aerial contests coming out of defence even just to the boundary, but we let the opposition back in as a result. And not to bring up old wounds but that was also a big reason we lost 2018 either our inability to take a mark coming out from deep defence.

Got a feeling Frampton will take a sub vest at some point due to versatility. Maybe that’ll work better as a way to try McStay. Plus against Freo it gives us some flex if our rucks getting done is the difference in the game.

We saw a lot of the bolded in that icing the game period midway through the final quarter. We kept on putting it on DC and Cox’s head which English just loved. I’m not saying McStay would have been the difference, but I know his workrate and then ability to contest once there is superior to Frampton’s in those scenarios. You get a lot of that in big finals…

 

[3rdMan]

Very likely McStay comes in, only doubt is his lack of time in the team. Form's not a major concern as his baseline is to compete for the ball, something we badly missed with Mihocek out and Cox, Frampton not having a McStay/Mihocek like tank.

If Maynard and Mihocek aren't ready, then:

In: McStay, Sidebottom
Out: Frampton, WHE

If they are ready it gets difficult. I like AJ in our forward line as the mercurial type alongside the more dependable Mihocek and McStay, but hard to play him and Cox, so one would need to come out.

Markov has been good, but with Sidey and Maynard back his spot comes into question. Really don't know what to do for Maynard and Mihocek inclusions, will just wait and see what we go with.

 

[Scodog10]

Very likely McStay comes in, only doubt is his lack of time in the team. Form's not a major concern as his baseline is to compete for the ball, something we badly missed with Mihocek out and Cox, Frampton not having a McStay/Mihocek like tank.

If Maynard and Mihocek aren't ready, then:

In: McStay, Sidebottom
Out: Frampton, WHE

If they are ready it gets difficult. I like AJ in our forward line as the mercurial type alongside the more dependable Mihocek and McStay, but hard to play him and Cox, so one would need to come out.

Markov has been good, but with Sidey and Maynard back his spot comes into question. Really don't know what to do for Maynard and Mihocek inclusions, will just wait and see what we go with.

There was no mention of Mihocek and I’m assuming they keep him on ice until Port, but McRae spoke about Maynard in his presser. The gist of it was that Maynard declared himself good to go. This is only my interpretation, but it seemed like a situation where the medicos will need to step in for him to miss.