Preview Changes v Demons, Round 2 (upgraded to official preview)

[M Malice]

Zorko will play Friday night according to Daly on radio this morning; I guess a simple swap for Kiddy would be a pretty simple swap.

I hope he is 100% right, don't want the recurring achilles type situation again. At least we know Zorks will give his absolute all.

 

[Fagenslions36]

I was super excited about to start if the season but the flogging on Saturday has made me now realise several things .

We are genuinely nowhere near a flag . Yeah we may get to a prelim but will end up getting found out by the big boys when it matters . There is something fundamentally wrong with our team all down hill skiers. Of our last 5 games we have been belted 3 times that’s not a team that should be contesting for a flag .

Also the coaching group has severely lost the plot in my opinion. Zac bailey

33

Zac Bailey

Age

25

Ht

182cm

Wt

84kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

12.7

3star

K

6.9

3star

HB

5.9

4star

M

3.0

3star

T

2.2

4star

CL

0.9

3star

D

12.9

3star

K

7.3

3star

HB

5.6

3star

M

3.9

4star

T

2.4

3star

CL

0.7

3star

D

13.4

4star

K

6.6

3star

HB

6.8

5star

M

3.2

4star

T

2.8

5star

CL

0.6

3star

is an elite half forward who kicks goals yet we now stick him out on a wing . McLuggage was an elite wingman and now using him as an inside mid . The Rayner experiment whilst he was good on weekend can’t but help but think he is completely wasted . Fagan could have thrown him into the middle to try and negate what JHF and rozee were doing but once again old mate lets the game wonder . Anyone who thought Harris andrews

31

Harris Andrews

Age

28

Ht

202cm

Wt

98kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

12.8

3star

K

7.4

3star

HB

5.4

4star

M

5.6

5star

T

1.6

4star

MG

151.7

2star

D

17.0

4star

K

9.0

4star

HB

8.0

4star

M

4.0

4star

T

2.0

3star

D

9.8

3star

K

5.0

2star

HB

4.8

4star

M

3.4

4star

T

1.6

4star

MG

94.0

2star

was a great choice as captain us kidding themselves . He is a genuine shadow of himself who was taking intercept marks only a few years ago has lost all confidence and you can’t lead a team when your like that . Joe Daniher and hipwood hate to say it but they are so flakey . Hipwood still can’t take a mark and Daniher is a genuine lazy footballer. We aren’t winning anything with those 2 up front best part hippy given 7 more years . Chris Fagan is a lovely bloke but he should never of been the man to take us to the promised land we should of gone out and got an experience coach in the Clarkson , Simpson , Ross Lyon mould .

 

[McIvor]

I hope he is 100% right, don't want the recurring achilles type situation again. At least we know Zorks will give his absolute all.

Got to have a mid as sub or hybrid if we are playing zorko b/c youd worry that he might get injured - medics have a good record tho so i should trust there judgement.

 

[McIvor]

I was super excited about to start if the season but the flogging on Saturday has made me now realise several things .

We are genuinely nowhere near a flag . Yeah we may get to a prelim but will end up getting found out by the big boys when it matters . There is something fundamentally wrong with our team all down hill skiers. Of our last 5 games we have been belted 3 times that’s not a team that should be contesting for a flag .

Also the coaching group has severely lost the plot in my opinion. Zac bailey is an elite half forward who kicks goals yet we now stick him out on a wing . McLuggage was an elite wingman and now using him as an inside mid . The Rayner experiment whilst he was good on weekend can’t but help but think he is completely wasted . Fagan could have thrown him into the middle to try and negate what JHF and rozee were doing but once again old mate lets the game wonder . Anyone who thought Harris andrews was a great choice as captain us kidding themselves . He is a genuine shadow of himself who was taking intercept marks only a few years ago has lost all confidence and you can’t lead a team when your like that . Joe Daniher and hipwood hate to say it but they are so flakey . Hipwood still can’t take a mark and Daniher is a genuine lazy footballer. We aren’t winning anything with those 2 up front best part hippy given 7 more years . Chris Fagan is a lovely bloke but he should never of been the man to take us to the promised land we should of gone out and got an experience coach in the Clarkson , Simpson , Ross Lyon mould .

On the KPF - i feel like we got rid of the one - McStay was good i thought and more reliable than Hippy and Joe. Maybe there was nothing we could do, but i feel we shoulve kept him if possible as i feeli like McStay has his best years ahead of him whereas Hippy / Joe are to inconsistent and my view is that there best is past it other than the odd good game here or there or they'll beet up on a bottom 6 type teams.

 

[M Malice]

I was super excited about to start if the season but the flogging on Saturday has made me now realise several things .

We are genuinely nowhere near a flag . Yeah we may get to a prelim but will end up getting found out by the big boys when it matters . There is something fundamentally wrong with our team all down hill skiers. Of our last 5 games we have been belted 3 times that’s not a team that should be contesting for a flag .

Also the coaching group has severely lost the plot in my opinion. Zac bailey is an elite half forward who kicks goals yet we now stick him out on a wing . McLuggage was an elite wingman and now using him as an inside mid . The Rayner experiment whilst he was good on weekend can’t but help but think he is completely wasted . Fagan could have thrown him into the middle to try and negate what JHF and rozee were doing but once again old mate lets the game wonder . Anyone who thought Harris andrews was a great choice as captain us kidding themselves . He is a genuine shadow of himself who was taking intercept marks only a few years ago has lost all confidence and you can’t lead a team when your like that . Joe Daniher and hipwood hate to say it but they are so flakey . Hipwood still can’t take a mark and Daniher is a genuine lazy footballer. We aren’t winning anything with those 2 up front best part hippy given 7 more years . Chris Fagan is a lovely bloke but he should never of been the man to take us to the promised land we should of gone out and got an experience coach in the Clarkson , Simpson , Ross Lyon mould .

I am definitely with you on Bailey, an elite goal kicking small. McCluggage I have as a pure balanced mid who spends time on the wing and just outside the contest, ideally we want Dunkley/Neale/Robertson feeding the ball to him as the elite user of the footy. I would also like to see Rayner play more mid, particularly at centre bounces.

I still have faith in Harris, mulligan for last week. Joe is most of the time lazy in defence, still bullish on Hippy.

Love Fages and still have faith....however if we miss a Prelim at the absolute minimum this season I expect him to be under enormous pressure to retain his position.

 

[Squizz89]

The fact Hipwood is getting out bodied by Trent friggen McKenzie at 25 years of age is the real worry with him. Needs a massive improvement in core strength which we've said since he was drafted.

 

[morsie]

And here I was thinking it was a ridiculous suggestion. I love the idea of him on the wing. He could also push down to impact defensive contests with a spoil and get a get out of jail quick hack kick under pressure to his side.

Matthew Richardson played a couple of seasons on the wing and dominated

 

[notliondown]

What we need is commitment and application from the players selected.

All of this talk of change is irrelevant if the players turn up with the same attitude of "the guy beside me will do it" that was prevelant last year and obvious again on Saturday.

Until we play as a team, until players start sacrificing individual glory for team results we are on a hiding to nowhere.

My biggest frustration from our efforts on Saturday is that it looks like we have wasted an off season and learned nothing - which is unlikely but it sure looked that way.

The same players that had glaring weaknesses still had them. The same stagnant conservative game plan under pressure. The same lack of defensive effort and run.

Shuffling players is pointless unless the players you choose commit to team success.

I'm just not sure we know how to do that yet.

On SM-G996B using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[3KZ is Football]

I don’t think hands on the ball was our issue. Plus you’d sooner have the likes of Berry, Hugh and Bailey get more inside mid time than have Lyon in there

I see the three you named, especially Bailey as outside runners. Berry can get in and get it. Hugh also. As always, selection gets people thinking.

 

[3KZ is Football]

I’ll eat your shorts if Lester is bought in for anything other then a dearth of options due to injury.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

What condiments would you like?

 

[3KZ is Football]

We need to change the people doing our socials. We need more self congratulatory messaging on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok before the game.

 

[McIvor]

We need to change the people doing our socials. We need more self congratulatory messaging on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tik Tok before the game.

We dont do TT given who owns it, but the social media is so cringe and we have 12 and 10 year olds.

 

[twhowler]

Round 1 for me felt like day one of a golf tournament. You can't win the tournament but you can lose it. Okay we are not 10 shots down and about to miss the cut but we played like it. Feels like a long way back all of a sudden. You would want us breathing fire in the first 5 minutes next week.

Alternative explanation - the whole team had gastro??? Honestly reminded me of cats v dees prelim. Wishful thinking.

As for strategy, a lot of interesting ideas on here. We have a few problems that people seem to agree on:

MIDFIELD BALANCE - in particular the centre square. I like others assumed we were fixing this by adding Dunkley. I think Ashcroft has looked great on ball but as others have said a combo of Neale Clugga Ashcroft is asking for trouble. We should ALWAYS have at least one of Dunkley, Berry or Dev in the centre square. Maybe Rayner if he can have a defensive mindset. And if we are getting smashed get two of them in. I think we had the players out there on the weekend, it was the mix and intent that was wrong. I don't subscribe to Mathieson being the solution. He is just so limited. A fit Lyons has been a great player for us, but we would need to have a team that can still run well overall so that would need to be factored in.

WINGS - arguably we were beaten worse here than everywhere else. We had no run or drive from the wings, and no decent defense of theirs. Wings seem to have fallen down our priority list. Need a good defensive and good attacking wing. Berry and Dev good defensive. Bailey a good attacking one - he is so good with a bit of space to work with. The other attacking one i would have would be Coleman but if he is staying in defence then Ashcroft.

GAMEPLAN - what happened to the ball movement of pre-season? really went back in to our shell AGAIN. And dear god fix the kick ins.

FORWARD PRESSURE - again about the mix. I think we need one more pressure player in there. Lohman? ZOrko? Cameron tackles inconsistently. McCarthy doesn't seem to. Who down there is all about pressure? I'd argue nobody. We need at least one at all times and two rotating through there. I also saw much better chasing from our key forwards against Geelong. Some more of that please.

 

[RoyBoy17]

I think it should be Fort in for Coleman (concussion) and Prior for Tunstill at this stage. I like Tunstill but he's just not ready physically to compete against the mature sides. Gets brushed off the ball way too easily. And he doesn't find it enough to justify keeping him in for his run/ disposals. Prior is a slight upgrade at this stage.

50/50 on Roberston and Lyons but one of the two needs to play midfield only. No more wing for Robertson. Can't play there at all.

The froward group all deserve to get dropped however we aren't blessed for depth in that area.

If I was coach it would the last chance for guys like Daniher, Rich, McCarthy and Cameron tbh. If they keep switching off defensively then play younger players that will be happy to. There was a play on the weekend where Rich lays off his opponent who was 30m out directly in front of goal. The Port player ends up getting an easy uncontested mark. It's either stupidity or he just couldn't be bothered. We need to start dropping players who repeatedly do those little things wrong. It kills us against good opposition.

And it's also becoming more and more a liability to play both Daniher and Hipwood. Maybe we just play one of them, Gunston and sometimes have a resting ruck. If Lohmann was fit and firing then I would bring him in for one of them and see how we go with a smaller group up top. Could even have Hipwood or Daniher as a sub for something diff.

 

[Berrygood]

Did we train soft this preseason? Previous years we'd hear comments like, "gee's the boys are going hard at each other" or "a few frayed tempers out there today". We'd train with a hard edge, it certainly didn't look like we did on the weekend. Seems like that influence Mitch Robbo and even Tom Berry had on the team has completely disappeared.

 

[On the quiet]

Everyone saying Rayner to the middle, but he is only getting some confidence because he is down back.

He struggles to find the ball in the middle and is flat footed on defence, history suggests he would have only exacerbated our issues on Saturday arvo.

Leave him where he is and let him devalop his game for a few weeks.

Let him try and become our intercept marker over the next few weeks, and then reassess possible game time in the middle and forward when/if Gardiner returns and plays 1 v 1 with Payne, and Andrews does what he does best and intercepts.

 

[KissKiss]

Same old problems and I assume that the coaches will do the same thing they always do which is back in the team with minimal changes baring shuffling the chairs in the young wingers. I do agree that the wings is the problem but just shifting between about three young players without making actual structural changes wont help that.

Im in the send McCluggage to the wing, and Dev to play more time in the middle. They both look more natural there. Prior I think should be the other wing as he has the height and flexibility. Tunstill is ok but I dont think he is right as a full time AFL winger. We have a massive problem with too many retrofitted wings who cant hold their position wide of the contest.

Im not convinced to bring in Lyons either as its still a massive problem with defensive running and he wont fix that.

And this shows why the question of losing McStay could hurt. He was the one who worked up the wing to provide a regular marking pressure outlet. Hipwood and Daniher are honestly too similar and Gunston is at least a smart forward but not a clunking guy either. The balance still looks off. Too many front running glory types and not enough hard workers in the forward line

 

[Nathan Barley]

Everyone saying Rayner to the middle, but he is only getting some confidence because he is down back.

He struggles to find the ball in the middle and is flat footed on defence, history suggests he would have only exacerbated our issues on Saturday arvo.

Leave him where he is and let him devalop his game for a few weeks.

He struggled to find the ball down back as well. Rich, McKenna and Kiddy all had more of the footy than he did

 

[On the quiet]

On the KPF - i feel like we got rid of the one - McStay was good i thought and more reliable than Hippy and Joe. Maybe there was nothing we could do, but i feel we shoulve kept him if possible as i feeli like McStay has his best years ahead of him whereas Hippy / Joe are to inconsistent and my view is that there best is past it other than the odd good game here or there or they'll beet up on a bottom 6 type teams.

apparently McStay was offered considerably more money at the pies, and that linking forward role he played for us, whilst arguably his best role. Perhaps the money, length of contract and the opportunity to go back to Vic and play for a big club was too tempting.

 

[On the quiet]

He struggled to find the ball down back as well. Rich, McKenna and Kiddy all had more of the footy than he did

I thought Cam was trying to give us a bit of run in that 3rd Q. McKenna did a bit in the 2nd Q.

 

[Dalions]

Did we train soft this preseason? Previous years we'd hear comments like, "gee's the boys are going hard at each other" or "a few frayed tempers out there today". We'd train with a hard edge, it certainly didn't look like we did on the weekend. Seems like that influence Mitch Robbo and even Tom Berry had on the team has completely disappeared.

The first of the intraclubs that I went to this year was the one at Wilston Grange and I thought that it was the most physical of the lot of them to be honest.

There were a couple of really hard contests in that particular game but things were much different in all other games after that.

In particular I have found Lachie Neale very standoffish at contests and seemingly waiting for Dunkley to do the hard stuff and to dish it off to him?

Which is probably why Fort Lyons and Matho have been winning the bulk of clearances in the intra clubs and also training.

I was at the final training session on Thursday last week before they flew out to Adelaide and it was the same again when they set out for a full ground drill and Fort Luons and Matho were winning the clearances in that 20minute patch also.

Left me a little unsure as to how that would go on the weekend, but didn’t really want to bring it up here because I consider myself a fairly positive person and didn’t want to come across as a negative Nellie.

I certainly wasn’t expecting the landslide that happened on the weekend.

There was also a training session that I went to a couple of weeks ago and it was quite a long session with a lot of running and match Praccie but I did comment on here that I thought that maybe they had been asked to play without any contact, because it was very soft and there was also a bit of chastising within the group when contact was made, so there may be some merit in what you are saying.

 

[On the quiet]

Same old problems and I assume that the coaches will do the same thing they always do which is back in the team with minimal changes baring shuffling the chairs in the young wingers. I do agree that the wings is the problem but just shifting between about three young players without making actual structural changes wont help that.

Im in the send McCluggage to the wing, and Dev to play more time in the middle. They both look more natural there. Prior I think should be the other wing as he has the height and flexibility. Tunstill is ok but I dont think he is right as a full time AFL winger. We have a massive problem with too many retrofitted wings who cant hold their position wide of the contest.

Im not convinced to bring in Lyons either as its still a massive problem with defensive running and he wont fix that.

And this shows why the question of losing McStay could hurt. He was the one who worked up the wing to provide a regular marking pressure outlet. Hipwood and Daniher are honestly too similar and Gunston is at least a smart forward but not a clunking guy either. The balance still looks off. Too many front running glory types and not enough hard workers in the forward line

Yeap I would prefer we play Dev as much as possible in the guts, has showed some promise there and he should be rotating there off the bench. IMO he does not deserve to get dropped this week, and i really hope he does not because i fear we will lose him at years end.

Lions could not match Pies offer to McStay

 

[twhowler]

On the issue of physicality, Prior is a thick body who is very aggressive. Really is a mistake playing Tunstill over him for now i think. We have enough run (if they can be bothered...)

 

[Berrygood]

Yeap I would prefer we play Dev as much as possible in the guts, has showed some promise there and he should be rotating there off the bench. IMO he does not deserve to get dropped this week, and i really hope he does not because i fear we will lose him at years end.

Lions could not match Pies offer to McStay

I agree, Dev in the guts is his best spot. We seem to draft players in one position and then want them to be versatile, play multiple positions. This may suit some players but to others it's a detriment even frustrating. Good to have some jacks of all trades but the more masters of one the better.

 

[p4p1]

He struggled to find the ball down back as well. Rich, McKenna and Kiddy all had more of the footy than he did

Rich had 12 more disposals but how many were kick ins? He is looked for much more than Rayner is right now as well. I don't think Rich's possessions were as hard earned as Rayners.