Mogwai
Club Legend
- Dec 14, 2012
- 1,972
- 4,595
- AFL Club
- Richmond
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- Liverpool, Central Coast Mariners
Image 1: Dylan Grimes carries a cooked Robin Nahas off for a rest.
The Tigers will play their third elimination final in as many years against the Kangaroos. Finishing off the the home & away season in farcical circumstances, the Kangaroos, with a Brad Scott trademark of being high on mediocrity and low on integrity, decided to lose to Richmond and setting off a chain of rod stroking among the premier thought leaders of the North board.
Oh boy, I'd rather play the ball and not the man, but some of these are hilarious.
R23 team:
RICHMOND
B: Dylan Grimes Jake Batchelor Troy Chaplin
HB: Kamdyn McIntosh Alex Rance Bachar Houli
C: Brandon Ellis Brett Deledio Taylor Hunt
HF: Ben Lennon Ty Vickery Dustin Martin
F: Trent Cotchin Jack Riewoldt Shane Edwards
R: Ivan Maric Shaun Grigg Kane Lambert
I/C: Chris Newman Anthony Miles Nick Vlastuin Sam Lloyd
Conca & Knights are smokeys to come back into the side for this game, but the Tigers looked settled at the moment with the line up. One could conceivably see how an extra midfielder, rather than a small forward, would be more useful in a cut-throat Elimination Final, so at the moment I'd have:
Out: Lloyd
In: Conca
The Newman & Hunt questions have been discussed will continue to be discussed, but I don't think either of them will be dropped.
Now, since we know all about us and nothing about North because they rested 9 players - you could say they were Enigmal - let's do a critical reading about North Melbourne.
This was their R22 team; a full team which lost to 6th placed Footscray:
NORTH MELBOURNE
B: Michael Firrito Robbie Tarrant Shaun Atley
HB Sam Wright Scott D. Thompson Nick Dal Santo
C Jamie Macmillan Jack Ziebell Ben Jacobs
HF Shaun Higgins Drew Petrie Taylor Garner
F: Lachlan Hansen Jarrad Waite Robin Nahas
R: Todd Goldstein Ben Cunnington Andrew Swallow
I/C Ryan Bastinac Brent Harvey Ben Brown Sam Gibson
We can all expect Brent Harvey to be an ineffectual sub this again as he played his role (or lack thereof) to a tee in Round 23. --- maybe not.
Ins into this team could include Majak Daw and Daniel Wells (low level calf strain) while Thomas' foot injury continues to be a source of much relief for us Tiger fans.
Taylor Garner's a poor night out in R23, may lead to omission. Although Kanye Turner looked like pressing for a spot in the 22, his concussion may rule him out of contention for the Elimination Final.
What worries me:
1. Ben Cunnington is having a fantastic season with Goldstein's sterling service this year, averaging 7.5 clearances a game. He also averages 14.5 contested possessions this year, but also leads the team in clangers at 3.43 pg. Andrew Swallow is similarly enjoying it with 5.7 clearances a game.
2. On their day, the Brown-Petrie-Potential triumvirate could cause any teams problems. But, their little mind games about Rance 'tunnelling' in the media is at the expense of Firrito/Hansen/Thompson/Tarrant's own techniques as well, and just stinks of fear of our KPDs. Could shove a wedge of thought and hesitancy between our ears, but the professionals know best.
Pumping up our own tyres:
Deledio's goal kicking and leading and marking
Cotchin's form
Grigg is getting 2012 form back.
Vickery is making KPDs look useless
Ben Lennon is making our own judgment look clueless
Rance: Tunnel away at them
AFL coaches think Shane Edwards is a better footballer than Cyril Rioli
Batchelor outta nowhere
Houli's going great
Whatever Vlastuin's doing in defence, he's not meant to be there yet he looks like he was made for it
Chaplin's enjoying his season
Lambert > Boekhorst lmao spooners
Dustin Martin doesn't care about the opponent's existence
McIntosh doing some crazy running bounces
Think about all those things and banish all the negativity out.
Where the Tigers will win:
1. You thought our loss to Adelaide was bad? Kangas got smashed by 77 over there. They also rolled up and decided to give up against the Hawks by 60 on their Etihad deck. Dockers smashed them by 73. These campaigners are ****ing vanilla pretenders. All year, points wise, our worst loss was 6 goals against Adelaide. They are a confidence team: we grind it in early and blow it out in the third and I'll start booking your tickets to Sydney.
2. Our midfield has thrived off opposition hitouts. The game against Freo at Subi was an example. No matter what Goldstein does, if the on-ballers are - well on the ball - we should negate their effect. Do note most of their losses have involved teams with great midfield divisions: Bulldogs, Hawks, Sydney, Adelaide, and err... Suns? (Gastro apparently tore through their guts, B&F for the Suns I reckon)
3. If Lindsay Thomas doesn't play, which does look like a 50-50 7 days away from the game (odds will change accordingly as the week goes on), we'll have the benefit of having a player relatively loose against Nahas who as we know doesn't make a massive impact in games. Now since the Roos often have Hansen has the loose man back, the one less number around would help immensely in our slow buildup play, which we really didn't have when we played the Roos first time round.
4. We approach this game with some form; not the kind of blistering form that would eventually lead to collapse in 2014 and not the shaky weird feeling of 2013 (we still had a number of spuds in that team). The class of 2015 looks very comfortable at the moment, ticking over like a metronome.
To be honest though I'm pretty cautious about this one. It's one of those games that will blow open sometime, somewhere and I feel weirdly comfortable about it.
Tigers by 44.
I'll be GIFing/Image-ing this post over the course of the night as it looks banal and uninspiring like Collingwood's boardroom right now
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#daretodream
