Preview Rd.18 West Coast Eagles vs Brisbane Lions

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If you're looking for another option to go back the last thing you would do is try someone who's playing a valuable role where they are.

So not that these guys aren't doing well where they are but the available options are (imo) Fletcher , Rayner ,....umm Reville ? , Bailey has played there before .... not over keen on any of those and we already have backmen on the list who could play the same role and know how to defend.

So it's Joyce or bust as far as I can tell. At least he has the size. Let's hope another tall doesn't go down. Needless to say Harris is our most important player by a long way.
 
Okay where are we at with injuries?

i am of the view that it’s either a player you can’t replace or a critical mass of players that gets you.

Number of best 23 out - starce / payne / coleman / linc. Starce back soon. Okay on that front.

Kiddy - huge loss but zorko covering well

Linc - different player but lohman covering well

Starce - likely only a week and Brain looked quite good from limited exposure

Payne - gardiner would be next in. So now it’s Joyce. Not ideal vs a tall team. But not a gun team!

I am much more worried about coach gone bounce / hyped up crowd than i am about Payne this week. Sydney have some talls but it’s not their strength by any means.

I think we need him back for the finals, particularly against good tall forward lines namely Carlton and Freo. And he needs touch so you would want him back before the finals bye. At least we have 2s games if we need him to get out the rust given we are set to play vfl finals.

His strength is strong intercept marks. That goes up in value in finals when teams are under pressure and bomb away more. That’s where we would miss him much more; if we make it!
 
Has Logan Morris ever played defence in juniors?

He is smart and quick, could be a bit undersized tho.

If we are really strapped and Payne is out he may be an option to go back and play Rayner as the third tall forward.

We can’t play hipwood back, he is too important to our structure forward
 
Andrews obviously goes to Allen
Lester to Waterman
Joyce to Darling?

Doesn’t seem too bad. Van Rooyen outpointed Joyce a few times but he is a much better and more athletic player than a 32 year old Jack Darling
 
Huge blow.

Hard to think it was well managed but who knows.

Harris to Allen.

Lester to Waterman - he’s not massive just good so Lester at his best can take him

Joyce to Darling - not the player he was

The oft-spoken team defence will be massive the next few weeks. If step it up we can finish 4th to 6th. If we are as loose as the last 2 weeks we will miss the 8.

The good thing for us is team defence is a lot about effort. If we want it enough we can cover him.
This is the thing. Our midfield will have to go up a level in terms of their in-game consistency. Yes they've been pretty good but they have still had lengthy periods where the opposition has got on top, and we've leaked long streaks of goals as a result.

If Joyce finds it harder to limit his opponent's shots at goal than Payne would have, much greater reliance falls on those further afield to limit supply, thereby limiting those shots in another way.

It's Moneyball in a sense; you're trying to restrict shots at goal. How you do that doesn't really matter.
 
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I heard on radio, think Danny Daly said he definitely had a scan before last weeks game and it was clear
Probably doesn't support the medical team if he says anything to the contrary.

So Payne misses an important game against a possible top 8 team (Dees) because of foot soreness. Plays the following week against a team who almost certainly cannot make the 8, and less than 5 days later after playing against Adelaide at the GABBA, ruled out for at least 6 weeks with 'bone stress'
 

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I think a couple BF posters were a bit hard on Joyce against the Dees. He had not played AFL for well over a year, and it would not have been easy in such a high pressure game. I think Joyce will be OK, and perform a role, but Harris arguably modifies his intercepting game, and possibly even takes the main KPF. And our midfield need to dominate so 'dirty ball' is coming in, not lace out passes or Joyce being isolated 1 v 1 on the quick turn over.
 
They called Fages a madman when he played guys like Rayner and Berry in defence. But Fages knew this day would come. A day when 75% of our defenders would be injured.
 
I can tell you categorically that if there was anyone in the MSD who looked any hope of being up to KPD in Senior footy we would've picked them.

It's just my read that we've tried to nurse Payne through like last year but he's done again. And not unexpected by the club.

It's a big blow if we want to compete against the big dogs . I doubt he'll be back or if he is he won't be all that effective so maybe the brains trust need to look at our best options. Maybe an innovative option.
If Lobb has proven an innovative option for the Dogs, maybe sending Forte back there could be an option?
 
  • flying over to the West
  • injuries causing changes to our structure
  • playing a team who just sacked their coach

oh-boy-here-we-go-again.gif
 
Great call joshhem by the way. Had the Mickey taken out of them a bit by a few people here before the Melbourne game, but was bang on the money as it turns out.

The fact that Payne was forecasted for 7-8 weeks and played a week after shows how unpredictable that injury has been for our medical team in terms of weekly management. It's almost like you can only find out if he's coping ok by playing him and then assessing him on a week to week basis.

Just a wild guess, but if we made our decision based on his lingering symptoms - maybe he would not have played half the games this season. I was one of them who pushed for Joyce to be given 3 games (Melbourne, Adelaide, West Coast) and then bring Payne back but in hindsight looks like it would not have mattered.

Payne could've come back after a 3 game rest and played Sydney in round 19 and we may be exactly where we are right now. The reason I say that is he was brought back at Gabba (vs say a harder surface in Optus) and still ended up with the bone stress situation so it seems like this could happen anytime based on his injury history.
 
FB: Reville Joyce Lester
HB: Wilmot Andrews Zorko

McKenna and Fletcher in the defensive rotation. You can expect Joyce to improve given a solid run in the seniors. Reville is hard at it and can get the ball, no problem there. McKenna is the only worry, because he is not playing his opponents close enough. He needs to actually defend and not spend the game losing his man and trying to bolt off through the midfield at every opportunity.
 
So it's Morris and now Fort to go back. Do you really think Fort has the pace and the mobility to be anywhere near effective as a tall defender? As for Morris, come on, grasping at straws there. Why not Big O or Joe or Hippy? How about Brandon Ryan? All ludicrous ideas. Just because a player is tall it doesn't mean they can instantly become a defender.

Joyce is the man we have, let's show him a bit of support. He's had one game, it wasn't horrible. We give our regular first graders when they come back from injuries or start the season time to find form, get acclimatised. Yet we expect Joyce to come in to a key position and be flawless straight up. He'll be better for the run, he'll get more settled, develop better cohesion after a game or two more.
 
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