Preview RD5 Cats and Eagles gather round a Crow near the Port of Adelaide or something like that

[foxdog50]

Honestly I wouldn't mind give SDK another week of...
Those 3 games, he got his and banged up pretty badly...
West Coast forward line ill be confident that in Esava and Kolodjashnij could take care of Allen and Darling....
Freshen up SDK , give him a 2 week spell, and get him ready for Sydney

 

[Vdubs]

Sunday will have seen 4 AFL matches in 3 days on the Adelaide oval deck by the time we roll out.

Currently patchy thunderstorms where I am 15km away. 48 hours from first bounce.

This could get interesting

Great point.
AAMI Park pitch yesterday was abysmal after the same overuse

 

[Vdubs]

If Tuohy and Guthrie were carrying injuries that would almost be a relief tbh, as it would offer some explanation for the wretched form they're in.

Guthrie has not been that wretched. Slowly getting there.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

They're playing Jake Waterman as their second ruck. I'm not saying we should rest people for the sake of it but if Blicavs is really sore after the knee to the guts I'd prefer to give him a week off. If SDK is back Sav can help out for 15% game time for one week. I'd much prefer that than risk Blics if he's struggling.

Sav was horrible as a ruckman the last time we did that and i hope we dont go back to it. You might as well play ollie henry as the 2nd ruck if youre gonna do that.
I assume the eagles will go waterman (although they could bring edwards in as the 2nd ruck). But either way we dont have another 2nd ruck to bring in (with neale injured) so i cant see what youre suggesting. It would either force stanley to play too high minutes (we cant run him into the ground) or him and ceglar which compromises our structure too much

 

[Chinacats]

What are the pros and cons of this Gather Round thing? Do GFC get a share of the upwards of $14 million that the SA government shelled out to the AFL for this extra round?

Should they have picked games where the teams were due to play each other twice? Neither Geelong or West Coast fans will see this fixture at home this season. The same with Collingwood v St Kilda, Essendon v Melbourne.

Too negative… isn’t it?

 

[Chinacats]

Sunday will have seen 4 AFL matches in 3 days on the Adelaide oval deck by the time we roll out.

Currently patchy thunderstorms where I am 15km away. 48 hours from first bounce.

This could get interesting

Excuse pre game preferred… shorter pre season obviously is done! Heavy training load completely made up! Injuries? They have more! Win or nothing!

 

[Chinacats]

We won our grand final against the most successful AFL club…now for our competition for the 2nd most successful club..another team that don’t understand back to back! Win or lose!

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Excuse pre game preferred… shorter pre season obviously is done! Heavy training load completely made up! Injuries? They have more! Win or nothing!

Excuses? I don't even know who that would favour

 

[AM]

Gather round something.

Massive 60 mins v the Hawks and 15 goals later we are smelling like Roses.

Granted... 18 th on the ladder.... we were 17th at the time so let no get carried away but an emphatic win is an emphatic win.

Lets do it again now.

The Tim Kelly cup - they'll be looking to prove something as we are the hunted.

Might be a forced change or two - Bews out, Maybe Rohan.

Jezza... enough said.

Who else comes in - Bruhn with 36 in the magoos... fair effort in a losing side.
Short week for us.

GO Catters

CS did suggest Bruhn won't be out for long pre the Hawks game, so you'd think he is front and centre.

Dempsey seems to have got a lot of it in the twos, so I'd like to see him replace Rohan. But they'll probably go, Simpson.

 

[Mr Meow]

We need to be professional and get the job done but we absolutely should be doing what we need to be cherry ripe for the week after against Sydney.

West Coast had 8 players with 20 games or under last week. Hawthorn had only 5. Our least experienced player was Henry with 29 games

I think Witherden is the only one who might be coming back. They had to play a massively underdone Elliott Yeo as a key defender against Melbourne. They're a team publicly accepting they're going through a rebuild who are now in an injury crisis, missing 5 of their best 8 or so players (McGovern, Natanui, Ryan, Shuey and Cripps).

I'm not saying we rest half the team or play a bunch of kids. I'm saying we manage anyone who needs it and bring in Parfitt, Bruhn and maybe one of Clark or Dempsey.

The team needs stability, we are already having our usual minimum 2 enforced changes. Pushing it to a 3rd for someone like Tuohy I'd be fine with but no more than that unless someone is genuinely struggling (i.e Blicavs who we won't really know the ins and outs of his issue). At round 5 heading in 1-3 it doesn't matter the opponent - we need as much of the old gang getting cohesion and momentum together. Afterall we will still have Bowes and O.Henry getting valuable game time, and Sav in his 6th AFL game as a key defender. I wouldn't mind them rolling the dice on Parfitt and seeing if he can bounce back and potentially even playing vs the Swans. Bowes playing half back.

Out: Bews, Rohan, Tuohy
In: SDK, O.Henry, Parfitt

Any more changes than this and the team is in too great a flux IMO.

 

[Kobe Gryant]

We won our grand final against the most successful AFL club…now for our competition for the 2nd most successful club..another team that don’t understand back to back! Win or lose!

 

[Mr Meow]

We won an actual grand final 7 months ago. But more importantly we beat a team that used to be good and sit up with us at the top of the ladder.

 

[Footy Smarts]

Sav was horrible as a ruckman the last time we did that and i hope we dont go back to it. You might as well play ollie henry as the 2nd ruck if youre gonna do that.
I assume the eagles will go waterman (although they could bring edwards in as the 2nd ruck). But either way we dont have another 2nd ruck to bring in (with neale injured) so i cant see what youre suggesting. It would either force stanley to play too high minutes (we cant run him into the ground) or him and ceglar which compromises our structure too much

Sav is not horrible as a ruck and nobody is saying to play him there full time.

But if Blics is sore he'll do absolutely fine helping out for 15-20% of game time as a one off. Especially so because he'll have 5+cm, 10+ kg and a heap more ruck experience compared to Jake Waterman. This isn't going head to head with Max Gawn.

 

[Kobe Gryant]

We won an actual grand final 7 months ago. But more importantly we beat a team that used to be good and sit up with us at the top of the ladder.

At least we have our priorities in order

 

[Mr Meow]

Sav is not horrible as a ruck and nobody is saying to play him there full time.

But if Blics is sore he'll do absolutely fine helping out for 15-20% of game time as a one off. Especially so because he'll have 5+cm, 10+ kg and a heap more ruck experience compared to Jake Waterman. This isn't going head to head with Max Gawn.

Too much messing around though. A rookie defender having to help out in ruck even 20% game time it's more unsettling than a forward IMO. Especially when most ruck/forwards are used to that role. Against weaker sides it's a great chance for him to try and put a consistent game in defence together, iron out mistakes and grow in confidence.

 

[Footy Smarts]

Too much messing around though. A rookie defender having to help out in ruck even 20% game time it's more unsettling than a forward IMO. Especially when most ruck/forwards are used to that role. Against weaker sides it's a great chance for him to try and put a consistent game in defence together, iron out mistakes and grow in confidence.

This is only if Blics is really sore. I'm just saying given the opposition and another 6 day break we shouldn't push Blics to play this week.

And yeah if they'd prefer Olly Henry or Danger or Hawkins to ruck a bit further outside 50 or pair Ceglar with Stanley then the are all viable options.

But if we can't beat a team with 7+ sub 20 gamers and feel the need to play Blicavs sore because we're worried about what Jake Waterman might do to us in the ruck then we've got massive issues. Hopefully he's fine but if he's not don't risk him this week.

 

[Mr Meow]

This is only if Blics is really sore. I'm just saying given the opposition and another 6 day break we shouldn't push Blics to play this week.

And yeah if they'd prefer Olly Henry or Danger or Hawkins to ruck a bit further outside 50 or pair Ceglar with Stanley then the are all viable options.

But if we can't beat a team with 7+ sub 20 gamers and feel the need to play Blicavs sore because we're worried about what Jake Waterman might do to us in the ruck then we've got massive issues. Hopefully he's fine but if he's not don't risk him this week.

My general feeling is that he wouldn't have come back on if they thought he'd done real damage. And generally it takes something pretty substantial to put Blicavs out of action. Can't even remember him being managed. But you're right IF it is a serious issue we have to look at alternatives. We never know exactly how fine a player is though, so can only assume if they play they are good to go and if they don't they are not.

 

[GeelongFTW]

This is only if Blics is really sore. I'm just saying given the opposition and another 6 day break we shouldn't push Blics to play this week.

And yeah if they'd prefer Olly Henry or Danger or Hawkins to ruck a bit further outside 50 or pair Ceglar with Stanley then the are all viable options.

But if we can't beat a team with 7+ sub 20 gamers and feel the need to play Blicavs sore because we're worried about what Jake Waterman might do to us in the ruck then we've got massive issues. Hopefully he's fine but if he's not don't risk him this week.

Just play Ceglar. That's what he's here for-to play when our proper rucks are sore

 

[Scottland2007]

SDK in allows Sav to help Stanley.
Duncan to Sub to manage him.
Blitz a week off for Sydney.
Bruhn into the guts.
Henry for Rohan.
Whyte to half back for Bews.

2-3 is our lucky starting point.

We’ll be in the 8 after this weekend.

I reckon if we win we could move up to 10th. We need a few more wins before we move into the 8.

 

[catters05]

don’t take eagles lightly, get the 4 points, no injuries or suspensions. start building some momentum. Third quarter is the standard.

 

[Mr Meow]

I reckon if we win we could move up to 10th. We need a few more wins before we move into the 8.

I've done the ladder predictor and have us 9th if we win this week. Then 8th if we beat Sydney the following week or 10th if we lose that one.

 

[Mad_Hatter]

I'd like to see a continuation of the form and energy from the second half vs the hawks but I also fully expect a rather limp showing where we end up winning by a few goals in a "take it and move on" type of game.
The 4 points are far more valuable than quality form so I'd just take the win no matter how we play.
Oh and no injuries!

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Sav is not horrible as a ruck and nobody is saying to play him there full time.

But if Blics is sore he'll do absolutely fine helping out for 15-20% of game time as a one off. Especially so because he'll have 5+cm, 10+ kg and a heap more ruck experience compared to Jake Waterman. This isn't going head to head with Max Gawn.

Sav was and is horrible as a ruck his technique is terrible (though he tries and the effort is clearly there). That said the bigger issue is hes learning the defence role as it is and needs to be left there (if hes in the seniors) i doubt they will throw him around in other positions again and we dont really have another option for 2nd ruck besides blitz.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Just play Ceglar. That's what he's here for-to play when our proper rucks are sore

Ceglar is fine if stanley is out and you have a 2nd ruck for 30 % (ie blitz) but im not sure ceglar and stanley together works as neither of them can really play a 2nd position.

 

[catsfootyfan89]

The Hawthorn game was valuable in playing a lot of blokes into some form. Hope the guys can bottle that and bring it this weekend too. It'd be nice to start winning the ones we're supposed to. Can't imagine we lose this one unless we sh** the bed completely.

Is the club going to challenge the Rohan suspension?