Thanks Mel. I watched the video & pleasing to hear Reid played full game in the last VFL practice match.
Club has been building him up slowly after missing 12 months of footy, considering his injury prone history.
Went through uncertainty whether he would be offered a contract for this year & is confident he can make an impact again.
Is realistic that he has a fight on his hands to force his way back in but is willing to bide his time. Wish him luck!
Re the Title of this Thread: Don't like it but please note that officially, it is the " Opening round ". Our first-round match will be against the Pies on 15 March.My Guess of the line-up:B: Florent, Melican, Rampe.HB: Llyod, McCartin, Blakey.C: Gulden, Heenly, Jordon.HF: Papley, McDonald, Hayward.FF: Ladhams, McLean, Wicks.F: Grundy, Warner, Rowbottom.I: Cunningham, Sheldrick, Campbell, McInerney, Sub: FoxEMG: Roberts, Amartey, Corey,
Parker, Adams and Mills are big outs. Let's hope we can manufacture a few wins early in the season so we stay in touch and not have to play catch up like we did last year.
Whilst these aren't great injuries as it's our 3 most experienced midfielders, the Dees have some pretty significant outs too - this is taken from the AFL website:
UNAVAILABLE: Kysaiah Pickett (suspended), Ben Brown (knee) Charlie Spargo (Achilles), Jake Melksham (knee), Shane McAdam (calf), Lachie Hunter (calf), Daniel Turner (leg), Joel Smith (suspended)
There's also questions regarding Oliver's availability as well.
Parker and Adams are at the twilight of there careers and last year some people here were wondering if Parker still had a spot in the team (not necessarily my view). I'm excited to see Sheldrick and Heeney in the midfield, and interested to see how Jordon performs. I'm not too worried
The AFL website has an article stating that Oliver will play. Hopefully he'll be short of his absolute best.
Melbourne Demons superstar Clayton Oliver to play in Opening Round clash against Sydney Swans
I did feel Sheldrick was miles off a Luke Parker performance in the GWS trial game.
So not clean below his knees. Jumping in and not keeping his feet. Not moving in on an arc to the ball to increase 360 degree exit awareness. Im sure he will tidy up next game though as it was slippery but others were clean with the ball.
"be tough, only when it gets tough"
I suspect that reflects a) his inexperience; and b) his team insecurity.
He approached the game like a bull in a china shop, trying to show his attack on the ball. In those conditions he just needed to slow everything down so he could focus on being cleaner.
I hope someone from the coaching team has sat down with him in the last few days and shown him his tape vs Lachie Neale's. He should be able to learn a lot from how Neale approached each contest.
Pickett is the only one of any significance. Ben Brown wouldn’t get a game in the Swans reserves.
Mills Parker and Adams are a significant loss. Hopefully Jordan and Shelderick can step up, and based on their practice match form here’s hoping.
Oliver will be playing which makes matters worse.
You could make an argument that they've got 5 of the best 20 players in the competition in that list - May/Gawn/Petracca certainly, Oliver and Lever possibly (and when they had Grundy arguably 6!). That's some serious over-indexing in talent, with plenty of great support from the likes of Viney, Fritsch etc. For mine, they and the Lions have comfortably the best squads in the comp.
But as the last few years have shown, talent is never enough (though it's pretty good start...).
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