Changes for Rnd8 V Freo

[Doctor]

One positional change would be an incredibly valuable change.Move Pyke to CHF to Reid's position.Move Reid to the backlines to basically play LRT's role.
Pyke is the number 1 contested mark in the entire competition. He even beats Cloke yet we have him rucking. He should be at CHF pulling in the hard marks,something we put Reid there to do but he is sadly out of form.This gives White one more chance at rucking unless there is someone else who could do it in the 2's?
Reid to the backlines to refresh him covers our lack of an extra Tall back there which was exploited by Hawthorn.Give him a defensive role to get his confidence back.The other changes I would base on the sound philosophy of only picking players in form regardless of reputations.IfMorton is in form pick him.

I was thinking about something like this too. Is Pyke a forward line option? Contested marks around the ground with some in the forward 50 are different to being camped there and hounded by a key defender though.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

While I appreciate the frustration, I think one of our problems may be structural.

There is a huge gap between last years successful structure and the team that played Hawthorn. Our forward line works best with 2 key talls, plus a ruckman. We have played 1 key tall, plus a ruckman for much of the season (The loss of LRT and AJ and their replacement with smaller players caused this structural change).

The number of midfielder generated goals has covered up our forward line problem. Problem is, last weekend our midfield got a smacking, and they simply didn't kick enough goals to make everything appear hunky-dorey.

So I think we should bring Walsh in (especially after reading Big Al's ressie report), swapping Reid for Mitchell or Morton is just going to exacerbate the forward lines structural problem. We could of course go even smaller, but the way our mids have been bombing it in when under pressure makes that unlikely to yield dividends.

[Melbournehammer]

but but but but our forward line relies on goodes and pyke and mummy and reid - our tall forward line is wot won it !!!

I am actually sympathetic to the smaller forward structure - it is interesting but when we play well it is usually because jude and mcglynn are marking on leads.

[Ludwig]

The next 4 games are against teams that have good tall defences, and not really suitable for a forward like Reid. We should spare him the pain and either not play him, or play him as a much needed tall defender, but perhaps not against Freo, who don't have many tall options at the moment. Sam could turn into a good front and back player; he's quick and good at ground level and can probably play well on much shorter opponents. He may well turn out to be much like his brother, but even more agile. I like a Tippett-LRT combo better than Tippett-Reid. Pyke is not a good defender and we need and extra tall to cover the ruckman going forward.

We should forget about tall marking targets until Tippo comes in. Until then we look better suited to the sort of offence that the Bulldogs had pre Bazza, when they scored heavily with mostly mids playing forward. Next week seems a good opportunity to bring Walsh into the side. He's doing well in the reserves and we can see how he fares this time around in the seniors. We really need to take a look at him again at senior level before Tippett and LRT come back, which will limit his opportunities. We can bring him in for White and play him mostly as the lone tall forward. Give Reid the week off.

Armstrong didn't get a lot of the ball, but when he did he used it well. I think his all around game is improving. Ross Lyon may take a queue from how well Mal got tagged out of the game and do the same to him this week, and we may well need Tony's accurate kicking.

[tez]

Drop Reid back to the reserves and make him win his place back, replacing him with Morton. Morton has earned another chance and
is a better kick for goal than Reid.