Changes for Round 5 - GWS

[Meg]

I thought we'd put the Hack name to bed forever? Captain of the club, premiership player and all round champ. Deserves more respect

+1.

[royboy42]

I think Heeney will play. Rohan and McHack are less likely, but Horse has brought both in before without games in the NEAFL, so I really have no idea what will happen tonight. Who goes out is intriguing. I still vote for Fox Foot Florentine

I thought we'd put the Hack name to bed forever? Captain of the club, premiership player and all round champ. Deserves more respect

[Ludwig]

Personally I don't think we can win this. Our set ups are old and worn out. the opposition simply set up to combat every move we make. Horse has not introduced anything new this season so far. In the preseason games we played a few new moves, the short game, fast game, patient game, we experimented. It seems to me all the experiments were for nothing as all those strategies have been abandoned for the tried, trusted and obvious old game plan. GWS have our measure on the way we play. We don't change our plan to suit the new players, we are still working on the old plan to suit old players. It worked last year because of the sensational form of the players we had. But have a look what happens to it when a few players are down on form. Bullies have not been playing well either but they manage to win because they have a better plan and they have tweaked it over the summer. Bevo also has the ability to think fast in the game situation when things are not going right and make the right moves. Horse at the moment cannot. I think mainly because there are no moves that are obvious. but sometimes you have to come out of left field. In the 2012 Finals Horse pulled one out of the bag, Mummy off Parker on, Mummy was injured and needed to rest. This left us with one ruck but it worked. The extra run and in and under won the game. I am baffled he can't come up with left field moves. He has in selection, baffling moves really more so than innovative. I don't understand where the inventiveness has gone.

Do you think maybe it's not the game plan, but we are simply not playing well and no game plan will work if you're turning the ball over?

We want to move the ball quickly through the corridor with crisp passing and overlap run, but it's just not coming together because we can't execute the skills. We have also been fumbling around with the ball in the back half and allowing the opposition to set up for our attempts to rebound out of defence.

I've seen men open for a quick kick out of defence only to be ignored (maybe out of fear of inability to execute), then to kick to a contest, turn the ball over and back it come the other way. That's one reason I was surprised by dropping Newman, because he was on player who could drive the ball accurately downfield.

[Sandrevan]

I'm a bit surprised by AA and Newman being dropped. Newman has been pretty good and deserved to hold his spot. Also, a bit surprised by Heeny and Rohan coming in - I thought they'd get some time in the NEAFL to build some match fitness. Anyway, I'm guessing the match committee know stuff that I don't.

Rohan (if he switches on) and Papley will need to provide forward pressure to Nullify Shaw and Williams so maybe that's part of the logic.

I don't know what to expect from Heeny. When fully fit he's awesome but recovering from glandular fever he may not be able to run out the game. I guess we'll see.
Good luck to the lucky Swan who matches up on Toby Greene. Yes, he's a tirde but a very dangerous player. Maybe Zac Jones can get under his skin.

KJ - certainly not at his best right now. Perhaps he'll get a rest when McVeigh comes back in - but what do I know.

Can't see how we'll win this one - but you never know.

It seems that body slams are the new bump. Can somebody break Steve Johnsons ribs before he takes another shot at JPK.

[MattW]

The left field solution I can possibly see to the lack of a third tall defender is to put Sinclair back on Lobb. He is the only spare tall we have and could probably spoil Lobb. He can easily spoil himself by dropping marks. No way Smith, Marsh or Jones can match Lobb unless they take a step ladder or chain saw out with them. We also have match up problems preventing Shaw, Williams and Wilson running the ball out of defence and we need speedy midfielders to combat the likes of Scully, Kelly, Shiel and Ward. Quietly confident of my tip for tomorrow, GWS. It is going to be an interesting radio call of the game with three Kennedy's, two Sam Reid's and two Smiths.

Whenever Sinclair has been dragged back he's looked pretty clueless.

I agree with Wolftone: Grundy-Lobb, Melican-Patton, Marsh-Cameron. Cameron's goals mostly come on the lead or from ground balls, and I think Marsh will be more effective nullifying those leads than Aliir, who has been beaten on the lead a lot the last few weeks.

I see us winning 45% of clearances at best, so our forwards will need to be more efficient than theirs and kick straight. Our forward line is the best it's looked all year with Franklin, Reid, Papley, Rohan, Hayward and Tippett. The problem is containing their gun forwards. Jones will need to have a stormer; spoiling contests and, with Lloyd, running hard out of defence.

Our defeat of GWS last year was one of the season's more satisfying wins. That day the clearances were perfectly split, they had more ball (mostly uncontested) and we had 20 more inside 50s and were more efficient in our forward 50. Hanners, Kennedy and Parker averaged 30 posessions and each had 16 contested possessions. Joey made 13 tackles. They'll need to do that again.

[rb4x]

The left field solution I can possibly see to the lack of a third tall defender is to put Sinclair back on Lobb. He is the only spare tall we have and could probably spoil Lobb. He can easily spoil himself by dropping marks. No way Smith, Marsh or Jones can match Lobb unless they take a step ladder or chain saw out with them. We also have match up problems preventing Shaw, Williams and Wilson running the ball out of defence and we need speedy midfielders to combat the likes of Scully, Kelly, Shiel and Ward. Quietly confident of my tip for tomorrow, GWS. It is going to be an interesting radio call of the game with three Kennedy's, two Sam Reid's and two Smiths.

[Billericay]

There was a time last year when Horse used to explain why he'd dropped players. It would be really good if he resurrected that.

[SeanM]

I think Aliir had poor preparation for the season. So maybe best to drop him for a week since he is still relatively young and inexperienced in a demanding position. Though it would have been nice to have another tall in the team possibly Laidler.

Grundy and Smith have had a poor start to the season but I think we need to back them to gradually get back into form. It is ridiculous people saying they should be retired immediately. It is only four games into the season.

Fox is injured. I think it is good to rest Florent given the opposition and he has played four games straight. Newman has done well but someone had to make way for returning players. People have mentioned leaving out Foote, Cunningham and Jack but they are different type of players. Also not sure how natural a defender Newman is, he may end up more of a midfielder.

I am not optimistic about winning. But it would be good to be competitive for the whole game, see players return and not give up on the season.

[AB Swannie]

I think you're right. Reid will play at CHF but may be used in an emergency back. I hope I'm wrong but I think Cameron would be a chance to kick 6 if Marsh is his opponent. This is the game Rampe being injured really hurts (pardon the pun). His ability to play on the likes of Cameron is priceless. I still kind of hope that Laidler gets brought in as an emergency and they play Melican or Marsh as a loose, intercepting defender.

However, to be fair, any chance we have to keep the GWScum from kicking a heap will be on the shoulders of the midfield as quick entries will kill us.

[wolftone57]

Personally I don't think we can win this. Our set ups are old and worn out. the opposition simply set up to combat every move we make. Horse has not introduced anything new this season so far. In the preseason games we played a few new moves, the short game, fast game, patient game, we experimented. It seems to me all the experiments were for nothing as all those strategies have been abandoned for the tried, trusted and obvious old game plan. GWS have our measure on the way we play. We don't change our plan to suit the new players, we are still working on the old plan to suit old players. It worked last year because of the sensational form of the players we had. But have a look what happens to it when a few players are down on form. Bullies have not been playing well either but they manage to win because they have a better plan and they have tweaked it over the summer. Bevo also has the ability to think fast in the game situation when things are not going right and make the right moves. Horse at the moment cannot. I think mainly because there are no moves that are obvious. but sometimes you have to come out of left field. In the 2012 Finals Horse pulled one out of the bag, Mummy off Parker on, Mummy was injured and needed to rest. This left us with one ruck but it worked. The extra run and in and under won the game. I am baffled he can't come up with left field moves. He has in selection, baffling moves really more so than innovative. I don't understand where the inventiveness has gone.

[wolftone57]

Hmmmm. An out of form Grundy (192cm) and a 1st gamer Melican (193) up against Patton (197), Cameron (196) and Lobb (205). I can only assume Reid will play down back as the third tall in place of Newman.

No Reid won't. He'll play where he should play as CHF. Putting Reid back would be admitting defeat before the game even started. Marsh will probably play on Cameron, who is not a pack mark generally, Reg on Lobb and Melican on Patton. Melican played on Patton recently in the reserves trial and kept him to 2.

[Ludwig]

Hmmmm. An out of form Grundy (192cm) and a 1st gamer Melican (193) up against Patton (197), Cameron (196) and Lobb (205). I can only assume Reid will play down back as the third tall in place of Newman.

I called for Melican coming in for just this reason, because now Marsh will have to take one of these 3. I didn't think Aliir would be dropped. Then, like you, I remembered that we could always move Reid back if help is needed. We still have plenty of firepower up forward, especially with Sinclair, who is so good a dropping bombs.

My guess re Newman being out is simply defensive matchups this week against a team that loves massive run and carry from their backline and wings and secondly our own rotation in our backline

I think we may see Newman straight back in unless macca comes back next week and we see macca playing that half back link role like last season

As players come off the injury list, we will get to see that we really have a lot of depth across the ground, although much of it with little experience. If we suppose the current side does well, we still have Aliir, Newman, Rampe and Macca to come back into our defence. So what happens to the one's that will be there on Saturday?

[Flying South]

Hmmmm. An out of form Grundy (192cm) and a 1st gamer Melican (193) up against Patton (197), Cameron (196) and Lobb (205). I can only assume Reid will play down back as the third tall in place of Newman.

[Nico]

It looked to me that Allir ran out of petrol tickets in the 2nd half last week. Maybe it is a fitness issue. Newman's omission is puzzling though. Could it be he looks good when he has the footy but is unaccountable for his man. Over to you Ludwig on that one.

[Auntie.Gerald]

My guess re Newman being out is simply defensive matchups this week against a team that loves massive run and carry from their backline and wings and secondly our own rotation in our backline

We have to have a run with player against GWS and a traditional tagger as there is too much strike power outside

Shiels, Kelly, Wilson, Williams, Scully

So Cunningham and Foote and Marsh stay to run with / tag

I do believe Jones and Lloyd have proved at a higher level their ability rotating through our backline to get our transitions going

Mills in my opinion is borderline and could have easily been dropped for Newman but they are persisting with helping Mills thru this period due to his upside being higher and current form just acceptable me thinks

I think we may see Newman straight back in unless macca comes back next week and we see macca playing that half back link role like last season