Good to see Lloyd matching up on Hawkins in the team line ups 👏
If we win this will be one of the games you will want to go back and watch 5 times over.
I still expect to see Fox on Hawkins. I understand the point about his previous success against Cameron, but he's our best defender of a key forward in this line-up and the only one who could feasibly not be monstered by Hawkins.
I think Blakey will mark Cameron, with Mills playing a sweeping role, or vice versa.
With Amartey out, in this line-up, it makes sense to bring in Francis who could play forward or back, as Aaron noted.
Clarke in for Warner firms us up too.
Interesting we have the 2nd highest games experience missed through injury this season thus far. Along with the fielding youngest team last round.
AFL injury list, news 2023: Ladder reveals clubs that have lost most games experience, West Coast Eagles, Adelaide Crows
I think Francis will start in the forward line. We’ve obviously trained all pre-season with the 3 tall structure and so I don’t see it changing now either. It means all their defenders need to be accountable. If things go wrong, we either swing Francis back or sub on Gould.
If we do play Francis in the forward line, it would be a big mistake. They have us completely covered for height and we shouldn't do anything to encourage making it a contest in the air. We also need as much height as possible in the back line, even though it will never be sufficient regardless of who we play in defence. Our only chance is to play the ball at ground level and try to weave our way through their defence.
Surely Francis will play back.
And we can always throw him forward later in the game if Gould is sub again.
How many of our 23 players have never played on Kardinia Park? It has very different dimensions to the SCG (and almost everywhere else).
SCG: 155.5 L x 136 W
Kardinia Park: 170 L x 115 W
So Kardinia Park approx. 20m longer and 20m narrower than the SCG. The trap for inexperienced players is trying to kick down the line and ending up OOB on the full.
So run through the middle guys, and quickly!
We have decided to include Harry once again. His form has been woeful. Past it unfortunately. Been a great player for us but Gawn, Gawn, Gawn lol. We seem to have gone for a totally midget backline. This is a mistake against this mob. they have multiple players who can play forward and most of them will not only test a small backline they will annihilate it.
Hawkins, Cameron, Henry, Blicavs (They move him forward to catch smaller defences out or just let him drift down). That won't stretch us, it will murder us. We just don't have body size, height and or weight to beat this lot. The only one who is actually playable is Cameron and Fox should get that job. He has the aerobic ability to go with him.
But who goes with Hawkins. There is no way Blakey, Lloyd, Ollie, Millsie etc can play on him. Blakey is tall enough but Hawkins will just push him out of the way. The only players in the extended line up able to play on blokes his size are Gould and Francis, Gould is sub and Francis is FF.
Blakey could easily take Henry.
but then there is Blicavs when Scott decides he will be a good player to totally destroy our small backline. That WILL happen, not might.
We will have to win a lot of ball out of stoppages and clearances if we are to even get close.
Francis is an interesting one up forward. Kicked 3 in the VFL last week when most of the forwards that are getting elevated are kicking 5 or 6 like Cadman & Co. He does give us the ability to send him back to take Hawkins though.
With our outs is our forward line capable of kicking a big score? Will, Heens, Paps & Logan will come close. But I feel Corey warner gave us extra speed last week and now he is not playing. Cunningham is not just lucky to hold his place, he must have a Rabbit's foot on his person. he has stats of 9,9,3,9. not impacting the game at all. If you think he might be playing a role then think again. Port, Dees, even Tigers (He played as a defensive forward on Rioli) ran off him. Too slow now to pick them up and tackling is terrible. I would have preferred Warner with Clarke coming back.
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