We constantly look at who's missing as to the way to improve.
When martin is in and plays 2 average games we want him dropped. When his injured we want him back as another ‘dud’ is not performing. Rarely any team is injury free and apart from your high end top liners, injuries to players ranked below your top 10 are over rated imo.
If cripps weitering charlie harry are out its a big loss but when we start counting on a injury riddled blokes like martin marchbank mcgovern and even a young player like motlop to fix our problems we are kidding ourself.
We all know the reality with Martin, he will get injured, go missing at times so you just hope he is fit when needed for big games as his best makes a difference because he can change and win games but have to live with the downside of injuries and lack of consistency in games. McGovern as that extra support for Weitering and Young/or Kemp provides that 2nd man up in contests and intercept ability that good teams have plus his kicking has depth and is usually decent. Never been a massive fan or either he or Martin but they are crucial at either end for us to be at our best and most dangerous and I think Motlop paired with Owies and Fogarty gives us our best small forward setup. They are not worldbeaters but cogs in the engine and know their roles.
Losing Jsos n Doc to is proving to be a massive disadvantage.
Docherty is a cool head in the heat of battle and I think we saw Pendlebury provide that for Collingwood and the goal he kicked was massive under real pressure. JSOS gives you options and you know you will get a contest from him..
re: Williams......a nervous player when played down back and and when you add Young plus two inexperienced defenders in Cowan and Cincotta it puts a lot of pressure on Weitering to be the glue thats holds the backline together. I think Williams has to play on the weakest small forward and never on the last line close to goal and my preference if he has to play is on the wing where he use his skillset to carry the ball and deliver and be removed from having to mind a man. I cant see him in the team when we have our full crew back and ditto for Fantasia and Durdin.
Big Picture view....I dont like losing to Collingwood either but we can improve our team with key players who are out injured and removing players who cant be trusted to play finals type footy when you have to. Rather lose now and find out where our weak points are than fall apart at seasons end and have these type of losses pre-finals. Do our players good to have some pressure on them now and stop believing all the hype in the media with people like David King saying its Geelong, GWS and us as your contenders and the rest are making up the numbers... We need to get better at playing dirty, tough finals type footy and having more contributors...
Pies played the big moments well, leading tackle makers were Pendlebury, Nick Daicos and Crisp which would surprise a few people but probably showed even their showboat players like Daicos worked a bit harder than we thought they would. Both teams had a lot of non contributors but I felt some of ours did nothing at all unlike a few of their quiet stars who at least competed. Backline worries me when Weitering is out of the play and we are relying on the likes of Williams, Young, Cowan and Cincotta. Need Saad and McGovern back to provide stability and Kemp is a better player than all four I mentioned and dropping him was dumb imho. Not the end of the world and when we get our main troops back including Martin and Motlop we will be ok. Fantasia and Durdin might not as well have been playing as their contributions were zero.....
Can't go with them when they rebound, Crisp has really lifted on Cripps and the Daicos kids are in the game. Still think we will win as they will have used up some petrol to get back in the game. I'd get Kennedy on to help in the middle...
Wonder if it'll be Cottrell that goes to Daicos? Sidebottom has been terribly outta form this year so hopefully this isn't the week he discovers it again.
On paper we look to have the edge even without Saad, McGovern, Martin, Motlop.....but history shows ladder positions don't usually mean much. If we can bring the pressure that we showed for the majority of that GWS game (apart from 20 minutes of the second quarter), we can win.
Big question for me is will Nick Daicos start in the middle as an attacking option or will McRae look to run a negative group to restrict and stifle our midfield and then look to counter attack from half back where they have picked a few options. I think he might play Pendlebury on Cripps and use Crisp to tag Walsh, I even think Maynard might get a run in the middle to shake things up and try and counter our bigger mids. Id expect Sidebottom to line up on the wing as per usual when he plays us.
Elliott and Mihocek normally dine out us and Sidebottom runs around by himself racking it up. If I see that Ill spew up.
Had some poor matchups on these players and non existant opponents on Sidebottom and Josh Daicos who just get on their own continually. I reckon we would have learned a lot from previous games and have better plans to curtail their more dangerous players and I think DeGoey is a major out for them that they cant replace in the middle. Being more efficient ourselves is one of our major issues and being able to convert our chances are keys to beating Collingwood as much as worrying about their players imho.
Dropping Kemp makes no sense....Don't mind Cunningham especially if he plays forward given our small forwards have been a non event and need to provide more support to our big key forwards. I would have liked Kemp in as an option for Mihocek who is a different FF to most and requires a mobile defender.
Prof, Id be happy with those changes but I think Williams will be persevered with, hoping the bad press this past week might inspire a better game from him. The out of form and equally under pressure Lachie Schultz might be a good opponent for him...
Mitchell has been a liability this season. Losing him would probably help their chances.
I wonder if they’ll bite the bullet and drop Sidebottom 🤔 We’ll probably play him back into form.
Vossy’s response to our profligate play on Saturday suggests that our players will have a hard week. It won’t be “bring your mouthguards” but there will be some honest feedback and clarification of roles and expectations.
They will miss Mitchell, being doing the grunt work alone with Adams gone and he compliments their other mids imho. If Sidebottom gets to run around on his own like he usually does when we play him he will get back into form... Lachie OSullivan from Werribee will replace Mitchell, tough honest old fashioned VFA/VFL footballer but wont know what hit him with Cripps, Walsh and crew waiting for him.... Blues by plenty providing we man up correctly and dont try silly matchups like Cowan on Hill or Elliott or Similar...
Degoey not likely for the Pies and Mitchell also struggling to get up, if we can get some troops back and they lose a few key ones we should have no excuses and Im confident we can knock the Pies over given their form is only fair this season.
Not Test cricket I know but Jake Fraser-McGurk who has been dominating in the IPL appears to have been excluded from the t20 WC squad in favour of David Warner who hasnt been able to make a run, he is now 37 and looking to only fill his pockets with short format league money. I know who I would be picking but it appears the boys club selection policy is alive and well still and its hurting Aus cricket moving forward imo with no junior talent being blooded. All this after the Steve Smith test opening failure/fiasco as well...
How about Cincotta into the backline and Zac goes half forward?
Agree on Cincotta, thought ZW might go ok on the wing vs a very out of form Sidebottom, maybe the coach could challenge him with N.Daicos who plays off half back to shut him down..
