Changes for Prelim final V North

[Go Swannies]

I know he won't but I certainly hope it's not the fact that it's his 350th that's keeping him in the starting 18. There's no room for sentimentality in finals footy. I thought Longmire was pretty slow to react to Fremantle's extra man so I hope he has something up his sleeve if he goes out with the exact same lineup and faces similar tactics.

Another thing to watch out for will be North attempting to keep the contest a low scoring affair early. Denying us possession and momentum, lots of short kicks and switches from one side of the ground to the other. They'll be happy to win slow and ugly so we need to be tight in defence.

Did you hear Barry Hall say he thinks Goodes is up for a big game after being down for a few week now?. Goodes has hardly had a defensive side to his game for the past five years now - strange how he seems to go alright when he has the ball in hand though. But you'd only drop Goodes if you were replacing him with someone who is more damaging - and there isn't anyone. The plan to play him as the 3rd or 4th forward in the free game would have worked if he'd held the marks that he'd normally have taken. By the time the Roos double team Buddy and Tippo and maybe Reid they are getting thin on defenders for Goodes.

If we play as we should we should win by 50+. Full team, fresh legs and finals experience should finish the Roos' season. But it's a final so anything could happen.

Agree completely on the extra man back - Horse was very slow to respond. I hope we see Buddy move further up the ground earlier this time, too. But the Roos aren't the boa constrictor that Freo is - and they have backs out - so decent midfield supply should give us a comfortable win. I hope Goodes kicks five.

[Hartijon]

If you could only do that! If we kicked the ball straight the opposition would never touch it! If we kicked straight for goal we would win most matches easily.Unfortunately or should I say luckily we play with a ball that is not round,has unpredictable bounce and can boomerang under windy conditions,It evens up the contest and makes it possible for less talented teams to have a more even competition

[Captain]

Shaw potentially might start as the sub. Would be my choice.

[floppinab]

I'm confident for no rain Liz, however, a cool night is forecast so dew could be an issue?

Nup, dew will be in the box, not on the ground.

[mcs]

Doesn't matter how good the delivery is if you end up sandwiched between two opposition players.

One thing I always admired about the Hawks was their ability to find an alternative target 40-50m from goal when the opposition flooded back to the goal square. Hope we lower the eyes and do the same.

They can't have two defenders on everyone however... If we get enough good ball going forward, and we don't as you say the 'kick it and hope routine', eventually we will find enough avenues to goal. If we, as Matimbo said, get our usual amount of inside 50's, then we will more than likely win, as its more than likely at least one of our forwards will get away from them.

And we have in recent matches seen more goals coming from our midfielders as well, which will help negate such an approach.

[mcs]

If you could only do that! If we kicked the ball straight the opposition would never touch it! If we kicked straight for goal we would win most matches easily.Unfortunately or should I say luckily we play with a ball that is not round,has unpredictable bounce and can boomerang under windy conditions,It evens up the contest and makes it possible for less talented teams to have a more even competition

Of course Hartijon - it would be a boring game if it didn't have said unpredictability. But you would expect, on balance, that if we get enough forward 50 entries, barring errant kicking (another wonderful variable!), we will get the job done. Unless we solely do the 'kick it and hope' bomb routine, but surely we are better than that. We wouldn't have lost only twice since April if that was our only tactic going forward.

For the record, I think Tippett will kick at least 4 tonight. All the attention will be on looking after Buddy, and with good conditions, it could really give Tippett some good chances to bring a few marks down and kick a few goals. He has form for turning up in Prelims as well.

[rojo]

I would love to see us start with a totally unpredictable forward setup. Say Goodes at full-forward someone like Parks at CHF with Buddy and KT up the ground a bit to completely mess up North's defensive strategy, and then continuously rotate them around. When KT first came back from injury they were doing that a bit but lately it has seemed to be a more predictable setup and with bombing it long, lots of congestion around the goals.

[stellation]

I would love to see us start with a totally unpredictable forward setup. Say Goodes at full-forward someone like Parks at CHF with Buddy and KT up the ground a bit to completely mess up North's defensive strategy, and then continuously rotate them around. When KT first came back from injury they were doing that a bit but lately it has seemed to be a more predictable setup and with bombing it long, lots of congestion around the goals.

Love a bit of confusion thrown in, always keeps me amused.

Loosely related old story- I had a clever basketball coach in my youth who used to use what he called "waltz switching" for periods of games, and he'd just say to us "zone on step" or "man on step". The idea was based on switching structures based on the waltz count of "1-2-3" with 1 being the step- so for "zone on step" we'd play 1 defensive possession of zone, then 2 defensive possessions of man on man, then 1 defensive possession of zone. Very simply, but it was based on the logic of everyone could count to 3 to know when to switch so it kept things simple but still would throw things around a bit. In hindsight it was amazing how effective it was, and because it'd switch around from zone on step to man on step through a game opponents ever really seemed to grasp it.

[undy]

I would love to see us start with a totally unpredictable forward setup. Say Goodes at full-forward someone like Parks at CHF with Buddy and KT up the ground a bit to completely mess up North's defensive strategy, and then continuously rotate them around. When KT first came back from injury they were doing that a bit but lately it has seemed to be a more predictable setup and with bombing it long, lots of congestion around the goals.

I thought we did quite a lot of that in the last game with KT doing a lot more ruckwork further up the ground than we've seen this season. We do have a lot of options.

[Ludwig]

Love a bit of confusion thrown in, always keeps me amused.

Loosely related old story- I had a clever basketball coach in my youth who used to use what he called "waltz switching" for periods of games, and he'd just say to us "zone on step" or "man on step". The idea was based on switching structures based on the waltz count of "1-2-3" with 1 being the step- so for "zone on step" we'd play 1 defensive possession of zone, then 2 defensive possessions of man on man, then 1 defensive possession of zone. Very simply, but it was based on the logic of everyone could count to 3 to know when to switch so it kept things simple but still would throw things around a bit. In hindsight it was amazing how effective it was, and because it'd switch around from zone on step to man on step through a game opponents ever really seemed to grasp it.

[Go Swannies]

Did you hear Barry Hall say he thinks Goodes is up for a big game after being down for a few week now?. Goodes has hardly had a defensive side to his game for the past five years now - strange how he seems to go alright when he has the ball in hand though. But you'd only drop Goodes if you were replacing him with someone who is more damaging - and there isn't anyone. The plan to play him as the 3rd or 4th forward in the free game would have worked if he'd held the marks that he'd normally have taken. By the time the Roos double team Buddy and Tippo and maybe Reid they are getting thin on defenders for Goodes.

If we play as we should we should win by 50+. Full team, fresh legs and finals experience should finish the Roos' season. But it's a final so anything could happen.

Agree completely on the extra man back - Horse was very slow to respond. I hope we see Buddy move further up the ground earlier this time, too. But the Roos aren't the boa constrictor that Freo is - and they have backs out - so decent midfield supply should give us a comfortable win. I hope Goodes kicks five.

Can I say told you so? Loved watching him run end-to-end with knees that are bone-on-bone.

[aardvark]

Can I say told you so? Loved watching him run end-to-end with knees that are bone-on-bone.

I must admit I was expecting him to crumble. He was completely knackered at the end of the run.