What a great game of footy it was yesterday.
Plenty of positives to look at.
Sporn. His class is evident to all and his vision is sensational as well. His left foot pass across his body to Davies in the 3rd was brilliant.
Chambers continues to impress and wasnt it great to see Livo show his stuff.
Speaking of Livo, it was great to see the umpires off his back as well.
A great game by Jordon on Bruce and Houla continues to amaze.

But lets keep it all in perspective.
We are desperate for midfield power at the moment.
I know Kouta and Campo were missing but our midfield struggled against Essendon* as well.
Melbourne cleaned us up at the stoppages far too easily.
Stevens was brilliant. He is a one man show at the moment.
He runs harder and pushes himself harder than any player I have seen.

Why did we struggle in the middle?
We simply dont have an even spread.
McDonald, McLean and Moloney had too much ball.
In the last quarter, we conceded 20 inside 50s.
That would be a huge concern for Pagan.

Barney is competing but its not enough.
Yesterday French contested the centre bounces with Prender in the square as well. As soon as play started, Barney went forward and Prender ran with White.
The trouble is that we are effectively starting as a midfielder short.
Have no doubt Stevens' domination in the first quarter enabled us to get away with this tactic.
If Barnaby is to play, he needs to lift his efficiency.
50% of his taps went straight to the opposition.

Our backs were very good.
Our forward line functioned very well.
I still think we are missing a tall target badly but until Deluca is ready, we will improvise.
But lets be realistic, with our key forward taking 25 marks between them, no opposition should get more inside 50s and more scoring shots.
We are desperate for midfield running power, especially on the transition.

I know we have injuries but Walker, Davies and co. need to take the next step.
They are young but so is Brock McLean.
Johnson? Simpson?
We need some players to take a step now.
If you think the Dees can run hard when they get the ball, wait till we meet the Dogs.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Yep BV its the one area of concern. Thought Scotland played a good game but he should not start in the middle. We need someone with real grunt to help Stevo. As you say with Campo and Kouta out we are light on.

if we are seriously wishing to challenge the top teams we must improve in the centre in particular and around the ground in gereral.

Not an excuse,however, the umpires did slaughter us in that final term and several times when we should won the free either play continued on or we got pinged!

Still how Caz must be ruing McLean.

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

What game were you watching Blue Vain.

Robertson's swan dive and free kick in front of goal was against Livingstone which was just one of a litany of dis-f$#@inggraceful umpiring decisions.

But I was pleased with Livingstone/Wiggins/Sporn positive attack on the ball last Sunday - is the class of 2000 about to explode.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

Agreed BV

The likes of Sam Power, Birss, Cooney, Gilbee, McMahon and Robert Murphy could run us off our feet.

At every centre bounce in the first qtr French continually tried to tap it to Stevens and it was intercepted. Needs some variety.

Is it time to give Carrazzo a run on the ball?

Good call Effes.
Carrazzo has the muscle, toughness and more importantly, ball winning ability to earn a berth.
Guys like Prender will give a contest everytime but they dont win their own ball.

We need to fast track a ball winner because if Kouta doesnt come up, we are out of options.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

i think we should play him in the back pocket for a little while longer. He has the pace to keep up with the Davey types, we dont have another player like that. Both Bowyer and Teague are quite slow.I think we should give Bentick a bit more of a chance as he showed a bit in the last couple of games las year

Agree entirely BV.Been harping on about this since early last yearWanted a midfield,now i have one.Sure,the names are there,but the sad fact is we were 2nd last on clearances last year.And that had the compounding effect on both FL and BL.Makes it hard going when you are getting second crack at the pill.Stevens,Campo and Scooter are all outside midfeilders.Despite his detractors,Johnson can regularly get the hard ball.Regretful to say that the younguns arent stepping up to the plateCant see any except Simmo in 2s to come in.Reckon without doubt that Carrazzo is by far the best bet.Ugly duckling for sure,but has that inbuilt ability to find the footy.Played as onballer with cats 2s and racked up monster stats.We gotta go out on a limb and try something different.Mitchell,Elshaug and Libba are all ex onballers and i feel they need to look at setups around stoppages.Are they paralyzed or something.Do something boys or it will be the same old.Our backline is pretty good,and also our forward line.Concentrate on stoppages coaching panel,get it to 50/50 and we are top 6.

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All my dangerous friends

I'd prefer to be proactive Anthoman.
If we win the midfield, the ball spends less time in the backline.
Besides, I think Simmo deserves his shot down back.
He should get an opportunity. What better time?

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

I'd like to see Carrots given a go. I think on Sunday French won his share but we have too many two/three grab blokes in the middle. Stevo was brilliant, the rest are not centre clearance players/ or not yet. (Walker will be and I think is wasted on a wing.) Time also to try Bowyer - don't care if he is slow, if he can feed it out to the runners that'll do fine.

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Brilliant point! Was talking about that this morning. I think we are 2 genuine midfield stars away from being a very very good team.

Hopefully some of the younger guys can step up like a Walks or Simmo.

MB

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Loooook OUT!

The Dogs are not a particularly big and muscular side like Brisbane or West Coast. I'd be tempted to put Luke Blackwell in there to see what he's got in terms of ball-winning ability. I know he's young, but he seems to have shown a fair bit at intra-club level in winning the ball.

Bentick is another option. Wouldn't mind seeing Bentick and Carrazzo in the midfield to see what happens. Bentick is a bigger kid now and would physically be ready. Carazzo's disposal (his one major weakness) was fine on the weekend, in fact, most of his disposals hit the target IIRC.

BV's point about us starting a midfielder short is true because Prender's reading of the play in the centre square isn't great - rd 2 against Geelong last year, we weren't doing too well until Harford moved into the middle IIRC. He has to play half-forward or wing, Prenda's reading of the game isn't good enough for centre square work IMO.

Re: assistant coaches (particularly Mickstar's point) - those on the old site might remember that for a while I've been a vocal critic of Barry Mitchell - his coaching work in 2003 around the stoppages was nothing short of disgraceful - sure we had no cattle, but it didn't really improve that much last year. You'd think that a decent player (and Mitchell was) would be able to help with set ups at bounce downs and ball ups etc., but no, our midfielders always got caught being too close to the contest in 2003 - and then our lack of pace meant we couldn't even chase tail.

The key is we need players who can read the ball off the ruckmen in the centre square. Prenda can't do that - I don't think it works for us to have him in the centre square trying to get clearances.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

You need a Voss, Riccuito or Josh Carr type in the middle who can give us some grunt especially when the heat is on in tight games....Mclean and Moloney seem to have plenty of petrol left in the tank while a few of our blokes were struggling in the last quarter.
Carazzo may be a good option to try but looks a bit undersized...look out for Mitch Hahn ...seems to play well against us and always gets a poor matchup for some reason..some undersized, under weight kid...lets hope Denis pays him the respect he is due and we get the right opponent for him.

With Kouta out why not experiment with the youngsters Blackers, Betts, Carrots or Bentick. Bentick last year showed he was up to it and we desperately need a Rattan/Diesel feeding the quick handball off to the outside runners. Both Betts and Blackers were mentioned as players who read the play well. Even maybe Walker in the middle.

The Doggies are not particular big themselves unlike say Brisbane, so it would be an ideal time to try out some of these players in the Wizard cup instead of the heat of a home and away game. Sooner or later we will be without Campo and Kouta in the middle so lets get these youngsters ready now rather than wait until Kouta/Campo retire.

Must admit I was staggered that johnson didnt play when Kouta pulled out as he is our only other real extractor after Kouta .However is slow and one dimensional so can be exploited for leg speed as you know at Telstra.
It really is up to bentick johnson and even Carrazzo to become the hard in and under extractor as kouta cant do it all and johnson has his limitations.
We have a plethora of outside midfielders and taggers but not extractors.Last quarter reminded me of game against melbourne in 2003 at PP when they overan us at the end because we couldnt stop them out of midfield.

The good form of Stevens and our backline actually masked our poor centre square form earlier.
In the first quarter, we "won" most of the hitouts yet lost the centre clearances 6-1.
We cannot continually start from half back and expect to have put teams away.
We may win most positions on the ground but we will always give teams a chance to come back at us until we win the middle.

Unfortunately Barney is not exempt here, he got first hand to the ball but did nothing with it.
We need a big lift. Our clearances around the ground are usually OK but we continually struggle at centre bounces.
Stevo is a one man show atm.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

We were mauled in the midfield, but it create's a positive in that despite that fact our backline and forwardline were effective enough to look the better team and win the game.

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"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent." Qui-Gon Jinn 15-05-2005

"there’s more chance of me becoming the full forward for the [Western Bulldogs] than there is of any change in the Labor Party." Julia Gillard 18-05-2010

surely johnson will come in this week then.

40 odd touches in the ressies.

i reckon carrots to be the one dropped, not that he did a lot wrong, just no davey this week.

unless johno for bentick, but i'd like bentick to stay in.

Houla again?

would love to see blackwell v farren ray in the middle - not sure what blackwells chances of playing are though given he appears to be on crutches atm?