They were more alot more serious than we were. They almost treated it like a real AFL game, while we were there for the practice hitout.

Liked Fisher, Marchbank, Cunningham and Pickett. Fisher runs straight, kicks long and direct.

Levi looks alot better when he gets to play on the ball.

When we run only half as hard as the opposition means no chance of the forwards getting it plus you get opened up in defence. Melbourne looked real serious while we just went for a hitout.

I wonder if the MC is still convinced we absolutely had to develop our 'secret' game plan away from prying eyes. We now know that we're trying to move the ball quicker, and handball our way through congestion. And clearly this needs a lot more practice. But it'll be interesting to see if we've actually got the run and clean hands and strong enough bodies (to absorb tackles) to actually make it work.

The other major change I noticed was instead of just being outnumbered in our forward line. We seem to be working on being outnumbered in midfield and interestingly enough in defense as well. I guess no one can accuse us of being lacking in tactical innovation. Couldn't believe how many goals they got by having 1 or 2 extra players forward of the play. Interesting also given the excess of tall defenders on our list how we seem to be relying on either Docherty or Murphy to defend the tall forward playing out of the square. (Or maybe Murphy was the only midfielder willing to run defensively.)

I think we've also got our answer as to how we're going to manage to fit all of Rowe, Marchbank, Weitering and Plowman in the one defence. It looks like we're going to try and play Plowman on smaller forwards. And I know Petracca is going to be a star, but today hasn't filled me with great confidence about Plowman's ability to play this role.

Pros:
Simpson, Docherty and Kreuzer led the way. Particularly impressed by Kreuzer's effort against Gawn and Spencer.
Impressed by Marchbank.
Weitering didn't do a lot. But he's a star. Looks like our best forward on the list.
Nice cameos from LeBois, Pickett, Charlie, Fisher and McKay. Really liked McKay's willingness to compete at ground level and apply defensive pressure.
At least we kicked a few goals.

Cons:
Got absolutely monstered in midfield without Cripps. Worried about how our midget midfield is going to cope. Can see Charlie and Smedts needing to spend a lot of time in there with their bigger bodies.
Disappointed with the performance of a number of our senior players: Murphy, Thomas, Ed, Wright, Kerridge, Palmer and Buckley. Was expecting this year to be pretty tough, but expected to see greater competitiveness and defensive systems.

H
Hi Taff
I am getting a network error on Chrome,
On Explorer and Firefox it plays for about a minute and then gives me a network error message.
The chat guy says there is a known problem with Explorer but Firefox seems to be OK.
No issues with Chrome they are aware of.

A billion dollar industry that can't even successfully live stream the games is a joke.

I think i am glad I missed it but I have just paid $189 to watch the season.
20 mbs should be enough
/

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Let slip the Blues of war (with apologies to William Shakespeare) (and Sir Francis Bacon, just in case)

Maybe he's the secret game plan we've been working on, and trying to keep from Richmond's scouts.

Agree but and I'm a sugar coater from way back but to wait 6 months for that after a similar performance in last game of last year against Bummers disappointing

NOT the end of the world and still time to rectify and improve but if they play like that on March 23 Tigers will beat us by 10 goals going away

Supporters will stick fat but must give them some hope
Liked the look of some of the new guys today but white Thomas Gorringe don't give you much and don't get you much hope

Yeah, didn't get near it. Was hoping/expecting for more.

Maybe the club should let us see training and intraclubs then. We've hardly been encouraged to share in any summer anticipation.

Yeah I had lots of issues trying to watch a replay of the previous woman's match last weekend. The replay kept failing after a minute and a half. Every other live match and replay was ok. After they seemed to upload a new recording it all played ok, must have been a problem with the encoding.

I also found that I can't watch on safari or on the android web browser on my TV. Firefox works well on OSX and the iOS app also works well.

Both of today's matches streamed really well in HD from my iPhone to my Apple TV.

I also tried to chromecast to my android TV from iOS but it would only play from the start, never live. So chromecast support seems a little buggy.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Be interesting given we've got the Saints who smashed us twice last year.

Marchbank - Probably the only real positive out of the game for me. He has real presence and muscle.

Negatives - yet again Kreuzer. His handpassing skills were extremely poor. One loopy handpass resulted in a bloke being swallowed up in a tackle, another easy handpass missed the mark by a long way.

I could accept all that if he tackled blokes, but he is always chasing tail with no hope of catching them. He has opportunities to tackle, but he prefers corralling them, and hanging back, waving his arms around so they can't get past him. It gives them time to set up their next attack. THIS CORRALLING IS POINTLESS. It achieves nothing. Unless Kreuzer causes a bit of physical carnage out there, he is going to continue to be a nothing player.


Positive:
The game style has changed, quick handballing all over the place, they look reasonably skilled by hand, just need to find forward
options.

Would like to see Weitering spend some games forward, as we need two key targets, otherwise it is a bit too predictable. Weitering reads the play and creates room. I think he can improve Casboult.

That game went about as expected.

It's going to be a long year, but we already knew that. Over the past 2 years we have been able to assemble both a backline and forward line for the future. Really happy with the talent these guys have. But they will take a couple of years to be able to match it with the big boys.

Look at how GWS got flogged the first few years- and they had 10x the amount of talent.

The midfield is the next part we will be attempting to rebuild over the next 2-3 drafts. You have to look no further than Zac Fisher to see how badly our teams midfield needs refreshing. The 65 kilo kid stands out like dogs balls, as he knows how to find the footy.

The rebuild is under way...I'm glad it's finally happening. It's going to be a difficult time to watch. But with the youngsters as our bookends and no midfield, what can you expect?? Look for the positives for the next couple of years because this is what it takes to rebuild a team.

It's hard to win a game when we can't win the ball, but with some patience and smart drafting. We will eventually.

I think public money would be way better spent conducting a senate enquiry into this piece of trading / drafting than anything to do with the ASADA investigation of *

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Get comfortable being uncomfortable

http://www.carltonfc.com.au/news/2016-1 ... -marchbank

This is worth looking at. Good intro to Marchbank.

What would we have to give Geelong to take Smedts back?

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"Who discovered we could get milk from cows, and what did he think he was doing at the time?" Billy Connolly

I sensed late in the 1stQ there were signs of lethargy.

First thing I thought was that may be a sign of heavy training loads.
Given there's 3 weeks before Round 1, maybe its time to load up.
I don't know but the boys looked half pave.

I don't think things change so much since we played them last without our skipper.

I don't know BB's game plan, but I suspect it requires a lot of running and backing up and reloading; enduring.
That shows.

I like a lot of things I saw on TV today and disliked some of our decision making.

Terrible ground imo.
no atmosphere.
Only a praccy game.
First hit out.

I think the small skinny kids might need a few preseasons to get to where Bettsy has got to.

Cricket.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

never thought much of smedts when at geelong, but still very early days this year. Statistically wright did well, although perhaps that didnt translate and Kruzer collected the second most tackles in amongst all his corralling. Without cripps I suspect a lot of roles were switched around in the midfield which mucked it up for us and murph had to blow off a few cobwebs. Casbolt did better and happy with Charlie fisher and pickett with marchbank being the standout pick up so far.
Did Palmer do anything special?

Pre-season games with two teams that had different agendas.

Our third game will be a more realistic game with close to our best 22 playing in the positions they will play round 1.

Mind you Freo will be a tough gig at home then.

Results mean nothing. We beat the Swans in a preseason game by 100 points in 2004

Development & no injuries is all you want.

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#DonTheStash

Reality is the players with question marks on them didn't improve their reputations whereas the ones we expected the goods from performed well so its those positives we should focus on.