The best defensive unit we’ll ever see this is back

[TigerMasochist]

Playing pretty much our midfield reserves for a while yet. Any wins we manage will be a pure bonus.

Cotchinator, Prestygiocomo, Shedda, Lamblett out of our midfield core leaves us extremely vulnerable against just about any side in the comp at the moment.

Dusty n Shai play brilliantly as our rotating, alternating mid forwards, this is pretty much a result of the other four core midfielders being available. Blokes like Fridge n Pickett are more defensive mid n wing rotating through at various times. These are the premium eight midfielders for us.
Cadds, Rossy, R2D2, Stacka, Dow, Raaallphsmiff, etc etc are either fringe or just barely starting to learn their craft at senior level and the reasonable expectation would be that these players would normally supplement the regular mids for the odd game or two one player at a time. Not suddenly become the core midfield.
With our regular midfield decimated, the quality of ball going forward is poorer leaving our forward line needing to not only work much harder to take advantage of incoming ball, but also much harder to control and lock ball when it comes in. Thereby causing an avalanche of rebound footy going into the opposition forward line n obliterating our defensive structures.

 

[tigerman]

It probably deserves it's own thread.

Our forward line needs a third tall, one with pace. Cameron got 22 disposals on Friday night, 18 kicks with 8 marks. A lot of those marks were down the ground, his pace made him the perfect outlet for them coming out of defence.

Balta and Chol have the pace to get up the ground like Cameron did. Chol as frustrating as he has been could play that role, as could Balta. Not sure what CCJ's pace is like, perhaps he could do it, he certainly deserves a game.

Playing a third tall will be a major change from how Dimma likes to set up, but in my humble opinion it needs to be explored.

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

Think Bachar is nearly done. He's like a sauce bottle that's running low - you can sit there smacking the top of the bottle and the odd dollop of sauce will still fall out, but it's easier to open a new bottle. Will recant if he plays in another winning final.

 

[Coburgtiger]

Vlastuin better for the run, Houli working into his season, Grimes back with the domino effect of who-takes-who.

GWS will only kick 10 goals at Marvel, Coburg. Bookmark it.

Being at Marvel might be our only saving grace, as it's harder to kick through our zone.

My concern is that I've attended three games this year in which we've been more comprehensively bested structurally, tactically and through skills and composure than in any three other games in the last 4 years.

If we bring in CCJ or put in place some other structural change to rebalance our forward line towards players who are actually dangerous, then we'll probably win.

If we go in with the same forward structure, and without our four most important two way running Mids in Lambert, Prestia, Edwards and Cotchin, then our backline will again be exposed. We will concede 100 plus.