Does king walk straight in?

[Moods]

Remembering he hasn’t played a competitive game since last August?

Has only been training fully for 2 weeks.

My personal opinion is play Caminiti this week. Rotate him and Owens through the key fwd positions with Members as 3rd tall. give King some match fitness up till the bye. He’s too precious an asset. Plenty will disagree but one thing we can agree on is our fwd line has become as dysfunctional as we feared pre season.

[Teflon]

I would prefer Sharman and Caminiti
Take Membrey out
Forward line looked better with him not in it

[The_Dud]

Yeah I wouldn’t risk taking him to Adelaide for a game that we’d be a very long shot at winning.

Give him a run in the 2s and prey he doesn’t get smashed by some hack trying to be a hero!

[Teflon]

You don’t play King in twos
Be devastated if he did a knee on some vfl ground
We aren’t expected to win in Adelaide
Let him get a hit out in

[Sainternist]

I wouldn’t like to say whether King is ready of not. But I agree with you Caminiti. We have missed his physicality up forward, since he copped that 3 match suspension. Anyway, he has served his time now. I think he has a really good opportunity to develop into a forward in the style of an Aaron Hamill. Love his hard-nosed approach and ability to crash packs. His presence alone can make it easier for his colleagues, like King, Butler and Higgins. We just need Membrey to get back to the sort of form he has shown in previous years.

[Scollop]

....one thing we can agree on is our fwd line has become as dysfunctional as we feared pre season.

I didn't watch it live. I haven't had a chance to watch the replay yet.

Was the forward line dysfunctional because of the way we moved the footy or because maybe we were restricted by the tactics of the opposition against our mids, wingers, prime movers?

Were our half backs slow and tentative or were we aggressive?

Did the footy go inside 50 enough? Were the numbers on average for the year with equal opportunities to score as we've seen in previous weeks?

[Teflon]

....one thing we can agree on is our fwd line has become as dysfunctional as we feared pre season.

I didn't watch it live. I haven't had a chance to watch the replay yet.

Was the forward line dysfunctional because of the way we moved the footy or because maybe we were restricted by the tactics of the opposition against our mids, wingers, prime movers?

Were our half backs slow and tentative or were we aggressive?

Did the footy go inside 50 enough? Were the numbers on average for the year with equal opportunities to score as we've seen in previous weeks?

Just watch it
Then come back and tell us again how Membrey has been for our forward movement

[Moods]

Sadly members is struggling. His brilliant record means we stick with him until the bye, but he’s dropping marks he’d normally take, he’s fumbling, and his kicking for goal is awful. I’d like to think he’ll come good.

Re King, I worry about blokes who have missed pre season.
The only way to find form is to get super fit and then play. I’m just worried he hasn’t trained enough yet. I’d prefer 2 more weeks of solid training

[Teflon]

Sadly members is struggling. His brilliant record means we stick with him until the bye, but he’s dropping marks he’d normally take, he’s fumbling, and his kicking for goal is awful. I’d like to think he’ll come good.

Re King, I worry about blokes who have missed pre season.
The only way to find form is to get super fit and then play. I’m just worried he hasn’t trained enough yet. I’d prefer 2 more weeks of solid training

I agree re Membrey and he’s been a solid player for us for some time but if this year is truly exploratory then we got to move forward
This side isn’t top 4 I’m still not convinced it’s too 6-8 …
The questions we need to ask ourselves are how do become really good, not just on our day, but talented across every line/finals dominant good…

[lewdogs]

Sadly members is struggling. His brilliant record means we stick with him until the bye, but he’s dropping marks he’d normally take, he’s fumbling, and his kicking for goal is awful. I’d like to think he’ll come good.

Re King, I worry about blokes who have missed pre season.
The only way to find form is to get super fit and then play. I’m just worried he hasn’t trained enough yet. I’d prefer 2 more weeks of solid training

I agree re Membrey and he’s been a solid player for us for some time but if this year is truly exploratory then we got to move forward
This side isn’t top 4 I’m still not convinced it’s too 6-8 …
The questions we need to ask ourselves are how do become really good, not just on our day, but talented across every line/finals dominant good…

It will be very interesting to see if Membrey keeps his spot next week. King on the horizon. Caminiti back and fresh. Sharman showing a bit today. I think he could well find himself at Sandringham.

[The Fireman]

Hope so

[chook23]

Sadly members is struggling. His brilliant record means we stick with him until the bye, but he’s dropping marks he’d normally take, he’s fumbling, and his kicking for goal is awful. I’d like to think he’ll come good.

Re King, I worry about blokes who have missed pre season.
The only way to find form is to get super fit and then play. I’m just worried he hasn’t trained enough yet. I’d prefer 2 more weeks of solid training

In his presser Ross mentioned King probably as fit as he has ever been

(Although not "match " fit)

Ross did not commit though on AFL selection or VFL

[Teflon]

I think we need selection integrity
Membrey has had 4 games and is horribly out of form
He goes back to two’s to get it
Can’t drop Sharman off today and King comes straight in and IF it was me ….Caminiti too….his hardness and speed at ground level is desperately missing
IF Membrey turns it on in two’s and any of our other forwards drop output…out they go
Melbourne did it with Ben Browne….wasn’t doing enough…back to twos
Membrey no different

[bigcarl]

Play both King and Caminiti if they are fit. Gives us two proper key-position sized forwards, a luxury we haven’t had for some time.

It should also allow Owens more time in the midfield, where I feel he can make a big impact.

[Scollop]

....one thing we can agree on is our fwd line has become as dysfunctional as we feared pre season.

I didn't watch it live. I haven't had a chance to watch the replay yet.

Was the forward line dysfunctional because of the way we moved the footy or because maybe we were restricted by the tactics of the opposition against our mids, wingers, prime movers?

Were our half backs slow and tentative or were we aggressive?

Did the footy go inside 50 enough? Were the numbers on average for the year with equal opportunities to score as we've seen in previous weeks?

Just watch it
Then come back and tell us again how Membrey has been for our forward movement

I’ve watched the first half.

Membrey had that 1 chance to kick a goal early in the game (great running by Hill and beautiful kick to Membrey too) but Membrey played on because Buttsy was free and he was calling for the footy. Skunk was doing the team thing but he didn’t kick it quick enough.

Skunk simply had a lack of clear opportunities to score in that first half with only himself down there as the key tall forward. As others have mentioned Ben McKay is a monster next to Members, however that’s not really what his problem was. It was terrible entries and horrible kicks inside 50.

Our 1st inside 50 came from a Sinclair intercept and a subsequent handball to Hill who kicked a lollipop inside 50 up in the air and plonked it on top of Membrey and McKay. Skunk was actually moving as soon as Sincs had footy in hand and if Hill had spotted the direction of his lead it would have been an easy mark

So …my answer to Teflon’s question re forwards and in particular the KPF on the day; the forward movement gets ignored more often than not! That’s what I saw in the first half.

We simply don’t kick to the advantage of our FF. Membrey was competing in the air a few times but how do you outmark a guy who is over 2m tall? When Skunk did bring the footy to ground a few times the smalls were leading in different directions so they weren’t at the drop to take advantage of the crumbs.

The crowd here is whinging about Membrey and I noticed the same rubbish in the match day thread. Do people understand what team sport is? You’re not always going to kick bags, or get 30 or outplay your opponent.

Brad Hill was our hardest working player for the first half. He had a few clangers but he created many opportunities and he ran his guts out to create space.

2nd entry i50 was from Gavin Wood who kicked the footy 40 metres and another lollipop up and under to the hotspot (it may as well have been Gavin - google Countdown if you don’t know who he is- because it was a terrible decision when we had no talls standing 20 metres out from our goal). Jack Ziebel ended up marking against Higgins or one of our other smalls

Mason Wood had 3 North players surrounding him and all he had to do was handball over the top to Skunk who made space and was just on the 50 metre arc and about 5 metre clear of any opposition. Mason had a few clangers in the first half and fumbled the footy a bit, but so did Wilkie, Crouch, Stocker and others.

Clarkson didn’t want a shoot out. North led in uncontested marks and kicks in the first half.

I’m about to watch the second half, but I thought I’d take a look at some stats for our midfielders. Different configuration in the middle and at most stoppages. As Ross Lyon said; “It’s an exploratory year”.

[Scollop]

Best players 1st half were Clark, Hill, Owens, Butler and Gresham (his centre clearance work is under valued by the crowd here). Byrnes was also prolific. He ran both ways and his disposals were superb in the first half. Probably had him 6th or 7th best out of all our players.

I just saw that early in the 3rd quarter Ronnie kicked the footy out of bounds. Whoopy fuckn doo! Even Hill and Sinclair and Wilkie occasionally make those blunders. At least it wasn’t in a dangerous position. Hill’s errant handball 30 seconds later in our backline (Sheezle intercepted and kicked i50 to Larkey) led to North getting their first goal.

I watched the set up around stoppages and especially at centre bounces. I noticed RTB has given Crouch a rest from the centre. Crouch was still present around the ground but he was totally ineffective in tight. Same with Seb Ross. Seb had 2 clearances for the whole match. Crouch was only marginally better with a stat of 3 clearances (Tim Membrey had 3 for the match as well!!)

Crouch’s contested possessions were way down too. I noticed the opposition was happy for him to get the footy in space. He’s usually a tackling machine but he only had 3 for the whole game. Seb had 2 tackles, zero centre clearances, 1 stoppage clearance and just 12 possessions total (5 contested).

[Scollop]

Just watch it
Then come back and tell us again how Membrey has been for our forward movement

I said that Membrey received horrible kicks in the first half from others, but in the second half he was the perpetrator

People have often said he’s a good field kick, but I’ve always disputed that opinion. I always thought he was above average for his accuracy as a KPF with his set shots but that he was below average for his field kicking or his passes to another forward inside 50.

The fact that he missed a lot of footy (as well as the fact that he had a knee issue) means he’s missed a fair amount of training and practising his kicking. But just like in the first half, Membrey wasn’t alone. We kicked poorly most of the time and we didn’t kick to the advantage of our forwars to at least give them a chance.

The other thing that was probably an option was for the coach to have Membrey playing out of the goal square instead of Butts or Snags. If Skunk goes deep then it means that McKay is not going to intercept as many times as he did around centre half back or further up the ground. They would have had no option but to put their number 1 Key Defender on our number 1 Key Forward.

Norths entries were as bad as ours. They had a fair few shots that went out on the full yesterday. Zurhaar killed their team’s spirit with his set shots. Larkey was the only threat but I think our defense was basically solid all day and the North Melbourne small forwards were invisible and ineffective.

We had 48 inside 50’s and they had 48 inside 50’s. We had more scoring shots than them but we bombed it in long to the goal square and plenty of our shots were rushed or knocked on by their tall defenders or by Goldstein.

Replacing Membrey isn’t going to fix our forward entries. He isn’t responsible for the majority of our inside 50’s.

[D.B.Cooper]

Would you start Max as sub and bring him in for Camanitti, Sharman or Membrey in the 2nd half?

Or does that expose us too much if a running player goes down early?

BTW: There is no way they are risking such a valuable asset. He doesn’t play if he’s not fit.

[Beno88]

How is this even a point of discussion?

We have one of the best (if not the best) young forwards in the competition fit and ready to go, as if he doesn’t play!

We lack direction going forward and are ranked in the bottom 4 for contested marks inside 50. Caminiti, Cordy and Sharman are serviceable, but they’re not going to change that. Max will.

Max will also take the best defender (sometimes two), meaning Membrey will have more freedom and Butler & Higgins will be licking their lips.

Adelaide are very beatable and a St Kilda team with Max King at full forward is a far better chance than without.

You can guarantee the Crows would prefer he doesn't play.

[bakes]

If you've listened to Lyon's press conference last night and throughout the past couple of months, he doesn't fawn over King and King will need to play to the team's system. He's not getting a free ride. I think ultimately he will come straight in however Lyon is letting him know who the boss is and that King will need to impress. A bit of psychology at play.

[Saints58]

Yes straight back in A fit king takes the best defender even if he is not match fit to good a player not to play.
I would hate to see him in the 2s get injured and out for season.

[Lennylegs]

Play him. Need to try exposing Adelaide's lack of height in the backline with Nick Murray a likely out. Also be a high pressure game with plenty of panic kicks forward. Need a genuine target to make a contest. Too many intercept marks against us these last few weeks. Turnovers kill you more than ever these days.

Sub King out if need be.

[Saints58]

If you've listened to Lyon's press conference last night and throughout the past couple of months, he doesn't fawn over King and King will need to play to the team's system. He's not getting a free ride. I think ultimately he will come straight in however Lyon is letting him know who the boss is and that King will need to impress. A bit of psychology at play.

How come Sharman got a free ride into to the 1s he didn't play a seconds game in weeks and when he did nothing and played on the wing.
I would still have played cordy till next week when king, and caminiti come in for cordy, patten if a key back goes down then cordy players.

[bakes]

Sharman didn't get a free ride. He slogged out the pre-season and toiled in the 2's.

Unlike Sharman, King is a Lamborghini and he's a definite part of the next premiership push. And you don't risk crashing a lambo in the VFL.

[skeptic]

If you've listened to Lyon's press conference last night and throughout the past couple of months, he doesn't fawn over King and King will need to play to the team's system. He's not getting a free ride. I think ultimately he will come straight in however Lyon is letting him know who the boss is and that King will need to impress. A bit of psychology at play.

Sharman was on the emergency list for a while and I dare say he got an opportunity because they lost patience with Cordy… or perhaps he was sore and they needed a like for like (or as close to it as they could get).






How come Sharman got a free ride into to the 1s he didn't play a seconds game in weeks and when he did nothing and played on the wing.
I would still have played cordy till next week when king, and caminiti come in for cordy, patten if a key back goes down then cordy players.