Always Right Match Committee RD 1, 2019 Finals vs Greater Western Sydney

Welcome to the Always Right Match Committee Thread. The Match Committee threads has been named after long time WOOF member Always Right who tragically passed away in March 2018.


If you were on the Western Bulldogs match committee what changes would you make after our Round 23 match against Adelaide for our Elimination Final game against GWS (Great Waste of Space) in the first round of the 2019 Finals series?

For those new to these threads, please give a brief explanation for your changes ... this would add a lot of value to the discussion.

I'm not going to be hard in my ideas with two weeks to go

Ins: could be Libba, Dickson & JT. Not sure Wally & Daniel are ready.

Outs: West, Hayes, Richard & Cordy I think are in the discussion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bulldogtragic

I'm not going to be hard in my ideas with two weeks to go

Ins: could be Libba, Dickson & JT. Not sure Wally & Daniel are ready.

Outs: West, Hayes, Richard & Cordy I think are in the discussion.

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agree here

If Libba is ready to go he has to come in. Dicko & JT would be unlucky to miss. They have been colossal.

Listening to Bevo in the presser it sounds as though Libba won't be ready to play, Wallis is out for the remainder of the season and Caleb won't play until deep in the final series.. if we progress past week 1.

As I mentioned in another thread there's lots to ponder on how we set up the defence in particular... it will be interesting to see what we come up with as GWS will be play with 3 mobile tall forwards who will challenge our defensive personnel & structure.

They will be a very different proposition to the game just last week when we got a hold of them in the 2nd half and we need to pull the right levers at the selection table.

My first thoughts

In Dickson

Out. Richards, or Hayes

What did people think of Young's game today?

Cordy struggles on strong forwards. He needs a smaller contest or JT comes in.

Thought Hayes was neat today without being great.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 1eyedog

What did people think of Young's game today?

Cordy struggles on strong forwards. He needs a smaller contest or JT comes in.

Thought Hayes was neat today without being great.

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I liked it. One bad missed marked led to a goal, but I thought he was fine.

JT would be my only in at this stage for Hayes his endeavour is great but just not quite there. Also a bigger body is need for Cameron in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by strebla

JT would be my only in at this stage for Hayes his endeavour is great but just not quite there. Also a bigger body is need for Cameron in my opinion.

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I don’t understand the rush to drop Hayes when he is consistently getting more kicks, more handballs and more tackles than Richards.

Also his disposals are more reliable too.

On the AFL stats site over the last three weeks:
Hayes has rated. 101 71 75
Richards 45 55 43

I think Hayes' enormous running capacity is helping the overall balance of the side. I haven't been a huge Hayes advocate - but think he could prove important against a side like GWS.

Walker joined the list of players kicking their season best bag of goals against Cordy.

It doesn’t make sense to continually put him on such opponents.

He has more to offer than simply being a ‘punching bag’

I think our best back 6 is:

Trengrove - Cameron
Young/Cordy - Finlayson
Wood - Himmelberg
Crozier/Duryea/JJ/Suckling - the others

Meaning that one of Young or Cordy is dropped. I'm not convinced that Trengrove is the right match up for Cameron either, but he has the smarts and positioning to minimise the leg speed deficiency. Cordy has previously been thrown forward, but I think Naughton and Schache have those spots locked down now.

I agree with the above that West/Richards/Hayes are in the gun for Dickson. I thought they all showed positive traits at times today, without any of them piecing together great games. West is the most like for like replacement, with Es and Hayes spending more time in the wing rotation from what I saw today.

I'd have a long and hard think about Cordy for Trengove - forgetting matchup dynamics for a second, getting five goals hung on you by the objectively terrible 2019 model of Taylor Walker can't go unnoticed. Trengove might have let him get up the ground and use his Beautiful Field Kick™ (Channel 7, 2019) or whatever, but no chance he loses as many one on ones as Cordy did. I'd feel more comfortable with Wood or Young on Cameron than I would Cordy right now as well.

Otherwise I'd look at Dickson for West, but I'm not dying on that hill.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Happy Days

I'd have a long and hard think about Cordy for Trengove - forgetting matchup dynamics for a second, getting five goals hung on you by the objectively terrible 2019 model of Taylor Walker can't go unnoticed. Trengove might have let him get up the ground and use his Beautiful Field Kick™ (Channel 7, 2019) or whatever, but no chance he loses as many one on ones as Cordy did. I'd feel more comfortable with Wood or Young on Cameron than I would Cordy right now as well.

Otherwise I'd look at Dickson for West, but I'm not dying on that hill.

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Commentators today reckon Walker should play defence next year with his fielding kicking. It's a thing now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Happy Days

I'd have a long and hard think about Cordy for Trengove - forgetting matchup dynamics for a second, getting five goals hung on you by the objectively terrible 2019 model of Taylor Walker can't go unnoticed. Trengove might have let him get up the ground and use his Beautiful Field Kick™ (Channel 7, 2019) or whatever, but no chance he loses as many one on ones as Cordy did. I'd feel more comfortable with Wood or Young on Cameron than I would Cordy right now as well.

Otherwise I'd look at Dickson for West, but I'm not dying on that hill.

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Trengove would have just given free kicks away on a few of the contests that Cordy lost without giving away a free kick.

It's actually OK to acknowledge that Walker can play good games from time to time, Shane Ellen kicked five in a GF once, anything is possible and much of Walker's ball wasn't Cordy's issue to start with and he had no aerial support when he should have against a much heavier opponent.

I mean I genuinely read a comment lamenting Cordy being five metres in front of his opponent on a fast break, where he almost impacted a spoil but was only in a position to test the umpires hand. If he played side by side or behind he'd have been lead to the ball and it would have been a certain goal. The guy can't take a trick in the minds of some, with that contest being the most obvious of how seriously poor some of our judgements of him are.

Good defencive units hide the exposed weaknesses of their team mates, we didn't do that for Cordy today (in fact Hunter actually did 20% of the damage himself). With that in mind we wouldn't have done it for Trengove either and Walker would have been stronger than him as well. Our efforts these next two weeks can't be about shedding one player for another to fix that, they need to be focused around defending better as a team.

In - Dickson
Out - West