Life is to be Enjoyed not Endured
I have not been a dogs supporter for too long but the way I see thing is different to you.
What are we really playing for at the moment? We are not really at the top of the table! The chance are that we will not make the 8 this year. Probably we are in the building/re-building phase. We need to teach young players to play together and learn from the senior players. We need to teach them to adapt to a system where we can win games consistently and maintain the momentum. Players needs to spend as much times together as they can.
For these reasons, we should just play our best team in Darwin. You could add some more rotations on match day and allowing "premium" players to have less game time to rest them. You could also play some new fringe players, young players to the team just for them to have some exposure to the modern game. This way we also add more depth to our squad.
Momentum means a lot in the modern game. If we keep our winning streak and keep the morale high, winning next game or the game after will sort itself out.
It always seems impossible until it's done. Nelson Mandela
But then again, I'm an Internet poster and Bevo is a premiership coach so draw your own conclusions.
Tank was probably a bad word to use. I mean to go in light and expect a cakewalk win.
Choco is right though. Think of what the team needs to achieve this year and play to that. Melbourne has dug one of the deepest graves in AFL history where they have tattooed a loosing culture into their club and have dropped their next youngsters into it. The dogs need to keep sprinkling our next gen through this team and expose them to wins like last week. This week should also not be wasted as some of our youngsters would benifit with a trip away and getting a winning result.
Life is to be Enjoyed not Endured
I think the 6-day break, combined with the travel, will mean we may fade off in the 4th against Geelong as we did against Collingwood. We also run the risk of doing what we did against GWS, by looking forward a week too far.
If we're going to beat Geelong, we need to smash them in the clearances, the contested ball, and we need to be at least 6-7 goals up at 3/4 time.
GC = massive danger game.
If I remember the eventual premiers were also shitcanned early last year for lackluster performances.
I think the cats players who have 3 premiership medalians are just pacing themselves for a long season. Why bust a nut early on when you need to be peaking in september?
They will start to turn it on around... now.
Swallow is out for GC I think.
WE must take our best team and we must apply ourselves as rigorously as we did against North. Any sense of taking them lightly and we are history. It's going to be hard enough as it is, being a shorter week for us and being in Darwin.
If we get to a point where we are controlling the game, then we can rest key players for a little longer. But the mental state of the players will be everything on Saturday and if it's off just a little, because we don't take our best side, then we will deserve everything we get.