Clancee Pearce anyone?

[Nige]

I'm a fan of Clancee as a player, and he's capable of scoring pretty well.

However, his defensive role has reduced his scoring and he's not gonna get too many opportunities to run through the midfield as has been said with some of Freo's younger guys coming through.

He's an option, a good POD one at that, but I'd probably be picking somebody else at this stage.

[auscoyote]

Freo's depth is impressive and they will want to get more games into Neale/ Crozier/Sutcliffe i would of thought. Then when Ibbo comes back how do you fit all these players in. I rate pearce though so maybe DeBoer should be worried. Nice problem to have.

De Boer wont go anywhere. His defensive forward pressure is to important for us

haha, must be one of your favourites. I remember you telling me that before.
Its just so hard to come up with a best 22 for Freo. Square peg, round hole  :)

Who would you leave out to put these youngsters in, or does RTB just rotate them for another year horses for courses style.Surely Neale is best 21 and Croz and Sutcliffe are knocking down the door.

[auscoyote]

I forgot Morabito too ;) ;D

[Ricochet]

Freo's depth is impressive and they will want to get more games into Neale/ Crozier/Sutcliffe i would of thought. Then when Ibbo comes back how do you fit all these players in. I rate pearce though so maybe DeBoer should be worried. Nice problem to have.

De Boer wont go anywhere. His defensive forward pressure is to important for us

haha, must be one of your favourites. I remember you telling me that before.
Its just so hard to come up with a best 22 for Freo. Square peg, round hole  :)

Who would you leave out to put these youngsters in, or does RTB just rotate them for another year horses for courses style.Surely Neale is best 21 and Croz and Sutcliffe are knocking down the door.

Haha nah de Boer the future captain of our club and his role is too important to us.

Neale is still fringe at this stage. Our best 22 with everyone fit will look like

FB	Ibbotson	Dawson	Duffield
HB	Spurr	McPharlin	Johnson
C	Barlow	Mundy	Hill
HF	de Boer	Pavlich	Mayne
FF	Walters	Gumbleton	Ballantyne
FOLL	Sandilands	Fyfe	Crowley
BENCH	Mzungu	DPearce	ZClarke	CPearce

With...
CPearce, DPearce and Mzungu rotating through HB and the Middle
ZClarke rotating through FF and the Ruck
Dawson, McPharlin, Ibbotson and Johnson not in any real position, just grab best matchups

This still leaves Sylvia out along with Neale who will fight it out with CPearce and DPearce for those last two bench spots. Crozier, Sutcliffe and Morabito are a fair few behind

[tor01doc]

Why is nobody rating Mayne?

His 3rd quarter in last year's last game was quite scary.

[Purplehaze25]

Freo's depth is impressive and they will want to get more games into Neale/ Crozier/Sutcliffe i would of thought. Then when Ibbo comes back how do you fit all these players in. I rate pearce though so maybe DeBoer should be worried. Nice problem to have.

De Boer wont go anywhere. His defensive forward pressure is to important for us

haha, must be one of your favourites. I remember you telling me that before.
Its just so hard to come up with a best 22 for Freo. Square peg, round hole  :)

Who would you leave out to put these youngsters in, or does RTB just rotate them for another year horses for courses style.Surely Neale is best 21 and Croz and Sutcliffe are knocking down the door.

Haha nah de Boer the future captain of our club and his role is too important to us.

Neale is still fringe at this stage. Our best 22 with everyone fit will look like

FB	Ibbotson	Dawson	Duffield
HB	Spurr	McPharlin	Johnson
C	Barlow	Mundy	Hill
HF	de Boer	Pavlich	Mayne
FF	Walters	Gumbleton	Ballantyne
FOLL	Sandilands	Fyfe	Crowley
BENCH	Mzungu	DPearce	ZClarke	CPearce

With...
CPearce, DPearce and Mzungu rotating through HB and the Middle
ZClarke rotating through FF and the Ruck
Dawson, McPharlin, Ibbotson and Johnson not in any real position, just grab best matchups

This still leaves Sylvia out along with Neale who will fight it out with CPearce and DPearce for those last two bench spots. Crozier, Sutcliffe and Morabito are a fair few behind

Pretty spot on there I reckon ricochet!
Plenty to look forward to for Dockers supporters

[auscoyote]

Freo's depth is impressive and they will want to get more games into Neale/ Crozier/Sutcliffe i would of thought. Then when Ibbo comes back how do you fit all these players in. I rate pearce though so maybe DeBoer should be worried. Nice problem to have.

De Boer wont go anywhere. His defensive forward pressure is to important for us

haha, must be one of your favourites. I remember you telling me that before.
Its just so hard to come up with a best 22 for Freo. Square peg, round hole  :)

Who would you leave out to put these youngsters in, or does RTB just rotate them for another year horses for courses style.Surely Neale is best 21 and Croz and Sutcliffe are knocking down the door.

Haha nah de Boer the future captain of our club and his role is too important to us.

Neale is still fringe at this stage. Our best 22 with everyone fit will look like

FB	Ibbotson	Dawson	Duffield
HB	Spurr	McPharlin	Johnson
C	Barlow	Mundy	Hill
HF	de Boer	Pavlich	Mayne
FF	Walters	Gumbleton	Ballantyne
FOLL	Sandilands	Fyfe	Crowley
BENCH	Mzungu	DPearce	ZClarke	CPearce

With...
CPearce, DPearce and Mzungu rotating through HB and the Middle
ZClarke rotating through FF and the Ruck
Dawson, McPharlin, Ibbotson and Johnson not in any real position, just grab best matchups

This still leaves Sylvia out along with Neale who will fight it out with CPearce and DPearce for those last two bench spots. Crozier, Sutcliffe and Morabito are a fair few behind

Cheers for that Ricochet, Nicely done. Future is looking bright for the Purple Army  >:( >:( ;D ;D

[tor01doc]

Hush down now.

You lot are already too noisy.

[Ricochet]

No worries fellas. The only other structure I can see happening is Gumbleton to miss and Clarke to start at FF allowing Sylvia/Neale to come in. But I don't think we'll do that given how well Gumbleton has trained this preseason, plus our need for a full forward, plus Clarke lacking fitness due to his injury

[auscoyote]

Then add griffen down the track too :o bloody purple muppets ;D ;D

[Grufflez]

Freo just need to learn that you need to kick goals to win football matches - esp Grand Finals!!

Isn't that right Hawkers?

LOL love the Dig at Ross Lyons game plan...couldn't agree more all the great teams have a strong Offense as well as Defense...really simple thing but you can't win a game of footy purely by defending, at some point you need to kick a few goals yourself.
I believe Ross Lyons game plan works really well up until a certain point,meh maybe i just prefer fast flowing attacking style footy as opposed to holding possession and chipping it around in the back line...this isn't soccer.
Freo will be top 3 again this year but will Ross The Boss ever be truly successful. i.e A FLAG.

The defensive game plan was the only thing that kept us in the game right up until the end. What let us down was actually kicking at goals and taking our opportunities.

Look, St Kilda were great at shutting down teams and getting them to play their style of game,but when the grand final comes around and that game plan goes up against a team of equal talent who play fast attacking/high scoring footy  but also have a solid defensive game, i think Ross Lyons boys will continue to get ran over the top of. just my opinion of course and who knows i might be proved wrong this year but i tip Freo to either not make the grand final or be beaten by Sydney/Hawthorn again.

The MCG is a big ground to defend.

[GoLions]

Freo just need to learn that you need to kick goals to win football matches - esp Grand Finals!!

Isn't that right Hawkers?

LOL love the Dig at Ross Lyons game plan...couldn't agree more all the great teams have a strong Offense as well as Defense...really simple thing but you can't win a game of footy purely by defending, at some point you need to kick a few goals yourself.
I believe Ross Lyons game plan works really well up until a certain point,meh maybe i just prefer fast flowing attacking style footy as opposed to holding possession and chipping it around in the back line...this isn't soccer.
Freo will be top 3 again this year but will Ross The Boss ever be truly successful. i.e A FLAG.

The defensive game plan was the only thing that kept us in the game right up until the end. What let us down was actually kicking at goals and taking our opportunities.

Look, St Kilda were great at shutting down teams and getting them to play their style of game,but when the grand final comes around and that game plan goes up against a team of equal talent who play fast attacking/high scoring footy  but also have a solid defensive game, i think Ross Lyons boys will continue to get ran over the top of. just my opinion of course and who knows i might be proved wrong this year but i tip Freo to either not make the grand final or be beaten by Sydney/Hawthorn again.

The MCG is a big ground to defend.

Continue to get ran over the top of? Saints only just long to Geelong in 2009, and drew with the Pies in 2010 (and probably would've won if it went for an extra minute or 2).
And I agree with Ric, Freo would've won last year if they kicked straight and made the most of their opportunities, wasted too many chances. Was expected though in their first ever GF.

Patterson's is also a fairly big ground to defend and they do alright there ;)

[Ricochet]

Freo just need to learn that you need to kick goals to win football matches - esp Grand Finals!!

Isn't that right Hawkers?

LOL love the Dig at Ross Lyons game plan...couldn't agree more all the great teams have a strong Offense as well as Defense...really simple thing but you can't win a game of footy purely by defending, at some point you need to kick a few goals yourself.
I believe Ross Lyons game plan works really well up until a certain point,meh maybe i just prefer fast flowing attacking style footy as opposed to holding possession and chipping it around in the back line...this isn't soccer.
Freo will be top 3 again this year but will Ross The Boss ever be truly successful. i.e A FLAG.

The defensive game plan was the only thing that kept us in the game right up until the end. What let us down was actually kicking at goals and taking our opportunities.

Look, St Kilda were great at shutting down teams and getting them to play their style of game,but when the grand final comes around and that game plan goes up against a team of equal talent who play fast attacking/high scoring footy  but also have a solid defensive game, i think Ross Lyons boys will continue to get ran over the top of. just my opinion of course and who knows i might be proved wrong this year but i tip Freo to either not make the grand final or be beaten by Sydney/Hawthorn again.

The MCG is a big ground to defend.

I agree the defensive game plan is very risky because it keeps games so close that it takes a couple of late goals to decide a match but it does keep them in the match the whole game. Saints got very very close to two grand finals with one being only 2 goals after kicking 9.14 and the other being a draw. To be fair Ross has been a very unlucky coach

[tor01doc]

Saints only got close to Pies because Pies kicked poorly.

Hawks only won 2008 because Cats kicked poorly.

Swans only won because Hawks kicked poorly.

Hawks only won etc etc.

Agree with all the comments about fast free flowing style etc but a team has to capitalise when has the run of the ball. More and more games are about which team can make the most of their period of control.

[ubeaut]

I though C.Pearce was injured that's why I haven't looked at him.