Friday intra club round up

There were quite a few intra club games played on Friday 13 February. Five of them were live streamed and I tuned into the start of them as a bit of a priority. Some games were Team A vs Team B, while others had even teams. Many mixed things up after the first quarter or half.

Here are some takeaways from the games watched and some other notes from trackwatchers for the games that weren’t streamed.

Dees were without Gawn, Kozzy and Rivers due to Origin while Salem (hamstring), CJ and Petty were injured. Viney will be out for a significant amount of time. It was generally a best vs the rest match-up to start the game.

Centre ball-ups saw Steele and Windsor as mainstays. The latter was BOG in my opinion. He found plenty due to his inside work and his run, which saw him used a heap. Sparrow started in the middle and rotated out to the wing with Langford.

Steele and Windsor switched up teams after a blistering first quarter. Both need to be in consideration for our starting Classic squads.

Xavier Lindsay is now in the No.5 and was across half-back. He ran pretty well up the ground and was used as a distributor. The ball was in his hands a bit. Interestingly Tholstrup was more behind the ball than usual while Xavier Taylor was noticable and probably in the mix to debut. Onley is another rookie to watch.

Latrelle Pickett will play R1, but scoring won’t be enough for us … especially as he gave away some free kicks as he was definitely having a crack.

Eagles played a Team A vs Team B. Unfortunately some of Team B included assistant coaches… so maybe not high-level opponents.

Harley Reid was great, as he should have been in this game. He was in the guts with McCarthy who we’ve heard most of the pre-season has been a midfielder. This appears real.

The mid-fwd mix will be a watch over the proper praccy games. Yeo kicked goals but had some time in the middle (he looked fit…), Schoenberg possibly has a half-forward role and Dev Robertson had a bit of time in the middle.

Worth noting that Tim Kelly started in B team and was moved into A midfield after quarter time. Duursma was a winger.

CDT kicked three in the first quarter, five for the game. Maybe he can make some dollars?

Rookies who had a crack in the A team were Jacob Newton and Josh Lindsay. There were some nice things from Lindsay, so hopefully we have him as an option for R1.

This was a hard watch … the camera work made me feel like I was on the Devil Cat (aka Spew Cat) across the Bass Strait about 25 years ago. Anyone who knows what that was like will attest to the travel sickness feel of this stream!

The big talk of the last couple of days is how McAndrew was the A ruck with ROB in the B team. McAndrew beat ROB in the ruck battle due to his height, but the veteran was much better when the ball hit the deck and was up for the contest. If McAndrew is the preferred ruck, we have to start him at R3 (can’t have him on field… that would be too hard to get out of), but I’m wondering how much of a rocket this is for ROB. It has been done before.

Rachele was always going to be someone to monitor. We saw a lot of forward time to begin with but then he got his time up and around the ball. The Rankine mix will be interesting. He started in the guts, but then played a fair bit forward. I think Rachele will be getting some of that midfield time, but it could be sporadic – and maybe not enough. He didn’t struggle to get his hands on it however you are going to want to be pretty sure he’s in there at a decent clip.

Sam Berry was a mainstay in the middle. Dawson ticked the legs over making it look easy and even ended up forward. Peatling was among the midfielders in the stronger side.

I got to see the first quarter of this and then bits and pieces throughout.

LDU could actually be an option. Looked very nice – but remember… it’s NM and a B team. Sheez was in the middle and was getting the ball when and where he wanted. Able to run where he liked, pushed outside for the mark.

I was impressed by FOS. Confident and racking up.

Colby McKercher was off half-back in the role we would’ve wanted to see. Handball receives is Zippy’s game (can’t believe I called him that). I think that Caleb Daniel will be back there in the starting team. He took kick-ins (there was one absolute clanger early where a 20m chip was a direct turnover…), but it looks like he’s there.

Dovaston is all but locked into the round one team. Kicked three in a quarter.

Teams were mixed, so we didn’t get a good look at seeing who could be in the A team. But we saw some likely roles. Rozee was at half-back, Bergman in the middle… and we saw Marshall do his thing in the back-line as touted. He took some kick-ins.

Will Brodie was in the middle. Can he get a gig? I’m still unsure.

The ruck battle was fairly even. Not sure I got anything out of that. Cal’s mate Sweet is apparently behind Visentini, but who knows. Like the Crows, is this a rocket? We’ll probably get an idea next week … but regardless, I don’t want any shares in either whether it is Classic or Draft.

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This next batch of games were from reports from around the place – proper journos, clubs sites and social – that can paint a little picture.

Didn’t hear much here except that Kiddy Coleman played on the wing and at half-foward. This may not be a good thing for Fantasy despite being one of the better players for the day in the evenly matched teams. We’d want him behind the ball for the ceiling. Wait and see in the next couple of games. The positive is he’s fit.

• Blakiston still looks set as No.1 ruck, but Visentini had a good hitout.
• A-team midfield had Parish, Durham, Caldwell (knee still strapped, but fine) and Roberts (one to watch) … Sharp joined later after playing at half-forward.
• Roberts has had a shift into the middle in last couple of weeks according to trackwatchers.
• Fiorini on the wing.
• Farrow great in defence and firming to debut. Kondogiannis might be a surprise packet after suiting up for As.
• El Achkar in the mix for round one after bagging three goals for the A team. Small forwards are hard to back in for Fantasy.

• Okay… this sucks. Tom Green suspected ACL.
• Clarry was playing his usual role as inside mid and impressed. Must be over his calf.
• What does the midfield mix look like now? Rowston? Toby Greene (Origin)? Brent Daniels? He was playing as a half-forward and on the ball.
• Ralphy tweeted about Leake a possible beneficiary of Green. We’ll watch on that one as he heads into year three.

Haven’t heard heaps outside of this report from the Tigers.

• Lalor keeps getting it done, but Hotton could be a smokey selection. He was named up as BOG with four goals. A $485k FWD. Cumming was also a midfielder.
• Retschko on the wing, things continue to look positive there.
• Grlj part of the half-back play with Roy’s boy Banks.
• Taranto might be spending some time as a FWD. His second position is going to be forward of the ball as he’s done before in his career.

Warnie

Co-captain of DT Talk since we started this thing in 2007. Best finish was 13th in 2009... that was a long time ago. Follow on Twitter: @WarnieDT and follow on Instagram: @warnedawgs.