Forum topic

The standalone teams are looking good with the exception of Preston. Southport should be flag favourites. Frankston have improved from last year. Coburg have improved out of sight. After a slow start both Williamstown and Port Melbourne are flying. Werribee cannot be discounted. It would be great if 6 standalone non-AFL teams can reach top ten and play finals. 

6 stand slones could play finals and I'm sure you will still have some say "it's too hard for the stand alone clubs to compete" 

I notice Farrant and Manton are not playing this week, almost certain after last week's match that this has to be injury related,  any idea the extent of the injuries. Pity coz Manton was on fire and Paddy playing very well i thought.

The team announcement article on the VFL website says Manton is out with an ankle injury and Farrant is out with a hamstring injury. Definitely a shame after their performances last week, not to mention how their injuries further weaken our forward lines. No word on how serious the injuries are, but hopefully both on the lower end. With the bye next week, Alessio should be back for the next game as long as he doesn't have to miss more than the required 21 days. I have been very impressed over the past few weeks with the team's ability to make in-game adjustments that actually work, so hopefully they can also adjust to the impact of these outs.

It did occur to me that the Highmore-in-the-midfield experiment, which I did not think much of at the time, may have been unexpectedly useful in that it made the defence learn to manage without him prior to his injury.  The rest of the defenders have stood up remarkably well over essentially the past two weeks in his absence.

Coburg are a very impressive team and could go a long way this year. The burgers slaughtered gold coast away. Port Melbourne and werribee should be very close today. I expect Williamstown to win against Geelong and continue their great recent form. Frankston are going along well with another win last night. Southport sharks are clear flag favourites in my view. Besides Preston the standalone teams are going well.

I'm glad to have the win, but I've been a bit concerned this year. While that 4th quarter shows how good we can be, I don't think our execution has been anywhere near as consistent as last year. I'll take ugly wins over not winning at all, but the way we're playing right now wasn't enough to really challenge Southport and I worry about our game against Box Hill next week. 

No alarm bells yet, but right now I am only cautiously optimistic.

The Dolphs aren't at Southport or Box Hill level yet, hopefully one day they can get there, but happy to have them playing good footy and genuinely belonging in the finals picture.

Most of the standalones are entering the more AFL-opponent heavy part of the draw now, but so far all bar Preston have been playing well in those games:

Southport 3-0
Frankston 2-0
Coburg 3-2
Williamstown 2-2
Port 2-3
Werribee 2-3

Well, we definitely did miss Manton and Farrant. Port Melbourne looked like a team missing their main tall targets up forward. I was thinking in the first quarter that a defensive slog would favor Werribee, who seem very comfortable with heavily defensive games despite putting up a lot of high scores. Jimmy Miller has been a bit out of form recently, though he did have his work cut out for him today with our other key talls missing. The bye actually comes at a good time, since we should get Alessio back afterward, and hopefully the Manton and Farrant injuries are short-term. From a Port Melbourne point of view the biggest highlight today was probably Tom Graham's specky, though it was good to see the team fight back, despite things coming apart again in the last five minutes. Today the course corrections came too late and didn't quite last long enough, but they are much better at making in-game adjustments this season.

Definitely good to see Coburg and Frankston in finals contention. Box Hill will be a tough opponent for Frankston next week but did show some signs of weakness this week, albeit against a Collingwood side with a lot of AFL-listed players returning.