You may take your shots but at we lost today because of a pathetic 25 mins over the HT break.

20 min mark of the 2nd - PA 40 - Melb 28

Then PA kicked 7.7 to one behind until we kicked our next in the 17th minute of the third.

89 - 29 and we were cooked.

We kicked one more goal than them from that point on.

A young team will go missing for periods and they did for 25 mins.

Positives:

We broke even in tackles, clearances, and had our most Inside 50s for the year (46).

Meesen had 22 hitouts and was the main reason we held our own in the middle.

Bennell is becoming an AFL player very quickly.

Miller (should have had 4) and Bate (could have had 4) are tireless and selfless (to a fault, sometimes).

Morton is an elite athlete that does not stop running, learning from Bruce who can't kick straight but is our Forest Gump ("I just felt like running").

Jones is picking better targets by hand and foot.

McLean drifted in and out but had 8 tackles and 6 clearances.

Dunn had 12 touches and 5 clearances. He showed something today.

Batram destroyed Ebert something fierce (He still can't kick though).

Martin and Frawley continue to impress. Lessen the workload and they will beat their opponent and provide rebound.

There are caveats and addendums to all these statements but remove the "25 mins from hell" next week and we will be competitive.

We are improving.

If anyone remembers last year as vividly as I do you have to agree...

We are improving.

(Just to prove I am not polyanna: Johnson is now the 4th ruckman at this club, Sylvia should watch how hard Bate runs and works if he wants to stay in the side, all mids need to work on kicking to space for our forwards, and our mids/defensive runners tense up to devastating effect when challenged - They need to run as hard as Bruce, Morton, and Davey do.)

Great thread rpfc, we need reminders of where our team is at and this certainly indicates the upside of where we're at

  rpfc said:

You may take your shots but at we lost today because of a pathetic 25 mins over the HT break.

20 min mark of the 2nd - PA 40 - Melb 28

etc.

etc.

Some interesting thoughts there rpfc. Definitely agree with Bennell, he is looking really good.

Morton is getting better all the time. He is the next Bruce, similar build, similar style. But Morton could be better. (And Bruce is good, so that's a good sign.)

Meesen defo looked good, should be given at least 6-8 games in a row even if he starts playing crap. Ruckmen take ages.

Matty Bate looked good today. Worked hard, presented, took some grabs kicked a couple... I think it's one of his best games. Bennell also worked pretty hard. Davey seemed to be everywhere. Miller worked hard too. Not a total loss today. Hope that we can have a crack at the Tigers next week.

I agree totally with your post..well done...

Our pressure on the man with the ball was excellent for those 90 minutes or so.

Would have been great if we were able to finish off our good work and place some scoreboard pressure during that period.

I thought our pressure was great for most of the game. It was just not capitilising.

Great topic.

It's more depressing coming to Demonland than watching us play at the moment.

The improvement from last year is significant, especially when you consider that this year we're younger and much less experienced than we were last year.

There are glimpses every week that we are capable of playing that quick running footy that Bailey wants us to, and defensively we are a hell of a lot better. Yes we've had disappointing second halves, but at no stage this year did we give up or stop running. We put up some truly disgusting performances last year where 10 minutes into the game you knew nobody out there cared, this year we are fighting it out, and to win our last quarter today may seem like a small comfort, but it's a huge victory to a young team away from home getting comprehensively beaten.

The future is bright. It is a hell of a lot brighter than it was in the last 3 years, even if we did play finals in 2006. For the first time in a long long time we are rebuilding completely, getting a core group of young players developed simultaneously and attempting to achieve success in a really meaningful way. None of this pseudo top 8 rubbish where we make finals, and bomb out only to top our list up with crap, and start the process all over again.

If we want a premiership, the only way to do it is to sit patiently and watch the boys develop. Most of what we need is already there, we just need to tweak things along the way and hope for luck with injuries (and get the top two picks!!!).

POSITIVES

- We won our 2nd quarter of footy this year (baby steps people!)

- We kicked our highest score of the year (not hard, mind you!)

- Meeson had a very commendable debut. He was winning quite a few hitouts and will learn where to tap them with time.

- Rivers played another game without getting injured.

- We have improved since last year.

- There are a lot of key players out of our side currently so I see plenty of improvement left in this team. Keep in mind how inexperienced we are. The following names are in our best 22 and did not play today - Buckley, Garland, Grimes (not proven but he is deep in our best 22!), Maric , McDonald, Wheatley, Whelan, Wonna, Robbo?? and our 3 top 20 picks from last year are yet to have a run.

I really didn`t expect anything better than bottom 3 this year and that is precisely what we will get. If you are expecting anything more than this you are not only kidding yourselves, you are going to have a bloody miserable year ahead. I will be at all 16 games in Melbourne this year and I will support our blokes all the way, but with the understanding that we are still a long way off from being a good footy team. I will cherish our couple of wins and enjoy watching some of these kids make progress thru the year. END

Totally agree, particularly on Bennell. Even I noticed him looking the goods today.

Jetta played his best game too. Meesen didnt look out of place at all.

Sylvia's starting to wear me down though, and Dunn needed to get a few more possessions, while still looking alright.

  demonmatt said:

Matty Bate looked good today. Worked hard, presented, took some grabs kicked a couple... I think it's one of his best games. Bennell also worked pretty hard. Davey seemed to be everywhere. Miller worked hard too. Not a total loss today. Hope that we can have a crack at the Tigers next week.

Bate has been better since a down Rd 1, and Miller is a proud bull. He won't put his head down and whinge. They both have their limitations but they don't stop presenting and working.

I just know that Jack Watts will be a better player for having Brad Miller right next to him. If a man of his talent works as hard as Miller works - he will be a star.

good post and sound observations.

we can't make too much of out-scoring them late since the heat was out of the game but our blokes prevented an outright blowout.

we were stiff with some of the home-town decisions...since why should Josh Carr be rewarded for dropping his head?...and we didn't take all our opportunities when it mattered but we won plenty of it.

rivers and moloney got through the game. Conceding over 140 pts ?? The fact we scored over 12 goals was some consolation

Good thread. Although we can never be happy with a loss there is definitely improvement across the board.

My +ves:

* Meeson's solid debut. Early days but maybe another piece of the jigsaw. A solid combination with Spencer may emerge.

* 1st 1/4 ball movement. If we had a gun forward we would have been 3 up at 1/4 time. Our ability to move the ball by foot is improving and will be hard to stop as players develop and higher skilled mids are added to the mix.

* Rivers getting through another game. So important to our structure with Green being released to play across 1/2 forward.

* Bate's 2nd half was good with 8 contested possessions. Will be very good once he can slip down the pecking order as a 2nd or 3rd forward.

* Continued development of Frawley, Martin & Warnock. Combined with Rivers & Garland we are developing a multi dimensional defence.

Thanks RPFC, I was getting a little angsty myself with the lack of perspective on this site over the last three weeks. I think you're dead right - especially about Bennell - I think he's one out of the box. Bailey's still in the scoping/developing phase of this project, there's still a lot more work to be done, but not as much as there was 12 mths ago!

Good thread. The Age seems to agree with rpfc's thoughts as well, as the match report is overall quite positive and re-iterates the fact that we're well in front of where we were this time last year.

My positives include:

Bennell - he could really become a star in a couple of years. Has the class we so desperately need.

Kicking 14 goals (almost 100 points!)

Winning the last quarter - might be the biggest positive of the match. We didn't roll over, we didn't tire out, we kept at it and managed to double our goal tally with some hard work.

Meesen not being the joke of a player I had previously expected.

  titan_uranus said:

Bennell - he could really become a star in a couple of years. Has the class we so desperately need.

I like the kid and I can see why Weagles were so keen on him. I'm not sure if they were trying to hide him in the WA but I think his scope for improvement is huge.

Just quietly, at 300-1, I hope his improvement comes quickly this year as I'll make a cool 'five figure' sum.

Great thread mate, I can definitely see the improvement in comparison to last year. I think some of the ball movement out of the backline by foot and hand was very good at times. The rebuild is taking place and there is a lot of improvement to come.

A positive is we have a lot of class players out of the side at the moment. The negative is we havent been able to field a full team now for 3 years under the butcher bohdan so i cant see that changing.

Forgot to mention this in my previous post, but another positive for me was the jumper we were wearing. So much better than the pyjama top we wore last year. The red was distinctly different and it actually looked good. Hopefully we'll wear that one wherever possible.

  rpfc said:

You may take your shots but at we lost today because of a pathetic 25 mins over the HT break.

20 min mark of the 2nd - PA 40 - Melb 28

Then PA kicked 7.7 to one behind until we kicked our next in the 17th minute of the third.

89 - 29 and we were cooked.

We kicked one more goal than them from that point on.

A young team will go missing for periods and they did for 25 mins.

Positives:

We broke even in tackles, clearances, and had our most Inside 50s for the year (46).

Meesen had 22 hitouts and was the main reason we held our own in the middle.

Bennell is becoming an AFL player very quickly.

Miller (should have had 4) and Bate (could have had 4) are tireless and selfless (to a fault, sometimes).

Morton is an elite athlete that does not stop running, learning from Bruce who can't kick straight but is our Forest Gump ("I just felt like running").

Jones is picking better targets by hand and foot.

McLean drifted in and out but had 8 tackles and 6 clearances.

Dunn had 12 touches and 5 clearances. He showed something today.

Batram destroyed Ebert something fierce (He still can't kick though).

Martin and Frawley continue to impress. Lessen the workload and they will beat their opponent and provide rebound.

There are caveats and addendums to all these statements but remove the "25 mins from hell" next week and we will be competitive.

We are improving.

If anyone remembers last year as vividly as I do you have to agree...

We are improving.

(Just to prove I am not polyanna: Johnson is now the 4th ruckman at this club, Sylvia should watch how hard Bate runs and works if he wants to stay in the side, all mids need to work on kicking to space for our forwards, and our mids/defensive runners tense up to devastating effect when challenged - They need to run as hard as Bruce, Morton, and Davey do.)

Very Disappointing when just before Half time we had 3 men behind the ball to prevent the power from kicking another goal. 4 men around chad cornes, Chad Cornes marks uncontested and chips to ebert who sends it long, bit of spillage in the goal square then a snap goal to the power in the square puts us 37 puts down at half time. My low light for the day

Seriously... after watching that game my only positives are our youngsters that are either playing now and showing promise or ones that have yet to play- I don't think it is unreasonable to assume we will ATLEAST get pick 1-3 and pick 17-19 this season. Probably 1,2 and 17. So more youngsters to come in yet.

Our young players with potential to become seriously great afl player-

- Watts

- Morton

- Garland

- Grimes

- Maric

- Martin

That's 6 players

Young players who despite being in the system 2-3 years still show me potential of taking their game to a great level and possibly becoming great afl players.

- Pettard

- Buckley

- Wonaeamirri

- Frawley

That's 4 players

Have hopes on-

- Blease

- Strauss

- Bennel

- J.Spenser

- Pick 1 2009 draft- Scully?

- Pick 2 2009 draft- Butcher?

- Pick 17 2009 draft????

That's 7 players come 2010

My point-----

I have mentioned 17 players, most of whom are seriously talented and high picks, all which will be on our list for start of next season.

Add to that the possibility of guys like Mclean, Jones, Davey, Moloney, Warnock, Rivers, who are all under 25 years old and have shown they will be around for a long time to come as solid player, though not stars.

ALL IS NOT LOST?

I agree that we are on right track.

At times we need someone to run around within 5 yards of Miller, because he provides the contest continually. Too many times the ball went to ground and was moved back down the ground by Port. Sort of Aussie or Bennel type player. Aaron Davey revelled on this (and putting pressure in forward line) when he first came into the side.

Warnock,Martin,Frawley all showing lots of improvement.

Instead of showing faults the coaching satraff should show Hawthorn and how they bring the ball down the ground with Rioli LURKING like a crocadile. Our kids will be as good as that.

  steveheals said:

I thought our pressure was great for most of the game. It was just not capitilising.

Yeah, we do work hard its just we dont reward ourselves and take our chances.

  MelbournePassion said:

Yeah, we do work hard its just we dont reward ourselves and take our chances.

We find space and run through the middle but when it comes inside 50 there are just no avalible targets.

There are so many times when Miller is just hanging around in the pocket and not doing much. Miller needs to find space off his opponent and take marks in the centre corridor.