The only positive out of today is that people around here will stop talking about finals and even top 4.

Agree

Trengove was closely checked today by North. You know you're a gun when you're getting tagged in your sixth game.

The quicker it happens the quicker he'll learn to cope with it I suppose.

As long as his body feels good he should play, even if his form varies.

Not an altogether surprising result.

Sometime this year we were always going to go down to an ordinary side. It'll happen again from time to time. We'll also get two or three absolute hidings from quality sides. We are steadily improving, but still have a long way to go.

Our first half was terrible. North applied some pretty good pressure and we shat ourselves and made countless errors, forced and unforced, and started cocking around with it on the HB and HF lines circa 2008. If we'd played a side with better finishing skills than North (read: nearly any other team), the game would have been over at halftime.

I thought we outplayed them in the second half. Not that we were fantastic, but our ball movement out of the middle was alot cleaner and we stopped the indecision and over-possession of the ball that cost us badly in the first half (and has plagued us for the last few years). A few odd umpiring decisions in Norths forward 50 made the result look worse than it actually was; we didn't deserve to win, but if we'd played like we did in the second half for the entire game, we probably would have scraped through.

Bruce racked up possessions, but few of them seemed to go to advantage. His days as a definite walk-up start in our best 22 are numbered. Davey has a poor track record when it comes to these sorts of games and needs to start consistently standing up to physical pressure from the opposition if he wants to be anything more than just a handy finishing player. We badly missed Jordie today, and the intensity from our other defensive tackling types (especially McDonald, and to some extent Bartram) was well down on previous weeks.

On a side note: Etihad Stadium is an even bigger shithole than I remember it being; sterile atmosphere, $4.50 for water, and you face a choice between paying $30 concession for ground level seats or going up to level 3, in which case you cant see the fricking boundary line and you have to shield your eyes for the entire game if it's a sunny day. Should be burnt to the ground, and the ashes placed in a cannister and flung over a rainbow.

I doubt I have seen as many Melbourne kicks smothered in 1 match as I did today!

I`m movin on, bring on next week!

On a side note: Etihad Stadium is an even bigger shithole than I remember it being; sterile atmosphere, $4.50 for water, and you face a choice between paying $30 concession for ground level seats or going up to level 3, in which case you cant see the fricking boundary line and you have to shield your eyes for the entire game if it's a sunny day. Should be burnt to the ground, and the ashes placed in a cannister and flung over a rainbow.

Amen!

I couldn't have said it better myself. Bomb the place because a dusty ground would be better to play on than that craphole.

Crap game, Crap venue. Petterd injured, oh crap.

Crap game, Crap venue. Petterd injured, oh crap.

First time watching AFL at shitpark, and I was amazed on how small the ground was... dont get me started on the surface. VFL have better turf.