DOG FOOD by George on The Outer

The Melbourne side that turned up against Footscray at Etihad stadium was simply turned into dog food. by the Bulldogs as they cruised to a near 100 point victory.

But dog food was what was served up to the Melbourne fans, yet again, as they witnessed the Bullies kick 8 goals in the first quarter to a miserable 2 points followed by 6 goals in the second, and then to finally concede 10 goals in the last quarter!!

If it wasn't for Footscray having a little sleep in the 3^rd quarter, a score line similar to the 186 game was threatening.

It was bad enough that Melbourne had to bring in VFL standard players like Rohan Bail, Viv Michie and Matt Jones, who didn’t let the sceptics down as they dished up turnover after turnover to the opposition but they were ably assisted by Jack Watts and Jeremy Howe with their usual half-hearted efforts, giving the Bulldogs opportunities that should simply never have been open to them.

If anyone thinks either player should be at the club next year, then take a quick look at the highlights reel, because neither will feature (again!). This is Watt’s 7^thyear and Howe’s 5^th. They wouldn’t be given the latitude and luxury at other clubs. It is about time that time was called.

When you have a series of players who can’t play at AFL level and another couple who don’t want to play at that level, then the 100 point loss is inevitable. The recruiting team will have an easy job at the end of the year (yet again) ditching and trading out these types.

The game played by Melbourne was simply disgraceful! The toughness, tenacity and skills displayed by the Women’s team before the main event was such a sharp contrast. All over the ground the girls were prepared to run and to put their bodies on the line when called upon.

Likewise the Bulldogs men were simply prepared to run, run and then run some more. Time and time again they broke the lines with the Melbourne players barely getting a jog up behind them. They would have blown the game well away with these efforts alone, but with the clangers we gifted them ... it simply provided icing on the cake.

Eleven of their players racked up 20 disposals or more. Our team could only muster five. But it was just as much about the type of disposals. Short dinky kicks or handpasses to put teammates under pressure shouldn’t count.

Few were able to hold their heads up … Jesse Hogan fought and produced the results we have now come to expect from this talented 20 year old. He was even moved to the mid-field to provide some sort of impact, and he did exactly that. Pity we don’t have another 20 of him to put on the ground.

Tom McDonald played everywhere as well, trying to produce something to spark the side. He played forward, back and pinch hit in the ruck when Max Gawn needed a rest. He certainly won a fair share of the ruck contests and probably wrote himself a future role over Chris Dawes who simply is incapable in rucking contests (the Bulldogs kicked four goals in the last quarter from clearances while he was rucking). Jack Viney was in everything again, but was operating almost as a lone hand in the middle. And he keeps fighting right up to the end. Angus Brayshaw is another tough and hard fighter, but he is tiring as can only be expected toward the end of his first year.

Alex Neal-Bullen is showing something upon which we can build, and so is James Harmes as they pick up the pace of AFL.

Yes, we were dog food today. Dog food for the Bulldogs and dog food in quality. Dog food was served up for the fans again ... what could possibly be in store for us next week against the lowly Blues?

Melbourne 0.2.2 2.4.16 7.7.49 8.7.55

Western Bulldogs 8.3.51 14.5.89 14.7.91 24.9.153

Goals

Melbourne Hogan 3 Garlett 2 Dawes Gawn Watts

Western Bulldogs Stringer 4 Bontempelli Dickson Grant 3 Crameri Jong Redpath 2 Biggs Dahlhaus Hunter Macrae Wallis

Best

Melbourne McDonald Viney Hogan Gawn

Western Bulldogs Dahlhaus, Wallis, Boyd, Grant, Stringer, Hunter, Macrae, Murphy

Changes

Melbourne Matt Jones replaced Christian Salem (ill) in the selected side

Western Bulldogs Nil

Injuries

Melbourne Neville Jetta (neck)

Western Bulldogs Nil

Substitutes

Melbourne Jack Grimes replaced Neville Jetta (neck) at half-time

Western Bulldogs Caleb Daniel replaced Sam Darley at three-quarter time

Reports

Melbourne Nil

Western Bulldogs Nil

Umpires Pannell, Mitchell, Wallace

Official crowd 27,805 at Etihad Stadium

I would hit the absinthe pretty heavily if I were you

Troubling performance. One quarter of football (the third for chrisake) and the players give themselves a pat on the back, job done fellas. We've improved this year, balls.

So our star studded backline got:

Lumumba 37 dreamteam pts

Dunn 39

Garland 43

Grimes 45

Howe 58

Disgraceful, dumb, soft, inept, insipid and frankly useless. McDonald got 126 but caused at least 4 direct goals.

8 goal 1st qtr

10 goal last qtr

Its back to square 1 for this bunch of soft hacks. Clean out coming.

Lumumba has to be dropped. Cant carry on like this without some consequence.

So our star studded backline got:

Lumumba 37 dreamteam pts

Dunn 39

Garland 43

Grimes 45

Howe 58

Disgraceful, dumb, soft, inept, insipid and frankly useless. McDonald got 126 but caused at least 4 direct goals.

8 goal 1st qtr

10 goal last qtr

Its back to square 1 for this bunch of soft hacks. Clean out coming.

Lumumba has to be dropped. Cant carry on like this without some consequence.

Why lump Grimes in when he was the sub?

Embarrassing loss for the MFC. Great win by the girls, fantastic, the blokes didn't back it up - and it is embarrassing for the MFC. Simple basics of football appear to be a thing of the past.

they aren't even worth criticising anymore

I'm in France at the moment.

What's happening over there?

Stay there. You don't want to know.

I was angry at Melbourne at the start, the third quarter was great but the umpires killed off any chance we had to at least make it close and Melbourne just dropped their heads after that.

Good day for 'Demonland' to be down for a while I guess...

Always thought Stringer could be the pick of his draft year...how's he shaping up against Wines?

I was angry at Melbourne at the start, the third quarter was great but the umpires killed off any chance we had to at least make it close and Melbourne just dropped their heads after that.

Watts' two crucial turn overs that lead directly to the first two goals of the final term killed off the game actually. Then they got a run on and we stopped.

Watts' two crucial turn overs that lead directly to the first two goals of the final term killed off the game actually. Then they got a run on and we stopped.

Ahhh the second one was clearly Hogan's error but let's just charge it to the whipping boy's account eh

It's not saying much but Watts was one of our better players, including a genuine contested mark inside 50 that he went back and drilled with a good kick

I saw the second half. It wasn't great. The first half was far worse. I'm not terribly upset, because I told a Bulldogs-supporting colleague that this would happen and now I look like a genius. We were always going to rely on winning the centre to keep ourselves in the game. When the doggies took that off us it was all over. The worst part of today was how readily we reverted to high bombs when under pressure.

Bright spots? Watts and McDonald both racked up good numbers. ANB looked to have a pretty decent game from what I saw, and Michie is improving. I don't see much else from this one.

Ahhh the second one was clearly Hogan's error but let's just charge it to the whipping boy's account eh

It's not saying much but Watts was one of our better players, including a genuine contested mark inside 50 that he went back and drilled with a good kick

Hogan gave it up with an extremely poor look-away handball that was turned over, but he shouldn't have been in the position he was. If Watts hadn't missed the target, he wouldn't have.

In a good team, Watts will be very damaging. He played a string of very good games in the middle of the year, where I thought he'd arrived. Last week he was terrible. Today, he wasn't good. I hope he bounces back strongly next week, otherwise a lot of his good work will be undone, IMO.

I saw the second half. It wasn't great. The first half was far worse. I'm not terribly upset, because I told a Bulldogs-supporting colleague that this would happen and now I look like a genius. We were always going to rely on winning the centre to keep ourselves in the game. When the doggies took that off us it was all over. The worst part of today was how readily we reverted to high bombs when under pressure.

Bright spots? Watts and McDonald both racked up good numbers. ANB looked to have a pretty decent game from what I saw, and Michie is improving. I don't see much else from this one.

ANB is so cool under pressure and manages to find space where there appears to be none. He reminds me very much of Sam Mitchell, except his foot skills aren't as good.

What did people think of Gawn's game? I thought he was very, very ordinary for the most part. He still doesn't know how to use his massive frame.

Our teams ability to handball to a stationary target and then let an opponent run past and tackle is second to none.

Lay a shepherd

Protect the ball carrier

Run into space if you want the ball.

Basics.

Another miserable day as a demon supporter, which I do NOT accept or excuse, but I'll have a crack :

- For our best 22 we would be looking at Frost, Kent, Pedersen, Petracca, Salem, Trengove, Tyson and Vandenberg. We all know the dead weight that would be ousted for these players. I don't know why some people are claiming we have a had a run-of-the-mill injury list this year, we have been crippled all season.

- For some reason we have played 3 fantastic quarters and 5 abysmall ones in the last fortnight. The inconsistency is agonising, but at least we can see that there is a good side buried in there somewhere.

- I hate using the umpire defense, but fair dinkum today was one of the worst I've ever seen. They cost us 6 goals at least.

- Hogan kicks goals no matter what.

- The Dogs are seriously good, they've won 8 of the last 9 and are now 4th on the ladder. I underrated them heavily before today. They were as good as the Hawks today, and ripped us apart with their rebounding, speed of ball movement and punishment of errors in a similar way to when the Hawks smashed us earlier in the year.

- We've still won 6, many of them great performances. We could have easily snagged another couple too. As bad as today was, don't go down the path of rewriting history.

- We have a chance next week to atone with a very weak opponent.

Hogan gave it up with an extremely poor look-away handball that was turned over, but he shouldn't have been in the position he was. If Watts hadn't missed the target, he wouldn't have.

In a good team, Watts will be very damaging. He played a string of very good games in the middle of the year, where I thought he'd arrived. Last week he was terrible. Today, he wasn't good. I hope he bounces back strongly next week, otherwise a lot of his good work will be undone, IMO.

That's unfair though, he didn't miss the target - it was a long handball that arrived at Hogan's knees which cost him a crucial second of breathing space. It wasn't perfect but Hogan should have done better with it. Watts gets graded on the harshest curve.

So our star studded backline got:

Lumumba 37 dreamteam pts

Dunn 39

Garland 43

Grimes 45

Howe 58

Disgraceful, dumb, soft, inept, insipid and frankly useless. McDonald got 126 but caused at least 4 direct goals.

8 goal 1st qtr

10 goal last qtr

Its back to square 1 for this bunch of soft hacks. Clean out coming.

Lumumba has to be dropped. Cant carry on like this without some consequence.

Grimes was the bloody sub you nitwit. Played for a quarter, got 40 dream team points. Over a whole game, that would give him a score of 160 on this particular meaningless statistic.

I am in Bali atm. Watched game on a dodgy stream. We were so outpaced it was rediculous. Watts has got to learn from these horrible kicks across goal. It's a recurring theme of his game. Horrid display. Insipid. Yada yada yada. All the same [censored] we have seen for years. Michie Bail Jones are all 2nd Division VFL players. I know roos had to try something, but TMac in the ruck, seriously ?

I am in Bali atm. Watched game on a dodgy stream. We were so outpaced it was rediculous. Watts has got to learn from these horrible kicks across goal. It's a recurring theme of his game. Horrid display. Insipid. Yada yada yada. All the same [censored] we have seen for years. Michie Bail Jones are all 2nd Division VFL players. I know roos had to try something, but TMac in the ruck, seriously ?

Again, he was trying to get some movement going in a moribund team - not a hanging offence when we were 80 points behind. And M. Jones, Michie & Bail were nowhere near our worst.

You'd be better to complain about the AFL record we must have set in missed tackles.

We played 2005 football, except with a whole lot more mistakes and a whole lot less awareness.

Find for the game was Tmac as a big bodied mid best option at crisis time going forward

Their clearance work is great because it relies on not having to think. As soon as they get a good possession they give it off in one of about three directions, where they know a teammate will be. Just get & give, without having to think. They know where each other are without looking, let alone thinking. If they get it to a teammate who's 5 metres away from the stoppage, they're away before the other team works out who's got the ball. Many of their clearances follow this same pattern.

We have no idea where our teammates are. So at clearances, one of our guys gets a possession, he's got to look up & find where his teammates are, by which time he's tackled and off balance.

The very best teams (Hawks, Freo, WCE and now Dogs) have that kind of system at clearances.

This was a terrible loss against a team that has developed enormously and unexpectedly this year and is enjoying playing footy. This is a team we beat comfortably earlier this year. We should be developing like them and like Richmond. Instead we have lazy players who still make basic errors like hand passing to opposition players in the goal square and kicking across the face of goal direct to opposition players. That our team can play was shown by the third quarter. That they can't be bothered was shown by the rest of the game.