Jump to content


Recommended Posts

Posted

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 3rd 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 7thyear and Howe’s 5th. 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

  • Like 2

Posted

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.

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)

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.

Edited by jnrmac
  • Like 4
Posted

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?

  • Like 4

Posted

I'm in France at the moment.

What's happening over there?

Stay there. You don't want to know.


Posted

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.

  • Like 2
Posted

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

  • Like 6
Posted

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.

  • Like 1
Posted

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.

  • Like 1

Posted

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.

Posted

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.

  • Like 3
Posted (edited)

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.

Edited by Curry & Beer
  • Like 5

Posted

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.

  • Like 4
Posted (edited)

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.

Edited by Chook
  • Like 1

Posted

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 ?

Posted

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.

  • Like 1
Posted

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

Posted

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.

  • Like 4
Posted (edited)

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.

Edited by Kali
  • Like 1

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Demonland Forums  

  • Match Previews, Reports & Articles  

    2024 Player Reviews: #15 Ed Langdon

    The Demon running machine came back with a vengeance after a leaner than usual year in 2023.  Date of Birth: 1 February 1996 Height: 182cm Games MFC 2024: 22 Career Total: 179 Goals MFC 2024: 9 Career Total: 76 Brownlow Medal Votes: 5 Melbourne Football Club: 5th Best & Fairest: 352 votes

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Melbourne Demons 6

    2024 Player Reviews: #24 Trent Rivers

    The premiership defender had his best year yet as he was given the opportunity to move into the midfield and made a good fist of it. Date of Birth: 30 July 2001 Games MFC 2024: 23 Career Total: 100 Goals MFC 2024: 2 Career Total:  9 Brownlow Medal Votes: 7 Melbourne Football Club: 6th Best & Fairest: 350 votes

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Melbourne Demons 2

    TRAINING: Monday 11th November 2024

    Veteran Demonland Trackwatchers Kev Martin, Slartibartfast & Demon Wheels were on hand at Gosch's Paddock to kick off the official first training session for the 1st to 4th year players with a few elder statesmen in attendance as well. KEV MARTIN'S PRESEASON TRAINING OBSERVATIONS Beautiful morning. Joy all round, they look like they want to be there.  21 in the squad. Looks like the leadership group is TMac, Viney Chandler and Petty. They look like they have sli

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Training Reports 2

    2024 Player Reviews: #1 Steven May

    The years are rolling by but May continued to be rock solid in a key defensive position despite some injury concerns. He showed great resilience in coming back from a nasty rib injury and is expected to continue in that role for another couple of seasons. Date of Birth: 10 January 1992 Height: 193cm Games MFC 2024: 19 Career Total: 235 Goals MFC 2024: 1 Career Total: 24 Melbourne Football Club: 9th Best & Fairest: 316 votes

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Melbourne Demons

    2024 Player Reviews: #4 Judd McVee

    It was another strong season from McVee who spent most of his time mainly at half back but he also looked at home on a few occasions when he was moved into the midfield. There could be more of that in 2025. Date of Birth: 7 August 2003 Height: 185cm Games MFC 2024: 23 Career Total: 48 Goals MFC 2024: 1 Career Total: 1 Brownlow Medal Votes: 1 Melbourne Football Club: 7th Best & Fairest: 347 votes

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Melbourne Demons 5

    2024 Player Reviews: #31 Bayley Fritsch

    Once again the club’s top goal scorer but he had a few uncharacteristic flat spots during the season and the club will be looking for much better from him in 2025. Date of Birth: 6 December 1996 Height: 188cm Games MFC 2024: 23 Career Total: 149 Goals MFC 2024: 41 Career Total: 252 Brownlow Medal Votes: 4

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Melbourne Demons 9

    2024 Player Reviews: #18 Jake Melksham

    After sustaining a torn ACL in the final match of the 2023 season Jake added a bit to the attack late in the 2024 season upon his return. He has re-signed on to the Demons for 1 more season in 2025. Date of Birth: 12 August 1991 Height: 186cm Games MFC 2024: 8 Career Total: 229 Goals MFC 2024: 8 Career Total: 188

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Melbourne Demons 7

    2024 Player Reviews: #3 Christian Salem

    The luckless Salem suffered a hamstring injury against the Lions early in the season and, after missing a number of games, he was never at his best. He was also inconvenienced by minor niggles later in the season. This was a blow for the club that sorely needed him to fill gaps in the midfield at times as well as to do his best work in defence. Date of Birth: 15 July 1995 Height: 184cm Games MFC 2024: 17 Career Total: 176 Goals MFC 2024: 1 Career Total: 26 Brownlow Meda

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Melbourne Demons 8

    2024 Player Reviews: #39 Koltyn Tholstrop

    The first round draft pick at #13 from twelve months ago the strongly built medium forward has had an impressive introduction to AFL football and is expected to spend more midfield moments as his career progresses. Date of Birth: 25 July 2005 Height: 186cm Games MFC 2024: 10 Career Total: 10 Goals MFC 2024: 5 Career Total: 5 Games CDFC 2024: 7 Goals CDFC 2024: 4

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Melbourne Demons 9
  • Tell a friend

    Love Demonland? Tell a friend!

×
×
  • Create New...