NAB Challenge Aftermath

[Sir Why You Little 37,342]

4 minutes ago, djr said:

Thanks Rusty

That new Layout for the official AFL Website is apalling!

Has Telstra always had the rights

took me half an hour to find any replays!!

[double dee 27]

If people are still struggling to find the replays these are the  links to each quarter.

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2016-02-28/nab-power-v-demons-q1

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2016-02-28/nab-power-v-demons-q2

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2016-02-28/nab-power-v-demons-q3

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2016-02-28/nab-power-v-demons-q4

[hemingway 7,633]

14 hours ago, Moonshadow said:

I love mounting a come from behind victory. Gets me very excited. 

Very popular in many of the beloved countries where I have fought, lived and loved.

[FireInTheBennelly 4,104]

1st quarter, clock at about 14:16. Could Viney have slaughtered Wines here and decided not to?

[CHF 2,817]

just so that all can feel comfortable on here that someone is upholding the proper traditions of Melbourne supporters, I watched the game at some ungodly hour of Saturday morning over here and there jumped in the car and drove to Switzerland to go skiing. Just right and proper for a Melbourne supporter. 

Have watched the game a couple of times and like the way the team responded. If we can do that when points are at stake I will be happy.  All Iwant to do is enjoy watching my team play footy

[Cards13 9,117]

Had a look at Qtr 1, 3 and 4 last night, we are  very harsh on our guys early in the praccy match fixtures. Grimes has been mentioned as one who was bad, 2 of his on the fulls were under some pressure and he did a couple of nice things to balance it out. Deep breath and enjoy the games for what they are, putting what has been learned into practice. 'We talkin bout practice man."

In saying that what an enjoyable site to see, the MFC players endeavouring to put in sustained pressure for a whole qtr, a while half of a game, and I'll be blowed pressure acts for the full game!!! if we can keep that type of pressure up, keep incrementally improving some of the delivery/reducing the brain frts then we go someway to winning 10 games.

Gawn is (no pun) just huge for us, he goes down and it becomes a lot harder to get first use of ball let alone his pressure releasing marks around the ground.

I would hate, HATE, to be a defensive player in our fwd 50. The skill level our of guys in there on the weekend was high but the pressure acts through the roof and Port players chit the bed. Again if this can continue season long we will see a large number of turn over goals starting from the fwd line rather than midfield or from defence.

[faultydet 7,623]

3 hours ago, CHF said:

just so that all can feel comfortable on here that someone is upholding the proper traditions of Melbourne supporters, I watched the game at some ungodly hour of Saturday morning over here and there jumped in the car and drove to Switzerland to go skiing. Just right and proper for a Melbourne supporter. 

Have watched the game a couple of times and like the way the team responded. If we can do that when points are at stake I will be happy.  All Iwant to do is enjoy watching my team play footy

The great thing about Range Rovers, is that the headrest TV monitors are perfect for watching a footy replay while travelling to the slopes

Much better than straining your eyes while watching a 5" Agora smartphone in the VN Commodores that the toothless filth drive on their way to Centrelink.

[Lucifers Hero 40,564]

Finally got to watch a replay.  Four big things I noticed about our game plan/ball movement

1. We almost never went backwards!  Our players didn't even look like going sideways let alone back.  Eyes nearly always forward.

2. We didn't hug the boundary line nor did we play thru the middle.  Our forward play was between the two - attacking but conservative.

3.  When we went forward there were players running alongside the ball carrier.

4. We played with Intent!

We relied on defensive aggression rather than defensive ball movement.  It worked!  It looked like we were practicing our new game plan as I would think during the real season we will revert to some defensive ball movement.  Can't attack all day against the really good sides.  Will be interesting to see the balance between attacking/defensive ball movement next week against the fast moving Bulldogs.

To me those 4 things showed not only will we be a 'contested ball side' (Goodwin's words) we will be a much more attacking side.  If we continue we will have a lot more i50's, many scoring shots and hopefully a lot more goals (and wins).

We will also be infinitely more enjoyable to watch...a good way to get supporters come to games!

[djr 1,605]

7 hours ago, double dee said:

If people are still struggling to find the replays these are the  links to each quarter.

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2016-02-28/nab-power-v-demons-q1

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2016-02-28/nab-power-v-demons-q2

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2016-02-28/nab-power-v-demons-q3

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2016-02-28/nab-power-v-demons-q4

Thanks Double Dee. Unfortunately they all show only q1.

[CHF 2,817]

17 minutes ago, faultydet said:

The great thing about Range Rovers, is that the headrest TV monitors are perfect for watching a footy replay while travelling to the slopes

Much better than straining your eyes while watching a 5" Agora smartphone in the VN Commodores that the toothless filth drive on their way to Centrelink.

BMW..... I was driving... Not watching while driving. 

[DeeZee 7,463]

Just watched the replay again, and we have a couple of genuine stars in the making in Kent and Vandenberg.

Love these two players as they have talent X factor and fierce competitiveness,my son thinks I'm Gay, because I rabbit on about them so much.

Dunstall and Ricciuto were going on about our smart recruiting....the tables are turning.

[La Dee-vina Comedia 17,072]

17 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

I liked the dominance. 

Half the teams in the comp are rubbish when the game goes against them as much as we are. The difference is they have the ability to right the ship and they have the ability to dominate when the game goes there way. I'm talking about North, Port, Rich, Adel, GWS and several other mid tier sides from last year.

 

I saw the "worm" on one of those footy apps before I knew anything about the game and just assumed we were the team leading at the start only to be swamped by what at first glance looked like a 10 goal straight avalanche. It was quite a shock to see that the boot was on the other foot, so to speak.

[AzzKikA 2,371]

1 hour ago, djr said:

Thanks Double Dee. Unfortunately they all show only q1.

DJR, change the Q1 to Q2, Q3, Q4 in the site address bar.

[djr 1,605]

2 minutes ago, AzzKikA said:

DJR, change the Q1 to Q2, Q3, Q4 in the site address bar.

Thanks. That works.

[AzzKikA 2,371]

I do hope they practice the interchange cap next week, i can understand why they didn't on Saturday but i really want to see how we go when we are tired.

Great game, was thinking same old same old in the first half, but their resilience and hard work started to pay off as port tired and lost focus.  Do not kid yourself, ports rotations made it a lot easier to roll over the top of them, we had 120+ to their 90, that made a difference.  Still, love seeing us win and cannot wait for the season proper.

5 minutes ago, djr said:

Thanks. That works.

[nutbean 8,838]

I like the idea of capping the interchanges during the season proper to 90 for everyone except us - for some reason we look a lot fresher with 130 interchanges so I think we should stick to that...

[binman 44,706]

14 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

Typical Watts good game. Lots of positives - some really nice kicks to team mates. Some clever positioning. Underrated clean pick ups hitting the ball at speed. And a few decent marks as well. 

Mixed in with the usual negatives - the one late brain fade and a couple of other strange moments with the ball and at least a couple of marking attempts where he went up one handed and protected himself instead of winning the contest. 

I'm all for him being clever with tapping the ball to team mates etc but if it clearly doesn't come off then it's bad play to not back himself to stand under it. He's got to get the balance right and at this stage I'd say go up two handed and attacking the ball and once he's mastered that he can try fancier things.

I largely agree. His hands were good on the ground and he played the high half forward role well. In addition to some good kicks to teammates his handballs were spot on.

The template for his game is the goal he set up for Hogan in the first. Lead out, mark 60 metres out and quickly get it to Hogan. 

He had 17 possessions which in a shorter game with 8 on the bench is pretty good (i'd like to see hoim avergae 20 per game in the real thing). To put that number in perspective only Vandenburg (19) and Viney (27) had more. He also had 8 marks, more than any Port or dees players. These were mainly as result of leading up the ground, which seems to be the role he will play, but he did clunk a couple of pack marks.

He was really annoyed with himself when he coughed the ball up right at the end, which is a good sign. It came after a really nice mark. In fact as you say he took some good grabs, at last two of which were really gutsy efforts.

My negatives? Didn't stick a couple of tackles, in fact didn't record any tackles, missed a few targets with sloppy kicks and didn't score a goal.

On that last point he took a mark just outside 50, played on quickly and looked to set it up for someone deep. I would have loved for him to instead taken a ping at goals (though perhaps Roos and Goodwin wouldn't want that). Also there was a couple of occasions where he made good position close to goals only to be let down by a teammates poor kick.

[mo64 5,886]

3 hours ago, Cards13 said:

Had a look at Qtr 1, 3 and 4 last night, we are  very harsh on our guys early in the praccy match fixtures. Grimes has been mentioned as one who was bad, 2 of his on the fulls were under some pressure and he did a couple of nice things to balance it out. Deep breath and enjoy the games for what they are, putting what has been learned into practice. 'We talkin bout practice man."

I would hate, HATE, to be a defensive player in our fwd 50. The skill level our of guys in there on the weekend was high but the pressure acts through the roof and Port players chit the bed. Again if this can continue season long we will see a large number of turn over goals starting from the fwd line rather than midfield or from defence.

Watched a replay for a 2nd time, and agree that Grimes actually played ok. Despite being under pressure, the 2 OOFs were avoidable with greater awareness. I just don't know what position Grimes can play with our best 26 available. I don't want him down back. Here's not a clearance player to be a mid, and he's not skillful or quick enough to play wing or up forward.

I'm hoping that the intensity of our forwards was aided by Goodwin's forward and midfield structures. If you allow the opposition easy outlets from their backline, it's hard to apply pressure. In the 1st quarter we got caught out the back by Port because we were applying a high press. I'm ok with that structure, because it means that we have a greater intent to score. It fell down because our backs played poorly. 

I'm interested to see if we can replicate the forward pressure with restricted interchange.

 

[DeeZee 7,463]

What I loved about Wattsys game were the contested possessions, pack marks and tackling.

[faultydet 7,623]

2 hours ago, CHF said:

BMW..... I was driving... Not watching while driving. 

Poor planning, or was the chauffer ill?

 

 

[faultydet 7,623]

I liked that Hinkley said our boys simply hit the contest harder than his did.

 

Speaks volumes about out list development.

[ManDee 7,347]

12 minutes ago, DeeZee said:

What I loved about Wattsys game were the contested possessions, pack marks and tackling.

According to the stats 0 tackles. He is trying but none stuck. I thought his game was OK

[Chris 2,892]

I watched the first quarter and a half and then had to leave to go to a kids party. My take on the game at that point was that we looked like a team full of cobwebs playing against a team who blew the cobwebs out last week, hence the deficit in scoring. I got back from the party completely by accident to watch what I had missed on the replay. It seemed after half time the players had blown the cobwebs out and were now playing as they had planned. The third quarter was great to watch as Port just didn't have an answer and couldn't come back. They seemed to try to come back int eh last but the lack of rotations would have started to take their toll by then.

Overall I think the last half of the second quarter and the third were the ones worth watching as both teams had blown the cobwebs out and neither was more tired than the other due to rotations, from that I am pretty confident about our season as you can clearly see what we are working on, which for the first time in a long time is not defence!

I will be very interested to see how we go against the Dogs, especially as their expectation of us will be higher than what Port had for us.

[Chris 2,892]

11 minutes ago, ManDee said:

According to the stats 0 tackles. He is trying but none stuck. I thought his game was OK

One passage of play stuck in my mind where Watts was outnumbers near the boundary and was running to the Port players and as he went to tackle they disposed of the ball. Each time he pulled out of the tackle and bumped so he could run to the next just for the same thing to happen. We ended up with another player there and the ball went out. Watts in this case wouldn't have got a tackle in the stats sheet. He made the right call and put in three efforts to stop the ball rather then one tackle, which if he had laid the one then the ball was gone. I was impressed with his continued attack and second and third efforts.

[DeeZee 7,463]

13 minutes ago, ManDee said:

According to the stats 0 tackles. He is trying but none stuck. I thought his game was OK

His intent was there and he chased very hard....but he definately looks harder at the contest this year.