In some passages, the effort was half arsed.

When some of our experienced players decided to get going, it was game over.

It was a good win, played against some exuberant youngsters.

Our list is looking more AFL standard every year.

28 minutes ago, stevethemanjordan said:

Semantics?! haha.

The poster said something that was complete [censored]!

How the fark is me asking him to prove what he claimed arguing semantics!?

 

 

Let's have a look at some games played

Tom Boyd - 14

Lin Jong - 13

Jack Redpath - 12

Caleb Daniel - 10

Bailey Dale - 10

Joel Hamling - 11

Will Minson - 10

Jordan Roughead - 16

Mitch Honeychurch - 11

Fletcher Roberts - 12

Lukas Webb - 10

Tom Campbell - 6

Nathan Hrovat - 7

I've named 13 there, with the bottom 2 who could probably not be regarded as regular starters.  So 11 guys played at least double digit games, which means they got a regular gig last year I would have thought.

Back in your hole now, son.

11 minutes ago, mo64 said:

Based on our performances over the past decade, we're in no position to gauge what's left in the the tank. Passages of play on Saturday resembled some of the crap we dished up in the 2nd half of last season. It's laughable to think that we can just flick the switch, and she'll be right. That's the Saty mentality.

Like I said, Saturday wasn't all doom and gloom, but it does show where we are at.

Except, not long ago we would have meekly capitulated.  The difference is in the attitude and the body language.

1 hour ago, Curry & Beer said:

to be fair, that is precisely what happened in the 2nd and 4th quarters

i dont mean play well every now and again and then be terrible, I mean play consistent;y well and be leading by 4 goals.

we were losing after each of the first 3 quarters.  our last quarter was good but thats the least you would expect - our senior players to run over the top of their kids

2 minutes ago, DubDee said:

i dont mean play well every now and again and then be terrible, I mean play consistent;y well and be leading by 4 goals.

we were losing after each of the first 3 quarters.  our last quarter was good but thats the least you would expect - our senior players to run over the top of their kids

well at least pay half the effort then. You said yourself you got what you expected which was us monstering them, particularly in the last. Those two quarters were 7 goals to zip, sorry we didn't win 14 zip but at least pay some credit.

some are seriously arguing that they only had their best 15 players out - they still had a good team.

hilarious.

we were poor for 3 quarters and finally started playing in the 4th. if we dont play better than that we wont win many more than last year

49 minutes ago, stevethemanjordan said:

I'm sitting on the edge of my seat.

Remember.

You did use the words 'better than a dozen' and 'regular starters'.

Cool.

So obviously you're trying to argue that our team yesterday is some sort of polished unit of experienced senior leaders. Have you forgotten who you barrack for?

Wagner 0 games
J.Hunt 0
Oliver 0
Harmes 8
Stretch 11
Vandenberg 14
Michie 18
Salem 22
Frost 24
Kennedy 25

on top of that Viney, Kent, Tyson and Bugg are all 21/22 years old, hardly veterans.

Of the other 12 from yesterday - Watts, Gawn, M.Jones, N.Jones, Garlett, T.McDonald, Grimes, Pedersen, Jetta, Vince, Garland, and Dunn - I will give you a total of 9 that should be classified as senior/regular/experienced players and 3 VFL players. So that's 9 out of a squad of 26, the rest were kids/VFL players and that's just a fact. On top of that, which of these players had a big impact on the win? Maybe about 4 or 5 of them? This is the huge gulf of senior experience we had over them? Please

2 minutes ago, Curry & Beer said:

well at least pay half the effort then. You said yourself you got what you expected which was us monstering them, particularly in the last. Those two quarters were 7 goals to zip, sorry we didn't win 14 zip but at least pay some credit.

i just expected us to comfortably beat a beat missing their 15 best players.

i acknowledged we were good in the last quarter.    overall our effort was good all day - the skills were shocking.  hopefully the conditions were mostly to blame

The question of whether it's okay to be unhappy or critical of a win seems to be a recurring issue on Demonland. It reached fever pitch after the win against Brisbane last season, and it's certainly raised its head again here.

At the risk of being a fence sitter, I think both sides to the argument have some merit. I can see how perceived negativity after a win when we are starved for wins could frustrate, and similarly I can see how merely being satisfied with the result against the "opposition on the day" can seem illogical. 

As a peace offering to both sides, I would reiterate PD's point that it is still only the pre-season. Maybe we could take a collective breath and save the heated debate for when the real stuff tstarts. Merely a suggestion.

2 minutes ago, Curry & Beer said:

So obviously you're trying to argue that our team yesterday is some sort of polished unit of experienced senior leaders. Have you forgotten who you barrack for?

Wagner 0 games
J.Hunt 0
Oliver 0
Harmes 8
Stretch 11
Vandenberg 14
Michie 18
Salem 22
Frost 24
Kennedy 25

on top of that Viney, Kent, Tyson and Bugg are all 21/22 years old, hardly veterans.

Of the other 12 from yesterday - Watts, Gawn, M.Jones, N.Jones, Garlett, T.McDonald, Grimes, Pedersen, Jetta, Vince, Garland, and Dunn - I will give you a total of 9 that should be classified as senior/regular/experienced players and 3 VFL players. So that's 9 out of a squad of 26, the rest were kids/VFL players and that's just a fact. On top of that, which of these players had a big impact on the win? Maybe about 4 or 5 of them? This is the huge gulf of senior experience we had over them? Please

If your argument is that we are young an inexperienced I'll agree with you. 

My concern is that we are young, inexperienced and not very good. 

I thought that this year we would have enough experience in the midfield and backline and enough young talent up forward to win at least 8 games. 

If that is going to be the case then we can't justify barely scraping past the Bulldogs depth players with near on a full side. 

3 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

If your argument is that we are young an inexperienced I'll agree with you. 

My concern is that we are young, inexperienced and not very good. 

I thought that this year we would have enough experience in the midfield and backline and enough young talent up forward to win at least 8 games. 

If that is going to be the case then we can't justify barely scraping past the Bulldogs depth players with near on a full side. 

I'm not so sure, last year i think we would have lost that game.

to win 10-12 games this year we are simply going to have to find a way to win those games, even if it's ugly and we are well below our best.

We had 16 players who had 26+ games experience.

They had 6.

Anyone trying to diminish the advantage we had over the Dogs is a dullard.

That said, (some) people are taking too much notice of one practice match.  We have no clue as to what Goodwin was doing with regards to setups, structures, etc.  There's way too much being read into one performance.

8 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

If your argument is that we are young an inexperienced I'll agree with you. 

My concern is that we are young, inexperienced and not very good. 

I thought that this year we would have enough experience in the midfield and backline and enough young talent up forward to win at least 8 games. 

If that is going to be the case then we can't justify barely scraping past the Bulldogs depth players with near on a full side. 

It sounds like you are being impatient to me. I've listed 14 very young/inexperienced players there. There are half a dozen more very promising kids that weren't out there yesterday. It is natural to expect a great degree of slow improvement in this group over the next few years

6 minutes ago, ProDee said:

We had 16 players who had 26+ games experience.

They had 6.

Anyone trying to diminish the advantage we had over the Dogs is a dullard.

That said, (some) people are taking too much notice of one practice match.  We have no clue as to what Goodwin was doing with regards to setups, structures, etc.  There's way too much being read into one performance.

Spud???

11 minutes ago, Curry & Beer said:

So obviously you're trying to argue that our team yesterday is some sort of polished unit of experienced senior leaders. Have you forgotten who you barrack for?

Wagner 0 games
J.Hunt 0
Oliver 0
Harmes 8
Stretch 11
Vandenberg 14
Michie 18
Salem 22
Frost 24
Kennedy 25

on top of that Viney, Kent, Tyson and Bugg are all 21/22 years old, hardly veterans.

Of the other 12 from yesterday - Watts, Gawn, M.Jones, N.Jones, Garlett, T.McDonald, Grimes, Pedersen, Jetta, Vince, Garland, and Dunn - I will give you a total of 9 that should be classified as senior/regular/experienced players and 3 VFL players. So that's 9 out of a squad of 26, the rest were kids/VFL players and that's just a fact. On top of that, which of these players had a big impact on the win? Maybe about 4 or 5 of them? This is the huge gulf of senior experience we had over them? Please

You analysis is so full of holes it's not funny. Despite their age and experience, Viney, Tyson, Kent, VDB and Salem are clearly in our best 22. You may as well argue that Hogan and Brayshaw are young and inexperienced, so they're not a factor.

The facts are that we were only missing Hogan, Brayshaw and potentially Petracca from our best 22. Based on last years form, Lumumba and Dawes are question marks. If the players we had on the park couldn't play cohesive football for 4 quarters against a severely undermanned Dogs team, it's of some concern coming off an attrocious 2nd half of last season.

3 minutes ago, ProDee said:

We had 16 players who had 26+ games experience.

They had 6.

Anyone trying to diminish the advantage we had over the Dogs is a dullard.

That said, (some) people are taking too much notice of one practice match.  We have no clue as to what Goodwin was doing with regards to setups, structures, etc.  There's way too much being read into one performance.

well I've already made the counter point which you have chosen to ignore. You've set a stupidly low bar for experience BTW.. 26 games? Anyway, explain to me how this group of ours dominated the match. Our BOG was Viney who is 21. It's a very ordinary senior group and we all know this. It's not the portion of the list that we are excited about. So why are you pumping it up all of a sudden and talking about how they should have won by more etc We had more senior players out there but they didn't do a hell of a lot which means ti was pretty much a hitout between two young sides. Or are you going to tell me that the 'seniors' in Grimes, Pedersen, Dunn, McDonald, Garland etc were just all over the young dogs yesterday. Of course they weren't, and they will be phased out by the improvment of the superior juniors in time.

Just now, iv'a worn smith said:

Spud???

Never saw his Father play, but I remember Tony well (as limited as he was).

21 minutes ago, P-man said:

The question of whether it's okay to be unhappy or critical of a win seems to be a recurring issue on Demonland. It reached fever pitch after the win against Brisbane last season, and it's certainly raised its head again here.

At the risk of being a fence sitter, I think both sides to the argument have some merit. I can see how perceived negativity after a win when we are starved for wins could frustrate, and similarly I can see how merely being satisfied with the result against the "opposition on the day" can seem illogical. 

As a peace offering to both sides, I would reiterate PD's point that it is still only the pre-season. Maybe we could take a collective breath and save the heated debate for when the real stuff tstarts. Merely a suggestion.

Deaf ears P-Man

1 hour ago, RalphiusMaximus said:

Ok, enough of the rubbish about the doggies having 15 round 1 starters missing from the side.  The doggies have a huge number of second string players who are largely interchangeable.  Claiming that the ones they played yesterday are lesser players than the ones they didn't is a fabrication their fans have cooked up to make themselves feel better about the loss.  The reality is that they were missing six or seven of their best, and that clearly hurt them, but the side they had on the park had better than a dozen players who were regular starters for them last year. 

The Dogs will be fielding their "round 1" side this week against the Pies according to Beveridge. Let's see how many of them weren't playing against us once they are named.

 

By the way, your assertion "Claiming that the ones they played yesterday are lesser players than the ones they didn't is a fabrication their fans have cooked up to make themselves feel better about the loss." can easily be reworded to state "Claiming that the ones they played yesterday are better/equal to the ones they didn't is a fabrication Melbourne fans have cooked up to make themselves feel better about the game."

On 6 March 2016 at 0:38 PM, It's Time said:

I mad this mistake as well. If you scroll down you will see the 8 on the bench.  

Alex Neal BullenAaron vandenBerg Jefferey Garlett Jack Grimes Neville Jetta Tomas Bugg Ben Kennedy Matt Jones Dean Terlich James Harmes Josh Wagner

 

1 minute ago, AzzKikA said:

Deaf ears P-Man

Worth a crack.

We held them goalless in the second and the last quarter.

We managed to score against the wind and when the Doggies did not.

Even when our skills were down the team kept in the contest, wind the clock back a few years and we would have be brutally arse pounded by these young inexperience Bulldogs

So I don't know why we are hammering the players for winning ugly.

Lets not forget we won against this team last year, when they were at full strength, minus Libba.

So let get the MFC used to the idea of winning, supporters included. My god we need something to talk about thats not "Yeah I know my team is [censored]! But we were awesome in the 50's!"

We may not yet have the polish of Freo, Meth Coast or the Hawks, but we may start to push them in games and not be easy beats anymore! (we may even steal one if we catch them on an off day!).

That is the type of improvement I want to see. A  more competitive Melbourne. We can build off of that.

 

 

9 minutes ago, mo64 said:

You analysis is so full of holes it's not funny. Despite their age and experience, Viney, Tyson, Kent, VDB and Salem are clearly in our best 22. You may as well argue that Hogan and Brayshaw are young and inexperienced, so they're not a factor.

The facts are that we were only missing Hogan, Brayshaw and potentially Petracca from our best 22. Based on last years form, Lumumba and Dawes are question marks. If the players we had on the park couldn't play cohesive football for 4 quarters against a severely undermanned Dogs team, it's of some concern coming off an attrocious 2nd half of last season.

Oh it's full of holes is it. The fact is we had no more than 5 good senior performances yesterday. If there are so many holes name a sixth for me please. So it was a bunch of kids up against another bunch. If we had been dragged over the line by standout performances from all the seniors it would be different, but that's not what happened

I think we need a poll. That will solve it once and for all.

1 hour ago, iv'a worn smith said:

How much are they paying Tom Boyd?  While it's debatable as to whether a significant cohort of bullies who lined up yesterday are in the best 22, most are hardly 2nd stringers.  Anyway, I guess we'll never appease the doomsayers.

I don't reckon that the coaching staff would have said, the WB have many missing today, so go out and spank them.  NAB Challenge game.  Do you reckon we had nothing left in the tank?

Did we play with the same intensity as the week before, particularly the second half?

I was happy after the Port game, not because we won a practice match but because of the way we attacked the ball, ran with purpose and executed some good passages of play.

Yesterday was a lot of bumbling skill errors and players going half arsed. There may be reasons for that (wind, players taking it easy due to NAB Challenge/nature of opposition meant they thought it would be easier than it was) but the performance was pretty poor overall with a few exceptions. Again, it's only practice games so no one is going all doom and gloom - it's just that we are pointing out the obvious that it wasn't a great performance and with the level of opposition out there we really should have won with ease.