MATCH REPORT - Round 1 ANOTHER STEP FORWARD

[Demonland 66,372]

ANOTHER STEP FORWARD by George on the Outer

Laozi (c604-531 BC) is quoted as saying that “ a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”.

For the Melbourne Football Club, that journey from the despairing depths of the past years must be some way along the path, but against the Greater Western Sydney Giants we saw yet another step toward that final goal.

While there is no doubt that had the Giants kicked straight, the result would have been very different, it is worth reflecting upon the following scenario.

Three quarter time. Melbourne has kicked a meagre six goals and only solitary one since quarter time. The Demons are 21 points down.

There is no doubt that such a situation in 2014 or 2015 would have seen the final result blow out to a 30+ point drubbing.  However, such has been the progress of the team under the current coaching panel, that a mere 10 minutes later, the team hit the front. Then they held on, even though Greater Western Sydney reclaimed the lead again for a couple of minutes.

We are seeing resilience, belief and simple hard, tough inputs by all the players, that was so very lacking in years gone by.

And we should make make no mistake about the capabilities of the Giants. Up until late last season when they lost Shane Mumford, they were challenging for a finals spot, and make no mistake, they will do so again this year.  Their depth of talent is extraordinary, with twenty top twenty draft picks in their side.  

Melbourne also has room to improve. The omission of Lynden Dunn was probably a mistake, (although perhaps he was still injured), as for two quarters the team struggled to get the ball out of its defensive 50.  A solitary Dunn kick would have solved the problem.  

But the backline did hold up under intense pressure to hold the opposition to a mere 10 goals.  Oscar McDonald in the early days of his career was probably out of his depth, but he now has a few games under his belt, and another win to boot.  He was well served in his apprenticeship alongside his brother Tom and Colin Garland. However, if he also becomes an integral part of this defensive wall then we will take yet another step along that path.

Jack Viney was simply magnificent all day and topped the possessions list, proving that he has also probably taken another step forward.  Clayton Oliver was a revelation, who only played 72% of game time, but had 15 contested possessions in his first game!  This kid is seriously good, and the recruiting team must be pretty pleased with his performance, and theirs as well!

Jack Watts was another revelation.  10 marks, with a good number contested are not numbers that we have seen from Jack ever in his time at the club.  But he has continued his pre season form and what a change that is from previous years!

There were still a number of passengers in the side, and the ¾ time status was damning for these players.  In the past those same players would be pulling on the boots next week, but when you have Heritier Lumumba, Dunn, Angus Brayshaw, Alex Neal-Bullen, Billy Stretch not to mention the huge figure of Christian Petracca all not considered or unavailable this week, the pressure for spots is genuine.  

Hopefully as Melbourne continues to take steps both forward and up the ladder it will be gifted some decent umpires. Messrs. Wallace, Chamberlain and Donlan had numerous howlers today, and it is about time the AFL taught them that the game is not about them, and their egos.

Next week, its Essendon and their motley crew of fill-ins.  Sadly it will only be round two for them, and while many were de-listed last year, they can still play football.  They won’t be in as good condition after 20 games, but that is our lot.

We just have to keep taking those steps forward, and this will be another one.

Melbourne 5.0.30 5.4.34 6.5.41 12.8.80
Greater Western Sydney 3.4.22 6.8.44 8.14.62 e

10.18.78

Goals

Melbourne Hogan 3 Garlett vandenBerg 2 Harmes Kennedy Kent Vince Watts.

Greater Western Sydney Johnson Lobb Ward 2 Greene Scully Smith Steele

Best

Melbourne Viney Kennedy T McDonald Oliver N Jones Watts Hogan

Greater Western Sydney Ward Scully Shaw Davis Shiel Lobb

Changes

Melbourne Nil

Greater Western Sydney Nil

Injuries

Melbourne Oscar McDonald (ankle)

Greater Western Sydney Nil

Reports

Melbourne Nil

Greater Western Sydney Nil

Umpires Chris Donlon Ray Chamberlain Brent Wallace

Official Crowd 28,505 at MCG

[Whispering_Jack 28,089]

9 hours ago, Demonland said:

ANOTHER STEP FORWARD by George on the Outer

...

While there is no doubt that had the Giants kicked straight, the result would have been very different ...

There is no doubt that the statistic of 28 scoring shots to 20 suggests that had the Giants been more accurate in their kicking for goal they would have won the game and won it well.

However, consider another statistic - entries into the 50 metre arc which had us on top by 56 to 50. Early in the game it was even more lop sided and by half time when we trailed by 10 points it was 33 to 20. A few years ago when we were playing ultra defensive, we barely got more than 33 in a whole game and remember - we were finishing with as low as 3 to 5 goals for the entire game.

Yesterday, one of our problems for more than two whole quarters was that we were getting the ball within range but weren't getting the opportunities to score. That was a factor of two things - disposal and decision making in moving the ball forward and the fact that the GWS defence, Phil Davis in particular, was playing superbly taking some strong marks and crowding our forward line to make it hard for our blokes to get free with the ball.

So we did really well in turning things around in the last quarter which has been a feature of our play this year. I had an inkling even at the final break that we might fight back because GWS spent a lot of petrol tickets with their running up till then.

Not every team has the likes of a Phil Davis to scrap away and get on top of Jesse Hogan and get into his head the way he did early in the game and I would suggest that there will be plenty of days when Jesse will be the one who gets the early edge on an opponent.

The fact that we have the depth and players in the wings like Brayshaw, Dunn, Grimes, Lumumba, ANB and Billy Stretch with Petracca and Trengove to come into consideration down the track means that we do have the personell to fine tune our approach to goal and our conversion once we get inside 50. 

So while we might have been lucky to win on an imbalance of scoring shots, I don't think it's a big deal. Looking at the stats after the game, I think we won enough of them against an opponent that many believe to be finals material (one AFL360 pundit has them as potential top 5) to be somewhat optimistic.

Yes ... and thanks George - we are taking steps forward - 999 to go!

 

[CBDees 3,162]

Two nice positive summaries and with the talent to come back in our depth is genuine. The only omission in the posts above is the fact that we may even see Weideman make a cameo appearance this year. Look forward to us ending the home and away series in the Final Eight.

[ILLDieADemon 804]

Kicking straight wasn't the difference it was Phil Davies. If he plays like that every week this season he will make AA full back. At the end we were able to break through his wall a win which is very positive. 

Edited March 27, 2016 by ILLDieADemon

[daisycutter 28,681]

Quote

Clayton Oliver was a revelation, who only played 72% of game time,

according to afl.com it was only 58%. all the more credit to clarrie, though i think he was quite buggared

[Akum 2,660]

23 hours ago, ILLDieADemon said:

Kicking straight wasn't the difference it was Phil Davies. If he plays like that every week this season he will make AA full back. At the end we were able to break through his wall a win which is very positive. 

Phil Davis has one attribute - he's very strong physically, and was simply able to out-muscle Jesse. We played right into his hands by bombing it high. In the last quarter Jack Watts went onto Davis (& Hogan onto Marchbank), ran him around & made him look very ordinary.

Oh, and who the hell thought it was a good idea for Gawn to take the kick-out that he ended up hand balling to Vince who turned it over, (mostly because he didn't have a tall target so had to kick it back across goal).  

Edited March 28, 2016 by Akum

[chook fowler 18,374]

Interesting analysis of the synergy between Watts and Hogan on On the Couch. Worth a look if you can

[Good Times Grimes 2,396]

9 hours ago, Akum said:

Oh, and who the hell thought it was a good idea for Gawn to take the kick-out that he ended up hand balling to Vince who turned it over, (mostly because he didn't have a tall target so had to kick it back across goal).  

That wasn't a kick-out. Gawn came back and took a great mark in the goal square

[monoccular 16,374]

12 hours ago, chook fowler said:

Interesting analysis of the synergy between Watts and Hogan on On the Couch. Worth a look if you can

I cant this week

Can anyone do a summary please

[Deemonator 12]

47 minutes ago, monoccular said:

I cant this week

Can anyone do a summary please

Was about a 30 second clip where you could see the the two forwards do a lot of blocking for each other and intelligent leading to ultimately give Jesse a mismatch on Marchbank instead of Davis. Was interesting.

[jnrmac 19,310]

GWS got a lot of their shots on goal on the break. That is going to happen the way we press up. It seemed to happen across a lot of the games. The Saints got around 9 goals doing that.

The new rules have seen some high scoring and it will take a few weeks for teams to adjust.

[Good Times Grimes 2,396]

54 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

GWS got a lot of their shots on goal on the break. That is going to happen the way we press up. It seemed to happen across a lot of the games. The Saints got around 9 goals doing that.

The new rules have seen some high scoring and it will take a few weeks for teams to adjust.

It was a major issue for us in the first half of our NAB challenge game against Port, but we managed to fix it after half time as the forward pressure became more effective. I suppose the challenge is to prevent guys from getting sucked in to contests that their direct opponent isn't in, because if we lose the contest then we're automatically outnumbered on the opposition's counterattack.