1 hour ago, Nasher said:

If one of those easy misses becomes a goal, the ball goes back to the middle, so instead of Harmes or Vince doing a dud kick in that comes straight back in, we have Viney and Gawn contesting again. You're then on a totally different path of reality. We have no idea what would have happened, we might have been thrashed as you suggest, or we might have lost by less or even won if St Kilda hadn't peppered the goals. It's an invalid argument, because a goal puts the game on a completely different course to the outcome, compared to a behind.

There are definitely scorelines that flatter teams.

I don't think this was one of them, btw, as we won two quarters of football.

11 minutes ago, P-man said:

If the sample size was one game (yesterday's), I might agree. But you're talking about a team that's been spanked by the Eagles and Crows to the tune of around 100 points and lost to the Suns by 5 goals a few weeks ago.

I admit that many fall into a trap of underrating their young players like Newnes, Ross and Gresham, who to me all look well rounded, skillful players who keep their feet in a contest, work hard running both ways and make smart decisions.  I think the influence of Montagna and Riewoldt gets overstated sometimes out of hope more than anything. They are certainly influential, but I don't seem the team falling in a heap when they leave like some will claim. They have some genuine quality coming through and taking on responsibility.

All that said, they are not a 10 goal better side than we are. They play that  ground infinitely better than we do, and when they matched our pressure and then bettered it, they got on top. That doesn't make them better, just harder working. They also annoyingly happen to produce their best footy against us. Richardson himself said the third quarter was the best they've played all season. I've read elsewhere that it was the best game Gilbert has played in at least 3 months.

Overall I'd say they are more advanced than we are. But not to the extent of being a 10 goal better side.

I do think we need to attack trade and free agency with all guns blazing after witnessing yesterday. There are some holes we need to fill with quality coupled with experience, and the need is fairly immediate. Players won't stick around for another two years of wallowing mid table, beating up on teams at a low ebb and crumbling against almost any team that brings its A game. That's not progressing with any real conviction.

I have wavered on Prestia, but right now I think he and Hibberd are close to must get targets for the club.

IMO St Kilda are a much better team than us based upon yesterday's game, upon the StK game earlier in the year, upon round 17 last year at the MCG and in fact upon every H&A game we've played them since 2002.

I'll agree to disagree upon how much better than us they are.

I certainly agree we need to increase our talent depth and would like to see Prestia (pending knee medical) and Hibbert (pending bull horn punctures) at the Dees in 2017. This will be a very important trade/draft period for us.

Sometimes it's really hard to think we r going to become a team that wins consistently. 

It so dam frustrating and deflating tbh especially for the younger supporters. 

Faith needs to be repaid at some stage MFC. 

No suspension for Jesse

Can accept a $1,000 fine!

Coaches votes: 

10 Tom Hickey (StK)
8 Tim Membrey (StK)
6 Jack Viney (Melb)
2 Sean Dempster (StK)
2 Jack Newnes (StK)
1 Jarryn Geary (StK)
1 Leigh Montagna (StK)

Both gave 5 BOG to Hickey.  Our ruck coach needs to work out some counter moves for Max as that is the 3rd time in a row that Hickey has got the better of him.  We will not beat the Saints until Max prevails.

Another excellent game by Jack Viney.  Looks like 3 votes from each coach.  Add to that his nomination for MOTY and he had a damn good game.

Edited July 18, 20169 yr by Lucifer's Hero

14 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Coaches votes: 

10 Tom Hickey (StK)
8 Tim Membrey (StK)
6 Jack Viney (Melb)
2 Sean Dempster (StK)
2 Jack Newnes (StK)
1 Jarryn Geary (StK)
1 Leigh Montagna (StK)

Both gave 5 BOG to Hickey.  Our ruck coach needs to work out some counter moves for Max as that is the 3rd time in a row that Hickey has got the better of him.  We will not beat the Saints until Max prevails.

Another excellent game by Jack Viney.  Looks like 3 votes from each coach.  Add to that his nomination for MOTY and he had a damn good game.

Twice in a row Maxxy has been towelled up by this bloke. Jamar used to get beaten by  Hudson every time we played the Bulldogs. Maxxy needs to turn it around next time to avoid a similar pattern evolving. 

So.. whens the drafting/trading subforum opening?    

11 hours ago, Demons11 said:

hogan is not there to tackle 

Well at times he needs to. He has the size and running capacity so he should be applying more forward pressure

Once again it was a case of bad "membreys" . Like last time we lost to the saints because we didn't pick the right team,did we repeat this again?  Who are we going to put in this week,revolving door players I presume . ANB,TRENGOVE,NEWTON,MICHIE,GRIMES are a waste of time. It is time to make J.Viney as the next captain he seems to be much more passionate than the fan fav N.Jones. J.Viney will be an "a" lister Nat will not. I am sick of lame excuses,the coaches need to take a look at themselves and perhaps they need to be replaced,nothing like fresh blood. Losing games to Saints x 2 and the bombers x 1 is pathetic. It is time for plan "b". The dees can get lost. R.I.P the MFC.

6 hours ago, Chris said:

It is an interesting season for mine, we seem to have fallen in a trap of playing our best footy against the better clubs and not so great footy against the clubs around us or below. The good thing is that on many occasions our best hasn't been required to beat those around or below us, with the exception of the dons and saints. 

If I look at our games against the Crows, North, Hawks, GWS, and a big chunk of the Swans game I think we played some of our best footy for the year, with no reward (except GWS). If we could play that footy against the likes of Port, Dons, and Saints we would have won them all.

I seem to remember a pattern like that a decade ago where we beat the sides we weren't meant to and lost to the side we should beat. Lets hope we can start beating them all!

then that is a mental problem...

altho teams at or below us know they can beat  us if they put pressure on us.

 

unfortunately the Saints have our number and have worked out the best strategy to beat us, we got very very close last year but they always find ways to exploit our weaknesses and I thought that they just teamed better than us after the 1st quarter. They just Expected to win the contest and the Game and they did. Their Feral supporters were baying for blood and they certainly got that in spades. Go Dee's

3 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Coaches votes: 

10 Tom Hickey (StK)
8 Tim Membrey (StK)
6 Jack Viney (Melb)
2 Sean Dempster (StK)
2 Jack Newnes (StK)
1 Jarryn Geary (StK)
1 Leigh Montagna (StK)

Both gave 5 BOG to Hickey.  Our ruck coach needs to work out some counter moves for Max as that is the 3rd time in a row that Hickey has got the better of him.  We will not beat the Saints until Max prevails.

Another excellent game by Jack Viney.  Looks like 3 votes from each coach.  Add to that his nomination for MOTY and he had a damn good game.

Rucks have worked out if they jump into Max early they can nullify him. Grundy did it, Hickey does it as have others. Stafford better work out something quick with Max because itsone sure way to beat Melbourne is beat Max.

Can't believe we are round 17 and still trying to work this stuff out. WTF else do they do at training???? 

Tyson was appalling on the weekend and he is a classic example of somebody who simply must bridge the gap between best and worst performances for us to keep improving.

Unlike players who can still involve themselves during games, Tyson just doesn't seem to if the chips don't go his way. If he doesn't have his first touch and contested work firing from the start of a game, he is almost useless when on the field because he is a slow, one-dimensional, contested ball winner.

On Sunday he looked so incredibly slow and lazy when we were chasing and just couldn't keep up with St Kilda opponents, he consistently fumbled and handballed mostly to the wrong option. He was awful.

If Roos is serious about rewarding form, I'd be swapping Tyson for ANB for the West Coast game. Both are pure inside mids. One is tearing it down at VFL level and the other is playing yoyo football and is coming off one of his worst games this year.

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 20169 yr by stevethemanjordan

2 minutes ago, stevethemanjordan said:

Tyson was appalling on the weekend and he is a classic example of somebody who simply must bridge the gap between best and worst performances for us to keep improving.

Unlike players who can still involve themselves during games, Tyson just doesn't seem to if the chips don't go his way. If he doesn't have his first touch and contested work firing from the start of a game, he is almost useless when on the field.

On Sunday he looked so incredibly slow and lazy when we were chasing and just couldn't keep up with St Kilda opponents, he consistently fumbled and handballed mostly to the wrong option. He was awful.

If Roos is serious about rewarding form, I'd be swapping Tyson for ANB for the West Coast game. Both are pure inside mids. One is tearing it down at VFL level and the other is playing yoyo football and is coming off one of his worst games this year.

I don't mind putting the heat on Tyson for being inconsistent but what about Garlett, Kennedy, Harmes and VDB?

Can we drop them all?

5 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

I don't mind putting the heat on Tyson for being inconsistent but what about Garlett, Kennedy, Harmes and VDB?

Can we drop them all?

I agree there are too many that seem to have down games at the same time and it's majorly problematic. 

But when you've got a like-for-like player who has been banging the door down all year at Casey, surely you reward him? Especially after his game against the Dogs on the weekend. He was relentless.

I agree Harmes, VDB and Kennedy were all well down too.

Garlett gets lucky because of the need we have for his best footy.

  

Edited July 18, 20169 yr by stevethemanjordan

4 minutes ago, stevethemanjordan said:

I agree there are too many that seem to have down games at the same time and it's majorly problematic. 

But when you've got a like-for-like player who has been banging the door down all year at Casey, surely you reward him? Especially after his game against the Dogs on the weekend. He was relentless.

I agree Harmes, VDB and Kennedy were all well down too.

Garlett gets lucky because of the need we have for his best footy.

Agree with rewarding ANB, I would drop VDB, Harmes or Kennedy first though.

Also agree with Garlett, but we are struggling because too many players are having too many games or periods within games where they go missing, don't work hard enough, and/or make absolutely basic errors. Grimes and White are another two who were in that group yesterday.

I agree t_u there were about 8 players that were well down yesterday and I thought that White was probably the worst, looked totally lost in the second half, i can only hope that the Darwin trip took it out of them more than the coaches believed. we just don't seem to be able to get any of our senior players out on the ground. What has happened to Dunn and Garland, Pedo & Lumumba, Why have they fallen off so quickly, it beggar's description not to mention Dawes!!

Simply must play Spencer against Hickey if Gawn can't beat him. Could be Gawns achillie heel.

Such a frustrating game to watch, but even if we had beaten the Saints twice this year and didn't drop that one to Essendon, although it would be nice to be knocking on the door of the top 8, we must be able to beat the top teams. Sick of hearing excuses every time we lose about how much of a young team we are! This team needs to man up and take a few big scalps before the year is out, 10+ wins for the year would be nice. Get something out of another could have been season.

2 hours ago, stevethemanjordan said:

I agree there are too many that seem to have down games at the same time and it's majorly problematic. 

But when you've got a like-for-like player who has been banging the door down all year at Casey, surely you reward him? Especially after his game against the Dogs on the weekend. He was relentless.

I agree Harmes, VDB and Kennedy were all well down too.

Garlett gets lucky because of the need we have for his best footy.

ANB is no Tyson. I'm sorry, Steve. Tyson is a natural ball winner who had an extremely ordinary game. ANB's best game was in a forward pocket against Geelong last year. Outside of that he's shown little capacity to win clearances at AFL level. I'd be bringing Oliver in though. For who, I'm not sure. Probably VDB.

7 hours ago, AdamFphlebeb said:

ANB is no Tyson. I'm sorry, Steve. Tyson is a natural ball winner who had an extremely ordinary game. ANB's best game was in a forward pocket against Geelong last year. Outside of that he's shown little capacity to win clearances at AFL level. I'd be bringing Oliver in though. For who, I'm not sure. Probably VDB.

ANB's problem is that he tears it up as No.1 mid for the Scorps, then when he gets promoted, has to play HFF.

In games where we get smashed, HFF is a real graveyard - all the traffic is the other way except for the odd scrappy kick which is easily picked off by the defence. So he has no effect on the game and he gets dropped.

He never gets the chance to prove himself as a mid at AFL level. The same applies to all our Scorps mids that get promoted.

10 hours ago, stevethemanjordan said:

Tyson was appalling on the weekend and he is a classic example of somebody who simply must bridge the gap between best and worst performances for us to keep improving.

Unlike players who can still involve themselves during games, Tyson just doesn't seem to if the chips don't go his way. If he doesn't have his first touch and contested work firing from the start of a game, he is almost useless when on the field because he is a slow, one-dimensional, contested ball winner.

On Sunday he looked so incredibly slow and lazy when we were chasing and just couldn't keep up with St Kilda opponents, he consistently fumbled and handballed mostly to the wrong option. He was awful.

If Roos is serious about rewarding form, I'd be swapping Tyson for ANB for the West Coast game. Both are pure inside mids. One is tearing it down at VFL level and the other is playing yoyo football and is coming off one of his worst games this year.

 

 

 

You would have to be kidding 'steve'...Tyson is an integral part of our team, he didn't have a good one but he wasn't on his own there.

If he had a run of bad games I could at least understand where you are coming from but he's been pretty good and is our extractor.

ANB doesn't have the strength yet to extract the ball like Tyson can at AFL level.

On 18/07/2016 at 7:31 AM, Demons11 said:

hogan is not there to tackle 

Everyone is there to tackle. End of.

 

Roos made an interesting point in his presser in regards to needing to ‘react quicker’ at Etihad and alluded to the tackle count being lower. I can’t recall his exact words but something along the lines of once the ball gets outside its away and pingning around quicker.

This is certainly an area we struggle. 2 examples I can think of in the last quarter:

-    After St Kilda’s first goal to stretch the margin back to 2 goals, Tyson has the ball from the centre clearance. Instead of kicking into the 50 quickly, he handballs to a stationary player with an opponent basically already tackling him… ball spills…. Saints rush it down…goal.
-    Far half back flank, there is a contest and a saints player drops 5m out the back. all our players go the ball, saints player knocks it on and they are away…goal. 

We need to have a better feel for the game both offensively and defensively and make quicker decisions. This seems to be exposed more at Etihad. We’ve certainly improved this from last year, but it’s still area a lot of teams are ahead of us in.
 

2 hours ago, Akum said:

ANB's problem is that he tears it up as No.1 mid for the Scorps, then when he gets promoted, has to play HFF.

In games where we get smashed, HFF is a real graveyard - all the traffic is the other way except for the odd scrappy kick which is easily picked off by the defence. So he has no effect on the game and he gets dropped.

He never gets the chance to prove himself as a mid at AFL level. The same applies to all our Scorps mids that get promoted.

That's not entirely true. He played midfield when he came in this year. I felt he struggled.