26 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

What do you reckon the split was? Felt like 25-30k Melbourne and 55-60k Richmond. I was in the southern stand though so surrounded by Tigers supporters.

I was thing more 35-40 dees and 45-50 tiges. I was top of the Ponsford, the top deck was a 50/50 split due to the dees members up there. The lower levels looked more tiges. 

19 minutes ago, JV7 said:

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this on here, I'm sure they have but the midfield group led by our 2 skippers have a lot to answer for in that final term... How many times did Nankervis flip the ball out the back into the corridor at a stoppage, only for Richmond to swoop on the uncontested ball.. After the 2nd time you'd think you would make an adjustment.. This is a prime example of our lack of leadership. Couldn't imagine it happening with Lewis in the side

Yes I was screaming a number of times for someone to protect the back of the throw ins in the second half in particular. Very basic football to protect the corridor space especially when you know your ruckman is undersized and not going to win the taps. Some blame has to go to the coaches, runners should have out there to tell the midfield to cover the corridor and be between the opponent and their goals at all stoppages as we were trying to defend a 20 pt lead with an undermanned side. 

34 minutes ago, JV7 said:

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this on here, I'm sure they have but the midfield group led by our 2 skippers have a lot to answer for in that final term... How many times did Nankervis flip the ball out the back into the corridor at a stoppage, only for Richmond to swoop on the uncontested ball.. After the 2nd time you'd think you would make an adjustment.. This is a prime example of our lack of leadership. Couldn't imagine it happening with Lewis in the side

I don't think you're wrong JV7 it was a glaring reason why we lost. I wanted to respond to you because I think your right but I think it's experience of the group over leadership if that makes sense. You're right Leadership is a problem but I can't blame leaders if we just don't have the leadership depth to blame.

Our leaders last night were - Jones (227), Watts (141), Vince (196), T Mac (108), Garlett (150) Jetta (98) games played. We are expecting one or two etc to just step up and carry the load of 14 or 15 players.

So we have 1 Forward - who was had to ruck for a half, 2 Mids and 2 Defenders over 100 games experience last night. I know it sounds like a soft excuse but sadly we don't have the experience across the lines to knuckle down when the S#*& hits the fan, and it stands out to all of us like dogs balls.

On top of rotations being down (i don't know if any of you experts checked but we had 71/90 vs tigers 83/90. Do the maths who was fresher in the last qtr?) People potting leaders for not doing enough on here I personally think have no idea what they're talking about in terms of leadership or analysis of the game. (I don't mean u JV7, more pointing out a few other notorious emotional posters, who like to head hunt blindly because they have no idea)

Leadership is a problem but it is the lack of leaders due to experience. There is no magic potion to solve this but get experience in to players. On top of that we've just been plain unlucky with injuries as well. What talent we did have is being cut down from injuries atm

Players like Lewis now are very important and maybe even Pederson who have experience. But the reality is we are going to remain inconsistent until we get our young guns more game time.

Still gutted!!!    I so don't want to go to work this arvo and deal with the Richmond Ferals!!!!

12 minutes ago, dees189227 said:

Was interested to hear cotchin after the game talking about that little boundary line scuffle that seemed to give Richmond momentum. He said after that all viney wanted to do was fight with cotchin. Basically meaning viney lost all focus.

To be fair, Cotchin put his elbow into his head.

But I wouldn't be surprised if Viney did end up distracted. Wouldn't be the first time. And given he wasn't able to impact the game, he probably found it easier to assume the role of some sort of aggressive, "rough them up" style player.

1 minute ago, MrMoose said:

Still gutted!!!    I so don't want to go to work this arvo and deal with the Richmond Ferals!!!!

That's the worst part mate... Knowing we were the better team and listening to their garbage.

But let them enjoy it, it won't last too long

Tom Mac needs to take responsibility also, injuries aside I can t understand how Reivoltd was left unmarked even early on the game? He's the captain of our backline and the concern is we leak too many easy goals.

Richmond fans shouldn't get too excited as they beat a team with no bench,no ruck and Viney was off for a while in the last qtr...

42 minutes ago, Chris said:

My thought on why we lost.

Lost Smith early which changed structure, Watts seemed to be down back a fair bit, which removed a tall forward.

Lost Spencer fairly early, which removed a tall forward all together and exposed us down back as Watts couldn't cover that either. 

Couldn't use Trac as usual due to injury, putting more on the mids

Had Melksham in the ruck at one point!

Couldn't kick the score we should have as we only had one tall forward.

Completly ran out of puff, was clear as day they had nothing left. 

We also as a team haven't learnt how to win. That sounds absurd but is actually a skill that needs to be learned and at this point we don't have it. 

All in all I wasn't overly disappointed last night, the Tigers are yet again the paper Tigers and will be smashed next week. If not for the above mentioned I think we would have won by 6 to 8 goals. 

This is the part that irritates me about our supporters. Why should we care if Richmond get smashed next week? They beat us, as did Fremantle. Based on current form, we'll struggle to beat Essendon.

We haven't played finals for over 10 years, and you wanna take pot shots at Richmond. Give me a spell!!!!!

Melksham's decision making on when to go into the contest versus when not to is horrendous.

2 absolute shockers.

Tigers are kicking to Punt Rd End. Tigers player running wide along the wing with Melksham as ball is kicked to contest on their half forward flank. Melksham decides to go to contest to try and force an outnumber. Makes no impact on contest. Tigers win ball and release to Melksham's mate from the wing who is now cruising past unmanned and delivers inside 50 under zero pressure.

Tigers kicking to City End. They kick from inside 50 to about 70 metres out to a marking contest. Melksham is perfectly positioned to stay down and act as sweeper if ball spills from marking contest and opponent takes possession. But no he goes into marking contest, has no impact, Tigers win possession and waltz down vacant wing.

Dumb and Dumber.

1 minute ago, demoniac said:

Melksham's decision making on when to go into the contest versus when not to is horrendous.

2 absolute shockers.

Tigers are kicking to Punt Rd End. Tigers player running wide along the wing with Melksham as ball is kicked to contest on their half forward flank. Melksham decides to go to contest to try and force an outnumber. Makes no impact on contest. Tigers win ball and release to Melksham's mate from the wing who is now cruising past unmanned and delivers inside 50 under zero pressure.

Tigers kicking to City End. They kick from inside 50 to about 70 metres out to a marking contest. Melksham is perfectly positioned to stay down and act as sweeper if ball spills from marking contest and opponent takes possession. But no he goes into marking contest, has no impact, Tigers win possession and waltz down vacant wing.

Dumb and Dumber.

To be fair to Melksham, the entire side does this far too often.

It's possibly the only criticism of Hunt, who regularly goes up in contests when he should stay down. TMac and Frost make the same mistake, as did OMac when he was playing.

Oliver is 19 years old. 19. 

32 touches 19 contested 

9 clearances 

7 tackles 

and he is doing it each week  what a beast

best kid I've ever seen play for the dees 

16 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

At the risk of being that loon?  You've already got it sewn up with the above comment I bolded.  Did you want Goodwin to go and shave Spencer's head, make him grow a beard and send him back out there to help the situation?  Watts was stuck with the role as Spencer was injured.  Or did you miss that?  Goodwin and co. can't plan for injuries they can't see, and the only adjustment they could make was to have Watts ruck the majority of the game.

And the next comment about re-structure is ridiculous.  Why would they do that when we are just swapping one key forward for another?  It would make little difference.

Your stance on this makes little sense, but we knew that already.

Frost trained in the ruck group before being rolled back to defence.

Frost only rucked when Watts was out on his feet.   Would've been good to see Watts lift Jesse in the forward line, provide leadership and some help forward.

Needed to score in the last Qtr to win, that never looked likely.

Injuries are a fair excuse, but leadership lost the game.   Jones might be injured, but what injury causes him under very little pressure to kick directly to Cotchin?  He's not suited to the role he's playing positionally or officially.

15 minutes ago, Chris said:

I was thing more 35-40 dees and 45-50 tiges. I was top of the Ponsford, the top deck was a 50/50 split due to the dees members up there. The lower levels looked more tiges. 

It was 65k Richmond, 20k Melbourne.

Not sure what game you were at.

7 minutes ago, praha said:

It was 65k Richmond, 20k Melbourne.

Not sure what game you were at.

Really? Where I was it was 50/50 right around the northern top deck. To say there was only 20k dees is laughable. 

3 hours ago, Redleg said:

The Herald Sun reporting of the game is a disgrace.

Loved the Dees caller to SEN post game last night, who lashed the commentators for fawning over the Tigers. Got them to admit that if not for the injuries we win.

PS. Rance says he didn't even know or was aware we had injuries. Then admits their Coaches were telling them we were down players and would run out of legs and also noticed that we had no ruckman for most of the game. Also he was on Watts early, but was then left as a sweeper when Spencer went off and Watts did all the rucking. I won't  listen to him speak anymore. 

Rance had 4 touches to half time. After half time he was caught holding the ball twice, coughed it up and was outmarked twice by a one-legged Petracca. He was hopeless until Spencer went off and he played spare man.

11 minutes ago, praha said:

It was 65k Richmond, 20k Melbourne.

Not sure what game you were at.

Tell you what, if there were only 20k Melbourne there, that was the loudest 20k of supporters I've ever heard.

23 minutes ago, Hogan2014 said:

Tom Mac needs to take responsibility also, injuries aside I can t understand how Reivoltd was left unmarked even early on the game? He's the captain of our backline and the concern is we leak too many easy goals.

Richmond fans shouldn't get too excited as they beat a team with no bench,no ruck and Viney was off for a while in the last qtr...

No doubt I'm in the minority, but I thought TMac was good.  Hibberd amazing.  Jetta and Frost run down tackles and hard, tough defensive work.   Vince kicking in was solid and played well.  I disagree Melksham was bad too, he was the worst of the best group, but played a reasonable game.

Hunt...  AA.

It was Harmes, JKH, ANB, JKH (who seriously selected him??)... that couldn't impact at all.

The captain (Watts, he looked like the captain last night) and Oliver held together an otherwise weak midfield performance.

Then Hogan pointing into the air for every entry as though he was going to out muscle the entire Richmond defence.

I don't know why anyone says anything negative about the backline, they were first class.

18 minutes ago, DubDee said:

Oliver is 19 years old. 19. 

32 touches 19 contested 

9 clearances 

7 tackles 

and he is doing it each week  what a beast

best kid I've ever seen play for the dees 

Keeps getting called for throwing yet keeps doing the same thing. Needs to change that quick.

25 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

To be fair to Melksham, the entire side does this far too often.

It's possibly the only criticism of Hunt, who regularly goes up in contests when he should stay down. TMac and Frost make the same mistake, as did OMac when he was playing.

My criticism of him is if he is going to go up in the contest he's got to take the right option and put his stamp on it.

A big one last night when he flew about 3 deep for a mark, he needed to get a good fist into it.

We had players forward of the contest to clean up, it got over the back to theirs...

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

Balance the 7 tackles with the rest of his game.

IMO, it comes out against him, not for him.

With the injuries he may well get a second game but I'm not sure I'm OK with picking players because they tackle when they make too many mistakes and otherwise have no influence on the game.

As you said, it was his first game back since 2015. I don't rate him, but I rated his work rate last night. If he brings that consistently, he's ahead of a 50+ game player in Kent. 

Has Kent ever laid 5 or more tackles, let alone 7? It's all about work rate from our half forwards in our current system. If you tackle and harrass and persuade the opposition to turn the ball over, you'll get a game most weeks in 2017. No doubt he has to get cleaner and smarter with possession.

I think our best option is to bring OMac back in defense or use Kielty and make Frost the main ruck. Peterson would take up the second tall position freeing up Watts .

This gives us multiple ruck options as Pedo, Frost, Watts and Kielty can all spend time there if required.

12 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

We'll get em next year. I know its easy to talk about what if's but you chuck in a fully fit Gawn, Lewis, Vandenberg, Kent into that line up last night and its a 30+ point win to us. Pretty simple. They only had Vlaustin and Griffiths as their only outs. I'm also glad we stayed right away from Prestia.. he was horrendous.

 

We'll get them this year.

Well, according to my dodgy rendition of mathematical odds, there's a 80% chance of 100% of a 33% chance that we'll get them this year. It's looking likely (to me) we'll both finish in the bottom half of the 8, where we will play one of three other teams in an elimination final, and if it's them we'll beat them hands down.

Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere but.....with the melee last night, a number of richmond players that were on the bench interfered in the melee even though they were bench players. Now I thought that would be a free kick, because some of those bench players went outside the restriction zones in the bench area. They were non-playing players interfering with in-game-play. No free, but surely a hefty fine or something.

2 minutes ago, wheaters31 said:

Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere but.....with the melee last night, a number of richmond players that were on the bench interfered in the melee even though they were bench players. Now I thought that would be a free kick, because some of those bench players went outside the restriction zones in the bench area. They were non-playing players interfering with in-game-play. No free, but surely a hefty fine or something.

Give them a 12 month ban. 

45 minutes ago, praha said:

It was 65k Richmond, 20k Melbourne.

Not sure what game you were at.

Laughable, praha. Did you go to the game? We comfortably had 35,000 there, possibly close to 40,000 even.