For the first time in any number of years I feel calm and confident about the direction the club has taken and  in our chances of success in upcoming games. All sorts of bad things have happened to the Dees this year, culminating in this shocking news about Jesse's health. I wont list everything else but I have an overwhelming feeling that we'll cope and more than that, prosper. Each tragedy or setback seems to be leading to new ways to overcome and get better.

Are we truly at the start of some golden age of Demon success ???

Until the next loss

Quiet confidence, but expecting a long road. The best are kids, and will take another year or 2 to be the men that can do it week in and week out.

personally i felt that last year when we smashed the hawks.. when they string some consecutive scalps together, then we can relax

Let's talk after the bye. 

We should be 6-4 going into the bye and 7-4 before playing the Dogs in Round 13. I think success is definitely not far away.

Nope, this is just us riding the rollercoaster after a good win.  Go have a read of the Crows fans response to their loss against us - they're on top of the ladder and completely despondent, because as I've said repeatedly on here, footy fans only remember the last thing that happened.  

I'm no more or less optimistic about the future than I was this time last week, but it is a nice feeling to see it starting to materialize.  

 A good win - the future looks great, we will play finals no problem, smiles all round

The next loss - We are in shambles, Goodwin is a terrible coach and everyone needs to be dropped to Casey

Rinse and repeat.

 

4 minutes ago, yoSMOKIE said:

 A good win - the future looks great, we will play finals no problem, smiles all round

The next loss - We are in shambles, Goodwin is a terrible coach and everyone needs to be dropped to Casey

Rinse and repeat.

 

No, no I reckon it's different this time. My overriding feeling is one of hope and expectation that something positive will happen. Not a fleeting sense of euphoria caused by a memorable win against expectations.

2 minutes ago, pineapple dee said:

No, no I reckon it's different this time. My overriding feeling is one of hope and expectation that something positive will happen. Not a fleeting sense of euphoria caused by a memorable win against expectations.

I low key feel the same way but I'm just not ready to talk about it yet

10 minutes ago, pineapple dee said:

No, no I reckon it's different this time. My overriding feeling is one of hope and expectation that something positive will happen. Not a fleeting sense of euphoria caused by a memorable win against expectations.

I feel much the same way. Which is why all four losses have been so painful this year. I expected we would win them . And each game we had our chances to win. In previous years the feeling was very different. 

Yep I am optimistic. Given the closeness of the season this is the opportune time to seize the moment. Have to start winning the bread and butter games on a regular basis and not just fire up for a big game. 

Edited May 16, 20178 yr by america de cali

If we don't tackle and play with the same level of urgency and intensity against North as we did against Adelaide, we will lose. It's time we got on a role. I'm sick of yoyo form.

We'll be at a golden age when we start playing and bringing that intensity week after week after week.

Like the dogs. It doesn't matter who comes in and out of their side, they always back-up weekly.

 

Edited May 16, 20178 yr by stevethemanjordan

Well the youngest side in the league, with a brand new coach, just knocked off the ladder leaders on their home turf, considered a fortress. If that's not cause for optimism, then what is!??

The next stage of development means we have to start winning 3 or 4 In a row.

Its something's I've been waiting on to happen before I can consider us a serious side .

No doubt we have the cattle , bar a few injuries, and it will come, I just hope it starts now.

Can't believe i heard myself today saying "they should leave Tommy Mac at CHF all day and see what happens".

Sam and Oscar held the fort reasonably well in his absence last week.

This is optimism.

Lots of false dawns since 64, 2 shattering GF losses, and all the other poo dished out by our teams and admin, has really hardened the resolve of us Dee supporters!

PD I here what you say, but I ain't Dancing till that "Fat Lady" sings for us on GF day, lotsa little jigs on the way there of course. It certainly looks like we have some extraordinary talent running round the park. I'd love too see us do a "bullies assault" as quick, but reckon we still need time. Hell I'm not even confident for Sunday.

5 hours ago, pineapple dee said:

For the first time in any number of years I feel calm and confident about the direction the club has taken and  in our chances of success in upcoming games. All sorts of bad things have happened to the Dees this year, culminating in this shocking news about Jesse's health. I wont list everything else but I have an overwhelming feeling that we'll cope and more than that, prosper. Each tragedy or setback seems to be leading to new ways to overcome and get better.

Are we truly at the start of some golden age of Demon success ???

I agree with all of that pineapple, with the exception of the bolded words.  I have absolutely no doubt that we are on a path to success (and hopefully the ultimate success that we all crave), but I'm not overly optimistic about the upcoming games or even the remainder of 2017.  However, I am very optimistic that the next few years will see the wilted fuchsia bloom.

I agree a bit does feel different, the thing that impressed me the most is the team knew about Jessie condition Friday so to put out the performance they did was even more impressive, in the past that would have gone the other way and the media would be saying the emotion got to the players, so I think it showed maturity to go over to Adelaide and not just beat the crows but destroy them, but if we are to be taken seriously we must beat north Melbourne, we must get a few wins on the board until we get our 2 most important players back 

We've entered a new era of a little less pessimism. The relatively calm response to Gawn going down was testament to that. But the shifting optimism/pessimism balance is just a logical assessment of where we're at and will realign according to future success. See reports of the Crows' forum meltdown. 

For me it's no different to the feeling I had at the start of the year. Cautious optimism. Only because we are still a young team and need things to click for everyone. That is slowly starting to happen for many of our players. Oliver, Hunt, Petracca, Salem, and Viney are really coming into their own as players and that's crucial for our future progression. 

But there are still plenty of boxes to tick on this journey, I keep thinking we might've turned a corner and then reality slaps me in the face. 

6 hours ago, Nasher said:

Nope, this is just us riding the rollercoaster after a good win.  Go have a read of the Crows fans response to their loss against us - they're on top of the ladder and completely despondent, because as I've said repeatedly on here, footy fans only remember the last thing that happened.  

I'm no more or less optimistic about the future than I was this time last week, but it is a nice feeling to see it starting to materialize.  

The Crows game day thread on big footy is [censored] insane. You'd think they haven't won a game for 5 years. 

This win was an interesting one. 

Yes it was a great win and the defensive side especially was exceptional. But Adelaide's loss agaist North the week before, who are definitely not a good side, took a little bit of the gloss off.

In the developmeant of the group there's no doubting it was noteworthy. But I wouldn't necessarily place it ahead of the Geelong win in 2015 or Hawthorn last year. All three have been equally important steps.

On top of that, if we lose to North this week, it will be one of a string of examples of Melbourne picking and choosing when to get themselves up for a game. In this case it was for Jesse. It's great they wanted to lift for a teammate going through hard times, but it shouldn't require such inspiration to bring elite effort.

In short, no, not yet. The next three weeks will determine how safe it is to start believing.

The most interesting thing is, just who are the good sides this year? Adelaide were flying and then North and the Dees beat them, GWS were the early favourite but Adelaide creamed them and they just got across the line against Collingwood. 

Geelong were doing well but have fallen in a hole, just the same as Richmond. Freo started off poorly but have won 5 now and the Saints have been improving each week. The Bullies are scraping home and they look to me like they are just hanging on. Hawthorn need to rebuild and Sydney may have found a bit of form last week. 

We are playing as well as anyone and I go to the games now knowing we can win, no, expecting to win, sometimes we don't but there's not one game this year that we shouldn't have won.

Usually by this time it's started to sort itself out and a couple of the SEN guys said a week or so ago that the top 8 was pretty much settled, wrong. 

We can finish top four, we don't have a tough draw, but then again, what is a tough draw, who will emerge from the pack to shape the finals. Don't write off Sydney and I think Collingwood are better than their current position indicates.  Carlton will win games, I said this after we beat them and they and Essendon will win when not expected  

Freo are a worry, they are well coached and have come on well since the early games, but they are a little inconsistent.  

I haven't been as optimistic about the club since we were playing finals in the 90's, we had great sides back then, but now we have a very good side and a good coach and a great development programme  

 

It's very hard to win week in week out. Hawthorn were the last side to really dominate the competition, where they only had to put the foot down for short periods of time in order to dispose of teams down the bottom of the ladder like we were. They could then save their energy for the tough games like Geelong or Sydney.

The competition is in an amazing state of flux at the moment where just about every team can beat another on any day. The only exception being Brisbane and I'm sure they will still take a couple of upset scalps this year. But the dominance of two or three teams of 2-10 years ago is gone for the moment and has left a void that will in time be filled. I believe Melbourne are a chance to be one of those teams.

The thing Melbourne has to firstly overcome is to beat teams when they are "on" and really want it. We haven't been able to do that yet. The loss last year to Essendon when they had their march to the "G" was the most insipid. But our loss two weeks ago to Hawthorn was poor. We should know the lesson Hawthorn gave us all when they were flying was if you've got your boot on a teams neck then don't let them back up. That was a chance to win 2 in a row against Hawthorn and start something of a dominance against them. Instead we helped get their season back on track. Weak effort. And I know we're getting better but the next step is to become ruthless.

This weeks game is a great test for us. North have had the wood on us for a while now. Scott definitely knows it and will be keen to keep it going, they should be "on". Remember ages ago, I think it was in the Bailey era when people were spruiking Melbourne as the "next big thing" and in the lead up to the game that season against North Scott came out and said he thought North had just as much claim to that title as Melbourne. And they put us away and have ever since. Well nows our chance to beat them and beat them good. End their season. Can we do it? Can we back it up? Can we be ruthless? Or will we be the insipid Dees that we saw against Hawthorn.

It's a tribal game and developing dominance over another tribe is important. That's what we need to do.