Was a disapointing last 15mins, because before that I thought we preserved and fought hard.  To get back to within 21 points early in the last I though showed some fair fight, for a side that is down three if it's best on ballers and three or four that you'd expect to be there.

Some really bad misses from AFL footballers today, Kent, Hogan Pedersen missed shorts from with 10 - 20m, minimal angle, that's really bad.  I'll give a bit of grace due to it being so slipery.

We miss Jack Watts and Salems entries into the forward 50 big time.

Edited July 15, 20178 yr by Rodney (Balls) Grinter

2 minutes ago, Watts Jurrah Dunn? said:

JKH was ok. He certainly wasn't excellent. Very little impact on the game. Very little damage with his disposals. Lots of dinky chips and handpasses. Don't get seduced by numbers. 

He kicked into the man on the mark. As usual.

Frustrating match. Defence looked completely disorganised which was due to the poor matches from Frost and Jettta, they were nowhere near close enough to their direct opponent and it had our defence running all over the place trying to pick them up when they went forward.

Our tackling pressure looks way down too, we monstered the Crows in their backyard a few weeks ago yet looked like prey tonight, disappointing all round.

 

Not really a dent on our finals chances. Those whinging about Darwin, we've been very ordinary at the G this year, who is to say the margin wouldn't have been more if it was played there.

Watts and Tyson will be welcome additions next week. Kent is cooked so surely a chance for the forgotten man Kennedy to return. 

JKH was good in the midfield and clearly offers more than Stretch at present. ANB was decent. Good cameo from Melksham - but he plays dumb footy at times. Gawn and Hogan couldn't play any worse than they are at present. Dixon will murder us if our defenders play like that again next week. And by golly Bernie what a moronic thing to do to Betts. 

1 minute ago, Chook said:

Hogan worked his way into some form. He's nowhere near it yet but is closer than he was at the start of the match.

 He was running better i guess. He is such a confidence  player and this game did zilch to help him get that back.

 

Strange how lots of supporters are seeing the game differently to myself. Except for the terrible slow start, I reckon our makeshift midfield did reasonably well. Considering the fact we are missing Viney, Jones, Tyson, we did well to match it well Adelaide. Vince kept Sloane quiet again despite getting reported.

I think we had more inside 50s. And yes, some of the kicks in were terrible but I that had a lot to do with how well the crows set up defence. 

Our defence however looks ordinary and we keep leaking too many easy goals. Would happily swap our defenders for theirs sad to say.

13 minutes ago, Deefiant said:

I guess you'll be coming up with the 1 mill per year the NT sponsorship covers. We're not a big club and still need the money. We would've lost in Melbourne anyway did not have the cattle on the field. 

?

1 minute ago, Diamond said:

He kicked into the man on the mark. As usual.

He wasn't the only one that did that.  They handled the slippery conditions much better than us, though that's not suprising given they operated in more space and under less pressure than us today.  I'm also not convinced our high paced attacking in close, risk taking game style stands up that well in wet conditions.

11 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

Didn't see any of the game tonight - can someone with a record of being reasonable give me a bit of an account of what went down? Looks like a few played okay but others did not. Cheers in advance. 

Injuries impacting our structures and conditions exacerbating a difference in ball-handling class (particularly KPP). 

We gave it a dip, but -

Needed to change up our tactics – the high press and runners behind the ball – to slow down their avenues and even up the contest in our forward line. We didn’t. Plugging our midfield with our half-forward finishers in Petracca and Hannan doesn’t help either.

They have classier forwards and defenders – while the conditions exposed our lesser handling-skills. And our personnel advantage in the middle is stuck in the medical room. The Crow mids killed us in the clearances and were very good at sharking Max early.

It will be different at the G’ in a tight final with our mid-field and cleanest users back.

Also, Adelaide deliberately and subtly encroached on the protected zone all night, to clog our space and counter our play on from the mark. We had to be smarter and run straight into them to draw the 50m and deter the tactic.

We will learn from the footage.

We were not disgraced for most of it.  FIrst quarter and giving up easy goals at the end aside.

Our biggest issues - overuse when under pressure and forward entry.  FIx these two things and we will step up several notches.

Hunt's goal was incredible.  65+m torp after the siren.  A joy to behold.

Melks had a good first half, but let himself down being too cute in the second half.

Hoges was a disaster in the first half, showed glimpses in the second.

JKH - did OK.  Got a fair bit of the ball in close and his use was pretty good.

Most players were up and down across the night.  Nice to see Max clunk a mark or two and kick a goal.

If we can get a few bodies back and fix a few of the structural errors in our game, we are certainly going to be a handful for any team.  

Vince ?? Don't know if he will go, at least he was playing the ball.  The elbow was incidental contact, as per Oliver.

Adelaide's run and spread, plus superior ball use killed us tonight. Not suprised by the loss. 

Vince continually playing undisciplined football may well cost him another contract.

Hogan, Gawn seemed better for the run, but only O Mac was an effective tall on the night.

Lewis provided good leadership and had a solid game, he is far from a nearly finished player in my eyes. 

Hope there are a few big in's next week, we are gunna need em.

They were a better side tonight than us and deserved to win.  45 points was disappointing as we had played well enough after quarter time to give ourselves a chance.  Certainly a lack of assuredness - Frost, Hibberd, Wagner, ANB all fumbled at critical times.  I still think Watts is so crucial to our forward structure.  He creates space and we rarely look congested deep when he plays.  He reads the play so well and moves into the right spots.  Having Tyson back next week will make a massive difference.  I fancy our chances against them anywhere with a full side.  Hannan is a good footballer but he is not an AFL standard centre square player.  Not a disaster.

if we see ourselves as a finals side then we should be able to play anywhere. given we have played here more than anyone it should be a home game advantage to us. and a million dollars is pretty important to the club. Again I dislike the excuses that we re playing away from Melbourne, we have our best 5 players out, the umpires looked after the crows, jessie should have gotten x number of frees, etc..

The side that went out there to represent the melbourne football club just did not play decent football, they were slow, did not chase, allowed adelaide players to dance around them. We constantly bombed away to 3 on 1 contests in our forward line, passed to men in trouble and kicked into the man on the mark or had our kicks smothered, we missed easy shots and fumbled the ball all night long.

Hogan is a lazy player, he does not chase and he does not seem to care what happens to the ball after he has contested for a mark he lost. Maybe he needs a turn running around in the VFL as a backman to see if he can learn to be more accountable for his player.

just amazed people here are blaming this only playing in Darwin.... in case you missed it Adelaide did as well. and dìd it better. the location is irrelevant. we're missing some key personnel - 3 senior mids - our captains and tyson and our 2 best users of the pill in Jack W and Salem. we will beat them at full strength if we see them again this year. 

[censored] tough just to make September from here. If we get there we will give it a good shake once we get the band back together....

Edited July 15, 20178 yr by jako13

20 minutes ago, Chook said:

Just did a ladder predictor. Had us scraping into 8th spot only to play a red hot Sydney on their home deck. My lord we need our players back. The last couple of months have been an exciting ride but we're running on fumes now.

On the positive side, it was nice to see Jesse Hogan working his way into some good form. But please can we get rid of our Darwin fixture as soon as financially possible. I love Darwin. I was born there. But I love the Demons more and this is like seeing an abusive parent (Darwin) beating up your first love (Melbourne).

Do you have us beating Port next week to get that result Chook?

I'm still hoping we can make finals, but we really need some of those A graders back fast.

15 minutes ago, Diamond said:

The media told them they had no hope because Nathan: turnover king bomb it in long Jones, Jack poor kick Viney, Dom: o my knee's always sore Tyson, Jack Watts and injury prone Salem were out. They went in with that mindset apart from Hunt, Petracca, Jordan Lewis, Jetta, Frost, Oliver, Garlett, Kent, Milkshake and Gawn. ANB and Hannan had a go as well. The two McDonalds tried hard but were pretty bad. Pedersen likewise. The team decided they couldn't win and didn't follow the game plan of hard in contested ball.

harsh as [censored] bloke... and your opinion is your opinion

20 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

Didn't see any of the game tonight - can someone with a record of being reasonable give me a bit of an account of what went down? Looks like a few played okay but others did not. Cheers in advance. 

Nice tactic to influence the Post Match thread vibe as well by the way. ; )

Can we have a poll on the homepage to gauge what the members think of playing in Darwin?

Just now, wizardinoz said:

Can we have a poll on the homepage to gauge what the members think of playing in Darwin?

snigger...

20 minutes ago, The Sailing Demon said:

I will probably get hung out to dry for this but I just don't like our forward line with Hogan in it.
He doesn't chase, he doesn't tackle, he's slow, he throws his arms up, he stays on the deck for a long time after he goes to ground, he isn't that accurate, and can barely kick the ball 45 meters. I know he is having a rough trott but none of these things should be effected by injury and prior to his break from footy it was the same.

I agree as I am sure many other supporters do to but are to afraid to admit our great White hope may not turn out as we all wanted him to

Too many passengers dropping marks and fumbling the ball. They were so much cleaner, particularly around the stoppages. We couldn't keep our feet and went to ground in around 75% of contests.

We didn't run and I lost count of the times we bombed it to our fwd line with 1 on 3. Dumb football.

OMac was again a liability, He simply has no urgency or hunger to get to the ball or kill it. Gets outbodied way too easily.

Kent was useless and won't be missed. Trade bait.

Frost had a mare, Pederson did very little, Max was outclassed again, Bernie and Lewis have dropped way off the pace, Harmes was unsighted, Hogan is fast becoming very frustrating and Garlett is back to his old ways of getting too tricky and forgetting fundamental footy.

ANB was poor, Smith tried but was very fumbly and Hannan showed glimpses.

A dirty night and surprised we we even close at 3/4 time.

Highlight ofthe might was Jayden's 65m barrel for a goal after the 3/4 time siren. Thought that would be the catalyst for a revival.

We could have stolen this one but in the end we copped a percentage pasting.

I'm going to bed.

14 minutes ago, Diamond said:

He kicked into the man on the mark. As usual.

I don't think I have ever seen more in a game we must have had our kicks smothered at least 15 times tonight

That Frost double fumble in the last was the tipping point to having no chance at a run down ... That event [censored] me off imensley.

They were clean all night and our boys didn't handle the conditions. Kicking it down there defenders throats all night wasn't very helpful. Lead up forwards lower the eyes mids

Weideman has to play until Watts is back . 

Had our chances but over complicated things .

a simple leg on the ball forward - just keep it in front . 

Scrap it out do what we do then hit a mid streaming forward . ( not too many presenting?) 

Missed the boys tonight but could have played better and won with what we had . 

Max and Jesse working their way back into form slowly and bravely . 

What's with tha [censored] umpire who pinged Harmes for deliberate when he got pushed over the boundary line? Worst decision of the month to date.