Jump to content


Recommended Posts

Posted
5 hours ago, Demonland said:

Our worst offender; Clayton Oliver. The Dees have retained just four of Oliver’s 45 kicks into forward 50, making him the worst kick inside 50 for the competition.

 

It's a bit of a nonsense stat...

Unfortunately our forwards move like statues and lets face it on form our forward line is the worst in the comp so it's no wonder the ball isn't retained.

We have next to no forward half pressure, Tommy Mc can't catch a cold and we don't have anyone better but let's blame the kicker.

I've seen Clayton spot up and hit targets when they move to the right spots, our forwards rarely go there.

Game plan? Forwards not up to the level?

  • Like 1
  • Love 1

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, rjay said:

It's a bit of a nonsense stat...

Unfortunately our forwards move like statues and lets face it on form our forward line is the worst in the comp so it's no wonder the ball isn't retained.

We have next to no forward half pressure, Tommy Mc can't catch a cold and we don't have anyone better but let's blame the kicker.

I've seen Clayton spot up and hit targets when they move to the right spots, our forwards rarely go there.

Game plan? Forwards not up to the level?

Spot on although i would argue a combination of poor form from forwards (not leading to right spots, not clunking marks) as well as a bit too much "no look" bombing from Clarry

I guess what I'm saying is...the game plan/style mostly ok.  Where it may have fallen down badly was a lack of speedier/skilfull players on the outside to receive from Clarry (and other inside mids) and finish better coming inside 50.

Instead Clarry and the other mids (Gus, Chunk), who arent necessarily the most skillfull, felt they needed to do it all instead of giving it off to better ball users OR we just didn't have players offering themselves up on enough occasions for the outside receive.  Up to the match against the Hawks IMO we weren't playing our best ball users in the most damaging positions and this added to our despicable inside 50 results...or lack of!

As a team we wouldn't look as bad in those numbers if the forward line had been doing their bit to a much higher standard, particularly the KPFs (one no longer playing seniors for now) AND we had fixed the outside receiver (best ball users) issue earlier than the Hawks match.

Give it another 4 rounds.... and compare our first 6 rounds ranking vs Rnds 7 to 12 and you might see a very different outcome for the team.  Clarry on the other hand would probably need to fix some of the junk disposals to see a significant change!

Edited by Rusty Nails

Posted
38 minutes ago, rjay said:

It's a bit of a nonsense stat...

Unfortunately our forwards move like statues and lets face it on form our forward line is the worst in the comp so it's no wonder the ball isn't retained.

We have next to no forward half pressure, Tommy Mc can't catch a cold and we don't have anyone better but let's blame the kicker.

I've seen Clayton spot up and hit targets when they move to the right spots, our forwards rarely go there.

Game plan? Forwards not up to the level?

Not often aparently!

How hard must it be for the forwards when they see him get the ball and have to gues which direction he's going to bomb it???

His kicking against GCS was woeful, particularly hideous was the i50 that grubbed 20m along the ground in the 3rd

We'd be automatically better if Clarry was banned kicking inside 50

  • Like 1
Posted
1 minute ago, Graeme Yeats' Mullet said:

Not often aparently!

How hard must it be for the forwards when they see him get the ball and have to gues which direction he's going to bomb it???

His kicking against GCS was woeful, particularly hideous was the i50 that grubbed 20m along the ground in the 3rd

We'd be automatically better if Clarry was banned kicking inside 50

Seems to be easy for defenders, or are they working harder?

Posted
3 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

As and aside, Harmes is pretty good at picking out targets and delivering the ball low.

So good he can do it accidentally as he did on Saturday

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Posted
2 minutes ago, binman said:

So good he can do it accidentally as he did on Saturday

Hey Binman, I couldn't easily tell from the replay, but did he get pushed as he kicked/shinned it? or did the contact happen after it hit his boot? 

Posted
55 minutes ago, Graeme Yeats' Mullet said:

Not often aparently!

How hard must it be for the forwards when they see him get the ball and have to gues which direction he's going to bomb it???

His kicking against GCS was woeful, particularly hideous was the i50 that grubbed 20m along the ground in the 3rd

We'd be automatically better if Clarry was banned kicking inside 50

Weren't we complaining 12-18 months ago that Oliver didn't kick the ball often enough? Seems somewhat ironic that now he's kicking it we're not so sure we want him to.

  • Like 2
  • Love 1

Posted
7 hours ago, Engorged Onion said:

I know - and we have 3 wins! Imagine how unstoppable we will be, when it is rectified :)

My Goodness The Stats are so damning.We should not be surprised as sadly the mid field are chocking up good stats but the real efficiency of their efforts is wasted.

Time for Plapp Chaplain and the defence coach to save their collective jobs. Get those figures to say 33/34 and the results will take care of themselves EVEN with a truckload if injuries.

Maybe this week will see this "don't care approach"  of slamming the ball on our boots and flaying a handpass in the general direction of a teammate to cease.

we will be surprised if our connection improves and wrapped with the results!

Coaches start coaching a real plan with detail care and skill and 2018 will no longer be a memory.

Posted
3 hours ago, Graeme Yeats' Mullet said:

Not often aparently!

How hard must it be for the forwards when they see him get the ball and have to gues which direction he's going to bomb it???

His kicking against GCS was woeful, particularly hideous was the i50 that grubbed 20m along the ground in the 3rd

We'd be automatically better if Clarry was banned kicking inside 50

That's rubbish 'Graeme'...

Everyone was calling for him to kick more last year.

I've seen Clayton hit some great passes to moving forwards.

I'm not seeing forwards moving to the right spots at the moment and we seem to have a game plan to bang the ball in.

It's obviously not a great game plan.

  • Love 1

Posted
5 minutes ago, rjay said:

That's rubbish 'Graeme'...

Everyone was calling for him to kick more last year.

I've seen Clayton hit some great passes to moving forwards.

I'm not seeing forwards moving to the right spots at the moment and we seem to have a game plan to bang the ball in.

It's obviously not a great game plan.

You seem to be absolving Clarry of blame. Clearly this is not all about our dysfunctional forwardline. Look at his kicking on the weekend. It was atrocious, as it often is if we’re going to call a spade a spade.

The guy is a jet and does have the ability to kick well, but the continual throwing it on the boot and hoping for the best has to end at some point. It’s not working.

  • Like 5
Posted

Presumably there is a “logic” to the long bomb approach, i.e top of goal square and our forwards can prepare (mark crumb etc) accordingly..? 

While our back lines been decimated but functioned, our forward line has been woeful. 

Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, SPC said:

One thing about Oliver and Brayshaw and Petracca, is how slow they are to get the ball onto their boot. Salem on the other hand is lightning quick from when he see's a target to when he has disposed of the ball. This is critical as well as with Oliver you can see in advance what he is doing and defenders adjust. 

Maybe Oliver needs to handball into the 50 as he has the fastest pick up / flick off in the game ?

Edited by John Demonic
Posted
10 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

No wonder the game looks like ping-pong played between the 50m arcs!

This highlights how bad our midfield is at kicking forward.  They all bomb it into no-man's land.  Most teams know that and play an extra defender to intercept or mark it.  An interesting stat would be the # of opp marks in our fwd 50.  I bet we would be one of the highest (badly) ranked teams.  Our fwds don't stand much of a chance. 

For Oliver, only 1 kick in every 2 games stays i50  That is an indictment on his game.  He works very hard for every possession so its such a shame that 41 of 45 are 'wasted'!  Just shows that while his stats are great his impact is less so. 

Most of Oliver's i50 kicks seem to be around the body or at right angles to the fwd 50, he doesn't even try to look so he has no idea where the ball is going.  Because they are high lobs it gives defenders too much time to get to the flight of the ball and intercept.  Time to slow down a tad and straighten up.  Then we will see a real champion. 

Simpletons can look at this and blame Oliver.  It ignores the countless times 2-3 forwards have lead to the same spot.

Oliver is a star.  Watch the Sydney game to see a guy put his body on the line for the club.

This guy doesn’t get cheap possessions wide like a lot of Melbourne ‘stars’ of the past 20 years.

Look deeper than the stat.  Yes, he can polish up his kicking, but Oliver is the least of our problems.

 

  • Like 2
  • Love 1
Posted
4 hours ago, Ouch! said:

Hey Binman, I couldn't easily tell from the replay, but did he get pushed as he kicked/shinned it? or did the contact happen after it hit his boot? 

Hunty said on the Demonland podcast that he 100% shanked it. And then TMac dropped the uncontested mark

(Q:where was Collins, TMac's opponent? A: rolled the dice, sagged off TMac assuming harmes' kick would be on target and make the distance, was wrong and then doubled back and ran past Tmac who kicked the ball off the ground for the match winning point) 

Hunt said they all gave Harmsey and TMac curry

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1

Posted
1 hour ago, rjay said:

That's rubbish 'Graeme'...

Everyone was calling for him to kick more last year.

I've seen Clayton hit some great passes to moving forwards.

I'm not seeing forwards moving to the right spots at the moment and we seem to have a game plan to bang the ball in.

It's obviously not a great game plan.

I'm not Graeme, just his Mullet

Clarry needs to improve his kicking. It's a fact, supported by the stats out today. And granted stats may only tell part of the story... as Homer Simpson says: "people can come up with statistics to prove anything... forty percent of all people know that". I agree the forwards need to improve their system, but Oliver gets heaps of the ball the onus is on him to use it effectively.

I don't dispute we wanted Clarry to kick more... now we just want him to hit more targets too. My point, while obtuse, was simply that he'd be better kicking it to someone else laterally than bombing away inside 50 - the stats show it's not working!

  • Like 1
  • Love 1
Posted
11 hours ago, Pates said:

I really feel like the players are being told to just get it in there without an actual plan.

Seriously? 

Posted
1 hour ago, PaulRB said:

Presumably there is a “logic” to the long bomb approach, i.e top of goal square and our forwards can prepare (mark crumb etc) accordingly..? 

While our back lines been decimated but functioned, our forward line has been woeful. 

I wouldn't bet on it 


Posted
1 hour ago, Graeme Yeats' Mullet said:

I'm not Graeme, just his Mullet

Clarry needs to improve his kicking. It's a fact, supported by the stats out today. And granted stats may only tell part of the story... as Homer Simpson says: "people can come up with statistics to prove anything... forty percent of all people know that". I agree the forwards need to improve their system, but Oliver gets heaps of the ball the onus is on him to use it effectively.

I don't dispute we wanted Clarry to kick more... now we just want him to hit more targets too. My point, while obtuse, was simply that he'd be better kicking it to someone else laterally than bombing away inside 50 - the stats show it's not working!

I dont think you can hang all of this on Clarry, he gets the ball and kicks into the forward line usually to a contest which our forwards lose more than other teams. How many marks do we take inside forward 50. Backman have a far easier job against melbourne forwards this years as opposed to last year.  We have similar numbers of players inside 50 to our opponents but our opponents win position 75% of the time, that tells you that its more than Clarry its the forwards not doing their job.

 

Posted
12 hours ago, Fanatique Demon said:

Lové Oliver, but hé seems to kick without looking.

His handballing this year is not much more effective and he hardly looks with those either, hell. He hardly even possess the ball properly.

  • Like 1

Posted
2 hours ago, bing181 said:

Seriously? 

I honestly haven't seen enough to suggest otherwise, there really doesn't seem to be and discernible plan with our forward entries. Now that said TMac is woefully out of form with his marking, and presumably his leading patterns are not providing assistance to the midfield. But still there appears to be very little lowering of the eyes to spot up targets. 

Posted
3 hours ago, P-man said:

You seem to be absolving Clarry of blame. Clearly this is not all about our dysfunctional forwardline. Look at his kicking on the weekend. It was atrocious, as it often is if we’re going to call a spade a spade.

The guy is a jet and does have the ability to kick well, but the continual throwing it on the boot and hoping for the best has to end at some point. It’s not working.

Not at all.

...but our dysfunctional forward line along with the primitive game plan we are using need to carry a fair bit of the blame.

Posted
1 hour ago, Clint Bizkit said:

Getting the ball in quickly as a tactic is fine but you need both players who can take contested marks and players who can crumb and win the ball at ground level.

We have neither.

Yes we do - McDonald, Weideman, Preuss, Petracca are in the former group, and Spargo, Garlett, Hunt, Petracca and Melksham are in the latter group.

The ability is there, the form is not. 

  • Haha 1

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Demonland Forums  

  • Match Previews, Reports & Articles  

    TRAINING: Friday 22nd November 2024

    Demonland Trackwatchers were out in force on a scorching morning out at Gosch's Paddock for the final session before the whole squad reunites for the Preseason Training Camp. DEMONLAND'S PRESEASON TRAINING OBSERVATIONS It’s going to be a scorcher today but I’m in the shade at Gosch’s Paddock ready to bring you some observations from the final session before the Preseason Training Camp next week.  Salem, Fritsch & Campbell are already on the track. Still no number on Campbell’s

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Training Reports 3

    UP IN LIGHTS by Whispering Jack

    Those who watched the 2024 Marsh AFL National Championships closely this year would not be particularly surprised that Melbourne selected Victoria Country pair Harvey Langford and Xavier Lindsay on the first night of the AFL National Draft. The two left-footed midfielders are as different as chalk and cheese but they had similar impacts in their Coates Talent League teams and in the National Championships in 2024. Their interstate side was edged out at the very end of the tournament for tea

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Special Features

    TRAINING: Wednesday 20th November 2024

    It’s a beautiful cool morning down at Gosch’s Paddock and I’ve arrived early to bring you my observations from today’s session. DEMONLAND'S PRESEASON TRAINING OBSERVATIONS Reigning Keith Bluey Truscott champion Jack Viney is the first one out on the track.  Jack’s wearing the red version of the new training guernsey which is the only version available for sale at the Demon Shop. TRAINING: Viney, Clarry, Lever, TMac, Rivers, Petty, McVee, Bowey, JVR, Hore, Tom Campbell (in tr

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Training Reports

    TRAINING: Monday 18th November 2024

    Demonland Trackwatchers ventured down to Gosch's Paddock for the final week of training for the 1st to 4th Years until they are joined by the rest of the senior squad for Preseason Training Camp in Mansfield next week. WAYNE RUSSELL'S PRESEASON TRAINING OBSERVATIONS No Ollie, Chin, Riv today, but Rick & Spargs turned up and McDonald was there in casual attire. Seston, and Howes did a lot of boundary running, and Tom Campbell continued his work with individual trainer in non-MFC

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Training Reports

    2024 Player Reviews: #11 Max Gawn

    Champion ruckman and brilliant leader, Max Gawn earned his seventh All-Australian team blazer and constantly held the team up on his shoulders in what was truly a difficult season for the Demons. Date of Birth: 30 December 1991 Height: 209cm Games MFC 2024: 21 Career Total: 224 Goals MFC 2024: 11 Career Total: 109 Brownlow Medal Votes: 13 Melbourne Football Club: 2nd Best & Fairest: 405 votes

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Melbourne Demons 12

    2024 Player Reviews: #36 Kysaiah Pickett

    The Demons’ aggressive small forward who kicks goals and defends the Demons’ ball in the forward arc. When he’s on song, he’s unstoppable but he did blot his copybook with a three week suspension in the final round. Date of Birth: 2 June 2001 Height: 171cm Games MFC 2024: 21 Career Total: 106 Goals MFC 2024: 36 Career Total: 161 Brownlow Medal Votes: 3 Melbourne Football Club: 4th Best & Fairest: 369 votes

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Melbourne Demons 5

    TRAINING: Friday 15th November 2024

    Demonland Trackwatchers took advantage of the beautiful sunshine to head down to Gosch's Paddock and witness the return of Clayton Oliver to club for his first session in the lead up to the 2025 season. DEMONLAND'S PRESEASON TRAINING OBSERVATIONS Clarry in the house!! Training: JVR, McVee, Windsor, Tholstrup, Woey, Brown, Petty, Adams, Chandler, Turner, Bowey, Seston, Kentfield, Laurie, Sparrow, Viney, Rivers, Jefferson, Hore, Howes, Verrall, AMW, Clarry Tom Campbell is here

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Training Reports

    2024 Player Reviews: #7 Jack Viney

    The tough on baller won his second Keith 'Bluey' Truscott Trophy in a narrow battle with skipper Max Gawn and Alex Neal-Bullen and battled on manfully in the face of a number of injury niggles. Date of Birth: 13 April 1994 Height: 178cm Games MFC 2024: 23 Career Total: 219 Goals MFC 2024: 10 Career Total: 66 Brownlow Medal Votes: 8

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Melbourne Demons 3

    TRAINING: Wednesday 13th November 2024

    A couple of Demonland Trackwatchers braved the rain and headed down to Gosch's paddock to bring you their observations from the second day of Preseason training for the 1st to 4th Year players. DITCHA'S PRESEASON TRAINING OBSERVATIONS I attended some of the training today. Richo spoke to me and said not to believe what is in the media, as we will good this year. Jefferson and Kentfield looked big and strong.  Petty was doing all the training. Adams looked like he was in rehab.  KE

    Demonland
    Demonland |
    Training Reports
  • Tell a friend

    Love Demonland? Tell a friend!

×
×
  • Create New...