Jump to content

Who killed Bambi?

old55
in Melbourne Demons

Featured Replies

9 minutes ago, Roost It said:

I’d trade Viney for a highly skilled, classy, fast forward any day of the week

Gawn for a top 10 pick and a solid running player

Very few untouchables in the quest to be the Premiers

You'd kill the morale of the club for years if you did that, the players, staff and supporters would be devastated. Your journey would have us on the quest to be relocated to Tassie!

  • Quote
    •  

    Wow - just caught up on this thread.  2018's AA ruckman, most likely AA again this year on the bench.  The AFLCA player of the year in 2018 and again in the top echelon this year only a handful of votes behind Grundy who many have said is the best in the league.  The player Max comprehensively destroyed in the QB game earlier in the year. He is the most important player in our side - he can mark down the line, behind the ball and in attack. His field kicking is actually very good, his shots at goal are poor.  He tackles, he chases, he covers ground, he is a genuine superstar of the competition. He has done all of this with practically zero support from his team mates.  Just bizarre!!

  • Quote
    10 minutes ago, Swooper1987 said:

    Wow - just caught up on this thread.  2018's AA ruckman, most likely AA again this year on the bench.  The AFLCA player of the year in 2018 and again in the top echelon this year only a handful of votes behind Grundy who many have said is the best in the league.  The player Max comprehensively destroyed in the QB game earlier in the year. He is the most important player in our side - he can mark down the line, behind the ball and in attack. His field kicking is actually very good, his shots at goal are poor.  He tackles, he chases, he covers ground, he is a genuine superstar of the competition. He has done all of this with practically zero support from his team mates.  Just bizarre!!

    You trade him because you realise that he’s not going to part of our next Premiership

  • Quote
    •  
    1 hour ago, Roost It said:

    You trade him because you realise that he’s not going to part of our next Premiership

    With that logic who do we keep? Trading him puts a flag further away.  He's irreplaceable unless you are trading him for Grundy.

  • Quote
    12 minutes ago, Swooper1987 said:

    With that logic who do we keep? Trading him puts a flag further away.  He's irreplaceable unless you are trading him for Grundy.

    I totally get the love for him.

  • Quote

    8 hours ago, Fifty-5 said:

    Max Gawn has had another great personal season and his performance is a highlight in an otherwise very disappointing year.  He deserves great credit for his preparation, the work on his game and his consistent effort from week to week.  He is the premier tap ruckman.

    No doubt Max has a great personality and is a great leader around the club - he will probably be co-captain next year.

    Who killed Bambi?

    The problem is I think having Max Gawn play this way is a big part of our problems this year because he makes us too predictable. Last year this had the bonus of surprise when Oliver, Brayshaw and Harmes all made significant improvement, this year it's a liability.

    I've never rated tap outs and have mixed views about taps to advantage - both the lynch pins of Max's game.  A contest in the ruck is vital because one-off matches with tap outs to advantage are very damaging, but consistent tap outs to advantage are very predictable and the opposition simply sweats on our first possession and tackles our inside midfield.  No surprise that we are 17th for tackle differential - that's the key tactic applied against our contest based game.

    I rate around the ground marking and providing a marking target much more highly and I think this is where Max provides us with the most value currently.  But his kicking remains a liability and this is an issue when he drifts forward.  Quite frankly Grundy is a far more valuable player because he is an extra mid-fielder, can kick and can ruck and mark nearly as well as Max.

    There's no way we would even consider trading Max but we need to give some thought to about how to use him effectively next year. 

    This season absolutely proves the misconception that is the importance  of hitouts advantages etc. 

     

  • Quote
    •  
    7 hours ago, dl4e said:

    Trading Gawn ????? Seriously.

    How about we trade some of the posters on here......

  • Quote
    • Like 1
    • Haha 3

    The entire premise of coaching is the ability to enable each individual and the team as a whole to perform at optimum effectiveness.

    Max Gawn has been one of the top two or three in his field this season whilst playing in a team that has had its effectiveness severely curtailed by the sheer inability to get enough of its best performers on the ground. That’s a fact that is provable on the basis of statistics of games played. 

    Max wins at the stoppages, his midfield gets the clearances and the ball enters the inside 50 arc more often in most games than it does inside that of the opposition. We break down at that point by failing to convert, by failing to retain possession up forward, by turning the ball over and then by allowing them to successfully convert into goals. 

    I don’t believe that the club’s failures this season are related in an any significant way to the efficiency or lack thereof of the player who is a shoe in to win the Bluey again in 2019.

    One can always wish for someone to do better at any given time. You might be able to say that about the league’s leading goal kicker expecting him to kick more goals in a season but I wouldn’t be laying anything down to our ruck division, other than that Max didn’t receive much back up in the ruck from those key forwards who filled in for him and were all ultimately injured or from Braydon Preuss who wasn’t selected often and when he was, the coaches couldn’t find a niche for him. The exception to that was the Carlton game in which Max didn’t play and Preuss toweled up Kreuzer. 

    Perhaps we would be best off today by giving Max a well deserved break and playing Preuss, first ruck and Declan Keilty (who I suspect has already had his cards marked) as back up/key forward.

    Of course, the nuff nuffs in the media would accuse us of tanking for a priority pick if we did that, so we probably won’t do it.

  • Quote
    • Like 3

    40 minutes ago, Whispering_Jack said:

     

    Of course, the nuff nuffs in the media would accuse us of tanking for a priority pick if we did that, so we probably won’t do it.

    Again the premise of tanking supposes we can win if we want to. Nahhhh

    Rest Max...yes... But he might like to play with Lewy just one last time.  It's vexed... Outcome assured either way

  • Quote

    Of all the craziness that gets written on this forum - the thought of trading the best ruckman in the game is right up there. 

    Whether or not you believe his ruck craft benefits us significantly or not doesn't change the fact he is highly mobile, of elite fitness and clunks important marks in our back half week after week. The words trade and Gawn should never be uttered in the same sentence. 

    If we had better midfielders that were able to take advantage of his tap work this convo wouldn't exist. I'd rather focus on surrounding him with better players. 

  • Quote
    • Like 1

    Knowing our list managers, we will want two first rounders for max but settle for a third rounder 

  • Quote

    Maxy currently showing anyone talking about trading him to be a damn fool. 

  • Quote
    • Like 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...
    Go to topic listing

    Featured Content

    • NON-MFC: Round 13

      Follow all the action from every Round 13 clash excluding the Dees as the 2025 AFL Premiership Season rolls on. With Melbourne playing in the final match of the round on King's Birthday, all eyes turn to the rest of the competition. Who are you tipping to win? And more importantly, which results best serve the Demons’ finals aspirations? Join the discussion and keep track of the matches that could shape the ladder and impact our run to September.

        • Thanks
      • 25 replies
      Demonland

    • PREVIEW: Collingwood

      Having convincingly defeated last year’s premier and decisively outplayed the runner-up with 8.2 in the final quarter, nothing epitomized the Melbourne Football Club’s performance more than its 1.12 final half, particularly the eight consecutive behinds in the last term, against a struggling St Kilda team in the midst of a dismal losing streak. Just when stability and consistency were anticipated within the Demon ranks, they delivered a quintessential performance marked by instability and ill-conceived decisions, with the most striking aspect being their inaccuracy in kicking for goal, which suggested a lack of preparation (instead of sleeping in their hotel in Alice, were they having a night on the turps) rather than a well-rested team. Let’s face it - this kicking disease that makes them look like raw amateurs is becoming a millstone around the team’s neck.

        • Thanks
      • 1 reply
      Demonland

    • CASEY: Sydney

      The Casey Demons were always expected to emerge victorious in their matchup against the lowly-ranked Sydney Swans at picturesque Tramway Oval, situated in the shadows of the SCG in Moore Park. They dominated the proceedings in the opening two and a half quarters of the game but had little to show for it. This was primarily due to their own sloppy errors in a low-standard game that produced a number of crowded mauls reminiscent of the rugby game popular in old Sydney Town. However, when the Swans tired, as teams often do when they turn games into ugly defensive contests, Casey lifted the standard of its own play and … it was off to the races. Not to nearby Randwick but to a different race with an objective of piling on goal after goal on the way to a mammoth victory. At the 25-minute mark of the third quarter, the Demons held a slender 14-point lead over the Swans, who are ahead on the ladder of only the previous week's opposition, the ailing Bullants. Forty minutes later, they had more than fully compensated for the sloppiness of their earlier play with a decisive 94-point victory, that culminated in a rousing finish which yielded thirteen unanswered goals. Kicks hit their targets, the ball found itself going through the middle and every player made a contribution.

        • Thanks
        • Like
      • 1 reply
      Demonland

    • REPORT: St. Kilda

      Hands up if you thought, like me, at half-time in yesterday’s game at TIO Traeger Park, Alice Springs that Melbourne’s disposal around the ground and, in particular, its kicking inaccuracy in front of the goals couldn’t get any worse. Well, it did. And what’s even more damning for the Melbourne Football Club is that the game against St Kilda and its resurgence from the bottomless pit of its miserable start to the season wasn’t just lost through poor conversion for goal but rather in the 15 minutes when the entire team went into a slumber and was mugged by the out-of-form Saints. Their six goals two behinds (one goal less than the Demons managed for the whole game) weaved a path of destruction from which they were unable to recover. Ross Lyon’s astute use of pressure to contain the situation once they had asserted their grip on the game, and Melbourne’s self-destructive wastefulness, assured that outcome. The old adage about the insanity of repeatedly doing something and expecting a different result, was out there. Two years ago, the score line in Melbourne’s loss to the Giants at this same ground was 5 goals 15 behinds - a ratio of one goal per four scoring shots - was perfectly replicated with yesterday’s 7 goals 21 behinds. 
      This has been going on for a while and opens up a number of questions. I’ll put forward a few that come to mind from this performance. The obvious first question is whether the club can find a suitable coach to instruct players on proper kicking techniques or is this a skill that can no longer be developed at this stage of the development of our playing group? Another concern is the team's ability to counter an opponent's dominance during a run on as exemplified by the Saints in the first quarter. Did the Demons underestimate their opponents, considering St Kilda's goals during this period were scored by relatively unknown forwards? Furthermore, given the modest attendance of 6,721 at TIO Traeger Park and the team's poor past performances at this venue, is it prudent to prioritize financial gain over potentially sacrificing valuable premiership points by relinquishing home ground advantage, notwithstanding the cultural significance of the team's connection to the Red Centre? 

        • Thanks
      • 4 replies
      Demonland

    • PREGAME: Collingwood

      After a disappointing loss in Alice Springs the Demons return to the MCG to take on the Magpies in the annual King's Birthday Big Freeze for MND game. Who comes in and who goes out?

        • Thanks
      • 232 replies
      Demonland

    • PODCAST: St. Kilda

      The Demonland Podcast will air LIVE on Monday, 2nd June @ 8:00pm. Join Binman, George & I as we have a chat with former Demon ruckman Jeff White about his YouTube channel First Use where he dissects ruck setups and contests. We'll then discuss the Dees disappointing loss to the Saints in Alice Springs.
      Your questions and comments are a huge part of our podcast so please post anything you want to ask or say below and we'll give you a shout out on the show.
      Listen LIVE: https://demonland.com/

        • Thanks
      • 47 replies
      Demonland
    View All