Melbourne has beaten every other team it’s played against in the top eight but it’s efforts against the lowly clubs have been somewhat shabby.

Adelaide beat us a few weeks ago at their own dung heap and we struggled against then winless North Melbourne and even Carlton. 

Over the next month, we have three games against teams outside the eight - Collingwood, Essendon and GWS Giants. We will have to take our best game into all of these matches which I classify as danger games. An inexperienced Collingwood did to Adelaide last Saturday, what we couldn’t do - beat them at the Adelaide Oval. 

Demons beware!!!

19 minutes ago, Elwood 3184 said:

Melbourne has beaten every other team it’s played against in the top eight but it’s efforts against the lowly clubs have been somewhat shabby.

Adelaide beat us a few weeks ago at their own dung heap and we struggled against then winless North Melbourne and even Carlton. 

Over the next month, we have three games against teams outside the eight - Collingwood, Essendon and GWS Giants. We will have to take our best game into all of these matches which I classify as danger games. An inexperienced Collingwood did to Adelaide last Saturday, what we couldn’t do - beat them at the Adelaide Oval. 

Demons beware!!!

Essendon will win theirs

Not worried about the other two

We have a really tough run home. Port, West Coast and Geelong all away games.  With Melbourne in lockdown, I cannot see the Dees playing in front of a crowd at the MCG for a while yet.

I am really looking forward to the Geelong game. We owe them so much! And I think we will do them at their homeground and it will be sweet.

Every game is a danger game if we're not switched on

Given how we've responded to challenges all year i expect to win these 3 games. Collingwood are terrible but will be competitive. GWS will battle but succumb eventually. Essendon will be difficult because they are playing will confidence and abandon. They will be the trickiest opponents of the 3.

Collingwood will cause us all sorts of problems at a tricky and tight venue. We need to treat them as a side that finished 6th last year and have been more than competitive in the last 3 weeks.

We haven't been able to able to stamp our authority early in games against bottom 6 sides, and it's either caused us huge scares or indeed our only loss for the season.

It's clear to me that the players aren't as mentally switched on and stimulated against the lower sides than the big guns.

I actually like our chances at the SCG.  I think we'll defend that ground really well.  We should win clearance fairly convincingly without Grundy to contend with. They do play a really good defensive game but I think they may be one or two runners short against us.  Adelaide were the much better side after quarter time and should have won quite comfortably. 2.6 to Walker and even Fogarty missed which almost never happens.  As I said before the Adelaide game, every game in this competition is a danger game.  On their day anyone can win.

I hope we don't underestimate Collingwood. They did make the finals last year and we didn't.

Jamie Elliott is back in the side and in form after kicking a bag of goals for the Magpies.

Playing at the SCG will be tricky as well as it is such a small ground.

Anyway, I hope that our players are focused and ready for this game. We need to continue to "re-set" for every new game and fully be ready for anything Collingwood might throw at us.

Trying to beat the Magpies must be our primary focus this week and not start thinking about anything beyond that.

The Demons need to remember that every new game is a challenge and we cannot take ANY opponents lightly.

I agree S_D re-set and take it one week at a time, we get Langdon back but Salem is playing sore. We really need to be on against the Pies and don’t give them a start.

2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Collingwood will cause us all sorts of problems at a tricky and tight venue. We need to treat them as a side that finished 6th last year and have been more than competitive in the last 3 weeks.

We haven't been able to able to stamp our authority early in games against bottom 6 sides, and it's either caused us huge scares or indeed our only loss for the season.

It's clear to me that the players aren't as mentally switched on and stimulated against the lower sides than the big guns.

Why is the SCG a problem for us? Why are we going to struggle defending less space? If the Dogs couldn't switch around our zone at Marvel, how will Collingwood?

I don't think Collingwood were competitive against Geelong at all. Geelong had a stack of first choice players missing and put the cue in the rack halfway through the third. Late junk time goals does not equal competitiveness.

Against Geelong Collingwood kicked one goal in three quarters. Against Port they kicked the first four goals and then only four more, two of which were in the last 5 minutes of the game. Against Sydney they kicked four of the first five goals but then only one more.

The point is that in their three recent games against top 8 sides they haven't really been all that competitive, but they did start well vs Sydney and Port, an achilles heel of ours. I can certainly see us being a few goals down early and the Gameday thread being all kinds of negative, but beating Adelaide doesn't all of a sudden mean Collingwood's fixed their scoring issues.

Collingwood were very unCollingwood against the CarrionEaters. I expect normal programming to resume this week. Especially with our back pressure. **
 

** Superunknown takes no responsibility for the lack of normal programming resumption.

this is our best flag chance in years with our team , game, draw and WL to date. We can beat Port and the Eagles I think. Bombers could be a good game. 

14 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

Why is the SCG a problem for us? Why are we going to struggle defending less space? If the Dogs couldn't switch around our zone at Marvel, how will Collingwood?

I don't think Collingwood were competitive against Geelong at all. Geelong had a stack of first choice players missing and put the cue in the rack halfway through the third. Late junk time goals does not equal competitiveness.

Against Geelong Collingwood kicked one goal in three quarters. Against Port they kicked the first four goals and then only four more, two of which were in the last 5 minutes of the game. Against Sydney they kicked four of the first five goals but then only one more.

The point is that in their three recent games against top 8 sides they haven't really been all that competitive, but they did start well vs Sydney and Port, an achilles heel of ours. I can certainly see us being a few goals down early and the Gameday thread being all kinds of negative, but beating Adelaide doesn't all of a sudden mean Collingwood's fixed their scoring issues.

I can't disagree with any of that, except to say that they were very genuinely competitive against Port. Watching that game live at the G they never really let Port execute the game they wanted to play, (just like Adelaide never really let us in Adelaide). The largest margin Port held for the game was 13 points.

My point is that there has not been one game this year where we've cruised from start to finish when playing the bottom echelon of sides and I certainly can't see that happening against Collingwood.

Please...........

The mantra is: finish the game, review and reset for the next.

Nothing will change no matter the opposition. Its been a long time since I have been so constantly confident in a MFC side.

Bye time is always a danger period as things tend to reset for clubs. Easy for good clubs to rest on their laurels and poor clubs to try to atone for poor starts. 

Silk purse, meet sow’s ear.

4 hours ago, Elwood 3184 said:

Melbourne has beaten every other team it’s played against in the top eight but it’s efforts against the lowly clubs have been somewhat shabby.

Adelaide beat us a few weeks ago at their own dung heap and we struggled against then winless North Melbourne and even Carlton. 

Over the next month, we have three games against teams outside the eight - Collingwood, Essendon and GWS Giants. We will have to take our best game into all of these matches which I classify as danger games. An inexperienced Collingwood did to Adelaide last Saturday, what we couldn’t do - beat them at the Adelaide Oval. 

Demons beware!!!

Not worried at all

We never lose..

4 hours ago, Elwood 3184 said:

Melbourne has beaten every other team it’s played against in the top eight but it’s efforts against the lowly clubs have been somewhat shabby.

Adelaide beat us a few weeks ago at their own dung heap and we struggled against then winless North Melbourne and even Carlton. 

Over the next month, we have three games against teams outside the eight - Collingwood, Essendon and GWS Giants. We will have to take our best game into all of these matches which I classify as danger games. An inexperienced Collingwood did to Adelaide last Saturday, what we couldn’t do - beat them at the Adelaide Oval. 

Demons beware!!!

Yes Danger games sure, but now we only need to split the last 10 to finish top 2.

In the next three rounds

PA vs Cats, WC vs Tigers, Cats vs Bulldogs, Lions vs Cats, PA vs Swans and WC vs Bulldogs. Big three rounds for us with winnable games and chasers doing it tough. 

 

None of these teams concern me. I'd only be worried about what % of the MCG capacity will be allowed by the time we play the Bombers at it's their home game and they are up and about at the moment. 

4 hours ago, CYB said:

We have a really tough run home. Port, West Coast and Geelong all away games.  With Melbourne in lockdown, I cannot see the Dees playing in front of a crowd at the MCG for a while yet.

Love this. Great finals prep.

Only a Melbourne supporter could identify a "danger period" in the fixture after we're 11-1 lol 

7 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

I can't disagree with any of that, except to say that they were very genuinely competitive against Port. Watching that game live at the G they never really let Port execute the game they wanted to play, (just like Adelaide never really let us in Adelaide). The largest margin Port held for the game was 13 points.

My point is that there has not been one game this year where we've cruised from start to finish when playing the bottom echelon of sides and I certainly can't see that happening against Collingwood.

But they kicked 8 goals against Port, and for 2.5 quarters just two goals.

They seem to really only be competitive against better sides by playing ultra-defensive/dour football.

As to cruising from start to finish, I agree. I feel like the "cruisiest" game we've had all year is probably the Dogs.