53 minutes ago, Clintosaurus said:

.Is Clint Stanaway still in the media?

Yes, he is. I didn’t know he was a Dees man. 

18 minutes ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

Yes, he is. I didn’t know he was a Dees man. 

Yes, devout

Agree with most on this site but the thing that I am noticing more each week is that we are now being referenced in a positive manner when teams are being analysed they show how we are doing it better. I don’t want every one following the way we do it, our scoring has dropped off, we seem to be doing what we need to do but playing within ourselves if that makes sense. Like many others I really want to see Ben Brown in the side this week and for an extended period barring injury or total crap form. They showed On The Couch how many markable entries came into our forward 50 that were marked by the Bummers  we can’t squander all that hard work.

if we get the forward set up right we are really in with a show, but happy to continue flying under the radar. (Are we loading with an eye on the finals?)

I think we are on track to be there at the end but there is a long way to go yet and although we have booked a top 8 spot, we haven't as yet booked a top 4 spot. If you look at the draw (and ignore covid relocations for teams) Brisbane have the easiest of draws. They could easily finish top 2 and become flag favorites.

If we falter and say only win 5 of our last 8 games, which is feasible, we could finish 3rd or 4th or maybe even 5th, although we'd be unlucky, but keep in mind there are 5 teams looking for a top 4 berth and the only one I'd book in is Brisbane (and they're about to go into a hub!).

It's nice on top of the ladder, but there is a lot of jostling to go and then a finals series begins. Long way to go. At the moment we are flying under the radar and are $5.50 equal second favorite for the flag. In six weeks time we might be out to $7- or $8- if we don't keep improving and in fact show signs of drop-off, coz the good teams will have had a long time to have a good look at us and will definitely have plans to beat us.

Playing Dogs and Cats again will tell everyone a lot and until then we can't claim diddly, and then until we win something we can't claim diddly and with 8 weeks to go we certainly can't claim diddly, so stay calm and enjoy the ride and let people have their opinions coz in the end they may be right. 

43 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

Well not the sentiment that we have the least potent forward line in the league.

I also don't agree that our elite defence is irrelevant to considering the effectiveness of our forward line. It's essential, for context. We don't need to score big every week. Maybe some other clubs in the competition do (Essendon would be one example) because they're less capable of stopping sides scoring. In 2018 that was us.

I also don't agree that scoring has been the primary reason for both our losses this season. We scored 95 points against Adelaide. The issue in both those games was that our opponents scored at a rate well higher than any of the other 12 sides we've played this year.

But the key point remains: despite all of the so-called weaknesses, we have scored the fourth-most points in the league. We're 68 points behind Brisbane across 14 games, which is the equivalent of 4.86 points per game, i.e. less than a goal per game.

Another metric is average scoring shots per game:

1. Bulldogs - 27.57
2. Brisbane - 25.07
3. Melbourne - 24.50
4. Essendon - 23.76
5. Geelong - 23.07
6. Sydney - 23.07
7. Richmond - 22.64
8. Port Adelaide - 22.50
9. West Coast - 22.14

We generate the third-most shots on goal and the fourth-most points per game in the competition.

If anything, these stats show me that our inaccuracy is holding us back.

I agree with your final line, though. I'm confident this is a glass half full situation.

Looking back on my earlier post I probably came across inappropriately cranky at @A_F. To begin with, I should probably have started my posted by saying 'the sentiment stripped of some hyperbole is correct both ways'!

For me the key is to separate the items 'are we scoring' and 'is our forward line functioning well'.

I'll start by being very clear that I think it CAN and sometimes HAS - McDonald, Fritsch and Pickett combined for 8 goals against Brisbane while McDonald, Pickett, Weideman and Fritsch shared 9 against the Dogs.

But my concern is the increasing frequency of games where our mids and resting rucks are the source of our scoring while our forwards have been quiet. Fritsch and Pickett have both slowed significantly since their early season form and Weideman has been dropped after showing very little in five games.

The Essendon, Collingwood and Adelaide games - clearly our three worst for the season -  all shared the feature of almost no goal-scoring coming from full-time forwards.

53 minutes ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

Yes, he is. I didn’t know he was a Dees man. 

His father was awarded life membership of the Dees at the AGM several years ago (maybe 2019) for service as a long term trainer I think.  Huge Dees family the Stanaways. Clint was there with him.

35 minutes ago, deespicable me said:

If we falter and say only win 5 of our last 8 games, which is feasible, we could finish 3rd or 4th or maybe even 5th, although we'd be unlucky, but keep in mind there are 5 teams looking for a top 4 berth and the only one I'd book in is Brisbane (and they're about to go into a hub!).

I'd be flabbergasted if we miss top 4 with a 17-5 record. Would mean the other sides from 2nd to 5th are basically all going perfect for the rest of the H&A.

WC and Adelaide missed top 4 in 2016 with a 16-6 record, but I'm almost certain a side has never missed top 4 with 17 wins in the 18 club era.

2 hours ago, Demon17 said:

The media aren't generally deep thinkers with long attention spans and tend to predict the last impressive team they saw. So this week its the dogs after their eagles demolition with Brisbane after the last game.

When Dees beat up both those teams we were flavour of the month until the next big performace by another team. Dropping the pies game didn't have a lot of impact on predictiosn after beating the next big thing -the Bombers.

ON the Couch's Gerad Healy tipped Dees last night for flag if he was forced to predict someone - " haven't done a lot wrong,just need to fix forward connection..." , but also noted the tiges won in 2017 with only 1 tall, and by inference why can't the Dees.

Others said 4 are in the race - us, lions, cats and dogs.

 

I think the media would argue that it's the audience (viewers, listeners and readers) who aren't deep thinkers and without long attention spans. The media then plays to the limitations of its audience by discussing something as fresh as possible. And I suspect that view is probably correct.

Maybe the media know what we do when they sing our praises and they want us to also be successful... ?

37 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

I think the media would argue that it's the audience (viewers, listeners and readers) who aren't deep thinkers and without long attention spans. The media then plays to the limitations of its audience by discussing something as fresh as possible. And I suspect that view is probably correct.

I think you are 100% correct on this 

They took us more seriously in 2018 when we were scoring so well. Whilst the accepted wisdom is that defences win flags, teams still need to score heavily when the opportunity arises.

Sadly we do not score heavily when the opportunity arises against weaker teams.  Winning by 15-25 points is not good enough when we should be winning by much larger margins to show our superiority. Percentage may also count by the end of the season and we are not as dominant as we deserve to be.

Our forward line is still suspect for consistent high scores. Cats and dogs have stellar days but these are against weak opposition and are not consistent. Time for us to become consistently scoring higher.

A settled forward line lineup would help. It's either BBB or Weed. Make a choice, toss a coin or flip a card and stick with it.

1 hour ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

I think the media would argue that it's the audience (viewers, listeners and readers) who aren't deep thinkers and without long attention spans. The media then plays to the limitations of its audience by discussing something as fresh as possible. And I suspect that view is probably correct.

I think there’s a bit of that in the way they speak about us, particularly channel seven. BT always sounds like the local drunk that keeps wanting to move the goalposts when they say “until you beat xxxx” or “you have to beat a team by xxxx points” or “you have to get player xxxx back to form before you’re really a threat”. 

I genuinely can’t stand both Hamish and BT with their calling of our games. 

Most of us here have reservations so it is only natural that many in the media do as well.

If we can tweak our forward line and fix what Goody calls our 'connection' as well as our set shot woes we'll turn the two or three goal wins into six or seven goal wins.

We'll also need to be wary of our midfield mix with Viney coming back in.

 

In one of the early seasons of the Brady Bunch, Greg Brady the oldest son graduates junior high school and becomes a middle schooler. Immediately he rankles at any suggestion he's a kid and goes to great pains to highlight how "mature" he is, and how everyone needs to respect him. A few years later, he hits he final year of high school and learns what it really means to be a young man. He has grown up and no longer gets so sensitive because he is now really a young adult instead of just pretending to be one.

I feel like the Melbourne Football Club is a bit like Greg Brady this year. We know what we are, and we don't need to prove it to anyone.

Or to put it a different way:

 

Can’t blame them. 

6 hours ago, Demon17 said:

The media aren't generally deep thinkers with long attention spans and tend to predict the last impressive team they saw. So this week its the dogs after their eagles demolition with Brisbane after the last game.

When Dees beat up both those teams we were flavour of the month until the next big performace by another team. Dropping the pies game didn't have a lot of impact on predictiosn after beating the next big thing -the Bombers.

ON the Couch's Gerad Healy tipped Dees last night for flag if he was forced to predict someone - " haven't done a lot wrong,just need to fix forward connection..." , but also noted the tiges won in 2017 with only 1 tall, and by inference why can't the Dees.

Others said 4 are in the race - us, lions, cats and dogs.

 

Lloyd is the master of this. 

4 minutes ago, Ethan Trembley said:

Can’t blame them. 

Delightful to have you posting again Ethan

BTW. Your decolletage is quite remarkable.

Thanks for the brilliant thread everyone. Slightly relieving my MFCSS

6 minutes ago, Bitter but optimistic said:

Delightful to have you posting again Ethan

BTW. Your decolletage is quite remarkable.

Thanks bitters, I thought it made my eyes pop. 

4 hours ago, Little Goffy said:

Looking back on my earlier post I probably came across inappropriately cranky at @A_F. To begin with, I should probably have started my posted by saying 'the sentiment stripped of some hyperbole is correct both ways'!

For me the key is to separate the items 'are we scoring' and 'is our forward line functioning well'.

I'll start by being very clear that I think it CAN and sometimes HAS - McDonald, Fritsch and Pickett combined for 8 goals against Brisbane while McDonald, Pickett, Weideman and Fritsch shared 9 against the Dogs.

But my concern is the increasing frequency of games where our mids and resting rucks are the source of our scoring while our forwards have been quiet. Fritsch and Pickett have both slowed significantly since their early season form and Weideman has been dropped after showing very little in five games.

The Essendon, Collingwood and Adelaide games - clearly our three worst for the season -  all shared the feature of almost no goal-scoring coming from full-time forwards.

There are only two of them: Collingwood and Essendon.

Prior to that are the two games you've just referenced, Brisbane and the Dogs.

It's not a long term trend yet. It's one game where the whole side was off, and then Essendon (which, by the way, I do not agree was our third worst game for the season. Essendon was a good opponent and that performance was superior IMO to the North and Hawthorn wins at least).

2 hours ago, tiers said:

They took us more seriously in 2018 when we were scoring so well. Whilst the accepted wisdom is that defences win flags, teams still need to score heavily when the opportunity arises.

Sadly we do not score heavily when the opportunity arises against weaker teams.  Winning by 15-25 points is not good enough when we should be winning by much larger margins to show our superiority. Percentage may also count by the end of the season and we are not as dominant as we deserve to be.

Our forward line is still suspect for consistent high scores. Cats and dogs have stellar days but these are against weak opposition and are not consistent. Time for us to become consistently scoring higher.

A settled forward line lineup would help. It's either BBB or Weed. Make a choice, toss a coin or flip a card and stick with it.

These are just guff statements that aren't true.

We currently average 87 points per game and have a percentage of 131.4%. Here are the last four premiers (in full seasons):

1. 2019 Richmond averaged 86 points per game and had a percentage of 113.7%.
2. 2018 West Coast averaged 91 points per game and had a percentage of 121.4%.
3. 2017 Richmond averaged 90 points per game and had a percentage of 118.3%.
4. 2016 Bulldogs averaged 86 points per game and had a percentage of 115.4%.

If we keep doing what we're doing we will be right in the mix in terms of scoring, with a percentage that well exceeds any of these four recent premiers.

11 hours ago, Little Goffy said:

Once again, Melbourne's 22 on the weekend was younger than their supposed up-and-coming young opponents. In fact, at 24 years 9 months, Melbourne were older than only... yikes, on closer inspection, only Gold Coast fielded a younger team than us in round 15. That is incredible.

 

 

 

Hey @Little Goffy where did you find that stat?

I just find it amusing we beat both dogs and lions in consecutive weeks only a month ago and yet after they both win on the weekend, albeit impressively the are now considered the teams to beat. Logic should dictate they are both playing for 2nd. But that is the media for you have the memory of a gold fish

I don’t think we’re being discounted. It would be silly to discount the top team at this stage of the season. However there seems to be a general view forming that we rely heavily on our miserly defence, in particular the May-Lever wall.

If the starting position is that we have a heavy reliance on defence, then to win the whole thing it would mean no team in September breaks it down. Given a bog average side like Collingwood was able to do that merely two weeks ago, I don’t think you can label the skepticism as unjustified.

The best thing in our favour right now is that against the two teams many consider to be grand finalists in waiting, we’ve come away with the W both times. Some would say quite easily. The Dogs and Lions will learn from those games, but no one can claim we don’t match up well against them.

The Dogs’ defence was considered to be their weak point until they became one of the most statistically efficient defensive units in the comp. If we can do a similar turn around with our front end and get it humming heading into September, we go from being in it up to our ears to in it up to our eyeballs. And they’ll all be jumping on board.

i don't think we're a 'sexy' side compared to footscray, the bears, or even the peptides, who are all high attack, high scoring teams

we're more grinders who stop the oppo scoring and keep them at arm's length from us; it's why we don't score super heavily but neither do our opposition

i don't think there's any doubt that we are very well respected by oppo coaches etc because they're trying to work out how to stop us stopping them - they have to play high risk, high reward football to take us on, which is obviously fraught with danger given how well we are set up defensively

i'd rather be respected by other football clubs than the media

Edited June 30, 20213 yr by whatwhat say what

13 hours ago, Chook said:

In one of the early seasons of the Brady Bunch, Greg Brady the oldest son graduates junior high school and becomes a middle schooler. Immediately he rankles at any suggestion he's a kid and goes to great pains to highlight how "mature" he is, and how everyone needs to respect him. A few years later, he hits he final year of high school and learns what it really means to be a young man. He has grown up and no longer gets so sensitive because he is now really a young adult instead of just pretending to be one.

I feel like the Melbourne Football Club is a bit like Greg Brady this year. We know what we are, and we don't need to prove it to anyone.

Or to put it a different way:

 

Surely if the MFC is going to be compared with a fictional TV character we can come up with someone more substantial than a member of the Brady Bunch. What about Tony Soprano, Jed Bartlet or even Superman?