45 minutes ago, Tom Dyson said:

misses in the first quarter really hurt in the end. 

Definitely. Brown, Viney and Kozzie all missed goals they should eat up. Kozzie also had an opportunity to hit TMac on the chest inside 50 in the 3rd after we kicked the first 2 of the quarter. Kozzie was pretty good overall though so not potting him.

I thought Viney was very good tonight, anyone still want to trade him?

47 minutes ago, Deesprate said:

Not much in the game. Biggest factor is Bont is a superstar. Thought Viney was very good big positive. As for the umpiring it make the game unwatchable. There is simply no logical explanation for the free kick count. Inexplicable plus throwing is clearly allowed.

The free against Brayshaw that gifted a goal to Hannan was garbage. And that was just one of the rubbish decisions. We were lucky they missed a couple of other shots from free kicks, they really didn't take advantage of their umpiring dominance.

You know it's bad when even BT is arguing in our favour.

3 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Definitely. Brown, Viney and Kozzie all missed goals they should eat up. Kozzie also had an opportunity to hit TMac on the chest inside 50 in the 3rd after we kicked the first 2 of the quarter. Kozzie was pretty good overall though so not potting him.

I thought Viney was very good tonight, anyone still want to trade him?

Yep. The game would have had a very different feel if we'd kicked 4.1 instead of 1.4 in the first quarter.

We haven't kicked more goals than behinds since the Brisbane game, and we've kicked more behinds than goals every game since the bye. 

It's the single biggest problem we have right now and it's costing us premiership points and may well see us slip out of the top 4.

49 minutes ago, Age said:

Think we need to start playing some of the kids to see what they have. Season is cooked unfortunately. 
does anyone have the stats of how often it seems to be wet when play, feels like it always runs at our games.  

 

48 minutes ago, WERRIDEE said:

Season over we deserve what we get the game against the Hawks was a disgrace. We will struggle to make top 4 now. Changes must be made.

Are you blokes fair dinkum? Give me a spell

This is an elite level of sport where all players and teams have similar skills and physical ability.

A difference in the performance of these elite athletes is confidence.

When the umpires are so inconsistent and do not pay free kicks consistently confidence will be affected.

If you know you can throw the ball and not be penalised you will. If you know you can duck your head and/or run into a player and get a free kick you will. If you can hit an opponent in the head and not be penalised you will, if you can jump into an opponents back and not give away a free you will. This confidence has a cumulative effect which increases confidence in the other skilled and legal aspects of the game.

We must somehow show our players that they must have confidence in the skills they have and despite being hit in the head or back or knees and thus not completing the task successfully they are still able to kick a set shot without interference easily.

Then we need to speak to the umpires and find out why they are so reluctant to afford us the same protections and considerations that they offer our opponents.

It would be interesting to know if there is some analysis of free kicks, what where and who  gives and receives.

Pickett seems to give away free kicks when tackling but rarely gets them. Jackson seems to draw free kicks without giving them.

The umpires seem quick to pay frees against us but slow to pay them for us.

Thereluctance to blow the whistle and interrupt our offence was even taken to extremes when Jackson took a mark but there was no whistle,. His poor disposal was ineffectual and may have affected his game from that point. Will I won't I what will happen , what are the options. These elite athletes are on a phscological knife edge. Umpires performance will dictate their reactions. There is a necessary study required of confidence. How it affects things and how it is affected. I reckon we need to do more about this. Or perhaps I just need to drink less, or more.

I reckon a few neutrals will be on our side now after that absurdly one-sided umpiring display.

48 minutes ago, Redleg said:

Our skills are not great and when you play a side that are highly skilled it shows. Missing easy goals every week is becoming very costly.
Sh-t umpiring doesn’t help. 

Bailey Dale's kicking off halfback was sublime. That's what Salem should be doing for us but he seems to have dropped off since his injury, just not getting it in space or using it to great effect. Still playing well but not great.

Sure, they had Keath out and then Richards down, but we dominated them for 4 quarters and failed to capitalise in front of goal.

I just don't rate the Bulldogs. I thought we were, with the exception of Oliver, and a few moments from Viney forward of centre, woeful, but with 10 minutes to go we were 4 points down. JJ takes the mark in the goalsquare and we're in front.

But goalkicking has now cost us 4 wins (Adelaide, GWS, Hawthorn and tonight). Brown kicks those gimmes and I think we comfortably overrun them.

I was pleased to see Gus back to the wing and Viney forward. Two good moves. Gus started okay, but faded I felt. Whereas, Viney was brilliant inside 50 and his attack on the ball carrier was exactly what we needed there, but it's time to shelve his midfield minutes. It's never been more obvious than tonight. He was a deadset liability at stoppages. He is the key reason our mids are bees to the honeypot. He just mindlessly hunts the ball carrier and completely exposes us on the outside. You certainly can't afford that against the Bulldogs. That's their entire game. Burn you on the outside as they flick it (and I mean flick it) to their receivers.

But back to the bees to the honeypot, it wasn't just in the midfield that we failed to trust team mates to get the job done. I thought repeatedly we were done on the outside between the arcs and inside attacking 50, when multiple players swarmed the one Bulldog player, only for them to flick it out to a free Bulldog.

We also seemed to take too long to adjust to the wet weather and played too fancy with the handball. We weren't clean either, particularly in the first half. I thought Salem was terrible, not just fumbly, but poor in the contest. Hunt tried hard but his kicking is a real worry. No drive or cleanness from Rivers or Hibberd. 

As for Brown, you have to wonder whether playing under a roof a lot of the time for North shaded his true accuracy in the midst of inclement weather. He just couldn't handle the conditions. I don't think I can remember seeing him kick so poorly. It's a conundrum because he actually takes marks and gets to the right spots, but if he's not kicking them, is he much better than Weideman? The answer is yes, but it will cost us games and potential finals.

We didn't really have any winners forward of centre in the first half, perhaps Fritsch, but our lack of potency in the forward half has become an Achilles heel in the second half of the season, and much of this is down to accuracy. 

JJ, Jackson and Rivers all really struggled and Kozzy continued to make the easy look difficult, but I did love his pressure and attack on the ball.

Tonight though is the first time I've felt we are relying on too many young guys to play important roles. I think it'd be worth resting JJ for Sparrow, Jackson for Weideman and Bowey for Rivers. Maybe not all in the same week but over the next two weeks.

I'd much prefer to have some concerns now than come finals, but this evening was bitterly disappointing. Our defensive game was off (leaving Daniel free and then Bontempelli twice is not good enough), but so was our offence. The fact we only went down by what we did says a bit about our system and a bit about the Bulldogs.

Edited July 24, 20213 yr by A F

I hate to pinpoint one player but I felt that Ben Brown's 2 misses in the first half cost us the game. Not only does it sap the momentum of our team but it gives the other team confidence. Yeah, he kicked a couple late but his 2 misses were extremely costly. As was Kozzies torpedo from 20m out and Fritch's miss from the goal square. 

I say it every week but until we kick straight, we can't be taken seriously.  The umpiring was incredibly lop sided and deserves some explanation from the umpiring department. For some reason the idea that you must have prior opportunity seems to have been lost. 

Petracca needs to work on his ball use too. But his goals were important. 

Very disappointed with the result our kicking for goal was poor again some very gettable shots off line . Tracc is usually so good ended up with three OOB as well. Max slaughtered their rucks but we weren’t able to dominate the clearances like we did in 2018. Poor kicking is poor footy and biased umpiring is damn right cheating, they ned to be held to account. Very hard to watch and I strongly agree that the commentary is also biased against us, I can’t really understand the bias do they hate us that much???

We have a number of players that I really respect who are right off the boil at present with a lot of unforced errors causing costly turn overs at critical times which are costing us dearly.

come on boys you let your selves down tonight, you weren’t flogged but you really need to get back to the game plan ASAP.!!!!!!!

Edited July 24, 20213 yr by DeeZone
Grammatical errors

Where to start..

Dogs had Treloar, Dunkley, Keith, Martin and Wood missing tonight. We had no one. 100% they are the better side. Say what you want, they've been consistent this year and have won the games we've lost. They deserve the flag this year.

Another game where we are exposed carryig passengers. For goodness bloody give Luke Jackson a spell! Once again had zero influence alongside the likes of Rivers, Hibberd, Langdon,  ANB who have all been down on form the past couple of weeks. We've got the likes of Melksham, Lockhart, Daw, Weideman and Bowey all set and ready to fill a role.

Harmes got taught a lesson by Libba. When his tagging goes to [censored], Harmes really adds nothing tonight. It was honest a disappointment game. Also why is he a try hard Dusty? 

ANB was back to his usual brain fades/spudding it up. Thought I saw a much Improved player at the start of year but nope,  same [censored] different week. Can we recruit another Kozzie next year that can keep him out?

The difference between Bont and Petracca is light years apart. If I see another cringe comparison by supporters on here and also the media then I'll spew up. Don't get me wrong, Petracca is good. But he is so sloppy and half the time think he's gotta be the [censored] match winner by always wanting to shoot for goal. The way that Bont just cruises around, but yet keeps his game simple is seriously a marvellous to watch. 

Brayshaw and Salem are both incredibly soft. I saw one piece of play where Brayshaw completely squibbed a contest. It was not s good look at all and I think it stifled him because he was ****house for the rest of the game. Salem is too scared to either pick up the ball or provide a 50-50 contest. I'm honestly losing patience with Brayshaw.

Defence was a bit sloppy tonight. Lever got exposed for not being a good one on one defender. 

Gawn 57 hitouts to English 14 and yet we lost the clearance count.. how on [censored] earth does this happen?? The ruck to midfield connection is an absolute mess. Throw that next two our goal kicking issues and there is some genuine concerns heading into finals

Not sure what to make of us now. Have voiced concerns for over a month now, and we are 18 rounds in yet we still don't know what our best forward structure is. 

Hate to be negative,  but we've seen all this before and unfortunately this year isn't much different to 2018.

'Unified team'

Harmes goes into bat for Gus after the Hannan goal (no one else does), then gets ragdolled to the ground and no one comes into bat for him... Not a big deal, and just the huff and puff, but just little things like that are noticeable sometimes.

Also noticed no one really got around Viney when he kicked that goal.

Real weird vibes.

2 minutes ago, P-man said:

I reckon a few neutrals will be on our side now after that absurdly one-sided umpiring display.

Insta and facebook comments definitely vindicate this, although its more an anti dogs/umpire vibe then it is a pro melbourne vibe. 

48 minutes ago, Webber said:

This is becoming a much raised reason for our drop off, and there’s literally nothing to back it up, nor, if it weren’t a phantom, would the Bulldogs be doing any different. 

I think we definitely were doing it around the bye but probably not since after the GWS game. Gawn confirmed we'd had a higher training load over the month before the Port game but I'd be surprised if it's still the case now. They weren't sluggish tonight like they were against Pies, Bombers, GWS, just didn't take advantage of our dominance in the first half.

...and they owe us a point....as they clearly ran the ball behind the post.

WE really need a crowd. We play better and the umps cant get away with what they did tonight.

WE played clever football, they played smart football.

They might just be the better side but id like to play them again in the finals in front of a big crowd. (at Marvel)

Oh and that was one of the least influential 30 possession games you'll ever see from Petracca. Defensively he was nowhere too. 

And they went to school on Gawn again. They just held onto him prior to every contest just enough to stop him jumping. And since Jackson seems to have fallen off a cliff, we had no plan B that was strong enough to provide Max a chop out or a change up.

Edited July 24, 20213 yr by A F

22 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

As usual, there are some wildly big statements in here.

This game was so much more even than this thread or the 20-point margin suggest.

But yet again we lose because we miss shots on goal. The impact of those misses cannot be understated. Doing all the hard work up the ground but failing to put any scoreboard pressure on our opponent keeps our opponent in the game and makes our job psychologically harder.

Brown's two set shot misses plus a third out on the full, Pickett's missed snap in the first quarter, Viney missing from the goalsquare, Petracca failing to score from three different shots. 

Then after we'd kicked the two early goals in the third, Pickett gets the ball, has McDonald in a heap of space, but misses. Later, in the fourth, we're back to 4 points and a kick goes to the goalsquare but over Jordon's head.

Small things but in a game that was largely even, those moments lost it for us.

I'm sure ANB's pressure acts were up there but he is reverting to pre-2021 momentum-killing football. He fumbles and get smothered far too much. If Harmes isn't tagging someone out of a game he's useless right now. We can do better with his spot in the side. Jordon and Jackson both really struggled tonight too. A few headaches again at selection.

May and Lever once again fantastic, Oliver's first half was incredible, Petraccca did a lot right outside of the missed shots, Pickett worked his way into it, and I thought Viney made a hell of a lot of Demonlanders look silly. 

A loss like this isn't anything to be too upset about. Our top 4 spot is in jeopardy not because of tonight, but because of the Adelaide, Collingwood, GWS and Hawthorn games. Still need two wins minimum from the last four to make the top 4, and possibly need a third. 

And a final note: the umpiring was unbelievably Dogs-biased. Tackles on the shoulder were called high for them but play on for us, they were throwing it out of tackles, and don't get me started on the HTB call on Brayshaw right before half time. Just could not get any momentum when 50/50 calls were going against us at every turn. Genuinely terrible and it's not sour grapes to note how bad it was.

Completely agree TU.

This was an honourable loss in some ways and can't be too upset. It would have been hard to keep momentum with so many atrocious calls against us.

It's those losses against the bottom teams AGAIN that will hurt us 

We seem so mentally weak. Why is demontime still such a thing for us? If we're so fit, we should be running out quarters and kicking those clutch goals at the end of quarters.

We rely so much on Petracca and Clarry in the guts. The rest of our midfield looks cooked.

Viney looked better forward. Pickett in the guts perhaps? He worked really hard tonight. Gut running and tackling was fantastic. He still needs to be a bit cleaner but at least he's running hard both ways.

I think it's a mistake that we haven't put the hours into Sparrow but bringing young blokes in at this late stage of the season is a worry 

I think Ben Brown is finding his rhythm slowly. We have to persevere with him.

Harmes, ANB need to go.

Did Goodwin say anything about the maggots?

42 minutes ago, footy_minister said:

Glad someone else picked this up. So frustrating to watch.

We have a few issues at present but that is one of them. He’s been doing it here and there but last week he started doing it more often than not and butchered it. Who’s telling him to do it? It’s a plan Z option to randomly bully and scatter the contest once or twice a game if that, not a ligament tactic. Does he not trust his inside mids to get the job done? No one can read it, not our mids or forwards. You might get one lucky kick here and there but it’s under 9’s stuff.

Gawny has not played very smart footy all season IMV.  He's taken some decent intercept marks all over the ground but the rest of his work has been good to ordinary other than a few marks & goals inside 50 when pushing forward.  Reckon he's played at top form maybe two games in total from memory.

Was his pre-season as good as some?  Looks disinterested at times as if he couldn't care whether we win or not.  Laughing at the opp long after they've  kicked a sneaky goal at one stage ... not a great look from the Captain.

Edited July 24, 20213 yr by Rusty Nails

Great that we hung in there and gave ourselves a chance late in the game.

Umpires, wow, I thought all the talk pre-game was just that. 

Forward structure and the amount of bombs into that area at this time of the season is a worry.

They need to lift the eyes and at least put flat passes with some angle into the 50 area. Are the players not listening or the coaches can't create changes. Such a fundamental at the level they play.

I am hoping Goody is roping the dopes! Come finals, and we will be the most accurate and efficient team playing.

Handballs missing the mark and fumbling. Perhaps they were just trying too hard and the conditions didn't suit the style.

We are a selfish team at the moment. They have to help make each other better players. Trying to do much by themselves is not the way.

I like that we acted angry and made some tough plays.

Why wasn't the maybe rushed behind given a score review? They took the ball coast to coast and scored, to finish off our momentum. Somebody has to be accountable to that non-decision, it shouldn't happen.

We couldn't read the nature of the game and so we didn't adapt our style, pressure and match ups.

I think we are getting close to falling off the cliff. Fix our forward line and the delivery into it before it's too late.

We have a defensive game, time to kick a few bag fulls, to finish off the home and away.

Go all out attack and get the yips out of them, hoping for some shoot out matches.

38 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

As usual, there are some wildly big statements in here.

This game was so much more even than this thread or the 20-point margin suggest.

But yet again we lose because we miss shots on goal. The impact of those misses cannot be understated. Doing all the hard work up the ground but failing to put any scoreboard pressure on our opponent keeps our opponent in the game and makes our job psychologically harder.

Brown's two set shot misses plus a third out on the full, Pickett's missed snap in the first quarter, Viney missing from the goalsquare, Petracca failing to score from three different shots. 

Then after we'd kicked the two early goals in the third, Pickett gets the ball, has McDonald in a heap of space, but misses. Later, in the fourth, we're back to 4 points and a kick goes to the goalsquare but over Jordon's head.

Small things but in a game that was largely even, those moments lost it for us.

I'm sure ANB's pressure acts were up there but he is reverting to pre-2021 momentum-killing football. He fumbles and get smothered far too much. If Harmes isn't tagging someone out of a game he's useless right now. We can do better with his spot in the side. Jordon and Jackson both really struggled tonight too. A few headaches again at selection.

May and Lever once again fantastic, Oliver's first half was incredible, Petraccca did a lot right outside of the missed shots, Pickett worked his way into it, and I thought Viney made a hell of a lot of Demonlanders look silly. 

A loss like this isn't anything to be too upset about. Our top 4 spot is in jeopardy not because of tonight, but because of the Adelaide, Collingwood, GWS and Hawthorn games. Still need two wins minimum from the last four to make the top 4, and possibly need a third. 

And a final note: the umpiring was unbelievably Dogs-biased. Tackles on the shoulder were called high for them but play on for us, they were throwing it out of tackles, and don't get me started on the HTB call on Brayshaw right before half time. Just could not get any momentum when 50/50 calls were going against us at every turn. Genuinely terrible and it's not sour grapes to note how bad it was.

Great post, my sentiments exactly

Was a solid game of footy, awful umpiring aside. Dogs are a great team, we ran them off the field at Marvel and they beat us in a good contest at the G. We played okay but tbf I don't rate us as a top 4 side. We are thereabouts with Port imo and could go either way. Lions will make their way into top 4.

10 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

'Unified team'

Yep i don't see it either LN.  There's just too many resting on their laurels and bathing in it of late.   The Harmes incident was sad to watch also.

Goody will need to stop the rot starting next week or we may miss a top four spot and be out without firing a shot in an elimination final.  What a waste of a season and i doubt there's any coming back from there (mentally) nor will we get too many better chances than this one to take a stab at the big one.

Edited July 24, 20213 yr by Rusty Nails

We lost 1 last quarter in the first 9 rounds. We have lost 6 last quarters of the last 9. Our run at the end of games has gone missing.

Bont played 88% game time tonight. He played the last 15 minutes and won the game for them. Petracca played 98% game time. He played the last 15 minutes and did nothing.

 

 

 

Edited July 24, 20213 yr by Watson11

I think we have lost the fabric that made us a good side:

1. Selflessness 

2. Few players competing for the same ball

3. Unpredictability going forward

4. Short efficient kicking going forward

5. Small mark/kicks forward keeping possession 

We lose 5-10 percent with no crowds in attendance. 

Our record is shocking.