8 hours ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

It’s been mentioned already but warrants being mentioned again: how cool was it to see Liam Jurrah at the match yesterday. It’s difficult to gauge from 10 seconds of footage but he looked happy. I hope with all my heart that life is being kind to him. 💖

Agreed. Amazing that it’s been 10 years since he left the club, but he is currently only 33 years old. He could have played a LOT longer than he did.

7 hours ago, djr said:

After watching the replay, I'm still baffled by calls for Tom Sparrow to be dropped. He was in everything yesterday, so don't be surprised if he gets coach's votes. Yes, some of his kicks and handballs were misdirected, but no more or less than others. He is a tackling machine which more than makes up for some errand disposals. He's only 22 years old, but he's building a tank that will be elite after another preseason. This kid has the potential to be anything.

Thankyou.
Someone who watches the Game Closely

4 hours ago, Maldonboy38 said:

Sparrow was my big pre season bolter. I reckon he has massive amount of potential and could be a real beast. He can be a great kick but often isn't. His handballing to a player/situation that brings pressure or causes a turnover is becoming a habit, and his decision making is simply off. For all his effort and possessions, he is a momentum killer at the moment which is ruining the hard work of himself and team mates. I don't think he can be dropped, but he has a fair bit of work to do to in terms of polish and impact. 

And what was Clarry like 2 years ago? Didn't he have the same issues?

8 hours ago, Lucifers Hero said:

Nah!  They have an easy run.  Let them win all 5 and be minor premiers thinking they are fantastic when in fact they may need a really good work out against some good teams before the finals.

Then hope someone beats them in the first week of the finals.

I'm happy for us to finish second or even third or fourth,

I've posted on this before but an analysis of Finals since the current system came in in 2000 shows it's virtually impossible to win from 4th (or 5th to 8th). Split is 7, 7, 7 for positions 1, 2 & 3 with the outlier being the Doggies who won from 7th in 2016. 

My (not very scientific) take on this is that 4 gets a very tough game in the Qualifying Final, generally loses and then usually has to beat 5 in a Semi Final that has just come off a much easier game against 8. If 4 win that they get to play away against 2 or 3 in a Prelim.

Compare that to 2 & 3. Tough Qualifying Final but the loser gets to play 6 or 7 in a Semi. Yes, they usually have to play 1 in a Prelim but have had an easy lead-in to that match. Obviously the winner of 2 vs 3 goes straight through to a Prelim.

I'd even argue that it's better to finish 2nd than 1st, and if 2 & 3 come from the same State then the finishing order doesn't matter. Last year though it was clearly better for Melbourne to finish 1st as Geelong had to play away against Port in Adelaide in their QF while Melbourne played Brisbane (also in Adelaide). 

Expected matchups:

QF 1 vs 4,  2 vs 3 (would expect 1 to win, 2 vs 3 hard to pick unless 2 has home ground advantage)
SF 3 vs 6,  4 vs 5 (would expect 3 to win, 4 vs 5 hard to pick unless 4 has home ground advantage)
PF 1 vs 3, 2 vs 4 (would lean towards 1 & 2 to win but 1 has a harder game than 2, again home ground advantage could be important)
GF 1 vs 2 (hard to pick unless one team is a Melbourne-based team and the other interstate) 

Prior to last year the Premier hadn't finished Minor Premiers since 2013.

Using the AFL ladder predictor I come up with: Geelong, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Fremantle, Carlton, Port, Collingwood. If that's how in pans out it might be one case where it would have been better for Melbourne to finish 4th rather than 3rd! And Home Ground Advantage will be a significant factor in virtully every game.

11 hours ago, Jaded No More said:

Yeah the Fritta pile on is ridiculous. So he burnt a teammate. He is also our most reliable goal kicker and regularly kicks a lot more goals than he’s entitled to given his height and how often he’s triple teamed and dragged down in contests. 
I rather he goes for goals he reasonably thinks he can kick than we keep stuffing around with the ball inside 50 and make a meal of it. 
He is an elite medium forward and had like 10 score involvements yesterday. 
But let’s drop him so we can have an even more dysfunction forwardline 🙄

Agree 100%.

I think this mostly started with that decision not to handball to Trac a few games back, but I personally think that was more just a case of Freitch misjudging how much time and space he thought he had at the time than a deliberate decision to burn Trac.  In that instance take away the impending tackle and it's the easiest shot on goal that you'd expect most league players to go for themself rather than dish off to someone that was a few meters away and hardly in a better position to kick the goal.

Since then it's just been the ridiculous pile on alluded to.  More a case of some of these media hero's like David King and Brian Taylor selfishly wanting to be something vaguely resembling relevant and for everyone to hear what football geniuses they are.  As if BT would look to pass off a potential goal to a teammate. 

...as if BT has any kind of mates 😜.

Edited July 18, 20222 yr by Rodney (Balls) Grinter

11 minutes ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

Agree 100%.

I think this mostly started with that decision not to handball to Trac a few games back, but I personally think that was more just a case of Freitch misjudging how much time and space he thought he had at the time than a deliberate decision to burn Trac.  In that instance take away the impending tackle and it's the easiest shot on goal that you'd expect most league players to go for themself rather than dish off to someone that was a few meters away and hardly in a better position to kick the goal.

Since then it's just been the ridiculous pile on alluded to.  More a case of some of these media hero's like David King and Brian Taylor selfishly wanting to be something vaguely resembling relevant and for everyone to hear what football geniuses they are.  As if BT would look to pass off a potential goal to a teammate. 

...as if BT has any kind of mates 😜.

As with you Balls and Jaded, calls for Fritta to be dropped are just [censored] silly.

I remember years ago Boomer Harvey was accused of being selfish and not passing off. Norf coach Scott commented that Boomer's instructions were to take the shot if he thought it was on.

Fritta's job is to kick goals ( he does this consistently). The last thing you want is him thinking it through ..... "err should I pass .... should I take it". It is a split second game.

Take the shot !!!!!!!!

24 minutes ago, Sydney_Demon said:

I've posted on this before but an analysis of Finals since the current system came in in 2000 shows it's virtually impossible to win from 4th (or 5th to 8th). Split is 7, 7, 7 for positions 1, 2 & 3 with the outlier being the Doggies who won from 7th in 2016. 

My (not very scientific) take on this is that 4 gets a very tough game in the Qualifying Final, generally loses and then usually has to beat 5 in a Semi Final that has just come off a much easier game against 8. If 4 win that they get to play away against 2 or 3 in a Prelim.

Compare that to 2 & 3. Tough Qualifying Final but the loser gets to play 6 or 7 in a Semi. Yes, they usually have to play 1 in a Prelim but have had an easy lead-in to that match. Obviously the winner of 2 vs 3 goes straight through to a Prelim.

I'd even argue that it's better to finish 2nd than 1st, and if 2 & 3 come from the same State then the finishing order doesn't matter. Last year though it was clearly better for Melbourne to finish 1st as Geelong had to play away against Port in Adelaide in their QF while Melbourne played Brisbane (also in Adelaide). 

Expected matchups:

QF 1 vs 4,  2 vs 3 (would expect 1 to win, 2 vs 3 hard to pick unless 2 has home ground advantage)
SF 3 vs 6,  4 vs 5 (would expect 3 to win, 4 vs 5 hard to pick unless 4 has home ground advantage)
PF 1 vs 3, 2 vs 4 (would lean towards 1 & 2 to win but 1 has a harder game than 2, again home ground advantage could be important)
GF 1 vs 2 (hard to pick unless one team is a Melbourne-based team and the other interstate) 

Prior to last year the Premier hadn't finished Minor Premiers since 2013.

Using the AFL ladder predictor I come up with: Geelong, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Fremantle, Carlton, Port, Collingwood. If that's how in pans out it might be one case where it would have been better for Melbourne to finish 4th rather than 3rd! And Home Ground Advantage will be a significant factor in virtully every game.

Good post, but I'll be amazed if Port play finals.

31 minutes ago, djr said:

And what was Clarry like 2 years ago? Didn't he have the same issues?

Yes, and he fixed them, winning 2 B&F's while doing so. I hope Sparrow also fixes his shortcomings. Currently, he is yet to do so.  

8 hours ago, djr said:

After watching the replay, I'm still baffled by calls for Tom Sparrow to be dropped. He was in everything yesterday, so don't be surprised if he gets coach's votes. Yes, some of his kicks and handballs were misdirected, but no more or less than others. He is a tackling machine which more than makes up for some errand disposals. He's only 22 years old, but he's building a tank that will be elite after another preseason. This kid has the potential to be anything.

I just watched a replay and 100% agree. Aside from Kozzie, one of things that got us switched on was the physicality at the contest by Viney, Sparrow, Harmes and ANB. And the calls for Fritsch to be dropped are absurd. He was involved in 3 of Kozzie's goals. Without him, our forward line looks impotent.

33 minutes ago, old55 said:

Good post, but I'll be amazed if Port play finals.

I'd be even more amazed if they finish above Collingwood.

@Sydney_Demon must have Port going 5-0 and Collingwood 1-4 or 0-5 from here.

26 minutes ago, mo64 said:

I just watched a replay and 100% agree. Aside from Kozzie, one of things that got us switched on was the physicality at the contest by Viney, Sparrow, Harmes and ANB. And the calls for Fritsch to be dropped are absurd. He was involved in 3 of Kozzie's goals. Without him, our forward line looks impotent.

I also thought Viney's game was very good.  Not the exceptional BOG type of performance that he put in a few weeks back, but a high value gritty Jack Viney stand up and be counted when we needed someone to help us get the game back on our terms type performance. 

Asides from the others you mention in Sparrow, ANB and Harmes, I also thought that in the circumstances Trac played a really pivotal role in extracting the ball and generating that drive we needed when we needed it most, without the silver service he usually gets from his partner in crime Clayton.

Was really pleasing to see that we could still play well and win without the best midfielder in the competition playing for us, up against a respectable opposing midfield in Port.

So above all else, my take on the Fritta's option selection is that when you kick 6 goals in a winning grand final and basically turn the game in favour of your team off your own boot, you've earnt the right to back yourself and take whatever bloody shot for goal you want to.

Will never forget the Fritta's magnificent role in that premiership glory and ending of 57 years of pain and misery for the red and blue faithful.

19 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

I'd be even more amazed if they finish above Collingwood.

@Sydney_Demon must have Port going 5-0 and Collingwood 1-4 or 0-5 from here.

OK, the ladder predictor part of my post was the definite weakness. I did it quite a few weeks back and it has just been automatically updating since then with actual results. I do think Port are a sneaky chance of knocking off Geelong but agree that it's hard to see them making the 8. I've now come up with Geelong, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Fremantle, Carlton, Collingwood, Western Bulldogs. This has Collingwood going 2-3 for the last 5 including losing the last 3, but they could definitely go 3-2 or 4-1. What do you think?

Wishful thinking but from a Melbourne perspective if we finish Top 2 with Brisbane & Fremantle 3rd & 4th that would be perfect 😁!

We flicked the switch half-way through the 3rd quarter and kicked 7 unanswered goals ... with Kossie getting us back in the game with 2 beauties and then sealing the deal with 2 more that in turn, finished Port off.  A fantastic individual performance but the team lifted as it needed to (as well)

Reminiscent of the finals last year and the game against Brisbane a few weeks ago

Not for the whole game but for 30 minutes, we played some great footy

Our best is really good (still) so it's a matter of reproducing our best when needed.  And 13 & 4 is a good return (so far)

Tough 5 weeks coming up but that's a good thing.  We'll be well tested and we'll prepared for September

We should be able to defeat the Bulldogs & Carlton but we'll need to have a decent plan against the Pies.  Freo & Lions away are difficult but a total of 3 wins from 5 should secure a top 4 spot and probably a top 2 spot.  4 from 5 and we are set for a big September

12 hours ago, Bimbo said:

I had to look at those figures again.

Jake Melksham - 7 tackles.  

Must be his greatest tally ever.  

(also his best game of his few this year)

Viney is coming good at the right end of the Season. Loved his last two Games.

7 hours ago, Bitter but optimistic said:

As with you Balls and Jaded, calls for Fritta to be dropped are just [censored] silly.

I remember years ago Boomer Harvey was accused of being selfish and not passing off. Norf coach Scott commented that Boomer's instructions were to take the shot if he thought it was on.

Fritta's job is to kick goals ( he does this consistently). The last thing you want is him thinking it through ..... "err should I pass .... should I take it". It is a split second game.

Take the shot !!!!!!!!

If anyone is going to be wheeling around for a left foot snap I’d want it to be him. He’s there to kick goals. Sure he’s burnt players a few times but I’m happy he’s backing himself. Remember the days where no one had the confidence to shoot so we’d keep giving it off until someone lost the ball…

Those who are calling for him to be dropped either listen too much to David King, or allow themselves to be fixated on a single thing and be blind to everything else that happens  

This is stolen from someone in one of the Dees FB pages:

*************

To all the Fritsch knockers out there:

Bailey Fritsch is an opportunist goal scorer.
If the opportunity is there he will have a shot,

Melbourne's 1st goal in yesterday's match was Kossi's first from a pass from Fritsch.
Melbourne's 2nd goal was a Fritsch snap from a Petracca pass. 
Melbourne's 4th and Fritsch's 2nd was from another Petracca pass.
Picket's 4th was from a free from a Fritsch pass.
Melksham's goal in the 4th quarter was a long pass from Fritsch.
Melbourne's 10th and Browns 2nd goal in the 4th quarter was a Fritsch pass to Melksham, to Brown.

Fritsch's stats from the Port Adelaide game:
15 disposals, 2 goals, 2 behinds, 3 goal assists, 9 kicks, 6 handballs, 5 marks, 2 tackles, 7 contested possessions, 11  pressure acts.

He has kicked 36 goals this year and had 12 goal assists,
and don't forget his 6 goals in the 2021 grand final.
What more do they expect?

10 hours ago, Sydney_Demon said:

I've posted on this before but an analysis of Finals since the current system came in in 2000 shows it's virtually impossible to win from 4th (or 5th to 8th). Split is 7, 7, 7 for positions 1, 2 & 3 with the outlier being the Doggies who won from 7th in 2016. 

My (not very scientific) take on this is that 4 gets a very tough game in the Qualifying Final, generally loses and then usually has to beat 5 in a Semi Final that has just come off a much easier game against 8. If 4 win that they get to play away against 2 or 3 in a Prelim.

Compare that to 2 & 3. Tough Qualifying Final but the loser gets to play 6 or 7 in a Semi. Yes, they usually have to play 1 in a Prelim but have had an easy lead-in to that match. Obviously the winner of 2 vs 3 goes straight through to a Prelim.

I'd even argue that it's better to finish 2nd than 1st, and if 2 & 3 come from the same State then the finishing order doesn't matter. Last year though it was clearly better for Melbourne to finish 1st as Geelong had to play away against Port in Adelaide in their QF while Melbourne played Brisbane (also in Adelaide). 

Expected matchups:

QF 1 vs 4,  2 vs 3 (would expect 1 to win, 2 vs 3 hard to pick unless 2 has home ground advantage)
SF 3 vs 6,  4 vs 5 (would expect 3 to win, 4 vs 5 hard to pick unless 4 has home ground advantage)
PF 1 vs 3, 2 vs 4 (would lean towards 1 & 2 to win but 1 has a harder game than 2, again home ground advantage could be important)
GF 1 vs 2 (hard to pick unless one team is a Melbourne-based team and the other interstate) 

Prior to last year the Premier hadn't finished Minor Premiers since 2013.

Using the AFL ladder predictor I come up with: Geelong, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Fremantle, Carlton, Port, Collingwood. If that's how in pans out it might be one case where it would have been better for Melbourne to finish 4th rather than 3rd! And Home Ground Advantage will be a significant factor in virtully every game.

Ha you need a new predictor mine says we win 5 in a row and finish on top!

13 hours ago, Sydney_Demon said:

I've posted on this before but an analysis of Finals since the current system came in in 2000 shows it's virtually impossible to win from 4th (or 5th to 8th). Split is 7, 7, 7 for positions 1, 2 & 3 with the outlier being the Doggies who won from 7th in 2016. 

My (not very scientific) take on this is that 4 gets a very tough game in the Qualifying Final, generally loses and then usually has to beat 5 in a Semi Final that has just come off a much easier game against 8. If 4 win that they get to play away against 2 or 3 in a Prelim.

Compare that to 2 & 3. Tough Qualifying Final but the loser gets to play 6 or 7 in a Semi. Yes, they usually have to play 1 in a Prelim but have had an easy lead-in to that match. Obviously the winner of 2 vs 3 goes straight through to a Prelim.

I'd even argue that it's better to finish 2nd than 1st, and if 2 & 3 come from the same State then the finishing order doesn't matter. Last year though it was clearly better for Melbourne to finish 1st as Geelong had to play away against Port in Adelaide in their QF while Melbourne played Brisbane (also in Adelaide). 

Expected matchups:

QF 1 vs 4,  2 vs 3 (would expect 1 to win, 2 vs 3 hard to pick unless 2 has home ground advantage)
SF 3 vs 6,  4 vs 5 (would expect 3 to win, 4 vs 5 hard to pick unless 4 has home ground advantage)
PF 1 vs 3, 2 vs 4 (would lean towards 1 & 2 to win but 1 has a harder game than 2, again home ground advantage could be important)
GF 1 vs 2 (hard to pick unless one team is a Melbourne-based team and the other interstate) 

Prior to last year the Premier hadn't finished Minor Premiers since 2013.

Using the AFL ladder predictor I come up with: Geelong, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Fremantle, Carlton, Port, Collingwood. If that's how in pans out it might be one case where it would have been better for Melbourne to finish 4th rather than 3rd! And Home Ground Advantage will be a significant factor in virtully every game.

Good analysis, SD.  I wasn't imputing the likelihood of winning the GF from a particular position. 

This line at the bottom of your analysis is significant:  Prior to last year the Premier hadn't finished Minor Premiers since 2013.  And we were only the 7th team to do so in the 20 years since 2000.

We went against recent history.

Given the competition is so even this year the team finishing 4th might again go against history and win the GF especially if they win the first QF.   Only guessing that it is the week rest which probably increases the chances of a QF winner taking out the GF.

That aside I have posted in various threads that I am confident of a top 2 finish.

I think it is unlikely that we will finish 4th.  If not 2nd then it will be 3rd.  However, if it is us at 4th I reckon we could beat anyone in the QF who finishes first and get the extra week rest.  Or take it out from 4th if we lose the QF. 

Last year we showed that anything can happen, just as the Bulldogs did in 2016.  Last year there were so many theories based on history that said we were unlikely to win it.  But we did.

History doesn't always repeat itself.

Edited July 19, 20222 yr by Lucifers Hero

It does kind of bother me that we were smashed on clearance again. -13. Clarry makes a big difference to that but that needs to be much closer to level.

9 hours ago, Sydney_Demon said:

OK, the ladder predictor part of my post was the definite weakness. I did it quite a few weeks back and it has just been automatically updating since then with actual results. I do think Port are a sneaky chance of knocking off Geelong but agree that it's hard to see them making the 8. I've now come up with Geelong, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Fremantle, Carlton, Collingwood, Western Bulldogs. This has Collingwood going 2-3 for the last 5 including losing the last 3, but they could definitely go 3-2 or 4-1. What do you think?

Wishful thinking but from a Melbourne perspective if we finish Top 2 with Brisbane & Fremantle 3rd & 4th that would be perfect 😁!

I think Collingwood could honestly go anything from 0-5 to 5-0. Their draw is tricky, with their two easiest games being an in-form Essendon and then Port Adelaide. You'd think they should go 2-3 overall but it won't surprise me if they do better.

14 hours ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

I’m guessing there’ll be a few sore throats there, DZ. Especially our young bloke Mitch, massive Kozzy fan who leads the Kozzy Kozzy Kozzy oi oi oi chant after every Kozzy goal. He’d be hoarse but happy right now. 😊

WCW he had a lot of people following, our group included, the cheer squad handed out flags to us and they and our voices got a great work with Kozzies heroics.😀😀👍

ps( we had a chat to two of the Port cheer squad ladies and they said there was a bit of a rift between their squad and some of the players.😢).

31 minutes ago, DeeZone said:

WCW he had a lot of people following, our group included, the cheer squad handed out flags to us and they and our voices got a great work with Kozzies heroics.😀😀👍

ps( we had a chat to two of the Port cheer squad ladies and they said there was a bit of a rift between their squad and some of the players.😢).

Wow. That’s sad. I can’t imagine what would cause a rift between a cheer squad and their own players. But then again, there are Dees “fans” around who don’t hold back when it comes to their personal attacks on some of our players, so I guess anything is possible. 

looking back at the highlights and a bit of the replay, sunday's performance wasn't perfect by any means but it certainly looked like a step in the right direction at both an individual and team based system level. 

Big Ben was continuing to clunk marks and and present on the lead with authority. 

The small forwards definitely looked more damaging and influential, obviously Kozzi was off the charts incredible but the others were definitely better.

Defence was pretty solid, Steve is out of form but most others performed well against what is a good forward line. 

The junk time goals were very frustrating as was the territory we gave up from clearances but some of our transition from d50 was much improved. 

Hopefully this is the start of an exponential trend of improvement but regardless of where you sit, the closing rounds of the season will give us the perfect indication of how we can rate ourselves against other contenders. 

14 hours ago, Maldonboy38 said:

Yes, and he fixed them, winning 2 B&F's while doing so. I hope Sparrow also fixes his shortcomings. Currently, he is yet to do so.  

When Sparrow trained, he had good disposal when he first joined us.

At times in matches he has beautiful kicks.

I think he is rushing himself, given the speed he is adjusting to.

I suggest he has games when he is connecting well. His problem is consistency, he will mature.

Edited July 19, 20222 yr by kev martin

15 hours ago, Bitter but optimistic said:

As with you Balls and Jaded, calls for Fritta to be dropped are just [censored] silly.

I remember years ago Boomer Harvey was accused of being selfish and not passing off. Norf coach Scott commented that Boomer's instructions were to take the shot if he thought it was on.

Fritta's job is to kick goals ( he does this consistently). The last thing you want is him thinking it through ..... "err should I pass .... should I take it". It is a split second game.

Take the shot !!!!!!!!

Agree that Fritsch should not be dropped.

However his job is not to kick goals, but contribute towards goals. Whether he kick them is irrelevant to a selfless team

For sure that vision is on his review package, 2 team mates in a better position than him, he should've looked around before taking the ball, plenty of time. Spargo was waving and screaming for it. 

Compare that to Jezza Cameron this round: swung a long handball to the goalsquare to a team mate for a certain goal. Could've had a shot, lower percentage, split second glance and he found a certain option. 

I think Fritter just needs a bit of Ooze and Chocco work to recalibrate