From Bigfooty.

They don't think much of the Dees and their thread title 'Roasting Demons' sums it up.

• They should be concerned about the work rate intensity and efficiency of our midfield group.
• the AFL paid Paul Roos to instill some Bloods culture. It's got them to a Flag but they still seem relatively easy to rattle and too rigid in structure, won't be able to deal with the True Bloods chaos and multi-faceted attack.
• First hands on the ball in the centre.  Make lever accountable.
• Melbourne are rubbish
• Melbourne are the Los Del Rio of the AFL
• Can someone tell me which week Melbourne won the clearances this year or contested possession.  They lost both in the 2 games I saw, so not sure why we would s**t ourselves about it
• Rowbottom has been very off at the beginning of the season. Imo, he's one of our most important players vs Melbourne
• Pretty confident going into the game without Gawn. He killed us in last year's regular season game.
  • …He played the best game i have ever seen a ruck play but guess what it still wasnt enough for them.
• May will be close to goal. If we play Buddy on the arcs, May will be inconsequential.
  • …Well I hope so, but I thought Buddy was running all over the ground last time and May was hugging him the whole time. That 50 metre penalty May gave to Buddy for example was in the center square.
  • …Franklin got into May head last time and effected his game allowed others to hit the scoreboard.
• Well yeah, so we beat their full strength team twice with and without Buddy last year, so I'm actually extremely confident going into this week (Demon lurkers, sorry if I forgot some random jerk who was left out of your team. I just meant generally speaking).
• Wonder if the players will be a bit nervous returning to the MCG after the GF shellacking. Good to get it out of the way early in the season.
• Really excited for this week's game. As we did last year, think we match up really against them and i'm backing Ladhams in to hold his own.
• The two best sides at scoring from defensive 50 will be going at it this week. Somewhat takes away our advantage we usually have over most teams, and further increases the need for the midfield to start generating more scoring opportunities themselves.
• Grand final week we were shuffling deck chairs regarding Amartey, McDonald and McLean, who would be less useless
• As a casual F1 viewer in Melb, why does this match have to be scheduled at the same time as the race?!? :triumph:

My Favourite:

Noting witty or insightful enough to capture my interest.

 

Wood love us to win this just to shut up their fans and to get the monkey off our back.  Not confident.

Edited March 27, 20232 yr by Lucifers Hero

Their confidence is not misplaced. They have the wood on us.

They sound like we did before the Brisbane game, hope it turns out the same for them as it did is.

16 minutes ago, BDA said:

Their confidence is not misplaced. They have the wood on us.

True.  Hence why I want us to win to get the monkey off our back.

It is their arrogance and complete lack of respect for us that annoys me.  Hope we show them up.

Very confident for a team that only made a grand final because we had injuries and niggles coming our our ears and the umpires let Papley do what he likes in a Prelim. 

I reckon we've got their measure even without Gawn 

56 minutes ago, Lucifers Hero said:

True.  Hence why I want us to win to get the monkey off our back.

It is their arrogance and complete lack of respect for us that annoys me.  Hope we show them up.

It would be the perfect sliding doors moment to lose the wood we had over one team but take another team's wood over us away from them. 

Theyre spot on

I hope their day is as miserable as it was in the GF. Go Demons!

We’ve consistently struggled against the Swans since about 1993.

 

 

18 minutes ago, TeamPlayedFine39 said:

We’ve consistently struggled against the Swans since about 1993.

 

 

Agreed. Even in 1993 and 1994 when they were worse than hopeless and were ok to good, they still upset us. Fast forward to 2019-2020 and they still beat us despite being a bottom 4 rebuilding side.

The only time we've gained a bit of ascendancy on them was way back in 2000-2001 when we won 3 in a row against them.

I'm curious as to why they've had the wood over us.

We can win if we play at our best, too many supporters writing this one off before the first bounce of the ball!

Swans supporters are some of the worst at the moment. Last two games I attended weren't great experiences, one of their supporters heckled me pretty bad on the way home, thought seriously about having a go at him. Agree it would be very satisfying to thrash them.

2 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Agreed. Even in 1993 and 1994 when they were worse than hopeless and were ok to good, they still upset us. Fast forward to 2019-2020 and they still beat us despite being a bottom 4 rebuilding side.

The only time we've gained a bit of ascendancy on them was way back in 2000-2001 when we won 3 in a row against them.

I'm curious as to why they've had the wood over us.

Ironically,  Roos' biggest loss as Swans coach was in his last game in 2010 against us, 73pts. Very few other joyous days. 

Who could forgot us facing them in '93 when going for their 27th successive loss they smacked us by 40pts.

Swans coach that day?  Ron Barassi 😔

I think we can still win,  but I am surprised the bookies have us as favourite this week. 

 

1 hour ago, Dwight Schrute said:

Very confident for a team that only made a grand final because we had injuries and niggles coming our our ears and the umpires let Papley do what he likes in a Prelim. 

I reckon we've got their measure even without Gawn 

They totally deserved to make the GF. 

Not only did they beat us they beat Collingwood who fell just short of the eventual premiers (yuck Geelong) 

They should be respected - they are a very strong team, very well coached and we will need to play very well to beat them.

Our form line so far this season is pretty average - WB look hopeless atm and we were comprehensively outplayed by the Lions until the game was well and truly over.

This week will tell us quite a bit I think about where we stand amongst teams with finals aspirations. 

6 minutes ago, Sydee said:

They totally deserved to make the GF. 

Not only did they beat us they beat Collingwood who fell just short of the eventual premiers (yuck Geelong) 

They should be respected - they are a very strong team, very well coached and we will need to play very well to beat them.

Our form line so far this season is pretty average - WB look hopeless atm and we were comprehensively outplayed by the Lions until the game was well and truly over.

This week will tell us quite a bit I think about where we stand amongst teams with finals aspirations. 

I don't really agree on our form line, we smacked the Saints and Tigers around, both are looking like top 8 sides. we smashed the dogs and likely caused the confidence issues. and there are reasons for our flat performance against the Lions that won't be made public i'd suspect. 

In terms of the Swans i'd say their grand final performance was a bit of a reflection of how close they were to winning it and i reckon even with all the issues we had, we would have given the Cats more of a shake on Grand final day 

As odd as this may sound, Max being out could be a blessing.

They have one player over 200m (Ladhams) available who has played any AFL games and then only 45.  A key tall fwd, Reid is also out.  Hickey is out.

With Hickey and Reid out they have no player 195+ cm who has played more than 80 games.  So by necessity they will go in relatively 'short'. 

Without Max we still have an abundance of tall players.  Surely their lack of experienced talls is something we can exploit around the ground.  Grundy will take care of Ladhams in the ruck.

Feeling a bit more optimistic🙃

Edited March 27, 20232 yr by Lucifers Hero

4 minutes ago, Dwight Schrute said:

I don't really agree on our form line, we smacked the Saints and Tigers around, both are looking like top 8 sides. we smashed the dogs and likely caused the confidence issues. and there are reasons for our flat performance against the Lions that won't be made public i'd suspect. 

In terms of the Swans i'd say their grand final performance was a bit of a reflection of how close they were to winning it and i reckon even with all the issues we had, we would have given the Cats more of a shake on Grand final day 

Oh please - two pre-season training runs you can't take much out of those.

The real stuff is Rounds 1 & 2. Yes, we beat up on the WB's but something is NQR there atm and the less said about last week the better. I don't know what the excuses are that you have eluded for the Brisbane game but hope there is some reason for pretty poor effort. We were lucky the lights went out and we got to pick off some easy goals in the last 12 minutes to avoid percentage damage. The Lions had no real motivation to play out the game it was well and truly over by then.

Their confidence is warranted. They've beaten us in 17 out of the past 20 encounters. Our record against them is the worst of any team and frankly it's embarrassing. We are absolutely their bunnies and I expect this weekend to be no different unfortunately.

We love to beat them and get the monkey off our back. They have a mental hold over us and we need to break it.

28 minutes ago, Dwight Schrute said:

There are reasons for our flat performance against the Lions that won't be made public i'd suspect. 

When I look at the odds for the Swans game after we played so poorly, I did think there was a chance a stomach bug or something energy sapping went through the team the day of or day before, and the bookies got wind of this. I have zero evidence to support this, other than the incredibly unusual lack of effort/strength at contests across the ground. Which is also evidence of many other explanations, including just playing poorly 🙃

Edited March 27, 20232 yr by Stu

21 minutes ago, Sydee said:

Oh please - two pre-season training runs you can't take much out of those.

The real stuff is Rounds 1 & 2. Yes, we beat up on the WB's but something is NQR there atm and the less said about last week the better. I don't know what the excuses are that you have eluded for the Brisbane game but hope there is some reason for pretty poor effort. We were lucky the lights went out and we got to pick off some easy goals in the last 12 minutes to avoid percentage damage. The Lions had no real motivation to play out the game it was well and truly over by then.

I guess we will have to wait and see what happens this weekend. for the record i'm predicting a pretty strong message being sent to the rest of the comp when we beat them without Max. but it's going to be an arm wrestle and a battle of probably the best 2 way midfields in my opinion. 

4 hours ago, Lucifers Hero said:

From Bigfooty.

They don't think much of the Dees and their thread title 'Roasting Demons' sums it up.

• They should be concerned about the work rate intensity and efficiency of our midfield group.
• the AFL paid Paul Roos to instill some Bloods culture. It's got them to a Flag but they still seem relatively easy to rattle and too rigid in structure, won't be able to deal with the True Bloods chaos and multi-faceted attack.
• First hands on the ball in the centre.  Make lever accountable.
• Melbourne are rubbish
• Melbourne are the Los Del Rio of the AFL
• Can someone tell me which week Melbourne won the clearances this year or contested possession.  They lost both in the 2 games I saw, so not sure why we would s**t ourselves about it
• Rowbottom has been very off at the beginning of the season. Imo, he's one of our most important players vs Melbourne
• Pretty confident going into the game without Gawn. He killed us in last year's regular season game.
  • …He played the best game i have ever seen a ruck play but guess what it still wasnt enough for them.
• May will be close to goal. If we play Buddy on the arcs, May will be inconsequential.
  • …Well I hope so, but I thought Buddy was running all over the ground last time and May was hugging him the whole time. That 50 metre penalty May gave to Buddy for example was in the center square.
  • …Franklin got into May head last time and effected his game allowed others to hit the scoreboard.
• Well yeah, so we beat their full strength team twice with and without Buddy last year, so I'm actually extremely confident going into this week (Demon lurkers, sorry if I forgot some random jerk who was left out of your team. I just meant generally speaking).
• Wonder if the players will be a bit nervous returning to the MCG after the GF shellacking. Good to get it out of the way early in the season.
• Really excited for this week's game. As we did last year, think we match up really against them and i'm backing Ladhams in to hold his own.
• The two best sides at scoring from defensive 50 will be going at it this week. Somewhat takes away our advantage we usually have over most teams, and further increases the need for the midfield to start generating more scoring opportunities themselves.
• Grand final week we were shuffling deck chairs regarding Amartey, McDonald and McLean, who would be less useless
• As a casual F1 viewer in Melb, why does this match have to be scheduled at the same time as the race?!? :triumph:

My Favourite:

Noting witty or insightful enough to capture my interest.

 

Wood love us to win this just to shut up their fans and to get the monkey off our back.  Not confident.

Seems almost overly confident yet some bells ring in anticipation of the game. No Gawn, no Kozzie, no Salem, returning May, weakened TMac, several 'outs' at troop level, all adds up to a need for the Dees to excel themselves across 4 quarters, and apply field-wide close checking - and pace.

45 minutes ago, Dwight Schrute said:

and there are reasons for our flat performance against the Lions that won't be made public i'd suspect. 

You usually have good mail so this is somewhat comforting (so long as it's not a lingering issue).

I know there are a lot of (non-covid related) illness going around at the moment including respiratory and gastro.

1 hour ago, Lucifers Hero said:

As odd as this may sound, Max being out could be a blessing.

They have one player over 200m (Ladhams) available who has played any AFL games and then only 45.  A key tall fwd, Reid is also out.  Hickey is out.

With Hickey and Reid out they have no player 195+ cm who has played more than 80 games.  So by necessity they will go in relatively 'short'. 

Without Max we still have an abundance of tall players.  Surely their lack of experienced talls is something we can exploit around the ground.  Grundy will take care of Ladhams in the ruck.

Feeling a bit more optimistic🙃

Reid and Hickey out is great for us. Both of them killed us last time. I'm worried about their smalls more than anything. 

Edited March 28, 20232 yr by At the break of Gawn

Yes they have a right to be confident, but their comments are arrogant rather than confident. Their melbourne based South Melbourne supporters in the AFL reserve are some of the most foul-mouthed angry ferals going around. 

Im not confident, but hope we give them a bloody tough match.

hard to disagree with any of that

they're very, very good