On 16/06/2023 at 01:49, Redleg said:

That’s really nasty.

Agreed. I could give this a like coz ot makes me look really harsh. Ouch.

  On 15/06/2023 at 04:39, GOLORDIE said:

Hi Andy, I apologise, but 50 years of journalism has made me something of a pedant. There is no such road as the Princess Freeway. The road between Melbourne and Geelong (indeed, between Sydney and Adelaide, of which Melbourne to Geelong is but a portion) was, when the various existing roads were linked up in 1920, originally named the Prince's Highway in honor of the visit of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII the Abdicator). Subsequently the name was bastardised by the bureaucracy (NSW 1993, Vic 2010) to the Princes Highway (as if there were more than one prince involved) and, more recently, following upgrades, the Princes Freeway. Not a girlie in sight, I'm afraid. I see this as another slight on the important but humble apostrophe, which is succumbing to the old Death by 1000 Cuts. Hardly anyone knows how to use the apostrophe these days, which can't help when people are trying to make themselves understood in posts on Demonland. Wouldn't you agree?  GoDees!  

Well, this might help you with your apostrophe issues 

  On 16/06/2023 at 02:36, Mel Bourne said:

It seems I’m one of the few people here that doesn’t mind Dangerfield. Hope he recovers well. 

Me too, he’s a tough bugger & bloody courageous 

Dangerfield out obviously helps us. Win the contest battle and you beat Geelong. Their previously strong defense has dropped right off this year, currently ranked 15th. Put their backline under pressure with repeat entries and it’s game set match.

We’ll win next week. 

  On 16/06/2023 at 02:45, Go the Biff said:

I'm really interested in who McVee gets assigned to. 

Stengle is my guess

  On 16/06/2023 at 05:02, Lord Travis said:

Dangerfield out obviously helps us. Win the contest battle and you beat Geelong. Their previously strong defense has dropped right off this year, currently ranked 15th. Put their backline under pressure with repeat entries and it’s game set match.

We’ll win next week. 

Agreed. Dangerfield is so important to them. Is Guthrie excepted to miss again next week? That also helps. 

If May shuts down Cameron and without Dangerfield we should win. 

Big swing in the betting in 12 hours. Dees $2.24 into $1.82 Cats $172 out to $1.98.

  On 16/06/2023 at 03:19, FlashInThePan said:

We need to make the ground bigger to defend. They only had to clog up the left wing last year and we just kicked the ball high into their defensive press from the kick in. We need to use a combination of short kicks and then be unpredictable, take the 45 into the corridor or switch to the right hand wing to exit. This will force them to spread their zone and defend the whole ground.

We know how to enter our forward 50 against these guys, just lower our eyes and look for the short kick or go long but ensure we halve the contest. The latter approach can work fine as long as our defensive press comes in right behind the kick.

Someone has already mentioned a solution to the Max problem if we are going to go down the left wing but no amount of blocking is going to give us a mark or possession if 3/4 of their team is positioned between the middle of the ground and that left boundary line. They know exactly how that play is going to look, we have to force them to defend the whole ground.

Maybe we have Grundy down one wing and Max down the other on kick ins...?

 

Last year they had guys like Blix jump into Max and smash the ball fwd 10-15m. Our smalls were at Max's feet so the Cats swept it away fairly easily

Edited June 16, 20231 yr by jnrmac

  On 16/06/2023 at 05:16, jnrmac said:

Maybe we have Grundy down one wing and Max down the other on kick ins...?

If so they'll be in touching distance of each other at the sardine tin

Win on Thursday and top 2 is very close. Expect Port to lose a few from here on in.

 

  On 15/06/2023 at 22:30, FlashInThePan said:

I saw him cop one in ribs in a marking contest on half back. He could barely get up to take the kick. He played on but obviously in some distress.

Courtesy of a little red headed carrot, who is becoming quite the lad i think...

Geelong field arguably the worst midfield in the league. I don't see why this should be close other than they get to play with 4 extra players.  We'd have to be pretty horrendous at both ends of the ground to lose next week. 

Our last 10 games are 2 interstate top 8 teams at home, Saints, and 7 bottom 10 teams.  Pretty hard not to be thinking about September. 

 

 

  On 16/06/2023 at 05:36, Jjrogan said:

Geelong field arguably the worst midfield in the league. I don't see why this should be close other than they get to play with 4 extra players.  We'd have to be pretty horrendous at both ends of the ground to lose next week. 

Our last 10 games are 2 interstate top 8 teams at home, Saints, and 7 bottom 10 teams.  Pretty hard not to be thinking about September. 

 

 

we should win 9/10

was gonna say 10/10 but didn’t wanna be arrogant 

  On 12/06/2023 at 10:54, The heart beats true said:

How insane is it that Geelong have 75,000 members, Melbourne have 65,000, and they'll play at a stadium in front of 21,000 people next week? How the AFL signed off on this is ridiculous.

It's bad for the sport. All this garbage about growing the game and you have at least 30,000 people who can't get in to see 2 top 8 sides play each other.

I hope someone points it out to the media. It's an absolute own goal by the AFL. Move it to Marvel if you want, but move it. I struggle to think of another game where they are wilfully locking out so many people - Geelong fans included.

Rather than spending hundreds of millions of $'s to develop GMHBA stadium for one team the AFL and State Government should have built a new stadium with capacity for at least 70k supporters in the inner West. This would mean Geelong would play its home games there and with an extra game most weeks, compared to Marvel, the NCG tenants would not have to play home games at Marvel. It would also solve the issue of us playing vs Geelong at GMHBA every year not to mention allowing Marvel to be demolished and replaced with a stadium that faces the right way.

  On 15/06/2023 at 12:14, Demonland said:

Chris Scott’s 300th against the Dees. 

Hope it ends like Corey Enright 300th, if I recall correctly that was the game where Big Gawny announced himself 

  On 16/06/2023 at 05:07, Jaded No More said:

Agreed. Dangerfield is so important to them. Is Guthrie excepted to miss again next week? That also helps. 

If May shuts down Cameron and without Dangerfield we should win. 

I can't see May playing on Cameron.

May is not going to be chasing him up and down the ground at kitty litter stadium.

May will go to the big sook who usually stays close to goal.

I agree with Dee Spencer that it is Rivers or Hibbo or both at different times on Cameron.

Tommo will probably get Rohan and Lever will get Henry.

Salem and Judd will get Miers and Stengle.

Edited June 16, 20231 yr by Redleg

  On 16/06/2023 at 06:23, Pennant St Dee said:

Hope it ends like Corey Enright 300th, if I recall correctly that was the game where Big Gawny announced himself 

Yes, that wonderful day where the Channel 7 news ticker proclaimed Geelong winning to celebrate Corey's 300th game...just made it sweeter.

Does anyone have a good understanding of Port's defensive set up/structure? Does it vary?

I only tuned in briefly last night when Port was going full throttle in the third. It seemed coming out of Geelong's defence that Port were going 1 on 1 across the ground to nulify Geelong's ability to possess the ball easily, take the heat out of the game and wrestle back any sort of momentum/control.

Not saying we should do the same. God know we wouldn't ever switch out of our zone defensive set up. Was just an interesting tactic at that point of the game to put a stranglehold on the Cats.

  On 16/06/2023 at 05:36, Jjrogan said:

Geelong field arguably the worst midfield in the league. I don't see why this should be close other than they get to play with 4 extra players.  We'd have to be pretty horrendous at both ends of the ground to lose next week. 

 

 

Because GMHBA.

I don't know if it's the skinny wings, the lack of crowd support, the wind, the one hour drive or Geelong being extra motivated to beat Melbourne specifically, but all those combined factors simply result in a continual bad day at the office for us.

Even in 2021 we were pretty damn average in the middle two quarters before our memorable last quarter. 

With respect to travelling down there, we have been scheduled the most of VIC clubs since 2000 for a total of 19. (It's technically 20 as we were scheduled there in 2020 before COVID amended the fixture) 

North 18 and Dogs 15.

St Kilda, who ain't a financial powerhouse, have been scheduled just 11 games, and zero between 2005-2012 when they were a consistent finals team. A pity the same sort of courtesy hasn't been shown to us.

I hope Pert's had a word to the AFL about this.

Edited June 16, 20231 yr by Bring-Back-Powell

Edit...

Edited June 16, 20231 yr by Bring-Back-Powell
Sorry, was supposed to edit previous post

  On 16/06/2023 at 06:51, Redleg said:

I can't see May playing on Cameron.

May is not going to be chasing him up and down the ground at kitty litter stadium.

May will go to the big sook who usually stays close to goal.

I agree with Dee Spencer that it is Rivers or Hibbo or both at different times on Cameron.

Tommo will probably get Rohan and Lever will get Henry.

Salem and Judd will get Miers and Stengle.

You might be right but neither Hibbo or Rivers have the height for Cameron IMO. And I’m not sure Hibbo has the legs to go with him for 4 quarters without blowing a calf/ achilles again. 
 

I would put Lever on Rohan because he is the least defensive forward maybe of all time, which will allow Lever to intercept more freely. Doubt Scott would let that matchup happen tho. 

  On 15/06/2023 at 23:18, Dee Zephyr said:

I guess our bye is over, boys back today or tomorrow?

Today. Which means they didn’t even get four days of leisure and which is also why many of them flew out on Monday asap after the match. 

  On 16/06/2023 at 01:05, Demonland said:

 

I was shocked and genuinely fearful when he came back on. You could tell he was more than just a little sore. The location of the hit was obviously ribs and around the lung area. There have been several similar injuries in football and to take that risk was pure negligance from the medical staff IMO. I would hope the Melbourne medico's would act differntly in the same circumstances. 

  On 16/06/2023 at 07:38, Jaded No More said:

You might be right but neither Hibbo or Rivers have the height for Cameron IMO. And I’m not sure Hibbo has the legs to go with him for 4 quarters without blowing a calf/ achilles again. 
 

I would put Lever on Rohan because he is the least defensive forward maybe of all time, which will allow Lever to intercept more freely. Doubt Scott would let that matchup happen tho. 

May on Hawkins I reckon 

And could you start McVee on Cameron? Big ask I know but he could make Cameron more accountable too…especially as McVee seems to be pressing up outside D50 more in the last few weeks…?

Rivers/Hibberd on Close/Stengle?

salem/Tomlinson/lever to take care of Rohan and anybody else that plays forwards for the cats….

  On 16/06/2023 at 07:38, Jaded No More said:

You might be right but neither Hibbo or Rivers have the height for Cameron IMO.

Cameron is 196cm but was kept very quiet last night by the 189cm Miles Bergman, who obviously conceded height but was able to win the battle because his running capacity meant he could keep up with Cameron.

Hibbo is 187cm and Riv 188cm so (in theory) such matchups could work, possibly by rotating the pair.