The Demonland Podcast will air LIVE on Monday, 21st August @ 8:30pm. Join Binman & I as we analyse the Demons victory at the MCG over the Hawks.

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Do we rest key players and back ourselves to smash the pies in week 1 of the finals!?

3 minutes ago, DemonWA said:

Do we rest key players and back ourselves to smash the pies in week 1 of the finals!?

We will know on Saturday morning. If by any miracle Essendon win that game, there's a big chance of Brisbane finishing top of the ladder.

We seemed to strangle their chipping game in the last quarter. We didn't score too many ourselves (although we left a few out there). Presumably this bodes well for finals, especially against against Collingwood. Is that the kins of Melbourne game we can expect in the finals?

Interesting game, hawks came with a plan that was working, but after half time we made a plan for their plan and strangled their ball movement.

Good win with our stars having quiet games.

I watched T-Mac in the VFL today and think we need to have him in.  we cant have Petracca, Sparrow and Melksham taking ruck contests in our forward line.  T-mac played very well, lead up and presented, kicked 3 and took a few marks. Played the exact game we need from him at AFL.  Does he come in?

The only issue we have is when Fritta comes back we can't have T-Mac, Fritta, Melksham and smith in the same team 

Did Binman predict the future again with the use of tempo footy in the 3rd quarter? The Hawks were going hard and it seemed like we really wanted to take the sting out and make them do some running without the ball.

Thought Lever had a terrific game yesterday. Was marking everything and took a fantastic one on one mark when the game was in the balance that really kick started us. More of this please. 

Whilst Tommo didn’t have the best of games do you think Lever’s great game may have had something to do with playing 3 talls down back? 

There will be a lot of talk about the make up of the forward line going into finals but would love to get your thoughts on the make up of the back 6/7 in particular whether we play 3 talls. 

Loving the Podcast. Keep up the great work. 

I was a bit skeptical when Laurie was picked over Spargo but I thought he did a few really nice things and took his chances and had a hand in a couple of goals. Happy for him to get another look in before finals. 

Goodwin seemed to do a great job of finding solutions to Mitchell’s tactics. The short kick game was nullified by going one-on-one, and when the Hawks tried to run and carry we went back to our standard defensive formations. When they went back to short kicks in the third and fourth, we went man on man again. It showed great flexibility to change up the game plan and something we didn’t see last year.
 

Particularly pleasing was how well the team ran out the game in the last quarter. Lots of smothers and tackles in the F50 even after the result was sealed. 

I have long been an anti Melksham person, but i think he is crucial now and has to be part of our team going forward even with Fritta coming back,  What's the panels thoughts?

Thought we got done early, but showed great maturity to adjust to all of the in-game efforts of the Hawks.  Sydney will come at us hard, with a lot of emotion in the game for them.  Goodwin talks of the finals as a ‘new season’ - will we use the Sydney game to run time into returning forwards or play ‘as is’ to win?

Have we missed the 'Try T-mac to see how it goes' boat? I know Travy said earlier he was decent in the VFL but I feel that every selection from here on in won't have room for experiments.

Wondering what the panel thought about the selection of Schache and then the use of him as the Sub. I would have thought it would have been a good opportunity to get a good look at him for a full game on the eve of finals. From what little we got to see it's a "no" from me but I guess the footy department knew what they were doing.

one of my favourite players is young Jakey Bowey but I can’t help think he’s a little bit down on form and confidence in the past few weeks . his usually a great disposer of the ball but has been panicky and turned the ball over a few times which is very uncharacteristic of him . one such instance was at the beginning of the last when his handball missed the mark resulting in the Hawks first goal just seconds into the quarter bringing them back to within 2 goals . in the 3rd he showed indecision and a complete lack awareness resulting in getting tackled and pinged resulting in another score for the Hawks .

by no means am I calling for him to be dropped , rested or replaced but something is NQR .

Love the poddie . Thank you to you wonderful people for providing a respite for us Dees fans from the bleating sheep in the mainstream media .  

An absolutely outstanding game from Melksham, he completely nullified Sicily who was even run on the ball to try and get him into the play. Having seen this, and with Fritsch coming back in, can Jake still effectively play that defensive forward role on the oppositions tall interceptor? 

Having seen Smith (forward and back) & Tomlinson back it seems Smith is the better option overall of the two. Tomlinson out, Smith back and Fritsch in seems and easy change. Does that leave us too short/small in the forwardline? Or is that speed and agility potentially an advantage? 

There's a thread on Demonland discussing whether Kozzy stands up in big games on the MCG.

From Demonland Poster Skuit's post on the subject he says "I understand goals aren’t the only metric, and know forward-pocket is one of the hardest positions to play. Some of the statistics are actually quite damning though. An admittedly small sample size (and my stats may be dodgy here and there), but: 

Pickett has kicked three goals or more 16 times in his 81-game AFL career. Only four of those bags occurred at the MCG, two of them back-to-back in a hot streak in 2022. Pickett has kicked four or more goals four times in his career: three of those occasions being in Alice, the ACT and Tasmania.

Pickett’s average, including his first season, is somewhere around the 1.5 goals per/game mark. Meanwhile, against the three biggest clubs in the country who we have key match-ups with – Collingwood, Richmond and Essendon – Pickett has kicked a grand total of nine goals from 13 games.

I don't think he has ever kicked more than two when the crowd reached the 70,000-mark First question is, is there an issue, or just a statistical anomaly based on a small sample? Second question: if there is an issue, what can we do to fix it? And third: is there something about the MCG which delimits Kozzie’s input perhaps?"

So that was Skuit's post and my question is very similar to Skuits. I absolutely adore Kozzy. He can be exciting and electric and is a huge draw for the club in terms of marketing but his consistency is a big drawback in his game. He goes missing in matches and just plonking him into the middle at the start of quarters as a shock troop only provides a momentary spark. His greatest strength is his speed and agility which make him an ideal candidate for more midfield minutes with his excellent ability to evade opposition and use his skill to break through defences and create scoring opportunities.

Edited August 21, 20231 yr by Redjacket

Here are my 5 questions for the Demonland podcast later this evening.

1) We still seem to be tinkering with our forward line. Seeing as he played well at VFL level, kicking 3 goals, should we bring in Tom McDonald against the Swans? Where do we find room for Bayley Fritsch?

2) What does the future hold regarding our Brodie Grundy conundrum? Will he get a chance to play in the finals? I think we will need him against any team that plays 2 ruckmen.

3) Thoughts on Bailey Laurie's game against the Hawks? I thought he did a few positive things. A couple of good kicks as well as a great tackle in the centre of the ground.

4) I thought Joel Smith had an excellent game yesterday. He is the ultimate swing-man playing up forward and in defence. Where do you think his preferred position is? I think he is an ideal forward pocket.

5) Who gets dropped this week against the Swans? Kozzie Pickett was poor but I have faith he will bounce back this week. Adam Tomlinson is as slow as treacle but he allows Jake Lever and Steven May to play with more freedom when we have 3 key tall defenders. But would it be better bringing in Michael Hibberd to play on the Swans dangerous small to medium forwards?

Just how lucky are we to have Jake Lever at the Melbourne Football Club?

His clutch one on one contest wins and strong on field leadership were crucial in his great game against the Hawks:

- 19 disposals 

- 13 marks

- 10 intercepts 

- 3 score involvements 

- 6 pressure acts 

- 322m gained 

I’ve been critical in the past of Goody not employing a tagger to negate some of the star midfielders that cause us headaches and found his comments about Finn Maginness to be very odd. He claimed that Finn is “clearly someone who doesn’t want the ball”. 

Is Goody not aware of the tagging role in footy?

I have no issue with Finn Maginnes being used as a tagger. He did a great job in curtailing one of the best accumulators in the business and keeping him to 14 touches for the match. 

Thoughts from the panel? Keep up the great work guys. Love what you do. 

Edited August 21, 20231 yr by Deeminion

Really looking forward to the Pod, as always guys.  
Please solve the following dilemmas so that I can sleep easy tonight:

 * Tommo found himself in ‘no man’s land’ far too often vs the Hawks, and is ‘treacle slow’.  I really worry about how he will hold up in September!  On the other hand, he seems pivotal to freeing up Rick Lever, to play his intercept role to perfection, as he did on the weekend.  Is playing Tommo a compromise that we will just have to ‘wear’, because he is our best available option?  

*  TMac played a solid game for Casey on the weekend, in only his second game back from an extended injury break.  Fritta seems likely to return for the Sydney game, and is an automatic selection, when right.  Melks has been excellent as both a defensive and goal kicking forward in Fritta’s absence.  Joel Smith adds something ‘different’ to our forward line, with his pace and attack in the ball.  Given that the Sydney game is our only ‘dress rehearsal’ before the Finals, who plays and who misses out next weekend?  I don’t think we can play all of them together in finals.

Binman really appreciate the shoutout you gave Nibbler the other week on the podcast for his 150th game. He is one of my favourites. Never understood why he is maligned by many fans. He plays a crucial role in the team and I'm glad you are doing your best to relay that to Demons fans who only look at kicks and goals on the stats sheet. However ...... how does a player not make the distance from 40 to 45 out from goal. We can't afford that in finals.

Shoutout to one of my new favourite players this season Trent Rivers. He has taken his game to another level this season and will make a real impact with his run and booming kicks out of defence.

Hi Guys,

Firstly love the podcast, my favourtie part of the week! Appreciate all the effort that goes into it for us to enjoy.

More of a comment rather than a question however when do you think Goody will get the credit he deserves both within the MFC communtiy and externally for being one of the better coaches in the AFL? Third year in a row we've locked in a top 4 finish (no other current coach has done this), he's built a defensive game plan that teams still struggle to penetrate and has a relationship with the players that sees us lose few and also enables us to be a destination club. I also havent even mentioned the drought breaking premiership.

On the weekend he altered a gameplan to nullify and clog up the hawks switching gameplan, which mean they just kept kicking it to May, Lever and Rivers. Yet, i'm sure everyone will keep talking about how much of a maestro  Mitchell is. 

Yes, we have an amazing list but dont underestimate how integral Goodwin and the coaching staff are to us going all the way this year. Thankfully i have complete confidence in them.

Keen to get your thoughts?

Go dees!

EverDee

 

 

Question - why do we start so poorly lately? In the first quarter they switched the ball defensively with little bother from us to stand theirplayers. We were just spectating and they came to play. didnt the North game show us anything? We fixed this up mainly in the second half but why arent we covering the crosses earlier. Kozze was meandering around and they just played chines checkers with our forwards with ease and ran the ball up the ground. fely like under 12s stuff.. Thank god for ANB as he always is alert for this. 

Hello to the panel and congratulations on the consistently excellent podcast you give us each week. I have been looking at our efficiency in front of goal and the stats show we are pretty average. From 61 entries, we scored 13 goals on Sunday or 21 per cent of the time. The Hawks achieved 23 per cent. In the game against Carlton and North, we were equal with the opposition at 17 per cent and 22 per cent respectively. Like the Hawks, the Tigers were more efficient than us - 33per cent versus our 27 per cent. The last time we were better than the opposition was in the Adelaide game - 27 to their 24 per cent efficiency. I'm not sure what to make of this except to draw the obvious conclusion - if we have more entries we can afford to be less efficient and still win. And, of course, if Melk had bagged those two set shots in the first half, our efficiency on the weekend would have jumped over Hawthorn to 25 per cent.  Keep up the good work, chaps. Go Dees! 🔵🔴🔵