The Demonland Podcast will air LIVE on Tuesday, 12th March @ 8:30pm. Join George, Binman & I as we analyse the loss to Sydney in the Opening Round of the season.

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Love your work boys. I wouldn’t have the stomach to turn the microphone on after that performance. I’m jumping in my DeLorean and travelling back to 2021….

Temperature, humidity, skill, fitness, personnel, injuries or gameplay? 

What is the problem? Feel like Sydney beat us handily at our own game. 

Hoping for a better showing next week before the MFCSS kicks in. 

I’m not sure who the resident ruck expert is on the podcast.  Grundy seemed to use a new and unusual tactic against Gawn in the centre ruck taps.  
 

The tactic was to take all the space away by almost running to initiate contact immediately.  I wonder if this was to negate the new stiff arm rule, so max couldn’t push out and hold him away?  Presumably other rucks will watch this, how can Max negate this tactic in the future?

One perhaps for Senor @binman:

It feels like is we’ve become pretty good at jumping teams early with contested possession and forward thrusts, but with the 5-10 mins of dominance yielding no scoreboard pressure. 

Is it possible to look at pressure rating for parts of a quarter - i.e first 5 mins - for the Sydney match and then our two pre-season matches?

Starting to feel we may well be better off reserving some gas early parts of a match and picking off the opposition  like they do us.

 

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, The Jackson FIX said:

One perhaps for Senor @binman:

It feels like is we’ve become pretty good at jumping teams early with contested possession and forward thrusts, but with the 5-10 mins of dominance yielding no scoreboard pressure. 

Is it possible to look at pressure rating for parts of a quarter - i.e first 5 mins - for the Sydney match and then our two pre-season matches?

Starting to feel we may well be better off reserving some gas early parts of a match and picking off the opposition  like they do us.

 

 

 

 

I think it’s more mental, we absolutely dominated the first 10 minutes and had nothing to show for it.

If we don’t put scoreboard pressure on we crumble

I have two question.

Mutiple teams have now had a clear strategy to physically target Max the whole game. 

This includes opposition rucks and talls smashing him at every ruck and marking contest.

And every player taking the opportunity to bump into him and block him when he is running contest to contest. 

First question. Is there a line there in terms of that strategy being OK, particularly the blocking. Is it in the spirit of the game (yes, I know it's a tough sport etc)?

On the latter, yes we got one off tge ball free when naxy was knocked to the ground. But there were heaps of other times he didn't.

Should we be agitating with the afl to protect Max.

And the second question is, yes Fullarton will help as he can give Max a a chop out, but what strategies can employ to mitigate the effectiveness of the oppo targeting Max?

6 minutes ago, binman said:

I have two question.

Mutiple teams have now had a clear strategy to physically target Max the whole game. 

This includes opposition rucks and talls smashing him at every ruck and marking contest.

And every player taking the opportunity to bump into him and block him when he is running contest to contest. 

First question. Is there a line there in terms of that strategy being OK, particularly the blocking. Is it in the spirit of the game (yes, I know it's a tough sport etc)?

On the latter, yes we got one off tge ball free when naxy was knocked to the ground. But there were heaps of other times he didn't.

Should we be agitating with the afl to protect Max.

And the second question is, yes Fullarton will help as he can give Max a a chop out, but what strategies can employ to mitigate the effectiveness of the oppo targeting Max?

For starters, use JVR he is much better than Schache.

1) Billings was match fit, played well in the practice matches, and was promoted as one of our three debutants by our media team. Yet come game time he's warming the bench as sub and we see an ineffective and underdone Spargo take the field following an injury lay-off. This follows a litany of perplexing selection decisions going back to late last year (dropping energetic Turner on eve of 2023 finals, Schace as sub, etc.). Was this the right call?

2) do we have any insight into what alterations/initiatives McQualter might be bringing - what changes to our game play have you seen that might reflect his input?  Could our generally atrocious kicking skills be counter-productive to changes we might be trying to implement?

It might be a nice idea to have the opening round in the northern states, but the reality of the ball slipping around like an ice cube made the game very ordinary.They were just more used to the conditions.
There were a few centre bounce infringements that were missed when Brodie stopped Max’s access to the ball. Geelong uses a similar system.
Perhaps we should have a preseason camp in Sunshine Coast to get used to the slippery ball. 

We never seem to play well in hot and humid conditions. We don’t seem to adapt to using a slippery footy and we had butterfingers all night. The Sydney players didn’t have the same issues. Time to get a hose and some soap out on the training track when playing in these conditions. 

1 minute ago, Bigfoot said:

We never seem to play well in hot and humid conditions. We don’t seem to adapt to using a slippery footy and we had butterfingers all night. The Sydney players didn’t have the same issues. Time to get a hose and some soap out on the training track when playing in these conditions. 

Ditto cold and rainy, see Port last season.

42 minutes ago, DiscoStu17 said:

It might be a nice idea to have the opening round in the northern states, but the reality of the ball slipping around like an ice cube made the game very ordinary.They were just more used to the conditions.
There were a few centre bounce infringements that were missed when Brodie stopped Max’s access to the ball. Geelong uses a similar system.
Perhaps we should have a preseason camp in Sunshine Coast to get used to the slippery ball. 

One of the swans players mentioned how they trained in those slippery conditions all preseason, so il give us an out there. Next week will be the real mfc24 no need to panic yet.

Games like last night, highlight our lack of ruck/forward backup.

Conditions probably suited JVR playing as a follower, in the Grundy mould, rather than Max being nullified all night but then we are robbing Peter, as they say.

From those who’ve watched, are we likely to get some relief from Fullarton being in the side?

 

 

 

Edited March 8, 20241 yr by BW511

Forward connection, for want of a better word, was virtually non existent except for a few nice passes to the leading Fritsch. Otherwise it was just long bomb and waste all those inside 50s. It’s certainly not panic stations but I am starting to panic. 

With Gus’ retirement and Salem’s change to the midfield how do you think we will cover the loss of Bowey if he is out for an extended period of time?

If you tried to call the voicemail and couldn't leave a message it should be working now.

One big positive was Howes’ debut. I thought he got more comfortable and confident as the game went on.

Thoughts on his debut?

8 hours ago, binman said:

I have two question.

Mutiple teams have now had a clear strategy to physically target Max the whole game. 

This includes opposition rucks and talls smashing him at every ruck and marking contest.

And every player taking the opportunity to bump into him and block him when he is running contest to contest. 

First question. Is there a line there in terms of that strategy being OK, particularly the blocking. Is it in the spirit of the game (yes, I know it's a tough sport etc)?

On the latter, yes we got one off tge ball free when naxy was knocked to the ground. But there were heaps of other times he didn't.

Should we be agitating with the afl to protect Max.

And the second question is, yes Fullarton will help as he can give Max a a chop out, but what strategies can employ to mitigate the effectiveness of the oppo targeting Max?

I think that the umps should be advised before the game that running into Max is not on - I know it’s not the 1980s but giving a free away by throwing one of these nuisance players into the ground is well worth it IMHO. 

I also believe Max could run more aggressively into position and look at potential assailants. They are looking for a cheap shot and do not want 110+kg to run through them. 

I thought our small forwards were very disappointing vs Sydney.  Kozzi will be back against the ‘dogs, but will (hopefully) be spending around 15% of his time around stoppages, where he adds an important point of difference.
IMO we definitely need another small crumbing forward, who can contribute on the scoreboard, and apply front half pressure.
-  do the panel agree?  
-  if so, who gets the gig? (have ‘Pup’ Brown or AMW earned an opportunity?)    
-  if so, who do they replace?

 

Edited March 8, 20241 yr by Deeoldfart
Typo

13 hours ago, BW511 said:

I think it’s more mental, we absolutely dominated the first 10 minutes and had nothing to show for it.

If we don’t put scoreboard pressure on we crumble

I think you missed my point. I’m not arguing whether it is mental or not, I am suggesting there might be a better game plan than playing all of our cards in the first 10 minutes if there is mourning evidence it doesn’t work for us

@binman Would also love a direct comparison of our midfield  setup/positions last night vs. finals in 2023 and also vs. that practice match against Carlton where it felt like Salem and Kossie ran through the guts more 

14 hours ago, binman said:

I have two question.

Mutiple teams have now had a clear strategy to physically target Max the whole game. 

This includes opposition rucks and talls smashing him at every ruck and marking contest.

And every player taking the opportunity to bump into him and block him when he is running contest to contest. 

First question. Is there a line there in terms of that strategy being OK, particularly the blocking. Is it in the spirit of the game (yes, I know it's a tough sport etc)?

On the latter, yes we got one off tge ball free when naxy was knocked to the ground. But there were heaps of other times he didn't.

Should we be agitating with the afl to protect Max.

And the second question is, yes Fullarton will help as he can give Max a a chop out, but what strategies can employ to mitigate the effectiveness of the oppo targeting Max?

"..Should we be agitating with the AFL to protect Max..."    Of course we should. Do we?  But my MFCSS says that they won't do anything.

Big questions re Spargo, Laurie, Chandler all being in the same team.  Kozzie's return will obviously exclude one of them, but is there room for more than one other.  Will the Kolt provide a better 'small forward' option, or even Sestan.

The other obvious one is a second tall in the forward line - JVR is the only target, for both our team and the opposition.  Will Fullerton provide that second option? Or Mac (though he played deep defence tonight at Casey I believe), or BBB? I really can't see Schache making the grade as he seems to have zero competitiveness.

Interesting to read that Jefferson at least started deep in defence for Casey tonight - I wonder if he stayed there all night, and is this just a part of his apprenticeship and "learnings"?  

How far away is Verrall?  Is he worth blooding early so that he will at least have had a taste should the worst case scenario of Max being injured occur?

Others have suggested training with a sprinkler and / or a soaped ball: this doesn't seem all that far fetched.  Has any team tried this?

Sure there are many other questions and I will look forward as always to your insightful podcast, and a bit of optimism after the dark clouds of the match day and post game thread.  Thanks guys.

Hey guys,

Love the podcast, the analysis and discussion is fantastic.

Others teams are physically targeting Max in and off the contest more and more. Teams are seeing it as a legitimate tactic to  nullify Max and therefore the team. We are particular vulnerable with out a consistent mature back up ruck 

How do we combat this ? Is it up to the coaching staff, the players , or is it up to Max him self to come up with some new tactics or attitude ? 
 

Edited March 9, 20241 yr by DemonJack 14

No doubt Josh Schache is a terrific young man and he has done very well to have a 10 year AFL career. I don’t want to bag one of our own, but until Josh can show that he can handle physical contact and eradicate the half hearted one handed marking attempts, he simply shouldn’t be picked. What has happened to team standards? What impact does continuing to select a player who isn’t AFL ready have on the rest of the playing list?  And what about the club’s obligation of look after Josh rather than continuing to expose him at AFL level?