3 hours ago, rpfc said:

Hard to read and hard to win. 

We may be 5-4 with increased pressure on Goodwin and some maligned players (injured or not) - the pressure to become insular and protective of our backline will be strong and revert to our inert and boring 22-23 style.

We have to put up the losses and be confident that we are on the right path.

Even if it’s for the sake of 2025.

I completely agree.

58 minutes ago, old55 said:

Ironically Frosty is pretty close to best KPD in both categories.

Fascinating. I reckon, despite the rumour that he was deemed uncoachable at the Dees, Mitchell has coached/threatened him to only dispose on highest percentage options. Noticed this timidity in our recent game. There’s the other side of Frosty tho, and that’s the not so great play reading and positioning. Not a natural footballer at all, but may have made the best of himself. Kudos due. 

There's a lot of interesting takes on here from a lot of different views.

For mine, it was a pretty poor game from us and there were a lot of worrying signs, particularly a few individual performances and the number of turnovers.  I know we aren't a great kicking team, but jeez some of it was really bad.

My second biggest concern is our midfield.  Petracca and Viney were well off for mine, and while Clarrie was better, we need much more from those 3 (particularly in the next 2 weeks).

Petty is obviously struggling with form and I wonder if that foot injury is still playing up.  There's no place for him in our backline so giving him a run at Casey makes sense, as long as we have someone that can replace him.

Woewoeden also looked badly out of place, but again, who can replace him? He should get better from more time at AFL level, but that's a big "should".  We do have a young side, how many can we afford to carry / provide experience to each week?

On the positive side, we are playing in a new way at the moment and having players like Disco turn up and thrive is really exciting.  Having a forward line with young and agile talls is certainly something new !

 

I have rewatched the second half a couple of times to try and get a handle on our performance, first half was woefully poor, Helter skelter kick and run get the ball forward at all cost turn the ball over and Tiges did the same thing, so hard to watch. Thank god for our backline young and older our style of play put them under so much pressure. Second half we moved the ball smarter and ground down the Tiges backline, we started to break even in the midfield and our forwards got on top. Fritta, Kozzie, Disco, the Duke and then Bill all showed some real class. Max, Rick, Steven, Riv, Blake Howes, Judd McVee, Alex and Ed Langdon all played four good quarters of football and Tracc, Jack, Sparrow and Clayton had better second halves. One thing that really stood out was Disco’s game, he has put his hand up for our vacant third tall role. I can see why our Casey followers are so excited by his endeavour, marking, kicking and footy smarts, stay healthy Daniel “Disco” Turner you offer a point of difference. Not sure about Harrison Petty should he swap with TMac so he can get some confidence back, Chin needs to find the ball more, JVR needs to hold his marks and Woey needs more game time. Next two weeks will be illuminating.!!

14 hours ago, Binmans PA said:

Again, look at @binman's post. They failed to score a single goal from stoppage.

You're just inventing a different game inside your own head. It's very odd behaviour.

You too, dazzle. You can like old Reemer's post all day, but your viewpoint is detached from reality.

At what point did I say anything about them scoring from stoppages? 
 

The point I made was that we were smashed in them. Luckily for us our defence is out one wood. Against better sides, we can’t afford to be belted so hard at the stoppages. 

3 hours ago, leave it to deever said:

I take on Binman' s stats about the quality of centre clearances. 

The ccs weren't the issue for me. I thought the midfield problem was generally their lack of impact in general play. Often when they did get the ball ( and statistically they were all down on disposals) it was the errant disposal. If it wasn't for our backline it could have been a very different story.

I could agree more. I’m pretty sure I also said we could hit the side of a barn by foot? 
 

Which is what’s making me nervous going forward.

27 minutes ago, DeeZone said:

I have rewatched the second half a couple of times to try and get a handle on our performance, first half was woefully poor, Helter skelter kick and run get the ball forward at all cost turn the ball over and Tiges did the same thing, so hard to watch. Thank god for our backline young and older our style of play put them under so much pressure. Second half we moved the ball smarter and ground down the Tiges backline, we started to break even in the midfield and our forwards got on top. Fritta, Kozzie, Disco, the Duke and then Bill all showed some real class. Max, Rick, Steven, Riv, Blake Howes, Judd McVee, Alex and Ed Langdon all played four good quarters of football and Tracc, Jack, Sparrow and Clayton had better second halves. One thing that really stood out was Disco’s game, he has put his hand up for our vacant third tall role. I can see why our Casey followers are so excited by his endeavour, marking, kicking and footy smarts, stay healthy Daniel “Disco” Turner you offer a point of difference. Not sure about Harrison Petty should he swap with TMac so he can get some confidence back, Chin needs to find the ball more, JVR needs to hold his marks and Woey needs more game time. Next two weeks will be illuminating.!!

Great analysis DZ.

As for Tmac, I think he's been a revelation down back again and stays. He butchered it a few times v the tigers but almost who didn't. Petty to Casey.

Edited April 26, 20241 yr by leave it to deever

29 minutes ago, Doug Reemer said:

The point I made was that we were smashed in them. Luckily for us our defence is out one wood. Against better sides, we can’t afford to be belted so hard at the stoppages. 

Against the Tigers, we won clearances 32-25, stoppage clearances 24-15 and contested possessions 136-119. In what way were we "smashed"?

On 25/04/2024 at 09:06, mpc said:

On the 7plus app all the post match interviews are there. 

Edit: link without app https://7plus.com.au/melbourne?video-id=AFME-D0O9W-J75FP&autoplay=true

Thanks for the link.

Obviously Clayton likes doing public speaking as much as I do.  Having said that, I thought he did really well and the interviewers looked after him.  All good.

Footy wise I like it how it appears that our backs excepted, we are very much work in progress.  So long as we notch up enough wins to end up in the top four by season end, job done.

Makes it more difficult for other sides to work out what our game plan will be and to prepare to counter it.

Come finals is when I hope that we are injury free and firing on all cylinders.  🤞

 

18 hours ago, Nascent said:

Does anyone get gut-punched more than Oliver? For a bloke that has great sportsmanship on the ground he gets some rough treatment off the ball.

Open hand. Closed hand. Who cares - the AFL needs to get real and start suspending players for those pathetic acts. It is beyond unsporting. Is that really how the AFL want the game to be seen? 

And I completely concur - clarry is super fair and multiple times this year has displayed care and concern for opposition players.

Compare that swill Wednesday night to the Pies/Bombers game yesterday.

Chalk and cheese, even disregarding the scoreboard.

I suspect we will get smashed in the next two weeks.

Edited April 26, 20241 yr by Deepfreeze

13 hours ago, Gawndy the Great said:

.Our dna is contested footy. Our list is built on this. Whilst I said what i said, I highly doubt our contested, forward half game is just being tossed out. That’s the recipe to win finals.
 

Our ball movement and scoring were the areas of concern in past years and moving it faster from back half intercepts is a great source of turnover potential. Also gives our forwards a chance as the old bomb it in and hope for the best doesn’t work. 
 

Clearances and stoppage dominance may not be the honeypot we want but it does give you territory, which is a key part of our dna.
 

I agree with most of this. It's precisely why I don't need to see us out in front of the competition in CP/clearance-related stats. I do, though, think the balance is out a bit and we're conceding too much territory. 

6 hours ago, binman said:

That surprises me TU.

I had you pegged as a bit more realistic.

But perhaps I've misunderstood your scaling parameter, and it isn't subjective to objective.

By the by tmac is an excellent field kick.

Which is why he I'd going at 81.8% by foot this year.

By way of contrast salo is at 70.6%

But salo takes on harder kicks I hear you say.

Fair point, though there is still a 11.2% gap between the two.

I'll defer to the stats, although I prefer @old55's use of turnovers as opposed to DE.

I think TMac's role with ball in hand this year has been modest but as we continue to cover for Salem and Bowey's absences he's going to be part of transition more and if that's the case, I'd be quietly confident his DE stat will drop and his turnover rate will rise. 

15 hours ago, spirit of norm smith said:

 

Goodwin - laughing at mistakes. That’s ridiculous.  Imagine the great RDB laughing. The coach must demand the highest standards. 

Apparently the coach and the team laughed at the mistakes at half time. After half time we were much better. 
 

Why criticise the coaching technique?

3 minutes ago, Deepfreeze said:

Compare that swill Wednesday night to the Pies/Bombers game yesterday.

Chalk and cheese, even disregarding the scoreboard.

I suspect we will get smashed in the next two weeks.

As others have mentioned, the next two games will be the ideal measurement for where this club is at. I believe we have reason to be concerned. The game pies v dons looked like a different league. But if there's one thing that has changed about our club in the last few years is their never say die attitude. Maybe we will come roaring back.

And if by chance we win the next two, I think we will definitely be top four and a certain flag favorite again.

6 hours ago, binman said:

That surprises me TU.

I had you pegged as a bit more realistic.

But perhaps I've misunderstood your scaling parameter, and it isn't subjective to objective.

By the by tmac is an excellent field kick.

Which is why he I'd going at 81.8% by foot this year.

By way of contrast salo is at 70.6%

But salo takes on harder kicks I hear you say.

Fair point, though there is still a 11.2% gap between the two.

@titan_uranus @binman

Gents, good context below....

AFL AVERAGE DISPOSAL EFFICIENCY IS

73.1%

67.3% for kicks

81.8% for handballs

15 minutes ago, Ollie fan said:

Apparently the coach and the team laughed at the mistakes at half time. After half time we were much better. 
 

Why criticise the coaching technique?

C'mon now Ollie
 

AFL is [censored] serious sport - it's life and death, it's existential, it's the answer to the question in The Hitchhikers Guide .

Don't you recall the footage of Jack Watts daring to laugh, watching his team get slaughtered...  I lost faith in humanity that day, and wrote a letter to the whomever the president was at the time as I was incredulous that employee of the MFC could behave in such a way, exposing the anemic culture of the club - and rightfully should be traded because he wasn't in full view doing his best version of this...

Edited April 26, 20241 yr by Engorged Onion

5 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

the answer to the question in The Hitchhikers Guide .

The answer was 42 of course, which is why Disco Turner was our answer on ANZAC Eve.

Apparently some Demon fans think that Turner should henceforth be nicknamed "Plugger".

3 hours ago, Doug Reemer said:

At what point did I say anything about them scoring from stoppages? 
 

The point I made was that we were smashed in them. Luckily for us our defence is out one wood. Against better sides, we can’t afford to be belted so hard at the stoppages. 

Again, how were we smashed in stoppages? We won overall stoppages! We lost centre clearance by -2 and won around the ground by +9.

I can't take you seriously if you're just going to write twaddle.

2 hours ago, Demonstone said:

The answer was 42 of course, which is why Disco Turner was our answer on ANZAC Eve.

Apparently some Demon fans think that Turner should henceforth be nicknamed "Plugger".

plugger is plugger mac, always and forever for me and some friends - he earned the nickname cos his set shot kicking action for goal is eerily like lockett and he can 'plug' a gap anywhere he plays

disco is a great nickname for turner, but perhaps zaphod could work...

 

@Demonland would you please edit this as I can't embed the Tweet on my phone?

Found this interesting as we are 15th for winning clearance, but the Giants are even worse - 17th. One of the replies is instructive that identifies post clearance possession or intercept posession as more important. We are #1 defending against clearance.

13 minutes ago, Clintosaurus said:

 

@Demonland would you please edit this as I can't embed the Tweet on my phone?

Found this interesting as we are 15th for winning clearance, but the Giants are even worse - 17th. One of the replies is instructive that identifies post clearance possession or intercept posession as more important. We are #1 defending against clearance.

This probably belongs in the Stats File thread, but great find.

Not only are we 1 at defending clearance, we're 2 at attacking from clearance. So, whilst our raw clearance winning numbers are down, we make the most of them without being punished the other way.

We're not being outscored in the stoppage game whilst having spent the first 7 weeks of the year working hard on our turnover game (which needs more work, given we're still only 11th for scoring from intercept which puts us behind all of the better sides in it and, weirdly enough, also behind North and Hawthorn).

4 hours ago, Ollie fan said:

Apparently the coach and the team laughed at the mistakes at half time. After half time we were much better.

Laughter is the morale booster here. A number of those interviewed post game May, Gawn and Petracca referred to the first half as being well below par. The tension relieved, the team returned and lifted the standard of play. Goody’s message about valuing the ball and it’s use obviously resonated.

Simon Goodwin’s post match media conference is worth a watch. He communicates with humor, warmth and Joie de Vivre.

Edited April 26, 20241 yr by Tarax Club

6 hours ago, Deepfreeze said:

Compare that swill Wednesday night to the Pies/Bombers game yesterday.

Chalk and cheese, even disregarding the scoreboard.

I suspect we will get smashed in the next two weeks.

Sorry, but I think you need thawing out.

Speaking to my son just before, he told me that a close mate of his who happens to be an assistant coach at Richmond informed him that Richmonds sole purpose on Wednesday night was to close Melbourne down and prevent them from scoring, no intention from them to win the game as they were aware that was not possible.

10 minutes ago, drysdale demon said:

Sorry, but I think you need thawing out.

Oooohhhh, that’s cold dd