Stevens Mays post match interview on Fox footy was quite enlightening.  He said when asked about the game plan in the first half that there was a strategy to take some uncontested marks and make them defend for longer to “take some energy out of their forwards”.

It definitely appears that our first half’s are geared towards tight contested footy, and then we unleash in the second half.

Are we simply grinding teams down?

why, in a game in which they'd already lost their #1 stoppage and clearance player, did geelong 'rest' parfitt?

Is there any explanation and or concern regarding our poor conversion in 2nd and 3rd quarters - 2 goals 12 behinds from plenty more inside 50s?

Was it a "one off" - a combined 5 goals 15 by half time and a goal free second quarter?  Maybe just mutual pressure?  *

IF Bowey is deemed ready who goes out for him?  I wonder if it would be Billings, maybe to sub, with  Woey moving to share wing duties.   Unused sub Laurie probably needs a full Casey game.

And how good was Windsor's chase down tackle - and his conversion.  He is having a far greater impact so early in his career than many could imagine or even dream of.

Finally Harrison Petty seems to have found his mojo - his contested marking was the difference in the end.

Looking forward, as always, to the insightful and positive analysis from you all.

*addendum: Just checked Wheloratings - second quarter had the lowest pressure ratings for both teams …. so can we deduce that the zero goal quarter was NOT due to pressure.   What other explanation?

Edited May 5, 20241 yr by monoccular
addendum

How good was the crowd last night! I was actually shocked when it showed it was only 52k on the scoreboard. I sit in the level 2 members area on the Shane Warne stand and have a view of the packed Olympic and MCC areas which may skew my perception a bit, but it felt like 65k with the noise. Especially when Fritta kicked that last goal, people were going nuts. It was also the first time in years I've high fived random people around me (last time was after Jonesy's goal in the 2018 elimination final against the Cats). The atmosphere was great and felt like a 90% Melbourne crowd.

As always, thanks for the podcast.

Was our game plan that we saw on Sat night adjusted for the Cats or was it an example of the new direction we are heading?

 

On 04/05/2024 at 13:42, Engorged Onion said:

The one he kicked after Harmes hit him lace out? 😅

Second to Allen Jakovich's over the head one for me... 👆

And there was TMac's over-the-head snap over in the West (R14, 2017)to win the game in the last minute. Max's after-the-siren sealer down at Taxpayer Park (last round, 2021). Neil Crompton's goal in the 1964 Grannie. 

Edited May 5, 20241 yr by Go Lordie

On 04/05/2024 at 14:31, layzie said:

I mentioned our I50 efficiency last week and this week it was good again at 51% with 27 shots from 52 I50 entries.

Why are people bemoaning our gameplan when we're getting more looks at goal per I50 than we've had in a long time?

Yep. 2 goals 7 behinds is a lot of looks at goal in one quarter...  Just sayin'.

9 hours ago, mpc said:

How good was the crowd last night! I was actually shocked when it showed it was only 52k on the scoreboard. I sit in the level 2 members area on the Shane Warne stand and have a view of the packed Olympic and MCC areas which may skew my perception a bit, but it felt like 65k with the noise. Especially when Fritta kicked that last goal, people were going nuts. It was also the first time in years I've high fived random people around me (last time was after Jonesy's goal in the 2018 elimination final against the Cats). The atmosphere was great and felt like a 90% Melbourne crowd.

As always, thanks for the podcast.

In 2a, I was thinking 55k

Markedly in our favour; understandably hard for cats’ fans to head up the highway on a Saturday evening 

On 04/05/2024 at 22:13, Demonland said:

The Demonland Podcast will air LIVE on Monday, 6th May @ 8:30pm. Join George, Binman & I as we analyse the Demons victory at the MCG over the Cats in the Round 08.

You questions and comments are a huge part of our podcast so please post anything you want to ask or say below and we'll give you a shout out on the show.

If you would like to leave us a voicemail please call 03 9016 3666 and don't worry no body answers so you don't have to talk to a human.

Listen & Chat LIVE: https://demonland.com/podcast

Call: 03 9016 3666

Skype: Demonland31

Possibly nothing to worry about this week fellas, I had a dream last night that we beat the Blues in a VERY close one.  That being said Matt Jefferson and Joel Smith were playing, so maybe it's not the most reliable indicator...

 

 

Good evening gents.

Just after your thoughts on D TURNERS 2 games so far, his first game was almost great( 3 goals cant be sneezed at)but your thoughts on Geelong game. I thought it was ok and worth more senior games at this point.   

This old Demon loves the podcast, may it never end.

I think we will leave the questions there. We should have enough content for the show. I will close the thread now and reopen it just before air time.

We're LIVE: https://demonland.com/podcast

 

 

For those of you who listen to SEN (yes my alias is FOG), I rang up Dwayne’s world (Sam Edmond) today and made light of the fact that if you estimate there were 45k Melbourne fans there on Saturday. Total crowd of 52k.

Thats 86% of our current membership base numbers, 54k at present.

The cats just don’t turn up to games away from Geelong, he played devils advocate and said they find it hard on school nights and prefer afternoon games and asked if I felt sorry for them, to which I replied “NO it’s a Saturday night! It’s prime time!”

Also another fun fact. Umpire #27 used to be a co-captain at the Northern Bullants in 2013 (aligned with Carlton) might explain a few non decisions.

 

 

Edited May 7, 20241 yr by Doug Reemer

I'm assuming this is the interview between Tom McDonald and Kane Cornes that @Terrance Langley was talking about on the Podcast.

 

Another fantastic Pod @Demonland, @george_on_the_outer and @binman.  Thank you!  I tuned in on a three hour (usually boring) drive that I’ve done many times, and I was enthralled for every minute.  Very enjoyable and extremely insightful!  Great work!

5 hours ago, Demonland said:

I'm assuming this is the interview between Tom McDonald and Kane Cornes that @Terrance Langley was talking about on the Podcast.

 

Fantastic interview with TMac.  Huge thanks to @Terrance Langley for bringing it to attention, and @Demonland for posting.

 

To help me decide whether to listen to this podcast, could someone please let me know the 'um' count ?

This is the clip about Defensive Porn that I mentioned on the podcast.

 

Great podcast.  I haven’t got all the way through, but was great to hear @binman acknowledge the lack of stoppages.  The second quarter was crazy with no stoppage for the first 15 mins or so, but even over the entire game there were only 33 stoppages compared to a normal games 50-60 and some games being up to 70 (65 in our final v Collingwood). There was a lot of high speed running (both teams over 45km which is huge).

As binman said Goody tactically outcoached Scott.  Beside the style out of our defensive 50 to make them run, but we also did not bomb it inside 50 and tried really hard to make sure we retained that inside 50 kick.  I’ve been waiting for us to do this forever so it was great to see and I hope we keep it up.  Makes for far less stoppages, and in my view helps us exploit a strength which is our running and fitness.  

Keep up the great podcasts.

 

i for one would listen to a daily two hour podcast

you can analyse other clubs, i wouldn't even mind

1 hour ago, Watson11 said:

 @binman we also did not bomb it inside 50 and tried really hard to make sure we retained that inside 50 kick.  I’ve been waiting for us to do this forever so it was great to see and I hope we keep it up.

 Makes for far less stoppages, and in my view helps us exploit a strength which is our running and fitness.  

 

I meant to highlight the strategy you note in the first para, but forgot.

It was such an unusual strategy for us under goody, and perhaps for that reason really stood out.

My thought was how effective it was in denying Stewart, and others, the opportunity to take intercept marks - which is a huge part of both how the cats defend and how they set up scoring chains from their back half.

I wonder if Stewart playing at half back was rhe cats way to try to get him to the game?

As i noted on the pod im convinced goody had a plan to run them ragged and exploit our fitness advantage. 

But I hadn't considered patiently kick it around the arc could be part of the strategy to reduce stoppages to expoit our fitness advantage.

Good call

On 07/05/2024 at 13:17, Doug Reemer said:

For those of you who listen to SEN (yes my alias is FOG), I rang up Dwayne’s world (Sam Edmond) today and made light of the fact that if you estimate there were 45k Melbourne fans there on Saturday. Total crowd of 52k.

Thats 86% of our current membership base numbers, 54k at present.

The cats just don’t turn up to games away from Geelong, he played devils advocate and said they find it hard on school nights and prefer afternoon games and asked if I felt sorry for them, to which I replied “NO it’s a Saturday night! It’s prime time!”

Also another fun fact. Umpire #27 used to be a co-captain at the Northern Bullants in 2013 (aligned with Carlton) might explain a few non decisions.

 

 

Membership numbers are at 61,000.

I thought there were at least 10 or 15k cats on the night.

 

I've just been travelling up from Townsville to Cairns via train - reflecting on albums by The Go Betweens, songs by Midnight Oil and Gangajang (see if you can get the reference)...

Anyway... why do we actually believe we a superior in our fitness, and why would Melbourne be in fitter than any other club (aside from injuries)... anyone want to explain it to me?*

 

*sometimes I like to ask questions I think I know the answer to, just for the conversation it provides.