The Demonland Podcast will air LIVE on Tuesday, 11th June @ 8:30pm. Join George, Binman & I as we analyse the Demons loss at the MCG against the Magpies in the Round 13 on Kings Birthday.

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I’ll  give it a miss unless @Binman promises not to spin this garbage positively. 

Can we beat North? 🤔

22 minutes ago, Phil C said:

Can we beat North? 🤔

Sorry, after the bye….

Thanks as always guys for a great podcast. I realise there's plenty of 2024 to play so there's always hope of regaining form, but right now it's hard to see how we get our mojo back this season.

There's no shortage of issues. From a disjointed game plan to a lack of midfield depth and the same old forward connection problems.  

Right now, I feel the fix has to come post season where we can recruit for needs, reset and reload. That means adding much needed depth and variety to our midfield to help our core of Petracca, Oliver and Viney.

It also means getting serious about recruiting competitive and reliable forward options to support JVR, not relying on part timers. 

Let's not waste time while we have generational talent like Gawn, May, Petracca, Oliver and Viney playing in the same team. The clock's ticking.

 

 

Edited June 10, 2024Jun 10 by Swooper Northey

Is Simon leaving? How soon? Thank you.

Edited June 10, 2024Jun 10 by ElDiablo14

Your thoughts on the players being nice and polite towards thug #4?

I would be fuming if I was Gus.

Keen to hear the analysis of the stats. 

Thought we went with more of a typical front half style of game but got burned out the back a bit. Just don't have the depth to cover lever and Trac being injured. 

Thank God God the bye

1 hour ago, Fanatique Demon said:

I’ll  give it a miss unless @Binman promises not to spin this garbage positively. 

Yeah it’s garbage.. lol

Not the players missing easy shots easy tackles etc it’s binmans positivity that you take umbrage at.. unreal 

28 minutes ago, Swooper Northey said:

Thanks as always guys for a great podcast. I realise there's plenty of 2024 to play so there's always hope of regaining form, but right now it's hard to see how we get our mojo back this season.

There's no shortage of issues. From a disjointed game plan to a lack of midfield depth and the same old forward connection problems that see us generate such poor returns when going inside 50.  

Right now, I feel the fix has to come post season where we can recruit for needs, reset and reload. That means adding much needed depth and variety to our midfield to help our core of Petracca, Oliver and Viney.

It also means getting serious about recruiting competitive and reliable forward options to support JVR, not relying on part timers. 

Let's not waste time while we have generational talent like Gawn, May, Petracca, Oliver and Viney playing in the same team. The clock's ticking.

 

 

This post at least feels like being solution focused for once! But it’s more than that — this is effort based, and that’s behind coaching or game plan. Recruiting will help, but we’ve gotta identify the cancer first 

Drop the out of form senior players.

Have a look at what we haven’t seen yet.

Time to have a look at AMW, Jefferson, Woewoden (not as a sub), Kynan Brown, Kolt and for godsake try a second ruck (Verrell).

Not all at once, but hold a few of these lame out of form senior players to account!

I thought it was a game we should have won against a severely undermanned Collingwood.

Our endeavour and contest work was good and we seemed like we came to play but our method let us down badly again , being unable to kick a decent score and letting too many out the back.

There just doesn’t seem to be a fix to this and my question is how did we lose our ability seemingly overnight and do you think we will ever get back to the team we were ?

Although we scored ok last year , this year we have had less inside 50s than St Kilda.

My pet hate is running past for a handball and not knowing where you are going to kick it, only to rush a kick to the opposition. (Rivers is a serial offender). Followed closely by the hot potato handball to a player flat footed in a worse position (clarry I'm looking at you).

Discuss

Where is the rampaging never say die attack on the ball we had in 21, 22, when we were contested beast?

Why are we so Mentally week ?

How can these issues be fixed? before our stars are finished 

Is there something in our inaccuracy in big games? Can this club get its head around being a big club? Both finals last year and today. It can’t be a coincidence.  

Where to from here?

How can we lose to Collingwood the same way every time we play them? Bar the Kings Bday game last year where our game plan dismantled them (yet they almost came back to pinch it at the death) we have lost 4 of the last 5 against them in almost exactly the same fashion. They force us to the pockets taking low percentage shots leading to plenty of behinds and then get us on the rebound to walk it in for easy goals in an open forward line.

What does it say for our system when we seem to totally fall apart after losing one key player (Lever) whereas Collingwood have a third of their best 22 out and plug in a number of rookies and are still able to execute a winning game plan? What can we learn from a Pies side that always turns up to play regardless of personnel?

Edited June 10, 2024Jun 10 by Dr. Gonzo

Not going to use the dreaded L word but both sides were pretty off I thought. We in particular made a lot of horrible skill error mistakes in bad areas that could only be explained by fatigue (for instance Fritsch in the middle a few times and May taking a contested mark and handballing into Jack Crisp a metre away).

It also happened early against Freo when we went forward through the middle, Kozzie gathered beautifully and then scrubbed the kick about 10 metres along the ground.

June is notorious for these kinds of games but my word they are ugly to watch when terrible skills come out of no-where.

This loss has destroyed my faith that we are going to be serious contenders for finals this season. Where has it all gone wrong? All sides have injuries- so we cannot blame this aspect. Can we come back after the bye with a different mind set and turn things around or has that door slammed shut firmly for us?

Thank you Andy, George and Binman for fronting up each week, presenting the podcast and giving us a chance to vent - I really don’t know how you do it. You have my uttermost respect. 

Building on my suspicion that the Dees aren't able to effectively move the call to the forward line...

I ran some stats on intercepts, intercepts allowed, points from turnover and points from turnover allowed and it makes for interesting reading.

Melbourne currently rank 16th in the league for turnover points per intercept (0.60) and 14th in turnover points allowed per intercept (0.73).

Similarly, if we look at scoring shots from turnover per intercept, Melbourne score from 17.8% (16th) rank of intercepts, while allowing scores from 18.4% (11th) of intercepts. Interestingly, the defensive side has gone down from 16.4% (3rd) since the Carlton game (the last full game before Lever was injured).

So my reading on the situation: Without Lever we are stuffed at the moment. We haven't been able to consistently move the ball downfield from intercepts all season, but without Lever the defence is completely stuffed. The intercept numbers are about the same (68 without and 69 with), but it's the non-intercept parts of our game that are suffering. Lever was patching over the holes, but the game plan isn't working yet.

The top 8 teams are more consistent than Melbourne at scoring from their intercepts. They regularly score on more than 20% of their intercepts, with very few games between 10% and 15% (Melbourne has 4 games of 13 in this range, Sydney, Carlton, Port and Geelong all have 1). Surprisingly, we seem actually seem to be improving slightly in this respect, with our last 5 intercept scoring %s being 13.1%, 15.0%, 22.5%, 16.4% and 21.5%.

Getting Lever back after the bye should help the defensive part of our game. But it's the ball movement that really needs to improve if we want to compete this year.

For what it's worth, this data kind of says we should have won today, but scoring 4.10 from turnover and allowing 10.1 from turnover is absolutely where the game was lost. Is this a fitness issue? We're too tired when taking shots to kick accurately (JVR execpted)?

A section of DL believes that we needed to rough up Maynard to send a message and stick up for our former team mate. 

I'm all for a little flag flying from time to time but would this have actually helped us win the football game? It kind of feels like some people just wanted blood regardless of the result.

36 minutes ago, layzie said:

A section of DL believes that we needed to rough up Maynard to send a message and stick up for our former team mate. 

I'm all for a little flag flying from time to time but would this have actually helped us win the football game? It kind of feels like some people just wanted blood regardless of the result.

I didn't want blood but I did want physicality. Not directed at Maynard either, just a bruising style around the ground. A Maynard "bounty-gate" would have been counter productive but there is still room in footy to "make them earn it" with a hard-hitting attack on the footy and opponent.

Edited June 10, 2024Jun 10 by Dr. Gonzo

An easy yes / no question - will we make finals?

Based on the past four weeks I can’t see it, but want to see if there’s consensus on the podcast

 

The big question is....are the players at the Melbourne Football Club mentally weak?

We had the 10th Anniversary of Freeze MND for the King's Birthday and the inspirational Neale Daniher come to the Club and spoke to the players earlier in the week.

You had the fact that we were playing against the team in Collingwood that we should of "smoked" according to Steven May at the 2023 Best & Fairest last year.

We had "the thug" ,in that piece of excrement, Brayden Maynard, who almost killed their beloved teammate in Angus Brayshaw and was forced to retire due to concussion related injuries. Nobody from the Demons went after him. In fact after the game the players are smiling and giving hugs! If Angus Brayshaw was watching the game he probably wanted to spew up!

There was also the fact that we got belted by Fremantle the week before up in Alice Springs and we needed to respond.

What happened? Nothing! It was all talk and no action.

WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE, MORE IS SAID THAN DONE.

Quite appropriate words by Neale Daniher.

The Melbourne Football Club is an utter embarrassment and the players and coaching staff need a good hard look at themselves during the bye.

1 hour ago, Supreme_Demon said:

 

The big question is....are the players at the Melbourne Football Club mentally weak?

We had the 10th Anniversary of Freeze MND for the King's Birthday and the inspirational Neale Daniher come to the Club and spoke to the players earlier in the week.

You had the fact that we were playing against the team in Collingwood that we should of "smoked" according to Steven May at the 2023 Best & Fairest last year.

We had "the thug" ,in that piece of excrement, Brayden Maynard, who almost killed their beloved teammate in Angus Brayshaw and was forced to retire due to concussion related injuries. Nobody from the Demons went after him. In fact after the game the players are smiling and giving hugs! If Angus Brayshaw was watching the game he probably wanted to spew up!

There was also the fact that we got belted by Fremantle the week before up in Alice Springs and we needed to respond.

What happened? Nothing! It was all talk and no action.

WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE, MORE IS SAID THAN DONE.

Quite appropriate words by Neale Daniher.

The Melbourne Football Club is an utter embarrassment and the players and coaching staff need a good hard look at themselves during the bye.

Mind you every time Neal Daniher comes to the game it may be his last one, what more inspiration do the players need? If Goodwin can't do it at least do it for people like Neale Daniher and Gus!! FFS!!

Today’s match (like so many this season), was a case of the other team waltzing into open goals while we miss every set shot. The expected scores had us only 2 points behind. Our defence has been shown up with Lever out, and our team’s kicking skills are ordinary across the field and in front of goal. Why? How can we fix this? I woke up at 645am and biked through torrential rain for 20 minutes to watch this in Amsterdam. That was the most pleasant 20 minutes of my morning.