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POSTGAME: Rd 21 vs Western Bulldogs

Demonland
Demonland
in Melbourne Demons

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1 minute ago, Colm said:

We have a 32 year old warrior in Max playing on one leg because we have zero back up rucks.

Grundy was never going to hang around as a backup ruck, and we weren't going to be paying a first-call ruck salary to a backup ruck.

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    3 minutes ago, bing181 said:

    We lost centre clearance by 2. Considering who we had out there and who they had out there I'd just about take that as a win, on paper we should have been slaughtered.

    (Also only lost stoppages by 2.)

    Thank God for Maximus.

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    2 minutes ago, dees189227 said:

    So who are we going for in the finals? Either Sydney team is OK. 

    Even if we made finals we wouldn't have done a lot.

    Anyway luckily I've followed the melbourne storm to. They never let you down. So I guess I'll have a team to watch in september

    I wonder what it would cost to get Bellamy out of the storm and get him in a role to try and right our culture? The storm have been amazing for so long, I reckon Bellamy could help with out losing culture.

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    3 minutes ago, bing181 said:

    We lost centre clearance by 2. Considering who we had out there and who they had out there I'd just about take that as a win, on paper we should have been slaughtered.

    (Also only lost stoppages by 2.)

    Wouldn't mind a breakdown of the stoppage stats (maybe @WheeloRatings can do that?).

    I thought at one stage early we were down in clearances something like 14-3 or something bad like that?

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    1 minute ago, bing181 said:

    Grundy was never going to hang around as a backup ruck, and we weren't going to be paying a first-call ruck salary to a backup ruck.

    Really, we should never have traded Grundy in. It never made sense.

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    4 minutes ago, bing181 said:

    We lost centre clearance by 2. Considering who we had out there and who they had out there I'd just about take that as a win, on paper we should have been slaughtered.

    (Also only lost stoppages by 2.)

    Not just this week. We have lost clearances for 11 of the last 13 games.  

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    5 minutes ago, bing181 said:

    We lost centre clearance by 2. Considering who we had out there and who they had out there I'd just about take that as a win, on paper we should have been slaughtered.

    (Also only lost stoppages by 2.)

    The game was done when we started winning stoppage. Pert/Richardson need to just say to McQualter. Best of luck but we’re going to go in a different direction.

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    32 minutes ago, Colm said:

    What was more interesting was giving up picks 27 & 35 to move up 3 places and get the Kolt. Darcy Wilson went at our original pick. 
    We could have traded those picks into this years draft and put ourselves into a much better position.  

    100%. Kolt looks to go alright but baffling to give away those picks when we are crying out for depth

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    Thought we were doing alright at HT and the Dogs kept us in it. Was shocked to see them come out in the second half the way they did.

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    Since round 8:

    4 wins, 8 losses, percentage of 84.76% - only the bottom 3 teams have performed worse over that period.

    With one star player and one other best 22 player on the injury list.

    Simply embarrassing from players and coaches alike.

     

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    9 minutes ago, Little Richard said:

    Thank God for Maximus.

    Given that Max averages 5 clearances a game (with plenty of games more than that) 2 clearances tonight and you pretty well have the difference right there.

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    7 minutes ago, Bowserpower said:

    Thought we were doing alright at HT and the Dogs kept us in it. Was shocked to see them come out in the second half the way they did.

    friita miss and weightman goal in first minute or 3rd = 12 point turnaround = game over

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    5 minutes ago, Bowserpower said:

    Thought we were doing alright at HT and the Dogs kept us in it. Was shocked to see them come out in the second half the way they did.

    To each their own. 

    I think that people who thought we were actually in that game at half time could only have been going off the Dogs inaccuracy. We were getting smashed in every metric you give a damn about when it comes to a midfield battle. We also had no scope for improvement in the middle with Viney obviously carrying something, Oliver struggling and no real rotations. So I don't know where that confidence came from. 

    One team really wanted it, the other looks about ready to hit the beach.

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    I thought we were pathetic.

    Fritta played his best game for ages, which was welcome.

    We seemed far more fatigued than them. A stack load of regulation tackles missed that led to scores against. Our midfield murdered for most of the night.

    I was very envious of how well their tall forwards marked the ball, in comparison to our forwards. But the thing that the Bulldogs do regularly and I think we managed once for an entire half, is kick the ball to the advantage of our forwards.

    Again, our ball movement has basically gone back into its shell. Did we waste half a year trying to work on our transition game? Our lack of dare was really disappointing. And I wanted to see Turner play forward, because he's a great mark.

    We have a lot of work to do over the summer and it'll be a fascinating watch on McQualter.

    Edited by Binmans PA

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    Going to keep it very short and channel Bill Clinton.

    "It's the midfield, stupid"

    Edited by Sigil

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    5 minutes ago, poita said:

    Since round 8:

    4 wins, 8 losses, percentage of 84.76% - only the bottom 3 teams have performed worse over that period.

    With one star player and one other best 22 player on the injury list.

    Simply embarrassing from players and coaches alike.

     

    Thats the worry.  Our last 12 games are embarrassing losses and deteriorating playing style 

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    1 hour ago, Red But Mostly Blue said:

    For what it’s worth, I think we can, too. But it will need smart, effective recruitment and some better ideas for game days, plan Bs and 4quarters of consistent footy each and every game. A reliable gameplay again. Consistency. We need a real deep dive on the off season, not a gloss-over because the big part of this is we need to attack real talent to plug holes immediately and that will require convincing them that we’re not a rabble on the downward slide. Dan Houston etc will want success. 

    Watch this space 

    We also need to be ruthless in big decisions about some veteran players:

    BBB - retire

    Shache - delisted 

    Hunter - delisted

    Salem - trade

    Sparrow - not sure what to do with him

    McAdam - same as above 

    Tommo - gone to a new club 

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    Thought Bowser and Howes were pretty good too. And I love Judd.

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    Just now, ElDiablo14 said:

    We also need to be ruthless in big decisions about some veteran players:

    BBB - retire

    Shache - delisted 

    Hunter - delisted

    Salem - trade

    Sparrow - not sure what to do with him

    McAdam - same as above 

    Tommo - gone to a new club 

    We need to be aggressive and go hard at the ball. McAdam has been a baffling trade in.

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    The midfield really is the biggest concern. When you give up that much territory off centre bounce it makes sense that the oppo has however many more scoring shots. 

    So the midfield, what is the issue? 

    I don't think its purely a personnel problem, sure the addition of tracc to the midfield would help but before he got injured he was looking like playing a lot more time forward anyway so not sure we can attribute our problems to a lack of tracc. 

    Therefore, imo I think its clearly a system/coaching issue. I don't think its a coincidence that we lose yze and we have our worst midfield year for a very long time. I questioned earlier in the year whether McQualter has had a damaging impact on our mids and i'm posing the question again because i can't see another obvious reason for how our midfield is performing at the moment. Maybe its a lack of effort by the players but I really don't think thats true, they may not have played well tonight but i still thought they tried hard. 

    Interested in what others think has gone wrong with the midfield?? 

    (Also acknowledge that tonight around half of their points were off the back of turnover but I still think it holds true that our midfield has been woeful this year and if we want any chance of being a competitive side again, that is what we need to fix asap.) 

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    Just had another very sad realisation while reading through the postgame thread, that as supporters we're back to trying to pull out positives out of what was really a drubbing to make ourselves feel better. Sad that we're back in this position after only being up the top for a short period of time. 

     

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