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PREGAME: Rd 03 vs Gold Coast

Demonland
in Melbourne Demons

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2 hours ago, The Taciturn Demon said:

Goodwin's love for Melksham is pathological.

I reckon he'll run the first quarter out strongly.

Billings should snag a few too if he's taking shots from within the goal square

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    11 minutes ago, picket fence said:

    9 ALSO on notice Salem, Petty (Beaten last week) and Roo

    Agree with all you points aside from Salem. He's been fine to start the season.

    Petty's not a number 1 defender but was forced to play on Larkey and got beaten. With T Mac still in the side I'd consider Petty up forward due to he being one of the better contested marks in the side. And given our forward line is atrocious at the moment, we need to continually explore various options.

    Yes, JVR should be on notice but who else do we have? He's end to the 2024 season went under the radar (in a bad not good way) and he's followed that up with an extremely poor start to 2025. As in one of our worst to have played both games.

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    31 minutes ago, Brownie said:

    I reckon he'll run the first quarter out strongly.

    Billings should snag a few too if he's taking shots from within the goal square

    Billings is no certainty from there...good chance for out of bounds on the full.

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    45 minutes ago, picket fence said:

    This team reeks of desperation for a number of reasons

    1 Rushing Melksham back after zero match practice, hope his hammy doesn't ping early

    2 Disco Rushed back last week on ZERO form and now gets dropped, why did he play in the first place and ditto Spargo

    3 Howes should have been dropped after round 1 but was retained on what???? Now axed

    4 Johnson over Campbell??? Not in my team

    5 Woey unfortunately dropped but not ready and I doubt he ever will.

    6 Langdon back to the wing and Rivers on a HBF MUST BE the moves but both need to lift

    7 If Bailey Fritsch fails to fire then it MUST mean a run of games at Slithera Central. His half arrrrrsed efforts cannot be accepted any longer

    8 Great to see Bison get a game and needs a full one

    9 ALSO on notice Salem, Petty (Beaten last week) and Roo

    10 I hope May is right to go and ditto Lever

    Finally, if we lose this coach will be right under the blowtorch ( if he is not already)

    Salem on notice? You mean the same Salem that is equal second in the Demonland player of the year after getting votes in both of the first two games? Wow. I like setting high standards, but this is next level!

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    Unsurprisingly all three of last weeks inclusions have been booted straight out - that's what happens when you bring in players with no form or match fitness. Howes is clearly not a defender, so needs to be played elsewhere at Casey to see if he can be repurposed. Jefferson is not AFL ready, so hopefully he is made to come back via Casey to build some form before he gets another chance.

    Melksham averaged 8 disposals and 1 goal last year, and now comes straight in with no form or fitness. He is ridiculously overrated by Goodwin and by Demonland, and is clearly not part of our future. I don't think Langford is AFL ready, but hopefully he gets a full game to show what he can do. Billings deserves a chance, but we know what we are going to get by now. Johnson did some good things in round 1, and hopefully he has spent the past fortnight working on his ruck work. Obviously May is a big in if he is anywhere near full fitness, although we do seem top heavy in defence.

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    I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but I received an SMS from MelbourneFC this morning saying:

    “The only way to watch Dees v Suns LIVE tomorrow is with Kayo. Sign up mfcde.es/Kayo“

    I know Kayl is a subsidiary of Foxtel, but as the game IS available on Foxtel, it is not exactly true, and could mislead some people considering it comes hot on the heals of FTA coverage being dumped on Saturdays (or is that just the night game?).

    First world problem I know, but I had to take a walk up to my local pharmacy today and it’s left me feeling completely rooted and a bit grumpy.

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    1 hour ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

    Yes, JVR should be on notice but who else do we have? He's end to the 2024 season went under the radar (in a bad not good way) and he's followed that up with an extremely poor start to 2025. As in one of our worst to have played both games.

    our delivery i50 is the worst its ever been?? we have added another tall forward into the forward 50 aswell what more do you expect him to do, he is our only reliable tall forward. he can only be as good as the players kicking the ball to him which they are terrible

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    9 minutes ago, hardtack said:

    I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but I received an SMS from MelbourneFC this morning saying:

    “The only way to watch Dees v Suns LIVE tomorrow is with Kayo. Sign up mfcde.es/Kayo“

    I know Kayl is a subsidiary of Foxtel, but as the game IS available on Foxtel, it is not exactly true, and could mislead some people considering it comes hot on the heals of FTA coverage being dumped on Saturdays (or is that just the night game?).

    First world problem I know, but I had to take a walk up to my local pharmacy today and it’s left me feeling completely rooted and a bit grumpy.

    I plan on actually going, which I presume is also live.

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    5 minutes ago, jaydenh10 said:

    our delivery i50 is the worst its ever been?? we have added another tall forward into the forward 50 aswell what more do you expect him to do, he is our only reliable tall forward. he can only be as good as the players kicking the ball to him which they are terrible

    I don’t disagree with that but we’re entitled to expect a better return from JVR than 1 goal a game from his last 9.

    In fairness, he needs a reliable and experienced key forward to assist him but he won’t be getting that this year.

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    After 5 days of being angry, I've gotten over it and now think we will win tomorrow

    Some say I'm insane but this attitude got me through the dark years (mostly) intact

    An angry response from the Demons.

    We'll be +25 in the inside fifties

    And we'll smash them by 4 points

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    18 hours ago, Fat Tony said:

    We look too top heavy again. 

    We've named 6 talls in addition to Max - May, Petty, Lever, JVR, AJ and TMac. That’s a pretty standard set-up. 7 talls and 15 smalls - one of the talls is on the bench at most times so we've usually got 6 and 12 on the field - that's pretty standard. Petty and TMac can play at either end which gives flexibility and the sub will come from Melksham, Langford, Chandler and Billings so that gives the flexibility to sub a tall out. I think it's a good balance.

    Edited by old55

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    44 minutes ago, poita said:

    Unsurprisingly all three of last weeks inclusions have been booted straight out - that's what happens when you bring in players with no form or match fitness. Howes is clearly not a defender, so needs to be played elsewhere at Casey to see if he can be repurposed. Jefferson is not AFL ready, so hopefully he is made to come back via Casey to build some form before he gets another chance.

    Melksham averaged 8 disposals and 1 goal last year, and now comes straight in with no form or fitness. He is ridiculously overrated by Goodwin and by Demonland, and is clearly not part of our future. I don't think Langford is AFL ready, but hopefully he gets a full game to show what he can do. Billings deserves a chance, but we know what we are going to get by now. Johnson did some good things in round 1, and hopefully he has spent the past fortnight working on his ruck work. Obviously May is a big in if he is anywhere near full fitness, although we do seem top heavy in defence.

    Melk was 7th for average goals (1.0) and 2nd on our list for average goal assists at 1.3 in 2024. So he’s effectively worth 2.3 (same average as Kozzie) goals a game on last years form, which only Tracc gets a higher average between those two metrics. Not a bad return if he can recreate that form this year?

    I do take your point about him being rushed back… I suspect looking at those numbers and looking at the prospect of being 0-3, selectors and Goody are looking to just get on the board to release some pressure.

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    5 minutes ago, old55 said:

    We've named 6 talls in addition to Max - May, Petty, Lever, JVR, AJ and TMac. That’s a pretty standard set-up. 7 talls and 15 smalls - one of the talls is on the bench at most times so we've usually got 6 and 12 on the field - that's pretty standard. Petty and TMac can play at either end which gives flexibility and the sub will come from Melksham, Langford, Chandler and Billings so that gives the flexibility to sub a tall out. I think it's a good balance.

    someone is probably a late out then maybe?

    5 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

    Baffled that Sharp gets another go.

    Unless he turns in a blinder tomorrow, I think he'll be the likely option to make way for Pickett next week.

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    1 hour ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

    Salem on notice? You mean the same Salem that is equal second in the Demonland player of the year after getting votes in both of the first two games? Wow. I like setting high standards, but this is next level!

    I think Salem has been fine, but geez we're scraping at the bottom of the barrel if we're using this as a metric to judge how good he's been..

    6 minutes ago, Demon Jack said:

    Unless he turns in a blinder tomorrow, I think he'll be the likely option to make way for Pickett next week.

    Good point.

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    6 minutes ago, Demon Jack said:

    Unless he turns in a blinder tomorrow, I think he'll be the likely option to make way for Pickett next week.

    Whilst I agree with the sentiment, I hope he does turn in a blinder and have the selection committee ask some hard questions of themselves.

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    18 minutes ago, old55 said:

    We've named 6 talls in addition to Max - May, Petty, Lever, JVR, AJ and TMac. That’s a pretty standard set-up. 7 talls and 15 smalls - one of the talls is on the bench at most times so we've usually got 6 and 12 on the field - that's pretty standard. Petty and TMac can play at either end which gives flexibility and the sub will come from Melksham, Langford, Chandler and Billings so that gives the flexibility to sub a tall out. I think it's a good balance.

    Fritch and Melksham really play as small key position players.

    I don't think this line up puts enough emphasis on applying pressure.

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    2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

    Agree with all you points aside from Salem. He's been fine to start the season.

    Petty's not a number 1 defender but was forced to play on Larkey and got beaten. With T Mac still in the side I'd consider Petty up forward due to he being one of the better contested marks in the side. And given our forward line is atrocious at the moment, we need to continually explore various options.

    Yes, JVR should be on notice but who else do we have? He's end to the 2024 season went under the radar (in a bad not good way) and he's followed that up with an extremely poor start to 2025. As in one of our worst to have played both games.

    Have you already forgotten how poor Petty was last year in the forward line?

    His Round 1 game was better than pretty much anything he produced as a forward last year.

    One poor game, on an AA calibre key forward when our midfield was being slaughtered and they were walking out the front of stoppage, is no basis at all to say Petty should be coming out of the backline.

    And your hyperbole on JVR is insane.

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    Just now, Fat Tony said:

    Fritch and Melksham really play as small key position players.

    I don't think this line up puts enough emphasis on applying pressure.

    Who else could we play to bring additional pressure?

    We've got Chandler and Henderson. Pickett's unavailable. Sharp needs to lift, but Spargo and Laurie both lack the pace required to provide sustained forward half pressure and neither has struck me as capable of producing it at AFL level for years (or in Laurie's case, at all).

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    2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

    Agree with all you points aside from Salem. He's been fine to start the season.

    Petty's not a number 1 defender but was forced to play on Larkey and got beaten. With T Mac still in the side I'd consider Petty up forward due to he being one of the better contested marks in the side. And given our forward line is atrocious at the moment, we need to continually explore various options.

    Yes, JVR should be on notice but who else do we have? He's end to the 2024 season went under the radar (in a bad not good way) and he's followed that up with an extremely poor start to 2025. As in one of our worst to have played both games.

    Petty is a Nm 1 defender. All defenders struggle when other side can move ball inside forward 50 with speed.

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    4 minutes ago, demoniac said:

    Petty is a Nm 1 defender. All defenders struggle when other side can move ball inside forward 50 with speed.

    I'm a Petty fan, so this is biased, but I thought he was fine against North.

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