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PREGAME: Rd 05 vs Essendon

Demonland
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My forward 7 for this game would be:

JVR, Johnson, Melksham, Fullarton, K.Brown, Mentha, Chandler.

Enough strength to mark the football. Enough pressure to keep it in. It may lack the smarts/ class but that has not worked.

A different look. It cannot be any worse. Do it SIMON!

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    12 minutes ago, Dannyz said:

    My forward 7 for this game would be:

    JVR, Johnson, Melksham, Fullarton, K.Brown, Mentha, Chandler.

    Enough strength to mark the football. Enough pressure to keep it in. It may lack the smarts/ class but that has not worked.

    A different look. It cannot be any worse. Do it SIMON!

    Danny I love your mail and respect you as a poster but that would be the worst forward line ever named in the history of VFL/AFL football…

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    Any chance Fritta misses this week, saw he has a new born?

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    8 minutes ago, Dee Boys said:

    Danny I love your mail and respect you as a poster but that would be the worst forward line ever named in the history of VFL/AFL football…

    Think he meant to post it in the Casey thread

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    It's going to be 27 degrees at opening bounce and 24 by final siren.

    Perfect conditions for a team that runs out last quarters as well as we do.

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    20 minutes ago, Dee Boys said:

    Danny I love your mail and respect you as a poster but that would be the worst forward line ever named in the history of VFL/AFL football…

    Given our current success I'm going to ask why ? Why such a bad selection.

    Who would you select ?

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    22 hours ago, spirit of norm smith said:

    On 06/04/2025 at 12:16, titan_uranus said:

    BLoody HELL...

    OUT: Andy's new DL platform

    IN: Andy's old platform!

    Driving me bananas

    And no this is not Titan's or Norm's post grrrr!!

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    37 minutes ago, Dannyz said:

    My forward 7 for this game would be:

    JVR, Johnson, Melksham, Fullarton, K.Brown, Mentha, Chandler.

    Enough strength to mark the football. Enough pressure to keep it in. It may lack the smarts/ class but that has not worked.

    A different look. It cannot be any worse. Do it SIMON!

    Oh Lord,

    How about JVR, Jefferson, Melksham, Turner, Fritsch, Chandler, Mentha,

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    13 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

    It's going to be 27 degrees at opening bounce and 24 by final siren.

    Perfect conditions for a team that runs out last quarters as well as we do.

    Mate we’ll romp it home. Double our scoring and tackle stats from the Geelong game. 6 behinds, 4 tackles. Let’s go.


    52 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

    Given our current success I'm going to ask why ? Why such a bad selection.

    Who would you select ?

    IF FIT JEEEEFFFO

    • Thanks 1
    48 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

    Oh Lord,

    How about JVR, Jefferson, Melksham, Turner, Fritsch, Chandler, Mentha,

    Yes except Fritta! And Jvr

    On 08/04/2025 at 12:09, Flowergirl said:

    They are not performing. I think JVR would benefit with some Casey time for confidence, but because it's a VFL bye round I think that Fritta should be dropped to make a statement. Bring Fullarton in for Fritta, keep JVR for now.

    I want Fritta dropped back to Casey for a reality check. I want Fullerton to be sat at FF and JVR moved to CHF. And Jefferson on the bench.

    Edited by hardtack

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    1 hour ago, roy11 said:

    Any chance Fritta misses this week, saw he has a new born?

    That would give SG cover - he wasn't dropped, his wife had a baby.....

    COuldn't have Simon playing hard ball with his buddies

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    1 hour ago, Dee Boys said:

    Danny I love your mail and respect you as a poster but that would be the worst forward line ever named in the history of VFL/AFL football…

    Having lived through a forward 6 that included Sellars, Rodan, Gillies, Blease, Byrnes and a very raw Watts, I would beg to differ.

    Though I do understand where you are coming from and I do agree but I’m looking for effort and intent over what i’m seeing at the moment.

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    I’m curious, when people mention player ‘X’ on bench do they actually mean ‘bench’, like the good old days of sitting on the pine for 2 1/2 quarters? Cause there is no bench these days, players are on after 5 mins.

    9 hours ago, Altona-demon said:

    Our challenges in the forward line, in my humble view, are not personnel based.

    We need to move on from considering the personnel inside a system, to considering a system level analysis of what is going inside that forward line.

    And what inevitably goes on inside the forward 50, is a direct product of what goes on between the halfway line and the half-forward line.

    JVR, Turner, Fullarton, Johnson, all should just be capable of being rotated in and out of clear roles.

    What is hurting Melbourne at the moment, is that our system of entering the forward half is now behind the cutting edge systems that were put in place 2-3 years ago by Hawthorn, Collingwood, GWS etc. The question for us as a club, is whether we copy, or innovate. We are playing catch up at a system level, which is why we all must suffer the rhetoric every pre-season of "we are changing the way we play, you will see more changes" etc. We've been left behind.

    As a humble observer of this football club for the last 6-7 years, it's so clear that our "method" is to try and enter the forward 50, deep and into the pockets, with a focus on contest and quantity over quality. You wonder whether someone in the stats department has got a grip on gameday strategy on the basis of some silly "forward 50's -> scores ratio" or something similar.

    What is deeply troubling for us as a team, is we do not generate any easy f50 goals. It's always so laboured for us. No tick leads, no kicks across half-forward to generate leading patterns (ala Geelong), no observable blocking patterns from any of our forwards for any either jumping forwards (like JVR), no identifiable leading lanes (either creating negative space, or leading into space positively and with intent). It's this last one that I can't get my head around, this is just movement. Sitting deep in the forward 50 with boots like concrete doesn't help the midfield. Demanding this (!) midfield to draw fowards into space is simply not going to happen. The forwards must be more dynamic, more demanding, and must be grilling midfielders when they aren't honouring leads. Put simply, there's an absolute dearth of leadership in that forward half.

    Tom McDonald used to be great at the blocking for teammates/forward craft type stuff. I know his mobility is not where it was but he could be worth a try again just to support JVR.

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    Yeah perhaps - i'd see that as a tactical fix.

    It's the complete absence of "easy patterns for goals" that's just frustrating I suppose.

    I don't want to say we don't have a pattern (we clearly do) it's just that our pattern is so grindingly boring and ineffective. That we keep deploying it is just incredible.

    These players would have grown up year after year, leading out to the ball, ticking back, moving, hitting up targets, yet none of these skills are being deployed.

    • Like 3
    49 minutes ago, Dee Zephyr said:

    I’m curious, when people mention player ‘X’ on bench do they actually mean ‘bench’, like the good old days of sitting on the pine for 2 1/2 quarters? Cause there is no bench these days, players are on after 5 mins.

    Short for ‘Interchange bench’.

    9 hours ago, Altona-demon said:

    Our challenges in the forward line, in my humble view, are not personnel based.

    We need to move on from considering the personnel inside a system, to considering a system level analysis of what is going inside that forward line.

    And what inevitably goes on inside the forward 50, is a direct product of what goes on between the halfway line and the half-forward line.

    JVR, Turner, Fullarton, Johnson, all should just be capable of being rotated in and out of clear roles.

    What is hurting Melbourne at the moment, is that our system of entering the forward half is now behind the cutting edge systems that were put in place 2-3 years ago by Hawthorn, Collingwood, GWS etc. The question for us as a club, is whether we copy, or innovate. We are playing catch up at a system level, which is why we all must suffer the rhetoric every pre-season of "we are changing the way we play, you will see more changes" etc. We've been left behind.

    As a humble observer of this football club for the last 6-7 years, it's so clear that our "method" is to try and enter the forward 50, deep and into the pockets, with a focus on contest and quantity over quality. You wonder whether someone in the stats department has got a grip on gameday strategy on the basis of some silly "forward 50's -> scores ratio" or something similar.

    What is deeply troubling for us as a team, is we do not generate any easy f50 goals. It's always so laboured for us. No tick leads, no kicks across half-forward to generate leading patterns (ala Geelong), no observable blocking patterns from any of our forwards for any either jumping forwards (like JVR), no identifiable leading lanes (either creating negative space, or leading into space positively and with intent). It's this last one that I can't get my head around, this is just movement. Sitting deep in the forward 50 with boots like concrete doesn't help the midfield. Demanding this (!) midfield to draw fowards into space is simply not going to happen. The forwards must be more dynamic, more demanding, and must be grilling midfielders when they aren't honouring leads. Put simply, there's an absolute dearth of leadership in that forward half.

    Couldn’t agree more. We have had a fixation on a gun key forward to fix a 4 year old festering forward deficiency. It’s part personal but very much more about system or lack there of. Would love Hogan up front again but he would struggle in our forward line being double, triple teamed by opposition backs who know exactly where we are going to kick the ball. If we do have a coherent game plan, the players don’t appear to understand what it is or how to implement it.

    However if you take a glass half full viewpoint, although for 4 games our game style has looked disjointed and basically a shambles going forward, we have generated more I50’s in 3 matches than our opponents but with a losing scoring efficiency of 20%or less (goals to entries). Now if you watch the replays, and freeze frame many of our F50 entries you will often see our ball carrier about to roost the ball deep while 2 or more Demons are running free inside F50 or adjacent running in the corridor! The problem is the ball carrier, and so often it is Viney, Oliver, Tracc & Gawn, refusing to look for the shorter options, game after game, after game! And the coach tolerates this? It’s a problem but there is a fairly obvious solution to at least make us more competitive and unfortunately part of the solution is Viney has to go out or to another role. Why is this so hard for players and coaches?

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    30 minutes ago, hardtack said:

    Short for ‘Interchange bench’.

    My question wasn’t directed at you so to speak, the term move player X to the bench is used a lot here and you just reminded me to ask the question.

    Your meaning of moving Jeffo to the bench is having him in the starting 23?

    Agree - one thing that occurred to me the other day while watching us just smash the ball forward at all costs, was why the hell did we hire Nathan Jones?

    I mean I love the guy. But why is this guy coaching our midfield unit?

    There are a number of reasons why this guy was a bad idea:

    1. Lack of experience - did he only just get his tickets, and then he is handed the keys to our engine room?

    2. He's not independent - we need a bloke who is nowhere mates with these guys.

    3. He's not good enough (yet) - he just can't be by reason of his lack of experience.

    So then it starts to feel like, why the heck did we do this?

    Here's an interesting trend in the good teams at clearance, look how often they try to ride tackles compared to the Dees. Look how they defend the Dees. Two things might occur to you:

    1. Everyone sits outside the ball and just sharks the contested ball win from Viney, Oliver, Gawn. You don't even need to tackle, you just get free ball. We over invest into contest and they sit outside and wait for the poor disposal.

    2. On the flipside, they absorb our weak defensive tackling at contest and then create outnumbers on the outside.

    I would ABSOLUTELY love to see our boys caught holding the ball more, if it meant they were taking an extra split second to hit an outside option and win a good POST clearance. Any one of our outside mids would be a better bet to connect into F50 then our inside mid brigade bombing it forward.

    • Like 5
    48 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

    Oh Lord,

    How about JVR, Jefferson, Melksham, Turner, Fritsch, Chandler, Mentha,

    Yes except Fritta!

    1 hour ago, godees said:

    Tom McDonald used to be great at the blocking for teammates/forward craft type stuff. I know his mobility is not where it was but he could be worth a try again just to support JVR.

    Not the worst idea goin around!!😉

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    Tommy Sparrow’s 100th this weekend.

    The banner says:

    TOM SPARROW - SWOOPING IN FOR 100 GAMES

    8212FAC8-97CE-44F8-810F-1800D2A52649.jpeg

    Pretty cool that his milestone game is in Adelaide. His family and friends will be out on the field when he runs through the banner.

    Edited by Ghostwriter

    • Like 11
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    Interesting approach to the weekend by the media department (it is rather a nice watch, regardless...)

    https://www.melbournefc.com.au/video/1752560/salem-saves-the-day-fixture-flashback-2014?videoId=1752560&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1744188554001


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