Find it so interesting that not so long ago Goody had really sunk to the depths making Clarry "a tagger". Clarry was looking to move Clubs for a new start because he was tired of starting on the bench.

This week Goody made a master move by making Clarry a tagger. No more talk of him wanting out of the MFC. The silence is deafenng.

55 minutes ago, binman said:

No its not, as Pates suggests, he definitely played a shut down role.

I guess it's semantics, but whilst i agree he didn't tag neale (which i assume is how you're defining shut down) he was given a shut down role on him, with, as you note, the goal of blunting Neale's influence at stoppages.

And he was super effective in that role.

It's interesting because clarry's weakness at the moment is he is lacking his speed from a standing start.

That has been a problem when he has been a purely offensive mid at stoppages this season because if we don't win first possession his lack of acceleration makes it hard for him to switch to defence, making it easier for opponents to win clean clearances.

But having a job on an oppo gun mid means his starting position and mindset is defensive from the get go.

That reduces opportunities for the oppo to get quality clearances but still keeps clarry close to the coal face where he does his real damage - close quarters and winning the hard ball.

Pre the bounce Claz would find Neale and close check till the ball hit the deck. Post that they just went their own way Bin.

Other than if they happened to come together in their attempts to extract or get on the end of a clearance etc.

There was no heavy lock down or run with (shut down) role from Clarry other than the initial checking as the ball was bounced or balled up.

In general play Claz does not look for Neale and just plays his own contest to contest game as well as guarding grass in the rolling zones.

Neale also payed no attention to Clarry in general play as they both just played and ran the patterns they'd normally do.

Last week yes.

This week not from what i witnessed. Reckon Clazz was instructed to play his own way after the initial pre-bounce (and during the ruck contest) checking.

Was he effective at some of the initial checking? Sometimes yes.

Post that he couldn't go (two way defensively) with anyone right now and i think SG & the coaches know this. Watch how Clazz fails to pick up McCluggage as he runs past him after a turnover with about 5 minutes to go in the first. McCluggage ends up on the end of a long Hipwood pass into the corridor from the wing. Who then hits up Cameron who finds Morris for the goal. Clarry barely able to jog back into D5O as this happens all around him.

Your definition of a shut down must be very different to mine.

Will agree to disagree on this one in a shut down / run with sense.

Edited Tuesday at 13:443 days by Demon Dynasty

8 minutes ago, Longsufferingnomore said:

Find it so interesting that not so long ago Goody had really sunk to the depths making Clarry "a tagger". Clarry was looking to move Clubs for a new start because he was tired of starting on the bench.

This week Goody made a master move by making Clarry a tagger. No more talk of him wanting out of the MFC. The silence is deafenng.

I think when Goodwin went on 360 and then again at that weeks presser and said that the media had completely made up the story about a guy with mental health concerns they may have finally got the message. Stop [censored] with us.

3 minutes ago, Demon Dynasty said:

5 minutes ago, Demon Dynasty said:

Pre the bounce Claz would find Neale and close check till the ball hit the deck. Post that they just went their own way Bin.

Other than if they happened to come together in their attempts to extract or get on the end of a clearance etc.

There was no heavy lock down or run with (shut down) role from Clarry other than the initial checking as the ball was bounced or balled up.

In general play Claz does not look for Neale and just plays his own contest to contest game as well as guarding grass in the rolling zones.

Neale also payed no attention to Clarry in general play as they both just played and ran the patterns they'd normally do.

Your definition of a shut down must be very different to mine.

Last week yes.

This week not from what i witnessed. Reckon Clazz was instructed to play his own way after the initial pre-bounce (and during the ruck contest) checking.

Will agree to disagree on this one.

Pre the bounce Claz would find Neale and close check till the ball hit the deck. Post that they just went their own way Bin.

Other than if they happened to come together in their attempts to extract or get on the end of a clearance etc.

There was no heavy lock down or run with (shut down) role from Clarry other than the initial checking as the ball was bounced or balled up.

In general play Claz does not look for Neale and just plays his own contest to contest game as well as guarding grass in the rolling zones.

Neale also payed no attention to Clarry in general play as they both just played and ran the patterns they'd normally do.

Your definition of a shut down must be very different to mine.

Last week yes.

This week not from what i witnessed. Reckon Clazz was instructed to play his own way after the initial pre-bounce (and during the ruck contest) checking.

Will agree to disagree on this one.

We're either in furious agreement or taking at cross purposes.

I agree with you that clarry went to neale at stoppages to limit his influence, to shut him down.

Sure he may not have run shoulder to shoulder outside of stoppages the way a true tagger would.

But why would he?

Who cares if Neale gets easy around the ground kicks - that's not where he does his damage. He does his damage at stoppages. That's where he needs shutting down and that's the role clarry was given.

Clarry wasn't tagging neale he was taking neales one wood away and limiting his influence- the key metric being minimising the number of clearances Neale won (he only had 6 as it turns out, a huge win for us).

That said, the way you describe it gives an impression clarry and neale spent most of the game nowhere each other.

That's a false impression.

Neale and Oliver's TOG was both mid 80% and neither played any position other than mids.

That means claz was directly on Neale for almost all stoppages in the match.

There were 83 stoppages in total during the game. That's an awful lot of time for claz to be directly locking down Neale.

That's my definition of a shut down role of a gun midfielder (as opposed to say an outside runner or half back flanker which might involve running shoulder when the ball is in transition).

Similarly melk had a shut down role on Andrews, despite not wearing him like a glove the way a tagger might.

10 hours ago, Ghostwriter said:

That’s him. And he doesn’t need a gold glittery jacket, or five hours of makeup application (looking at you, Catman) to stand out. Ok, the hair is a thing but he chooses to colour it anyways, not just for the cheer squad.

Ryan was fantastic in Perth. Not only generously giving time to MC the interview and formalities but also giving plenty of time to us four randoms who had made the trip from Melbourne. Then leading the cheer squad with the best example I have ever seen in making our small portion of the crowd impose a significant chant.

It was a master class in cheer squad practice and while the Eagles supporters may be a little ignorant in how to support their team, the DEmons squad took all the points.

We usually sit in the seats above and behind the squad at the G but being closer to the squad in Perth was afeal pleasure.

Ryan is a legend and the squad are fantastic

16 hours ago, Demon Dynasty said:

That's a complete myth. Started off on Neale at bounces / ball ups as a reference then they went their separate ways.

Clayton was back to his best (in terms of his best form this year which is pretty good but still a fair way off his top end from 21 - 23) because he did not play a close checking role he was asked to play last week and which resulted in a decent gain to the Hawks / Newcombe on the day.

Most player ratings had Newcombe a fair way in front last week and Clarry just pipping Neale this week, even though it wasn't a head to head shut down this week like last week.

"Shut down" may have been the wrong wording but it was a run with role to try to curtail Neale's influence. The thing I liked about the way he did it was that it allowed Clarry to be more of his normal competitive self, there was more about beating Neale and hurting him the other way than just stopping him. The fact that Neale was way down on clearances was in no small part to Clarry in his role.

Also felt like it was a

14 hours ago, DiscoStu17 said:

The previous night on channel 9, Hird was saying that he moved him from the wing down forward and Melky was a much better player now.

Sounded a bit like he was taking credit for Melky‘s growth as a player?

Among the many advancements of Western civilisation to which we owe JH? I await the book.

I can’t remember Melky pre 2021 for some reason. Was it suddenly he looks decent? He has always been in and out of the team. But finding a target in f50 comes naturally to him. Playing him HF for connection just seems so obvious.

Just for a laugh, and with all the caveats about who we've played recently...

Right now, at 4w 1l from the last five games, we are the form team of the competition alongside only the Bulldogs.

7 hours ago, GS_1905 said:

Also felt like it was a

I can’t remember Melky pre 2021 for some reason. Was it suddenly he looks decent? He has always been in and out of the team. But finding a target in f50 comes naturally to him. Playing him HF for connection just seems so obvious.

Not at all. He was huge in 2017-2018. Particularly '18. In the Hawthorn semi final in '18, he kicked that famous goal on his left late in the 4th to ice the game.

There is a thread detailing our 100+ point win of Carlton in 2018, where he kicked a bag.

He was also a major player in that West Coast win in 2018 that secured our first finals birth in over a decade...

4 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

Not at all. He was huge in 2017-2018. Particularly '18. In the Hawthorn semi final in '18, he kicked that famous goal on his left late in the 4th to ice the game.

There is a thread detailing our 100+ point win of Carlton in 2018, where he kicked a bag.

He was also a major player in that West Coast win in 2018 that secured our first finals birth in over a decade...

Every player has a hot patch and i vaguely remember those games (older age), but was his form consistently of a high standard. The narrative around here was that up until recently, Melk was one of Goody's boys and that he was always able to bypass selection integrity. I have never really seen him like that. He can lack some defensive accountability in the sense of how some High HF's play, but to me that is not his role. He has to play on the defensive interceptor / rebounder and exploit him the other way. Almost every team has one. He'd play on Lever if he was an opponent.

12 minutes ago, GS_1905 said:

Every player has a hot patch and i vaguely remember those games (older age), but was his form consistently of a high standard. The narrative around here was that up until recently, Melk was one of Goody's boys and that he was always able to bypass selection integrity. I have never really seen him like that. He can lack some defensive accountability in the sense of how some High HF's play, but to me that is not his role. He has to play on the defensive interceptor / rebounder and exploit him the other way. Almost every team has one. He'd play on Lever if he was an opponent.

He was consistently a good player through that period.

And statistically, has been an elite score involvement player earlier than 2021. Ironically, he did struggle in 2021.

8 hours ago, GS_1905 said:

Also felt like it was a

I can’t remember Melky pre 2021 for some reason. Was it suddenly he looks decent? He has always been in and out of the team. But finding a target in f50 comes naturally to him. Playing him HF for connection just seems so obvious.

Pretty sure he led the league in goal assists in 2018. I have always maintained we look like a better team when he is in it.

Stunning win and I was lucky enough to be there with my Dee old school mate Dive.

Unexpectedly lovely drive home to the Sunshine Coast.

14 hours ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

This just popped up in my youtube feed. Never seen it before.

Thanks RDN that is a brilliantly explained reasoning why we were so good in the last, I imagine that Bin, Roost and Adam would be all over this. Great pick up.

I am loving a pic I saw on a Fox footy post on the Borg. Alas I can't share the pic because I cannot make it smaller than a megabyte without losing a lot of detail. They are clearly happy, a few are enjoying a frothie (as I hear they are called these days, not a coldie) and some either about to shower or just out of the shower. They look like a close bunch.

10 hours ago, dpositive said:

Ryan was fantastic in Perth. Not only generously giving time to MC the interview and formalities but also giving plenty of time to us four randoms who had made the trip from Melbourne. Then leading the cheer squad with the best example I have ever seen in making our small portion of the crowd impose a significant chant.

It was a master class in cheer squad practice and while the Eagles supporters may be a little ignorant in how to support their team, the DEmons squad took all the points.

We usually sit in the seats above and behind the squad at the G but being closer to the squad in Perth was afeal pleasure.

Ryan is a legend and the squad are fantastic

Thank you, dpositive! I will pass this on to Ryan and the rest of the squad ❤️💙

A funny thing you wouldn’t have known at the time: at the Perth prematch function, while Ryan was interviewing Chunk, a willie wagtail made his way into the room. Ryan has a morbid fear of birds and it took every fibre of his being to keep his wits about him. He was conscious of the little feathery cutie and its whereabouts in the room the entire time.

Ryan is rarely on banner crew because he’s needed in our bay to rev up the squad when the players run out. He definitely would NOT have been on banner-raising in Perth because Auzzie the Eagle did his thing: circling Optus, progressively getting closer to the ground then landing in the centre of the oval, returning to his handler. Just the thought of this put Ryan in a cold sweat 🤣

When we were waiting to go out on the ground an Optus staff member worded us up on the Auzzie thing. We were told to sit or squat on the turf and stay perfectly still right up until it was time to raise the banner, if it looked like Auzzie was gonna swoop we were to lie flat on our stomachs and not move a muscle, then he says, “Oh, and Auzzie doesn’t like the colour red.”

😳😳😳

10 minutes ago, Ghostwriter said:

When we were waiting to go out on the ground an Optus staff member worded us up on the Auzzie thing. We were told to sit or squat on the turf and stay perfectly still right up until it was time to raise the banner, if it looked like Auzzie was gonna swoop we were to lie flat on our stomachs and not move a muscle, then he says, “Oh, and Auzzie doesn’t like the colour red.”

I’m not one for bringing guns to the footy, but there is a time and a place.

Just in case there's anyone that thinks Bowey only wins easy ball on the outside. Some seriously good contested wins here.

Edited Wednesday at 02:522 days by Demon Jack

4 minutes ago, He de mon said:

I’m not one for bringing guns to the footy, but there is a time and a place.

Nooooo! I’m a crazy bird lover. I’d take the bullet to spare Auzzie. What a majestic sight he was.

13 minutes ago, Demon Jack said:

Just in case there's anyone that thinks Bowey only wins easy ball on the outside. Some seriously good contested wins here.

That player rating system @binman is broken. As if this wasn't an AA-rated game. He saved scores against, he creates score for. A huge game.

What it shows is not only how clean he is but how courageous. He simply doesn’t take his eyes off the ball. There’s a couple of wins in those highlights that are seriously brave and composed. Considering we’ve still got McVee building into his best form there’s a lot to like about how our defence is evolving and will continue to evolve post May, Salem and McDonald. I mean there’s Petty, Lindsay and Turner already playing. Get JVR and Fritsch playing well again and we’re in a strong position. How much better is winning.

Edited Wednesday at 03:572 days by Roost it far

2 hours ago, Demon Jack said:

Just in case there's anyone that thinks Bowey only wins easy ball on the outside. Some seriously good contested wins here.

Thx for this. I thought Bowey was good against the Lions but honestly I didn't appreciate how good. He's so quick and clean it's easy to miss.

In his earlier years, I thought we was strong offensively but vulnerable defensively. Not any more.

Edited Wednesday at 04:532 days by speed demon
typo

9 minutes ago, DeeMee said:

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that! Constantly appeared Harris Andrews had been dacked due to Melks close attention.

Yeah, plenty of bum crack jokes happening in the Demon Army bay on Sunday!!

23 hours ago, Ghostwriter said:

Yeah but I see you all the time. I welcome fresh peeps to annoy 😅

Yeah, but I may want to meet some Demonlanders!

5 hours ago, thirty-one said:

I am loving a pic I saw on a Fox footy post on the Borg. Alas I can't share the pic because I cannot make it smaller than a megabyte without losing a lot of detail. They are clearly happy, a few are enjoying a frothie (as I hear they are called these days, not a coldie) and some either about to shower or just out of the shower. They look like a close bunch.

I did see that photo too and there was a notable player (Trac) not present. There were others too so im not reading much into it, however the reason i raise the point, is that the media havent raised it either (yet). Just wanted to put a watch on whether they'll hang onto this to use for another time.

21 hours ago, thirty-one said:

I am loving a pic I saw on a Fox footy post on the Borg. Alas I can't share the pic because I cannot make it smaller than a megabyte without losing a lot of detail. They are clearly happy, a few are enjoying a frothie (as I hear they are called these days, not a coldie) and some either about to shower or just out of the shower. They look like a close bunch.

What’s on the Borg? Please explain