3 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I thought starting Melksham as sub was an inspired choice.

Apologies if it’s been mentioned already Doc, but one of the coaches when asked about the Milkshake starting as sub responded by saying his GPS numbers have been through the roof the last few weeks. Sounds like some kind of ‘in game management’ 🤷🏻‍♂️

5 hours ago, Dave1711 said:

Max is unbelievable, I reckon he’s the best player Melbourne has had for a long time, since Robbie

The top 6 for contested possessions with a round to go.

1. Serong 299

2. Tom Greene 297

3. Gawn 284

4. Rowell 277

5. Cripps 277

6. Hewett 274

2 minutes ago, Dee Zephyr said:

The top 6 for contested possessions with a round to go.

1. Serong 299

2. Tom Greene 297

3. Gawn 284

4. Rowell 277

5. Cripps 277

6. Hewett 274

That's a phenomenal stat

1 hour ago, nextskipclaz said:

They aren't getting to their best for a number of reasons, but that has to do with team balance.

Egos are a difficult thing to tame and rein in, i.e. Petracca (his character is particularly aloof and disconnected at times - yes on par with a Chandler), But the important thing is to know what kinds of people and players Petracca needs around him in order for him to pull his head in and play with humility and intent - this is a social science that I'm suggesting is beyond some of the football-brained people. But a classic coach like Kevin Sheedy or Dennis Pagan might have been abreast of such things.

For example (and it's only an example, though a wild one) - Kevin Sheedy once said that he needed to harness the tension of the group of players and that it was like harnessing their sexual tension, acknowledging the latent homoeroticism of football (after-all we are all sexual beings and this is a signature form of desire), these were some of his observations. What I'm saying is, classic, more worldly people who used to be associated with footy understood people dynamics differently. Understood men differently. More boldly. In fact, homosexuality was probably a far less taboo thing in footy then, only it was private of course.

I think what we have today instead is a rather deafeningly quiet 'niceness' and 'faux chivalry' where no ones deep motives are really harnessed let alone recognised or even challenged. Try developing a contending and formidable football team on such premises.

Back to the point: Petracca would benefit from the humility of an Alex Neal-Bullen up at half-forward becaause the way Alex would look at Trac in the eyes would not for a second allow Christian to get withdrawn or 'over-thinky' or self-conscious or arrogant.

WHEREAS (you guessed it) Kade Chandler encourages all manner of the worst expressions in all of his teammates [perhaps we might argue because he is younger than them - though it can't be the only reason because Bowey is the seminal example that age doesnt mean shiii for the values you have and the philosophy you practice on field]. It is because his philosophy, his intent, his raison d etre is UNPREDICTABLE, UNCERTAIN, and his eyes and gait act in a vapidly demonstrative yet persuasive way toward his teammates (seeking approval - even through remonstrating them, a bizarre and confoundingly annoying paradox of that particularly insecure psyche) - Petracca, next to Chandler has less chance of realising his best football.

More to come on this subtle education - keep the hate (more appropriately, the discomfort) flowing please

TYSM

Appreciate the detailed response, I’m old fashioned but simply the theme of selfless in 21 & moving on from mistakes and player body language has vanished, what concerns me is the leaders are not living this and have become selfish, my point is just that if any players are not happy and if it’s the same ones on large contracts then they should request a trade and if need be take a pay cut to facilitate this!

That looked like a team just making an appearance as an obligation for being paid.

2 hours ago, Ghostwriter said:

I left just before halftime. Did I miss anything? 😅

Thank goodness for our W team. So proud of them and it was awesome to sing the song, we’d almost forgotten the lyrics.

Where is the report on our Demon women's big win?

4 hours ago, nextskipclaz said:

You might be onto something… mimetic social behaviour. Average players demonstratively gesticulating to the team mates (who are their betters and their seniors) gives momentum to an incremental pattern of degeneracy and poor standards.

Well done! Your IQ might be quite good I imagine

You didn’t know what the word energetics meant and it’s no surprise that in Girards theory of mimetics you have neglected to mention that a crucial end state of his theory is that of scapegoating: I.e. arbitrarily and subjectively selecting a group or individual and placing blame on them as a post-hoc fix for the failures identified in the mimetic process in the first place.

So right now you are doing, literally, what Girard says happens in his model of mimetics in scapegoating Chandler.

I guess everyone should thank you in being the perfect example of his model.

You don’t understand Energetics and you don’t understand Mimetics.

Please continue in explaining how all Dees supporters are clueless in what they’re talking about.

1 hour ago, Little Richard said:

That's a phenomenal stat

What amazing effort well done Max, he’s legend status for both the MFC & AFL … considering he missed a lot of footy initially if he wins an 8 x AA it’s truly amazing

Edited yesterday at 16:051 day by Demonsone

44 minutes ago, nextskipclaz said:

spouting

7 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

The top 6 for contested possessions with a round to go.

1. Serong 299

2. Tom Greene 297

3. Gawn 284

4. Rowell 277

5. Cripps 277

6. Hewett 274

Max is incredible!

Trac and Oliver combining showed some signs today, not enough, but perhaps Buckley as coach can get their best out of them again!

Every Demon forward should rewatch Gunston leading from today, simple & smart.

Also our coaches should look at how Hawks always have a forward drifting into the area 15-40 metres in front of goal, again simple, but wins easy marks and shots in front of goal, they also did it against Pies last week. Hawks are well disciplined!

6 minutes ago, D4Life said:

Also our coaches should look at how Hawks always have a forward drifting into the area 15-40 metres in front of goal, again simple, but wins easy marks and shots in front of goal, they also did it against Pies last week. Hawks are well disciplined!

This has been an issue for a long time. We simply do not kick to the 30-40m area in front of goal. We have been drilled for years to bomb the ball to a pack or the fwd pocket to try and minimise turnovers

7 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

The top 6 for contested possessions with a round to go.

1. Serong 299

2. Tom Greene 297

3. Gawn 284

4. Rowell 277

5. Cripps 277

6. Hewett 274

This is great for Gawn but it's also a colossal indictment on Viney, Petracca and Oliver.

A crippled Cripps has more contested possessions than all of them. If these "bulls" are being out-contested by their ruckman, what is actually the point?

8 hours ago, Redlegs said:

Out of the available coach candidates, which one is best at harnessing the sexual tension?

MARVIN GAYE! "Sexual healing" was his signature song! VOTE 1 MARVIN GAYE... new Melbourne Coach!

7 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

The top 6 for contested possessions with a round to go.

1. Serong 299

2. Tom Greene 297

3. Gawn 284

4. Rowell 277

5. Cripps 277

6. Hewett 274

I'll start by saying Max is phenomenal but it's also a major reason we're no good

Our midst have been useless for a few years and one of the reasons is the Max is generating these kinds of stats.

Our miss rely on Max too muchto do grunt work they should be doing

And Max should be kicking less. When he gets it it should've be hand balled to a distributor that can kick like Bowey

We have an unhealthy reliance on Max

Here is the Stats File post:

32 minutes ago, D4Life said:

Every Demon forward should rewatch Gunston leading from today, simple & smart.

Also our coaches should look at how Hawks always have a forward drifting into the area 15-40 metres in front of goal, again simple, but wins easy marks and shots in front of goal, they also did it against Pies last week. Hawks are well disciplined!

Spot on.

Gunston's lead towards open space 30-40 metres out as the ball carrier heads towards goal, then with a shift in direction towards the corridor for two steps caused Turner to change stride, then to resume his original course towards that open space gifted him an uncontested mark. No fault of Turner's who was on the job but just one play in a master class.

The second point is equally right. Gunston took several marks in the 15-40 metre space that was wide open. Hawks delivered it there and he knew to run into it. We tried it as well with a number of spearing passes into the hot spot at the PUNT ROAD end but no forward of ours knew to run to the spot and interceptions resulted.

We seem not to know how to create space or how to use it, hence we won the inside 50s but never looked like winning the game.

From afar i.e. TV It appeared that Melbourne bomb the ball to the tallest target and get over run in return. Whenever Hawthorn got the ball via mark /free kick there were 2 players running past BEFORE everyone settled down.

The result was Melbourne were not in a position to defend.

We rely too much on Max being able to mark.

I see the previous poster has hit the nail on the head insofar as leading etc

And then we criticise Howe/Melbourne defenders inability to match up on Gunston and Hawthorn forwards.

Get Breuss as our Forward line coach and leave chapman as the defensive coach

7 hours ago, Bobby McKenzie 2 said:

Where is the report on our Demon women's big win?

I think @Meggs does this (?)

It’s difficult to write up a report when you’re a cheer squad member; as with the men’s, I spend a lot of game time apologising to folks for almost taking their eye out with my flag or concussing them with my flagpole 😁

4 minutes ago, dimmy said:

And then we criticise Howe/Melbourne defenders inability to match up on Gunston and Hawthorn forwards.

Get Breuss as our Forward line coach and leave chapman as the defensive coach

Who?

7 minutes ago, dimmy said:

And then we criticise Howe/Melbourne defenders inability to match up on Gunston and Hawthorn forwards.

Get Breuss as our Forward line coach and leave chapman as the defensive coach

Who?

43 minutes ago, praha said:

This is great for Gawn but it's also a colossal indictment on Viney, Petracca and Oliver.

A crippled Cripps has more contested possessions than all of them. If these "bulls" are being out-contested by their ruckman, what is actually the point?

40 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

I'll start by saying Max is phenomenal but it's also a major reason we're no good

Our midst have been useless for a few years and one of the reasons is the Max is generating these kinds of stats.

Our miss rely on Max too muchto do grunt work they should be doing

And Max should be kicking less. When he gets it it should've be hand balled to a distributor that can kick like Bowey

We have an unhealthy reliance on Max

Well done to both of you for going the other way on this. That was just to highlight how good Max has been this year, nothing else. Oliver and Petracca are 11th and 12th respectively in that particular stat.

Viney has played 5-6 games less than the other 3 and on average would be on par with Oliver and Trac.

Gathers from hit-outs, contested marks and frees for count for contested possessions so i don’t think it’s an unhealthy reliance on Max.

Grundy is the Swans leading contested possession winner, Heeney must lift his game according to you.

8 minutes ago, dimmy said:

And then we criticise Howe/Melbourne defenders inability to match up on Gunston and Hawthorn forwards.

Get Breuss as our Forward line coach and leave chapman as the defensive coach

Actually you can be forgiven for misspelling his name; even his own cheer squad spelled it incorrectly on a milestone banner a couple of years ago. It read “Bruest” instead of “Breust.” They shoulda just gone with “Punky” like they did yesterday 😅

I blame loading for that performance. We're obviously targeting next week's game.

It was embarrassing

Disappointing

Disheartening

Pathetic

And …

👍🏻Riv tried and must be part of the future

👍🏻Gawn is a warrior & is one of our greatest

💔kozzzzy was totally disinterested - long term contract but looked like he’d rather than be somewhere else

💔Salem - ok he tried but little slow sideways kicks or kick too often to a contest

💔McVee - looks like he’s going elsewhere

💔Team - too slow to move the footy and cannot hit targets - skills are so sub par

💔💔more inside 50s again !!! - 5 goals from first 50 inside50s … get a real coach next year

💔Chaplin - contracted for 2026- sorry, Bowey is half back, not HFF …given he was sitting with Goody over the last 4 years, not sure he has any answers

💔missed tackles - “stay in the tackle” !!!

💔forward smarts / if you watch guys like Taylor Walker or Thilthorpe at Crows, they are working to create space or physically contacting the backman before they lead or contest. It’s smart! Not sure our key forwards can be described as smart.

💔May250 has lost any dynamic ability and labour now to compete

🤞Tom Sparrow- tried - where does he go? Where does he fit in?

9 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

The top 6 for contested possessions with a round to go.

1. Serong 299

2. Tom Greene 297

3. Gawn 284

4. Rowell 277

5. Cripps 277

6. Hewett 274

Grundy not there?