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Agreed. He was very valuable until this happened: This was quite a few seconds after Selwood 'tunnelled' Salem. What strikes me about this pic is that: Salem is out but is kept on the field. He got a free but didn't get a 50m penalty (Is tunnelling a reportable offence - not that I expect the MRP to cite the untouchable Selwood). The only demon player to fly the flag for Salem was our youngest - where were our leaders? Not good enough to leave it to a 20 year old to face off with the opp captain when a teammate has gone down. My love and admiration for Oliver has gone up even further after seeing this. He brings so much more to our team than skill. I like his toughness and his spunk. Nothing earns more respect (in my eyes) than sticking up for your mates. Well done, Clarry.

Name 3 good things about yesterdays game/result. Just a fun way to stay sane & optimistic during this long season ahead. If anyone has been supporting this club more than 3 years you will know one thing: They can do your head in. Jarring disappointment followed by glimpses of brilliance. The season ahead is long. After Round 24's devastation we had yesterday's disappointment. 21 games remain. Demons supporter PTSD is a real thing. We suffer anxiety during games, depression after losses, bad dreams and cold sweats (I actually awoke at 2am last night and my first thought was the game). Given the perennial disappointment we have learned pessimism. To counter this we must learn optimism to get through this season with our heads in tact. It's the only way. The good thing studies have shown is optimism can be learned. It's so easy to look at yesterday & say "We have probably cost our selves a spot in the 8 again" or "what a disappointment". But you could also equally say "We took a top 4 team to the very last minute of the game & nearly won". The latter is actually far more accurate a statement and a lot easier to live with. Based on this I suggest we come up with 3 good things about yesterdays game/result. Here's my go: 1. We have the best percentage of all losing teams 2. We took a top 4 side from last year to the brink (& lost to them by less than we did last year) - all a sign of improvement. 3. Mark Neeld is no longer our coach Your turn. Cheers

I read a really interesting stat today about our 2017 season that I hadn't seen before. We lost a quarter by 30+ points last year 8 times. The only sides to lose more than 8 by 30+ points or more were Gold Coast and Brisbane (Fremantle also lost 8). We've had our first for the year already, losing the second quarter today by 31. By comparison, Sydney hasn't lost a quarter by that much for two years. Good sides don't get blown out of the water in a quarter like we do. It cost us games last year and it's already cost us a game this year. So, what is the cause(s)? We won the other 3 quarters by 27 points combined, so it can't simply be that we weren't capable of going with them. And because we were capable of taking to them, and at times convincingly outplaying them, I struggle to believe it's the gameplan, either. If it was, we'd be losing more quarters and doing worse for longer periods. This was Round 1, and they were a player down on the bench, so heaven help us if it's a fitness thing. We're also another year older and more experienced, so is it fair to put it down to "youth" or "inexperience" any longer? Is it coaching? Or is it the players (who don't seem to know how to change things until the quarter ends and they get to reset and speak with the coaches)? Is it as simple as being "between the ears" (whatever that means)?

With Rich and Robinson confirmed out, they will be fielding an incredibly inexperienced side that we should bully and walk all over. Brisbane by 25.

I think we're missing the point with some of the analysis. I know it's a very tough loss to take, but we really only have a few things to work on. I've seen some people potting Goodwin for his motivational skills or the way he speaks at the pressers. This means little and is wrong in many aspects. If he couldn't motivate us, then how did we come out and kick 6 first quarter goals? How were we able to wrest back control of the game when it looked like it was out of our hands at half time? The bloke knows what he's doing. We also didn't lose this one at the selection table. I'm not sure how much of a difference Tyson or Brayshaw would have made, but we didn't struggle in terms of getting the ball forward, we didn't struggle for clearances and we did well in terms of contested possessions. Would Tyson and Brayshaw have made our uncontested possessions any better, or improved our two way running? Maybe, maybe not. The real issue for us is the brain fades we have in certain quarters where we let teams get the better of us. If you were to take that out of yesterday's game, and we break even, then we win this game of football. That's simple fact. The problem we face is how we fix that, what Plan B we have (that Geelong had when we got on top) and how our leaders communicate with each other to implement it during a game. We can hang with the big boys, we have no problem hitting the scoreboard (we had 29 scoring shots) and we play a brand of football that stands up in big games. We just need to work our way around a problem we shouldn't still have in terms of fade outs in quarters where we expose our back line and allow teams too many easy goals. Fix that and we're on our way.

I find myself agreeing with almost all of this, until the final sentence. If this had just been a close game between two good sides, with one just edging the other out, then I would be totally fine with it. Gawn's miss is understandable (albeit not good enough), he was exhausted. But that's not what happened. We had two big flaws in 2017 that we all wanted to see addressed in the off-season. The first was the negative ratio we had in converting inside 50s compared to our opponents (i.e. our opponents score more frequently from their inside 50s than we do from ours). The second was our standard switch-off moments. It took two quarters of 2018 for both to re-surface. We lost the second quarter by 31 points, and at half time we had scored 13 times from 30 inside 50s, but Geelong had generated 20 scores from 24 inside 50s. What did we do in the off-season to prevent this from occurring, and whatever it was, why did it fail so quickly into the season? Lever and Jetta had bad matches but the reason why Geelong was scoring so easily was not our defensive unit. It was our forward line and midfield which failed, repeatedly, to apply any pressure on Geelong. They had no problems with their kick-ins, they had loose men all over the place, and we didn't tackle anywhere near enough inside 50. How is this a problem in Round 1? Why did we play Hannan, Fritsch and Harmes, all of whom played the same sort of role and none of whom played four quarters? Why did we play Maynard, who is absolutely nowhere near AFL standard and, to my eye, does not bring a single skill/trait to the table (he's slow, he can't kick, he doesn't read the play, and his only job was to stop Selwood and Ablett and he failed at that). There are positives to take from the game - Petracca, Oliver and Gawn all played well, Lewis (despite his horrendous 50-metre penalty) made a huge difference across half back in the second half, Fritsch showed he has what it takes, and we didn't let a key forward ragdoll us for once. It's only one game, so the sample size is admittedly insignificant at this point. But when the same problems which haunted us in 2017 and stopped us from making finals resurface two quarters into the new season, the optimism takes a battering.

I will encourage Max Gawn to tamper with the ball to get reverse swing

No we don't, but you don't send a 2nd gamer to play on them.

Some good displays of hardness - bumps etc. Confidence that they were still in the game. Petracca, Oliver, Gawn, Hogan, Jones As a side note, Gerard Whateley said that he felt the Melbourne v Geelong game was the highest quality game of the weekend and that if you’d picked those 2 sides as legitimate contenders at the end of the year, you would have left the game convinced. Always good to get an outside perspective.

Turn over king that cant hit targets? 76% disposal efficiency, one of the highest on the ground. No composure and just bombs long? Only 10 of his 29 disposals were Kicks, 6 of them were Inside 50's. People will keep seeing what they want though.

1. We looked gone at half time then came back hard 2. No one dominated yet we pushed them to the final siren. 3. Petracca looks fitter and set for a big year.

You know what, I blame this piece of play for our loss. Gawn, Oliver, Petracca missed but that happens a dozen times a game. Using that logic you could say Menzel kicks a couple extra goal that he missed down the other end and we lose by 15 points. This "senior" player, in a "leadership role" gave away a 50m penalty and nearly certian goal over words that came out of his mouth towards an umpire. Words. I know he played a good game and white line fever/heat of the moment but because of his use of the English language he handed the opposition a goal. To me this is completely unacceptable, let alone from an on field leader. No excuse.

Not when you're fishing with my tackle

So I'm assuming we lost by 10 goals?

Seriously? We just lost by a kick to the team that finished 2017 H&A equal top.

Selwood and Ablett continually called for a free when they were tackled. They think they are the untouchables.

I believe Vince came into the game with the split webbing. The stitches tore off early in the game and he went down the race for repairs. He’s a tough cookie our Bernie, loved his second half.

Sorry but Omac was not terrible got outmuscled by Hawkins once but he's not Robinson Crusoe there. Wagner was good in the second half. Jetta who I love was by far our worst defender today and Hunt was poor

So if Gawn kicks that goal then we're flying and the sky is falling on Geelong's season. Yeah, alright.

We lost 10 times last year. We won the inside 50 count in 6 of those. Of those, 4 times it was very close and twice we won by 11 (against Geelong and North). But 23 times is a smashing and clearly a statistical outlier. We lost today because we let them score too easily when they went forward (especially early) and we struggled to carry the ball from the midfield to give our forwards clean looks. But I also think our game style will see us win a lot of inside 50 counts.

It's not on the coaches, we dropped Lewis back behind the ball late in the 2nd quarter and kept him there until the end of the game. Up until that stage it was somewhat a shootout and the expectation from the coaches was surely to keep to the plan and decrease the 2 goal lead. Unfortunately we let that lead blow out to 4 goals right before half time by which time I believe the 7th defender was already in place. Plan B - playing with 7 defenders - worked well and got us right back in a position to win with the Gawn kick. The problem with switching from an attacking game plan to lock down defensive mode is you then have be prepared to live with the ball in your back half and play slower ball moving and controlled play with lots of off the ball running and covering. It requires everyone on the same page and that's much more easily achieved during a break in play. I don't think it was just the one bad quarter that killed us today. It was the inability to defend for the entire first half - and all over the ground as well. Forwards couldn't lay a tackle, midfielders couldn't keep up and backs were all out of shape. The first quarter defending was just as bad but I understand why the coaches didn't want to make changes when they were ahead and could've easily been further ahead given our own chances.

Ummm No.

Out: Maynard, Wagner, Hannan In: Tyson, Brayshaw, Bugg Love him or loathe him, we are a better team with Buggy playing.

He's not.

I will move permanently to the Czech Republic, sit by the Vltava River in Praha every day throwing stones into the water and never think of football again.

Point of clarification... feel free to enlighten this genuine inquisitor... 16. DISPOSAL FROM MARK OR FREE KICK 16.1 STANDING THE MARK AND TEN-METRE PROTECTED AREA 16.1.1 Standing the Mark When a Player is awarded a Mark or Free Kick or is Kicking into play after a Behind has been scored, one Player from the opposing Team may stand at the position on the Playing Surface where the Mark or Free Kick was awarded or where the field Umpire otherwise directs the Player to stand. The position on the Playing Surface where the opposing Player stands is known as “the mark”. 16.1.2 Protected Area The Protected Area is a corridor which extends from 5 metres either side of the mark to 5 metres either side of, and a 5-metre radius behind, the Player with the football, as illustrated in Diagram 2. No Player shall enter and remain in the Protected Area unless the field Umpire calls “Play On” or the Player is accompanying or following within 5 metres of their opponent.

I thought our composure really let us down yesterday. Too many times players threw the ball on their boot in a panicked fashion. We gave our forwards zero chance. Until this improves we'll be making up the numbers.

...and he nailed Selwood a few times after this in some crunching tackles. Made him feel it. Joel was less than happy about it either.

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt considering he was absolutely smashed by Selwood in the second quarter. Clearly wasn't 100% afterwards

Selwood knew exactly what he was doing - he backed into Salem while in the air. Tunnelling is really dangerous whether or not it is malicious. I didn't necessarily think it was malicious either but it was close enough for the umpire to warn Selwood with 'careful, Joel careful' several times. My post was mostly to draw attention to Clarry flying the flag for Salem.

I find it incredibly frustrating when our targets always seem to lead to the boundary line in our forward fifty. Why aren't we just hitting the hot spot, and giving our smalls in Melksham and ANB the best chance to score with snaps around their bodies in front of goal? Why make it even harder for ourselves by trying to hit someone lace out to a bloke that's 40m out on the boundary line?

his rhetoric about the north record I found puzzling. As a club we should be looking to put an end to an embarrassing record. they have pushed us around for a decade and you just know that internally at north they treat it as a badge of honour. imo, dismissing the fact they have dominated us is disrespectful to them. own it, and put the challenge to north to maintain it. don't ignore it and act like it doesn't matter. Geelong dominated the hawks for, what, 7 years after the 2008 GF? You just know that ate at Al Clarkson. There's no way he didn't rev the players up about it. just another lesson for goodwin. i think it's time he stops treating this job as a teaching gig and a "journey". we're at a stage now where we shouldn't be allowing teams like geelong to constantly push us around. it's been 11 years ffs and we've only beaten them once. and as a club, there's been no direct effort to beat into them the way they did on the dreadful day in 2011.

We were down by 26 points at half time, we found a way to get back into the game and put our selves into a position to win the game against a really good team. I think that shows this team is starting mature as a group, I'm look forward to the season ahead.

Nothing has changed on this website! That was one of the best games I've seen us play in years and everyone on here is acting like we lost by 20 goals. We almost beat Geelong who placed 3rd last season.

Buy a bottle of red, drink it slowly, savour the elements that provide pleasure, repeat,repeat, repeat. Wake up with a hangover and realise you will still drink wine , support dees. Wake up next decide never to drink again, support saints Good luck!

Seeing as you posted here, I think you already know your choice. Welcome to the MFC!

He was, wasn't we. Which makes jnrmac's assertion that he was 'terrible' quite strange. But not surprising given it hard to see with those confirmation bias goggles on. Lever had a stinker. Just imagine jnrmac's assessment if tmac's younger brother had played half as badly

That's far too simplistic. If we were that mentally soft then we aren't working out way back into the match and potentially winning it. We're letting them kick on and we lose by 10 goals. That doesn't happen.

I went to the game. My summary... it was ours to lose! Great contest... so much better to watch than several other round 1 games. All of the critics here need to take a breath and think what they would be writing if Max kicked the goal. I didn't see a Demon player who didn't contribute in some way. There has been so much stupid stuff written here that I don't have time to make the corrections. Our 2018 campaign is off to a healthy start with a lot to look forward to. Fritsch proved he is more than a goalsneak... Lever had the same sort of influence that gained him a reputation at Adelaide...Max, Ollie & Trac were superb. Bernie showed why he is a favoured son on many occasions... none better than when he rode the bump that left a Cat sprawled in his wake... Hogan was creative and hit the scoreboard in his normal manner. Harmes, Hunt and Hannon lifted in the second half to bring us back into contention. Wagner is all bustle and bash... what he lacks in finesse and finish is made up for in fearless attack on opposition bodies. ANB continues to bob op with deft touches... Jones got us going in the first quarter (those that thought he was ordinary need to watch the replay)... Pederson continues to be a wonderful contributor who is now showing that he is a cool head in a crisis (that kick to Max instead of shooting for goal was centimetre perfect!... Mind you, I have seen Pedo score from that position). Neville was playing hurt and may miss next week. I would expect Brayshaw and Tyson to come in to contention... but I certainly wouldn't be making more than one or two changes. Congratulations to the coaching panel for preparing such a fit and motivated team for the beginning of 2018.

It's probably just me, but I thought Maynard was far from our worst player. 15 touches, 7 tackles, 5 clearances. His disposal leaves a bit to be desired but the bloke has a dip. There were plenty of others who had less influence on the game than him (ANB, Salem, Garlett, Hannan etc.) He may get dropped, but I think the harsh criticism is a little unfair on a bloke playing just his second game of AFL footy and who was given the task of attempting to curb one of the best players of our generation.

Thought it was a gripping and entertaining game of footy. Props to the usual bunch of drawing long bows from short sample sizes - no, we don't yet know if we are "same old Melbourne". Besides, I thought we showed spirit after half time to get back in the game and nearly clinch it. Also an honourable mention to the usual "this is going to be a blowout" crew at half time in the match day thread. You guys seriously crack me up. You know who you are. The Lewis 50 was a disgraceful example of leadership. However I thought his assistance in the back half of the ground was significant in our second half improvement. I don't know how to weigh the two factors off against each other. The Gawn miss was a huge letdown, but the call above to drop him for it currently leads the race for the most absurd post in this thread. That would clearly be harmful to the team as he was on top all day, and there's no punitive/education benefit either: I suspect he may already realise he might have been better off kicking the goal and doesn't need to be dropped to get the point. Nobody misses on purpose. Wagner has copped some criticism but I thought he lifted significantly in the second half. His pressure was first rate. Petracca is going to be a star and Oliver already is. Overall, very disappointed to have lost, but it hasn't done much to dent my optimism for this season.

That narrative changes completely based on one kick out of the hundreds in a game. The same people who are bemoaning the end of the world would have been on cloud nine had Gawn's kick not hooked left, and that's what I think is silly.

Cats with no Mackie or Lonergan or Enright. Cats minus Dangerfield, clearly the best player in the AFL Cats lose Harry Taylor Cats blood 3 new debutants and 6 players under 20 games. WE STILL FIND A WAY TO LOSE. WE WERE FAVOURITES. WE GOT LEVER. WE GOT RID OF BAD CULTURE OF JACK WATTS. Yes no Viney or McDonald but I’ll take the Dangerfield v Viney/McDonald missing as a demon head start. Today WAS a failure

Frost - why not selected Brayshaw - very surprising omission Tyson- ask please explain

We won the 4th most quarters of any team in 2017. Those one quarter lapses are the only thing stopping us from being a top 4 side and genuine contender. I believe it comes down to leadership. If 3 goals in a row are scored against us, the leaders automatically drop players behind the ball and stem the bleeding for a 5-10 minute period. Once we've stabilised and withstood their onslaught, we reload without the damage effecting us on the scoreboard. It's not rocket science, yet we continue to allow teams to pile on goals when we could just clog the space and shut the game down to kill their momentum.

Jones often gets hard, contested ball with little assistance which tends to lead to what is mentioned above.

Went to the game today and left both shattered and optimistic. Weird feeling and one that's hard to describe. Obviously, we played rather poorly in patches. Poor defending, poor support for each other and our backline was left exposed by our inability to put some pressure on their midfield, especially during the second term. Our back line players didn't have a good day out either which hurt. At one stage they had something like 28 inside 50s and had 22 scoring shots from those. We had 10 more and a few scoring shots less. It was proof that we had no problem getting it forward, it was our decision making and execution that was letting us down. Also, our composure was a little disappointing as well. Melksham fluffed an easy chance, while I thought Trac rushed his shot at goal in the last and could have done better. Our high half forwards were poor in the first half and had little influence on the game. It hurt our usage going forward and we looked lost. And then the second half happened. While it's fair that they did miss some easy shots, they only kicked two goals in the second half. Our back line tightened up, we got back to supporting each other at the contest and our high half forwards started influencing the game. We looked terrific and, really, we should have stole the game at the end. Petracca was fantastic, Oliver looks set for another big year and Gawny was immense, miss aside. I thought Jones played well, Harmes had a great second half and our back line lifted. But then, I felt as though we didn't have a huge amount of influential players, yet here we were, a few metres away from winning this game of footy. This loss hasn't dampened my enthusiasm and optimism for the season ahead and I think we're well placed for a tilt at finals footy. We have things to work on, but they're fixable. Onwards and upwards.

Yeah look, yeah. Gawn's miss is not what I'm taking out of it. Last year, the reason why we didn't make finals was because of our 1 quarter fade-outs. What I'm taking out of today, is that we haven't fixed it, and that's what makes this day overwhelming negative. "But we showed fight" I hear you say. Last year, we always showed fight. It's an admirable trait. Did we make finals last year? No, so it's not enough. Today, regardless of whether we won or lost (i.e. of whether Gawn kicked straight at the end or not), the key thing to take out of today's performance was that 2nd quarter fade-out, and it's symbolism of a lack of growth in the key area that would take us to finals; consistency. And it was infuriating.

You never quite know what you're going to get in round 1. And you're not exactly sure what the opposition will throw at you. We lacked cohesion forward of centre, but there's much he and Jennings can work on. Goodwin is a very astute coach and I have faith they'll improve the connections you refer to. I just get annoyed with the plethora of nuffies who target him.

? Three out of those four were in everything.