Leaderboard

Neville Jetta is one of the toughest players to ever don the jumper.

About to hit the road from Mildura for tonight’s blockbuster. The car is packed with 5 dees supporters locked and loaded. Never been to Adelaide Oval for a night match. Very excited. We are in the general admin/standing area which I’m guessing gets pretty feral. Is it worth donning the full dees kit or not worth the trouble from the locals?

By the way, that was a mark to Brayshaw at the end.

Don't care what anyone says, we were absolutely robbed by those [censored] maggots!!

2 free kicks for the game and his opponent who most said would towel him kicked one goal. Least of our problems. Get over it son

Rubbish. Murdered Dixon all night and was paid two of the softest 50 metre penalties in history against him tonight.

Filthy dog cheating umpires

The detractors can shove it. That was finals football and we kept up the intensity all night. Lost out on some equivalent umpiring calls both ways in the final quarter on opposition turf. Super proud of the boys tonight. Again, I view this as an important match in our development. Edit: Cracking footy match btw. I mentioned in the match thread that I would love to see channel seven's viewership numbers after half-time. I doubt many turned off due to the 'boring' low-scoring match.

Melksham could have been shot out there and they wouldn't have given him a free kick.

I'm not unhappy with our effort away from home. I thought we deserved to win but for the umpiring.. early it was the momentum stopping free. Late it was 10 consecutive free kicks in the last quarter. What else can we do?

I lost it when they called that Melksham free a block.. in a one on one marking contest and he had his eyes on the ball.. My god.

I'm hoping that the bloke who celebrates loudly into the Channel Seven microphone after every Demons goal is also present at this game. He seems to be a good luck charm.

We had 'em. We fair dinkum had 'em in that third term. When Salem kicked that goal to put us 20 points up I really thought we could keep it going. Even when they kicked a couple and we got one back, I thought we could keep them at bay. And we just couldn't do it. For all of our dominance, and I believe we were the better side on the night (yes, I know, smash me for it, I don't give a stuff), our conversion inside 50 sucked and it lost us the game. We moved it too slowly, or missed a target, or just bombed away and it hurt us. I thought we had rectified it in the third term but then we kicked only 1 of the next 7 goals and we lose the game. Heartbreaking stuff. Full credit to our backline who many believed would be undersized and outmatched - that really wasn't the case at all and shows we made the right decision in terms of selection and the players we used through there. Our midfield rectified the clearance problem against the best clearance side in the comp, yet we couldn't capitalise often enough to take advantage of it. We have a huge 3 weeks to get things right - we simply cannot lose any of the next 3 games against sides we should most certainly be defeating. No excuses there. I'm pretty deflated and disappointed with the outcome but, at the same time, happy to see us respond in a positive fashion after the debacle of Queen's Birthday. Keep your chin up everyone, if you can.

If the AFL are serious about improving the game in respect to fairness and equalisation, they MUST address the Adelaide, Perth and Geelong homeground umpiring bias, because it kills the game dead, and it did that tonight. Simply just not an even playing field.

I would like the club to publicly question the block on Melksham, momentum killer that disgusting decision

Deserved to lose. Taking out Spargo and not bringing in another crumber, having all those useless inside 50’s with no one to pounce, while Tyson comes in to do some bit part stoppage work in some sort of made up role is just nonsense. Worst part is Port were awful.

Goschs paddock...on the wrong side of the road ..right next to lovely healthy Punt Road...lost among codes.. no mans land Or Smack bang next to the G....THE MCG......a small club hit to the new facilities from our ancestral home...the MCC. Why is this even a discussion... Make it so...

Pretty sad really We were the better side most of the night. Poor ball use inside 50 and biased umpiring cost us the four points in a brutal battle.

29 more inside 50s is a disgrace not to win, just cost a top 4 spot

Would love to know how many goals they got from frees and setup from frees. Umpiring was atrocious, bodering on criminal.

Lost that in the first half with so much wasted opportunity. We had them complete on toast but persisted with the long bomb inside 50 to a pack of 10 players system which NEVER works for us. Just dumb footy. umpiring sucked bad but we lost that ourselves

I think we will probably scrape into the 8, and lose week one. Too many players who give us nothing under pressure. Jetta and McDonald literally bleed for us, while Petracca, Tyson, Hogan, Neal Bullen etc disappear. Losing Lever was the end of our season. I hope we make finals to get over that mental hurdle, but sadly we are nowhere near good enough to impact in September. A brave effort.

God Ling doesn’t miss a chance of hang it on us. Such a [censored] commentator and actually worse than BT.

Bought the ticket, got a fence seat on the eastern side ($90 mind you) so really looking forward to being up close to the players so I can hurl abuse, pat them on the bum, that sorta thing. Kicking off at the 2KW rooftop bar around 4pm so should be in fine form come bounce down. Keep an eye out for me.

People going to training doesn't matter. It's mainly the diehards that do that with any regularity (Although thank the gods for those on here who do and provide all the great reports!) Family Days, held at both Casey and our city training site, are what draws in families, kids, curious newcomers etc. and people are happy to make the extra effort for that - so long as they're held at a good time but that's another issue. I'd also love it if our women's team could play a true home game that wasn't a 3-hour commute for Dees fans in the northern suburbs. What we're looking for in a training ground is one that's got top-notch facilities, is centrally located for everyone, especially those who go there regularly - the players, coaches etc. - is connected to the administrative side of the club, and is a hub as the club's home in the city that bears our name. We want to grab people's interest where we can get it (including around Casey) and then convert that into memberships and game attendance. Who cares if those people watch training?

3 blokes going out with bleeding from mouth/head in the last quarter. It would have been a miracle to hold on with shite like that going on. Enough umpire comments have been made so I won’t even bother. It just hurts, this game should have been over at half time. Time to play natural footballers, like Petty, Garlett. To those saying Oscar was horrible, WTF? The fifties against him? @ ridiculous. He was in the air both times the Port players marked the ball. What the fluck do you want the guy to do? We dominated just about everything with so many players ineffectual. Oh yeah....Fritsch is special..pity he missed that snap in the last. Gutted....that’s all!

Kidding? Nah. Haters will see what they want to see. Gives away a couple of dubious free kicks and he's had a 'woeful' night. His job is to shut down key forwards. He smashed Dixon all night. Job done.

Could have and should have beaten them. The inside 50s were like early on this season. We need to get cleaner. Good effort and intensity - Jetta and Viney huge. Fritsch did some sublime things. I believe we will still make finals. Terrible umpiring mistakes killed our momentum and gave Port clear advantage several times. Disgraceful.

Slaughtered by the umpires. How many goals did port get from frees? We got absolutely molested in forward 50 and got sweet F all. Still can't believe the free paid against Melk.

How many goals did Dixon kick?

Lots of heart, but back to a landslide of dumb forward entries.

There’s not many games that the umpires really impact! But they absolutely screwed the Demons tonight!

That absolute clown 15 has influenced this game. The soft “I thought it was a mark” to Wingard, the mind numbing free kick and 50 against Melky. Then the cautious response to the next “advantage” free to Port. I loathe that bald streak of you know what! Dare I say up there with Razor. It is all about him!

Its great isnt it. Now i lnow how blues fans feel every second week.

Not sure how to feel about this one. Have spent the last 2 weeks looking for the lid I'd flung a fair distance. The realist in me doesn't expect a win and for what it's worth I think that's ok. Finals was always the bench mark for me, not top 4. Havig said that Friday night drinks demand blood. Dee's by 40.

Nev! ♥️

My love for Jetta just grew after ironing out that grub thomas!

That was a disgrace, but then followed with allowing them to play on, when everyone stopped ,after calling back 3 of our play ons. Pathetic. One goal taken off us and then onee given to them.

Melksham was being held?????????

Nichols is just appalling. A disgrace even to ?. Free should have been Melksham Vince just pulled off the ball - no free.

You just knew we’d concede one late. Every time. Every single time.

Wife sees me cooking dinner with a bourbon instead of a beer and gives me the "ill go in the other room and let you scream at the tv after dinner" look. Poor partners of demon supporters. ???

SEASON DEFINING GAME TONIGHT! Make no mistake, Essendrug have shown us how to do it! NO excuses, We must be relentless, gut run to space, be accurate in front of goal, and put some clamps on Grey, Boak and that bloody Westhoff who I cant stand! Don't care how we do it as long as we do Loss tonight quite rightly labels us as PRETENDERS! WIN and we might just be onto a finals appearance!

Came home to a bonus 6 pack of beer from the wife who knew the game was on tonight. I take this is a good omen. Dees by 6 goals.

Pretty much exactly what my thoughts were. First 15 minutes tell us the game normally, first 5 usually tells us plenty. But if it’s good it takes me until about the final siren to believe we are a chance ?

"There had been suggestions over the weekend from former directors and powerbrokers that Jackson would quit his post immediately, but these were proven to be unfounded at Thursday’s morning tea." I find this a most interesting line from the article... These are the people that put us in our previous poor position and cause nothing but trouble. There they go again and yet again they are wrong...ego might not be a dirty word but for some I wish they would just shut it.

We need to rethink our strategy of more Friday night games. im not going to get any work done today checking this thread.

whats this strange feeling playing on a friday night?

Ok agree to disagree. I have little doubt that the team looking at the options for a new facility looked at your (or similar) options in the vicinity using Gosch’s paddock as the training oval. But one point on your idea about picking up new supporters. People don’t select a football team because they go past the building regularly. People choose a football club because of 3 main reasons. 1. The team is successful. 2. The team has exciting “star” players 3. Family influence. You want people to fall In Love with the Dees. Points 1 and 2 are what we need. Why did you start barracking for the Dees Out of interest DV8.

Spargo without getting many touches was very good at crumbing inside 50 and setting up a few goals. If you leave him out I thought Garlett was a must to replace him. Do we maybe see Fritsch spend more time inside 50 tomorrow to play that role?