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I’m so happy vanders didn’t end up at Sydney, he is such an asset for us

Pressure really good from both sides. Apart from the first 10 minutes our pressure was good and structures seemed sound. Pies were missing their 3 most dangerous forwards in De Goey, Stephenson and WHE, although Elliott makes up for one of those. So the low score from them isn't a huge surprise. That was pretty much 2017 Collingwood we played when they couldn't score. I was a little disappointed we didn't switch the ball more around half back, we seemed comfortable to bomb it out. Backline: Frost and Oscar both started very poorly missing chances to kill contests with intercepts or strong punches. Frosty clean missed a few chances to mark and Oscar looked slow. But they got going as the game spread out a bit more and our pressure came up. Jetta excellent. Hibberd solid. Lewis did enough defensively and apart from his trade mark dumb free kicks he played well. Hunt good. Mids: Gus had it on a string early and his clean hands and tackle pressure was excellent. Tracc then took over. Vanders cracked in. Young Sparrow tagged Treloar in the second half, nice goal and won some ball, probably wasn't as clean with his tackles as I expected. Max dominated, hardly a surprise there. Salem showed his class at times. Forwards: Pressure was really good. Joel Smith a nice addition in that regard and C Wagner worked hard. Tim Smith did ok. Preussy hit some contests very hard but I wasn't impressed by his positioning, did get on the end of it a few times though. One nice grab and a solid but not spectacular game from Weids. Nice goal from Garlett and good pressure but he made some dreadful errors kicking the ball along the ground and making bad decisions, didn't do enough to convince me he was in any way back. Stock up: JKH - really got us going in the first term and was dangerous all game, strong enough at the contest, high work rate Hunt - no huge runs but opened the game up and used it nicely at times Petracca - midfield oomph Stock down: ANB - very scratchy ball use and decision making Stretch - didn't take the game on enough or deliver well

Meanwhile at Arden St.... Nth Melbourne Football Manager

I wish people would stop whinging about the live stream. It's a praccy match FFS. Be grateful that we have any coverage at all.

Good to get the 4 points.

Seen enough of Sparrow. Wins the ball and breaks free from 4 Pies in the middle for a release and now drills a beauty. Small sample but I don’t care, looks like he belongs.

Here are a few other photos I took. The play for the most part was too far away for my lens.

Gawn bog for me and 1 thing is for certain at some point this year preuss is going to kill someone

On the 11th of January this year my Dad died unexpectadly of a heart attack. He was a fit and healthy man only 65 years old with everything to look forward to. His mum is still alive at 100 years of age and his dad died at 90. As he lived up the country with Mum, my last three great memories of time spent with my Dad were the Melbourne v Geelong game, the Melbourne v Hawthorn Game and Christmas. Needless to say that video smacked me in the guts hard and had me weeping like a baby. Im really scared about this year, not because I think we will be bad, but because there is every possibility we could be very, very good and if our wildest dream comes true, I will be completly inconsolable for so many reasons. If you see a 6 foot tall, skinny bloke with shaved head balling his eyes out on that one day in September, please throw your arm around him and remind him to enjoy the moment, because his a dad waited 54 years for that moment and will have fallen 8 months short.

The members of the AFL executive who thought this would be a good idea should be replaced immediately. I found todays scratch match, MFC v Coll, infinitely more engaging. The attempts of the commentators to make this carp sound interesting is excruciating. Hey, AFL big knobs.... how about a State of Origin contest in some modified form???? Fracken who cares about this tripe??? You belittle the great game you pretend to be the guardians of! Disgusting, vomit inducing, commercial self-indulgent [censored]!!!

It's always interesting to get others views on the game. I thought Joel Smith was disappointing and misjudged the ball a lot in the air giving his opponent an easy and unpressured out. Also thought Salem and Hibberd were quiet. I thought Oscar was really solid and good with excellent vision and disposal. Looks to have gone up a notch on last year. JKH will push if he continues to play that way. The competition for spots will be significant. Hunt also a nice bonus and resembled the 2017 version.

Preuss and Vanders are going to have more victims than Fred and Rose.

And, the headline is... THE MIGHTY DEES DOWN THE PIES!! Only a practice match you say? Let me repeat: THE MIGHT DEES DOWN THE PIES!! (That's all that matters! GO DEES!!)

Jetta added to leadership group Congratulations to Nev. A much deserved promotion for a perennially underrated player. 2019 Leadership group Nathan Jones (co-captain) Jack Viney (co-captain) Max Gawn Neville Jetta Jetta replaces Lewis who will work with coaches and leaders.

Dees Win ??? Melbourne 11 - 6 - 72 Collingwood 7 - 6 - 48

Mahoney was saying during the last q, that having Pruess would free up players like TMac and Weid from any relieving ruck duties and allow them to further develop as key forwards. He then said, Max also needs to stretch out his season and may be rested forward entire games or rested completely. ....interesting.

Haha what no chance Weid is playing 2s for round 1

I only saw the 2nd half of the 3rd quarter onwards. VDB looks in ripping shape. He was in everything and was the highlight for me. He was in the center bounce a fair bit in the last. He is a sledgehammer. Looked very fit and took it seriously. Lewis played well. I'm hoping a number of players go past him this year but he will be important in the first few rounds while we get other players back up to speed and I'm happy that he is on the list. Sparrow played wing and then moved into the center bounce at times. Physically ready to play and will get game time this year. Looked like a first year player who didn't quite belong yet and didn't seem to position himself that well to get the ball, but when he was in a position to get it he did a lot right. Didn't look clean but he was determined to impact the contest and his second and third efforts were great. Preuss looked good. Clearly not as polished or composed as Gawn. Had the opportunity to kill a bloke in the last 10 minutes and pulled out. I reckon if it was round one he would have smashed the bloke. Will be very interested to see how the two ruck situation will continue over the JLT.

Vanders’ tackling is a thing of beauty.

I have been and always will be keen on playing Gawn and Preuss in the same team. We can't continue to run Gawn into the ground.

Goosebumps

Hard to see impact of 6 6 6 rule, though Maxy did get the ball to his mids cleanly a few times. But this game really reinforced my belief that the biggest impact will be the changes to the kick out rules. Having the man of the mark 9 metres from the top of the square and not having to kick the ball in the air almost makes the square redundant. it really opens up the field and will make clear the back 50 much easier. At one point Jetts took the kick in, played on and ran diagonally towards the boundary. Gus (i think) put small block on the man on the mark , Jetts ran his full measure and by the time he kicked it was probably all of 30 metres from the goal line. His kick to the wing was pretty much halfway up the ground. I think we will have big advantage with maxy because it means he won't have to push so far up the ground and will be in position to take a lot of marks on centre wing. With players running pat him we will get a lot of quick inside 50s. I can see Weids and TMac and Preuess all pushing up to centre wing at times to provide options. The other impact - and one i hadn't considered - is that i reckon there will be way more play ons from kick ins, way more. This will create a much faster transition game. Teams will also need to set up their presses across the center of the ground the widest point, so hard to trap the ball. I will be fascinated to see if more scoring chains start from kick ins. I am predicting there will.

I can hear the jungle drums....DON'T STAND IN FRONT OF PREUSS!!! Can you imagine dropping into the gap in front of Preuss on the lead. FMD let him have it.

It may have been mentioned but this is exciting. These are the players NOT playing today... May, Viney, Jones, Oliver, Lever, KK, Melksham, Hannan, Frisch, TMac. That’s a lot of depth.

Corey Wagner gonna be a great addition I reckon

1. determines the play-on boundary for kick outs 2. marks in the square can line up dead in front on top of goal square

Bit of a scrappy match. Best thing: no injuries. My other small takeaways - Brayshaw will take another step forward this year. I thought he was great. Harmes will continue his new found midfield role and do it well. vandenBerg will have his best year. And Sparrow has a very mature physique already. Oh and I thought Oscar looked really good. He's just going to keep getting better. Both teams a bit rusty.

The changes to kick ins will be by far the biggest change. The man on the mark being pushed right back combined with the ability to play on and not have to kick the ball to yourself means that the player kicking out makes it halfway up the defensive 50 metre arc before they are even confronted. The first kick is hitting the wing or centre square. Teams will start flooding hard if they score a behind, as they are now little to no chance at regaining possession of the ball in their forward half. It's going to create some very ugly matches with lots of flooding IMO. The changes to the rules, as they are every year, are poor and reactionary. The AFL just want free-wheeling shoot-outs at the expense of key fundamentals of the game. The addition of the 6-6-6 rule is going to mean teams who don't have the talent on their list e.g. Gold Coast are going to get belted by bigger margins. We're going to see far less competitive and close games. It's going to be boring and ugly. While I love watching us win, beating up on teams like Gold Coast is going to feel pretty hollow when coaches don't have the ability to change tactics to combat what's happening.

Standing behind the goals it appeared melb had outriders in the pockets to prevent full back playing on out of the square to the boundary. May be wrong on this but spargo seemed to have this role.

Some good footy. The relentless pressure to get the ball moving our way from a contest or breakdown was the highlight - ethos footy. Standout players for me: Gawn, Brayshaw, Kennedy-Harris, Vandenberg. Good to see back, or new: Hunt, Preuss, Hore, Stretch, T.Smith. No bad performers for a first hit out.

In case I haven't mentioned this enough on the podcast Max Gawn's marking in defence is [censored] top shelf.

I was watching on and off, but did see Vandenberg lay an absolutely beauty of a tackle on Dayne Beams. You could tell it took the wind out of him.

Don't sell us short.

WE'RE WINNING THE NEXT FIVE FLAGS!!!!!!

Goal tally so far Two to Preuss Singles to Weideman, Stretch, JKH, T.Smith, Harmes, C.Wagner

stream and commentary quite good now. Even got replays working.

Punky Preusster. It’ll catch on.

This one has got to be mine for similar reasons. I've got 3 kids, 15 down to 11years old, its been some terrible curse but we hadn't seen a win live since Bailey was coaching. Whatever game I took them to, we'd get done. Didn't matter who we played. Makes for a long 7hr round trip lemme tell ya. I took them to the ANZAC and Queens Birthday games last year to let them experience a large crowd at the G as most of the one we've watched have only been half full at best or at the soulless Etihad. I asked my young bloke who's 13 after the Queens Birthday game what he thought of the noise the big crowd makes. He said "Yeah, but it's always the other teams." And he was right, we'd watched 'em all run over us. My youngest daughter had never actually seen a win live. Broke my heart as they've had it tough in the school yard them kids. Took them to the Elimination final and not only was the crowd mostly Melbourne supporters for a change. It was us doing the damage. We were also in Mitch Hannans pocket and he put boot to ball right in front of us. The noise and the sea of raised fists in the air when it went through was something to behold. I can still see the look on my kids beaming faces. Un forken real .... The monkeys off the back.

Loving the new colour scheme.

That mark from Joel god damn

It’s back up. Nokia3310 charger was found.

Jaguar should have sponsored the live stream. They're also prone to breaking down.

Classic.

#Pumped.

Bout time... about time Nev was given this Honour. A true Dee, and role model... for all indigenous and non indigenous alike. We could all take a page from Nev's book. Well done Melbourne, and congrats Nev. rapt with this.

I was at the Family day at Luna park in 2014 and saw Nev Jetta standing virtually on his own when picked as a rookie thanks to then new coach Paul Roos. Went up to him and wished him luck for the season and asked for a selfie with him and obliged kindly such a good person with a smile. Said to him Roos sees something in you to keep you at the club Hope all works out for you as he replied thanks with that look of determination. The rest is history as he turned his career around and nothing makes me happier to see such a loyal person be recocgnised and added to the leadership group. Well done Nev as l am sure you have some unfinished business to attend to in 2019.

Still not convinced Goody is the right guy.. his coaching record in Prelims is hopeless, as that video showed.