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I watched the replay last night. The first replay i have watched all year and since our last win 2019. When we win, and play ok it is something i really enjoy. It is a different experience obviously but its funny when you know the result and there is not the emotion and fear of losing how you can see things differently. i posted my reflections on the game earlier in this thread so won't repeat those comments. But here are some random reflections from the replay: I though the commentary was bad when i watched it live but it was actually worse than i remembered. Really just a joke. The model of having head play by play caller (hudson) and two ex footy jocks in the box just talking to each other about their own opinions like they were at the pub (and providing zero useful analysis), with a boundary rider whose job is seemingly to get injury reports wrong and make wise cracks to each other is just ridiculous. Look at the EPL. One commentator. Who often doesn't talk and just lets the pictures tell the story. Or the socceroos coverage. Hill as the main caller - smart, erudite, knows the game inside out and has a good voice for calling a game augmented with an ex footballer who actually provides helpful input, analysis and responds to questions form Hill. And then at half time have the panel of footy jocks guffawing. Perfect. The commentary mess was summed up for me at one point when Lyon and Brown were banging on about tacos and red mist, repeating a conversation that had 10 times already whilst the ball was in play. Rankine did something or other and Hudson, the play by play caller, said whoa look at that - and then apologized for interrupting! Sheesh Traccs kicking was poor (really Lyon and Brown, do you need to point that out again!) but he played much better than i thought - so powerful in the contest. On the cusp of becoming a true A grader and surely will be AA this year And actually a couple of Tracc's kicks were not bad as gaddy and browny made out For example the one where he burst out of the centre and went to for goal rather than pass to weed. As his second goal showed he can easily kick 55 metres and he was on the run kicking from about 60 so it was shot he could have well made. He just didn't flush it. And i have been wanting to see him take more of those sort of shots I was surprised to read after the game that Harley had the equal highest score involvements but his influence on the game was more apparent watching the replay - his talent is so obvious that even if you had never watched a game of football it would be evident. Uses his body beautifully, knows where to be and has that skill that only the best players in any team sport has - an ability to know what is around him, as evidenced by some of his handballs At the risk of banging on about brown and gaddy one those handballs was to max and they knocked him for being too hollywood and used it as an example of the team transferring pressure. Live i thought that seemed a bit tough and on the replay it was evident it was just nonsense. Harley was hot, if tackled he risks a free against and a shot on goal. He hits gawn perfectly but rather than take the ball Maxy decides to thump it forward. Which was max's error not Harley''s Two bits of plays summed up perfectly what Harley brings to the team (and what we have been sorely missing): Winning a one on one contest on the HFF, finding space and kicking the ball 50 plus metres on his non preferred foot to the forwards advantage to set up Weeds first goal The second, and more critical involvement, was his handball receive hard on the boundary on the wing, running 15 odd metres, balancing up and kicking with enough penetration and depth to get over the back of the contest giving hannan a good chance of marking it (and the suns players no chance - how often this year has the defender marked in that exact scenario?) but when he didn't, be able to run on to it and set up Weeds second goal. A goal that arguably won us the game No disrespect to any player who has played in the interim but Harley is in my opinion the most talented player that has played at the demons since Robbie retired. Hard to overstate the importance of Harley i reckon. If he stays fit and plays for most of the season we are a chance of making finals. If not i doubt we will. Melksham was better. Even though he did not have a stand out game the most important thing from my perspective there was none of the selfishness that has been so evident this year. Good move by goody to get him up higher and in the play. I''m really pleased he was better as we simply can't afford to have player with his skill and talent available but not playing seniors Lever was also better and great to see him involved more. Really like him playing higher as it plays to his strengths and he becomes a threat not a negator. Another good move by goody Interestingly in the radio interview with max he mentioned, i think (it was quick) that Lever and Melksham were added to the leadership group last week. If that is the case another good move from the club as the proof was in the pudding with their games In that interview Slobbo specifically asks about the influence of Omac - fascinating response I was perplexed by the decision to drop him as, as i pointed out prior to the blues games i think Omac is critical from a structural perspective, in particular his role of last line sweeper (a very tricky role - as noted elsewhere maxy said he is the best reader of the play in the team - a key skill for that sweeper role). However it is easy to be critical of the decision to drop him. But it may well have been a very clever decision by Goody and as shocking as it might seem Goody might have known things fans didn't. Maxy said something quite revealing - that omac is very important for the team, that the role he plays is super important, particularly in terms of allowing May and Lever to be more damaging. But that Omac also has to perform. I suspect goody and perhaps the leadership team put the acid on Oscar to say you are better than a journeyman and role player and we expect to see it. We need to see it. And that Goody reinforced this message in the tried and true way by dropping him and making it clear he was no lock to come back into the side. True or not Omac, as many Demonlanders have noted, played with much more confidence and much more aggression. Perhaps it is my rampant Omac confirmation bias but to my eye he also looked a bit quicker. King out marked him on the lead a couple of times but he is quick and omac was right on his tail. There has been a lot of talk about the back line for the last 2-3 years, but by in large the focus has been on our bigs. But as i have noted a few times over that period the real issue we have down back is not that the opposition bigs get on top of us, it is the small and medium forwards that hurt us. And again that was the case against the suns. The Suns only took 4 marks inside 50 (remarkably we took 12) and King and Day had almost no influence on the game - ironically Kings one goal was from a crumb. Eight of their nine goals were kicked by small or mediums - Rankine, Ellis, Fioroni and Weller. We need to sort this issue.

Invasion. Terra Nullis - an empty land, no humans. No treaty. Colonization. Not recognizing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution Stealing peoples land. Making fortunes (that exist to this day) from that stolen land State sanctioned massacres. Non state sanctioned massacres not punished. No recognition of ownership of land of the first people for 200 plus years Official government policy of genocide that lasted (scarcely believably) well into the 20th century. Forcible removal of children from their families as part of the policy of genocide Forcing children into slavery to look after white people's children and their homes Deaths in custody - and doing nothing about it Locking up Aboriginal children and their fathers at obscenely disproportionate rates Official government White Australia Policy (the name says it all) that was only replaced well past the mid point of the 20th century The first people not being able to vote in their own country until 1967. I repeat 1967. Mandatory detention and dehumanizing of 'boat people' as wildly popular government policy (and the lack of awareness of the irony of such a policy) Vilification of young Australians whose parents escaped war in Africa The One Nation Party and it increasing popularity as reflected at the last federal election A mining company legally blowing up caves that showed evidence of human occupation for 10s of thousands of years. The popularity of peanuts like Bolt and Sam Newman I could go on. To say Australia is not a racist county is patently false. And a common delusion that ensures we remain so.

IT guy here; This is trickier than you may think. In short, public IP addresses (or NAT address) are the only unique IP addresses that could be used for this, and they are assigned to your home internet connection; not your devices. Think of the public IP address as the address associated with the link between your modem/router and the internet. This address is very sensitive in nature and disclosing it leaves your home network extremely vulnerable to malicious actors. The IP address your laptop at home gets is not unique and is given to your device by your modem/router. This will look like 192.168.0.2 or similar. Most home modem/routers broadcast networks which allocate IP addresses like this by default. What the outside world see's, such as the websites your visiting on your laptop, is your public IP. Problem here is that there could any number of unique users and devices in a home (or corporate) network. This makes IP based authorization/authentication/verification ineffective for most part as most networks have 2+ regular users with individual devices and accounts. What would work is the removal on anonymity from social media all together (not a popular idea with everyone!). Here's the idea; Government issue citizens a digital ID which is managed in your myGov portal that is required in some capacity to create a social media profile. This would all but solve the faceless troll issue (at least for the people not brave enough to own their abhorrent racist views publicly). You could then force (legislate) social media companies operating within Australia must a) enforce retrospective account verification with the government issued digital ID. Accounts not verified in 'x' months deactivated indefinitely. And b) require this ID verification for all new accounts. Let's see how many racist commentaries continue when the only account people can post it from is displayed exactly the same as their drivers license ... Problem with this; we're probably too far gone down the current path of anonymity by default. This sort of idea needed to happen 20 years ago, before Facebook was invented, not today. Back then, the internet was a different and far less hostile place. The landscape of the internet has changed dramatically, and the fundamental principal of anonymity is now, in my opinion, completely out-dated given the way social media is now a part of everyday life.

Talk about applying the brakes against the Suns. On The Couch showed we played on 13.4% during the game. Our lowest play on % since 2015. Apologies if mentioned already.

Had some unexpected issues with some backend stuff but we're back. Hopefully.

Well overdue.

I would agree with this. He was the reason we were able to experiment with ideas like the 4 man "diamond defence". He does a great job of leaving his man at the right time to hit the next contest, covers ground quickly and he spoils high in the air well. Hw is also a reliable kick in defence. He isn't great in a muscle fight. But not many defenders are in 2020, because then they probably aren't great at zoning, closing, chasing etc. The reason he has been whipped is because of tv viewing angles: -When he is caught one out, and out marked, that's usually because the ball has come in too easy. -Beaten on a lead? Often because his opponent had too much space and there was no pressure on the ball carrier. -"His" opponent gets an easy goal out the back? Oscar has left to cover another loose man and the mids didn't work hard enough to get back. Is he perfect? Nah. But a lot better than he gets credit for.

Indeed dieter, just look at the play with Gus dishing to O Mac and the kick forward to Bennell which leads to a Weid mark and goal. Gathers the ball and sums it perfectly, doesn’t waste precious seconds by swinging on to his preferred foot, a 40-50m left foot kick deep inside 50 to a one on one. Harley doesn’t need many possessions to have an impact.

According to Max ‘On the radio’ (MFC app), Oscar is the best defensive reader of play at the club. This guy has been underrated (a lot of the stuff said about him on Demonland is shameful) his entire career. The very definition of a whipping boy. Max also said that neither of the McDonald brothers ever read anything ‘external’ about their performances. Ever. And just as well.

Complete rubbish. His 6.3 spoils a game is 12th in the entire competition. His 25% one on one losses is actually a respectable number alongside elite one on one defenders in Talia and Darcy Gardner. There's not a whole lot of difference between his stats and Dougal Howard who just got traded for an end of first round pick. He's not even all that different to Tom Jonas who captains the top of the ladder club. Yeah he made a couple of bad blues against Carlton -flying for a huge hanger that wasn't worth it and one very dumb contest. But he also made McKay look dead ordinary despite having very little midfield support after 1/4 time. Lever and Jetta were worse defenders in the same game, yet alone over the last decade. And if spoiling your team mates was a career ending crime then Gawn, Jetta, Tom McDonald, May and Lever would never play again. Worst case scenario he's depth behind May and Oscar in case one of them go down. A 24 year old back up key defender who's a bit rough around the edges isn't the wrong type of player to have on your list, it's exactly the right type so you've got some physically ready instead of turning to a kid. There's at least half a dozen guys on the list we are carrying holding us back more than having a bit of tall defensive depth - hint: most of them are still in Melbourne.

He is a much better player than so many on here give him credit for. A good solid one on one defender, and a very good user of the footy, when he does use it. I assume Day was his opponent most of the game. Day had 7 touches and 2 marks for 0 goals. Oscar had 9 touches, 3 marks and 4 tackles. More than did his job!

It will be shortly announced that the Dees have decided to take all their fit players to the Hub so they can train as a full squad. The harsh lock-down measures in Victoria was making it too hard for the players left behind to train.

One of my all time favourite passages of play. Up there with the Hannan goal from the 2018 EF.

Great post binman. This type of play is interesting - I think someone else earlier in this thread (I've forgotten who now, sorry) mentioned this particular shot as a calculated risk rather than a selfish play that the oafs in the box made it out to be, and I agree with that conclusion. Petracca is more than capable of that type of shot and would have been lauded as a genius if he had pulled it off. In the same way that I was stoked when he took responsibility for his kick in the last quarter and drilled it, I'm more than happy for him to try and take these opportunities when they present. If they don't come off, so be it. By the way, you may think you overdid the criticism of Brown and Lyon, but I don't think there's such thing as over-criticism of the current state of commentary in our footy. I've been harsh on Lyon and Brown too, but they're really just this week's symptoms of the problem. The commentators have plumbed to such low depths that they're ruining the experience watching football for me.

I also loved the fact that whenever Bennell had or went near the ball the 'Class' barometer went through the roof. He is a very, very gifted footballer.

According to Max Gawn it’s the other way around. Ref: radio interview with Harford and Bartel posted on MFC website. Basic claim is that Oscar is the best reader of play in the team, that he sets up the entire backline and that Lever and May both directly benefited from this directly on the weekend. Said the challenge for Oscar is to make sure he also plays well himself. Hopefully I have interpreted and paraphrased that correctly I was surprised when I heard it, but I doubt the skipper is lying. He’s often quite insightful in these interviews.

Given that most people won't read the report you've linked, it's a shame you didn't explicitly express the point I'm guessing you wanted to make - that the majority of Indigenous deaths in custody are from natural causes, suicide etc, rather than guards / cops killing them, and that the rate of Indigenous deaths in custody is actually lower than it is for the rest of us. It's important, and people should understand what's behind the 430+ number that is often quoted. But that doesn't take away from the injustice of some of those deaths. Reports with stats don't tell the stories of Tanya Day (a relative of Nev's wife, I believe), who was picked up for public drunkenness but didn't get the friendly ride home which Steele Sidebottom had the other week when he was found naked and drunk in the streets. People should read the accounts of the deaths of people like David Dungay Jnr and Cameron Doomadgee, whose spleen was so badly injured it was basically split in two, and ask themselves whether any white Australian has ever 'died in custody' the way they did? It's scandalous that 30 years after the RC, most of its recommendations still haven't been implemented.

Oscar played well. Lets hope he has turned the corner.

This analogy works well. Fun fact; the world is actually running out of these unique addresses to assign (known as an IPv4 address). IPv4 addresses are 32-bits in length there are a total of 4,294,967,296 possible unique addresses. This is why a new format was created; IPv6. This addresses space is 128-bits in length, allowing for 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 unique addresses to be created. I'm not sure what that number is even called tbh, but we probably won't run out of IPv6 addresses anytime soon. Ok I'll stop now ... apologies for derailing the tread with this nonsense! I hate racists!

From chaos-ball to zen-ball in one week.

Shameful question about him at last year's Members' Info night too - if you are here then you know who you are - hang your head!

Was going to say even after the win there were a few negative threads about other players popping up. Nice to have an optimistic post OMac played well and deserves the Kudos.

You could say the regular IP Address is more like a post code than a physical postal address?

There are players in the comp where opposition coaches salivate over them. NicNat and petracca fit into that camp Lots of us saw Petraccas turnovers and mistakes but he clearly caught the eye of Dew. he's that kind of player.

You just answered your own question. No need to keep both. One's asking for 3 years on OK-good coin. While the other is already contracted on min chips. List management.

This type of discrepancy would be because the opposing coach will be assessing on different criteria to the coach assessing his own players. The player's coach knows the role the player was supposed to play, how well the player performed it vs prescribed, and how that exact role impacted on the result of the game. The opposition coach doesn't know any of that and will just be determining how much hurt factor the player delivered. Of course, we still don't know which coach is which.

The fact is that Trac is now an impact footballer Get it in his hands and we benefit big time ie goals assists and team play with class (Don't know why he had a 40% efficiency in kicking as he did not seem to be under any more pressure ) Our big task ( or Goody's more to the point )is to get Clarry JackV Gus and Harmsey Up to speed say 75/80 % lime Trac is and to do what Jack and Clarry did compose themselves and make use of the ball. No doubt if This problem Can be solved or improved we will be a 20% better team and our forwards will benefit no end. Oh and Gawny must practice that quick handball and short kick to open up the play instead of his high looping kicks down the line. And actually all players need to get composure and skill in disposal like Harley. Loved the value of Mitch Hannan who had a very good team role and result orientated game As per a good half forwards. Kiddie is generally a good 10/14 disposal team player and will hit the scoreboard regularly very soon no doubt. So many potential positives out of Sat night but many a work in progress. How far we develop those Disposal skills and team play will determine a near finals berth or anywhere between say 8th and 4th!!!

Darwin probably about to come into the mix sooner than expected....

Kudos to all posters for having this discussion and maintaining a semblance of respect for each other. We are very fortunate to be in Australia, we have won life's lottery. Racial vilification is never acceptable. I think education is the best way to stamp it out, but that is taking time and will take a long time yet.

Well said. This thread should be called the Oscar McDonald Apology thread......this bloke has copped way to much bagging on here in the past.

This is what it means to be an unfashionable (losing) team. But we don't want to be begging for pats on the head from the likes of Brown anyway. Victories on the field are the only things that count.

"I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees Down to the crossroads fell down on my knees Asked the lord above for mercy, "take me, if you please" I went down to the crossroads tried to flag a ride Down to the crossroads tried to flag a ride Nobody seemed to know me, everybody passed me by"

That only looks unfair because the Adelaide side happens to be hot garbage this year. Most years that would be an extremely tough assignment. I really doubt the AFL has room to consider the strengths of the teams playing each other for individual matches, where they have to somehow have to orchestrate a season where everyone plays everyone with only 3 cities available. We’ll see if we’re still saying how lucky Essendon are when they end up playing a home game in Perth against West Coast. Anyone know why Tasmania isn’t being used? I assume it is border policy related.

Not sure post game comments are a good guide to voting. Petracca may have butchered the ball but his impact on the game and the result was huge. Glad to see he featured well in the votes as many on here didn't give him much credit for what he did do and focused on what he didn't do.

Possession mean very little for a key defender. The only stat that matters there is you'd like him to up the number of marks, but Lever and May were in the side to mark it more than Smith anyway. There was some switching but his primary match ups were McKay (6 touches 1 behind, Rohan 6 touches 0 score, Riewoldt 9 touches 1 goal). Averaging 7 touches isn't so bad when your opponents only get that many too. You say 'bad run with injury'. If either May or Oscar are injured or need a break over the period where they cram multiple games in shorter breaks then Smith will be straight in, there's not really any other options.

Jetta cooked? First game back, ran into something special. Surely he deserves another match .

I suggest you go an read the Australian Institute of Criminology Report into Black Deaths in Custody since the 1991 Royal Commission. I did and it is quite illuminating. I'll copy it here for you so can you can educate yourself. https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/sr/sr21

I watched the replay today. I can't believe people are saying Brayshaw to be dropped. Yes he had limited possessions however he isn't an inside mid. He plays an outside mid where two of Oliver/Viney/Petracca plays in the guts while Brayshaw sits back waiting for the handball receive so he can launch it long and also if suns wins the clearance, Brayshaw will apply pressure trying to stop them breaking through the lines. In 2nd quarter, Brayshaw applied pressure on two players resulting their kick out on the full. He also is a great interceptor, he times it well and intercepted beautifully punching the ball away which could've been an easy kick into their forward line. He has also intercepted again by marking it however he kicked the post. Brayshaw mans up when suns have the ball running into their forward line. I would be very surprised if he gets dropped. When Brayshaw rests, Melksham takes the centre bounces. We certainly do have an predictable kick ins where May kicks it to Gawn. No need to complain about that, all teams kick to the same spot 90% of the time as i watched all 9 games every weekend. Only once of those kick ins, suns won the ball. As long as we have Gawn and T-Mac there with mids at their feet to crumble, we should win 80% of the time. Rankine will be a future superstar. Lockhart was on Rankine when he snapped his 1st goal but it was melbourne's fault due to their fumble. 2nd goal, Lever gave Rankine too much space. The third goal, Jetta failed to put a block on Rankine. Also Jetta didn't put the block on rankine at the same contest however luckily, Langdon smothered Rankine's kick. Jetta didn't have a good game but i can give him another chance only if he goes on Puopolo. T-mac was pretty good in the 1st quarter, Just after centre bounces, he runs up, dragging his defender out of the forward line giving Weideman space. T-mac is a good runner, so he will continue play high up the ground while Weideman stays back. Bennell played beautifully, he has plenty of time and space to make decisions. He needs to play centre in Brayshaws role while brayshaw rests on the bench. Bennell helps us move the ball forward, he opens the game out. Hannan was clearly top 5 best players against suns. He made 3 important passes that resulted in goals. Weideman was very solid, he stood tall. He crashed packs when he knew he couldn't mark to allow the ball to drop to ground for the dees to crumble. That resulted in VIneys pick up and leads to demon goal. Another one was just before where Pickett tapped it to Fritchch who then kicked the goal. Weideman should've gotten 3 frees, he was pushed out of contests 3 times. Viney/Oliver/Petracca did a lot of great things and some of bad things. Few mistakes, bad kicking etc however they played their role.

I was lucky enough to go to the game. Interesting how good Weid looks when teammates honour his leads and actually kick the ball to the right spot in front of him.

Love a good redemption story. Well done Oscar - even though one swallow doesn't make a summer. Noticed on his prematch interview he developed a good set of guns - obviously been putting in some time in the gym.

Allows Lever to play his natural interception role too

Good point, Jordan Lewis’ 319 included 26 finals. Jones 287 includes 5. If Lewis had played his whole career at MFC, assuming he didn’t actually cause us to play more finals and all other things being equal, he’d have finished on 298. Degree of difficulty has been made higher for Jones by spending so much time in crap teams. Shaun Burgoyne has played 346 home and away games alone. Freak.

That's great that he played well on Saturday. But let's not get carried away just yet.

Amazing how a lot of people see the game. The rise of Trac continues. So happy for him.

I'll take it

Why do threads like these always degenerate into a contest of who is most offended? Some of you are taking the opportunity to show your own prejudices against others, regardless of colour or background, which are not much better than the crap aimed at HB. Everyone needs to take a breath and think if they are adding to the problem, despite posting their outrage against it. Society is improving, but we have to stop the generalising.

More suited up forward IMO

If its not "Rocket Science" and many experts on this forum could see it why couldn't Simon?? Therin lies a bigger problem!

Harley did that as well, he hand balled to a player and immediately made the block in the player that was pursuing him. Too often the hand balls our players make appear to be more about passing responsibility rather than the team “thing” to do. If I had to guess (without being an expert) I feel like the 1-2 overlap is being more coached rather than the handball > shepherd. Just on Kozzie, how good was it to see a Melbourne player have the intelligence to tap forward to Fritta rather than take possession? Definitely something we need to employing more of.