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Congrats Koz! https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/794636

Meanwhile in Yuendumu ...

How dare the clubs media and marketing department try and put forward a positive message about the club...

He's with the squad and doing forms of Rehab after recently quarantining on the Gold Coast. Extremely conservative approach which is currently centred around his long term health, rather than his long term footballing future. There is hope. Goody quite likes him.

From AFL fantasy .... https://www.afl.com.au/news/484984/fantasy-secrets-to-success-every-club-s-cbas-for-r11 Centre Bounce Appearances vs North - Angus and Luke Jackson most prevalent (sorry about the formatting of the cut & paste): Player Fantasy TOG CBA Angus Brayshaw 103 80% 19 Clayton Oliver 106 85% 15 Christian Petracca 109 83% 13 Luke Jackson 44 69% 13 Tom Sparrow 74 67% 8 Tom McDonald 82 84% 6 Nathan Jones 35 73% 3 Jake Melksham 45 85% 2 Sam Weideman 58 92% 1

I mean as much as I wanted to see Essendon lose for our sake I kind of wanted to see Essendon lose for the sake of seeing Essendon lose.

It's not. He doesn't get sucked into the contest and helps stretch our opponents' defence both at stoppages and in general play by making sure he's wide enough to be useful without being too far away.

Melbourne: Ed Langdon Langdon is really starting to get himself settled in Melbourne’s midfield after crossing over from Fremantle at the end of last year. The hard-running wingman is very adept at keeping his width and often gets used in transition. He has a great ability to run and carry the footy and deliver inside 50, which he did on six occasions against the Roos. Langdon had 23 disposals in total and 321m gained.

I don’t think option 2 stinks. TMac and Weideman looked okay as a combination initially until TMac had his eyeball scraped out. With Weideman now having demonstrated capability as first forward, TMac can play the more mobile, pinch hit in the ruck role he played in 2018. It’s not ideal but I don’t think it’s terrible, or all that far off what we probably thought our forward line might look like at the start of the year.

They have a huge number of injuries and sore players. Its a great chance to beat them. If we don't them frankly we're cooked anyway

What is the big deal? If/when Max is assessed as fit, I am sure he will be named in the team. I believe that was the case before the Adelaide game. He was assessed, found to be fit to play and played. The fact that he injured a knee, in no way related to his shoulder injury, towards the end of the game is not relevant. When the selectors sit down to put together a team for Saturday I am sure that the first question asked will be "Is Max fit?". Selections will then be made dependent upon the answer. Rinse and repeat next week.

If he can reinvent himself as an inside mid, there might be a spot on the wing for him

I could accept that Goodwin and co took a risk with Gawn, but there’s absolutely no way I can accept they took more risk than they otherwise would have purely so Goodwin could save his own bacon. Firstly that’s a low level of integrity I’m not prepared to accuse the coach of when he’s not here to defend himself, and secondly if he was really in that much trouble (which I also don’t accept), then a cheap Gawn-lead win against Adelaide wouldn’t make much difference in the long run. The more logical answer is they did it because they thought he’d be right - ie a calculated risk rather than a reckless one. It’s first grade nonsense to suggest it’s a Goodwin-lead conspiracy.

There is always some mystical player at another Club that Demonlanders get obsessed with who will solve all our problems. ATM that player is Zac Williams. A pass from me. He is injury prone. Get games into Rivers instead.

A great pick-up by the recruiting team just love watching his endurance and ability to be in the right place time after time, quick thinker as well. Well done Ed.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I get tired just watching him play. Amazing endurance, don’t think I’ve ever seen him with hands on knees.

Pretty simple Pruess goes to Ruck and stays till Gawn is ready Tmac goes forward with Weid, must stay with 2 KPFs. I wouldn't flirt to much with team structure keep a system players come in to play roles B. Hibberd May Lever HB. Rivers Tomo Salem C. Langdon Oliver AVB HF. Melk Tmac Fritsch F. Pickett Weid Hannan R. Pruess, Brayshaw, Trac IC. Viney, Sparrow, Spargo, Harmes

GWS losing is obviously good for us in the short term: we beat Collingwood, we pass GWS. But it's a reminder that we can't just assume we're going to bank the Fremantle and Sydney wins.

What the world haven't got its head around yet . . . slow training coming . . . The virus has exposed a deeply flawed economic and social model that prioritises excessive opportunism and profiteering at the expense of the peoples' welfare and wellbeing. The fetishisation of money over people is the allegory of the emperor's new clothes for the 21st century. We are all naked now.

I would be gobsmacked if Gawn played this weekend. Reports have him not training at all this week. With his history of knee injuries, surely Goodwin and Burgess aren't that stupid to play him.

The Pies have injuries and underdone players way more so than us. We are lucky. We're also incredibly flexible as side and can get very creative. And if we're scratching our heads then Collingwood will have no idea as to how we will set up. All in all we're in good shape. Time for Goodwin to silence the doubters (me!) Dees by 23

Preuss has to come in we have no other option (assuming Max is out). Would love Cam Pedersen to re-appear right about now.

Mitch Brown’s time to shine.

Already one of our best trades in ages. Has pace and endurance, works up and down the ground really hard.

Possibly, where costs were allocated at normal capacity levels. Maybe not, if we can reduce costs given we know only a limited number of people can attend.

3 possible scenarios in order of likelihood: 1. They've developed/stolen an effective vaccine that may result in catastrophic unintended consequences ie. it makes COVID worse. 2. They've developed a placebo vaccine that actually does very little, but has little unintended consequences. 3. They've developed/stolen an effective vaccine that has few unintended consequences. FWIW I'm a glass half empty kind of guy - and considering we've never discovered a vaccine for any other corona virus i'm betting the most likely scenarios in order of likelihood are: 1. There will be no vaccine 2. The vaccine will only have a limited shelf-life in terms of immunisation 6-12 months. 3. The vaccine will be effective and offer immunity for longer than 12 months. I won't even go into how you immunise 7.8 billion people.

My preference is for Preuss to come in and play 1st ruck, with TMac playing the second tall forward role. There should be 1-2 other changes around the ground (e.g. Viney/Lockhart/OMac may come in, vandenBerg/Harmes/Tomlinson may go out) but it's the way we structurally respond to not having Jackson or Gawn that is critical IMO.

Viney to go head to head with Adams and Harmes to Siddy

Preuss has not been on an injury list for some months. That he has only played one scratch match can only be because we did not include him in our hubs until the last intake. Then he had to do the two weeks compulsory quarantine away from the team hub so couldn't train or practice with the team. Leaving Preuss behind knowing we would have a condensed fixture was optimistic and somewhat reckless. If Preuss isn't ready to play or can't play out the game we have only ourselves to blame.

on top of that preuss has always struggled to play out 4 qtrs even when fit (though shorter game would suit him)

Have heard this also from a club source. As a 19 year old in his second season he averaged over 22 disposals off half back and finished 2nd in their BnF two votes behind Tom Lynch, and ahead of Steven May, Bennell and Miller. He looked set to become one of the elite back flanks in the league. Such a shame that injury ruined his career. His long term health is the priority at this stage. Concussions are nasty - look at how much it's ruined the life of Paddy McCartin. He basically lives in isolation with constant headaches, susceptible to bright light and randomly loses feeling in his hands. Wish Kade good health!

Those number show a total of 20 centre bounces: 20 ruckman attendances (13 LJ, 6 TM, 1 SW) and 60 midfielder attendances. There were 4 bounces to start the quarters and there were 18 goals ..... but there were goals kicked after the siren in the first (Larkey) and second (Weideman) quarters, which didn't result in centre bounces. Edit: SNAP!!

20 for the rucks, 60 for the mids. Both the first and second quarters finished with goals that didn’t go back to the centre I believe

He's a smart player but he's not the high ball competitor that we need. Jackson has been admirable in this facet since he's come in, which is a string that you could easily imagine him not having as a first year ruck. I think we saw the forward line as being TMac and Weid, with Jackson getting a few games for development and Brown being a solid back up if our more mature bodied keys forwards were injured. We've been fortunate that Weid has been fit and productive, and Jackson has been so competitive as a forward/ruck in his first season (coming from basketball too). Effectively TMac has become the backup to Weid and Jackson, which is a luxury at the moment. I don't think Preuss is redundant because I'm sure they'd rather use him as a battering ram to protect Jackson early in his career if Gawn is injured. The ruck is a brutal slog of a position and Jackson is worth protecting.

Fair. Just don't think every post here needs to be having cracks at each other in disagreement.

I'm totally with nasher about there no chance Goodwin selected max out of fears for his future should we lose. My personal view is that it questioning his integrity is indeed very insulting. And again this is personal view, but i reckon it is not ok to question his integrity, but each to their own. But i think it is ok to question his judgement and decision making, as i have done a bit of late. On that front, why do i think he didn't rest Maxy? Obviously i'm only guessing, but my guess would be that there may have been a number of factors he considered: he had publicly said his plan was, as far as possible, to play his best team right though this period, and playing Max was fully consistent with this plan maybe Tmac wasn't ready to play and he didn't want to expose jacko to a full game of rucking maxy was dead keen to play and wanted to fly the flag after bartlett's very public criticism of his teammates the burgess and the doctors convinced him he was at no risk of making the lat injury worse so maxy was good to go percentage might end up playing a critical role in making the finals and playing maxy would increase the likelihood we have a big, percentage boosting win

So Gawn is either fine to play, he’ll be rested one more week or out for 4-6. that clears it up!!

wears a longsleeve - tick

Langdon is a ball winner and runs all day the only problem with his game is his kicking skills . Needs to improve that side of his game to become an elite player for our club.. Ed has been a great pick up and has fitted in well and looks at home in a Demons jumper.

imv it is the Geelong game which will come back to haunt us: We experimented with 1 tall fwd (TMc who was badly out of form) - I wrote at the time it was very risky as we had few wins in the bank. And it disrupted our ball movement. We deserted our i50 when Geelong kicked from a pt or a mark, allowing them to chip short kicks around until our wall broke down . At no time did we change the wall outside the 50 arc and try and man up. So much for our supposed fwd pressure!! We were ill prepared. Goodwin said they didn't play the way he thought the game should be played. May said we planned for them but they changed tactics. Tactics (possession and control) that have beaten us time and time again. 112 marks to 52 says it all!! Neither the coaches nor players adjusted for the changed Geelong tactics. It was another games where we win some key stats (H.O and Clearances) but were badly beaten all over the ground.and We lost by 3 points. If we just miss finals that is the game that cost us.

I want him in, because he is such a great goal converter and we don't get rewarded enough for all our forward entries.

Loved it. Showed a side of Goodwin we had not seen before.

It's promotion for the club and positive exposure for our sponsors. With the world the way it is, we should enjoy any win that we can get.

Obviously the biggest factor in us making finals is us. On current form our best chance of getting to 10 wins would be to beat Collingwood, the Dogs and Essendon (in addition to Fremantle and Sydney, meaning we lose to both GWS and St Kilda). Winning those five in particular helps our chances quite a bit. Essendon would then need to win 5 of its other 6 (which is Port, West Coast, Richmond, Geelong and Hawthorn - I'm happy to say they won't get 5 of them). The Dogs would then need to win all 5 of their other matches (Adelaide, Fremantle, Geelong, Hawthorn, West Coast), and then would have to pass us on percentage. Collingwood would need to win 4 of its other 5 (North, Brisbane, Carlton, GC, Port - would mean they have to beat one of Brisbane/Port to pass us). So this week is huge for us - if we drop it, even though we could still get to 10, Collingwood would get to 10.5 just by beating North, Carlton and GC, so we'd likely be done trying to catch them. I'm getting way too far ahead of myself.

It wasn’t just a matter of saving Godwin’s bacon. The Adelaide game was a must win. We lose that and the season is shot, not to mention the draining effect on the playing group and the club. Losing that game was not an option. The decision to play Max sits fine with me. We can handle the pies without him.

While i agree we haven't achieved anything yet... Lighten up ppl. Enjoy the ride

See, i dont mind this actually. We have had a couple of 9 goal wins against rubbish oppo, but this keeps the heat on IMO. I get a bit more respect for Goody each time i see him getting up the team. In public he comes across as all lovey-dovey and soft, but this sort of video shows he has passion and expectations like the rest of us have. Cant fault the video as it shows how we responded. 2 good wins after a bad loss. If we beat the Pies, and maybe also the Dogs, this will look like a great post. If we lose both.... not so much. At least it shows something. Keep winning and they can post whatever the hell they like. Count me in.

Insurance policy we didn’t up needing. Just because the house didn’t burn down doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have insured it. The time to bring him in was when TMac was first injured. They went with LJ instead. LJ coming on quicker than expected has made Brown and possibly Preuss redundant.

I was happy to hear that Hunt was delivering the ball well into the F50 (to Brown), as I've always imagined his spot to be high Forward Flank or wing if he can learn to use his pace an deliver to lead up forwards on the burst. Sounds like they are developing him to play that role, and he's coming along.

So Darren Burgess calls all over the world and gets clearance for Max to play with his Lat injury and then he hurts his knee late in the game in a completely unrelated incident and he shouldn’t have played? I’m all for resting players on short breaks and not aggravating existing injuries, but it’s footy, injuries will happen. Max might be fine, if not we’ll give Preuss a run or carry on with the Jackson and T Mc combination