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Beat the Hawks first

The old fella was the cause of all the trouble.

Is Brett Ratten the right guy?

Those 4 sides are there, BECAUSE WE PUT THEM THERE....

The Saints may be pretenders.....but it is what Richmond did to them is the important take away. Good teams demolish those lesser teams. No just falling over the line, they put them away conclusively. That is the standard to which we have to aspire. Although Hawthorn have played Richmond, they were spanked by 5 goals....we should be doing the same to them if we are serious about season 2021.

Picture this.... temperature around 27 warm , balmy nights and the Fence enjoying the majesty of a magnificent pool environment, does this sound inviting? Well I can tell you it beats the hell outa freezing cold conditions at CASEY FIELDS! But out here you still have to worry about slitherers but up here they are far more dangerous and bigger than their southern cousins, Taipans, Pythons and Death Adders are out and about but there is another.... more menacing presence .... which I will alert you to at end! Where am I?? Far north Queensland on Family business annnnd knowing there is a very very good local side "The Port Douglas Crocs" decided, upon hearing some footy sounds emanating from the local oval, decided to mosey on over... This team is the all conquering pre-eminent perenial premiership winners for last few teams and thinking that training will just be glorified Circle work well, you could not be further from the truth. SKILLS, DRILLS AND MANUEVERS Missed warm ups, probably coz ist soo hot up here you are already warmed up!! The coach was enthusiastic, and seemed to want to instill a fast free flowing game foundered on rebounding defence and quick ball movement. Some of the drills I have seen at Casey reminded me of some similarities at Dees, things like skills under pressure, creating options and space, pressure at the contest seemed to be the order of the day. Seems to be a very well run organised club who take their AFL SERIOUSLY, very seriously. Apparently many kids are interested and there is a 7 team competition. I'll leave you with this commentary that would not be outa place in Footy in the far north.. Centre bounce Pencil goes up, cleverly palms dexterously to top inside mid, Tank who transfers the air conveyance to free running and Hot..Sunshine. He gathers and evades traffic before sending a bullet like pass to Flash. Flash holds it up before playing on dodging weaving evading tantalising and mesmersing opposition before seeing and opening and delivering LACE OUT to competition glamour forward Sea Turtle. The turtle is a liitle too far out and decides to land it in the goal square. He kicks a big pack forms........ Annnnnnnnnnd Its ROBBO MARK 2 ( who followed the Demons all his life) and favourite player was Russell Robertson who launches himself into the stratosphere to Claim yet another MOTY Nomination... Crocs by 6 pionts ... 2 minutes in at that stage the pool beckoned a few glasses of cleansing refreshment and I left clearly impressed with local Footy Club Port Douglas Crocs Oh and the sign I saw at potential fishing hole was this FISH AND CHIPS MIGHT WELL BE THE GO I RECKON Cheers PF

A rare occasion i am hoping the Pies win. One of my late dad's friends is on the way out at 99. One of few WWII vets remaining and a Pie Supporter. Survived El Alamein against Ronmel and took a bullet in Papua New Guinea. The original "Anticol Man" from the late 60s or so and also played some bit part acting roles along the way, including Blue Heelers, Prisoner, Cop Shop & Crackerjack. A very debonaire, classy chap with a happy disposition, who never showed any outward signs of the effects of his service.

Some are getting ahead of themselves. Hope the playing group, aren't. I'm sure the coaches won't be. It is so easy so drink from the bath. We have to be switched on against any opposition. MFC haven't earned anything yet. The past usually describes the future, and as favourites or front runners we have been disappointing. This week is our crucial game. One game at a time, even one quarter at a time, or one moment, could decide where we finish. C'mon Dees play in the moment.

Say what you like about Selwood, but he’s been a champion player, who has set and driven standards from the day he was drafted to Kardinia Park. Players like he Hodge, Hayes and Kirk are a rare commodity who change clubs. Would have loved to have had him

Some randoms gleaned from the Pure Footy podcast: Melbourne are only conceding scores from 30.6% of i-50s - the stingiest ever for a team after round 4. Melbourne should be scoring a predictive 101.8 points p/g (currently 89.5). This part was unclear if related to the above or not: we're currently generating the second-hardest shots profile. Adam Tomlinson has lost 1 out of 19 one-on-one contests since shifting to defence in round 10 last year. 21 players have played every game so far this year (obviously set to dip this week).

I get a sick and twisted kick out of reading opposition supporters who have been flogged. Mainly because I know what they are going through.

Ah, let’s just win both and be done with it.

Hunt has been flying off HB, there is no way he is moved.

The Hawks had the perfect chance to go to the draft and blood quality kids to learn from Hodge, Mitchell, etc and chose not to it. Spent all draft picks on mature players. They will come to regret this in a major way. the impetus for their success was the draft in the first place

Surprised this hasn't come up before today.

Cam Pedersen was still being called Pederson 6 years in to his career here. I got so sick of it that I added the word Pederson to the swear filter and made the software replace it with [Pedersen]. @Demonlandfound it and took it out though. :(

8 point Game! i will just take 4 points without a Fullback and FullForward 1 challenge at a time

I said before the season started that the first four games would shape our season. Freo started the season with an outside hope of making finals, and the next three teams would have had making finals as a minimum expectation. So three, maybe four of those teams are direct rivals for a final spot. Winning those four games has set our season up. We only have to win 50% of our remaining games to be a lock for finals. And we have put a points, and crucially, a percentage gap between us and key rivals for the 5-8 spots. We can now make a serious push for a top 4 position. I don't see either the swans or the tiger's game as as important as those first four games. A win against the tigers would be a bonus. And history suggests the swans will run out of gas as the season progresses given how young they are. And personally I think their run and gun style, which has caught teams off guard, will become less effective as the season progresses and under finals pressure. I don't see them as direct competitors even though they are likely to still scrape into the finals with their start. Which is a long winded way of saying I don't see either matches as 8 point games. Funnily enough I do see the hawks game as an 8 point game. And I hope the players do to. We need to bank these points. Good teams win these games. Our serious rivals - the Dogs, Eagles, Lions and tigers (sounds like a zoo) will likely beat the hawks. A failure by us to so is an effectively an eight point swing to those teams. On a related note we play both the hawks and crows twice (though north only once) which i doubt all of dogs, Eagles, lions and tiger do. We need to win all four of those games (and of course the roos game). Doing so will go a long way to a top 4 spot and a serious tilt at a flag.

And if he had, he would've followed it up with a chase and dive on Marlion Pickett. Appalling body language and defeated expression on Hill as he just gave up and watched Pickett kick it. Can't believe how overweight he looks too. Not like a Byron Pickett lump of muscle mass, but in a soft pudgey way. Got his big pay day and has cashed in and doesn't look like he wants to put in the hard yards. Boy was i wrong on the Hill over Langdon trade. Unless he can redeem himself, you'd want to move him on and free up some space to pip Essendon and lure in Josh Dunkley. Their midfield needs bigger bodied elite mids. They're a bit like Essendon of 2018-2020

The defeatest carp going on in this thread is deplorable. What relevance the Saints being shocking has to a game Melbourne plays NEXT WEEK I've no idea.

He was involved in plenty including many of their chains forward, particularly off HB. Without Selwood they probably lose that by another two or three goals. While his slippy arm raise is annoying it still works after all these years and so many players still haven't learned or at least try to attack him lower at the hips. There is by-play in every match. Some teams more than others. Joel dished it...Kozzie gave some back. Kozzie may well have dished it out first after that half time goal and we just saw the retaliation from Selwood thinking he initiated it. Who knows who cares. Regardless, good competitive stuff that builds rivalries i reckon. And one is definitely building here. I for one am loving our matches against the Cats since we rolled them twice at the end of 2018 and again on Sunday. You beauty Newc!

I’m not one who likes mixing politics with sport but it should be noted there have been some unusual trends in the world of sport lately. In the US, Major League Baseball announced that it’s moving the 2021 All-Star Game and the 2021 MLB Draft out of Georgia, in response to the state’s new voting law. Over here, there’s a move to force Carlton to change its club song because the original song on which it was based (written in the late 1800s) has “racist connotations”. The Blues maintain the current version of the song, “Lily of Laguna”, was changed several decades ago and, in any event, their theme song doesn’t have a racist bone in its body. I hope the controversy gets resolved but I wonder where this movement to cancel anything that offends is going to lead us? Personally, I’ve been offended by the sight of Hawthorn guernseys for a very long time. It began when I was just a kid in the early 1960s when the Hawks started kicking the Demons around the park. When they beat us in the 1961 second semi and effectively ended our pursuit of a second threepeat in less than a decade, my sensibilities were so hurt that I couldn’t sleep for a week. This state of affairs continued for decades. Hawthorn premiership stars of the 70s like Leigh and Kelvin Matthews, Alan Martello and Michael Moncrieff were all plucked out of the Chelsea region immediately before that area became zoned to Melbourne. Their great goalkicker Peter Hudson chose the Hawks ahead of us even though his cousins, the Minton-Connells, were with the Demons. Later on, the Jarman brothers snubbed us in favour of them (even after we had drafted Darren). Then there was the humiliation of the ‘87 Preliminary Final and the ‘88 Grand Final. The bastards even refused to merge with us in ‘96 and then continued to belt us for a decade while they won premiership after premiership. It’s little wonder that the sight of those sickening brown and yellow stripes offends me to the core (and I leave aside all connotations to bodily functions from this equation). Yes, it’s about time we gave some serious thought to cancelling the Hawks. When I come to think of it, now is the perfect time for it all to happen. They’ve lost their last three games this season and now is the time to make it zip four. They have lost their last three games against us - starting with the 2018 semi final - and now is the time to make it zip four for them (and when was the last time that happened?). And let’s go back to the concept of club songs. Does anyone really believe that they’re a happy club at Hawthorn these days? But in the final analysis, it’s never the song, it’s the singer. Melbourne’s “singers” are its players and they’re all singing together from the same hymn book. As Christian Petracca said after last week’s game against Geelong, the boys are playing together as a team. It’s one for all, all for one and they’re doing all the things that are necessary to cancel out the once mighty, high flying Hawks. So come Sunday, the hundreds of our fans who bring along their cheeseboards replete with the “Cheers” brand of the product for sustenance will be celebrating the long awaited cancellation of the brown and gold menace with a 59-point victory for their Demons. THE GAME Melbourne v Hawthorn at the MCG Sunday 18 April 2021 at 3.20pm HEAD TO HEAD Overall Hawthorn 87 wins Melbourne 78 wins At the MCG Hawthorn 46 wins Melbourne 38 wins Last 5 meetings Hawthorn 2 wins Melbourne 3 wins The Coaches Clarkson 2 wins Goodwin 3 wins MEDIA TV live and on demand on Kayo and live on Foxtel. Check your local guides. Radio - check your local guides. THE LAST TIME THEY MET Melbourne 14.7.91 defeated Hawthorn 7.6.48 in Round 7, 2020 at Giants Stadium This was a Demon master class inspired by Max Gawn’s ruck domination and the brilliance of Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca on the ball. The forward line with Sam Weideman 3 goals and Bayley Fritsch and Kozzy Pickett, 2 each, functioned beautifully in another pleasing performance that underlined the team’s recent improvement. THE TEAMS HAWTHORN B: C. Jiath 29 K. Hartigan 28 B. Hardwick 15 HB: D. Howe 17 Sam Frost 8 J. Impey 4 C: J. Scrimshaw 3 T. Mitchell 3 L. Shiels 26 HF: D Moore 36 T. O'Brien 23 S. Burgoyne 9 F: L. Breust 22 J. Koschitzke 34 C. Wingard 20 Foll: B. McEvoy 7 J. Worpel 5 J. O’Meara 10 I/C: C. Nash O. Hanrahan H. Morrison T. Phillips Sub: J. Cousins Emerg: T. Brockman J. Ceglar M. Hartley In: O. Hanrahan J. Koschitzke C. Nash Out: T. Brockman (managed) J. Ceglar (omitted) M. Hartley (omitted) M. Lewis (suspended) MELBOURNE B: T. Rivers 24 H. Petty 35 A. Tomlinson 20 HB: C. Salem 3 J. Lever 8 J. Hunt 29 C: A. Brayshaw 10 C. Oliver 13 E. Langdon 15 HF: K. Pickett 36 T. McDonald 25 N. Jones 2 F: A. Neal-Bullen 30 L. Jackson 6 J. Melksham 18 Foll: M. Gawn 11 C. Petracca 5 J. Viney 7 I/C: M. Brown 38 M. Hibberd 14 Jordon 23 C. Spargo 9 Sub: T. Sparrow 32 Emerg: O. Baker 33 M. Daw 28 N. Jetta 39 In: M. Brown M. Hibberd H. Petty Out: B. Fritsch (hand fracture) N. Jetta (omitted) S. May (facial fracture) T. Sparrow (omitted) Injury List: Round 5 Sam Weideman (leg) — 1 Week Ben Brown (knee) — 1 to 2 Weeks Bayley Fritsch (hand fracture) — 2 Weeks Steven May (facial fracture) — 2 to 4 Weeks James Harmes (wrist) — 3 Weeks Marty Hore (knee) — Season Aaron Nietschke (knee) — Season

I'd love to see the return of the 'Reserves' teams playing before the 'Firsts' team at the same ground, same day. The atmospheric build-up to the main game was always a super part of a day '...at the footy...'

It’s crazy that the VFL season starts at AFL round 5. Surely that has to be fixed next year.

Dunno if this has been posted before, but this was our rankings for the draft (a fair bit of it covered unfortunately), as shown very brief in the To Hell & Back series. No idea if this is a week out from the draft, or months, so not sure how much movement would have occurred, but interesting to note we went against the grain with a few rankings - Noah Anderson ranked 5th, and McAsey 20th (taken pick 6 by Adelaide).

One word:system. If we are going to be a great team then every player is part of our system. You lose a player and the system still works when replaced with another. If we cannot play our game with one forward and one back out, we are not ready to move up the ladder. The replacements may not be as good, but they should still do the job that gets the W. May: Petty then Hibbard Fritta: M Brown, Daw. Or different system: BBB Brown (but i think one week too early).

Good to see it will be live so I can settle in to watch it while the youngest naps, then I can head over to a hawks mates house and smash his Holgate Brewery beers for the big game.

Can confirm this continued on after the game as Selwood attempted to have some dinner.

Colin Garland. don’t believe me? Look up that bombers game from the ‘dark years’

Neitz

What is our record for winning games when we are the clear favourite with all the ‘pundits’? Meggs has that sinking feeling (clinically referred to as MFCSS) but geez I hope they prove me wrong this week.

what about tinder?

Two points on beating Tigers: 1) From what I've read Sydney used the 'divide and conquer' strategy - they spread their defenders so that they could not get across to help each other out and intercept. We can copy that strategy 2) Last night Tigers appeared to not defend the mark or the free. I read somewhere their plan is to defend the 30m arc around the opp which forces a 'long bomb' kick over the arc allowing their defenders to intercept or their small players to activate their ground ball tactics. We need a plan to neutralise this tactic as defending the 'long bomb' has not been a strength of ours. Nonetheless, I think we are part of the way to doing so: Last week Jackson and McDonald would take the front position when fwd of center if they couldn't mark (or sometimes even when they could) and made two handed taps straight down into the waiting hands of a demon player, who was facing our goals. The two-handed tap down prevented interference from behind or the side and the ball falling to some random spot. I recall one time when McDonald was only a step in front of his opp and took a small leap and tapped down - didn't even try to mark. These looked like set plays and iirc worked every time in that we scored or the ball was delivered to a well placed fwd. For example we could have an arc about 15m behind their 30m arc and our fwds spread their defence across our fwd50. A combination which makes it very difficult for their players to get back or across. We will not play anything like the Saints who put up zero resistance. We have a steely resolve and am expecting a very different game when we play the tigers and hopefully a different result.

It's interesting to read how we all interpret each game as part of a broader picture. Through experience I've found that riding the anticipation, grief and joy of each game works best for me and the future will take care of itself. In terms of our football club at least it's totally out of my control anyway so why worry about it ? Being brought up on a code that extends for 10 months of the year I've always found an AFL season to be all so brief in comparison and every weekend of it to be cherished and lived to the full so I'm not going to spoil this one by worrying about the next two. This season will be over before we know it otherwise.

If Andy did that for Demonland - he would save some money on the server rental...

Completely unAustralian an out of keeping with the traditions of our game to be looking forward to these so-called “8 point games”. Every game is an 8 point game and besides we need to stay focused on our next match which is against the Hawks. Remember. We take things one week at a time!!!

We're 4-0 and travelling nicely but let's not get ahead of ourselves. The Hawks are laying in wait to ambush us if our attitude isn't right on Sunday. Let's just focus on that game and worry about Richmond next week.

This. The rest of your post can be considered on Sunday evening. The worst thing we can do is think about ANZAC Eve. Yes, it's a big game, and yes, it will be exciting if we go into it in form, but if we're thinking about it now we'll be 4-2 after it.

Down back Petty is currently behind May, Lever and Tomlinson, and they are considering Hibberd ahead of him tonight. So while I absolutely agree he is a defender first, he is also a quality, developing player stuck in the reserves, and we have 3 of 4 main forward targets out, presenting an opportunity. If we are weighing up the opportunity for exposure and development of Petty (and his ability to probably go ok) vs Mitch Brown playing a game, I'd rather Petty gets the nod.

The problem here is that we’re relying on hope Milkshake hasn’t played a decent game in 2 years

I still miss Pedo on dayz like this.

Thanks for doing the research work guys. I'm walking distance from Box Hill oval and have a ticket to the game at the G. Stoked to know about the Casey game because it comes around here only once/year and usually it clashes with a game at the G or some other commitment. As I recall, it used to be a $10 entrance fee, regardless of Dees m'ship. I think that our free entry only applies at Casey. I'll be with the horde heading to Laburnum to get to the G on time. I'm due up high in Ponsford and my sprinting days are behind me, so 3/4 time leaving VFL seems a good option. And for those who remember the great egg and bacon rolls sagas, I can also tell you that the food at Box Hill, while really quite good, is nothing on the egg and bacon rolls at Casey. There is a bar inside the stand on the wing for purchase of liquid refreshment. If I piffed the tinnies far enough, I could almost hit my own recycling bin. But they'd have to be full tinnies to get the distance, so that'll never happen.

We had a great run with injuries to this point so we're regressing to the mean, unfortunately. Fingers crossed we see some regression to the mean on our goalkicking accuracy, and that of our opponents. I see three options to replace Fritsch: A tall forward such as Daw or M Brown (B Brown if he was fit, but he's not) Melksham, with Melksham then being replaced by someone like Sparrow or someone like Chandler Petty plays forward, with Hibberd replacing May. Personally I think with Petty training back, he should only play back. So, I think the third option shouldn't be the answer. I think Melksham is the best replacement option overall but he can't match Fritsch's marking power or defensive abilities. But I think he's the best bet to ensure we don't become too tall or too slow. If we use Melksham in that role we have to replace Melksham's role but I think we can cover that reasonably well with Sparrow coming into the 22 for a full game.

Selwood to me is like the Eagles, you don’t like them, you love beating them, but you have to admire them

I totally understand and agree with @Pennant St Dee that Selwood is a champion and future hall of fame player who should be respected. However there is a strong distaste for him especially amongst the players especially within games. Every week I see players giving it to him. I even noticed Sparrow give him a nice shove after getting him in a tackle where he was called for throwing the ball. It might simply be that he talks a lot of [censored] out there or the well known narrative around him milking/playing for free kicks but in the heat of the game as others have mentioned these things happen. It's all part of the game. Only one I don't love is when a defender is beaten in a forward marking contest or gives away a free kick and while his man goes back to take a shot another opposition player will come and really rub it in. Unless there is malice I don't really like it.

In his very short career, Kozzi has already earned the right to give a bit if lip to the likes of Selwood. I love it.

The tackle then the trash talk has been posted on here and talked about a lot, but yes at the end of the half right after Trac kicks that goal Selwood goes after Kozzie and Oliver intervenes. Sounds like they may have been at each other all game. God bless Kozzie for showing no respect to that diving cheat.

Should’ve traded him. But seriously, as good as he is and as much as I love him. It’s our 2nd injury since the season started. Players around the league have been dropping like flies. We’ve been lucky so far. A good team should cover a couple of outs, especially against Hawthorn. Makes it harder v Richmond but it’s basically a free hit. We’ll be right.

If only the VFL season had started so we had some players in form. I reckon M Brown is the best replacement without considering form. He leads well and creates space. Something a guy like Melksham doesn’t do