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I'm more confident of beating the Doggies than the Suns

The doom-mongering on this site is becoming unnecessary. I don't think anyone thought they were 'gone' after they outplayed PA at their home ground just a week ago.

This thread is starting to feel like checking in on a bipolar relative each weekend. Anyway, I'm two coffees and a 25km bike ride to the good today so well equipped to deal with it. When I reflect on games like this I'm not really concerned that the opposition has worked us out. I'm sure every other coaching group in the competition know that playing the game with a high intensity and moving the ball low and fast to a forward target is the best way to play against a defence like ours. What they'll also know is that these two elements alone won't be enough to beat us unless we drop our intensity and the most comforting thing for me is that this last item is entirely within our own hands. This isn't the Melbourne that made a preliminary final in 2018. The 2021 version now has a dedicated winger, a gorilla full back and a bona fide lead up key forward. Personnel isn't our problem. The game plan isn't our problem. Being able to adapt during a game isn't our problem. Intensity and having the ability to bring it every game and every quarter is what makes us vulnerable coming into the pointy end of the season but it's this that still makes us masters of our destiny I think. I've just watched Goody's presser and Gus' interview with Ben Gibson and for me it's the ability of our coaching group to keep our players focussed on what they do well and to incrementally improve our intensity levels that will be important in the coming weeks leading into finals. It's a fairly young group we have and one day very soon they will have the weight of breaking a 57 year drought on their backs. Just because we've all been scarred by history I don't think projecting that frustration onto our team is going to help frankly. Of course I would love us to maul Hawthorn by 100 points like they have done to us over the years but we're not the '88 Hawks or the '00 Bombers and we'll just have to live with that fact I think. It's not for Kossie, Riv & Dogga to exorcise our demons unfortunately. Anyway, enjoy your Sunday everyone and bring on the GC.

Not an ideal result, but here's some perspective for the doomsayers: We are not in our prime now, we are coming into it. We are not going to be at our best every week. Our forward structure is still gelling 2 points is as good as 4 in the context of the season at this stage The only stat we lost was tackles We are on top of the ladder We have beaten 7 out of 8 teams in the 8 right now. Anyone who says we are pretenders has a very low football IQ Bottom dwelling teams that have proven to bring us down to their level do not feature in September Just because we are on top of the ladder doesn't mean supporters are entitled to a season where nothing goes wrong. You'd think after the years of mediocrity that people around here would be more mentally resilient, watching some of you throw your toys out of the cot after a loss is embarrassing.

A look after a lie down and a cuppa. We have come from being very poor (2019), average (2020) to being a good team. We have not created a dynasty, or even understand what ruthless would look like. We are a team that has ‘something’ and is competitive (how big are our losses - we have not been smashed once this year). There are still massive holes in what we do, but when we do our basics well, we are a very good side. Not great. Not yet. Last night was particularly disappointing with the way we gave it up. A long way in front and we simply wilted. Very poor. But this is our first year being ‘up there’ - we still have a lot to learn. Take a look at the top 4 and we are surrounded by teams expected to be there and with histories of being there to draw on. There is the bones of something here. Last night was unacceptable as the ‘new Melbourne’, but I am not unhappy with where we have shifted to. Its the next bits that will win us a flag.

I haven’t come in here since the match thread because I needed to decompress. I will say this; at least we got the draw which is what we should have got against Adelaide. But this much closer to a loss than a win, the players should be having a good long hard look at each because right they are deciding when they are and aren’t going to play properly. The moment we got out to our 26 point lead they stopped playing properly, they paid the Hawks zero respect and have paid the price. Our kicking for goal has been poor this year and in recent weeks it has caught up to us. Brayshaw should have dobbed his at the end, Brown should have kicked his in the first quarter, and we had entrance after entrance into the forward 50 that was to a big pack situation where no one was going to mark it. We’ve gone backwards since the start of the year with forward connection, but what’s infuriating is we keep doing the same f-ing thing! We as fans ask for respect from the media but performances like that prove we haven’t earned it yet. We didn’t look like top 4 contenders tonight, we didn’t even look like a top 8 threat. Once again the competition has a laugh at us, we are yet again a joke. Fabulous welcome home, this makes quarantine fun. ?

He had 14 contested possessions (31 possessions in total) and 11 tackles. Go back and hide under your rock mate.

Did anyone else notice that Brayshaw let this slip in the post match interview? Seems like its almost a done deal…

Thank god, a game against a top 8 side. Can’t possibly lose now.

So much for the MCG being a fortress. Lost to GWS, drew with Hawks, barely got over the Bombers. Can people stop quoting Dr D I have him on ignore so I don't see his rubbish. Agree with those who were disgusted with Oliver's reaction when Spargo marked it. How is that team first mentality? When was the last time you kicked a set shot goal mate? Kozzie needs coaching on his set shots his run up is no good The Cats in their glory days of 2007-2011 focused on crushing teams early so they could cruise at the end. We just want to cruise from the get go.

Craptacular moments keep popping into my head…. Oliver having a whinge when Spargo intercepted his mark in the forward pocket. Two things about that: - really poor form from a team perspective - I’d take a Charlie Spargo kick from the pocket over one of Oliver’s every day of the week.

I was disappointed Fritsch didn’t take the set shot late in the last. From memory we were a goal in front as he lined up. Even if he kicked a behind it would have probably been enough to get the win. It was a bit of worrying result but I’m probably more relieved than disappointed. The footy world wouldn’t have let us live it down if we lost and the 2 points will be important at the end of the year.

Brown & Vanders?? Did you watch the game? Apart from the fact Brown was significantly better than Tom Mac and he worked tirelessly up and down the ground and was never out marked, what would you do to his confidence if you dropped him after a really honest performance like that? You need to understand that our ONLY chance of winning it this year is if Ben Brown has a strong Finals series and that won't happen unless you give him consistent Senior footy to gain confidence.

Lucky to get anything out of that game. We won one quarter tonight. One. Against the 17th ranked side missing something like 10 best 22 players. We have a clear, blatant problem of failing to play our best football against bad sides. We've played five games against the bottom 4 for two wins, and the two wins were average. We are going to cost ourselves ladder position from leaving 10 premiership points behind in these games. You could see it at half time: having conceded three goals in 10 minutes, Petracca and Oliver were laughing. I dare say you wouldn't see Joel Selwood laughing at half time of any game. But even despite our terrible play, we still had 5 more scoring shots. Again, our inaccuracy in front of goal costs us premiership points. They kicked something like 8 straight goals through the middle of the game whilst we missed shot after shot. Even at the end, in a game where we needed a point, Spargo, Pickett, Fritsch and Brayshaw all had set shots for a combined two points. This isn't a gameplan or talent problem. It's a psychological problem, coupled with goalkicking inaccuracy.

You'd hope that next season the mathematical genius who develops the AFL Fixture might let each team play each other once before any repeat games are scheduled. That way, if the season needs to be shortened it can be done fairly. I've never understood why we play some sides twice before we complete a match against all sides.

That was the dumbest play of the night. We were 5 points up. He declined the chance of getting two straight kicks ahead. If he scored a point it would have still been a goal ahead. It was well within his range but elected to kick to a pack of a dozen players. Very low percentage option.

Agreed. I generally don't think he has dominated for us like he has in the past for a while. No doubt other teams have cottoned onto how damaging he is for us and are putting alot of work into him as well.

This gave me the s5it$ last night. It’s not the reason we didn’t win, but the hawthorn players constantly dove onto ground ball and driving their head into players standing still and were rewarded with free kicks. Then there was the goal they kicked when Lever so obviously had his jumper pulled in a marking contest. The free kick against Ben Brown to McEvoy is so ticky tack. Again, not the reason we didn’t win, but the Hawks got an armchair ride.

The performance after quarter time was ugly, can understand the disappointment for some especially after we announced a membership record during the week. They showed a clip of Goody announcing the record to the players and for the first time this year I thought this would be a comfortable victory pregame. In the end i felt relieved we managed to hang on to 2 points and stay on top when it looked like we would get nothing, that’s just me though. Seriously, it has been a crazy last few weeks where anything can happen. My main concern apart from the overall performance was our inability to close out the game the last few minutes when it was presented to us like some have pointed out already. I’d be working on that during the week on the track and who knows where that will be with the covid drama. Petty and Hunt were our best two defenders I thought, saw Hunt make numerous dashes to free himself and was ignored multiple times. We needed to use him breaking the lines more like Hawthorn did with that number 16 to good effect. Must simply bank 4 points next week in what will be a tough assignment.

The only upside* was that we couldn't go to the match. (I had a ticket.) It was bad enough watching it on TV. I'm probably repeating what others have said, but my observations are: Lack of intensity. Players laughing/joking as though they thought "don't worry, we've got this if we try". Agree about poor old #7. Clueless player. Opposition players know that he'll continually try to take on the tackler. And poor skills/decision making. Players fumbling/falling over. Repeated kicking to a nest of hawks (pun intended) in our forward line. Abysmal kicking for goal. Dodgy umpiring ... particularly the hawks getting frees when they simply barged into tackles head first. Return to the 'bad old days' of other sides getting on streaks where they kick 4 or more goals in a row. Dr D ... is he for real? Lucky not to lose the match. I won money betting on Hawthorn. (For some reason, Sportsbet paid out a reduced amount ... not sure why.) Most players played poorly. Surely they can't play that badly two weeks in a row??? *Well, other than not actually losing.

Never going to happen, the AFL need the TV money and will do anything to play a finals series.

Honestly perfect for us so we can bounce back and beat them again.

If people stop responding to him/her , they would go away. All trolls crave attention which is missing in their normal life. It’s in the hands of the other posters to just not take the bait

Silly comment. Watched the replay, Petty didn't 'flumped' on the ball. The Hawks player jumped on Petty then dragged it into Petty and held it in there. The dumbass umpire got sucked in by it. Petty was just about BOG and took several crucial marks while Lever and May were both ordinary.

I must admit, I found it a hilarious moment last night when Oliver seemed befuddled when Charlie Spargo got into Oliver's path and stole a mark from him 35 - 40m out from goal towards the boundary. That's right in Spargo's goal kicking range and he been reasonably reliable kicking for goal this season from set shots, so long as it's not 40m + out. Conversely I don't think Oliver has actually kicked a set shot from any further out than 5m this season. Unless he's kicking/snapping on the run, Oliver's goal kicking has been atrocious, must have kicked about 10 behinds from set shots, without kicking a major, so to see his body language when Spargo cut him off was such poor form on his behalf. It actually reeked a bit of playing like a millionaires well before we had the game under control. Oliver - don't want to be treated with contempt inside 50? Fix your set shot goal kicking. That all said Oliver is pretty good at spotting up others to have shots on goal with his vision an good foot skills on occasions too, so I'm not going to be too harsh on him.

This. All other things being equal, we just don’t have the mental or experiential resilience. Goodwin said also that they love the fans, implying that we play better with a crowd. I was at the GWS loss, with a home crowd, and we were horrible. Premiership teams are robust and uncompromising week to week, regardless of externals. For the past 6 weeks, we are the polar opposite of that. Next year maybe, who knows, but with the absolute gift that is our short injury list this year, it looks like being wasted. Grrrrr…..

When Natalie gets out of the shower and back into bed, I'll ask her Colin.

Rather spargo kick for goal than Oliver.

Three word summary of that game? Free kick Hawthorn.

Ridiculously harsh on Salem & AVB. Salem was a rock & AVB was a terrific game for someone who hadn't played for a very long time and had very little VFL football. He had a big hand in 3 goal scoring chains and came back from a huge bump. Way too complimentary on Gawn who had his worst game in his last 50 odd. Jackson wasn't just a game, he was once again, very poor and just isn't giving enough.

A reminder that you are now 0-5 from your game picks post-bye.

BOG Spargo, intelligent entries into the 50. Did not bomb it in.

Haven't kicked more goals then points since the Brisbane game. That was 7 weeks ago. Had Brayshaw kicked that goal in the last we win. Simple huh? How are 24/7 fully professional AFL players missing simple goals every single week? Whoever is attempting to teach our blokes to kick goals is doing a horrible job and it's cost us games this year.

If past performance is any guide we'll finish 16-5-1. We'll beat Doggies, WCE and Geelong and lose to GC and the Crows

Viney despite his numbers was a liability. Hibberds fumbling is really frustrating and disposal is suspect. Nibbler has reverted to his previous self, running himself ragged to no effect. Goal kicking unacceptable. And what does it take for a formal complaint to be made about the umpiring?

The selfishness is starting to eek back into the team. Not the hero I’m so important type of selfishness but the one where we try and do too much. I recall Oliver having a number of collisions with other MFC players trying to get the ball - doesn’t look great.

We were crap tonight and there's no use saying otherwise. Anyone wanting to float the idea that this was a positive result is either completely deluded or has no idea how football works. What we saw was pathetic, it is Rd 18, it is not time to let them off and chalk it up as a bad experience. If we bring that to the big games, we are out. It is simply as simple as that.

We need better celebrity supporters. We’ve been saying it for years and it’s the exactly the reason we stuffed it tonight. Would have definitely helped with our forward structure.

Anyone else notice we tend to stink after 9 day breaks? Yet off 5 or 6 days breaks we’re golden. It’s like this group is better off when they roll on through battle hardened and too long of a break is like ring rust. I don’t know.

That Clarry whine about Spargo was disgusting

?‍♀️ I do!

Lol. Reminds me of the good old days, coming on here after a disappointing loss so I can watch other people absolutely lose their minds. I find it very calming. Other people's hysteria is a great way to regain perspective. Anyway, as for the game; Our goalkicking was poor, theirs was superb; particularly the snaps. We failed to properly guard clearances in particular and the corridor more generally - same problem as the Adelaide game (which, coincidentally, probably should have been a draw, umpires notwithstanding) Alistair Clarkson is a four-time premiership coach for a reason - the very clear tactic to whack the ball around, kick it off the ground, and just generally being messy and swarming on the ball did a superb job of confusing us, confounding our structure and making us anxious and rushed. The plan to force Petracca to handball instead of allowing him breakaway kicks was executed very well, as was the plan to let Viney be our least 'guarded' midfielder so he would feel compelled to kick instead of handball. It's a bit like when we tagged Libba the extractor and 'cut of the snake's head', except it was rearranging the snake's head with our [censored]. Six Hawthorn free kicks in a row early in the third quarter clearly distracted us and clearly handed Hawthorn momentum. Enough of them were dubious enough throughout the night that it compounds the poor impression made by the 22-15 free kick imbalance. It was irritating that the commentators so clearly favoured Hawthorn. My favourite was the post-game excitement about the 'young talent' at Hawthorn. Our 22 was younger than theirs and most of their younger players were also their least effective. But, meh. Learnings. The way Hawthorn played will provide a valuable lesson for finals. Better to get a draw in round 18 than having to play extra time in a preliminary final.

Look you’re right. We are losing the plot while sitting half a game on top of the ladder. But the emotional roller coaster of easily disposing of Port in Adelaide last week then [censored] the bed against Hawthorn a week later, is very taxing on my soul.

If we win the flag I so hope Viney plays a blinder to shove it up so called supporters. Absolute heart and sole player.

My god Viney is an absolute mess of a footballer. People saying that he'll get dropped are kidding themselves. Goody absolutely loves him and he's just picked up 32 of the most useless stats ever. So they'll look at that as a win. To think the club signed him up for 5 years.. Luke Jackson needs a serious spell. Love the kid but he's done nothing for about a month and while he's ruck work is good he's a wasted space up forward. I'd bring Weideman/Daw or if we need to go bit smaller then bring in Melksham.

Generous assessment of May, he was ordinary tonight.

You have got to be kidding go back and watch. One of the few who doesn’t panic with ball in hand and actually makes good decisions with his disposal

Six changes Ins 1. smart footy 2. accurate goalkicking (Jackson Spargo Brayshaw Pickett to have 50 kicks for goal as detention homework ) 3. tackling to stop the player getting the disposal free 4. Disposal to a target 5. Winning centre clearances 6. lower the eyes to a target in forward 50 out 1. irrelevant disposals by midfield 2. little handballs by oliver and Petracca to no one !!!! 3. Kicking to the pockets all the time 4. Bombing into contests in forward 50 5. Ruck tap to the opposition 6. Key forwards playing behind their opponents