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Good Morning Mr.Phelps, The Team you are looking at on the Screen is known as the Melbourne Football Club. This team went 57 years without winning the penultimate prize in the Australian Football League that being a Premiership! (Think Superbowl but a thousand times better and more breathtaking with complex plays and Superfit Athletes) This Team has built slowly but surely over the past 5 years under a Person called Paul Roos and now Coached by a Guy that goes by the name of Simon "Goody" Goodwin ... Your Mission Jim should you decide to accept it to find out all you can from todays Practice match and report back to I.M with reports, an international attaché by the name of Picket Fence will be your main ally and you can use every element of your specialist forces to assist in surveillance of today’s game. As usual if any of your force are caught the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self destruct in 5 seconds … Good luck Jim MATCH REPORT P.F “Can't Stop The Music" Everyone you meet, the children in the street Are swayin' to the rhythm, there's somethin' movin' in them. There's no place to hide, so, why even try? Can't you hear it coming your way, it's here to stay. Music in our walk, music when we talk. It's really something magic, to lose it would be tragic. Can't you feel the sound movin' through the ground? Music makes the world go around. You can't stop the music, nobody can stop the music. Take the cold from snow, tell the trees, don't grow, Tell the wind don't blow, 'cause it's easier. No, you can't stop the music, nobody can stop the music. Take the spark from love, make the rain fall up 'cause that's easier to do. Lovely day at Casey Fields today for what turned out to be an excellent day for Footy, Gentle breeze was blowing towards the City End but that in no way reflected the inability to kick goals at the southern end. A crowd of about 2, 000 turned out and the cacophony of the same old same old music pregame dulled the senses into something like an acquiesced state of perennial insensibility thus rendering conversations with others as Difficult. Those who were there now know what I mean about the music interludes at training. No Slitheras were seen, However, a Giant Blue Tongue lizard was seen flicking helpless flys and other crawlies into a cavernous blue abyss never to be seen again. A bit like the hapless Shinboners who came up against a Red Hot DEES outfit hellbent on inflicting more pain to this struggling outfit. Not that the effort was not there but alas too much was left to too few on the Boys in Blue and White. Anyway that''s their problem MATCH VIEWS, PLAYERS REVIEWS AND POST MORTEM COMMENTS Clearly from the start Norf had a plans to curtail the ruck dominance of Max and the Midfield brilliance of Clarry and Tracc. Tagging Clayton Oliver is the hardest job in footy and the negating tactics might work occasionally but when he gets the after burners on and has single minded obsession for the leather its like that Judas Priest song "Hellbent for leather" Nothing stands in his way. Norf were clearly going to have a dip and they did but skill, class, fitness and just too many options curtailed their brave efforts. CLAYTON OLIVER Started a little rustily and was hobbling for while after an incident but then, WHOOSH became the Clarry we know so well. Exhilarating tour de force runs, precise handballs, very clean disposal and the Goal of the Day where he got contested ball in the middle, dished of ran forward, got it back and kicked a similar goal to his blistering goal in the 2021 GF. Dislocated a finger but came back bigger and better than ever. This guy is a freak!! MAX GAWN Was not that far behind Clayton and his presence, his ground running, his ability to get to contest after contest and take mark after mark was just breathtaking. A great couple of goals, just added Icing to an already rich cake! A real Captain’s Game. Just a Champion BBB Embarrassed Norf today Kicked 5 Goals and was a focal point in attack. He has sticky fingers and just loves clunking marks and uses his footy smarts to work up and down the ground. Could kick 80- 100 Goals this year. JAMES HARMES Has really improved his output and is now repaying the coaching fraternity with a sett of running, ablity to create space and canny ball use. Great game today ED LANGDON Just runs up and down the ground all day gathering possession after possession and spoon-feeds his forwards, a great ball user , no one can keep up with him and he was a great catalyst to many a launch into attack. JOEL SMITH Our most improved player, he seems to now have the confidence and footy nous to know when to spoil and when to mark. Was dynamite out of the back half and this is the sign that maybe after a few stops and starts this could be his year. ADAM TOMLINSON Ditto run out of defence and into attack, never seems flustered and nearly always creates opportunities with canny use of the ball and then running forward to create an overlap option. Great to see him so confident and ready to fire. ANB Another whose improved form has coincided with his confidence and devotion to his training regime and dedication to improving his game, his run , carry, unselfish team orientations make him one of the first picked every week. played very well today. CHRISTIAN SALEM Well I for one will be astounded if he isn't All Australian this year. He just ooozes class in all that he does whether it be gaining ground ball gets, Doubling back for intercept marks, Clever precise disposals, he has just got it all. Destroyed his opponent today T MAC Hard to match up on now that he covers a lot of ground, is physically imposing and clunks some great marks AND clears the way for Fritta (who didn't play today) and BBB was instrumental today doing just that! Others to do well were GENERAL MAY down back TOM SPARROW who is also brutal in his attack on the ball and the ball oppo carrier, CHANDLER kicked 2 Opportunistic goals but not much else, and I thought JAMES JORDAN was ok without being prolific. DOGGA was good in the ruck and got his hands on the ball but missed a couple of marks. CHARLIE SPARGO Kicked a lovely goal and was creative and used the ball really well. I also thought KOSSY was elusive and damaging setting up many opportunities with his lightning speed and footy smarts. FINAL COMMENTS. The Dees easily defeated a somewhat injury depleted Norf outfit, but Norf still had plenty of experience in their team and were just Obliterated. Weeds, Toby Bedford, and I think Hunt got runs late but did not have time to establish themselves. The most telling thing from my perspective were 2 main pionts. 1 Viney, Lever, and Fritta and possibly Dunstan will come in for … ??? 2 As I have iterated you train a you play and the drills I have seen are replicated in match conditions and this makes for a team that KNOWS how to play, what to play, and how each person in the team has a role to play and they play it beautifully. This is what makes successful teams even more successful and end up in creation of DYNASTIES! A lot to like today. Your Casey Correspondent P.F

I think that's his dad on the right in this image.

Don't have Kayo so am enjoying myself following this on the North bigfooty game day thread. It's very satisfying having our team talked about like this. A couple of times we’ve been caught out going forward with turnovers because have they been pushing back hard defensively and we are getting outnumbered . Melbourne's defence is hard to beat. they've split us open now Good reality check. Stops the uncalibrated preseason chugging off. Not a bad quarter of football but we saw about 5 minutes of play from the Dees that shows the difference between the Premiers and Wooden Spooners. They are a class above and we saw it late in that quarter. They move the ball quickly we were not able too Melbourne too strong and too good for us to play silly. Melbourne read the ball ahead of what we are doing as much as its about poor execution. We stagnate we should be playing on quickly but Melbourne don’t allow it Melb numbers behind the ball and numbers in front of the ball.... We are winning out fair share of contests but the Melbourne backline is picking off everything. Melbourne with ascendency across the ground. Running with numbers, more numbers around the contest, cleaner with the footy. Melbourne are very good at smothering kicks in close How long till Round 1, 2023? They are just out working us on the spread offensively and working back a lot harder defensively. There are a lot of lessons today let’s hope we learn from them . We're getting crushed by melbs stronger mids. There are a lot of skill errors, but most of those would be because of the pressure being applied by the defending premiers. We just hemorrhaged 8 goals in a row and as soon as the pressure came we played like under 10s Their last two games were an absolute dismantling of Geelong, and then kicking 46 goals in a row to smash the Dogs and win a flag. Melbourne are really good At the ground, effort is ok skills & structure the glaring difference. Seems an odd set up with the personnel we have on the field, allowing them huge outnumber behind the ball playing into their hands. likewise around the contest their positioning is much effective, better spacing allowing clearer outlets despite what looks like an extra there for us.

Seven (7) games and we're expecting him to play like a 200 gamer. It's good being premiers. And with a deeper list than we've seen in 50+ years. The year is 2072. Jake Bowey is at a gentleman's club smoking a cigar. Bowey: "Training facility wi' two MCG-sized ovals and one oonder coover? Looxury. I 'ad to get oop at 9AM, drive 300 mile to Casey to train, play seven matches, seven mind you, play in premiership AND I 'ad to do the 'ole finals series in Perth! An' you try and tell that to yoong people today!"

at this rate it looks like norf are as good as jeelong or the doggies

Geez he looks good doesn't he? I had him outside our best 22 come round 1 just with his age etc. But he looks fit playing like his 2017 form. On today's performance he plays round 1.

Just wondering if Langdon has come off the ground and gone home yet? The more you watch him the more you marvel, it was hard to see the other side of the ground at times with the drunk camera work today, but boy he puts the Energizer Bunny to shame.

Bowey will always be rusty, poor bloke.

He would be more recognizable standing on someone' s shoulder.

When the last game you've watched is the GF x 27, it's a fair comedown watching this

We won the penultimate in 1988 and 2000 by winning the Preliminary Final. We didn't win the ULTIMATE until 2021 after 57 years of failure. Love your work, Picket! Don't let a pedant like me restrict your creative output. Incidentally, you'll be thrilled to hear that I bought a new t-shirt this week.

Meh … how many times have we won practice matches in February/March and gotten excited about the year ahead? I’ll wait for the real thing to start before passing any judgment on where we’re headed in 2022.

How good is it to see Tomlinson back. ❤️💙

Loving these few quotes from Christian in an interview with the HS today. Amazing to think of how much he has grown the last few years. “Someone sent me a tweet that someone had posted: ‘Petracca already back in the gym.’ “That’s our job, that’s what I get paid to do." “I don’t get paid to sit on my [censored], I get paid to train and get better for next year.” And this little bit was pretty wholesome too. Can't help but feel there's a lot of Max in this vibe but the whole club have really taken it on: “When we were out of lockdown and started to go out a bit, you’d see Melbourne fans, the smiles on their faces, and you realised what you’ve actually done in terms of breaking this curse, ending a 57-year drought,” Petracca says. “The person we bought our house off was a massive Melbourne supporter. The mum was an elderly lady, she gave me a massive hug, which was really, really cool. I couldn’t stop smiling.” https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/footy22-magazine-get-your-2022-afl-season-guide/news-story/dcacc42db654ef8a434dc71dd19f1db4

Handy percentage boost.

I think this is the most excited I have ever been about a practice match. So good to have footy back and a killer team.

For a number of reasons Joel hasn't played that much senior football He certainly has some great attributes that make him potentially a very good footballer. His practical knowledge of the game (ie: reading the play like J Lever does) and skill execution particularly under pressure has been questioned before which was probably fair enough He is definitely one that might surprise a few if he can consistently stay healthy because some of these perceived shortcomings may disappear or become less of an issue with more game time

This is truly the dawn of a new era. How relaxing to experience our team demolishing another in the pre-season, with nothing hanging on the result, and no requirement to read the tea leaves for the upcoming home and away season. Our only problem is how to jam 30 players into 22.

Did you not watch many games last season DJ. Was used most games last year.

Thought Hibbo showed he’s not going to give up his spot up easily. Won just about every one on one he had, looked quick and his kicking was pretty good. Completely toweled up their chunky #44.

I liked his ability to defend the 190+ cm talls in the air, even when the ball is kicked to the forwards advantage because of his closing speed and leap. He is then able to defend the smalls with the loose ball, using his speed and agility to his advantage. I must have missed his bad disposal, but I thought generally he disposed of it well.

Most satisfying Back to the gf replay.

I hope we can dish out a similar walloping to North during the H&A season. We owe them

BB for the Coleman medal this year

Harmesy looks a lot like Spud in Trainspotting.

Incredible .... Spargs actually smiled !!!

And his (Kozzie) GF involvements were greatly underrated too. Many said he had a very quiet game - by his standards maybe NB no goals. Not a lot of conventional stats but a hell of a lot of pressure acts.

Bloody good to have footy back. Yeah we were a bit rusty but it was nice not to be at the top of our game and still smash the Joeys. Remember it’s the FIRST practice game of the year after winning the premiership after 150 year drought and we still look fit and hungry. GO DEES.

... and here he is in 2072!

I will put a pineapple on that too. It’s the least I can do

"Salem avoiding damage to his knee" so...he's all good to go?

What strikes me about this team vs all the others in my 45 years supporting is how much purpose they play with to drive the ball forward at all costs. Old Melbourne sides had me screaming how they’d mess around with the footy and inevitably turn it over, not this one. This must be what supporting a good side feels like.

I just saw the highlights on the news. Clarry kicks a replica of his bang bang bang goal. He kicked exactly the same goal in the last round against Geelong as well. It's becoming a trade mark. If he continues this trend I don't think it will be just Melbourne supporters saying he is the best midfielder they have ever seen.

that's the point though......zurich don't want to just blend in, they want to stand out light blue is their real colour.....and they are a major sponsor paying big bucks

I was very surprised our extended interchange guys got so little time on the ground.Why have an extended bench if you are not going to use them? Given the level of opposition today, it seemed to me the perfect time to give good game time to the likes of Hunt, Weid, etc. Maybe the mantra this year is that if you want to play in the 22 you are really going to have to earn it.

We seem to like bending teams over barrels these days. Great to watch. May the strangle hold over Norf continue. 🙏

No appearance to date from - 12. TOBY BEDFORD 26. SAM WEIDEMAN 29. JAYDEN HUNT 33. OSKAR BAKER 38. MITCH BROWN 42. DANIEL TURNER

Hibbo aging backwards?

McDonald looking set for a big year. Looks fit and sharp.

Salem in his granny form. Bbb clunking. Tmac moving well. Young Chandler looking great Our backline is supreme even without Jake and Harry.

Casey Fields. (Sorry, couldn't help myself!)

As Daisy said in the GF - "...this team doesn't have an off button..."

Thank you to everyone providing comments and updates. They are much appreciated.

I can see 50 goals from Ben Brown this year.

Trac has definitely matured and shows great leadership .traits. But if selecting a successor to Max I'd be looking at Jake Lever.

Definitely a future captain in my eyes. His maturity in the past 18 months has been through the roof. I'm also a big Jake Lever fan in terms of being a future captain.

Gastro? We should postpone the game just to pizz Chris Scott off.