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That was an outstanding win for the club. We got through despite the enormously difficult circumstances of losing the coach and five players through Covid19. It’s not just the disruption in terms of coaching and player loss but the psychological difficulties of getting through the regime of testing, the uncertainty and all of the issues surrounding the situation over a period of more than 72 hours - we did it and overcame a very spirited opposition. Congratulations to all concerned at the club on scoring another famous win for the Demons!

Great win. Players fading in the last. 2 weakened by covid. 3- 4 hadn't played AFL tempo for a while. Bank the 4 points and move on.

- We won - We had a massively disrupted week - Hawthorn threw absolutely everything they had at us - We won Save the overanalysing it for the replay. This was a tough game, we still won and we’re 7-0.

A shout out to Viney who lives in the shadows of Clarrie and Trac but is no less important

It’s funny how we all see things differently. I really enjoyed that game and I never thought we were likely to lose. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that we would play the last quarter slow and defend the lead we earned with a good 3rd quarter. We let an extra 10 points through than the high end of our average but we were missing some really important pieces of our defensive grid. They moved the ball aggressively and got exactly what you would expect. A couple of times they pierced our zone with multiple switches and quite a few times they came totally unstuck. i thought Hunt played a good game and a great first half. Others thought Milkshake was great but I thought he looked like an old man who can’t keep up. He kept losing his feet and the Melksham of 2-3 years ago would never have missed that shot dead in front. What I love is that we always play the same way. What makes our game look different is how other teams try to counter us. I’m glad we banked the points with so many forced changes. We got a good look at Bedford and there is definitely something there. Weed was solid as 2nd ruck and took a ripper off a mark to kick his goal. I also thought we had a great turn out at the game. It was a great atmosphere and there was plenty of red and blue. Our numbers are growing and if we keep winning like this we’ll win an even bigger following.

1st quarter was ok 2nd quarter was ok 3rd quarter was really good 4th quarter was ok. The thing is that I've watched most of Hawthorns games this year. I knew they would come out on the offensive early. They have pushed a number of good teams so far this year. We had 5 forced changes, we were missing our coach and had 2 coming back from COVID who were no doubt underdone. Your expectations are off.

Yeah so I ended sitting plumb in the middle of the cheer squad and I’m not 100% sure but I think I’m now a member of the Demon Army. 😆😂unofficial for now but the bunch of crazy Dees ladies told me how to make it official on Monday. 🤩🥳❤️💙

'Can someone lift my spirits?' We have won 14 games in a row, including a Grand Final by 12 goals. Does that help?

We got away with it? We won the bloody flag!

Thought Jake Melksham had a great game. Competed well, won ground ball nicely, used it well, calm experienced head when the ball was pinging about. Quick reminder to everyone that he isn't done yet and still has something to offer.

A wakeup call without losing is a good result, hawthorn showed everyone the blueprint on how to beat us, take it quick through the corridor and keep lever accountable. Need to tidy up our forward fifty entries as well, we kept sitting it on top of a contest and expected someone to clunk it which didnt look nearly as good hitting up a lead. I think this game also shows how important Goody is, feel like his influence on the boundary line is a lot more important than we know

I will never understand why some Melbourne supporters actively hate Melbourne players.

Thanks Hawthorn for playing such an aggressive game. Took it up to us. I was never really worried we’d lose but it’s the first time I’ve felt some legitimate tension in the last quarter all season.

I don’t understand all the negativity tonight. The Rona has gone through the Club over 2 weeks, and we are still undefeated 5 Changes and Senior Coach not available Viney and Lever were cooked in the last Quarter, but we got the job done I am proud of the boys….

-You support the Premiership defenders that haven’t lost a game. -It isn’t 2011 Melbourne team. -You’re in the middle of the greatest football period of your life.

We were shaken, but not stirred.

Very happy for Bedford. A game which could turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Max had 29 disposals with his 2 goals. Not bad by the skipper

I’ll give him benefit of the doubt on the mark: I thought it was just him losing track of his own location and needing to make a split second decision with the ball about to land on him. It was definitely clumsy and didn’t look good but I don’t think it was an intentional goal steal. I agree the long range shot was poor though.

You can say that again. Two years ago you would murder for this type of position. Now we are whinging because we didn’t smash a competitive side after a week full of disruptions. No doubt whatsoever Lever and Viney were underdone after Covid and we were missing key players AND we lost Smith which threw the defense into chaos with Tmac going down. We keep being thrown challenges and we keep finding ways to win. We saw what we can do when we put the foot down for 15 minutes in the third term. We conserved energy and defended hard in the last because that’s how we like to play. It is great practice for our defensive set ups and it greatly reduces the amount of energy spent and risk of injury. We don’t need to win by 10 goals every week. People forget that we didn’t have big wins this time last year either. Why give up your winning hand this early in the year? Very proud of us for making it work in a week that threw us massive curveballs literally on the daily.

Harsh on Melksham.

There’s a lot of lack of perspective getting around this thread. Goodwin doesn’t like making many changes for a reason. We looked unorganised early today for a reason. The way we play requires cohesion in the way we move and certain players with certain assets to use those assets over the course of a game. Without all those outs we cover a lot of their switches better. We have petty which frees up lever. To help rebound. We keep the ball in our forward line longer with kozzie anb and sparrow. we won today because our top 6 is better than theirs. Interestingly our top 6 is much better than st Kilda and freo who are looking like they will be there abouts. st kilda aren’t exactly looking like world beaters right now against port. The season is long. We get to 12 wins asap and then we plan our run home. after going to most games my entire life I choose to enjoy the grind and admire the freaks we have running around getting the job done when teams of years gone would have gotten nowhere near. last year we had some ugly wins and losses. There were problems with forward cohesion but we figured it out. And by the end of the year didn’t it look incredible.

Who chooses Weid over McDonald tonight? Really. McDonald is more aggressive and smart and competes in the air. Weid hasn’t taken his chances and hasn’t taken a contested mark in weeks. Jackson back in and Weid out. Just my opinion.

You appear to have a new variant of MFCSS. Rather than being miserable when we lose you’re miserable when we win.

The team is better with Petty playing.

Lever is better with Petty playing.

Really enjoyed Bedford's performance! Would be good to see more of him this year. Not sure how, but still

Yze undefeated as coach !!

The absolute putrid biased commentators were over the top. How about talking up the team with 5 out

I just had the abject misfortune of having to use the public toilets at St Albans train station. Despite the ‘vacant’ setting, when I kicked the door open (coz not touching a single surface), I see a guy injecting heroin into his big toe. I says, “sorry bro, didn’t know there was anyone in here.” He says, “all good” then looks up and says, “Go Dees!” 😆

Grew up in the 80s. Played all my junior footy in the Hawthorn district junior football league. Played countless games at glenferrie oval for interleague games.. under 15s and 17s there with some very well known names around the league ( not getting named here though) before the juniorpathway was disbanded. Absolutely HATE this mob with a [censored] passion. They used to bury our noses in it. Time to repay the debt. Kill those [censored] Hawks... OK I feel better now

I forgot to mention that kick hacked out of a ruck contest and kicked forward for forty metres by Gawn which then bounced out and was paid as deliberate oob was one of the worst umpiring decisions I think I've ever seen. Amazing

You watch the Saints game yet mate?

Correct. Nobody who came into the side apart from Bedford made even half the impact the 5 Covid infected players make on a weekly basis. Weideman was not bad in the ruck but Jackson makes a far bigger impact in marking contests. Melksham is nowhere near ANB for pressure and you can’t compare what Sparrow and Petty bring to what we got out of Dunstan and Smith. So essentially we were missing 5 really key players (6 with Salem) and most teams would really struggle if that happened to them.

I’m sure I am taking it for granted. But we are witnessing our greatest ever ruckman and one of our best players ever

This post must be a joke. 7 zip win without our coach and players out with COVID. Gears were displayed when we blew them off the park. Some supporters are never satisfied

I saw 23 players play their guts out, 20% of whom lacked recent AFL conditioning. We were under constant pressure and the game was played at high tempo. We prevailed. As Goodwin has said many times, we don't try and play a 'perfect game' we play to wear the opposition down and when opportunities arise to score we take them. You have identified many errors but imv we played to Goodwin's plan of 'imperfection' just as he wants us to.

Yeah our seventh danger game this year

milkshake loves playing against the hawks that goal from the centre square clearance in the final in 2018 is seared into my brain

Those are ridiculous odds.

Well I'm happy to say I'll be going to the footy in daylight - at least for a short while. I had therefore, planned to return to The Manor at a decent hour but as I'm meeting with a couple of Demonland lunatics, the post game libations could be my Boozerloo . As to the forced changes ...... well you always want to go in with your best team but .....footy being footy, that rarely happens. Despite that, we are still putting a bloody good outfit on the 'G that will squash the Hawks without overmuch bother. However, that statement is subject to review, if we lose ( touch giant tree) anymore pre game. Will have eyes on Bedford of course but Tmac must realise he's under pressure so he will be having a decent crack. Milkshake as a late in provides another point of interest . The skies are clear (ish) in Romsey, so I'm tipping decent conditions tonight, which may give Weid and BBB a chance to grab a couple Adversity often brings out the best, so on the punt, I'm going for Dees 40+ and I'll try and find a decent goals/possesions multi to go with it. My ungrateful domestic staff still haven't returned from their free camping trip ( maybe they're having difficulty unpitching their tents) so The Manor is a bleak and lonely place currently. Dees winning streak to continue.

My poor - in R 1 this year, with MFC missing 5 premiership defenders, they chased down and beat 2021 #2 team

You might like to sit down... The equivalent thread was started this week 😑

I’m not a fan of Melksham, BUT when a player knows they are facing a rare and golden ticket to getting back into the side in the twilight of their career, they will do their outmost to play their best football. Melksham must have a lot of jealously and regret watching Hibbo with a premiership medal. He knows he will have to put a blinder in to stay in the side and he might just do that. He is a quality kick and has a great football brain. The knocks on him have always been his poor two way running. He knows now it’s not negotiable if he’s to press for a best 22 spot. Let’s see what he does.

Always feel more confident with McDonald in the side I know he has had better seasons but it’s his straight shooting on goal and experience that I like

Great opportunity for Milkshake to edge towards his 200th. Hopefully he extracts the digit.

This is going to get very messy very quickly Reinfections aren’t even a question (to the comments “I believe it’s possible”). It’s happening right now. Most states don’t publish data on it (some don’t even record it). Not yet anyway. Victoria I think does, with IIRC 10k reinfections but I didn’t look at the breakdowns by variant, time lags etc. Infection doesn’t confer immunity forever either. With the new BA.4 and new 2.x.x.x (forgot its exact strain), expected to become the dominant strains really quickly, and with their infectiousness at the same level as measles (which should alarm everyone given vaccines aren’t sterilising), things are going to get a little wild. Not sure what the AFL can do. What happens if an entire best 22 is knocked out. At some point too, I wonder if we’ll need to consider getting away from the idea a player will have mild/no symptoms then hit the track again right away. This seems to imply a measure of caution may be needed: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/54/19/1174 On a personal level, masks are probably a prudent precaution when in public. Be interesting to see how things progress with the Brace TB vaccine trial vs Covid goes and whether prophylactics like the Heparin nasal spray start to come into play. Or the US Army one. Brace: https://www.mcri.edu.au/brace Heparin: https://www.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2021/december/nasal-spray-to-fight-covid-19-heads-to-clinical-trial US Army: https://www.cnet.com/health/a-universal-vaccine-to-end-covid-pandemics-its-in-the-armys-sights/

So then they can go and get fudged. Is Jackson really gonna walk out on us and his premiership mates to get to the bottom of the ladder team? Come on.

1st for tackles. 1st for goal assists. 5th for frees against (behind Gawn, Pickett, Oliver and Joel Smith - and equal with Lever). Baffles me people still try to put ANB down.