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Just like in the GF...really horrific

That would be Melbourne Football Club premiership players Mr. James Harmes, Mr. Jack Viney and Mr. Tom Sparrow.

Dip in form of Jordon was no doubt caused by that knock to his medial ligament that happened a couple weeks ago. Been strapped since. No Weideman in emergencies is telling. Shows how far back he is.

Have never watched it and never will. Tbh I can't watch any AFL media anymore. It is a complete joke and it is all sensationalist BS. At the start of the season we were 'unbeatable', now Geelong are unbeatable and we are worthy of being a bottom 4 side.

I feel more confident and relaxed when Spargo has the footy than any other Melbourne player as his disposal and decision making is first rate. Having said that, it would be nice if he got more of it.

Essendon = 78,579 members in 2022 which has them as having the 5th largest Membership and they have been failing for many, many years. I would suspect that the signing of Clarko would immediately add many thousands to that number. Believe me, they are a "sleeping giant" and I hope they don't get Clarko because I love them being exactly where they are.

Welcome back James Harmes. We gonna need you!

Melksham named on the wing means Gus is there, nothing surer. Jordon looked laboured, despite what his running numbers were - Sparrow the way back in for him I think. Spargo and ANB aren’t in great form but from what I can see, the play roles that are not easily swapped in for someone unless they know where to go and when to go - mainly on defensive structures…

With the injury to Tmac this side is about as good as it gets. We should be able to get a win in QLD.

I am 😂

Demonland podcast or bust for me

Most likely to JJ's wing and Harmes to go to Neale or maybe Rayner

Really think he just needs a rest to freshen up. While he isnt the most damaging player, he sure has been good as that link up player on the wing this year. Sparrow is lucky imo.

I feel so sad for him. He was dropped and made sub around the same time last year and ended up as sub in the grand final. I feel like he’s more than earnt his spot this season and I hope it’s just a temporary rest and he’s back in the side for finals.

Surely Harmes is there to tag Neale into the ground again

It's not the perpetual Collingwood coverage that bugs me. It's Caroline Wilson and Eddie McGuire talking over each other and their co-panellists that I find most irritating. Conversely, watching the discipline of Matthew Lloyd and Ross Lyon who ensure they don't speak when it's not their turn might help explain why they were so successful in their former football roles.

We're not losing to Brisbane.

The truth is that if not for the utter bungling incompetence of the Carlton Football Club on 5 occasions in the last 2 minutes then we lose that match. Melky outmarks 3 Carlton defenders, all taller than him. Newnes drops a simple uncontested mark when Viney over kicks it inside 50 Owies miskicks a 15m uncontested backwards pass to "Woof" and it bounces short Saad's kick down the line to a Carlton 3 on 1 doesn't result in a Carlton mark Hunt's kick back down the line to a Carlton 3 on 1 doesn't result in a Carlton mark and in fact it hits Young in the head Pickett goal!

Front Bar or bust for me…

Sneaky suspicion the Saints will have a very Saints-like win over the Swans…..just to give their supporters cruel hope for next season. They’re better when there’s nothing to lose.

The fact that we are even still 3rd at this point is pretty astounding. Having played 5 top 5 teams since round 15 it has been an incredibly difficult draw in the second half of the season. The more I look at it the more I realise how unlucky we've been with our fixture this year. I can't help but think what would have been if we had played Freo and Sydney during rounds 1-8, we would have blown them away imo. Then, had we faced Essendon, GWS or the suns during our heavy midseason loading which obviously heavily affected our 3 performances before the bye, I think we well could have won them too. We could have potentially been 12-0 before our QB clash and gone into the bye sitting on top with a 12W-1L record. No-one would be worrying about potentially dropping out of the top 4.... I hate it how some stupid journos keep bringing up the "they've lost 6 of their last 11 games" narrative and use that to compare us to the formline of Geelong, Sydney, Brisbane or even Collingwood. They have had a pathetically easy fixture since r12 or even after the bye so it's really hard to properly assess or compare the dees to the other top 6 sides. Based on the "premiership" metrics where we sit 2nd overall, our interstate record, our wood over Brisbane and Brisbane's struggling form over the last month even against poor opposition, I have zero doubt we will win on friday, so get pumped everyone.

I’m increasingly convinced that TMac will come back into the team in W1 of the finals unless he has a serious setback. I seem to remember that he purposively opted for a surgery option with a shorter recovery time (plate over weak joint, or something like that) because of the chance he could return to play finals. The last few injury reports suggest he’s tracking well, integrating into team training, and even travelling with the team to Brisbane this week. That doesn’t sound like management of a player that is out for the season.

Or on Wednesdays, should it be called Footy Collingwood or Footy Eddie? It is now just about unwatchable. All Eddie does, is to involve Collingwood in every segment and every part of the show and even himself, by declaring his production company is doing this that or the other. Additionally whatever is said by another panellist, Eddie adds “yes that is my info or what I have been told “. The big noting. It is actually sickening. Whatever they talk about, Collingwood is mentioned by him. There are always clips of Collingwood. No matter what the topic, there is mention of Collingwood. Enough is enough. It was one of my favourite footy shows, but on Wednesday is now unwatchable. Please get Eddie off the panel and bring in anyone else, so that it can get back to being a footy show, not a Collingwood/Eddie one.

Spargo gives bugger all,slow, doesnt get enough of it and hardly hits the scoreboard. Dont give a stuff about his percieved forward pressure. SMITH would have been a much better bet up forward to assist BBB

Not stiff. He’s been fading out of games for a month.

Get a grip.

50 th games for rivers and jackson good luck lads. Do it for the west of us !

Will love Clarko forever if he teases the bombers and then goes to North

Jordan covered 14.6 km last week, our 3rd highest, including 2.6 km at high speed (over 18km per hour), our 2nd highest.

Would be happy if we gave Breust a 2 year contract. He has kicked 40 goals this year in a poor side and is such a smart footballer.

I guess this is the most appropriate thread for this. Apologies if it's a re-post! Either way, enjoy! 😎

Jordon isn’t unlucky imo, as he has been below his best for a while. Charlie Spargo on the other hand can consider himself very very lucky.

There has been a lot written on DL regarding our ability to score, i50 problems and delivery during 2022, and how this will impact on our upcoming finals campaign. Perhaps with one round to go it's a good time to look at some statistical facts on 2021 v 2022. 2021 2022 Position 1 3 Points 66 60 PF 1'807 1'821 PA 1'366 1'427 % 132.2 127.7 So in comparison to 2021, our offence has scored 14 extra points over 21 games (0.7% improvement - statistically no different), whereas our defence has conceded and additional 61 points (4.5% decline). Yet there are people on DL who have been very critical of our 'Forward Connection' and a number of the players in the forward line. IMO our problem this year has been our inability to prevent our opponents scoring, especially at crucial moments in a few games that could have gone either way. Surely this is due to injuries/ailments to our four key defenders, as well as a drop in form of some of the younger defenders playing around them (these are most likely connected). Have faith people, we are nowhere near as far of the mark as some on here believe.

I see that Dean Kent is an inclusion for St Kilda in what will be his 100th game. Genuinely forgot that he was still on a senior list. I wonder if the 100th is a farewell gesture.

JJ pretty stiff. The only out

Slightly? It's up there with the Harold Holt Swim Centre in Glen Iris for mine!

Essendon deserve Ross Lyon.

That was wild, and it was exactly the vibe in the Southern Stand. Anger, followed by utter silence, and then some punching happened. It’s hard for us to understand it in the context of how good Melksham and Kozzie were, but that was also one of the almightiest chokes in AFL history. Playing for finals. 7 points up with 2 minutes to play. I love that it happened to their horrible, whiny, entitled supporters. Their players are actually much more likeable than their supporters. They deserve to stay out in the cold for longer until they learn some manners.

Love her passion and feel her pain. That was me when Tuohy kicked that goal after the siren. Max delivered the antidote last year.

Haha, love it! This was definitely the general sentiment at the ground too. Lots of noise until Melksham kicked his goal, then it was panic, then it was absolute crickets after Kozzy got the winner.

All positions in the Village People have been filled.

If we do win on Friday night, the Sydney V St Kilda game is going to remind me of the round 23 Sunday twilight game of 2017 - West Coast V Adelaide. Fox Footy will be putting the live ladder after each goal and we'll be celebrating or commiserating after each goal. In reality, we're probably finishing 3rd and heading up to Sydney assuming we win. We'd have to win by about 12-15 more points than Sydney. Here is a possible scenario that would get us to second: Melbourne 100 - Brisbane 76 Sydney 90 - St Kilda 78 Melbourne - 127.9% Sydney 127.7%

The disconnect between the way football is currently played versus how it’s reported on, and the amount of time reported on it, is becoming more extreme each year. It’s either painfully dumbed down, or so shouty and antagonistic that it’s objective is to become its own story. I always imagined that as your team became more successful you enjoyed and devoured more of the footy media to soak it all in. Sadly it’s been the other way for me. I find it dull and devoid of insight.

I've already said I didn't see LDcV's post referring to Caro and Eddie. No it is not ok to bag either of them. It is not ok to bag anyone doing their job. No agenda. I just find these type of threads tedious. They and the number of repetitive threads on DL is causing me to post less and less these days. So maybe I do have an agenda: enjoy DL a bit more than I have lately. And before you tell me to not open a thread if I don't like what is posted, believe me I don't. After the first 10-20 posts of a new thread the writing is often on the wall and I don't open them again. To qualify that: if anyone quotes me I will come to a thread to give them the courtesy of reading their comments and if required respond. This thread is now in that category.

Nice that the whole squad can travel to Queensland together.

Yeah winning flags sucks. I couldnt stand the way we ran over the best teams in the league last year when finals came along.

I don't think you quite understand what loading is but that's fine, it was one of the main reasons we were so dominant in the finals last year and won the flag. Imo we didn't play enough top teams from rounds 1-10. We were incredibly unlucky to come up against mostly good teams in the 2nd half of the season. Unfortunately you can't choose the fixture and who you come up against at what point in the season...

It's been big games one after the other and more to come I'm very bullish about this one The manner of the Carlton win will energise us and the Lions just can't get it done when the chips are done. We'll finish 3rd and head to Sydney for the QF. And I'll be confident about that game as well These are great times to be a Dees supporter

Great question, and one I'm unqualified to answer adequately, but for what it's worth: I think our scoring shots from centre clearances over the past four weeks would have to be the best or near to the best in the league. Without knowing exactly, I expect the inside 50 efficiency from centre clearances is much higher than those from standard clearances. They're figurative gold for AFL sides because of the 6-6-6 rule. This year has shown that teams have adapted to our strengths, beginning with a strategy to combat our clearance domination, and then a pivot to working around or nullifying our defensive structures. That is why our form and fortunes have been a bit harder to gauge compared to last year because teams have been throwing the proverbial sink at us trying to beat us and different teams have employed different tactics. I believe our form on scores from clearances this year is in a better position than at the same time last year. I think this is a good indicator for the finals series, where there is often very little room and opposition players are rarely left free. When things get tight, muscle memory and consistency is important - our consistent gameday strategies, strength at the contest, and enviable ability to score from centre clearances will make us a daunting challenge for any team. Just one final comment on our form - the Bulldogs (60%) and Collingwood (65%) had scoring accuracy far in excess of the season average (49%). It's even significant when compared to the most consistently accurate team over the last seven years (the Eagles at 52%). If things had gone our way just a little more in those games, our form since the bye would read 7W-1L or 6W-2L if you think Carlton were more deserved winners on Saturday night. We'd also be on a 3 game winning streak and all of us would be talking about the similarities to last years form.

No. I'm of the view that we need some fresh faces and new eyes around Goodwin again so if Ooze leaves for GWS, it might be a good thing. New voice, different ideas etc. We need to keep evolving.