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Tomlinson outperformed expectations Hats off to him

Folks have talked about fitness but did you see Petracca flip off the ground, off his back onto his feet. Never seen that happen on the footy field. Now try doing that in the backyard. It is impossible for most of us, it requires incredible strength and flexibility in the core. That was my highlight. No wonder he is impossible to tag. A raging bull. Once in a generation. Oh, maybe we have two or three once in a generation players. It’s like looking back and saying how lucky you were to see Barassi or all those other champs from those days. We are very lucky to see our current crop of players.

Was particularly noticeable to me last night too, @old dee (maybe cos I sat top tier, which I don’t usually). And most noteable here is Alex Neal-Bullen. His combination of endurance and consistent speed to the contest is frankly phenomenal. When everyone else (the Dogs mostly) was grinding down, he was running as far and as fast as the first quarter. Needless to say it falls on deaf ears for many on here, but Nibbler’s all-game work is just extraordinary.

Don’t think he’s been mentioned yet but welcome back Bowza! All class from the little fire engine.

The average crowd between us and them is 22,700-odd. Tonight was the second-biggest H&A crowd between us since the 1960s. It was also 37 degrees which doesn’t lend itself to some people commuting in. Plus the majority were our supporters, meaning the Dogs’ fans were the ones who didn’t really turn up.

TMac didn’t have a great game, Yes BUT TMac allowed Benny Brown to be a loose man. Which was the main problem last year So TMac still did an important job

Uh oh..It's started. "Jackson sucks, Fyfe is too old, we don't have a forward line, Treacy can't play football and Ethan Hughes is on an AFL list" • "Melbourne must be celebrating today, genuine shot at a top 10 pick all of a sudden" • "Jackson can't mark to save his life." • "Hope Melbourne enjoy our 1st rounder" • "0 marks to Jackson is a bad stat line by itself, but he was out bodied and out read every time the ball went near him in a marking contest. And he added very little more at ground level." • "I don't remember being terrified and lacking confidence being in his draft profile." • "Bullied at clearances despite HO advantage, we looked outsized in there without Mundy. Jackson looked out matched as well." • "I thought Jackson overall was poor. And yet he started so brightly with that neat handball to Freddy for our first goal. But it was summarized by his lazy boneheaded kick around the body shot for goal that missed the lot. And that basically characterized the afternoon.....sigh!"

So many observations of great things: Pickett in so many of our goals. Max's run up when kicking for goal was straight as as arrow Max gave a masterclass in marking and positioning Spargo never wastes a ball. So clever. McVee a smooth mover and neat kick Lever back to his best BBB was playing footy that he didn't look capable of late last year. Fast ball movement, unpredictable entries into fwd 50 not a weak link, total team performance. Bowey's kicking superb Max and Grundy worked very well together Langdon picked up where he left off last year Petty's safe hands Harmes did a good job mostly on the Bont Umpires were generally very good - even though the Dogs throw the ball more than any other team\ Kick ins were varied and often they honoured the short 35m pass directly in front The team never stopped running Thommo had a blinder - Although Lobb is generally pretty poor.

Sunday morning and I am still in bed reason it was after midnight when I got home. From the time I left to go to the game till I got home was 7.5 hours. Now admittedly I left early to make sure I got into the G car park. Ridiculous! The upside ? We slaughter a team that was supposedly a top 4 contender. I have to say rarely have I watched a MFC team play as well as this one and we had 4 of our 21 premiership side out. I know it is only the first game but how could you not be excited. Bring it on Dees we have all waited decades for this team.

Harmes had 42 pressure acts which is exceptional. Next best was Kossie with 30. Your views on Harmes are no longer objective.

It’s not hard. Last year Ben was getting 3 opponents Last night he was free to run and cover ground TMac played an effective team role. He will get better

oh, go on. we lurve vindictiveness here on demonland feel free to carry on

Great Sub choice. Milkshake is a very smart footballer that can play middle and ahead of the ball, but might not be as fast or have the legs of the others. Bring him on as a sub when others have slowed a bit and let him get to work. He contributed straight away. A tactical masterstoke? (I think so)

Fair play to Smith. Jumped straight up after the incident. Didn't make a meal of it. respect.

The one sitting behind me was pretty thick

What?!

Cripps got off and won the Charlie last year. Oh how the MRO interpretations turn so quickly.

Tomlinson 19 possessions and 7 marks. Essentially Steven May stats. Massive kudos for his performance tonight and has proven to be a good insurance policy.

We have found one in Judd McVee

Anyone think Caleb Daniel is seriously overrated? Chases the easy kicks and even when he does get the easy kick he coughed it up badly last night. Bailey Dale on the other hand is a seriously good footballer who would compliment our line up significantly.

He’ll get a week or two and rightly so. He launched himself like an Exocet missile and is extremely lucky that he didn’t do some major damage to Smith. Intent should be punished and the intent there was pretty clear. (I won’t be complaining however, if he gets off with a fine)

B. Grundy d L. Jackson 79-50 ROUND 1 FANTASY LADDER B GRUNDY 1-0 L JACKSON 0-1 --- I'm not vindictive and immature enough to post this in here every week - that would be irritating for all involved. I will do it in my head every week over on my fantasy page however.

I will certainly boo Jackson. I have no time for players who actively choose to leave a club who served them the world on a platter. But I would never boo Weideman or Hunty or Hannan as an example, because the circumstances of their departure was entirely different. I also never boo Hogan as I sympathized with what he went through off field before going home.

The Dogs board on BigFooty had some funny comments First the hilarious headline "Dogs discombombulated by Mt Buller" Then the Poll "Do you still have any faith in Bevo?" Then the comments..... Daniel horrendous down back. Get him out. delivery into forward line absolute dog****. pantsed in the centre clearances. Ours are scraggy kicks into the forward line meanwhile Melbourne transfer into goals Massive work rate and fitness disparity between the teams. Melbourne absolutely dominated the GPS numbers I've had colonoscopies that were more enjoyable than tonight's game Teams walking it out the middle on 5-6 goal runs where we STILL don't seem to have an answer for. I didn't think it was possible but a full pre season of work has actually made Bailey Smiths kicking even worse. Saints next week will be a good test to see if we are actually bottom four material or just our usual mid-table I wanna give Baker a chance but the Dees have the best talent ID and coaching atm, so them delisting him is a bit of a red flag. 1 tackle for the game is just not good enough. Pickett and Chandler had more tackles between them than ALL our forwards combined Williams wtf? You're a 100 gamer with more anxiety than my ex SLobb has managed to pilfer us out of $3m, well done young man Hannan had 6 disposals, 4 of which were clangers and 3 that led to turnovers Once Max inevitably decided enough was enough and took control of the game. What did we do? We continued on with our determined strategy of proving to all the football world the very definition of insanity by sticking with the one paced centre combo of English, The Bont, Macrae and Libba. It was clear as the view from the top of Mount Everest on a sunny day that Max was spoon feeding his dynamic duo the ball out wide and that none of our centre combo had the speed to go with them.

Every dee around me clapped. pity more of our supporters don’t see them play. They are great ambassadors for the red and blue

Good to see our AFLW team do a Premiership lap of honour. But disappointed that the applause wasn't what was deserved.

Seeing a lot more kids barracking for the Dees now.

You’re kidding? He’s so crucial to our structure - outside of kicking goals. Go to a game and just watch how and where he moves; no coincidence that the drop off last season started after he was out….

Disappointed Tom McDonald couldn't kick that goal to replicate the 2021 grand final ending

A shout out to Rivers - not mentioned much but played a great game IMO

Trac changed the game in the second quarter I thought. My favourite play was in the second when Grundy roved off the pack, did an underground handball to Langdon and Lingers centred it to Spargo. Spargs and Kozzie electric.

Two weeks is a fair outcome. BUT, you can’t look at one without the other. Buddy got graded medium impact. Kosi graded high. Smith played on. Buddy’s opponent had to come off for a concussion test. It is just so unfair!

Rubbish. How can no damage be high impact? What then is concussion/broken jaw, WW3? I would challenge high impact only and take one week. TBH I am sick of us being made examples of without any argument from us. One week was fair. If he caused injury of course he deserved more, but he didn’t and no damage can’t in any way be high impact. How can you have high impact on high contact ( the head ) with absolutely no damage and not even medical attention or a test of any kind. Ridiculous. Too many on here have reacted to the opticals and yes it wasn’t a great look, but it still must be dealt with properly not just made up.

One to go with yours on the front page, @Demonland?

Ran the game out, reflects our preparation. We had a clean, fast start. Our capacity to deal with momentum control has improved. We wrestled the momentum by getting some tempo and composure when we had the ball. The structural changes continue to develop, with an emphasis on roles still holding firm. The ball movement patterns have made for a very quick but unpredictable delivery into the 50.

At least we didn't have that blaring music at the breaks! Big improvement.

Poor act in my opinion. Real potential to do harm. We have to get head shots our of footy. Not because of the legal ramifications. Because we have to make tbe game as safe as you can make such a brutal game (ie it will never really be safe). Paging Webber, but I'm pretty sure the link between repeated head contact and CTE is accepted now. Jordon Lewis was on 360 last wek and they were discussing concussion and showed the hit he received that triggered changes. Sickening. Out cold before he hit the ground. Jordon said he only had two 'serious' concussion ie out cold. One in junior footy and that one. Asked if he worries about the impact, I half expected him to say no. But he said he worries often. All the time. Good on him for his honesty Like Jordan, albeit for different reasons, I worry about what will happen to my brain in the future My mum had dementia and my dad parkinsons, so I have seen the impact of neurological damage. And it scares me ****less that I'll might go down the same path. As far as possible, we don't want the men and women who play for our enjoyment having to have those same fears - there will always be head trauma in our game. All that said, talk of tve current legal stuff and kossie being made an example of because of it, infuriates me. Similarly the idea the 'optic' should be factored in is ridiculous. As is talk it should go to tbe tribunal. The so called decision matrix was introduced to take subjectivity out of it. The decision to weight impact, which I disagree with (lpotential impact should be a bigger factor imo) has been made. Apply the existing framework to kossie, pure and simple. If that means he gets off with a fine, so be it. It really shouldn't be possible to get more than one week if I understand the criteria properly (which I may well not). The time for changes to tbat framework is post season, not during the season triggered by a specific incident - particularly one that isn't a new scenario and/or raises new issues fir consideration. This incident wasn't novel. Not much grey area and not really much to unpack. Meat and potatoes shirt front. Give him his wack and move on.

How proud does it make you to support a football side like this!

What an amazing performance! For years the difference between Melbourne's best and worst was a chasm. This game showed me that even at the points when we werent doing well, we were still able to hang in. This is what great teams do. I think the scoreline did flatter us a bit but we still deserved it. Max Gawn was everywhere and if the new forward kicks like that each week then I'm more than happy with this new arrangement. The clearance game always ebs and flows when these two teams play and there were times when we really lacked Viney in the middle but we managed to see it through. Can we talk about Kozzie? The spark, the X-factor, the brilliance, the gem. What more can you say? When he's around stuff happens. Shouldn't have done that bump and hope he's not gone too long but he does play on the edge and that's why we love him Can we talk about Christian Petracca? He started ok but in that 2nd he turned the electronics into pinball overdrive. The guy is Mr Score involvement and everything about him stands out. And my god he's looking as strong as ever. Binman said on the pod he could get even better, I agree. 8 clearances. Clarry turned it on in the second half and I think people are massively underrating Gus's game. 10 marks, almost all of them intercepts, ran at 96% efficiency! Great job mate! Jake Lever seriously came to play. Did the work of two key defenders at times and as usual was as safe as houses with the ball in flight. Can't believe it's 5 years since his first game on this ground and he played a honker against the Cats. What a player! I thought Spargo did a great job pressuring and his goal sense was really on point. He did have Benny Brown open at the Punt Rd end but he looked so assured of himself as he calmly slotted it. Oh yeah how about Ben Brown? Who thought he was finished again? The question still remains to be seen whether T-mac and Brown play every game this season but he certainly did his job tonight and the new ways of transitioning the ball are going to suit him so much. Looks so aerodynamic as well now! Welcome to the Melbourne Football Club Mr Brodie Grundy! Chipped om with great ruck work at the centre bounces and his goal with everyone getting around him was so great! Welcome to a real footy club l, not a bin Dipper one! What tall forwards! JUH, Naughton, Lobb and Darcy held to two goals. A brilliant effort by the backs. Especially Adam Tommlinson. His game was far from perfect but he really had a good crack and played a decent game doing what he does best. A great win, bring on the Lions. The tests are coming thick and fast and it could be hard for the outs to get back into this team. Go dees!

I know there were a lot of names tonight. But holy dog, Lever is something else. Plays bigger than his frame suggests, fends off, gets to the right spot and has a really big kick. What a player.

I would have thought that Laurie would be more likely to be replaced in the team.

A great win when you consider we were missing our best defender, best forward and third best midfielder. Really happy with what we got from McVee and Chandler (Laurie didn’t disgrace himself either!), and hats off to Tomlinson. He was absolutely the player we saw in 2021. Oliver and Gawn are literal freaks. Gawn is Benjamin Buttoning his career. Just gets better and better with age and if the only thing Grundy does is prolong Gawny’s career by 2 years, he’s been worth every cent. Gawn is a giant of this game. Literally and figuratively.

Gawn - the perfect game Petracca - prolific and unstoppable Oliver - a selfless game Pickett - offer him anything McDonald - was often bypassed Brown - finest Demon performance Grundy - will be awesome Langdon - was not dominant Hunter - will be vital Spargo - ten important minutes Brayshaw - great second half Neal-Bullen - better second half Rivers - impressive fitness level Lever - defensive general again Chandler - some important possessions Harmes - impressive tagging game Sparrow - impressive tagging game McVee - some important touches Melksham - took his chances Bowey - constantly instilled confidence Laurie - had little involvement Tomlinson - 4 consistent quarters Petty - looked nervous early

The votes are in and mine wouldn’t impact the final standings. As far as I can see there are no votes for Bowser and only one mention of him and perhaps rightly so given the others in front of him but there is no player in the team I feel more comfortable with when ball is in hand and he is so clean. This kid is a jet. Shout out to Kade Chandler. He’s now a good AFL player and not a perhaps player. When he settles in front of goal we’ve got another beauty. Judd McVee is also going to be very hard to drop when Salo comes back. Jason Taylor, you’re a genius! Good summary Joeboy, don’t always agree but love the thread. Sorry, this started out to be a comment on Bowser and no votes but mushroomed!

Spargo’s first goal must surely be the furthest he has ever kicked a football!

Thought Jake Bowey was absolutely excellent tonight as was Mcvee. Gee in the last quarter we were running on top of them, looked like we could have played another 4 quarters, excellent signs!!

Tomlinson looked so much more assured with his body than after coming back from his ACL last year. Hats off to him, I thought he was done. Wonderful to see. First game live for my two boys tonight. Great way to break them in. 😀 Carn the mighty Demons!

Kozzy is a genuine superstar now. Please offer whatever he wants Tim Lamb. Trac, Oliver and Gawn just changed the game when they decided to put their foot down. McVee is genuinely cool and calm under the heat. With more experiences and game he'll get better and apply himself with much more confidence. Jason Taylor has unpacked another gem. Good to see Benny Brown up and about. 4 snags is a good start Lever was BOG down back alongside Tomlinson and Bowey. Just an overall great team performance. Unfortunately Oskar Baker and Mitch Hannan are VFL standard footballers. Still amazed Baker got given another chance at AFL level.