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Collection of misery on the Essendon Big Footy Message Boards: ”Too many spuds in the team. Poor team selection for a game in the wet” “Brad can't pick a team to save his life” “Well, that sucked” ”Shut up Ling” ”[censored] poor” ”That wasn’t annoying at all” “Just another pathetic display like the last 10+ years” ”I could have been watching Interstellar!” “McKay and Ridley passes. The rest can get in the bin” ”that was so awful - i’m actually looking forward to a 12 year old kick boxer kicking my [censored] next week” ”Let's face it, this was inevitable as soon as Carlton lost and we could've been second if we won” “What makes this team so ****ing unbearable is the hope they give us” - Could also be a Demon poster here “What an absolutely soulless performance. Everything set up for us perfectly and that's the type of footy we dish up. Nothing has changed.”

I’ve been ignoring you until now - but I laughed out loud at this. Mate, your opinion is not so important that it contributes to a successful club. The crew who make all the decisions obviously need to analyse the performance for the club to be successful. Our job as supporters is to buy memberships to keep the club healthy, and to make a racket at games to pump the players up. That’s it. We do this for our own amusement, and that’s it. Nobody of any importance cares about your, my, or anyone else’s opinion on here about how Petty played. And fine, Petty didn’t have a great game. We get it and don’t necessarily disagree, but the walls of text on the topic are annoying for people who want to just enjoy a good win.

I thought Fritta and Turner played well

Tremendous win. I’ve read the comments on this board for 10 years and generally never felt the need to add my voice to the many reasoned, cogent and considered comments. However, having noticed a growing trend for commentary against Goodwin and Oliver, I feel the need to speak up. The former delivered the first premiership for the club in 57 years and has turned around an absolute [censored] show, imbuing the group with the character on show tonight. The latter, regardless of how you personally judge him, is arguably the most influential player to ever pull on the red and blue. 4 best and fairests are some proof. Others in that conversation are Barassi, Flower, Gawn and possibly Petracca. I digress. As it transpired the move not to replace Gawn tonight was the right call, despite many using it as a platform to deride the coach yet again. We are two kicks from second on the ladder, and have an exciting young crop coming though. Windsor will be a star.

Rivers on ABC Radio now just said after running 17.5km, Langdon rode his bike home from the game last night 😂

Collingwood lose, Carlton lose, Essendon lose and the mighty Demons WIN! It's the quintessential quadrella of quality. Woo hoo!

Hmm, all your posts on this thread are about potting Petty. Goal assists Petty 1 Draper 0 Score involvements. Petty 2 Draper 2 Tackles Petty 5 Draper 1. Reflecting on that I might give Petty votes.

Plenty of nuffies around. This is your post after last year's finals loss to Carlton. ...If McDonald ever pulls on a dees jumper again I'll eat my fist... How's that typing with one hand working out for you?

Form an orderly queue to make your apologies to Goody here please…

What's baffling is why you continue to keep picking at this scab. We get it. You don't agree with the decision to draft Kentfield. No need to make the same post over and over again in multiple threads.

If Max doesn’t play , they will go with the same set up. Van Rooyen as the main ruck with Petty and Turner relieving him. Blind Freddie can see that the Roo has come of age in the last few games. you can rely on him now to give you a contest every time. After just watching the replay to me me he was amidst the most important player as he quelled the influence of their supposed ruck advantage.

He's a genius until we lose, following which he'll be a stubborn coach who is wasting a list. And so the Demonland cycle continues.

Picket, to be honest you are coming off as not having a great grasp on what might drive selection in modern footy. I think it is reasonable to assume goody selection is largely driven by picking a team he thinks gives us the best possible chance of winning that game (I say largely because a factor sometimes might be an eye to getting a player ready for finals - so, an eye to winning future games). If goody is picking petts at this point in the season, in a critical 8 point game, it is reasonable to assume he did so because he believed it would help us win. Petty is clearly playing a role, and doing what is asked of him. He is a work horse who gets to contests and provides a down the line marking option. In case you haven't noticed goody has ALWAYS had a player playing such a role in his teams. BBB and Tmac are two such examples. It is a critical part of his structure and method - not least because it gives maxy a chop out from being smashed in such aeriel pack contests all game. And have a listen to goody's answer to another inane question about our forward line. Asked about the forward line mix working in the last 2-3 weeks, implying something radical had changed, he, politely, pointed out that the only change to that mix has been melk and that petts, jvr and disco have played together for most of the season. Cohesion is critical in sport he pointed out. And that takes time he also pointed out. It takes continuity. That's exactly what they have been doing - continuity in selection and building cohesion. And we are seeing the fruits of that approach. Dropping petty does not contribute to continuity or cohesion. And brining in another kid like Jefferson does nothing to help us win, or for cohesion - or the kid's development for that matter. And seriously, do you really think Fullarton would have helped us win last night? Bloke is barely passing muster as a ruck at VFL level Despite the frankly ridiculous hand wringing on here about selection, we won the raw clearance count - which by the by is not a particularly useful stat these days as it's not a measure of impact. What is a measure of impact is scores from stoppages, which critically we won by 14 points. In fact it was arguably the deciding factor in our win given they scored 3 more points from turnover. That doesn't happen without petty. Goody deserves credit and praise not brickbats. Which is why, when responding to a question about who we might play in the ruck against freo goody visibly bristled, before noting the option he ran with this week clearly JUST WORKED, implying the obvious- why would we change something that literally just proved successful?

Did you extract that from demonland threads?

I’m not worried about JVR , he is a big lump of a lad that loves crashing in. I don’t think we will burn him out he loves it. Mark my words, he will be the Key superstar forward we are looking for.

Two things we need from Kozzie long term. 1. To get to 200 games 2. To have a very, very big family

100% TOG. The man is superhuman. By the way, Petty returning from a horrible foot injury with 0 pre season and hamstring awareness a week ago, and is expected to ruck against a really good solid ruckman. The pile on is insane. Roo was always going to do better given he trained to do backup rucking all pre season under Gawn while Petty was riding a scooter with a foot in a moonboot.

So underrated. It looked to me like Scott started the game with his very tall forwards going up the ground to draw May and Lever with them, and destroy our defensive structure. And it worked. But Goody somehow turned it around, got our structure back on track, and we kept them to about 3 goals for the next 2 1/2 quarters, until the incredible effort told on our players. He covered the loss of Max by alternating relatively unknown "ruckmen" against Draper, and adjusting our centre square setup, so we held our own in clearances. And as happens so often, there players, who obviously love him, produced an extraordinary effort and showed the opposition up. A totally underrated coach.

Live footage of Langdon leaving the MCG...

AMW getting subbed off was purely about fitness. We had a lot of kids running on a very heavy track. I expected us to run out of gas to be honest. Did not help making the sub and then immediately losing Rivers for 10 minutes to a shoulder jab and strap. Also McVee running rings around Porky Stringer was delightful.

Explain this to me Nathan Willamson. How is this not the purest 50 metre penalty you’ve ever seen? The umpiring in the last quarter is currently like watching a different game. IMG_0135-compressed.mov

They interviewed him after the game on Channel 7 and on Melbourne FC, and he looked like he'd just got back from a walk around the block when in fact he had just finished a game of footy having run almost 2km further than the next bloke. Absolute freak, and immense weapon for us when we use him this way (100% game time off the far wing running goalpost to goalpost).

Credit where it's due. One of them did actually write could've instead of could of.

Josh’ birthday he’s the one with a smile - not entirely sure his cousin thinks it’s important he gets an extra present Guess what! Kade Chandler gave him his boots !!!! as per the written request thanks heaps Kade -

Melksham’s ACL and Maynard being a POS cost us a flag last year. Nobody will convince me otherwise.

I find it so hilarious that you are a poster that basically only comments on a single issue and that, of all the possible issues to get heated about, drafting a developing young key forward with a nothing pick in the mid season draft is the issue you’ve chosen. The world is a weird place.

A couple from Bomberblitz: "Dumb players,Dumb game plan, Dumb selections, Dumb coaching, I’m dumb too for going to the game tonight, Tonight was pure 100% Essington" "This is called ‘regression to the mean" "I honestly believe this season is as good as we’ll ever be for a while yet" "Don’t wanna hear anything from this club about fighting it out kicking last 4. Your first 100 mins utterly deplorable" and the best one: "the mummified corpse of mark jamar would’ve offered more than draper"

Near capitulation?! Pull the other one! We kicked 5 in the last, they kicked 5 in the last, to overcome our lead they needed to beat us by 3 goals in the last. They didn’t, enjoy a super win.

For some, he never will be. It’s sad, because for a coach who has achieved so much and steered this club to that win without Brayshaw, Trac, Gawny and the shadow of Clarrie is a great effort. Congrats Goody and thanks.

He's a premiership coach - the only Melbourne premiership coach in my lifetime and he deserves to be respected as such. I think his footy acumen is desperately underrated. Last night was an interesting one. I watched from mu usual spot on the second tier right on the members wing. Petty was uncompetitive in the ruck as I expected and Draper did as he liked. 9 disposals, three clearances, 3 marks and 9 hitouts v Petty 1 handball and 3 hitouts. It looked an Essendon game. But JVR stood up in the second and absolutely turned it around. 5 disposals, 3 marks and 4 hitouts v Draper 4 disposals, no marks and 7 hitouts effectively neutralised what was the biggest advantage Essendon had. Our gut runners went to work - Langdon, Windsor and ANB. Oliver, after a horrid first quarter showed glimpses of the 3 time AA, 4 time B&F Clayton and Melksham led the front half magnificently. So overall, Simon had a good night. Petty is not a centre bounce ruck and he has proven that a few times. But as Draper tired her became more competitive in short bursts later in the game. Goody's faith in Petty was misplaced but as a good coach does, he righted the ship. Kudos to him.

We won despite the idiotic decision to ruck Petty. Petty did mostly SFA apart from falling over a lot & we had to move JVR onto the ball to get some drive. This left the fwd line short & allowed McKay to dominate. We got away with it due to the wet conditions.

Two shoutouts. The first one is for Oliver. He had 25 possessions today and I think you could say this was his best game since Rd2. He's still a long way from Peak Clarry but I have the gut feeling he's going to play some seriously good games before the end of the season. The other is for MIlkshake. I know it's been said plenty on DL tonight but I need to say it too! His penetrating 'link' kicks are sublime. He could have had 4 goals today (missed a sitter and handballed one off to Lingers) and we are seriously a better team with him in it.

Who said the football gods and scoreboard attendants at the MCG don’t have a sense of humour? The gods spent a whole week teasing Demon and Bomber fans alike about Saturday night’s game. About how the entire match would be dominated by the hulking, brooding figures of 205cm Sam Draper and his 2IC Peter Wright lapping it up in the absence of Melbourne skipper and the club's No.1, No 2, No 3 and No 4 ruckman Max Gawn in the wake of that ankle injury. They painted pictures of Simon Goodwin nervously sending a bevy of undersized makeshift ruckmen out into a gunfight with a defective Swiss Army knife. The end result in this scenario would be painful for the ailing Demons already without another superstar in Christian Petracca and with Clayton Oliver well down on form while the Bombers’ own newfound midfield gods were propelling them into the stratosphere of a potential top two finish. For Demon fans, the script provided for more doom and gloom in an already derailed season that spelled an end to its mini “dynasty” of one flag, the hopes of seeing more premiership success on their beloved home of football at any time soon. But the gods were about to have their laugh by moving the goalposts somewhat. The MCG scoreboard attendants were in on the joke. They put it up there on the big screens for all to see in the form of Australian band when they played the 1983 hit of legendary Antipodean rock band Dragon, simply titled “Rain”. It was already coming down in buckets before the game started and Bayley Fritsch managed to allay some early fears when he spun around for the first goal but it didn’t take long for Draper to stamp his dominance in the ruck. This soon became panic stations when Melbourne’s defensive structures fell down and Essendon began to pick free targets at will to kick three goals in quick succession. The doomsday script was seemingly on track. It took two goals late in the term to all but even things out at the first break … and then the gods and Goodwin had their laugh. The heavens opened again. It teemed down and the Demons teamed up, playing good old fashioned contested football with acting skipper Jack Viney, Trent Rivers (who was already having a good game), Clayton Oliver (coming out of his shell) and Alex Neal-Bullen going in heads down, bum up winning the clearances and rattling opponents while Harry Petty and Jacob van Rooyen nullified the Bombers’ height advantage to the point where Brad Scott was forced to dispense with Two Metre Peter altogether in the third term as he was becoming a liability. You can’t underestimate the value provided by van Rooyen in the heat of the battle. Nor the work rate of Ed Langdon (31 disposals and a goal) and Caleb Windsor who was not as prolific as his team mate on the other wing but he was so polished. Then there was Kozzy Pickett in his 100th game who shone out in the difficult conditions with some sublime passages of brilliance which put the fear of god whenever he was thereabouts. Melbourne kept its two to three goal buffer throughout the third term, adding marginally to its lead and then went on a scoring spree in the first half of the last quarter when it jumped out to a 41-point lead on the back of some goal kicking accuracy and heroics from Jake Melksham, Fritsch and Turner. Whether it was the six-day break, the younger bodies or a surge of umpiring decisions that went against them, it’s hard to tell but once again they leaked goals at the end, losing valuable percentage in what will remain a tough race to make the final eight. Until that late Bomber surge, the Melbourne defence was virtually impenetrable with its key players Steven May, Jake Lever and Tom McDonald holding sway and Judd McVee acting ever so coolly as the smiling assassin of the Bombers attack. In the end, the big figure was Melbourne’s +12 advantage in clearances and not the -16 deficit in hit outs. It remains a mystery as to how the final margin was so close but even this was probably the result of some Demons up in the heavens having a laugh. MELBOURNE 3.2.20 6.6.43 8.6.54 13.6.84 ESSENDON 3.3.21 4.5.29 5.7.37 10.7.67 GOALS MELBOURNE Fritsch Turner 3 Melksham Pickett 2 Chandler Langdon Windsor ESSENDON Martin 4 Duursma Langford 2 Durham Jones BEST MELBOURNE Rivers Oliver Langdon Melksham Windsor Pickett ESSENDON Ridley Martin Merrett McKay Shiel INJURIES MELBOURNE Nil ESSENDON Nil REPORTS MELBOURNE Nil ESSENDON Nil SUBSTITUTIONS MELBOURNE Taj Woewodin (replaced Andy Moniz-Wakefield in the fourth quarter) ESSENDON Nick Hind (replaced Peter Wright in the third quarter) UMPIRES Nick Foot Andrew Stephens Nathan Williamson Cameron Dore CROWD 52,866 at The MCG

100%. Shocking to just ignore the ball being flung away carelessly not back to the opponent as per the rules. Could've helped us lock it further up field in the dying moment too etc. The umpiring in the last quarter was disgracefully biased towards Essendon. Was akin to match fixing.

Best win of the year for me. Our young players are guns. There is a future.

Excellent win! A true show of grit hardness and a strong culture. We did the basics better; contest, defense, hardness at the ball. Our leaders were excellent, Viney, Lever, May, Langdon, McDonald, ANB, Melksham all outstanding. The kids are showing a huge amount and we are right in contention without FOUR of our best 22 from last year and at least 2 of our best five players (Gawn, Trac, Brayshaw, Smith, not to mention the forgotten man Spargo). We have been belted from pillar to post by the media this year and it seems to have infected some supporters on here (and me at times). We are a SERIOUS football club with flags in all three comps in the last three years, we’ve been in the 8 for 87 of the last 92 weeks including 60 odd weeks in the top 4. We’re in the top 6 for attendance despite being 9th for membership and have enough cash in the bank to FINALLY build a home with stable leadership and a relatively stable board. Yep, ruck selection next week will be interesting, yep a few players are below their best. BUT we’ve won three of the last four losing one game by less than a kick (that we should’ve won) and remain in the hunt despite being targeted and having HUGE injury adversity. This is a club to be proud of, let’s keep the negativity to the selection thread and get out there and push back on the [censored] notion that our club lacks culture or is a basket case. We’re serious, we have a flag and we’re in the hunt for more with one of the most talented young lists in the comp and a dedicated caring and underrated senior premiership coach. GO DEES, [censored] THOSE DOCKERS, we owe them one!

“Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”

Just got home after a great fighting win against 24 opponents - umpire 22 and that pretty boy ?2 tried their hardest in the final Q though in fairness pretty boy gave us 2 late frees. Very excited by the younguns special mention of the first years Windsor Kolt AMW who add exhilaration and excitement, and particularly Windsor's royal command performance in goal assists and delivery forward in general. JVR fought manfully in the ruck though. we missed him badly in the deep forward line. Far from convinced re Petty as a ruck though he did OK around the ground as far as I could see. Max is irreplaceable, so kudos to the whole team for a very even effort - no obvious passengers (despite pickett fence's undisguised dislike for Petty).

At the game today, that Windsor goal was out-[censored]-rageous skill in those conditions, I doubt the TV replays will do it justice. Some other thoughts: Melksham has made such a difference that I'm starting to think his ACL might have cost us a flag. Disco Turner is kicking for my life no doubt about it. McVee is unbeatable. It was great to see Jake Lever so invested and celebrating appropriately on the siren. May is as stiff as a board but still playing great. And finally, 22 is an actual disgrace. I generally don't like to mention them but he deserves a special mention. Some of his decision making defied logic.

My hat goes off to Nibbler. Merritt could have been so damaging, but was kept reasonably quiet, particularly in the 2nd and 3rd quarters Nibbler's fitness and ability to put on pressure was immense

Haven't seen Goody pumped up like that after a win for a while, happy for the man!

Agree. The bombers were pretty impressive. The scoreline flattered us a bit, as evidenced by the x score - 71.3 dees to 75.5 bombres Shows how important accuracy is. McKay was terrific, as was ridley. Their defence has improved out of sight, though still give up too many slingshot goals. Caldwell looks a player. Ditto martin. We did a good job negating merrett, but he is a total gun. Skinner was schooled by a kid, mcvee. And did some really selfish things. Must be a very frustrating player to have in your team. I reckon they went too tall on a wet night, as evidenced by subbing 2MP. Don's def tracking in the right direction. But here's a couple of things to consider in terms of where the dons are at compared to the dees. Take draper and merret out of last night's side, and how would they have gone (we had our two best players out, a ruck and a mid - maxy and tracc)? Caddy was the youngest player on the field. We had the next 7 youngest. The bombers had 3 players with 50 games or under. We had 7.

The frustrating part is we should have won that game in 2004.

Turner is a helluva competitor too hey?

Yeah bizarre article for me. 11 of those were in our 23 this week. That's a super young team. JVR, Kozzie, Windsor, and Rivers are all regular top performers and could be in that "star" category. Turner has unlimited potential as a young KPP at either end of the ground. Judd McVee, Bowey, and Sparrow, have all shown they are consistent AFL level players. That's a core of 8. Kolt has shown he can perform at AFL level but is a year or two away from breakout. Jefferson looks super promising at VFL level. Thats 10 who are likely to have a good run at AFL level over the coming years. For a club in the finals race, I'm pretty happy with our youth.

Just noticed that Rivers had 29 touches (second most for all players, behind Langdon), but only 67% TOG. Incredible, really.

I do not understand how that wasn’t a 50 to Lever at the end of the game, and I was going ballistic, and a security guard came over and told me to calm down, and everyone around us told him to [censored] off. And people say Melbourne supporters are soft. We look after our own.

McVee, my goodness.

I don't care if we don't play finals, fixing up that mob is worth the membership price alone.