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You started a thread 33 minutes ago called ‘Demons won't win the flag in 2022.’

I'm down on last night but this thread is dumb

Someone with a screen name "COVID Dan" creates a dopey thread. Fancy that.

The entire Melbourne supporter base would be lining up to drive Jacko across the Nullarbor

Still livid. I went into last night's game so confident thinking that we'd finally turned the corner against freo and that our game from 2021 was starting to take shape again. How wrong was I.. We've learnt nothing from the initial Freo game when they gave us a touch up in the 2nd half. Our delivery inside 50, especially the deep pockets is really perplexing imo. Not only have clubs picked up on in by sitting players back in the hole we have no plan B when opposition start to pick off our entries. Kozzie, Spargo and ANB failed to single tackle inside forward 50... again! If you're not providing defensive pressure inside our forward half or getting to the drop of the ball, then honestly, they're next to useless because around ground they're not giving us much. I could go on and on but I won't. Hate it even more knowing it's a [censored] start to the weekend I'll be stewing on it for the next few days.

Rubbish post

Second only to…

I agree with this up until last week. Think we are lasting longer into matches since Freo. Maybe just a smidgen left to go to make it to the final siren against the top 4 to 6. Not sure if we can make that up before finals though. It's also about our failure to maximise the efforts in the first half IMV. 41 inside 50s to just 18 for the Pies at half time last night but we were less than three goals up. Then for about 6 mins early in the third we did a great job at locking the ball in our forward 50 at the City Rd end. Failed to capatilise. Didn't kick one goal. They took it down their end for the first time after that dominance.... and scored....easily! Huge team deflator right there.

Our inside 50 conversion rate was 4% above AFL average last night. As poor as it looked at times, we scored fine. We lost because their conversion was 16% higher than AFL average. We defended poorly all across the ground, especially defensive 50. This was a defensive loss, not an offensive one. The coaches would be furious we got into another shootout instead of slowing the game down and controlling it. It’s a failure on their part that they weren’t able to get the players to do that. I was sitting near the bench, and last night is the most animated and angry I can remember seeing Goodwin.

I love the first 2 seconds of a Saturday morning when you first open your eyes, admire the ceiling plaster, think 'ah the weekend' before the heart sinks. Prime-time dee-pression.

Serious contender for silliest thread of the year.

Our Achilles heel are teams that transition from their backline quickly, are highly skilled, use the corridor and are able to make the switch of play whilst keeping possession of the ball That was Collingwood last night but the other teams have picked up on it as well (we've lost 6 of our last 10) So from rubbish forward entries along with non competing forwards the above occurs (time and time again) Ultimately, that puts our backline under seige. So we often do the first bit well (midfield strength and dominance) but then it can all fall apart once we go forward We need better forwards

Get Hogan back! Plsssssss

Have heard a rumour from a good source - A 3 way trade involving Naughton to Demons, Jackson to Freo and Lobbe to the Dogs. Watch this space.

The reason is because we are not halving the contests in our forward line. We either get outmarked (Moore and Howe last night) or the ball cones to ground and the oppo small defenders are rebounding it out. Our plan is to create forward 50 stoppages and it's not happening. Quick transition from our forward line makes it harder to zone further upfield and our defenders get caught one-on-one and made accountable. Both our F50 entries and our small forwards/mids are letting us down.

We’re premiers with champion players. We can still win but need to rediscover our manic intent. We’re just 5% off at the moment in all respects but for sure can turn it around

After halftime we came out and had the ball in our forward line for 8 minutes with zero reward. They take it down and get a goal. They then got the next centre clearance and I knew we'd be pushing [censored] uphill for the rest of the game. If we took advantage of our opportunities maybe it would've been a completely different game but we didn't create enough solid opportunities from the time in our forward half either. I'm furious with this loss, absolutely gutted.

The amount of times our forwards (and Max) would fly in clusters towards the hail-mary deliveries coming at them, only to apply pressure on each other and inevitably bring the ball to ground to….nobody, was maddening. Our small forwards went missing tonight.

I feel like the thread topics after a loss are a little one dimensional.

I was on Jordons wing all night, we worked his guts out and one of our better players I thought. Actually was looking to attack most of the time

Get this. We have played 20 matches this year. We have built a 20+ point lead in 19 of them (Geelong the only one we didn't). With that sort of platform, 2021 Melbourne would be 19-1 right now. I maintain that 2022 Melbourne's best football is good enough to win the flag, but 2022 Melbourne doesn't produce it long enough within games.

Jack Gunston. He still has it and is a beautiful set shot, something a lot of our guys aren't! He kicked 5.1 today (4 in the first half) and offers experience and leadership. Maybe even some strategic tips for our underperforming forward line! I believe he is a free agent as well, so we wouldn't need to trade any picks.

I couldn’t agree more Deecisive. We certainly have so many bigger personnel & game style issues, however, in a game where 1%ers count, Langdon’s comments were so naive & so motivating to the Pies supporters and their Players fed off it. I also hate seeing Petracca trying be so popular with opposition players & their supporters by offering opposition players a hand to help pull them up and appearing to talk to them like a best mate at quarter time breaks. I know they tell a joke at the pre-game huddle to lighten the mood, but once that Siren goes, it is business and I cringe when I see Salem & Gawn laughing as they’re walking to the quarter time huddle after Salem missing a very gettable goal. Encourage him, tell him “to get the next one” but bloody hell, don’t show any sign of being happy or comfortable. Must start portraying that ruthless, demanding edge all across the ground that May demands & delivers in the backline.

Not just CHF. It's across the ground. I'm not sure why but we cannot or we refused to play quick football. It was insane watching the amount of free players we had forward of the ball while one of our blokes held it up waiting for Gawn to position himself somewhere along the boundary. Predictable crap every single time. But yes. Getting the ball at CHF and bombing to the pocket while we had blokes on their own dead centre from the goals happened way too many times as well. It was a good game to watch, both teams played until the last minute but by god we should've had it done and dusted at half time. Frustrating. My other question is - We kick to Gawn/BBB seemingly 99 times out of 100. Where are our crumbers waiting at the front for when the oppo inevitably spoil the ball every single time. Nowhere, that's where.

Manifest nonsense. They’ve done it for 11 weeks, for the same result. That’s the definition of sustainable. Manic pressure and supreme confidence in their ability to win contests have made them Geelong’s obvious challenger. They were outstanding tonight, and exposed us badly on every line. Fabulous defence, brilliant ball movement, manic tackling, and an ability to create 1 on 1 contests in the forward line, which they won more often than not. Nothing about their game is unsustainable when you have that essential self-belief. And they are crazy fit.

Unsubscribe. It’s hurting too much to vote. 1st half - Brayshaw, Trac, Gawn, Salem, Langdon. 2nd half - a rudderless ship full of scared passengers

I think you will see from my history that this is not my style. I thought posters would be interested in the rumour but of course it comes with no guarantee except that the source is reliable.

Not just Spargs, happened with Pickett too. I get that we have the pocket delivery part of the game plan, but surely it also allows for hitting up teammates in open spots?

I am as filthy as anyone after our loss last night, but I refuse to jump off the Dee train and re-join Neeld's "reality bus". We are the reigning premiers, 3rd on the ladder, with the best midfield and best defence in the league. Yes, we have a massive forward coordination issue including a single-idea game plan, no real power forward, and our kicking skills can be atrocious. But we are losing games through inefficiency and being beaten in big moments - both fixable things. I waited almost 6 decades for this. I'm not jumping off this until its over. I am expecting our premiership window to be open for 3 more years at least and I'm going to ride every bump, even if I get filthy mad it hurts sometimes.

It was a good game. I'm filthy. We should've belted them. Only a win against them in September will cleanse the palate.

You are kidding yourself

Agree this is quite the morbid post, but tend to agree, but here's a few reasons IMO. 1) Other sides have worked out that we like to go down left side and are ready for us. And because we rarely switch there's no chance to expose other players or other entries. To alter that line of attack in three weeks is not possible. 2) James Jordon worked as hard, if not harder than anyone on Friday and was in our best handful. But how many times did he do anything but normal link work. He hasn't got the speed to break lines. Ideally he should be in the middle playing as big-bodied mid. We have to find a right-side wingman who the players like going through - this ties in with our failure to switch right. Jackson isn't a long-term option as a wingman, but I'd be playing him there for the rest of the season to try and convince May and Salem and Hibberd to risk going long to him. He ain't going to be outmarked. Sadly it's too late in the season to try such a radical change. 3) We no longer take risks. When we go down the left side (as we do 95% of the time), rarely do the players risk sending a long bomb over to a player on the other side. Langdon took a clever mark and goaled in one of our few switches like this in the 2nd term. We are so ingrained in trying to beat sides down the wing, that we restrict our options and when we turn it over, sides like Collingwood take us on through the middle as our zone defence reorganises itself. We ultimately need another tall target to allow this to happen. 4) The tall target may well be JVR, but Goody doesn't like changing his setup (we are still the reigning premiers after all), but after another loss (our sixth in 10 weeks) he should consider it. But he won't now, it's too late in the season. Goody, this season, also has underrated (or forgotten) the excitement that comes with having a first or second gamer getting a chance. We all know they don't play the percentages or do the customary but that sometimes leads to a spark. But JVR won't play this year. 5) Clearly we aren't as fit this year as last year. Losing Burgess has been costly and I suspect the new fitness guy allowed a few of our senior players (now premiership players) to get away with not doing quite as much hard work. It's too late now to turn this around, but a stiff session that finishes with 8x200m reps this Tuesday or Wednesday will help. You don't need to sack the fitness manager, but hopefully he learns for next year that nice guys finish ... without a flag. 6) Speaking of nice guys, clearly Trac has won plaudits this year in this area. His profile has gone through the roof with ads, and post-match TV interviews and he's just so nice. Earlier in the year he even started picking up opponents off the ground after tackles. Sorry Trac, you are a great bloke, but we want you to be a great, hard footballer. You can't have both. Nice guys finish ... without an All Australian. And he can't change his nice guy DNA around in three weeks. 7) When it comes to taking the game on we got a lesson from a 19 year old last night in Nick Daicos. He has the confidence to run and switch and he tackles. Unfortunately we haven't had that player down back, with the exception of Angus anywhere near that. I still think Rivers could become a great running defender but he just hasn't embraced that role like we needed yet. His effort when he failed to spoil McCreery on the wing was enough to tell me he need to go back to the school of hard knocks. He might yet become an absolute star, but it won't be this year. 8) Our search for a running defender isn't just a Trent Rivers issue. Jayden Hunt can also cop a bit of the blame, but you can tell he's playing really close to his opponent and he just hasn't quite been able to launch on the counter attack. But to be honest he's closer to reaching that role than Rivers at the moment. But Hunt will most likely be dropped this week. Finding a running defender won't be this year but at least Angus should be back in the sweeper role next week after being tagged out of it after half time against the Pies. And Bowser needs another go there as well. 9) ANB has been playing our high half-forward through the middle all year and he presents and keeps moving as well as any player in the game. It's an incredibly tough role, requires courage and awareness and is a bit like the job of a No.10 in soccer - it's that crucial. It's just that ANB hasn't been able to break free this year because sides are on to him - I haven't got the stat but I reckon he'd be our most tackled player all year by far. There are only two players who could do this role this year instead of him - Petracca and Viney. Will Goody switch either out of their midfield positions to do so. Not likely this year. 10) I mentioned earlier we don't have the fitness but based on how we looked against the Pies we also don't have the athleticism - or at least the confidence and speed that taking the game on brings. The classic example is Olly who continually handballs when he is by far our best runner. He seemed to have gotten over that fear last year and for much of this year but I suspect he's gone back to looking at his SuperCoach points since he hurt his thumb and a safe handball is worth more than an errant kick that almost wins a game. He's the best player in the side with Trac and he just has to show the confidence (and arrogance). 11) Given that we lost so badly to the Pies run and also struggled in that department against Geelong a few weeks back, there's no doubt Joel Smith's athleticism is needed at the minute. If we don't go JVR, and I suspect we won't, he's the obvious swingman to provide a spark up forward and gives is the flexibility of having someone who can be sent back in case of injury. He's not the messiah, but he showed enough early in the season before his 15th injury, that he can cope with AFL level at last. 12) We all get that in general our central midfield is the best in the league, but at finals (and we are pretty much there now) you have to shut down players as well and Harmes has his flaws but at least he works his butt off and niggles. We need him to be assigned a player each week in the middle - Walsh followed by McCluggage etc. He will still need a break and that's where having a raging bull like Viney should come in as well with the pair waxing on the poor star who is chosen. But that won't happen this year. 13) Finally Goody and the coaches are so caught up in their three-group (forwards, mids and defender) training method these days that the old ability to switch players mid-game on to dangerous players no longer exists. Changing players can mentally make it harder for opponents to keep their flow. It used to be a tactic that all the great coaches from Barassi through to Hafey employed. But it doesn't happen any more because coaches don't like taking risks. So just in case anybody doubts my message, here it is again. We are premiers and we are playing safe and our coaches and players aren't taking risks and that's understandable to a large degree because we are premiers. But ultimately that's why we won't be going back-to-back this year. Next year is another story.

One of the things that frustrates me is our list management hasn’t favoured forwards. We’ve spent big coin on a backline, spent 10 years developing a midfield, but our forward line has always felt like an afterthought. We’ve been lucky Fritsch came on, because without him we don’t have a competitive forward line. I’m so confused about Ben Brown. He’s playing a game style that has never been his strength. We move the ball into our forward line in order to have the best field position to defend. That’s a good strategy if we can keep opposition to a low score. 2 of the last 3 games we’ve got into shoot outs. That tells me our game style is being exposed, and we are being out coached. Our games are the opposite of last year now. After half time we get figured out, teams adjust and take us on through the middle with pace.

Our backline is under extreme pressure as a result of how we go forward and how our forwards play. Our forward entries lack quality and our forwards lack quality Long bombs, no real defensive pressure up forward, a lack of marking power up forward and the ease that the opposition transition from their defence (our forward line) Intercept marks aplenty as we just don't compete in the air up forward Nor do we have forwards who can gain separation in order to take hit-up marks Out inside 50 count in terms of numbers doesn't tell the real story. The eye test tells us that what worked last year is not working this year. Our midfield dominance is stifled once we go forward The other teams have done their homework on us and have picked apart our forward line and our forward entry style Really need to change things up but in reality, we need better players in our forward line Petracca to play forward (predominantly) Gawn to get to better spots up forward (not the boundary line) and Van Rooyen needs to get a call-up (replacing Melksham who didn't do enough) Neal-Bullen or Spargo out as we can't have 3 small forwards not applying defensive pressure and also, not scoring goals. Petracca up forward replaces the need to bring in Chandler or Bedford Along with Kossie, all our forwards had enough opportunities last night but were found wanting. And of course, the way the ball enters our forward line is a major problem as well F Van Rooyen Brown Kossie HF Fritsch Gawn Petracca Spare forward ... Neal-Bullen or Spargo (not both)

Some losses really get under your skin - and this is one of them. By all criteria we should of won. It was that lack of ruthlessness that Goodwin always bangs on about that was the major factor. Our backs lost concentration and were way too loose. To compound the aggravation it is the Filth that has the wood on us. Last night was a real downer.

What else is new? If people were scared off by the rain, it was perfect conditions, didn't rain once throughout the game.

2nd quarter the ball was in our forward line for the first 10 minutes we kicked 2 goals I think. 3rd quarter the ball was in our forward line for the first 8 minutes - no goals, they take it down and score instantly. Our forward line is a shambles, the entries kill us, Gawn trying to kick snaps out of his [censored] instead of handing off when he can't even kick one from dead in front, Brown flopping around like a baby giraffe, small forwards nowhere near the crumb, and no space to work in. Everything is rushed instead of setting ourselves up with the best option.

Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be the fitness guy. 7 games lost where we’ve been completely over run and looked limp after half time. He’s got it very, very wrong.

Imagine if you counted the pressure acts he brought on himself due to fumbling, two grabbing at balls and not having any peripheral vision , let alone agility in traffic. The bloke runs in dead straight lines. Needs to be dropped. Bring in JVR, its time. Our system needs at least two genuine tall marking targets.

That one stung. Pies made the most of their chances. Felt like a final and we came up short. Few players looking tired and sore. We don't quite have the spark we had last year but we'll be around the mark. All of the part time supporters throwing the toys out of the cot and saying they're over the team can gtfo. Buckle up. Get behind the boys.

We did. Crisp and Lipinski caught dead cold. No free for either. Inconsistent at best, something else at worst.

Slept on it now to give a proper analysis of what I witnessed at the G last night. We should have put the game to bed by half way through the 3rd, however I will say apart from Max in the first quarter, Koz on the run dead in front from 40 and possibly Salem's 50 metre penalty miss, all of our shots were quite low percentage shots. Why? Because we don't have the forward line mix that lead to dangerous spots, nor a midfield that have the foot skills to pick out such leads. Not using the corridor to any effect is not helping. Composure. It was an insane asylum at times with the crowd noise and we either ran out of legs or panicked, the transferral of pressure by hand to someone in a worse position really needs to be looked at - its 2020 -type play that I thought we had moved past. Hibberd, Langdon, Jordon and Oliver were the biggest culprits of this. Credit to Collingwood their frontal pressure was immense and we really crumbled. Ground ball crumbs in the D50. Shame on our mids last night, to allow the likes of Mihocek and Johnson to waltz through and crumb their own marking contests was embarrassing. Our back 6 was all at sea in D50 for most of the night too and they looked vulnerable for the first time in a long time. They looked like a high chance of scoring every time they went in.

It's interesting to compare the run in our legs between the Freo game and the Pies game. We didn't need to work anywhere near as hard defensively due to the Dockers inability to take on our zone defence. Contrast that with Collingwood and Bulldogs who constantly moved the ball, switched, ran hard at our lines and regularly got in behind our zone, which required us to work harder defensively. Putting the loading argument aside, those sides with the ability to execute a plan that counteracts our defence will make us work a lot harder and possibly cause us to run out of legs near the end of games. I see this as a fitness issue which won't be solved this season. This doesn't mean we can't go all the way, but it does mean we need to take our chances. This is also the difficulty of winning back to back flags. Teams are all gunning for us, working hard to identify a game plan that disrupts our strength. We've been worked out now, good teams are using the same approach to defeat us and we somehow need to adapt. Again, we are not far off, our gameplan still has us in the contest deep into games, but we need to take our chances.

For those saying they just couldn’t miss look at where they got their chances and where they targeted the ball going forward. For those that say they got gifted goals from holding the ball decisions. Maybe we would have if we actually laid a tackle inside 50. We had a crack but could not handle their pressure when it went up in the second half. We were back to playing ring a rosey with handball rather than driving forward and swarming in behind it. The thing that does annoy me is having the 5 time All Australian ruckman starting quarters in crucial games in the forward 50 and letting his temporary sidekick start at the centre bounce. They had an all 22 performance whereas some of our role players went missing and our stars had high possession games but dulled for their usual impact.

The problem I have with that loss was it was 3.4 to 7.4 after half time. That’s eerily similar to the games we lost during our supposed ‘peak’ loading. The last quarter we never really looked to have the legs when the ball was in play. Our 2 goals came from centre clearances. It’s not going to plan. That much is now clear.

The Pies had a huge win down back tonight with 49 rebounds vs our 25. Our lack of forward 50 pressure? Zone breaking down? Pies just too good? Other?

No excuses tonight. Not acceptable. The better team, and somehow managed to drop it. Could/should have kicked a goal to go ~30 points up at half time. Instead allowed them a cheap one, and a manageable 17 point half time lead. Something missing I fear. Premiership teams don’t drop that kind of game.

Oliver tried hard and 40+is a good stats but I didn't think he was as effective as usual. Too many handballs not to advantage and he didn't run out of the contest as well as he has been doing most of the year

In Harmes or JVR Out Melksham We kick straight and win, don’t throw out all the toys yet. Tackling in forward half needs to be more consistent week to week.