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Just wanted to take a moment and share how special last night’s win was for one particular reason - Charlie. I am involved with the charity Challenge who reached out to Melbourne to help organise this. Charlie met the team earlier in the year in the lead up to Ben Brown’s shave and his whole family are diehard demon fans. Charlie's family has been facing considerable challenges and receiving less-than-ideal news, so Challenge reached out to Melbourne, hoping they could arrange something special for the family. The whole MFC went above and beyond to make it happen for Charlie. They were phenomenal. Charlie also got to attend the training session in the lead up to the game, and it was funny because he said, "I'm really worried." When we asked why, he said, "I'm worried we won't win this Friday!" Well, Charlie, the boys got the four points for you and gave you and your family a memory they can cherish forever. I always want us to win every week. But last night, it felt like a Grand Final, and all I wanted was for them to win it for Charlie. I'm so glad they pulled it off. Sure, we weren't perfect, but that doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that the night was perfect for Charlie. Well done, Melbourne Football Club. Proud supporter.

I thought Salem moved better than he has since that one day in September. Looks like he’s got real confidence in his legs again, and found the tempo of the game. It’s so good to see. He is an absolute gun, and makes us much harder to play against.

Also, it was great to have Lachie Hunter back. Reckon there's been some unfair criticism on here lately. He was sorely missed against Freo with his work rate and ability to cover space. He's tap in the 3rd quarter that set up the Fritta goal. That pure experience right there when Catlton were coming hard.

Oh btw. McVee looked better tonight, but how bloody good is Salem? I don't care what the DE stat was saying at quarter time, he was so clean, calm and effective. We've missed his assuredness back there, and I think it makes Bowey and McVee better, freeing them up mentally and literally to join in on slingshot offence. We look so much better when we've got the three talls and the beautifully clean Christian Salem. In fact, shout out to our entire defence tonight. Thought they were really solid and generated great run off half back. Certainly helped by Carlton's poor forward pressure though.

Probably should be talking about Petracca's game more. 32 possessions, 6 marks, 4 tackles, 7 clearances, 15 ground ball gets (next highest for either side was Walsh with 8), 9 score involvements but also 27 pressure acts, 11 of which were in the defensive half, all from 83% game time. Did it on offence and defence. Truly superb.

We didn’t play terribly, we actually disposed terribly including kicking for goal. We actually now hold the league record of 40 for F50 interceptions. We had 20 more inside F50’s. We kept Blues to lowest score under Voss. If we kicked straight we win by over 10 goals. That is not terrible, but disposal was.

I'll give Tommo credit. Came straight in playing several weeks in the VFL and did a good job imo. Look he was probably beaten on the night but McKay is a gun forward who is incredibly hard to stop when it's laced out in front of him and has that long reach. He was also stiffed for getting pinged for holding McKay. Nothing in it. No coincidence that having the 3rd tall defender we see Jake Lever and Steven May replicate their 2021 form. Now leave it this way Simon.

Best line of the year in the age website today: “The contest was crying out for a bit of Curnow, but he was somewhere under a May blanket. At least he would have been warm there.”

He's not the best one on one player at the best of times, and McKay must be close to the best and from memory, all his marks were one out and the ball kicked to his advantag. So, I agree, he worked hard and really stuck to his task. I really admire how he has gone about things since he did his knee. Must be hard going from best 22 lock to a fringe player. Never dropped his head.

Here's a pearler from BT. I was so surprised by it, I wrote it down. Talking about Carlton: "Only their third Friday night appearance in eight years, the Blues" They had 3 last year, 5 this year ya dumb coot

Nope. I'd be staggered if Smith doesn't play again next week. I think Petty moves back and BB forward post bye though.

My mail is that BBB will come in after the bye. Apparently he is doing a mini pre-season again like in 2021 and they want him firing for end of year

Except our very own Selwyn G confirmed it on the demonland podcast.

Dunno if you're an EPL fan, mate, but the trajectory of our season is very Man City 2022/2023. And I can see Collingwood's being Arsenal's 2022/2023 campaign. Arsenal leapt out of the blocks, but Man City's rule was stay close enough, make sure you're in the race still and pressure eventually built on Arsenal. The same will build on Collingwood as the season progresses. They are the hunted now and haven't won a flag with their group. We have. As you say, in it up to our necks.

Yeah, coz they were so ruthless last week against the second worst team in the afl when they got smashed in the last quarter, giving up 6 goals. And despite winning three more games prior to this match, they still had a lower percentage than us. So ruthless. Is this a bloody pies footy forum or a Demon's one? FMD.

Tomlinson was just ok on a very good player, but he freed up Lever which made our backline look 9000 times better. We have to keep another tall down there to make sure he can play his natural intercept game. It’s so critical to how we play.

Really good game from our perspective. Got that solidity behind the ball back. Really good signs. Contested possession +29. inside 50s +20. clearances +9. Smashed them all over the ground. I don’t know what most people want from the team. Without looking, I assume it’s just groupthink from the Gameday thread.

Too many Demonlanders expect 2021 form. I was taken by Lever on radio this morning. He was asked about whether he felt we are getting back to 2021 GF form (ridiculous question by the way). His answer was that we've spoken at the club about how distracting it is to try to "get back" to our 2021 form because it was so special, and that it's about working hard to play good footy. I wish more Demonlanders would come around to that line of thinking. The more we put 2021 to one side and just focus on what we're doing in 2023, the better. If you keep wanting us to play football like we did in 2021, you're going to more often than not be disappointed.

24 disposals. 5 intercepts. 5 score involvements. Big contest wins late. Just about every aspect of his game is in really good order aside from kicking at full speed which is really difficult. But geez we’ve been crying out for our defenders to run and take the game on, surely we live with some shanks whilst he tries to add that to his game? 10 day break and the bye will both help. We can’t lose Bowey and then rest our other half back runner.

Salem was awesome tonight. Was great to see him in full flight running through the middle in the third quarter. Bowey was also great before he was concussed.

Casey win it by 1 point!!! CASEY DEMONS 1.2.8 6.6.42 9.9.63 11.10.76 SOUTHPORT SHARKS 3.0.18 4.5.29 8.7.55 11.9.75 GOALS CASEY DEMONS Schache 4 Grey 3 Brown 2 Jordon Sestan SOUTHPORT SHARKS Crossley Foggo Lockett Lockhart 2 Fields Heron Thurlow BEST CASEY DEMONS Jordon Grey Schache Laurie Steele Howes SOUTHPORT SHARKS Woodcock Crossley Joyce Dawson Thurlow Spencer Statistics Jed Adams 3 kicks 2 handballs 5 disposals 1 mark 13 dream team points Riley Baldi 4 kicks 4 handballs 8 disposals 3 marks 2 tackles 38 dream team points Jack Bell 2 handballs 2 disposals 1 tackle 6 hit outs 14 dream team points [injured] Ben Brown 2 goals 1 behind 8 kicks 2 handballs 10 disposals 4 marks 1 tackle 56 dream team points Matt Buntine 7 kicks 9 handballs 16 disposals 1 mark 2 tackles 47 dream team points Tom Freeman 12 kicks 2 handballs 14 disposals 4 marks 50 dream team points Rhys Galvin 2 kicks 2 handballs 4 disposals 1 mark 1 tackle 17 dream team points George Grey 3 goals 1 behind 11 kicks 5 handballs 16 disposals 5 marks 6 tackles 102 dream team points Blake Howes 14 kicks 9 handballs 23 disposals 8 marks 81 dream team points Matt Jefferson 1 behind 4 kicks 2 handballs 6 disposals 3 marks 1 tackle 27 dream team points James Jordon 1 goal 15 kicks 15 handballs 30 disposals 3 marks 4 tackles 104 dream team points Bailey Laurie 1 behind 16 kicks 6 handballs 22 disposals 3 marks 6 tackles 97 dream team points Andy Moniz-Wakefield 1 behind 8 kicks 5 handballs 13 disposals 4 marks 4 tackles 63 dream team points Harvey Neocleous 10 kicks 4 handballs 14 disposals 4 marks 2 tackles 58 dream team points Josh Schache 4 goals 8 kicks 5 handballs 13 disposals 7 marks 4 tackles 105 dream team points Oliver Sestan 1 goal 1 behind 7 kicks 1 handball 8 disposals 1 mark 4 tackles 51 dream team points Miles Shepherd 6 kicks 2 handballs 8 disposals 4 marks 2 tackles 40 dream team points Deaykin Smith 14 kicks 4 handballs 18 disposals 5 marks 2 tackles 76 dream team points Roan Steele 16 kicks 7 handballs 23 disposals 10 marks 1 tackle 93 dream team points Daniel Turner 11 kicks 4 handballs 15 disposals 5 marks 56 dream team points Ryan Valentine 1 behind 2 kicks 5 handballs 7 disposals 1 mark 1 hit out 18 dream team points Mitch White 1 behind 11 kicks 8 handballs 19 disposals 2 marks 6 tackles 75 dream team points Taj Woewodin 1 behind 10 kicks 13 handballs 23 disposals 2 marks 6 tackles 76 dream team points

Third week in a row where the umpiring was appalling. But zero push back from the media. It's pathetic. The media are completely compliant with an afl shadow ban of legitimate critique or one of the most critical elements of the game.

All I know is that one day a player will receive a really serious head/neck injury if they keep going into contests with their heads knowing they will get rewarded with a free kick. Was it Docherty that went low and head first into two of our players in the last? The physicality of the sport is diminishing by the week, this type of act is the one that needs stamping out of the game.

One day, in an alternate reality universe, Kozzie will get a free for a head-high tackle.

That's the thing. Some people think the last three minutes of the third quarter of GF was how played for the entirety of 2021. Recall the loss to GWS. Their midfielders waltzed out of centre bounces and our forward line was anaemic (picture high kicks to Spargo matched against two tall defenders...). Re-read the postgame thread; midfield rubbish, Fritsch to be dropped, Goodwin to be sacked. Form fluctuates. Sustained success is hard. Premierships are a possibility not a certainty.

Are you saying we'll beat Collingwood 4-1 on KB AF? 😁

Maxs best line.... Amazing that the King and Queen have a birthday on the same weekend.

Controversial opinion, but I think it was our best performance over the past month. Our contested game was strong, our clearance game was excellent, numbers around the contest was up, our defence looked very organised and we only gave up 6 goals. Carlton are lucky McKay actually kicked straight early or they would have been in real trouble. Yes, our set shot kicking was awful and some of our inside 50 kicks were misguided and rushed, but if we get that many inside 50s next week with the same level of effort across the ground (contest, clearance, defence) then I think we’ll beat the Pies.

I'll tell ya 1 thing. The big Roo has got it goin' on. Kid has the strut. I like it alot.

You’re off the mark. Carlton were desperate and in the second half had we kicked a little better we would have won by 6-7 goals. Sparrow, JVR, McVee, Bowey and Rivers all had games. Lever and May outstanding, Gawn got his mojo going and Trac did what Trac does. We could easily be 10-2 right now and I for one look at that game and think Oliver and Petty are still to come. Happy Days for me

Agree we absolutely killed them everywhere except conversion. Yes McKay got the better of Tommo but that enabled May to murder Curnow and Lever to intercept. Joel Smith enabled JVR and Max to get clear up forward. All around it was a dominant performance. 27 shots from 59 i50s vs 16 from 39. That's a kill.

As usual @Axis of Bob is right. The scoreline was ugly given our inaccuracy but we dominated general play all night. The stats showed it. +50 disposals but also +11 tackles. +29 CPs, +9 clearances, +20 inside 50s (they only had 39) and +7 scoring shots. On expected scores we should have won by 7-odd goals I believe. May kept Curnow silent. Tomlinson got beaten but allowed Lever to play well enough that Voss felt compelled to send Lewis Young forward to tag him. Gawn got his mojo back. McVee was superb. JVR was threatening all night. Yes they had mids out but we had Oliver, Petty and Hibberd out and lost Bowey mid-game. If you said during the week we’d lose, or if you said you couldn’t see anything good in our season, or that you thought we were cooked for the year, you should be celebrating this win (whether you do so openly or not).

Just for a laugh Harmes should spend next Monday just following De Goey around, getting in his face and trying to interfere in everything he does.

McKay is actually listed at 204cm. It's a significant difference and that's where I thought Tomlinson battled well even though he was beaten. I'd play him on Brody Mihocek.

I know highlights and goal packages have a purpose to show, well, highlights, but we looked very good in patches last night. The hysteria around our performance is weird. I really don't know what people expect. Carlton defended as they do and we defended better. We had the ball in had far more and never looked like losing. It was clinical and a great dress rehearsal for next week.

Re: Channel 7 - Anyone else get a bit tired of seeing McKay’s parents all night on the broadcast or was it just me?

De Goey just poleaxed a west coast player, has to get weeks.

So does 90% of this site.

Viney, geez does he goes under the radar with all his work. Incredible grunt work at stoppages. Very impressive performance once again.

Melbourne v Carlton https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_match_stats.html?ID=20231201 Note: first number below is Melbourne, higher value is bold. Pressure Q1: 179 - 195 Q2: 172 - 161 Q3: 179 - 166 Q4: 148 - 153 Tot: 170 - 170 Most Pressure Points (Weighed sum of pressure acts. Physical pressure acts are worth 3.75 points, closing acts are worth 2.25 points, chasing acts are 1.5 points and corralling are 1.2. https://www.championdata.com/glossary/afl/) Petracca: 53 Neal-Bullen: 52 Viney: 46 Sparrow: 45 Chandler: 33 Pickett: 33 Brayshaw: 28 Hunter: 26 Time in forward half 58% - 42% Here are my calculations (not official) for time in forward half for each quarter: Q1: 52% - 48% Q2: 56% - 44% Q3: 65% - 35% Q4: 57% - 43% Score sources Centre bounce 0.2.2 - 2.1.13 Ball up 2.3.15 - 2.1.13 Throw in 2.0.12 - 0.1.1 Turnover 4.7.31 - 2.5.17 Kick-in 0.1.1 - 0.0.0 Shots at goal Set position 5.10.40 - 6.5.41 General play 3.3.21 - 0.1.1 Expected Scores 81 - 45 Centre Bounce Attendances @old55 CBAs CBA % 2023 % 2022 % Jack Viney 15 83 66.6 74.6 Tom Sparrow 15 83 46.8 32.2 Christian Petracca 10 56 63.5 74.6 Brodie Grundy 9 50 59.3 83.7 Max Gawn 9 50 44.8 65.5 Angus Brayshaw 7 39 10.2 16.0 James Harmes 6 33 28.7 14.6 Trent Rivers 1 6 4.2 0.0 Kysaiah Pickett 0 0 15.0 1.3 Jacob van Rooyen 0 0 6.2 Alex Neal-Bullen 0 0 4.2 3.5 Clayton Oliver 82.8 86.5 James Jordon 20.3 0.2 Tom McDonald 5.4 0.0 Harrison Petty 1.3 0.0 Ruck Contests Ruck Contests RC % 2023 % 2022 % Max Gawn 38 48 42.7 57.8 Brodie Grundy 34 43 51.6 77.4 Jacob van Rooyen 7 9 9.3 Christian Petracca 0 0 0.1 0.1 Tom McDonald 8.9 7.0 Josh Schache 6.7 13.4 Ben Brown 3.8 3.6 Harrison Petty 3.1 0.0 https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_stats.html

People like watching Carlton lose, must be a ratings winner.

Does it matter how many goals kicked on Tomlinson when you keep a team with 2 Coleman medallist’s to 44 points? Our defence has not looked that good in some time. Have you forgotten what Casboult did with his extra 15kgs to Turner? How do you think he would have gone with McKay? Hibbo for Bowser Oliver for Harmes One of Spargo/Chandler as sub. That is all.

Just finished watching the game, finished work late so thanks to KAYO. Well i’m in the minority because I enjoyed that. I think tonight we moved the ball quicker, used the corridor more, tried hitting up targets rather than just bomb it fwd and yes we missed a few. Started to slacken off in 2nd half and reverted to old ways. Fwds worked to create space for each other. Disappointing that for the first 6-8 weeks we were the most accurate side then tonight we kicked 8.13. Missing 10 set shots. ANB kicking a goal after putting himself front and centre, what a concept. Our fwds at times need to play in front more. Fritsch missed a couple early but finished strongly, love his marks. Was really impressed Sparrow, Rivers, McVee, Bowey, Salem and May. Petracca’s best game for the year, Kozi quiet again. Fast footy comes with turnovers but we defended really well.

6. Petracca 5. May 4. Salem 3. Gawn - very good second half and superb last quarter 2. Lever 1. Van Rooyen Really Petracca was the stand out but May's performance on Curnow was excellent. Don't underestimate the role Tomlinson played. Although beaten by his direct opponent he was part of a system that kept an AFL team with two Coleman medallists to 44 points. He freed up Lever to do what he does best.

It was an absolute grind, but imo, there were some positive signs. In particular: * The defence stood up, in part (imo) because Tommo freed up Rick Lever to do his thing. May, Salo and McVie probably played their best games for the year * Sparrow and Riv had good games again, confirming that they belong at this level. * Lingers and Hunter looked like they might be getting back towards their best * Forward half pressure was a lot better than it has been recently * JVR had his best game * Max had a good second half Still loads to work on, but imo, it was better than just a 17 point, grinding win.

I think we all need the 10 day break. Players and supporters alike.

McKay is a very very good player. His goal kicking aside he’s a giant who marks the ball at the highest point. It’s so hard to defend in the air. Tomlinson was fine. He got lost on the lead once but the other contests were just McKay being far too strong in the air. Was hardly disgraced.

Sure McKay had 9 marks and 3 goals but several of his marks were unstoppable and Tomlinson's presence allowed the back half talls to work as a unit - in particular Lever was back towards his intercepting best. JVR continues to impress. McVee, Salem, Rivers and Bowey until injured are such a cohesive unit - never worry when they have the ball.

Take the win, onto next week. I hope for all our sake that we can find an extra 5-10% in our skills McVee is the find of the year, he’s a smooth mover, doesn’t ever seem panicked and lands in the right spot all the time