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Had similar issues here, Froggy. Couldn't log on or open any threads for a couple of hours. I had to resort to talking to the wife and found out, much to my surprise, that she no longer works at Brashs.

How good is this… All three images are from Sunday’s game. This is gonna look INCREDIBLE. He will run out to this with his kids on Saturday and what a moment it will be. I’m so happy for our Melks ❤️💙

Interesting stat on First Crack tonight Clayton Oliver, Lachie Ash and Finn Callaghan have had 45 kicks i50 and GWS has only taken 1 mark from those kicks. Liking our boy Steele with a 95% disposal rating!

Jai has signed on until the end of 2028! This is great, he's settled in so well into the team. Well and truly taken his opportunity.

Anyone else having problems with DL? I’m finding it frustratingly slow to load anything. Are there any issues Andy? @Demonland

Most important game for the dees in 3 years. We've started the year well but previously we would drop this game signifying flakiness which opposition pick up on. Win on Saturday and it does herald a new way and mindset.

Let's hope they turn up Sunday, given the game is Saturday, they can win all day Sunday if they want.

Leaving aside all the fugazi - and also the leadership Steele brings to the club (not even Claz'z biggest fans would argue he added anything at all in that space) and how Claz has performed so far this year (id argue he played pretty well for us last year too) there is zero doubt in my mind Steele is adding way more from playing perspective than Clazz did since before he did his hammy. Huge credit must go to the club for getting Steele in. Let's see how it plays out this season, but on the small sample thus far i reckon Steel could well become one of the best trades in the last 25 years, particularly considering we got him for basically nothing. By the by, i reckon Lever, May and Langdon are the three best trades we've made this century.

Everything moves so fast these days. Forget the 24-hour news cycle, it's now measured in minutes. Perhasp that's why Sharpie has gone thru the four stages of Nibbla so quickly: Cautious optimism player x will be decent addition to the list Loss of confidence player x will be decent addition to the list Grudging acceptance player x has been a decent addition to the list Player x is critical element of the team

I'm torn about tonight's match. Sure, it would be nice to see the Blues blow a big lead again. But I'm also keen to see them get thumped from the first bounce, and suffer a humiliating 30-goal loss that sees Voss sacked and many on their list give the game away for good, prompting the club to go into receivership and be banished from the league. What scenario would you prefer?

In reality, we haven't changed the way we play as much as people are making out. As both King and numerous players have commented, the starting point is still contest, which was always one of our strengths. Amongst the commentary on our win on the weekend, a number of pundits highlighted how strong our contested footy game was: clearances, stoppage wins, tackles etc etc Which is one of the reason we've been able to turn it around so quickly, the basic building blocks were already in place. Of course, what happens AFTER you win the contest is where the real change starts to be seen, not to mention the attitude to the system/plan where players have more freedom and thus more ownership. Which is what King and co have brought. Getting rid of a few boat-rockers from the locker room has also helped team buy-in and cohesion, which is why we're discussing all this in a thread about Clayton Oliver.

Are we having loading issues... ?? 🤣🤣🤣 (I'll show myself out)

First Crack just showed some great footage of Langford's off the ball running from the Sun's game. There was one instance where he ran out flat chat from one end of the ground to the other to provide an option forward. I think it was when Chandler marked, played on and hit the post. They compared his current role with Ollie Dempsey from the Cats, especially with his marking ability.

Saw a bit of the training session at SAFC. Reasonably light session. Thankfully the bad weather held off, there was a heavy storm earlier. The players were in high spirits, doing the rounds with the crowd, selfies and autographs etc.. Go Dees.

Not sure that all long kicks qualify for long bombs. In the past we had hurried kicks that went long, high and floated ie long bombs to i50 packs and most often intercepted. This year fwds have better running patters and are spreading better; sometimes leading, sometimes out-maneuvering their ops. Mids are finding them, sometimes with long kicks but rarely long high, floaters. GCS def were taller than our fwds yet didn't outmark us very often. An example is Sharp's bullet pass from just inside the 50m line that found Melksham at the top of the goal square. It was low and flat. As an aside, two of Sharp's prior attempts were points when he burnt a player better placed and closer to goal. Reckon someone told him to lower his eyes. At the ground you could see players do that, look for targets and not just throw the ball onto their boot.

Sam Draper's haircut gives me nightmares.

He is perfectly suited to the style of footy King wants to play. I read a quote from Guerra (I think) somewhere that during the final interviews for the coaching job, King was asked how he sees this team playing and it's potential... King asked to see GPS data/testing data in response, and I'm sure his eyes would have lit up when he saw what Sharp's numbers were. He is built for this game-style, and it shows in his performance to date. Slightly off-topic too, but it also shows in hindsight why Oliver was told he needed to change the way he plays. Oliver would have been like a square peg in a round hole the way the team is playing right now. In the current team, he may have taken Sparrow's spot at centre bounce, but he wouldn't be taking anyone else's. Steele is playing the role Oliver would have potentially played (hence we traded him in), but I reckon he is doing it better than Oliver would have.

Off to Gather Round tomorrow morning for a belated 60th. With some great mates so will ignore the media garbage and enjoy the food, wine and footy.

It’s a dud concept that everyone hates except South Australians, and industry folks who get a free weekend away. It kills me every year hearing the media tell us how great it is. It’s also the reason we now have such a limp start to the season with the AFL catering to annoyed Northern states that they didn’t get Gather Round - so instead we have Opening Round and weird byes forced onto us.

Spargo is in for North. Good luck, go get them Charlie.

"If Fritsch gets through training he'll play"

I believe this was named after Kane because, like his mouth, it's always wide open and flapping in the breeze.

Agree with above. However, on the last point our game plan last year involved much less bombing it long inside 50 than in previous seasons - i would posit we are kicking long to a contest inside 50 more this season than last. In fact, unless there is clear, free target or one on one contest ahead of the ball (which is created by fast ball movement) most teams, particularly from centre clearances (because there's rarely a free player or one on one contests) are bombing it long inside 50 this season. Territory is still king. In fact, one of the key reasons why Oliver, and particularly Tracc (who i think was dead last for retention of kicks in inside 50 last season) were so woeful going inside 50 last year was we trying to bomb it in less but neither have the skill to hit those 20-30 metre kicks to a leading or free player or weight a kick to the forwards advantage. The other relevant aspect of the retention of kicks inside 50 and marks from kicks, is of course it's partly related to the quality of the forwards, particularly key forwards who can take pack marks, the quality of the crumbers and things like structure and system. And course forward 50 pressure is a big factor in terms of retention inside 50. Jessie Hogan is struggling this season and not clunking his marks like he was in 2024. And atm they don't really have any other decent marking options up forward. That's no doubt a big factor in Callaghan and Claz's low % of kicks inside 50 being marked. Which is not to say both are not poor kicks - Claz certainly is. Last season, we really only had JVR as a pack marking option inside 50 and he struggled all season. This season we have Checkers and Roo, and on the weekend, they moved Petts forward to put another tall making option down there. Think of that terrific pack mark Checkers took at the top of the goal square on Sunday. I forget who kicked it in, but it was a bog-standard kick it long to the top of the goal square kick - the very type of kick people bemoaned us doing under Goody. Checkers marked it and the player kicking it inside 50 would have been credited with both the kick being retained and marked. We don't mark that kick last season. All that said, i agree we are not missing Tracc and Claz' kicking skills - or their dire lack of foot speed.

Maybe, just maybe, the gameplan was reversed engineered to accommodate for the limitations of the players.... as in.. rather astute coaching. The downgrading of Goodwin/Viney/Tracc and Clarry, in terms of their skill sets - who has given most of us the happiest days of our sporting lives - beggars belief. By the way... every supporter believes they're in for a dynasty when their team wins a GF... rarely happens...and when it doesn't.. the narrative is that FD has failed the supporters 🤔

I miss Nibbler 😥

Hibberd would have to be a special mention too.

Someone told me, and i'm not sure if it's true (though it would make sense given King was the Cats midfield coach - or at least i think he was), that King was behind how the Cats use Dempsey - ie as a tall winger that aims to stretch opposition defences and be a legitimate forward marking option, often pushing all the way to the goal square (a crazy % of his goals have been from the goal square). Tracks with how King is using Langford and Culley.

This side does not stop running, bruv 😂

The ANB role was similar to what Sharp is doing but the crucial difference is what ANB did for Petracca. Essentially, CP5 would go from a stoppage and flow forward and leave ANB to take his defensive duties on the mid that was his opponent. From what I can see, all the Half Forwards push up the ground to make an outnumber at the stoppage or ‘around’ the stoppage/contest, especially defensive side so that when we get a turnover or when we win the ball in contest - we have to use hands in close to allow Sharp, Chandler, Latrelle, the mids/wings (whoever is not winning and sharing the footy) to get up the ground to provide a target by hand or foot. So the ‘ethos of ANB’ is there with the hard running from defensive stoppage but it’s more of a determined counter attack set up than ANB sticking to Petracca’s opponent. Oh and @binman - you were talking about why we had less forward handball against GC - that’s because we were setup to negate their forward handball so couldn’t do both - we opted to have extra players behind stoppage and deal with trying to use hands sideways to find the right time to kick over their HB line.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this the first game so far this season that we've gone in as clear favourites? Without wanting to go full MFCSS, I've seen way too many Melbourne teams of the past drop these games. Look no further than our loss against the Bombers in 2016 when they wheeled out a team of top up veterans and VFL players and managed to knock us off after a great win against GWS the week before. I'll be fascinated to see how Kingy approaches the preparation with the players this week. Hope Melk kicks a bag for game no.250.

Do you mean not drafting them? In which case you may not have a premiership. Pretty sure you/we all were lauding Petracca, Oliver and Viney during that period of time despite their shortcomings... thank god for Ben Brown's long arms...

Facts are funny things.

I'd like us to kick 8goals in the 1st qtr and win the game by 85pts. That'd be a new mindset. And one I'd enjoy.

Aesthetically it may not be much different. When you factor in the mentality, philosophy and instinct part, it is quite different. In the past we would sell out to the system and not deviate too much. This meant defaulting to long down the line kicks and up and unders out of the middle. We now see guys playing on feel ie. taking the first option, surging and paddling it forward at every opportunity, forwards moving and speed of ball movement off the charts. Last year there were games we barely laid a glove on opposition mids, now we are tackling ferociously and keeping it in there giving us a better chance to win the clearance. I think this is the biggest reason for the increased clearances. We might have been trying to evolve to something similar in recent years but the way we've gone about achieving it this year has been very different.

Bombers fans up and about on SEN. they believe they’ll win sunday

I'm a gambling man and i'd seriously recommend NEVER putting everting you have on the dees to win ANY game!

Or at least get Zach's missus to leave before half time to go for lunch at a fine Adelaide eatery.

The above half dozen posts have added so much more value than endlessly bemoaning the loss of or Clarry's misadventures. Actually glad I read the end of this thread now.

He'll probably still kick 6 against us this week

You forgot the incessant "I've never rated him... he's a spud... he will never amount to anything... he is a VFL player at best..." calls. Still conspicuously silent.

I enjoyed his ‘rock star’ motion to the cheer squad , revving them up after his last quarter goal.

What’s surprised me most isn’t that he’s playing well in new system it’s that he now looks like a footballer who can run not the other way around. His kicking, tackling and marking have all improved. Hopefully he can continue his form going forward.

He has definitely surprised me. I thought he was no chance of making it but I think his season has been brilliant. His link up play abs hitting the scoreboard has been invaluable

Both Tracc and Claz are and will be legends of the Dees.. and us supporters love what thy were apart of at our club. But both could not hit targets going inside 50 and along with Viney we were worst in the comp. That issue alone was never resolved because our game plan was bomb it in and keep it there. It work to a point but made us work twice as hard as the opposition for our goals.

Set to sign a multi year deal according to the Midweek tackle on Fox Footy.

He’s clearly not lactose intolerant then.

I always check the tracker on the AFL app as it's the only publicly available GPS data I can find, or any data for that matter, that gives me any sense of our running power and fitness (though i reckon pressure ratings are a reasonable proxy - ours, like Calton's this year routinely was our lowest in the last quarter last season, which i think reflected out lack of fitness). We had the top 5 players for average speed in defence against the suns (confusing name - defence in this context means when the opponent has the ball, not in the defensive half). That's a great indication of our all team defensive gut running and spread - critical for defending turnover generally, and in this match of how we denied them space and put pressure on players receiving handballs. Nor surprisingly Langers had the highest average speed when the Suns had the ball (8.7 kms per hour) and Sharp equal second (8.5 kms per hour). But I have to say i was super suprised who was equal second - Harvey. By the by, the xext two were Kolt (8.4) and Laurie (8.3)

love that he appears to have gotten harder too. he laid into Witts on the weekend and put him on the ground. not just a soft runner! also, that huge play against the saints in round 1 when he put his body on the line and it resulted in a goal..

I lost 😭 We’re going with STILL FLYING HIGH. We have a new thing on the banner this season, a cute little demon with a speech bubble who says something different every week. It’s only A4 size so you can’t see it from afar but we know it’s there and Max spotted it at Sunday’s game and punched it so I guess that’s a thing now. Anyways, I asked if the little demon could say YOUR LOSS, ESSENDON but again it was all nope. Instead… 👍🏽👏😊

So glad I visited this thread 🤯