KingDingAling

5 minutes ago, Demon Disciple said:

Whilst it can be said for the majority of the team today, Brayshaw was bog ordinary for the first 3 quarters (and i don’t like him as a winger).

Maybe try TMac on a wing as a link up tall (Max can’t continually be relied upon to be that link man and will need time to rest either up forward or on the bench) and then have Langdon patrol the ‘quiet’ wing, as his pace and endurance is first rate, as is his unwavering effort.

The question then turns to what we do with Gus, but I’d definitely have TMac in ahead of him atm.

Replace Jordan in the midfield for Gus. As good as Jordan has been, he hasn’t been great, and hasn’t been to a level Brawshaw has gotten to. I think it’s a no brainer.

I’d bring Brown and Weideman in, and move McDonald down back for a bit. I thought Petty was a bit lost at times.

21 minutes ago, Billy said:

And he’s better than Patrick Cripps???

He is a lot better than Cripps. Oliver has levels, whereas Cripps is more or less one dimensional

37 minutes ago, bush demon said:

Another reason why you need female commentators. On Fox the female commentator  rightly described the incident as a 'rogue elbow', only to see the cavalry arrive with Brian Taylor and good old afl.com au rush in with the accidental elbow line. Compare this with the Neville Jetta dangerous tackle decision. The AFL are either protecting the head or they are not.

Gender shouldn't come into competency. We need good commentators irrespective of anything. 

5 hours ago, deanox said:

Melbourne traded out:

picks 2 (GWS used it on Kelly),

22 (on-traded to Brisbane, who selected Gardiner) and

72 (passed)

 

in exchange for

-picks 9 (Salem),

-57 (Hunt) and

-Dom Tyson (94 games)

who was traded for pick 62 (unsure who that was) and Preuss (who we got 2 years back up, then traded for pick 31.

 

Then 31 (plus 43) became 25 (Caleb Poulter).

 

25, 68, 69 and our 2021 1st (currently 17) became 18 (Bowie at 21), 19 (Laurie at 22) and Brisbane's 2021 2nd (currently 21). (That's currently a win of +700 points, or the equivalent of pick 27).

If Bowie and/or Laurie turn out to be half decent, that is a decent flip off Tyson.

Weideman is one of those players that was always going to need time. He is a pack marker, but has a slight build, so he is going to need to develop into his frame - in order to get the most out of himself. Ben Brown is a different type of player, more of a lead up forward. I think Weideman will compliment Brown nicely, but ultimately, Weideman is still at least a year away from hitting his straps. I rated him as a junior, just wouldn't have taken him because anyone with half a clue knew he'd need many years to develop.

1 hour ago, It's Time said:

I don't think Jason Taylor would agree with you. I'm sure he'd be saying there was no luck involved just elite professional talent spotting and pick negotiating. 

Rivers was always going to be the litmus test for me for that draft. I was in the get Young at pick 3 at all costs camp because we so needed his elite kicking. But the hope was that once we got Jackson, Rivers could produce a similar output to Young, then Jackson becomes a bonus compared to getting Young at pick 3. As it's turned out Rivers has delivered in spades arguably out performing Young. He went at 100% DE against GWS. In my book it's hard to argue against 100% all some on here no doubt would

Rivers is ahead of Young, and will be a better player all throughout. Rivers can impact games, whereas Young can just hit a target, even his decision making is not great in a quicker game of AFL. Rivers was made for AFL. Real impact player.

10 hours ago, Seetrollgetttroll said:

Rivers had 16 disposals at 100% efficiency, 2 contested marks and 3 score involvements playing at half back and last week he had 20 disposals at 90% efficiency, 4 score involvements and another contested mark. Not sure his IQ is much of a problem at this stage, he seems to make really good decisions with the ball in hand. 

That he does. He is such a natural athlete and player. Probably my fav.

19 minutes ago, Redlagged said:

Correct. That trio - Jackson, Pickett, Rivers - comprise the best bundle of pick-ups Melbourne has received since we got Viney, Spalding and Dean in one whack in 1987. (And they were 'adult' players when we got them.) Complementary skills and talents. As for Bowey, he'll be in the seniors soon enough.

I agree. All 3 look as though they could be A grade stars. Rivers a safe bet to be an A grader and he was taken with our later pick. We truly lucked out on trade night.

That blonde [censored] smoker doesn’t need to be umpiring all our games 

GWS are ordinary, mainly due to not having anything resembling a game plan at all. They have some talent still. Hopefully we come into this game with better execution going inside 50, and also improved accuracy to goal. Two simple things, because we need to make the most of our ruck dominance. I’d like to perhaps see Salem trialed in the middle for this game, see if we can penetrate some long low kicks out of the center deep inside 50. Open the forward line up a bit. Won’t happen but last weeks 19 behinds was an embarrassment. Lucky we played an undermanned St Kilda.

Good to get the win. 19 behinds is deplorable though, and letting Howard just amble back and take intercept marks is poor form. We need a forward line. Good to see Petracca lower his eyes inside 50 at times, hopefully some of the others saw that and realise that it can be done. Its basic football and we are beyond pathetic at delivering inside 50. Good signs from a lot of players (mostly those not in the forward line). Majority team effort.

5 minutes ago, —coach— said:

Learn to kick to the advantage of our forwards, and improve accuracy and we win this sort of game by 12 goals

Yep. Its pathetic.

We have no midfield leader at present. We have some rare talents with unique tricks, but leaders they are not. A leader would have the midfield functioning like a well oiled machine. Best tap ruck in the league. Midfield get slaughtered by weaker - better led - midfields.

Once in a generation midfielder. Thankfully we have two of them at present. Must keep.

TMAC was good today. I think when both Brown and Weideman come back in, that we will see long searching leads up the ground from TMAC, and that will be a headache for opposing teams to match up. Brown is of similar type in that he leads up the ground, is a hard match up physically. It’s going to be near on impossible for opposition teams to combat our 4 talls. Combine this with crumbing forwards we’ve acquired lately - it’s going to look much different in 6 weeks.

Today was a poor performance. But I will reserve judgement about our improvement over the offseason until we have more pieces. Midfield needs to improve and start using the best tap ruck in the league. It’s embarrassing we lose matches out of the middle. Puts May and Lever up against it. 

Good luck to him. After Gysberts debut I try hard not to judge players on first glance. Not overly impressive last game on a glance, but better judges select the kid and hopefully he rewards their faith. We do need something else in our midfield and Jordan has been getting high praise from VFL watchers for a while now. Selection based on merit and best fit it seems. Good luck James

I have a league some may have joined in recent years.

Riff Raff

league code 440446

All Dees welcome it’s just a Melbourne Dees league.

Feel free to join anyone 

4 minutes ago, Hell Bent said:

Agree, it was a terrible decision by the club not to resolve this with an established player such as Phillips. We`ve screamed for outside run for years now and we have failed to bring in anyone with the right attributes. Tomlinson was certainly not the answer.

Fritter is probably the best suited but we cant afford to take him out of the forwardline. I think they should give Hunt a go here, he is not ideal but I don`t think he is the answer off halfback.

Left field maybe Rivers.

Just another mindboggling oversight from the club that this hasnt been addressed and now with the manning the mark rule it is even more critical than ever before to get this right.

It’s not left field. Rivers is the most logical answer to our wing solution. He has pace, endurance, skills, smarts, talent, and a willingness to take the game on. He will be one fine winger. I’d put him on the left wing and that way he can drive long kicks down the middle when needed, but also has the precision to spot up leading forwards. Outside of Rivers we have no one else.

50 minutes ago, Elegt said:

All 3 of these kids won't make it 

The two I saw play today - Swallow and Jordan appear a long long way off AFL standard. 

I would’ve took the money too if I were Scully. We were a basket case of a club. He set himself up for life. Made the most out of a very limited skill set. When it’s all said and done Scully was an above average athlete and below average football player. He got paid millions more than footballers twice his capability. Fair play to him. 

He got some things right, others wrong. Would have learnt a lot from his time at the club. From the outside looking in, it did appear as though he got better as time went on. Looks a reasonable addition by Essendon, as they now get a more experienced and polished Mahoney than we had early. Seems a good decision for all 3 parties.

Finals would be a good start. Pass grade would be to at least win a final. Anything less would be hard to keep the job. I think we’ll make top 4 though. If we can manage to find another wing player we pretty much have the complete side.

Good picks to take quality kids in an uncertain draft year. We could have our eye on a couple for rippers that either slide or aren’t rated due to not much footy played this year. Perfect picks, could be as good as 2 top 10 picks 

On 10/27/2020 at 6:09 PM, Toorak said:

Why are we so bad at recruiting.

Maybe we should be targeting recruiters. Eg Geelong or Richmond. It appears they can identify football talent. Unlike Melbourne.

We are decent at drafting quality talent. Last years draft looks a ripper for us. We got Rivers late. He would be a top 10 pick if that draft was done again. Jackson also looks every bit a quality top pick. Looks like we got it right. We needed to after list management overpaid previous years and left us bereft of quality young kids coming through. Thankfully Mahoney and Taylor look to have got last year right.