At the break of Gawn

Geez I’m glad Howe will never taste premiership success.

Think there was a bit of a collective gasp of shock in the crowd when he won which then the boos followed. Cox should have won it.

Really don’t want to see a thread like this again until we are absolutely humming and won 5 in a row.

AnB is a real concern. His disposal has dropped off significantly and he just can’t convert at all.

As many have mentioned earlier, we’ve been flat for 5-6 weeks. I’m not sure about this training load theory. From memory that happened after the bye last year and not before it.

A couple of observations

- Why are we insisting on making the ground so wide? Time and time we had players free in the corridor but opted for the Wings/flanks. I understand turning it over there is risky and a lot of the top 4 teams are keeping width, but when we turned it over, Collingwood had so much time and space to use the corridor they cut us to ribbons.

- Teams are holding their defenders back against us now. We are a turn over side and when it’s our turn to go, we run harder than anyone. Unfortunately, teams have worked out you can’t get sucked up high against Melbourne or they’ll get out the back. We scored 2 goals off turn overs today and 0 last week. It’s diabolical and we need to figure this out. Unfortunately we don’t have the talent of a McKay or a Curnow, so Goody and Stafford need to improve that connection with the midfielders and our forwards. 

- Our pressure is way off - especially  our tackling pressure. Our mids just aren’t closing space well enough.

- No Steven May really hurts and a few times Collingwood got players out the back.

Pretty sure I predicted a low scoring game. 70-55 I think. But the other way around…

Crazy to think we haven’t beaten this mob on QBD since 2017 and Jack Watts’ goal. We’re too good of a team to not beat them today.

As I said in another thread, I think we’ll win today but it’ll be a smallish margin. It’ll be low scoring like 70-55.

Anyone know average age and experience between us and the Pies for tomorrow’s line-up? Pies often touted as a young list but pretty sure they’re quite the opposite.

I honestly can’t wait to see how we respond. I’m really curious to see if we steel ourselves or turn to water.

Regardless of how intense our attack on the ball is, our problems run deeper than just an effort level. Our forward line is completely at sea and we’re a long way off from clicking, so even if we do win, it won’t be by much as I think we’ll struggle to kick over 70-80pts.

13 minutes ago, rjay said:

Thanks 'Macca', my thoughts exactly.

What a childish, ridiculous comment...what a DH.

Goody should have asked where were all the Tigers supporters last night…

It was obvious Mitch Brown was staying. Goody said he was playing better footy over Weideman. I’m happy to trust Goody on this.

I sort of feel an incident like this can go only one of two ways; it emboldens us and we go onto having a great season or everything starts to unravel.

Goody admitted on SEN this wee

33 minutes ago, Gorgoroth said:

Complacency huh… how’s his coaching? He nor his assistants have done anything about the f50 entries. This is like not reviewing the Prelim. It’s repeating the same mistakes and hoping to get a good result. 
Don’t get me wrong I’m happy to hear Thai but I think most of our troubles of late stem from the fact he is being out coached on game day. They are adjusting mid game and we aren’t. He is staying with the same tactics all game. 

Goody admitted on SEN this week that he struggles against the most experienced coaches (and mentioned Longmire). This game is just par for the course for him. His record is 2-5 against Longmire.

I think part of the poor attendance, even before tonight, is just the way we’re playing. We don’t put on big scores, we don’t belt lowly teams, we were just grinding out wins… and now losses.

2 minutes ago, dees189227 said:

Twice tonight Spargo had a chance to kick for goal but chose to pass when he probably could have backed himself.

People will write us off but teams are now working out how to play us. 

Petracca let him know on one of them too. The selflessness sometimes is detrimental to the team.

If you go back to last year, forward connection was one of our main problems during our mid season slump. One of things Goody preached was lowering the eyes, yet this year we continue to just bomb it in forward and try and win a ground ball. Our forwards just aren’t competing enough and we’re not winning clear ground balls.

Secondly, our pressure is just way off which I think is hurting our intercept game down back. I’m not sure if it’s because teams are playing keeping offs against us and that’s why our pressure is down but I just can’t understand why we’re not bringing the heat.

1 minute ago, Jaded No More said:

This is an embarrassing loss. 

We’ve been belted. Only one decent qtr from us.

11 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

On paper West Coast still have some really good players. I know they are all mostly past it, but gees they shouldn’t be so bad. 

Agree - quite a few premiership players still there. It's there engine room that really lets them down though. Lots of new guys. 

I know it’s only small fry, but we really need to go out and belt West Coast and North. We’ve had a history of losing to teams who’ve had the blow torch on them all week. 
 

In terms of longer term prospects, I’d like to see where we sit at the end of 2025. If we have multiple premierships, finals appearances every year and a real sense of confidence going to a game as a supporter knowing you’ll get a really good effort, it will go a long way to removing this veil.

24 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

This. Unfortunately Rivers is the most dispensable down back, although he does do a good shut down role. 
Gus stays back and Salem replaces Rivers. 
Depending on form and fitness I wouldn’t be totally against trying Rivers on a wing alternating with JJ as he has good pace and a booming kick. Not sure he has the endurance however. 

I’m a big Rivers fan. His grand final performance was remarkably unheralded. Didn’t make a mistake. I can’t see him being pushed out. JJ the most likely vulnerable.

Not sure you could call Fritsch’s season quiet, averaging 2 goals game as third tall (if you can  call it that) and has kicked a goal in every game so far this season.

From the stands - round 22 2019. 

What makes his rise even more fascinating is how far back he’s come from. If we went back to 2014 on this forum, no one could have predicted he would lead us to our first premiership and be considered one of the greatest ruckmen of our time. It’s just a wonderful story. 

I’m actually of the view this could be a real danger game for us. The Hawks have usually responded pretty well to a loss this season and they have troubled us in the past. I’ll just be happy with the 4pts. 

It would be great if the AFL could adjust Melbourne’s Round 8 fixture vs the Saints. It’s probably going to be billed as one of the games of the season but due to the poor scheduling by the AFL it’s got a 1:10pm Sunday slot on Mother’s Day of all days, it’ll be a poor crowd. I know it’s going to be a struggle for me to convince the wife to let me go to that game and I’m sure many others will be in that boat.
 

Cue the outrage of opposition supporters criticising Melbourne’s fan base when we get a poor crowd for it.