At the break of Gawn

I think we'll win tonight, but not by much. I can only hope that the players have acclimatised by now and have trained at Cazaly's to understand the conditions a bit better. Longmire had a strategy for kicking with the win and against the wind. Goodwin needs to adopt this same approach.

This isn't a dig at SWYL's 4 year post which is a valid discussion point, but exactly 2 years ago was one of the best nights at the MCG for many of us in recent years...

After dabbling with the ladder predictor recently, I can confirm that the Saints losing this is a very good result for our chances of making the 8. They’re so good that if they drop this and if the Dogs don’t beat anyone above them, then we could potentially only need to win against the bombers to make the 8, but only if the Giants also beat the Saints. A win against the Giants/Freo for us as well would almost guarantee it.

Brayshaw, Jones and Harmes all confirmed outs.

Port having no issues “turning up” to the game tonight despite flying in from Adelaide this morning. Wish Melbourne could have done the same.

That's true. Port did have two early starts when they played the Giants and again they did it against the Blues. Both of them were narrow wins, however. I think the top teams who are well drilled cope with these inconveniences better.

Sydney were in Cairns on Saturday, and were training at Cazaly for a couple of days.

Well we can’t rely on our opposition to fly 2hrs up on game day to make them a bit battle weary. Freo did the smart thing and flew up there today (4 days ahead of Monday’s game).

GWS played in Perth on Saturday night yet were on the Sunshine Coast 3 days ago and then just took a bus to Metricon today. Is this some hub protocol or did Melbourne royally [censored] up their logistics here today? Why wouldn’t they have flown to Cairns on Sunday or Monday?

Would prefer a 2016/17 Jack Watts over him.

Has anyone raised the fact that the Swans have been in Cairns since Saturday (and training at Cazaly since) while we flew up this morning? I don’t know about you, but being on a plane flight for 2hrs and then expect to play a side that’s been there for 5 days and already training there seems a bit rough. The performance was inexcusable but this further highlights the inequality of this season.

Max was a warrior again today, but geez his forward entries need to get better. Shallow and often not to the advantage of the forward. Either pass it to a runner or kick it deep to help us lock the ball in.

I wonder if the players had a similar expectation to some of the posters on the Gameday thread this morning. Dees easily, Swans are rubbish, no Rampe, no Mills etc etc. Well, Sydney are a team that have dominated us over the last decade with a very good coach who’s also very good on game day. This wasn’t a surprise at all.

Is the post game thread open yet?

What a disgraceful first half, let alone 2nd qtr. No moves from the coaches box. How OMac retained his spot was ridiculous Jones is finished

I reckon he has Nicho covered. Nicho was a great lockdown defender, but May has amazing intercept abilities which I’d liken to Rance.

Is he our best full back since...? Since my time properly following Melbourne (probably 1996), I can’t recall us having such a dominant full back.

Brown definitely deserves another week. He also looks as quick as Usain Bolt compared to Tmac out there.

I almost felt we didn’t deserve to win given we had so many players with such little impact. BUT Trac sinking the Saints given they overlooked him at 1, and an article was written about it today in the HSun, has so much synergy to it ?

I can’t recall the last time we played in Alice at night. I assume it’s not as humid and slippery compared to Darwin at night?

RE: That Richo interview, I don’t think his Saints IP is going to be much use this week. I’d say Ratten would be doing the opposite to what Richo taught the players considering how well they are going now.

We have a 7 day break (game is next Saturday night); Saints 6 day break.

I get that Melksham had a poor performance, but those thinking Goody will drop him are delusional. He’s been pretty decent the last few weeks prior, plus Goody loves him (per the captain choice), Out: Preuss, Sparrow. In: Gawn, Bennell or Jones. Hibberd has one more chance I reckon.

Goodwin put too much faith in our mids going head to head against their’s. No negating on Bont. No negating on McCrae. One of our biggest strengths in 2018 was Harmes work as a tagger. Why not try something? Hibbo has some credits in the bank, but he was shocking today.

All these years I’ve always wondered where Neitz was when all this happened? Seemed like Schwarz was the only one flying the flag.