At the break of Gawn

Agree on pretty much everything.

No more debutants this year. Every game is a must win.

Out: Lewis, Hannan, Petty, Weid

In: Vince, Garlett, Frost, Stretch

Has any club had as many false dawns as Melbourne?

This year is done even if we are still in the 8. We’ve been found out. Just run and run and you’ll win the game against our slow plodders.

That was our rnd 23. Onto next year.

Worst tall defenders in the league.

terrible pressure for most of the game

Please stop talking about our i50 entries. We let a team that beat the total average game score in a half and then go onto score 120+ pts.

The blame is squarely on the defensive running of the midfield and the bog ordinary defenders in our side. 

Omac lost without Lever

Petty debuts in one of our most important games of the year?

Disgusting decisions from the coaching staff with the selections this year.

Disgusting half of football. Maybe 2019 will be finals?

1 hour ago, Petraccattack said:

Looking at that bench I reckon you're right.

And as much as I love Bernie it would be the right call.

Vince has been named on the bench quite a lot the last few weeks. Wouldn’t read too much into that. I think he needs to go though.

Gives us supporters a good excuse not to go to the game...

Just awesome for Melbourne... after we lose, every other team in the 8 or challenging has a win. 

Could be 2017 all over again.

I was at the Dogs game 3 weeks ago and watched Hogan mark absolutely everything and just dominate. Chris Judd said on the following Monday he was the best player in the competition at the present moment.

What has happened in 2 games of football?

What is hogan doing? Looks like he is roving.

Port Adelaide is the number 1 Clearance side, we are 10th. If that’s anything to go by, we will lose tonight.

Need to see a dramatic improvement in our clearances plus connection between Gawn and Brayshaw/Viney/Oliver.

No surprise. He was invisible last week.

Dixon hasn’t been any better though and has kicked less goals. 

Their only performing forward is Robbie Gray. 

I’ll be very annoyed if we lose to them next week. Their ball movement is dreadfully slow.

An important lesson; Never get too excited about this football club, it'll end in disappointment (for now anyway).

In all seriousness though, I don't know why people are suggesting Tyson - he's another inside mid who's also one paced. 

As many of the other posters have noted, the game was lost due to Collingwood's excellent balance at the clearances with the right number of players in the contest and outside the contest. If we won it, their outside players would pressure us quickly and we would end up coughing it up. If they won it, their outside players would run and spread to get the disposal and kick it to their forwards without pressure on the kicker. 

The other reasons:

1) Cox had his best game ever

2) The field kicking and disposal was basically flawless on the day. We kicked all our 2nd qtr goals from their turn overs, and they barely made a mistake in the second half.

Pederson started well with some contested marks on the wing, but I found he got in the way of Hogan inside 50 and didn't bring it to ground well enough. Also, for what it's worth, Hogan's contested marking work has been unbelievable lately, rarely had a genuine one-on-one against Dunn I felt.

I'm not completely sold on J Smith but I thought he was pretty solid today, having said that, the pace and height of Frost would be handy and Goody has to make his mind up because we don't have time to keep getting our defensive 6 to gel.

Hunt and Garlett both need to come in for pace. Garlett rotated through the midfield at times last year and had great effect. 

2 minutes ago, DavidNeitz9 said:

Agree Bingers, He'll be playing for Port Adelaide Magpies next week, abssolutely useless tonight

Can’t see him surviving by the time we play them. Has gone backwards this year.

Richmond can’t win outside of the MCG

Not worried about playing Port in 2 weeks.

Watts at 2013 levels 

19 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

Depends on Collingwood's structure.

Oscar is the logical match up for Mason Cox at FB. Jetta to DeGoey. Lewis, Salem on the flanks. 

Frost seems unlikely. Could be an option for Stephenson if they are worried about his pace. Could play CHB but it isn't his strength.

Joel Smith makes sense to play CHB on a tall if the Pies play another one. 

Hunt if they want to play another runner and use Hibberd/Vince as the talls.

Harry Petty is the smokey if they want height and want to give him a run at CHB.

I think Hibbo will take De Goey - De Goey is 191 cm, and is too tall for Jetta. 

So the match ups will likely be:

Omac - Cox

Hibbo - De Goey

Vince - Mayne

Salem - Thomas

Not sure who comes in for Lever - But i'll be betting on Frost given he's quick (so can match up on someone like Hoskin-Elliot) but also tall so he can match up on Cox if he gets a hold of Omac. 

5 minutes ago, Dee Zephyr said:

Can’t stand Hoskin-Elliott. He just kicked a goal, still tied with Jesse as the only two to have kicked a goal every game.

I can't understand why commentators are saying this is some sort of competition between the two. Ben Brown had 1 game without a goal and he's probably on track to win the Coleman (but here's hoping Jesse will beat him) - I don't think a player kicking a goal in every game in a season is some sort of big achievement. 

First Melbourne game I went to he kicked 8 and led us to an upset win over the blues in 1996. Was probably my favourite player before that as a kid but that day just cemented it for another 12 years. Champion player.

6 minutes ago, wizardinoz said:

Feels like a loss. Wasted opportunity to improve our percentage.

Saints didn’t drop their heads at all. We all thought that would happen in the last qtr but to their credit they didn’t which made it difficult to get a 10 goal win.

6. Clayton Oliver

5. Jesse Hogan

4. Angus Brayshaw

3. Max Gawn

2. Michael Hibberd

1. Nathan Jones

Apologies to Lewis, Lever who were rock solid and Tyson who played one of his better games.

39 minutes ago, Ugottobekidding said:

Be surprised if he makes it too the finals. Has very little impact. I' say Watts is at the crossroads. Does he want it or doesn't he?

It’s difficult to judge Port’s forward line while Paddy is injured (I think he’s back this week though) as Dixon has had to ruck and that other young kid (Marshall I think) is out with personal leave, meaning Watts was there no.1 almost and he never does well in that circumstance.

i just hope he keeps his spot so we can see him line up against us in a Friday night game (it’ll be an interesting dynamic to watch).

I think if it’s just football centric criticism then it’s fair game. It comes with the territory, and most players (especially Lever) are adequately compensated. Essentially it’s the same what guys like Robbo or Caro write. Personal attacks are definitely not on, however.

5 hours ago, Rocky said:

harmes has no foot skills. he is hard. can take a good mark. only worth a run up forward i'd reckon and there's others ahead of him there. if he improves his skills he can go in the midfield, but not until then..

He thinks he’s Dusty Martin now that he wears no.4. Got caught holding the ball 3 times on Tuesday trying to do a fend off. He gets sucked into contests all the time when he shouldn’t and his foot skills are poor. What Harmes thinks he is capable of and what he can actually do borders on delusional. It’s a bit of an indictment on the match committee that he’s not even on the extended interchange this week.

13 minutes ago, ProDee said:

Poor bastard.

The dolts on here will be critiquing his every disposal.

It’ll probably still be short of the vitriol you threw at Jack Watts over the years.

1 minute ago, Diamond_Jim said:

are you serious ??

 

Yep, read the article. Can't wait to see the joke asking if it was Jordan De Goey's dog.