At the break of Gawn

7 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

And what sort of surgery is needed for an infected finger? 

Surely just a dose of antibiotics would be enough... 

From a dog bite? wtf? really?

Similar position to last year. We had just lost 3 in a row (Geelong, Freo and Richmond) and we just had to beat Essendon. Thankfully Danniher couldn't kick the side of a barn that day and we ran over the top of them in the second half. Watts and Petracca both kicked 4 that day. If Hurley or Hooker nullify Hogan, I just can't see us winning. 

 

I slammed the remote on the ground when he did that.  Anyone with half a brain cell could see the play was to ensure it went out of bounds to force the thrown in deep in the pocket.  But no, instead of doing that he flings a boot at it under pressure only for it to go a few metres and end up out on the full.  Couldn't believe he bothered and I can't imagine Goodwin would have been happy with it either.

He actually did the exact same dumb kick just before half-time against Richmond last year (totally gave them a spark at half time). Scroll to 2:53 and you'll see.

On field leadership is definitely an issue for us. Without question. It's one of the main reason we can't stop the bleeding during those lulls. People blame Goodwin, but if a run-on starts 5 minutes into a quarter, Goodwin doesn't have a chance to chat to the collective group until 25 minutes later. 

Richmond's leaders saw the momentum swing in the 3rd qtr and wrestled it back. Unfortunately we don't have that same type of leadership to do the same. Jones isn't the only leader out there, but he certainly should be doing more when the opposition is on a rampage. 

Out: Harmes, AnB, Vince

In: Spargo, Lewis, Tmac or Pedo (replace Harmes with a tall).

I’d leave Stretch for another week. Harmes has to go. Has given nothing for 5 games.Vince is done and the statement Goodwin needs to make. 

11 minutes ago, buck_nekkid said:

What game were you watching?  Weids took some good marks, laid a great tackle, brought the ball to ground and executed some nice field kicking.  Pathetic comment.

Must not have noticed them. Didn't have much of an impact though and would still question why we would pick him above Pedo. 

Harmes has to be dropped. Can’t believe we let him have no.4.

Stretch nervous and fumbly

Vince has to be dropped, surely .

Nothing game from Tyson 

i cant recall Weid taking a mark so not sure about some people calling it an encouraging game

Goodwin had no answers when we lost the clearances in the second term. Just had to submit to Richmond’s structures.

Only positives: Gawn again, Lever looked comfortable, Melksham returned to form, same with hibbo. Jones and Oliver very good in the middle. O Mac our best defender almost at the moment.

7 minutes ago, Clint Bizkit said:

I just have a horrible feeling that the wet weather will destroy us again.

 

30% chance of rain. I don’t mind those odds.

2 minutes ago, Unleash Hell said:

Dogs got rid of him and won a flag 

#omen

I’d still prefer Macca running the defensive coach role over Chaplin. He was a spud of a player and has zero runs on the board as a coach.

It says on the MFC website that Macca is a player development coach but according to the article he also shares with defensive line coach role? Makes it even worse that we have two defensive coaches and yet it’s a complete shambles at the moment.

Maybe Goodwin thinks Macca down there will get the message across to the players but Macca didn’t want to go? (Being optimistic here)

Tom Morris is a Dees fan and hosts that inside Melbourne podcast, but not sure how good his sources are regarding the reason.

8 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

This is reallythe crux of it. You see it regularly - players playing 5-10m off their man or letting loose players wander around. This can happen when you play a zone and mind space rather than pick up players. It's no-one's responsiobility. This is where trust and being well drilled comes into it. Hawthorn and Geelong are good at it. It's taking us way longer than it should and our leaders need to be more active in policing it on field.

The chip kick to the fwd pocket is my personal bugbear. Drives me crazy they allow that.

Spot on. Some of the footage showed Jordan Lewis and he just wasn’t running hard enough. Playing zone defence shouldn’t devoid you of responsibility of chasing an opponent to eliminate that option.

Teams will be available on Monday according to AFL.com.

Unfortunately I can't see us winning this game. Richmond has won the past 12 or 13 games straight at the MCG and they defend it extremely well. With Hogan and Garlett being our main avenues to goal so far this season, I'm struggling to see us kick a big enough score with the likes of Rance and Astbury roaming their defence. Tigers by 5 goals. 

I saw some footage earlier on Fox on the "weekend low down" which has Nick Dal Santo, Ben Dixon among others and one thing they highlighted was the "laziness" that was displayed by some of the players in the middle of the ground. Essentially, as a collective we weren't putting enough pressure on the ball carrier or at shutting down the next "chip kick" option which allowed them to progressively move the ball forward with ease. 

Another interesting point was that since how we are such a mediocre pressure side at the moment, there's not enough pressure on the opposition ball carrier which means they don't "sky it" as much to allow players like Jake Lever to take intercept marks. In other words, if no one is pressuring, the opposition is entering attack with no pressure and can easily execute a good option which makes our defenders more vulnerable. 

20 minutes ago, Older demon said:

The most damning stat was just posted by Gerard Whately on AFL 360. Under Goodwin and his all out attack game plan in the last 25 games we have allowed the opposition to score a run of unanswered goals  (4 or more) in 21 of those games.

Any wonder Roos has stated we are the easiest team to score against. Minimum of 4 unanswered goals and in some cases more. How can you possibly have aspirations for finals if you cannot defend. Goodwin and the coaching staff need to address this and back off on the all out attack. 

That's the side effect of the high forward press. It's a high risk game Goody plays. If the opposition gets past the forward press, the opposition forwards have heaps and heaps of space and run rings around our defenders. Take a look at JoM's soccer goal in the 3rd qtr, it was straight out of the"how to score against Melbourne" playbook. The Tigers' smalls will have a field day with that much space to run into to go past their.

The problem is that the press is way too high. Omac, Lever, Frost should be in the middle of the ground, not near our forward 50 when we have it in there. Hawthorn always had players down back way behind the ball so that when we did get it forward, they had the defenders already there.

The forward 50 entries are misleading as a lot of those are repeat entries and by that stage the forward 50 is so congested it's impossible to properly hit a target or take a contested mark. 

Goodwin just needs to cool the jets on the high forward press. He's placing too much faith on the players keeping it in our forward 50 winning every contest. To put it simply, he just needs to adopt a less aggressive game style. I can only hope that the Hawks game and all the commentary from Paul Roos and co will make him admit that the formation is too aggressive and it needs to change.

4 hours ago, ProDee said:

On a rethink...

Frost isn't up to it and the Tiges only play one tall, so he goes.  Hopefully forever.

Pedersen may play, but I'd rather Weideman.  Tom McDonald would be playing if he was fit and Hogan would benefit from the structure of having another tall.

Hunt is a no brainer against the quick Tiges.

Harmes hasn't come on as expected after a strong summer.  Out.

I like Fritsch and reckon he'll be a very good player, but they may want to get Hannan in.  If so, I can potentially see that swap. 

As was said to me today, Lewis is finished, but they won't drop him.  The thought being that if they did, at 32, he might not get back.  So they won't.

Changes:

IN: Tyson, Hunt, Weideman

OUT: BUGG, Frost, Harmes

 

This is pretty close I think, but surely Melksham can't survive another game. I can't recall the last time a 150 game player was so ineffective for 4 games straight - even JW only survived 3 bad ones in a row last year. Goodwin will drop him. 

Mine are:

In: Tyson, Hunt, Pederson/Weid, Hannan

Out: Bugg, Frost, Harmes, Melksham. 

I normally can't stand anything Robbo says, but he made a good point on AFL360 before... "Jake lever is the second highest paid defender in the AFL (behind Alex Rance)... and he's not even in the top 15 of best defenders in the league".

I really hope he turns into a superstar, but right now it's looking like a really bad deal. 

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

Hawthorn did this repeatedly today to good effect. It bought some of their kicks an extra 10 metres by allowing the kicker to get out on an angle without the man on the mark cutting him off. It also got Gunston a goal early in the fourth quarter.

IMO this should be outlawed by changing the rules: the protected zone should apply to the man on the mark who is otherwise defenceless. But until that happens, why don't we do it? Didn't any of our players see how frequently Hawthorn did it and how it helped them get out the back of our press?

Yep, was mentioned a heap on MMM, too. They used that tactic all day.

36 minutes ago, joeboy said:

Jetta - invisible and irrelevant 

O.McDonald - tried but overwhelmed

Hibberd - continued disappointing season

Vince - steady but slowing

Frost - little to commend

Lewis - a total liability

Gawn - our only winner

Jones - probably broke even

Neal-Bullen - little to commend

Oliver - prolific but ineffective

Melksham - gave us nothing

Hogan - one great quarter

Kent - an impressive game

Bugg - an embarrassing liability

Harmes - slow and ineffective

Lever - continued to disappoint 

Petracca - conditions inhibited performance 

Brayshaw - an impressive return

Fritsch - tried but limited

Garlett - not on field

Wagner - was hardly seen

Salem - never stopped trying

 

Pretty much sums it all up

48 minutes ago, Demons11 said:

I love Hunt but his form over JLT and the first 2 rounds has been very average 

Agreed. He's very poor with ball in hand and I think a few supporters need to look past his only strength which is his pace.

4 hours ago, Jaded said:

Rawlings is no longer our backline coach and our backline absolutely stunk it up yesterday. Coincidence? 

According to Goodwin, it was more of our forwards that caused the defensive issue as they failed at locking it in so we got caught up too much on the rebound. Hence, blame Garlett, Hannan Fritsch, etc for the poor defence. 

3 minutes ago, ProDee said:

You wouldn't know.

Well he wasn't voted by the other coaches as the hardest to coach against. Chris Scott was voted no. 1 and Goody lost again. Not evening up the numbers to make Tuohy accountable to stop the 2 on 1s in the last qtr is as easy as it gets when it comes to tactics. 

Agree with the review on Melksham. His preseason form went completely missing.

Harmes was disappointing for mine, not sure if he'll ever go to another level.

Pedo tried hard all day and was unlucky a few times.

Gawn was probably BoG if he had kicked that. Super game.

Jones worked himself back into it I thought.

Lever had a mare for the first half but his second was much better.

Didn't Goldstein do the exact same thing last year or the year before? Unbelievable from Gawn; I thought he had worked on his set shot routine? That was just a shocker