titan_uranus

Just now, Fat Tony said:

Fritch and Melksham really play as small key position players.

I don't think this line up puts enough emphasis on applying pressure.

Who else could we play to bring additional pressure?

We've got Chandler and Henderson. Pickett's unavailable. Sharp needs to lift, but Spargo and Laurie both lack the pace required to provide sustained forward half pressure and neither has struck me as capable of producing it at AFL level for years (or in Laurie's case, at all).

2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Agree with all you points aside from Salem. He's been fine to start the season.

Petty's not a number 1 defender but was forced to play on Larkey and got beaten. With T Mac still in the side I'd consider Petty up forward due to he being one of the better contested marks in the side. And given our forward line is atrocious at the moment, we need to continually explore various options.

Yes, JVR should be on notice but who else do we have? He's end to the 2024 season went under the radar (in a bad not good way) and he's followed that up with an extremely poor start to 2025. As in one of our worst to have played both games.

Have you already forgotten how poor Petty was last year in the forward line?

His Round 1 game was better than pretty much anything he produced as a forward last year.

One poor game, on an AA calibre key forward when our midfield was being slaughtered and they were walking out the front of stoppage, is no basis at all to say Petty should be coming out of the backline.

And your hyperbole on JVR is insane.

1 hour ago, SPC said:

Does it count going backwards?

From what I recall, it factors direction in (I recall him saying something about it taking into account kicks which go sideways).

23 minutes ago, Lucifers Hero said:

Dees WILL WIN by 17 points!

• Our home ground

• Suns not 'match fit' - no games played this season; the round 1 training/practice game vs WCE doesn't count.

• Backs-to-the-wall demons will come out fighting like rnd 23, 2024

Stage set for a mighty come back by our beloved demons!

I do think there is something in Gold Coast’s on/off start to the year.

One game, then straight into a bye, doesn’t sound like ideal match fitness prep to me.

In June I generally am wary of playing a side coming off a bye, but this week it should work in our favour, albeit we do have a 6-day break.

This morning on radio Hoyne from Champion Data debuted a new “speed of ball movement” stat, an attempt to measure how fast sides move from D50 to forward 50.

100 is considered average pace. He said so far this year we are over 100 for the first time since the flag.

13 minutes ago, Demon Jack said:

Apparently out with concussion

And that’s why I usually don’t focus on these things…

1 minute ago, Demon Jack said:

Spargo listed as injured on the AFL site

Absolute calamity if we've rushed him back from injury again after last year.

Have to agree with this. I’m not one for focusing on this stuff too much but for it to happen twice in a row with Spargo is…not good

1 minute ago, whatwhat say what said:

so we've gone from a trio of tall forwards in jvr / jefferson / turner to...one?

Well it’d be two with AJ. But maybe TMac forward? Otherwise we have four tall defenders?

In: May, Johnson, Billings, Melksham, Langford

Out: Jeffo, Spargo (both injured), Woey, Turner, Howes (all dropped)

24 minutes ago, Ghostwriter said:

So the notes aren’t as detailed as they usually are and that’s because she ended up talking to Salo’s parents for quite some time. For those who don’t know, Mr and Mrs Salo are absolutely lovely people. They’re held in the highest esteem by the other players’ parents, so it’s no surprise that Salo is the locker room favourite.

Anyways…

-Leb jogging but limping. 

44 8 4 - rehab
HL19  in red
Sharp in grey
In red…..
5 42 14 1 11 13 2 7 11 3 9 19 17 32 37 35 20 24 31

Ed wearing #9 jumper 

If this is any indication, Langford, Johnson and Billings will be in and Sharp will be one of the two (other than Jeffo) who is making way.

2 minutes ago, BDA said:

I don’t love my colleagues, don’t want to love them and don’t need to love them to do my job properly.

i don’t dislike any of my colleagues, i actually quite like some of them but talking of love in a work environment situation is just cringe

Ah yes, because all work environments are the same.

4 hours ago, jnrmac said:

1. I do

2. No they're not

3. It should at least be multiple Grand Finals like our plan was set up to do. We haven't won a final in Melbourne since 2018...We in fact have lost every once since 2018. Knocked in straight sets two years running. 

Feel free to relive the glory of 2021. It was great. But we didn't get to see it live and we have flubbed every final since. 

BS about an even competition is just that.

1. Well then you can say “if we only win one flag I’ll consider it a failure”.

2. Yes they are. The competition in 2000 was so different to what it is now. The evenness through the ladder right now is unprecedented (we won 11 games last year and finished 14th, for example). The gap between the best and the rest is smaller than it ever has been. It’s “BS” just as much as the assertion that multiple flags was the requirement.

3. Multiple flags is dominance. The sides who’ve done it recently will go down in history for their efforts. But that’s my point - instead of viewing them as the benchmark we were supposed to meet, they should be viewed as the sides who exceed the norm.

And your last bit is I think the underlying issue. I think you and the others who agree with you are just frustrated that our flag came in 2021. The benchmark isn’t a second flag, you just want to replicate it in a normal Melbourne year. It reads like you’re criticising me for “reliving” 2021, as if it’s a crime to reflect positively on it. 

Just now, jnrmac said:

If we only get one flag from this era it will be seen as a fail

Yes he broke through for our first flag win (and will always be lauded for that) but like Kevin Sheedy in 2000, it is universally acknowledged that the Bombers wasted a stand out team.

Speak for yourself. 

The competition has never been more even. Comparisons to Essendon from 2000 are misguided. 

The bar has never been, nor should be, multiple flags. 

6 hours ago, bing181 said:

"Melbourne mercurial forward Bayley Fritsch has been named as one to watch throughout 2025 as his future at the Demons has been thrown up in the air."

https://www.zerohanger.com/rivals-tipped-to-pursue-clinical-finisher-159950/

This is just an article quoting the Tradies podcast. Remains the same “source”, McClure.

34 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

It’s not that we don’t have depth, it’s just that a teams depth is always tested when you can’t select the players of the calibre of May, Pickett, McVee, Windsor, Melksham and now Lever. Throw in AMW who looked a lock for round 1 and guys like Jefferson and McAdam and that’s a lot to cover. That’s potentially 7-8 of the preseason best 23. No team covers that well especially when trying to bed down a new system. We desperately need some continuity.

It’s both.

I’m with you on the injury impact. 13 players unavailable is making things tough. 

But we also have to acknowledge that the likes of Spargo, Laurie, Woewodin and Billings are all a bit “samesy”, on a background of Sparrow plateauing, Howes not improving, and Sestan, Adams and Verrall all queries as to when/whether they will debut. 

27 minutes ago, poita said:

Is Marty Hore made of paper? What a total waste of a list spot.

Why do you even bother supporting this club? Everything is a disaster to you. 

He fractured his hand (freak/acute incident) then has a calf strain without (AFAIK) a history of calf issues. It’s disappointing but not really that big of an issue.

There are two separate issues here.

The modern AFL media is all about big opinions, big headlines, big stories, regardless of whether there is a basis for them. We have daily podcasts, multiple opinion shows a night, radio running 15 hours a day of AFL content, and websites clamouring for discussion in the comments. 

But @rpfc’s earlier post is also correct. @Redleg is a classic example of a Demonland poster who thinks the AFL world is out to get us. They are not, at least no more than any other club. We bring it upon ourselves. We have a coach who mis-speaks in the media, senior players who flirted with leaving last year, a disastrous president interview, a CEO who shopped a player around against his will, and a fan base which picks and chooses when to go to games.

I hate the “less talk, more action” trope that gets rolled out over the pre-season, because there is no ability to act over the pre-season, but the media landscape requires that we talk. But now, in season, it’s valid. It’s time we stop talking about “healing”, “caring” for one another, and being on a “journey”, and we start demonstrating that we’re doing that (that doesn’t mean we have to win every week, but it does mean we don’t produce that fourth quarter from Sunday again).

On radio tonight Daniel Hoyne said we’re bottom 2 for movement of the ball, with Carlton (not sure what the actual measurement or data is here but it’s also hardly surprising).

He also said we were -11 at winning contests in our D50, our worst result in 10 years and therefore under Goodwin, and conceded scores from 56% of inside 50s, our second worst result in 6 years. The forward half might be an ongoing work in progress but you’d like to think we see an immediate response in our back half this weekend. 

1 hour ago, Greg Schneider said:

Up for grabs end of year according to McClure on ‘Tradies’ podcast, make of it what you will, does seem disinterested and not reaching his potential in this side 

That came after he spent 10 minutes explaining why other clubs might be interested in Fritsch if we miss the 8. Not because he’s disinterested or wants out. Just that if we struggle this year, other clubs might be interested given his form slump and lowered value from his peak in 2021-23.

It’s hardly a reach, is it. And it will be forgotten about if it never eventuates because it’s [censored] March.

Players usually deserve more than one game to establish themselves, but I fear I’ve seen this story before. When you’re as slow as Spargo is, at his height, he has to have elite work ethic to spread and cover the ground, to enable him to get the ball. If he can’t cover the ground, there’s no point playing him.

5 hours ago, The Taciturn Demon said:

4. It all comes down to injuries. 

I'd love Windsor, May and McVee in the team (and Pickett makes a huge difference) but if you can't cover three or four best 22 players, you have a major problem with depth. North belted us without Logue, Wardlaw and Archer. Brisbane are winning without Coleman, Cameron, Lohmann, Doedee and McCarthy. St Kilda beat Geelong without King, Owens, Howard, Butler and Phillipou. The Dogs are more than competitive without Bont, Treloar, Weightman, Johannisen and Jones. Hawthorn haven't had Mitch Lewis since the end of the last ice age. They're making do without Calsher Dear. 

Injuries make it tough, but unless half your best 22 is out, that can't be an excuse for ten goal losses.  

I agree and disagree with this bit in equal portions, if that’s even possible. 

I agree, for example, that it’s not all just down to injuries. I also agree that good sides cover for injured players, and that our list depth remains poor. 

But I think there’s more to it than your analysis here. Yes, Brisbane and Hawthorn are winning despite injuries, but the key difference IMO is that they each have 6 players in total on their injury lists, whilst we have 13. So we’re missing 4 of our best 10-12 players, but we’re also missing another 4-5 who would be our next rung called up. And saying that injuries don’t lead to a 10 goal loss is silly - they clearly can. Missing your best players can lead to inconsistency, as evidenced by St Kilda going from inept in Round 1 to, well, not inept in Round 2 (they got Owens and Stocker back, by the way). 

https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/1740330/injury-report-trio-of-demons-to-test

Culley, Tholstrup and Kentfield all progress by a week, but McVee stuck at 2-3 weeks still, sadly

15 hours ago, WERRIDEE said:

Leppitsch started as a forward but I don't know who Davis is. My honest opinion on coaches is most of them aren't worth a pinch of salt. It's the players, but you can't sack 18 players for woeful performances like the one against Norf but you can sack the one coach. Saying that Mitchell has got Hawthorn performing I don't think they have a better list than us but they are playing a whole lot better than us. I'm not saying Goodwin is a bad coach I'm saying coaches have time limits and he has got the best out of us he won a premiership, but like Clarkson and Longmire he can no longer get the best out of us. Change is inevitable I just hope we don't hold on to him and let slip a perfect candidate in Longmire. 

The why the [censored] did you start this embarrassment of a thread?

3 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

didn't we win 15 in a row there at one point?

We went 13-4 at Marvel from 2017-2023. 0-2 since.

6 minutes ago, GS_1905 said:

An elite kick he was never. Bowey is and always has been bottom 6. The sooner people realise that the better. Has he ever had a 20+!disposal game ? 100+ SC points? HB is the position for fantasy point galore and he has not even come close. He is holding that place for Windsor & McVee & Lindsay. After that he’ll be VFL bound or at another club. 

Of all the stats to run with this week, you picked this one...