titan_uranus

The bit where you said swinging TMac back made us go defensive again. You're suggesting that moving TMac back triggered a change in how we defended. I'm arguing that is complete rubbish. In this post you've said TMac went down back to cover for Salem and did a good job. I agree with that. But that doesn't mean him going back changed how we defended.

Unless he went into the game with chipped cartilege, sounds like a new injury?

This makes no sense. TMac went back as soon as Salem went off injured. There was no magical change from how we were defending before that compared to after. Indeed, TMac was back there in the second quarter when the Dogs piled on their 8 goals.

Good news that it's not an ACL or another sort of long-term injury. Still, albeit with no medical background at all, I'd imagine this is a 6-week injury at a minimum.

How ridiculous. They won three flags in four years. Let's revisit these posts after 2024.

Yeah I'm so over the calls for Smith to play forward. He's clearly a defender now. We've sunk so much time and training into him being a defender, he got into the side late last year as a defender, he played OK last year before injury, he played well in the pre-season in defence, and he's just played arguably his best ever AFL game in the backline. We just won a premiership with a Brown, TMac, Fritsch and Jackson/Gawn forward line, and we have Weideman as depth continuing to kick goals at VFL level. Smith's future at the club is in the backline, and right now he's neck-and-neck with Hibberd, if not in front of him, to be in our first-choice side.

On Channel 7 news last night, in addition to reporting on Salem getting his knee scan, they also mentioned Joel Smith went in for a scan on an injured thumb. Anyone know any more about that?

Totally re: the crowd. I was in the MCC which is always a high MFC proportion but the roar for us was enormous, whereas the Dogs' noise really only came from their cheer squad in the Ponsford. I'm sure the low(er) crowd was due to Dogs supporters not turning up. The 10 day break is nice but there's not a huge difference between 7 and 10 days, and at any rate it's Round 1 so we could probably deal with a shorter break better now than in Round 22, for example.

If Morris has been spreading rumours or revealing personal information about Dogs players, I'd understand the motivation for Beveridge's anger. But I reckon that would have come to light today, wouldn't it? With all the focus on him, and with the leaked audio getting out today straight away, I reckon if Morris had been digging around Dogs players we'd know by now. Not that it would surprise me if that was ultimately the case. Morris is a [censored].

I reckon let's reserve judgment until next week. Carlton plays the Dogs at Marvel. Richmond plays GWS at the G. Very easy to read a lot into Round 1. I'm not convinced Richmond showed up tonight. Let's see if Carlton reproduces that same form vs the Dogs. They do have a good draw this year though, with return games against Richmond, Fremantle, Adelaide, GWS and Collingwood (just the one 2021 finalist in that crop) and 16 out of their 22 games at either Marvel or the MCG.

I know that as it was our home game we want last night to have been a commercial success all round, but I honestly hope the ratings were soft and Channel 7 and the AFL realise Wednesday night games are a [censored] idea. We were robbed of at least 5,000-10,000 people who maybe could have gone on a Thursday night and another 5,000-10,000 who would have gone on a Friday night.

I can take most of what I need to know about this game from these stats: Richmond had 55 fewer possessions than Carlton but also had 10 fewer tackles, and only laid 32 tackles for the game. Non-existent pressure from Richmond. Carlton is clearly a better side than last year; mentally last year 20 down at the start of the 4th quarter they'd most likely have gone to water. But I don't think Richmond showed up tonight. Whether or not that's because they're too old and cooked for 2022 remains to be seen.

If you think TMac lost some form, the solution isn't necessarily to ditch the second tall forward altogether. It might be to swap him for Weideman, in that example. We are first and foremost a team of structure. We had no choice but to flip TMac back last night due to Salem's injury but we know Goodwin will want to set the team up the way we train to help with our predictability in moving the ball. The bolded argument is precisely the one I'm not convinced of long term - we also showed last year that we can apply elite defensive pressure and score heavily with Brown, TMac and Gawn/Jackson, so it cuts both ways.

Platforms 9 & 10 at Richmond station (lines to Belgrave, Lilydale, Alamein and Glen Waverley) were so full after the game people couldn't actually get onto the platform. The trains all showed up at once, on one platform, whilst the other platform was empty. Metro has always struggled with clearing passengers after big football games. It shouldn't be as hard as it seems to be for them.

I thought he was probably our least impactful player. To me he fumbled every time he was in a position to take possession and didn't really demonstrate strong foot or hand skills. He does, though, have a good tank and leg speed, and he worked hard up and down the ground, which we know Goodwin will demand of a player in his role. Having said all that, in his post-match interview with the club he reminded us all that the second-tier players have had a really torrid time over the last two COVID years. Toby played twice in 2020 but didn't get a senior game in 2021. With the disruption to the VFL in that time, he said he'd only had 9 competitive games in those two years. It's so hard for him, and others like him, to establish themselves. I have no problem with him being given more time whilst we have injured best 22 players out, and I'll always have time for hard working players who need to bolster their skills (rather than the other way around), but IMO the jury remains out right now.

Doesn't look like there's a huge amount of defensive pressure being applied by either side in this game tonight. Halfway through the third quarter, the tackle count is Carlton 22, Richmond 15. That puts the sides on track for something like 35-25 for the game. Last night the final tackle tally was Melbourne 46, Dogs 53. Both sides seem to walk the ball from full back to half forward upon which they either score or turn it over.

Agree. Disagree (see above). If Beveridge had a crack at Morris because Morris is a sexist, homophobic, racist [censored], then unloading on him in a nationally televised press conference was not the way to go about it. But with Beveridge's track record of verbally abusing media pundits who say things he doesn't like about his own team, it's highly likely his attack was solely in relation to the reporting of Hunter being dropped. Which has zero justification, no matter what you think about Morris. Either way, Beveridge's actions were pitiful. Morris remains a [censored].

This happened last year. We went 6-0 with just TMac, Fritsch and Gawn/Jackson. Then we started to struggle to score midway through the season and settled once we added Brown. If we take TMac out of the forward line, we are too short. We won the flag last year on the back of elite pressure and high scoring football. We did it with Brown and TMac. It's the right number of tall forwards.

This x 1000. You want to see actual muck raking gutter journalism? How about Mick Warner dredging up stuff that happened 2 years ago which has been resolved entirely, put behind us, and faded into complete irrelevance by the time he decided to write about it? I have to say, whilst I believe Beveridge's rant last night was wholly unjustifiable, I generally regard Morris as a [censored] and the grabs back my view up. Whilst he was right in his reporting on the Hunter issue and did not deserve Beveridge's onslaught last night, that doesn't mean he can continue to be a [censored].

I have to say, even I agree re: Smith, and I suspect after every previous game Smith has played I've thought about calling for him to be dropped.

He has form, Beveridge. He may be a great motivator of his players and a good tactical coach, but he seems to have an anger management issue and I hope he cops it far and wide. Morris did not a single thing wrong. It's not "gutter journalism" or "muck raking" for a journalist to report on team selection before teams are announced. Jon Ralph and Riley Beveridge have both reported on team selection today at other clubs whose teams are yet to be announced. Not only that, but we know Morris' mail was correct. It just reeks of someone who cannot contain his anger.

6 - Petracca 5 - Oliver 4 - ANB 3 - Brown 2 - Langdon 1 - Brayshaw

A few interesting decisions to make. If Lever's fit, does he Tomlinson's spot? If so, does TMac stay in the backline? Or does Lever come back, take TMac's spot, sending TMac back to the forward line? Alternatively, if Lever's not fit, do we leave TMac in the backline? If so, do we bring in Weideman as a second tall forward (when Brown was off the ground last night we had a real dearth of marking options forward of centre. Personally I think 2021 showed us that we need two tall forwards plus Gawn/Jackson, not one, and that we can make enough running power around them without needing to swap a tall out for a small. So, if TMac stays back, I'd be bringing Weideman in). Really? I saw nothing from Bedford last night to suggest this, and IMO he's the first one out if/when we start getting the missing premiership defenders back. Agree with the reasoning, but stats-wise his pressure acts last night were rather low. He had 12. Was our 12th-most (i.e. mid-table). ANB had our most with 29. Even Bedford, the sub, had 13. In other words, Pickett can do more from a pressure perspective IMO.

A very impressive win on a number of fronts. They kicked 8 goals in something like 15 minutes. For the rest of the game they kicked 3 goals. We held them to just 16 scoring shots despite having five first choice defenders out, including losing Salem mid-game which forced TMac to be thrown into defence despite not training there for 3 years. To do that against a side that is likely in 2022 to be a high scoring side is a testament to our structure and discipline. The 8-goal run highlighted, though, that with this weakened backline in particular we are going to concede goals if our midfield is not on song. For much of that run Petracca was in the forward line. We just couldn't get our hands on the ball. In saying that, if we'd kicked straighter at the start the game could have been over before the Dogs got going. Trac's game was phenomenal; no coincidence at all that when he was involved we were on top and when he wasn't involved we struggled more. Oliver was super but I thought ANB played one of his best ever games, his composure and field kicking are so much better now (pity he shanked his shot on goal late). Brown appears to me to be more agile/mobile than last year which only serves to make him even more of a headache for opposition defenders. Should have kicked 5 but his presence, particularly noting TMac wasn't playing forward, was huge for us. I ought to mention Joel Smith too. IMO, his best ever game. When the injured players start to get fit, the pressure will come on Bedford, Jordon and Sparrow, all of whom struggled last night IMO. Some interesting new things I saw last night: ANB took more centre bounces than I think he did in 2021, and did anyone else notice that late in the fourth quarter we put Fritsch on a wing for the centre bounces for him to line up at the back of the square and then become a loose defender? I wonder what the thinking was there - maybe we're looking at options if Lever continues to miss games? Or just some further positional flexibility? I must say I'm not a fan of Fritsch as a defender so I don't necessarily think it's a great idea but I'm interested in it all the same.

When the Dogs were on top in the GF, they weren't just dominating at stoppages. They were moving the ball too easily from the back half to their forward half. Remember that Caleb Daniel had something like 24 touches in the first half. We kept Naughton quiet in all three games last year, but he's always a threat and with a weakened backline there's always a risk that someone clunks a few marks and it could be him. I think too many here are seriously underrating the Dogs because of the GF blowout. Yet, we were incredible, but we can't expect to play like that every week, and for the 1.5 quarters leading up to the domination the Dogs were on top of us.