titan_uranus

I love happy post-win Demonland, a LOT more than post-loss Demonland, but this is classic. We lose, and it's "shuffling deck chairs", terrible depth, wasting draft picks, no future, etc. We win, and our depth is amazing and our bottom 6 incredible. Tomlinson could win a Brownlow and you wouldn't be entirely convinced by him. His first two games this year have exceeded anything for which you have given him credit.

Hunt was the only played who I thought struggled for a period last night but he improved as it went on and his fourth quarter I thought was excellent. Jones and Jetta IMO played their best games since 2018. Sparrow improved on Round 1 and Jordon continued to stay involved whilst laying 9 tackles. Spargo's the best kick inside 50 we have, and he's adding proper defensive pressure to his game. All that is to say this: I'm not sure there will be any change, even if Hibberd and/or Melksham are fit and ready to go.

6 - Oliver 5 - Salem 4 - Petracca 3 - Pickett 2 - Tomlinson 1 - Gawn

A really great performance, I thought. We should have won by 6+ goals given the way in which we dominated the game for all bar 15 minutes in the second quarter. Oliver, Petracca and Salem were all great, but as others have said, there were a number of vital contributions across the ground. Tomlinson was excellent, and with May, Lever and Salem we are forming a really strong back half. I thought Jetta and Jones played their best games since probably 2018. TMac again provided a reliable forward target too. If that wasn't Pickett's "break out game", it will happen soon. He is starting to put it all together and I think the confidence he is gaining is going to help him improve. Coupled with Spargo and ANB, both of whom are showing strong defensive efforts (Spargo in particular has really lifted that part of his game over the off-season it seems), our forward line is now something that actually resembles a unit that works together. Fritsch could be such a damaging forward if he could kick set shots. He's a tough match up with his blend of pace and marking ability, and he's leading to better parts of the ground than he did last year. Viney's return made us immediately better in the middle, but looked like he fatigued hard through the second half. I thought Hunt struggled in the first half but in the fourth quarter in particular I loved the way he put his body on the line repeatedly when needed. I also liked hearing Goodwin talk about how when St Kilda got their run of goals in the second, our senior players were actively discussing what we needed to do to stop it and turn the momentum back, and then actually went out and did it. Sounds ridiculous to say that as a compliment, given it should be obvious, but for us that's a big improvement. Their ball movement was awful: yes, some of their turnovers were unforced, but (without having been at the ground) I assume much of the issue was our defensive set up and forward half pressure limiting the way they could transition. And yes, they were missing a few (their rucks, Crouch, Hannebery and Geary) but it's not like we're at full strength either. We're now 2-0 having knocked off two sides I see as competitors of ours for a finals spot. We've won both games despite inaccuracy in front of goal and clearly having work to do with basic skill errors (last week it was kicking, this week it was ridiculous dropped marks). I'm pretty happy with that.

Which is ridiculous. The sub shouldn’t be credited with a game if they don’t come on. I guess it’s done for CBA match payment reasons but it’s genuinely stupid to say Chandler “played” last week. And it’s worse for those two kids at Hawthorn and North who were debuted as a sub.

That’s right, if no prior then just has to be an attempt. But Blicavs had prior, taking the player on in the tackle. Arguably didn’t matter as that was possibly a throw too.

That is a disgusting end to that match. Absolutely disgusting. That missed free on Blicavs was a gutless mistake from the umpire. But Geelong’s last goal came from a Selwood duck drawing a free, then an iffy 50m penalty, then another iffy free against Ah Chee. If you ever want to see a game destroyed and decided by umpiring, this was it.

FYI, St Kilda get King and Jones back, dropping Bytel and McKenzie.

In: Viney Out: Harmes Emerg: Baker, HIbberd, Melksham, Petty

Anyone else hate the AFL's change to releasing teams at 6.25pm the night prior to the match? I miss the days of Thursday night teams for all.

My concern isn't so much their forward line, it's the other two thirds of the ground. If we don't improve our stoppage/clearance game, we'll concede too many easy clearances and May/Lever will only be able to do so much. Equally, we'll turn it over from our clearances with rushed/hacked kicks and give their half-backs and mids time and space to cut us open on transition. If we are going to win, it will be by denying them easy clearances and avoiding repeat turnovers in our forward half.

Wow, that is some supreme confidence they have over there. I expect them to win but gee, you'd think they'd won the last few premierships the way they talk their own ability up.

No, it is true. Listening to the radio this morning, all SEN was talking about was "last night was so good there were 19 goals in the first half alone!". People love goals. And don't forget, the TV stations love goals and that is fundamental (and understandably given broadcast revenue keeps the game alive). But these rule changes are all about scoring: freeing up the flow to increase scoring opportunities, not just to free up the flow of the game.

Agree. More goals can in some instances be better to watch than fewer goals. But it is not uniform and there are plenty of examples of high scoring games being devoid of skill (e.g Melbourne v Essendon in 2019) or slower games being incredible (Sydney v West Coast GFs). The less a side can defend, the less skill is required to defeat them. So whilst some argue we need to get rid of stoppages and increase scoring to show off more skill, I worry that over time we'll just turn the game into a mundane slingshot.

Quite a few comments querying how we're going to be able to cover St Kilda's pace and small forwards. We didn't have much trouble covering them the last time we played, which was just 7 months ago.

https://fixturedownload.com/sport/aussie-rules

Capacity at this and all games will be increased to 75%. For Marvel, that means 43,500. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/crowd-capacity-lifted-to-75-per-cent-for-round-two-20210323-p57d5c.html

I haven't read this entire thread but here are two comments in response to recent posts: Anyone who thinks Oliver isn't a matchwinner/influential player or that the club will be able to cope without him is absolutely, completely and utterly wrong; Does anyone have any actual source/information to suggest he hasn't re-signed yet because he's lost faith in the club, or similar?

Quite a lot. We didn't dominate time in forward half. We didn't dominate inside 50s. We didn't rely on clearances to generate momentum. We didn't bomb the ball as much as previously. We kicked far more than we handballed. We had a solid defensive half that was reliable. We generated scores from our defensive half, not relying solely on forward half turnovers. We won despite Gawn having a poor game overall. Neither passion nor desperation were lacking yesterday (55 tackles to 49, 15 inside 50 tackles to 7, 49 one percenters to 45) either.

Was a lack of outside run and pace really an issue for us yesterday? I'm not sure it was. I'd argue our skill level was a bigger issue than our outside run. Scrutiny for what? FWIW I thought he was quite good yesterday. He's much more accountable defensively than he used to be, leads repeatedly, created chances and kicked 2 goals. And all that against a side that is geared towards defence before anything else.

There’s something genuinely good about winning despite our woeful stoppage work yesterday. I haven’t seen the stats but I’d suggest we generated a fair few scores from the back half of the ground. For too long Goodwin has tried to make us a forward half only side, and we’ve struggled to turn intercepts into scoring chains. Yesterday we did that. There’s a defensive set up and system there that we were able to rely on when our clearance game was being blown apart yesterday that should, if maintained this year, keep us in good stead.

What injuries? The sub replaced Pearce so no loss of rotations there. Hamling went down with maybe 5 minutes to go. Both sides finished the game with 74 rotations. I don’t think what you’ve said here is true at all.

Fair comment re: Sparrow, but tackling can't be the only thing a player brings to the side, otherwise vandenBerg would be playing. I didn't feel Sparrow added much at all to the game, tackles notwithstanding. Ditto Jones. Harmes might not have been great, but I saw a lot more confidence in him as a mid/forward compared to what I saw last year. I'd be keeping Harmes over Jones or Sparrow.

His last quarter was exciting and he presented well all game. The marks he clunked will hopefully help get his confidence up. I suspect part of his fourth quarter cameo was Fremantle tiring and we being fitter than them. He just looked to be out-running every Docker around him, as did many of our guys. Having said that, he's still raw, wasn't involved enough in the first three quarters, and his goal-kicking was shocking. But if he can build on that performance, his athleticism can make him something really special.

What, so when it's 10 degrees and raining in July people line up to sit outdoors at the G? Today was great weather to enjoy watching your side play in front of you for the first time in 18 months. Plenty of people have genuine reasons they can't go, whether family, work, financial. But our club has a too-large subset of fans who "protest" against the club's performance by not going to games and/or not buying memberships. Those people are the ones who should be ashamed of themselves and shouldn't call themselves "supporters" of the club. You're doing the opposite of "supporting" us if you're withholding valuable membership and/or gate receipt funds by "protesting" against whatever it is you don't like about our on field performances.