titan_uranus

St Kilda play unsustainable football. Last year and this, they rely too heavily on flaky players and goals out the back. Have topped up with B-graders from other clubs who looked OK last year but haven't been able to gel together. They are 17th for both points for and points against, and remarkably 18th for quarters won, having only won five quarters for the entire season (i.e. 5 out of 24).

Despite being 6-0 and 2nd on the ladder with a percentage of 150% and wins over three current top 8 sides, I still can't help but be concerned about this game. I should have faith, but we've played so poorly against North for so long, we play Bellerive Oval poorly (assuming the game is there), and there are always games in every season where a good side loses to a bad one. You mean like how many on here say Essendrug, Meth Coke and Carltank?

I'm a touch disappointed too. 78,000 today when both sides were in the bottom 4. 22,000 less last night when both sides were around top 4. Part of that will be the drop off from the rain: I'm confident people who were thinking of going, particularly those who had cashed in a $0 ticket (i.e. members) decided not to go when it rained precisely as they had to make their call. But only a touch disappointed. Today aside, most crowds this year have been below expectations. Whether it's the COVID effect or the AFL's woeful focus on "fan activation" with all the music etc. at games, we're not the only club struggling with attendances.

6,077.

I was really impressed with the umpiring in our Geelong game, where they must have called a record number of free kicks for throws against both sides. I had thought the AFL was onto it. Maybe not. The Dogs won a flag in 2016 throwing it out from tackles. Geelong's succeeded for years doing the same thing.

Staying humble is important. It's so fun right now when we're winning to say it's all justified, but remember that game vs St Kilda in 2017 when we mocked them and then didn't make the finals? So I'm not sure about Pickett pointing to the scoreboard. 6-0 is incredible but it's not a premiership. It's not even qualification for finals, let alone a finals win. However... The aggression on the field is to be commended (so long as it stays within the laws of the game). So I have no issue, at all, with Pickett roughing up Mansell. Richmond were playing dirty all night: Edwards bumped Oliver late and hit him in the throat. A Richmond supporter near me said "next time hit him harder and knock him out". Every time Gawn got back in the hole, whichever Richmond player was coming up essentially made Gawn their primary target and the ball secondary. Their persona is typified by Tom Lynch, who is a top 10 dog of the competition, if not the number one.

Yep. Even since 2018, we've added three years and ~50 games of experience. As we've gotten older and more experienced, we've hopefully finally started learning from our previous mistakes. Early season wins are vital IMO. They validated the hard pre-season work, and they inspire confidence to double down on what you're doing. If we were dropping early games would ANB, Spargo and Pickett still be pressuring at the high levels they are six weeks in?

The AFL's clash jumper policy is a disgraceful farce. We're required to wear our clash jumper in an apparent "clash" with Collingwood, but Essendon (bear in mind they are the away team today) is permitted to wear a predominantly black jumper against Collingwood's predominantly black jumper. It happens all the time: Carlton, Richmond and Essendon are permitted to wear their home jumpers against each other and Collingwood despite all of them clashing. The rules should be transparent and all 18 clubs should be required to follow them.

Don't agree at all with the sentiment that next week's a good time to "experiment". We're bringing Brown in if we think it's a sustainable line up whether it's the Dogs or North Melbourne as the opponent. We're not doing it just because it's North. IMO Brown makes us better and we have to aim to get better. Premierships aren't won in April. Sides are going to put even more time into us now than ever before. We've got a fiendish back half of the year fixture wise. We need to continue to put what we think is our best 22 on the park and try to improve where we can. If that means Brown, then we need to work out how to make the side work with him in it, because right now TMac, Jackson and Fritsch are locked into the 22. So if he comes in, it has to be for one of the players closer to the bottom of the 22: Melksham, Jones, Spargo and Jordon. Can we make it work? I think we can: whether it's Melksham or Jones, I think we can make the 22 work replacing them with Brown.

If you listen to the players, the biggest change has been their mental approach. They weren't selfish in previous years, but they also weren't selfless enough. We now don't rely on our A-graders to bust out an elite performance to drag us over the line. We now rely on structure and role playing. We've always wanted to play a forward half game. We can't do that with a weak backline. We've strengthened that (May, Lever and Tomlinson is infinitely stronger than OMac, Frost and J Smith). But our back half structure overall is strong enough, and we have such belief, that we can be aggressive in the forward half of the ground because we trust our defensive structure to be there for us.

It's the Tasmanian State election on Saturday. Politics may end up being the dominant factor in any decision (i.e. is the government going to make an exception for a football club to enter the State when no on else has been allowed to in the face of state lockdowns?).

Tonight's not the time for the debate, but the question is whether we're getting what we need from Melksham. Another option is to push TMac up the ground (e.g. replacing Jones) and bring Brown into TMac's forward 50 spot. These are good, but tough, issues to have to address.

Great game. One thing I noticed tonight was his positioning at stoppages. He holds his position, doesn't get sucked up into the contest. Offers a release at the back or out the side. He's getting better every week. The marking was better tonight but can still improve. His mobility and aerobic capacity make him a terror of a match up. We've got a special one here.

6 - Salem 5 - Petracca 4 - Lever 3 - TMac 2 - Jackson 1 - ANB

I'd be surprised if we don't have a sore player or two after today. No point carrying injuries into any game this year. If no injuries and a clean bill of health, the only change to consider IMO is bringing in one of Brown or Weid for one of Melksham or Jones.

A couple of stats: We've won 18 of the 24 quarters we've played this year. The Dogs are next on 16. We haven't been behind at any stage of a fourth quarter this year. We've beaten the sides sitting 4th, 6th and 7th on the ladder, including both of last year's Grand Finalists. We've only conceded 1 point more than the Dogs through six games, having played 4th, 6th, 7th whilst they've played North and haven't played anyone higher than 8th on the ladder so far.

Yeah that was epic. They threw everything at us in the first 15 minutes. Most other sides in the comp would have folded. In any other year we probably would have folded. The way we steadied, didn't lose focus, and then turned the game completely around and bullied them for 3.5 quarters was remarkable. Our forward half pressure was immense. They had a stack of inside 50s but they were repeatedly delivering it under our pressure, and with no structure forward of centre because they were sucked up the ground trying to move the ball through our defence. Some will criticise by saying Richmond had two injuries. Reality is we were dominant when they had a full squad. Salem was BOG and deserved the medal. Petracca was great though, Lever gave up that one goal in the fourth but was otherwise fantastic. ANB lifted on last week, TMac started slow but became a force as the game went on. Jackson's getting better every week. Special mention to Hibberd for his incredible tagging job on Dusty and Tomlinson for being the rock that lets Lever and May do what they do. And finally, congrats to Nathan Jones. Played a reasonably good game. Really wish Oliver had passed to him late in the fourth, but he got chaired off after one of our best wins since he started.

Opinion or source-based? Not sure about Harmes getting Jones' spot. We may find that we need to roll TMac or Jackson up the ground to fit B Brown/Weideman into the forward line. Sparrow was the sub and we haven't made anyone the sub in consecutive weeks when they didn't play (Sparrow was the sub vs Geelong as well as Hawthorn, but played 60%-odd after May went down). So you'd therefore think that Sparrow will either get into the 22 or play for Casey this week.

I'm really rapt with how this all sits. Having Gawn, Oliver, Viney, Lever, May, Salem, Langdon, B Brown, Pickett, Rivers and Tomlinson all signed up to at least the end of 2023 is really good work IMO. Now to work on Petracca, Fritsch and Jackson.

Fantastic news. On the back of his form, 5 years is spot on for Salem. Yes, we gave 5 to Harmes and he's subsequently struggled to recapture the form that got him that contract. But that doesn't mean we should avoid long contracts altogether. For core players, and Salem is one of them, long contracts are critical to sustaining success.

If @Yokozuna's mail is good (and IIRC it usually is), big call bringing in neither of Weideman or B Brown. Maybe after his 300th Jones might find himself in the sub role to free up a spot in the 22 for Weid/Brown?

Sunday games by Round 10: Fremantle - 7 Hawthorn - 6 West Coast - 6 Melbourne - 5 North Melbourne - 5 Carlton - 4 Adelaide - 4 Essendon - 4 (one is ANZAC Day) GWS - 4 Geelong - 3 Port Adelaide - 3 Collingwood - 2 (one is ANZAC Day) St Kilda - 2 Bulldogs - 2 Gold Coast - 1 Richmond - 1 Brisbane - 0 Sydney - 0

Yeah at first glance this sucks. We're 5-0 but get given a Saturday twilight game and our fifth(!) Sunday game. St Kilda are rubbish and Geelong play boring football but they get a Friday night game. These are largely the AFL's prior problems though. They had to put a Marvel game on the Friday for Round 9 because there are three that week, and whilst Richmond v GWS would be the better game, that would mean Richmond has four straight Friday nights (because the AFL, in its infinite wisdom, previously gave Richmond consecutive Friday nights in Rounds 7 and 8). At least our Carlton game will be on FTA, which is better than Foxtel. We're also at least on the Saturday in Round 10 which makes it easier for the AFL to give us potentially the Friday night game in Round 11 vs the Dogs (albeit that's an away game unfortunately). The Adelaide game won't be: Saturday twilight, not night, so that will be Foxtel.

Who are you and what have you done with the old @praha? Absolutely no way Tomlinson gets dropped on his current form. He's in great form and playing his role really well. We've worked hard on the Lever-May-Tomlinson combo and it's working. I like Petty but right now he's cover for those three. Fritsch's forward half game this year means he has to play forward, not wing.

100% we lose on Saturday now. (I do love the stat though. When was the last time Melbourne had the longest gap to its most recent loss?)