titan_uranus

Johannisen, Richards and Cordy were all dropped. Fit, but didn't make the 26. That's two best 22 and a fringe player missing. Not comparable at all. And as to their "depth", they have midfield depth like no other side in the league but they didn't look amazing when we went inside 50, so they didn't really have good cover for Wood.

Ah yes, the old "causation vs correlation" conundrum. Frost and Oscar were not the reason we made, or won, finals in 2018. Indeed, it is fairly arguable that they were one of our biggest weaknesses, if not our biggest, and with improvement on them we may have gone further in 2018. May and Lever are also not the reason we've failed to make finals since 2018. And indeed, as I believe you yourself even acknowledged, they were our two best players on the weekend.

Can now add Daw and D Smith to the rookie list. Three players to focus on this year: Oliver, Salem, Weideman (in that order). Very big years for Baker, Bedford, Lockhart, ANB, J Smith and vandenBerg. There are opportunities for each one to get into the 22 early in the season and take big steps towards a 2022 contract. But my expectations are not high for any of them except, maybe, ANB.

https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/876396/daw-and-smith-earn-list-spots Daw and Smith get rookie spots. Farmer and Declase don't.

https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/876396/daw-and-smith-earn-list-spots

6 - May 5 - Lever Daylight 4 - Fritsch 3 - Gawn 2 - ANB 1 - Langdon

It's very easy to react negatively to that performance. But it's a pre-season match in which we were missing almost our entire first choice midfield. Meanwhile the Dogs' overwhelming strength is their midfield. They bat deeper through there than any other side bar none. There is literally no worse side to be depleted in the middle against than the Dogs. So when we're running AVB, Sparrow and Jordon at centre bounces, it's no wonder that Macrae, Bontempelli and Liberatore are winning the clearances. Almost everything else fell apart because of our inability to compete through the middle. It's hard to judge the forwards because the midfield performance was so poor. TMac didn't look good at all though and I don't see a future in Bedford at all. May and Lever were comfortably our best two. With a bit more support down there from Salem and Hibberd, hopefully we can convert their intercept play into some more attacking ball movement. The way we tried to move the ball today was not good.

Lost me when he got to this bit: "The game style will shift to one that is predicated on forward-half turnovers. While this is hardly original, it represents a gamble for Goodwin, given that Melbourne does not have the kind of forward riches of Richmond, Geelong or West Coast. By seeking to play a “front half” game, those Demon mids will be more aggressive in their positioning, pushing up higher and affording their improved defence a little less protection. So, Steven May and Jake Lever must hold their own in more one-on-one contests." Has he not watched a Melbourne game in the Goodwin era? We've been a side predicated on forward-half turnovers for four seasons now.

The MFCSS is strong with this one...

Not sure about Pickett. Goodwin doesn't say he's going to play Round 1, only that he hopes he'll be "available", and at any rate I don't think he's certain about that. I'm surprised at Brayshaw's progress but not by Viney's, as I've come to expect slowness when dealing with Viney and his feet (pun intended). We won't see Viney in Round 1, I doubt we'll see Pickett, and Brayshaw is maybe 50/50%. What can be said about all this, though, is that this has not been an ideal pre-season. We'll have to see how it impacts our performance, if at all.

McLachlan's terrible, just terrible. Brayshaw is actually OK when he just focuses on calling the game, but he drifts off into bufoonery and "bloke-ness" too much (it's ingrained in him from his Triple M work). I can't stand Basil, but that's in part due to some of his non-AFL-related behaviour. If Adam Papalia from Fox was available to switch over, I'd be happy to hear more of him.

The website says "another three seasons" though? Anyway, I look forward to another 3-4 years of Lever being criticised, sometimes fairly, often not.

Agree, the timing makes little sense to me. I can't see Declase being an alternative to Daw and I can't see how Nietschke going down motivated us to go look at Declase. I suppose could be a retrospective admission that our list was unbalanced and the Nietschke/Hore injuries are giving us the chance to re-balance it?

You know, at some point you are going to have to say that a decision the club makes is a good one, just to give your unending, unyielding, and often unfair criticism of the club's decision-making some meaning.

Be careful what you wish for. Yes, Bruce was annoying. The post that did the rounds last year on the proportion of a game he spent saying rhetorical questions was gold. But if Channel 7's idea of a replacement is Hamish McLachlan or James Brayshaw, we're in for a worse combo than we have with Bruce. Jason Bennett and Nigel Carmody are the future, but I suspect there's next to no chance of them getting Friday night games.

The debate should start and end in the same place: Essendon should [censored] off. They made their bed when they moved to Marvel and signed apparently a 25-year deal to do so, they can lie in it. If the AFL is going to allow the request, the only fair thing to do is to play a double-header that day without touching our game (or at absolute worst, bring our game forward to 1.10pm to allow a bit more time between the two). Moving us to Marvel, or shifting our game to Sunday, or swapping Essendon-North with a Sunday game, creates unfairness for everyone else, as a result of a problem of Essendon's and the AFL's doing.

Fair point on Jones re: his ability to find the ball. His natural CP-winning traits help him in forward line scraps, and I think he's generally a good reader of the play. No issues on his workrate, either, even if he's not a ANB-level runner. But I'm not sure whether that role is better suited by someone who gets it a lot but is prone to making errors, or someone who may not get as much of it but will impact more (e.g. Pickett, Spargo).

Sad news. Have many/any players made it back from three ACLs like this? Morabito, maybe? You'd have to think the odds aren't great. Hopefully the club looks after him through 2021 and maybe considers giving him another shot in the 2021/22 off-season, if there is a spot available.

What frustrates me about the whole "find a home" thing is that the facilities and location already exist, they're just occupied by a side who shouldn't be there. Maybe we should spend our money redeveloping Victoria Park, so that Collingwood can get out of the "Holden Centre".

Not close? So there's Flower, Barassi, Stynes, Lyon...anyone else before Gawn gets a mention? He's a 4 x AA, 2 x BnF, 1 x AFLCA MVP, captain and someone so likeable and marketable he brings people to the ground and sponsorship in the door. But he's "not even close"?

And as to the season generally, you'd expect WA will keep the same rules in place until vaccination is widespread. That's not just political and pre-election, it's also largely because WA is not equipped to deal with an outbreak of any sort. Hence the 5-day lockdown after 1 case. They can't afford it to get out, so they can't afford anything other than strict border control. Either WA makes an exception for the two AFL clubs, or they won't be flying in/out of WA each week (i.e. like last year they'll have to do blocks of games in WA and blocks on the road).

As to the impact of Round 1, they're not moving our game. For one, the MCG is our home ground and for so long as it's available, we deserve the right to play there. For another, it's Fremantle's only game at the MCG all year. Again, so long as it's available, and so long as the AFL's plan is to have the GF at the MCG, Fremantle deserves to play there.

Mate, next page over is this one: https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/covid-communications/covid-19-coronavirus-controlled-interstate-border#lr Victoria is a "low risk" state, which means 14-day quarantine period still applies. To move to "very low risk" you need 28 days with no community transmission.

I'm yet to watch the full replay but at this stage my interest lies more in how we set up and tried to defend and attack than the result (which of course is pleasing). Seeing TMac show some form is mightily encouraging. I like the idea of Gawn dropping forward rather than back, but we're going to find it harder to do that in games where May and Lever aren't able to dominate, or the opposition is able to work through our zone better.

Has this been confirmed by the club?