titan_uranus

I'm no scientist, and I'm guessing neither are you, but maybe there's a different impact on players' bodies to playing a match of AFL, a (highly) contact sport with a large field, than playing soccer?

I am reliably informed that Brayshaw and Harmes will miss this game due to injury.

You're not a fan of either of them? Hore is a far better defender than OMac and Smith. The kicking is a problem but not as bad as you're suggesting.

I'm not sure the weather exacerbated our poor kicking. But I am sure it exacerbated our poor decision making. Whether it's on the coaches for failing to make sure we knew what we were doing going into the game, or on the players for their ineptitude, we were just mindlessly kicking it long to hope the wind did the job for us.

The fact we flew in so late is almost certainly on the AFL. We were in Alice Springs with St Kilda. St Kilda needed to return to the Queensland hub. So we flew with them. Fremantle was in the hub and needed to fly to Cairns. So we flew with them. Had we flown directly from Alice Springs to Cairns, that's an extra flight the AFL had to arrange (St Kilda still had to fly back to Queensland and then Fremantle still had to fly to Cairns). Sydney was in Adelaide and had to get into Queensland somehow, and no one else was flying from Adelaide to Queensland, so they were able to just fly them to Cairns without having to worry about anything else. I'm not sure, but I'm relatively confident these decisions weren't made by us.

How many threads does olisik need to start after a loss? To answer the OP, no, we didn't get it wrong.

The suggestion isn't that Bennell needs to become a CP/clearance-winning bull. It's that he needs to be capable of, and willing to, defend. He has to chase and tackle when the opposition has the ball. We saw yesterday that when forward half players don't do that (e.g. Melksham and Fritsch), we look terrible and we struggle to score.

But didn't we get ridiculed after the Port loss? Didn't we learn a lesson then?

Not an excuse, possibly not even a relevant factor, but something to note: Tonight was our fifth consecutive game at a different venue. On 5 August we were in Adelaide. We played two games in four days, then flew back to Queensland to play in Brisbane, then the Gold Coast, then did a day trip to Alice Springs, then five days later flew up to Cairns. It's been a difficult run. No consistency. Lots of flying/driving around. Again. I'm not suggesting this is a nice convenient way to explain our performance tonight. But it's something to bear in mind. Particularly if we play well on Sunday vs Fremantle, despite the four-day break (maybe getting to just stay still for a bit and get used to a venue will help).

If we get to 10 we might pass Collingwood (who will need to beat either Port or Brisbane to get to 10) or St Kilda (who will need to beat either West Coast or GWS). 10 should get us finals. 9 almost certainly won't.

Look, I'd much rather Demonland have positive threads on our players, rather than it continually be clogged up with threads started by Olisik or Elegt potting everyone under the sun. But OMac is bad. Really bad. Making the same mistakes he's always made, showing no improvement. Fingers crossed Petty and/or Hore are fit and ready to go next year.

6 - Langdon 5 - Gawn 4 - Tomlinson If I have to go further: 3 - Oliver 2 - May 1 - Brayshaw?!?! Can't give a vote to Petracca - did he hit a target all night?

Langdon - deserves a mention Gawn - was also OK That's about it.

Of course they were - look at the three who posted before you. He was given a crack at a midfield/forward role and he immediately looked better than he has for weeks.

Certainly can't argue that the forwards tonight were operating at a level of intensity that Bennell can't produce. I still think Bennell needs to improve that part of his game but I'm more than happy to let him have a crack instead of watching Melksham fail again.

It's not that subjective. It's not fair on Goodwin to suggest last week was some fluke driven by May and Petracca. Our team set up, zone and ball movement were all indicative of a plan that came together to stifle St Kilda's ball movement. It worked. He coached very well last week. Tonight was a return to normality though. Sydney had a plan for us, whatever plan we had didn't work, and Goodwin was powerless to change it mid-game. Couple that with his inability to ensure we were ready to go at the first bounce and you get classic Goodwin.

Agree. He's done. He's been done for weeks but the two left foot kicks tonight were confirmation to anyone who needed it. It's sad. He deserves to be applauded and remembered for the effort he put in over 15 years. But he shouldn't be playing and we need to make that call and move on.

The two absolute non-negotiables IMO are that OMac and Jones go out. If Jones isn't injured, he gets dropped. Neither of them should play next week and if either does, something is even more wrong than I want to believe. Smith seems to be the opposite of Lever. Lever plays well for two months but gets criticised by a select group weekly. Smith is hopeless but continues to get defended by a select group. Personally, I thought the entire backline was too focused on Papley and let the rest get off the hook. I thought Smith was too loose. Papley could have kicked a few on him but didn't, which I put down more to luck than Smith. Smith also had just 4 disposals, took zero marks and laid two tackles, so he wasn't giving us anything else. I wouldn't hesitate at all to drop him. Failed experiment, IMO. Then there's the forward line. I'd absolutely keep Weideman in unless he needs to be rested. He's kicked multiple goals every game until today. He has credits and doesn't get chopped after one bad game. Fritsch has some credits, but fewer. The same cannot be said for Melksham, ANB or Spargo. Melksham should have been dropped multiple times this year. We cannot carry him and Fritsch. Both too lazy, both too selfish, neither defend, both go missing, neither learn from previous mistakes (Fritsch with poor leads and missed set shots, Melksham with ill-discipline). I'd get Pickett straight back, I'd play Harmes down there rotating forward (he looked significantly better late in the game when he was forward/midfield), I'd give Bedford a game, and I'd drop at least two of Melksham, ANB, Spargo and Fritsch to make that happen. Brown is mediocre but TMac's not in any better form. Not sure which option is worse. At least Brown's set shots are OK. The midfield needs to lift. We have to ask questions about Viney's medium/long term future but for now, get him rotating forward more and make sure we get a better balance of minutes through the middle.

Another disgraceful performance. It keeps happening. The players aren’t willing or capable of making the necessary mental changes to play consistent football week to week. And Goodwin is repeatedly failing to get them going. I agree with all those referring to the opening bounce. You could tell from the very start we were flat. Inexcusable. It’s time to accept a few realities about our list, realities many of us already knew. Oscar McDonald is not good enough and will never be good enough. He has had enough chances. He is an utter liability with the ball in hand and his defensive work has, somehow, regressed this year. He is a complete disaster, so much so that Goodwin threw him forward to get him out of the backline, but he was so bad there he then had to swap him with May. Just terrible. IMO, that should be the last game he plays for this club. Same goes with Jones. It was bad enough that he turned it over with a left foot shocker, but for him to then follow that up minutes later with a rinse and repeat left foot shocker is all you need to know about him. He is done. He shouldn’t be playing. It’s sad, we should honour his achievements, but he is a wreck out there. Is it a coincidence that when we brought Smith back our defensive set up fell to pieces? I’m not sure. But he’s not a footballer. Melksham should have been dropped 5 times this year. He is lazy, selfish and pathetic defensively. So is Fritsch. I don’t think we can play both. I thought Langdon was our clear best all day. His missed goal was deflating and he clearly has a goalkicking issue, but at least he can hold his head up as an example of someone who played their role to the required standard. Gawn’s marking was great and I actually thought his tapwork was fine. The issue in the middle was the mids falling to pieces: fumbling, quick fire handballs to no one, poor decisions, lazy kicks. Harmes looked lively in the fourth when given the chance to play mid/forward. Can we accept now he’s not a defender? Just like 2016 and 2017, they get our hopes up and then fail. I don’t know how many more times we can have someone bake us in the media, or someone say “that will burn in our guts”. It’s a pattern and maybe we need a reset of some sort to break it.

I've been watching. Every game. You would know that if you showed up after a win. But you don't. Lever's 6th in the Demonland POTY votes by the way, so I'm clearly not the only one. And Wagner played well last week. Deserved his game this week.

No doubt Goodwin has to cop responsibility for us being flat from the first bounce for the 10293th time in his coaching career. But we cannot absolve the players. Half-hearted tackles, no defensive running, hollywood handballs, dropped marks, missed kicks, laziness. They have to pull their fingers out too.

You are such a dumb [censored] troll. Lever has been in our best about 8 times this year. Wagner's played one game! And was decent! It's not even possible for him to have got a game "on the back of poor games".

We were off, intensity wise, in the Port game. That was somewhat understandable: we had a four day break, they had either 5 or 6, and they're on top of the ladder. There is no excuse today. The Swans played the same day we did (so we're a few hours behind not a day or two), and they're in the bottom 4. They're also missing Franklin, Heeney, Mills and Rampe. To have players jogging around in the first half of a must-win game with finals on the line would be unfathomable if it wasn't something we've seen repeatedly before.

As bad a quarter as we've played all year, unforgivable given the opponent and what's at stake. All of the hallmarks of bad Melbourne are on display. Weak tackling efforts. Hollywood handpasses. Turnovers. No plan forward of centre. Outnumbered seemingly everywhere. Slow, being outrun. It's all there, and it's all terrible. OMac's made a mistake every time the ball's gone near him. Smith close to likewise. It's bad enough that Jones turned it over on his left once, but to do it again after taking a mark inside 50 is disgraceful. Melksham didn't touch it that quarter, Weideman can't get near it, ANB's struggling. We saw Essendon pull back a 36-point deficit after looking equally incompetent last week. Other than that, I can't think of any reason to think we have any chance in this game.

This is 2019 Melbourne. 6 inside 50s for one point. They've had 8 inside 50s for 4.1. This is the same side who had 9 scoring shots in an entire game against Fremantle two weeks ago, but has already had 8 scoring shots in a half today.