titan_uranus

I've only seen the first half and 5 minutes of the third, so I've missed what seem to be Lockhart's big errors, but from what I saw there's no way Lockhart gets dropped. What he showed in the first half was miles above what Jetta's been giving us in that role since the start of 2019. I'm also shocked to see any calls to drop Tomlinson. He was clearly one of our best in the first half and he's one of the few consistent two-way runners. Salem was poor, but the bigger problem is the forward half. We're not going in with the right line up and it needs to be changed. We've made big calls dropping Jones and Jetta, it's time to make the same call on Melksham I think. We need another tall forward so someone has to come out. Other than a structural fix to our forward line, the improvement we need to see isn't going to come from making changes to the 22, it can only come from the 22 we put out there improving individually and as a team.

I only saw the first half and 5 minutes of the third. It wasn't good. Goodwin told Channel 7 pre-match that the key to winning today was to get the ball locked in our forward half. We did that. But we lost. Goodwin is doubling down on the aggressive forward press method of play. He continues to believe that we can be successful by keeping the ball locked in our forward half, so our focus continues to be on getting it in there first, dealing with it second. There is enough evidence to suggest he is wrong. It doesn't help, though, that our players continue to make fundamental errors. Not manning the goal line properly and failing to touch Ratugolea's shot on goal, in a game we lost by 3 points, is criminal. Dropped marks, missed shots from directly in front, handpasses to stationary players or behind running players, turnovers in the back half. Mistakes get made every week, but when you are making errors with the fundamental basics of football for years, there is a systemic problem. I'm sure part of the problem is the stop-start nature of this season. We're getting no consistency. We're chopping/changing the team and we're not playing week to week. I'm eagerly looking forward to the next three matches as they present interesting match ups. But most of all, I want to see us play a month of solid football together. My last bastion of hope is that we need to click by getting some consistency into our 22. Unfortunately, I'm not confident.

Agree with everyone suggesting we need a second tall forward. We're too one dimensional and there is too much reliance on TMac to make contests up the ground. We don't need all of Melksham, Hannan, Fritsch and vandenBerg in the side, one can come out to play a second tall.

No way. Both are settling after poor starts. Lever's second quarter so much better with his body positioning. TMac getting to more contests and started leaping at the ball.

Much better quarter but still issues. We're barely generating shots on goal and too many of them are on an angle. Brayshaw's goal was nice but the kick inside 50 from Harmes was to a pack of Geelong players who spoiled each other. Our defence tightened though, and our ball movement sped up which was important. We're zero chance of winning if we try playing slow with short kicks. Gawn, Tomlinson and Lockhart all playing well IMO.

Gawn's last 5 minutes exceptional, especially that pick-up in the backline.

Tomlinson playing really well today IMO.

Undoubtedly our best football so far today, that chain.

Brayshaw's kick inside 50 is classic Melbourne. Has plenty of time, but either the forwards don't lead to the right spot or the kick is poor, or both, and we can't make the most of the clearance.

Tom Stewart done for the day with a broken collarbone apparently. We'll see if that makes a difference to our forward line.

+1 CPs, +4 clearances, +5 inside 50s. But we're two goals behind. We know this is the style of play Goodwin wants. He speaks about wanting the ball to sit in our forward half. Geelong knows this too. As does every other side that we've played since the start of last year. We can't keep going like this.

That was exceptional from Melksham. Fritsch can't drop those if we're going to win. And Pickett can't miss from 10m out directly in front! [censored].

Lockhart looking great so far.

We look awful as soon as the ball crosses into our defensive half.

Horrendous defence. They had three floating back to the goalsquare. Suggests our forward press was too high and once they got through, it was too easy. Dangerous signs.

Goodwin in the interview on Channel 7 just now said we need to win the stoppages, get it in our forward half and keep it there. Our 2018 mindset remains.

What's the reasoning there? Geelong's got Ford in that same sport. Zurich still on the front for us.

Sounds very NFL. Agree - we're 0% chance if we're not on top in the middle. I don't see us generating our scores from the defensive 50, I think we'll do better generating them from stoppages. Being on top in the middle won't necessarily be enough though - the long up-and-under inside 50 bomb will be a recipe for disaster against a side like Geelong.

I believe someone said that Mahony this week during one of those member Zoom calls that Hibberd is going to take Harmes' spot in the backline to free Harmes up to play midfield. If that is correct, I think it's a reasonable call. Although we cannot tolerate Hibberd kicking it like he did in Round 1 vs West Coast.

Are these inconsistent? IMO what we tried to do against Carlton, and succeed in doing for the first half, was our 2018-style of game: dominance in clearances/CPs, most of the game being played in our forward half, strong forward half pressure. It even, at our best that day, had the addition of lowered eyes kicking inside 50 and players taking marks on the lead. Kent's already been dropped once this year, was a late inclusion yesterday, had just 10 touches and didn't lay a tackle. If, say, ANB did that, he'd cop it on here, and/or get dropped - precisely what happened after he kicked two goals vs Carlton. We have May, Lever, OMac, Smith and Petty on the list. Frost asked for a higher sum than we were prepared to offer him. He turns it over repeatedly and wasn't learning from his mistakes.

There are only three clubs yet to lose a game post-Covid: Port Adelaide (1st), Gold Coast (2nd) and us. A win today will send us as high as 6th, subject to percentage (we're -26 in the points differential so a 26-point win would level our percentage at 100% and that would move us up to at least 9th), but with a game in hand over everyone except Essendon. For all our disappointment at our second half vs Carlton, we're not as far off it as many of us think.

I reckon there are a few teams getting prematurely written off. We're 4 games into a 17 game season. Just under a quarter of the way. West Coast might be 1-3 but they're going to get a run of games at home, with a home crowd, in the second half of the year. Could feasibly pick up form and win a bunch of games in a row. Richmond was 7-6 last year then didn't lose again. This is some of the genuinely dumbest reasoning we see on Demonland all the time. Team X wins. "Team X has passed us, woe us us". Carlton's two wins are by a combined 3 points, and we beat them two weeks ago. Gold Coast has beaten Adelaide, Fremantle and West Coast. Two of them in line for bottom 4 finishes, the third one at the complete lowest point of their season. North lost to Sydney last week. St Kilda was non-competitive against Collingwood one week ago. The sort of performance Demonland would rely on for calls to sack the coach.

I don't think you learned/read enough. Maybe he wasn't rested in the intraclub because they weren't sure whether his limit would be 2 games or 3 games before he was due for a rest? Maybe the FD is more concerned with him getting consistent blocks of games in, so they wanted him to play twice in two weeks?

He played the intraclub. The intraclub was the same effort as the Essendon game. Seriously, how hard is this to understand?

Agree, subject to the proviso that not everyone is financially able to make a donation (or buy a membership) this year. But, if you are, I dispute your entitlement to call yourself a "supporter" if you deliberately choose to withhold your money. What?! Do you think that is an industry standard? Or even industry possibility? Have you considered that the better coaches (on whatever metric you want to use) might not want to sign a contract where they're at the whim of the board if we finish bottom 4? Which, for some clubs in some years, is not wholly within the coach's control?