titan_uranus

This umpiring is insanely one-sided but we only have ourselves to blame. Game should have been over at half time. Never should have put ourselves in the position where the game could be decided by umpires.

Tom Bugg's kicking is horrendous.

See, for example, that goal. We're finished I think.

No ruckman in the Casey side has hurt us. JKH was good early but has faded.

We look absolutely cooked. Really ruing our inability to kick straight when we dominated the first half. Garlett and Vince missed absolute sitters early. Umpiring is incredibly one-sided but we're also getting beaten in the contest which is where we were dominant early.

The main reason we didn't drop Tyson is, I suspect, we didn't want to move Fritsch from the backline to the middle for a preliminary final after he'd been playing in the backline for a couple of months. Ideally, we never would have played Fritsch in the backline, Vince or Hunt would have been in better form and would have had that spot, and Fritsch would have spent the year playing forward/wing.

At least two of our five repeat games next year will be against Richmond, West Coast, Collingwood, Hawthorn and GWS. Could potentially be good financially, if we get home games against those three big Victorian clubs. And no more than one of our five repeat games will be against Carlton, Gold Coast, Brisbane, St Kilda, Fremantle and the Dogs. That could also potentially be good financially, as it lowers the likelihood of home games against a bunch of low-drawing sides.

Well I spoke with a number of non-Melbourne supporters today who said "but you were so good before the prelim, you'll be dangerous next year". So there. Some people will remember only the prelim, some will remember more. But the truth is that we stood up on the big stage for a month straight.

It was 14 scoring shots to 7 at HT but only a three goal lead. We should have been up by 6-7 goals before Box Hill's inevitable fightback, which is now on. Petty and Keilty were stunning in the first half but they've been negated in the third quarter. Some of the Melbourne-listed players are really struggling - most disappointingly, Hunt and Garlett, the two I was hoping to star the most.

I think this has to be acknowledged. Take Collingwood as a counter point. After Round 7, they only left Melbourne three times (Gold Coast in Round 15, Sydney in Round 20, Fremantle in Round 23). By comparison, we left Melbourne seven times in the same period. Granted, two of those are our own fault (NT games). Also, only once in that period did we play consecutive games at the same venue - Rounds 20 and 21 at the G vs GC and Sydney. We were on the move a lot in the latter two-thirds of our fixture. We went to the NT twice, Adelaide twice, Geelong and Perth. The week off helped us refresh, but then to have two finals and back that up with a trip to Perth with a side as young as ours surely took its toll physically. I think the above, about our fixture/travel, will have played a role in our tackle count being low. I also think West Coast's marking game meant we simply couldn't tackle as much as we would have liked. The uncontested marks came a lot from their superior work rate which, again, will have in part come from our fatigue. That's not the only reason, though. Our heads dropped with all those first quarter turnovers and that didn't help. Their mids were also just so much stronger than ours (Redden, Shuey, Yeo and Sheed are all older and stronger than Oliver, Brayshaw, Harmes and even Viney).

Sometimes I feel like Demonland doesn't give opponents enough credit. Saying we lost yesterday because of our game plan is effectively saying "we'd have won with a better game plan", which completely disrespects West Coast. We lost yesterday because West Coast were so good that we weren't able to compete with them in critical areas - contested ball and marking. They beat us at the contest and they beat us in the air, and that's pretty much that when it comes to trying to win games of football. I loved Weideman's first two finals but he was nowhere yesterday, Hogan's reliability for marks on the wing and across half-forward will assist us, as will Lever's ability to break up opposition possession chains (we just couldn't stop them yesterday).

I think we'd have been a better side this year with Garlett at his absolute best, as well if Hunt had taken the next step rather than gone backwards. The development we put into Spargo and Fritsch will hold us in good stead going forward but what Garlett and Hunt are capable of bringing to our side is what we often find ourselves to be lacking when we struggle. Not the only two things to work on, though. I'd also love to see Kent become a regular but his body has to be a concern. I'm not sure we can ask for us to be undefeated against the bottom 10 every season. Yes, Collingwood did it, and we should always be aiming to win games against sides below us (and the bottom 10 should all be below us next year...!), but most sides don't get through the year without one poor loss. If we had to target one home and away season problem, IMO it would be the close losses - 0-5 in games decided by under two goals is where we lost our top 4 spot, I think. My hope is that the Adelaide and West Coast wins and the two finals wins have helped us learn how to win close games and how to win in front of big crowds, so hopefully next year when we're in close games we are able to do better than a 0% success rate.

What has Round 23 last year got to do with this year? They made the GF and we didn't, so they've had a better year than us even if they don't win the flag. But last year hasn't got anything to do with it. If you want an example of Collingwood thrashing us why not just refer to Queen's Birthday this year?

Up there in the list of biggest disappointments for 2018, IMO, is Garlett. The way we played this year, with the volume of inside 50s and ground balls to be won in there, should have suited him. Spargo was generally good but Garlett at his best would have been much, much more impactful.

Fair enough. To be fair, I think yesterday OMac might have been carrying an injury, as he went off early and didn't seem to be able to run properly for the rest of the game. I also think that if we do persist with them, a full pre-season of the two of them learning to zone off and read each other and work together, with Lever (if he's back to training at some point over the summer), will make them a better unit.

They've been doing it all year though. The two you've mentioned are poor set shots at goal, which may well come into it.

They're the worst-credentialled GF side I can remember. (99% sour grapes from me)

Rubbish. We won two games in front of 90,000+ as the favourites both times. You can't say we're weak under pressure every time we lose.

There are few things I cannot stand more than "X has gone past us". Didn't Adelaide, Port Adelaide and Essendon "pass us" last year? It truly is a mind-numbingly stupid way to look at things.

Jones cannot be co-captain in 2019. As has been mentioned, we need the flexibility too be able to drop him if the trajectory continues the way it is going, and if he's captain that becomes borderline impossible.

I was with you all week on this, but time to let it go, Clint. Fritsch over Tyson yesterday would only, at best, have made a tiny difference, and not to the overall outcome. Can't wait to see him back on a flank or wing next year though, with a full pre-season.

It's all about context. Olisik almost never posts anything positive and only pops up to pot players. So, when he does it, people get frustrated. For what reason? Do we go with two key defenders plus Lever? He may as well start every post between now and Round 1 with "0 goals to half time in a preliminary final". Feels like he's written that in every post so far. There we go. I was wondering how long it would take for your "we lost therefore we failed" attitude to return. What sort of hard/harsh decisions do you mean? Sack half the side? Sack Goodwin? Or do you mean Lewis, Jones and Tyson (all of whom would have been looked at post-2018 even if we'd won the flag)?

Yes but in the first two finals our forward pressure was ridiculously good. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Melksham's last month and first two finals were immense, Petracca this week and last week actually played well, Hannan was one of the few forwards who actually showed some pace and made some space today. Forward pressure was not our biggest problem today, by far. Our biggest problem was our midfield being belted at contested ball. We lost that count once all year, and our last four wins (and indeed all our wins) were based on winning contested ball and going from there. Losing it today put the pressure on our young side to work out what to do and how to turn it around, and we failed. Whilst we were failing to turn it around, we were unable to play the game at either end the way we are used to, and both ends failed - the defence failed to zone properly and were caught out too often because West Coast took the ball from clearances too easily and won all of the important contests, and the forwards weren't able to make an impact because the delivery to them was poor and was on West Coast's terms. Our game starts and ends with contested ball. When we're at our best (see the last four weeks) we dominate in that area and we put our opponent on the back foot. Everything flows from that. We need to be able to turn momentum through the middle within a game, and we also need to be able to adjust around the ground when we're not able to dominate at contested ball.

I was posting in response to complaints that the Demons of old failed to stand up on the big stage. Nothing to do with how I feel about the game. Fork 'em, your comment that every time there's a carrot we carp ourselves might have been true earlier this year, but after the past month is it really that big of a problem? We needed to beat West Coast in Perth to make the finals, and we did. We needed to beat GWS to earn a home final and we did. We had our season on the line against 90,000 in the Elimination Final and we won.

In the first two weeks, particularly vs Geelong when we needed to calm our early finals nerves, it was TMac who was taking those big marks. Nowhere to be seen today. Add Hogan to TMac and Weideman next year and we'll have those marking options.