titan_uranus

As far as I'm concerned a mini elimination final for us. If we don't win this, our chance of making the finals becomes so much smaller. The ridiculous thing about the season is that a win keeps our top 4 chances alive.

As positive a news story we could get in a week like this, I think. OMac is the only player of note out of contract at the end of this year and only Hogan and Salem, I believe, at the end of next year. The rest of our best players are all signed up to the end of 2020 or beyond, which is excellent list management IMO.

Suppose we should play Filipovic while we're at it? And remind me again what your thoughts are on us having given JKH a go to see what he was like?

I still think Ablett quite clearly pushed Brayshaw in the back when Brayshaw went in to get it in that last 30 seconds. We've seen tackles like that get called for pushes in the back repeatedly in the last few weeks. Ablett didn't even try to roll him over like Salem did when he got pinged last week against the Dogs. Nothing is as bad as the protected zone 50m penalty against Harmes, though.

The GC game is too early for it to unravel and really hurt. Watch us go into the GWS game needing a win to make finals...

Lever starts developing back into AA form. Gets injured for the rest of the season. Stretch finally plays a solid AFL game and shows some of the qualities we could really use in the side. Gets injured for the rest of the season. Viney and Hibberd work back into some form (albeit not spectacular from either of them). Both get injured. Harmes finds a niche as a tagger and in successive weeks takes out A-grade midfielders in Macrae, Selwood and Dangerfield. Gets injured. We had a solid run with injuries in the first half of the year but that luck appears to have firmly run out now. Makes the Port and St Kilda losses harder to stomach, given at that time we had just Lever out from our first choice 22 (Hunt having been dropped before getting injured).

Two much less likely outcomes, but worth considering, are Port and Sydney only getting to 12 wins. Port has the Dogs (Ballarat), Adelaide, West Coast, Collingwood (MCG), Essendon. Is it possible for them to only go 1-4 through that (i.e. beat the Dogs but lose the last four, or even better get upset by the Dogs and then still need to find a win in that last month)? Sydney has Essendon (away), Collingwood (home), us, GWS (away), Hawthorn (home). Will they do better than 1-4 from that lot, given their struggles at the SCG and the improved form of Essendon? These two sides' struggles really just make our two Geelong losses sting because with those, we'd be in pole position to finish in the top 4.

As I said, no Lever, no Hibberd, and an injured and out of form Hunt are all contributing to the "mix" being out. But my view remains that even with Alex Rance in OMac's position, we'd have been conceding those goals to Hawkins. Rance is obviously a better player than OMac but he also plays in a system which gives him far more support, both in the defensive 50 and up the ground. We know this has been a focus since Goodwin called us out on it at the St Kilda press conference. Since then, our two-way running and overall team defence has improved and the rate at which sides score against us has decreased. We conceded 8 goals in 3 quarters at Kardinia Park, from 34 inside 50s (that's less than 25% scoring rate when they went inside, down from 68% against St Kilda). If the back six were the problem, I'd argue that rate would have been much higher all game. The entire side weakened for 15 minutes in the fourth quarter and A-graders (Ablett, Hawkins, Dangerfield, Duncan, Tuohy) stepped up, and they scored 5 goals in quick succession. I'd argue that's far more consistent with the team defence being critical to our success, not the back six themselves (who held up when the side played properly, as it should, for 3 quarters).

Geelong lost to the Dogs, Hawthorn lost to Brisbane, Sydney lost to GC, Port lost to Fremantle, we lost to St Kilda. Surprise losses happen, and may well continue to happen. Which makes predicting things really difficult. If we go 3-2 over the final 5 games, our percentage should stay high enough to ensure we finish at least 8th. The WC and GWS games look to be the two hardest on the slate, so we're really now needing to win the next three. If we can knock off Adelaide this week, I'll really like our chances to get to 13. Miss out, and we're going to need to ensure we beat Sydney and then find a win against at least one of two top 4 sides in WC and GWS.

Agree largely with this post, except I think Vince's play was as big a mistake as all of them. He spoiled Melksham, who was the only player able to mark it. Leave Melksham to mark it, he marks it, we most likely win. Melksham could have had a shot from there and used up 30 seconds. The idea of smashing it forward might not be altogether awful, but that ball was in the air long enough for him to be able to see that it was a Melbourne player in front of him, not a Geelong player. Well with no Lever or Hibberd that's not completely surprising. But as @binman quite well points out below, the problem isn't our back six. It's our defensive game across the entire ground from all 18 of them out there. Great post. This is a proper analysis of why we concede too many goals too easily. Funnily enough, our ratio of goals conceded from inside 50s conceded was lower than it has been in previous weeks. Against St Kilda it was 58%. Port was 51%. Against Fremantle, 46%. 33% against the Dogs, then 40% against Geelong. So in the last fortnight we've actually improved on the "leaking" of the back six. But that isn't just the back six improving, it's the improved defensive running (which was abysmal against the Saints). It's the better press, the harder work from the half-forwards, the stronger midfield.

How many of those losses were we the ones protecting the lead, though? None of the previous ones this year. Maybe the Fremantle loss last year was the most recent one. So that's two in 18 months. The rest were us trying to catch up to our opponent but failing to get over the line. So Hardwick had "already arrived"? After his 7 years of no premierships, no finals wins and three finals appearances, with a winning percentage under 50%? How about Buckley, whose record has gotten worse each year until this one? Clarkson had finished 3 seasons before pinching the 2008 flag, and had finished 7 seasons before Hawthorn became the powerhouse they're now known as.

Not sure what you're getting at here, some sort of conspiracy theory? The last two times we've been on prime time (Port and now Geelong), the general commentary about the game was that it was one of the best of the season. That sort of positive commentary when everyone's watching is good for us, commercially at least, going into 2019. I'd like to think the AFL and Seven are interested in scheduling more of the type of football we play in their prime time games.

@Whispering_Jack - your stats appear to be completely different to the ones the Casey FC put up on Twitter. For example, you've got VDB with 10 tackles and Kent 6, but Casey had those numbers at 17 and 14 respectively. You've also got Baker with 18 touches but Casey said 20. Where are you getting yours from?

Brisbane's had three (plus another 7 point loss). Adelaide and Geelong have had two, as well.

Yes but what is it that makes our defence shiite? How does dropping OMac replace: the turnovers up the ground; the oodles of space we give opposition forward lines (not just Geelong, all of them); the high press which leads to the "out the back" goals; the lazy defensive running from the forwards and mids; the failure to account for players like Duncan who get free in the final 20 seconds; getting slammed in clearances at critical times which leads to easy clearances against us. OMac needs to get better, but by blaming him, or any of the key defenders, is just too simplistic and ignores the bigger problems up the ground which are the real reason our defence is shiite (and I'm not disagreeing with you here, the way the 18 players on the ground defend is shiite too often). Agree with you. The posters calling for him to be included are the ones who like "grunt" and who love seeing his tackle numbers. Three VFL games in 2.5 years is not enough for a fringe player to get back to AFL level, whether he's laying tackles or not.

GWS has a relatively easy run home from here (St Kilda, Carlton, Adelaide at home, Sydney at home, us). If they lose today they might still win their next four, which get them to 13.5. That probably puts them in finals even without beating us, or Port. Port have the Dogs, Adelaide, West Coast, Collingwood and Essendon. They should beat the Dogs but they could lose the three after that (although West Coast is in Adelaide). If they do end up losing the three after the Dogs, that's 12 wins without GWS or Essendon. So something tells me we're better off accepting GWS is going to play finals and then trying to get Port to slip down the ladder. We only need to catch Port by one game to overtake them as they have the worst percentage of the top 8. Either way, none of this matters if we can't win 3 of the last 5, which means we're going to have to win one of the Adelaide or West Coast games or, if we lose both of those, beat both Sydney sides at the G.

Agree, I think this needs to be talked about more. Not being at the game last night, it's hard to know what we were doing at centre bounces in terms of forward set up. But for most of the year we've started with the entire forward line starting 30 metres out from goal and most of them then moving forwards, towards the centre. So when the quick kick comes in from the clearance, it sits on top of the heads of McDonald or Hogan or Melksham or ANB. There's no one starting deep and leading up at the ball carrier. The same problem seems to apply when we're bringing the ball up from the backline. We seem to always have players at the half-forward line either stationary or hoping to run back towards goal to use the space. We don't have players starting deep and then leading up at us.

Yes well that's the point, isn't it. If Frost looked good, that's largely due to his opponent being a defender, not a forward. I don't think McCartin ever made Oscar "flounder". IIRC he got at least one of his goals from a 50m penalty, and was the beneficiary of a rubbish Melbourne turnover up the ground as well. Oscar can play better than he currently is, that's for sure, but I don't think the response is to drop him when we have obviously identifiable problems further up the ground that are the bigger cause for concern.

I've read a few posts on here about people's emotional responses to the loss. Some people saying "it's only a game", or things like that. Whilst I appreciate the rational truth behind that statement, I hate it. I love that we, on Demonland, actually care, and have this passion. Contrary to the popular stereotypes, I'd argue that Melbourne fans are as passionate and as knowledgeable about our club and the game as any other clubs' supporters, there just aren't as many of us as there are, say, Collingwood or Richmond fans. I don't ever want us to become Hawthorn supporters who only show up when they're a three-time premiership winning side and disappear the moment it gets cold or the Hawks stop winning flags. Nor do I want us to be Geelong or Collingwood supporters who literally assault fans from the opposition. I think we should celebrate the emotional investment we all put into the club, not discourage it.

West Coast in Perth last year. We were 2-3 in games decided by under 6 points last year, and one of the wins was Collingwood on Queen's Birthday when Fasolo kicked a goal after the siren (i.e. it was 10 points until that kick). We're 0-3 this year.

Henry's a first year defender who was played out of his comfort zone as a forward. Hawkins is a 226-game AA forward who kicked 4 last week against Adelaide and in his last 9 games before last night had kicked at least 3 goals in all but one of them. This is not a good argument from you.

There was no team defence, at all, against Collingwood or St Kilda. Hawkins kicked 4 of his 7 goals in the last quarter when, again, no team defence. Seeing a pattern now? It's not all Oscar's fault. He's played better, and I want improvement from him, but Alex Rance isn't going to stop key forwards kicking goals when our team defensive structure is as poor as it is. I also argue that the loss of Lever hurts Oscar considerably more than many understand or admit, so dropping Oscar doesn't fix that problem.

Agree with all three observations. Three critical errors (amongst) others in that final two minutes. Having said that, from 29 points up 5 minutes into the fourth quarter we should never have been in that position. But we also need to learn how to win close games and we made a series of obviously-wrong decisions.

We're not dropping OMac or Hogan. Appreciate the frustration, and both need to be significantly better, but we're not dropping them, we all know it.

Viney and TMac were out for the first 5-6 weeks. Between them coming back and the Fremantle game, our only injuries were Hunt (who wasn't playing seniors at the time anyway) and Lever. Since the Fremantle game we've had Stretch, Viney, Hibberd in two weeks. So it's all falling apart but we lost games to Port and St Kilda when we had everyone we wanted available to play except Lever and Hunt. But regardless, you're right, we're not alone. Other than Richmond (and they're copping it a bit now) every other competitor of ours for the top 8 has had injuries this year at least as much as we have, if not more. I just don't think we can use injuries as any sort of excuse.