titan_uranus

So your plan is to take our leading goalkicker and put him at CHB where we already have OMac and Frost, then replace him with our best midfielder against a side with a midfield which includes Sloane, Crouch and Gibbs, whilst Viney sits on the sidelines. And you implore us to "tackle to hurt", as if that was our problem last week. Thank heavens you're not the coach.

Our result is obviously most important, but wins to the Dogs, St Kilda and Fremantle (vs Hawthorn) are all huge for us. If we win and Collingwood lose to Richmond, then we'll be a game off third. We'll go past Sydney (and will have a 15-20% buffer on them, too) and we'll remain a game and percentage clear of Essendon (and North, if they win). We could also move up further if GWS or Port lose. In the ridiculous fantasy dream world, we win and each of GWS, Port, Hawthorn, Geelong and North lose. Then we're in the top 4 and we're a game and percentage clear of 9th with 4 games left. Probably somewhere around 0.0000000001% If we lose, we'll be level on points with Essendon and Adelaide (and North, if they win). We'll drop below Geelong and Hawthorn assuming they win, and be out of the 8 if both win. The impact of just one game is insanely high.

The way Sydney is playing, we are every chance to beat them in a fortnight. Tomorrow night is huge for us, now. A clear opportunity to win the next three is open to us if we apply ourselves.

A reminder that we're not the only club who gets bad umpiring decisions. That non-call of holding the ball on Zak Jones was absolute garbage. I'd be livid if I were an Essendon supporter. Also a reminder that the free kick count at the end of the day doesn't always show unfairness or bias as it doesn't show the missed calls.

I think if we win our prospects are better than 40%. We'd likely then only need to beat GC and then one of the last three. I'd like to think we can go 1-2 through the final three games. The frustration for mine will be when we miss, it will be by a small margin yet again, and another year in which we have clearly obvious games we should (not could) have won (Geelong x 2 being the two main ones). It's amazing that we've only had to play the 7 members of the other top 8 4 times in the first 17 games. Of course, Collingwood have only had one more game than us and their only win was against us. Yet they're premiership contenders and we're pretenders. Actually, we can make the finals without improving that record. Beat Adelaide this week (currently out of the 8), beat GC, and by the time we play Sydney they could be out of the 8 (lose tonight and to Collingwood next week). Beat them too and we get to 13 without any of those wins being against the current top 8.

This game is win-win but also lose-lose. Win-win: an Essendon loss rules them out of finals (the chance of them winning all three of Hawthorn, Richmond and Port (away) is too low IMO), a Sydney loss keeps them sliding and another option for a team to fall below us in the run home (and, if we want to dream a bit, keeps the top 4 door a bit ajar). Lose-lose: an Essendon win draws them level with us on wins if we lose (we were at one stage 3 games in front of them on the ladder), a Sydney win rights their ship and makes the chance of them dropping out a bit less likely.

So from the Alice Springs game: Melbourne In: J Smith, JKH, Tyson, Garlett, Frost Out: Hibberd, Hannan, Lever, Viney, T Smith Adelaide In: Walker, Sloane, Keath, Cheney, Seedsman, Murphy, McGovern, Knight Out: Hartigan, Gibson, Ellis-Yolmen, Douglas, Fogarty, Poholke, Mackay, Doedee We have three AA players missing and their replacements aren't exactly setting the world on fire at the moment. They lose Douglas and Doedee but get back Walker, Sloane, McGovern, Seedsman and Knight. Shows how many fringe players they had in their side in that game. No doubt this is a much stronger Adelaide side than the one we faced last time.

He'll play forward I think. And I'm not sure what the plan is. Joel Smith, I suppose? Maybe J Smith to Jenkins and Oscar to McGovern. Yes he is. One of the game's most over-rated players. Joe the goose goals are his specialty. Not sure how this thread turned into yet another OMac debate, though.

If Collingwood beat Richmond then full credit to them. But their record against the top 8 is only marginally better than ours. 1-4 (1-5 when you add in Geelong), and the only win is against us and we're 0-4 (0-6 including Geelong). The last time they played a top 8 side they got beaten by West Coast, a man down in rotations for over a half, by 6 goals at home. I'm just not yet convinced Collingwood is as good as their record or ladder position suggest.

For anyone who queries the impact of Lewis on the group, have a listen to this week's Inside Melbourne podcast and listen to what Brayshaw says about him.

We had 9 of our first 11 games in Victoria. We would have 17 out of 22 games in Victoria if we didn't sell two home games to the NT. Our MCG count is lower (11), but we might get one back if we didn't sell two home games to the NT, plus Richmond get 4 away games at the G because clubs want to play them there. One of the many reasons it's important for us to finish strong and make the finals is to keep a positive aura around us and get more clubs wanting to play us in their home games at the G.

I see you asked this because you think by trading Hogan we could get a defender, and you think we need a defender because we're too easy to score against. Not only do I disagree completely with the suggestion we should trade Hogan (the first half of this season he was in AA form and if your expectations are that a 23 KPF should be at AA level every single week then your expectations are out of whack), I disagree with the notion that we need to get a defender. Our defensive problems are not down to OMac or a key defender, they are down to our team's defence.

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?