titan_uranus

Sure, we had similar problems with forward pressure etc. in the first quarter which gave them too many easy inside 50s, but when we're outscoring them it doesn't matter anywhere nearly as much - it's much easier to justify.

Quite an incredible thing to have happened. The team has had a "win at all costs" attitude for a while now and something bad (not necessarily this bad, though) was always going to happen. Possibly the most galling part about all this is Smith's reaction. He seemed to think that by fronting up to the media and apologising, that would make it all better. I suspect he genuinely thought at that press conference that it was something he could push behind him and people would forget about, hence his comment about not standing down (and the way he said it). Smith's career is over, I can't see how he can come back from this - will anyone look at him the same, captain or not, again? Warner breeds the "win at all costs" mentality and isn't any help to the side. Lyon, i think, is the same. CA needs to properly work out who was involved. Any player who was involved should be stood down and, possibly, sacked/never selected again. Lehmann should resign before he gets sacked (if he knew, then he knew. If he didn't know, he should have). For the fourth Test, Smith, Bancroft and Warner mustn't play, nor should Starc, Hazlewood or Lyon unless it can be determined they had no role to play. Fly over replacements, put up a competitive and legal fight, then once it is all over a proper assessment needs to take place. New captain, new coach, new leadership model.

Collingwood is far more likely to finish bottom 4 than top 8. They have such an uninspiring list. Dogs surprisingly bad. Will be interesting to see if that was just GWS being GWS or the Dogs not being that good.

Ummm No.

6 - Oliver 5 - Petracca 4 - Gawn 3 - Hogan 2 - Hibberd 1 - Lewis

They were missing Dangerfield and Henderson, both of whom play equally big roles. They also lost Taylor early. If we don't have the list depth to cover for a midfielder or a second tall forward, why are we being spoken of as a flag contender? Obviously not having Viney or TMac hurts and makes us worse, but if we want to play finals this year, we can't use their absences as excuses.

If Bugg brought anything to the side last year, it was forward pressure. We don't need both Hannan and Fritsch in the side. I'd drop Hannan for Bugg. Maynard must go - Tyson isn't any quicker but can actually do something with the football. I didn't think Wagner's second half was good enough to be retained, but two changes might be enough. Garlett, ANB and Harmes all need to work twice as hard next week.

I read a really interesting stat today about our 2017 season that I hadn't seen before. We lost a quarter by 30+ points last year 8 times. The only sides to lose more than 8 by 30+ points or more were Gold Coast and Brisbane (Fremantle also lost 8). We've had our first for the year already, losing the second quarter today by 31. By comparison, Sydney hasn't lost a quarter by that much for two years. Good sides don't get blown out of the water in a quarter like we do. It cost us games last year and it's already cost us a game this year. So, what is the cause(s)? We won the other 3 quarters by 27 points combined, so it can't simply be that we weren't capable of going with them. And because we were capable of taking to them, and at times convincingly outplaying them, I struggle to believe it's the gameplan, either. If it was, we'd be losing more quarters and doing worse for longer periods. This was Round 1, and they were a player down on the bench, so heaven help us if it's a fitness thing. We're also another year older and more experienced, so is it fair to put it down to "youth" or "inexperience" any longer? Is it coaching? Or is it the players (who don't seem to know how to change things until the quarter ends and they get to reset and speak with the coaches)? Is it as simple as being "between the ears" (whatever that means)?

I find myself agreeing with almost all of this, until the final sentence. If this had just been a close game between two good sides, with one just edging the other out, then I would be totally fine with it. Gawn's miss is understandable (albeit not good enough), he was exhausted. But that's not what happened. We had two big flaws in 2017 that we all wanted to see addressed in the off-season. The first was the negative ratio we had in converting inside 50s compared to our opponents (i.e. our opponents score more frequently from their inside 50s than we do from ours). The second was our standard switch-off moments. It took two quarters of 2018 for both to re-surface. We lost the second quarter by 31 points, and at half time we had scored 13 times from 30 inside 50s, but Geelong had generated 20 scores from 24 inside 50s. What did we do in the off-season to prevent this from occurring, and whatever it was, why did it fail so quickly into the season? Lever and Jetta had bad matches but the reason why Geelong was scoring so easily was not our defensive unit. It was our forward line and midfield which failed, repeatedly, to apply any pressure on Geelong. They had no problems with their kick-ins, they had loose men all over the place, and we didn't tackle anywhere near enough inside 50. How is this a problem in Round 1? Why did we play Hannan, Fritsch and Harmes, all of whom played the same sort of role and none of whom played four quarters? Why did we play Maynard, who is absolutely nowhere near AFL standard and, to my eye, does not bring a single skill/trait to the table (he's slow, he can't kick, he doesn't read the play, and his only job was to stop Selwood and Ablett and he failed at that). There are positives to take from the game - Petracca, Oliver and Gawn all played well, Lewis (despite his horrendous 50-metre penalty) made a huge difference across half back in the second half, Fritsch showed he has what it takes, and we didn't let a key forward ragdoll us for once. It's only one game, so the sample size is admittedly insignificant at this point. But when the same problems which haunted us in 2017 and stopped us from making finals resurface two quarters into the new season, the optimism takes a battering.

FD putting plenty of faith in Wagner and Maynard, picking them over Tyson, Brayshaw and Bugg. Pressure on.

Yep. We get it.

Carlton didn't kick 5 goals in the first quarter of any game, at all, in 2017. Took them 11 minutes to do that this year. If they score just one more point, they'll have their best first quarter since Round 23, 2015.

I understand why people would immediately answer the OP with a resounding "no", given there's no evidence to suggest anything other than a Round 3-4 return. However, would it really be that surprising if the injury was actually worse than that, or that his recovery has been worse/slower than usual? It's probably just good old fashioned MFCSS, but I wouldn't be surprised, at all, if Viney's return is a matter of months, not weeks, away.

Has to be a concern. If Dangerfield doesn't play though, it lessens the impact.

The Fox Footy article mentions, in addition to curtain raisers, "fan activation initiatives" as a reason why the pre-game warm up is gone. "Fan activation initiatives". Classic AFL. More, what, music? Sponsor events? Do we need more "Where in the Warehouse" or "Dance Cam" which no one likes?

https://www.triplem.com.au/sport/afl/news/listen-to-every-afl-clubs-new-theme-song-for-season-2018?station=melbourne

None of them sound better than the old version.

I don't like it. It's not that important. In fact, it's almost completely unimportant. But I don't like it.

I agree with STMJ that there are plenty of useful things to take out of any JLT match. But in a JLT game against the current wooden spoon favourite, conclusions drawn out of the game (whether positive or negative) can be overblown. What I'm enjoying at the moment is the shape of our forward line. We are developing a group of mid-sized forwards who can each take a strong mark (Melksham, Harmes, Petracca, Hannan, now Fritsch too, Brayshaw's a good mark as well). If we can find multiple avenues to goal through marks inside 50 that aren't just Hogan, that should hopefully assist in one of our biggest 2017 problems, which was converting inside 50s to scores.

Agreed. I like the royal blue and I think it's an improvement on the white jumper we've been wearing in the past. But according to the article on our website we'll be wearing six out of our 11 away games, with a further two games in the red-back. We only properly "clash" with about two clubs.

As to the camp itself, I'm unsure as to whether it was beneficial and should have gone ahead or it's a waste of time and pointless. But the way in which things have played out is just no good from a PR perspective. The coaches look like they have (not saying they have) lost the players. The players look (not saying they are) self-entitled and like they know what is best despite choking this year and having achieved two-tenths of stuff all in their careers to date.

Agree entirely, LDC. I can't stand players changing numbers as if the lower ones are "better".

I quoted you because I agree with you - every game is winnable (as we sit here in October). But the consequence of that is that analysing the draw based on difficulty is less meangingful as inevitably we’ll be wrong about teams (eg 2017 Richmond or 2017 Dogs). And because of that, I think analysing any club’s draw at this point is more about those other factors and less about the 5 repeat match ups each team gets.

It always ends up being futile trying to analyse a fixture in October based on the previous season. There’ll be at least one bottom 10 side who becomes much more difficult next year (Saints? Pies? Lions even?) and at least one finalist who slumps (Swans? Eagles?). It’s easier at this point to analyse based on commerciality, timeslots, prime time and things like six-day breaks. And on those metrics we’ve been handed a pretty average draw IMO. I reckon that hurts us too. I don’t know if there is any correlation at all but I reckon home games earlier in the year help build membership momentum (more people seeing our branding, advertising, messages at the ground and more opportunities to sell memberships).

It’s the usual “MFC fixture”. Generaly provides good opportunities on field but horrendous off field. Only one Friday night game and it’s away. No Saturday night games (home or away) in Melbourne. 6 Sunday 3.20pm games (rubbish timeslot that the big clubs routinely get to avoid). I generally agree. However, it’s harder to accept when Carlton, who won 6 games for the year with a percentage of 78% playing some pretty boring football and finishing 16th, gets four Friday night games. And when St Kilda, who finished two spots below us on the ladder with one fewer win and 10% less, and whose average home crowd was 3,500 less than us (despite us having the two NT home crowds dragging our figure down) and whose average overall attendance was 4,000 less than us (despite them having four Friday night games compared to our one) get three Friday night games plus Good Friday. I believe in clubs earning their fixtures but I’m not convinced that, if we’d made the finals, we’d have received a better fixture. Interesting analysis of the comparative rest breaks leading into games - do you know if this is better/worse than 2017? I’m not sure the 3 road trips in the first 13 games thing is good. It means 5 of our last 10 games are interstate or in Geelong. When coupled with the fact that, based on 2017, our back half of the year features harder teams, that again puts us under enormous pressure to bank early season wins.