titan_uranus

There is a lot to be pleased with about today's performance. At half time Macrae and Hunter were destroying us in the middle, we were being beaten in CPs and clearances and we couldn't get scoring chains going from anywhere. A couple of small positional changes in the third quarter were critical (Harmes to Macrae, Jones out onto a wing and Lewis to half-back, with a deeper FF starting at the bounce), and we turned the game on its head. Interestingly, today we were much more efficient going inside 50 - scoring from 56% of our inside 50s compared to last week's 47%. And the Dogs got a lot of inside 50s against, but didn't score all the time (33% compared to Fremantle's 46% last week). These are complete reversals of the standard 2018 MFC. Much more efficient going inside 50 (this is in part due to the Dogs' defence being poor), and more importantly, much tighter in defence. Gawn, Oliver and Brayshaw were all stunning and their third quarter propelled us. Also thought Salem was terrific. Fritsch is a gem, Spargo's got a bright future, and Garlett adds something that our forward line was definitely missing during the three losses. I thought Lewis was good today. His kicking is getting worse unfortunately, but I thought his courage and running were much better today. However I just don't see what Vince adds to the side at all. Also thought Jones had a shocker, which didn't help our clearance numbers.

Source?

The more upsets we can get out of the rubbish sides, the better. St Kilda and Brisbane holding some form for the rest of the season helps us. Fremantle knocking over Port, Hawthorn or Collingwood (all of whom they play at home) could help too. But we have to take care of our own destiny. We have to get to 13-9, which means we absolutely have to beat the Dogs and GC and then win two of the "harder" five.

Nope, sorry. I apologise to all in advance. To be fair I think we held up defensively against Port much better. But yes, I'm pretty confident the Dogs will play the same way St Kilda and Collingwood did, and Fremantle tried to, stacking the backline and trying to run it out using the width of the G to break down our press. Last week our press/zone held up wonderfully, albeit against rubbish opposition, but I think at least partly also due to the narrow ground. Things I'd love to see, in order: A win No injuries Seeing our defensive zone/press hold up on the G Percentage Fair gap between 1 and 2, though.

Agreed. I love seeing the positivity around VDB, but he's played one VFL game in 2.5 years. There's a bit of water to go under the bridge yet. And if/when he is knocking on the door, he's not an ANB replacement.

I have been to five games this year. We've lost them all. Guess what I'm doing today...?

Sensible changes, I think. We wouldn't be seeing JKH if Stretch wasn't injured, but he is and so we are. I'm not a fan of Lewis and Vince in the same side but Smith was adding nothing and/or was injured anyway so Vince is a logical replacement.

If we finish in the top 8, then by definition we deserve to play finals, if that's what you're getting at. Any opportunity to play finals after 12 years of missing them is an opportunity worth having, whether or not we win that final. My view, though, is that we'll need to get to 13 wins to make the finals. In order to do that, we need to beat the Bulldogs and GC, and then win two out of the other five (Geelong in Geelong, Adelaide in Adelaide, Sydney, West Coast in Perth, GWS). So, if we've made it, we will have won at least two of those five games. But if we make it with 12 wins, then fine, we will have deserved to play finals even if we lose four of the those harder five games.

Terrible news, just so unlucky. Hopefully the recovery goes smoothly.

If we lose to all of Geelong, Sydney, West Coast and GWS then we will finish on 12 wins (assuming we beat the Dogs, Adelaide and GC). We'd be more likely to miss the finals than make them but "make up the numbers" in that scenario. I think to make finals we need to get to 13 wins, and to do that we have to win one of the four games you've identified.

Worst bit was he was absolutely useless yesterday until one fourth quarter mark (barely took it) and goal.

Agreed. The other thing I felt we did more of was work on not having multiple mids go inside and no one wait for the handball receive on the outside. Just felt like I noticed more players holding off on the contest and waiting to be the outlet option (Brayshaw in particular I recall doing this well).

That's absolutely right, we control our own destiny. The Geelong, Adelaide, West Coast and Sydney games are all intriguing and important for us. Regardless, I just can't help but consider how games not involving Melbourne could impact on us.

Agreed, we're obviously coming off a different and better performance this year compared to last.

We made 5 changes after the Darwin game last year. Vince got suspended and Kent hurt his shoulder, but we then dropped three more players (Pedersen, Wagner and J Smith), bringing largely running players (Watts, Tyson, Viney, Salem, Trengove). I won't be surprised if we see three changes this week.

Last week most results went our way, but so far this round with Geelong, North and Hawthorn winning, it's the opposite. Ideally we need Collingwood and West Coast to win as that gives us a two-game and 30% buffer over Essendon and Adelaide. At this point reducing the number of sides who can take our spot in the 8 is better than sides above us losing and opening up a spot in the top 4 we're not good enough to take. Currently both Collingwood and West Coast are losing, though.

I’d hazard a guess that this wasn’t because we didn’t have options but instead because Freo had one or two extra men, and Viney was trying not to do the usual “long to the goal square pack mark attempt” kick. Agree - couldn’t tell last night on the TV but certainly last week every forward started at least 30m from goal and most then move fowards. No one available to lead up at the kick coming in. Needs to change IMO. If that’s true, I reckon that says a lot about our improved defensive running from last week. To me that suggests we worked harder to get the press moving side to side and up/down the ground when in defence. I’m the same on Stretch - I particularly liked his side steps and evasiveness. As to Frost, I’d like to see how he goes against a side which generates a bit more attack than Fremantle, but good signs first up. Can’t help but agree re: Darwin. I reckon every time a player comments on it they toe the party line, rather than sounding like they genuinely enjoy it.

And the elbow at that only became a thing because Walters took a dive. However, he just looked off tonight. Fresh air kick attempts instead of trying to pick the ball up, a couple of missed passes, and there was at least one other bad free kick against. He's just OK right now, nothing more. There is no way VDB is getting a game after one VFL game in 2.5 years. That's probably right. I still query whether we need Smith in the backline. But we absolutely should not be putting him anywhere near the forward line again given what he showed up there tonight.

6 - Oliver 5 - Brayshaw 4 - Gawn 3 - Salem 2 - Petracca 1 - Fritsch

No they weren't. It was greasy, and our forward line had almost 36 players in it at times. And we can be happy with "he ran and chased". People jump over each other to heap praise on Richmond's small forwards because of their running, chasing, tackling and pressure. We need that from Garlett just as much, if not more (given our other avenues to goal) than we need goals. I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater on the topic of accuracy just yet. From 15 games this was only the fifth time we kicked more behinds than goals (and only the second time since Hawthorn in Round 5).

If Smith was surplus to our defensive needs this week then no point playing him next week, so I expect him to be dropped. Not sure who gets his spot, but I think a running player over a tall.

Positives and negatives to take from that. We absolutely dominated them for 95% of the game. We were clinical through the middle, we out-ran them, our press held up, and we clearly tried (although didn't always succeed) to lower our eyes going inside. Oliver was outstanding, Brayshaw great, Petracca improved, and both Stretch and Garlett were welcome additions (Stretch in particular, his side steps were excellent). And our percentage jumped nearly 3%. On the other hand, too many of the same problems were still there. We still press so high that our opponents score too easily in the space out the back. We still don't convert enough of our inside 50 dominance (+50 inside 50s should be a 154 point win, not a 54 point win). We still commit horrendous turnovers (Jetta to Mundy in the first quarter). Good to get the win and the percentage boost, and I think most of our selections worked out for the better, but clearly still plenty to work on. Did you watch the game Moonshadow, or are you just going from the stats? Fremantle's plan was to congest our forward line. There just wasn't room to move. It wasn't like we had oodles of space and Garlett wasn't able or willing to use it. He had little room to move. He ran, chased, tackled and pressured more than he was before he was dropped and certainly more than our forward line was doing the past three weeks. And he gave us another dimension to the forward line.

Agree that the AFL needs to be concerned with millennials and its younger fans in general, but not necessarily to the exclusion of all other demographics. I'm seeing equal proportions of older fans disengaging from the sport due to it not representing what they remember the sport looking like in the 70s, 80s and/or 90s. In fact, being a millennial myself, I have no problem with the state of the game currently and, moreover, I'm confident that the sport will right some of the less appealing modern traits (congestion, scrums) without the need for rule changes. As to the neutrals point, agree. But how does that tie into ratings? Neutrals are likely to only watch prime time games. The current trend in scheduling prime time games is to favour certain clubs over others and to preference big clubs over ideal match ups. We've had too many flops on Friday nights this year and so many of them were avoidable. We shouldn't be seeing Carlton or St Kilda next year and we should instead see more of us (provided we don't continue to fall into a giant hole), Port Adelaide, North Melbourne, GWS, Collingwood (yes, Collingwood) and other sides who showed in 2018 that they are capable of playing watchable football and winning games.

It's pretty much a lose-lose game. If we win, we'll either struggle (fail), or it'll be a ho-hum performance (fail), or we'll smash them, in which case it will be either "where was that last week" or "flat track bullies/pretenders" again.

I think 5 with our percentage should be enough. Still, for us to get those 5 requires us to beat at least two of Geelong (away), Adelaide (away), West Coast (away), Sydney and GWS. And that assumes we beat Fremantle and the Dogs in the next two weeks. Drop either of those and we have to find a third win from the five games above.