titan_uranus

We do have to acknowledge that Pickett, McVee, Windsor and Lindsay being out all at once is a disaster. We are so devoid of pace and skill and almost all of it on our list sits with these four. But again, that says as much about our list management as anything. With them out, we’re running with Howes and Billings (neither are good enough), AJ and Sharp (really honest goers but not really at the level, at least not yet), and are carrying players horrendously out of form/confidence in Fritsch, JVR, Rivers and Viney. And calling on Spargo, Woewodin and Laurie isn’t going to help.

6 - Langford 5 - Bowey 4 - Langdon 3 - Chandler 2 - Henderson 1 - Sharp

To cop a flogging in the middle once is bad, but can be explained away and redeemed by what comes next. To be - somehow - worse the following week tells us everything we need to know. We are a mile off. A mile. Almost nothing that we do is acceptable, let alone good. Our skills are deplorable. Our tackling is genuinely weak. Our confidence is shot, our midfield is at sea, and our fitness is unbelievably poor. I reckon Gold Coast are going to belt a few sides this year, but look at their list and midfield depth. It’s so much better than ours it’s not funny. And when we rob Peter to pay Paul by standing Trac in the goal square whilst our mids get creamed at stoppage, we shoot ourselves in the foot. Langford has a bright future, Bowey was very good and I thought Langdon was good too. But we had at least 8 players you’d be comfortable dropping, and that level of uncompetitiveness will see us land in the bottom 4 if it doesn’t improve, and quickly.

Who else could we play to bring additional pressure? We've got Chandler and Henderson. Pickett's unavailable. Sharp needs to lift, but Spargo and Laurie both lack the pace required to provide sustained forward half pressure and neither has struck me as capable of producing it at AFL level for years (or in Laurie's case, at all).

Have you already forgotten how poor Petty was last year in the forward line? His Round 1 game was better than pretty much anything he produced as a forward last year. One poor game, on an AA calibre key forward when our midfield was being slaughtered and they were walking out the front of stoppage, is no basis at all to say Petty should be coming out of the backline. And your hyperbole on JVR is insane.

From what I recall, it factors direction in (I recall him saying something about it taking into account kicks which go sideways).

I do think there is something in Gold Coast’s on/off start to the year. One game, then straight into a bye, doesn’t sound like ideal match fitness prep to me. In June I generally am wary of playing a side coming off a bye, but this week it should work in our favour, albeit we do have a 6-day break.

This morning on radio Hoyne from Champion Data debuted a new “speed of ball movement” stat, an attempt to measure how fast sides move from D50 to forward 50. 100 is considered average pace. He said so far this year we are over 100 for the first time since the flag.

And that’s why I usually don’t focus on these things…

Have to agree with this. I’m not one for focusing on this stuff too much but for it to happen twice in a row with Spargo is…not good

Well it’d be two with AJ. But maybe TMac forward? Otherwise we have four tall defenders?

In: May, Johnson, Billings, Melksham, Langford Out: Jeffo, Spargo (both injured), Woey, Turner, Howes (all dropped)

If this is any indication, Langford, Johnson and Billings will be in and Sharp will be one of the two (other than Jeffo) who is making way.

Ah yes, because all work environments are the same.

1. Well then you can say “if we only win one flag I’ll consider it a failure”. 2. Yes they are. The competition in 2000 was so different to what it is now. The evenness through the ladder right now is unprecedented (we won 11 games last year and finished 14th, for example). The gap between the best and the rest is smaller than it ever has been. It’s “BS” just as much as the assertion that multiple flags was the requirement. 3. Multiple flags is dominance. The sides who’ve done it recently will go down in history for their efforts. But that’s my point - instead of viewing them as the benchmark we were supposed to meet, they should be viewed as the sides who exceed the norm. And your last bit is I think the underlying issue. I think you and the others who agree with you are just frustrated that our flag came in 2021. The benchmark isn’t a second flag, you just want to replicate it in a normal Melbourne year. It reads like you’re criticising me for “reliving” 2021, as if it’s a crime to reflect positively on it.

Speak for yourself. The competition has never been more even. Comparisons to Essendon from 2000 are misguided. The bar has never been, nor should be, multiple flags.

This is just an article quoting the Tradies podcast. Remains the same “source”, McClure.

It’s both. I’m with you on the injury impact. 13 players unavailable is making things tough. But we also have to acknowledge that the likes of Spargo, Laurie, Woewodin and Billings are all a bit “samesy”, on a background of Sparrow plateauing, Howes not improving, and Sestan, Adams and Verrall all queries as to when/whether they will debut.

Why do you even bother supporting this club? Everything is a disaster to you. He fractured his hand (freak/acute incident) then has a calf strain without (AFAIK) a history of calf issues. It’s disappointing but not really that big of an issue.

There are two separate issues here. The modern AFL media is all about big opinions, big headlines, big stories, regardless of whether there is a basis for them. We have daily podcasts, multiple opinion shows a night, radio running 15 hours a day of AFL content, and websites clamouring for discussion in the comments. But @rpfc’s earlier post is also correct. @Redleg is a classic example of a Demonland poster who thinks the AFL world is out to get us. They are not, at least no more than any other club. We bring it upon ourselves. We have a coach who mis-speaks in the media, senior players who flirted with leaving last year, a disastrous president interview, a CEO who shopped a player around against his will, and a fan base which picks and chooses when to go to games. I hate the “less talk, more action” trope that gets rolled out over the pre-season, because there is no ability to act over the pre-season, but the media landscape requires that we talk. But now, in season, it’s valid. It’s time we stop talking about “healing”, “caring” for one another, and being on a “journey”, and we start demonstrating that we’re doing that (that doesn’t mean we have to win every week, but it does mean we don’t produce that fourth quarter from Sunday again).

On radio tonight Daniel Hoyne said we’re bottom 2 for movement of the ball, with Carlton (not sure what the actual measurement or data is here but it’s also hardly surprising). He also said we were -11 at winning contests in our D50, our worst result in 10 years and therefore under Goodwin, and conceded scores from 56% of inside 50s, our second worst result in 6 years. The forward half might be an ongoing work in progress but you’d like to think we see an immediate response in our back half this weekend.

That came after he spent 10 minutes explaining why other clubs might be interested in Fritsch if we miss the 8. Not because he’s disinterested or wants out. Just that if we struggle this year, other clubs might be interested given his form slump and lowered value from his peak in 2021-23. It’s hardly a reach, is it. And it will be forgotten about if it never eventuates because it’s [censored] March.

Players usually deserve more than one game to establish themselves, but I fear I’ve seen this story before. When you’re as slow as Spargo is, at his height, he has to have elite work ethic to spread and cover the ground, to enable him to get the ball. If he can’t cover the ground, there’s no point playing him.

I agree and disagree with this bit in equal portions, if that’s even possible. I agree, for example, that it’s not all just down to injuries. I also agree that good sides cover for injured players, and that our list depth remains poor. But I think there’s more to it than your analysis here. Yes, Brisbane and Hawthorn are winning despite injuries, but the key difference IMO is that they each have 6 players in total on their injury lists, whilst we have 13. So we’re missing 4 of our best 10-12 players, but we’re also missing another 4-5 who would be our next rung called up. And saying that injuries don’t lead to a 10 goal loss is silly - they clearly can. Missing your best players can lead to inconsistency, as evidenced by St Kilda going from inept in Round 1 to, well, not inept in Round 2 (they got Owens and Stocker back, by the way).

https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/1740330/injury-report-trio-of-demons-to-test Culley, Tholstrup and Kentfield all progress by a week, but McVee stuck at 2-3 weeks still, sadly