titan_uranus

It's a tactic that is catching on throughout the league. McLean last week has perfected it. Tacklers need to learn and aim lower because umpires are going to keep paying frees for it. They see tackles that are making contact with the head and that is a trigger for them. I don't particularly rate anyone who does it as habitually as Mathieson did today, but he's doing the right team thing to keep drawing the frees for his team.

There are two ways to view the win. You can either be pleased with the fact that we played pretty poorly and never got into top gear all day but won by 63 points, or you can consider that probably 14 other sides would have walked home against us, especially they way we played in the third. Generally speaking though I'm pleased. Good teams find ways to win even when they're down. Geelong's win over Essendon earlier in the year is a case in point. You don't have to play your best football every week to win and we are now showing that despite injuries to key players (Tyson, Jetta, arguably Pedersen as the second ruck) we can grind out wins (indeed, by 10 goals). Really, really impressed with Stretch today. I did not expect that at this point in the year he'd be performing as well as this. Good on him. OMac reprised his role from Round 1 - completely lost out there. He's nowhere near ready. Harmes was awful all day, save for the three late garbage time goals. So many turnovers across half forward that will kill us against better opponents. Oliver was dominating clearances on one leg with that cork. What a player we have on our hands. Finally, credit is due to be given to Garland. Awful last week, fantastic today. Unbeatable one-on-one, met the ball hard, created drive, and was a leader down there. We need this Garland every week. Thought TMac was also much better this week. I thought he did wonderfully, especially given they had two genuine ruckmen in the team so he wasn't rucking against a nobody. However, it was as low a risk game to do it as we're going to get. I don't want Watts rucking where the opposition's midfield is half-decent, such as Port's. Moreover, when he's in the ruck he's not in the forward line. Pedersen is a better option to be thrown into the ruck than Watts and I don't think we can afford to have Watts in there long term, unfortunately.

Geelong were off but that was partly due to Collingwood's pressure. If Collingwood bring that each week, they're a good chance to push for finals. A reminder that we have pressure from below, not just above, on the ladder if we are aiming for finals this year.

I think they mean for viewers in Queensland, they will see the Mel v BL game.

Your comment was "Salem no matter which way you look at it has been disappointing". Looks like you don't actually believe that based on the above. He's a young player who, like the majority of young players, is going to have ups and downs. Right now he's down more than he is up, and that's based largely on what you've identified (not getting enough of the ball, poor defensive positioning). But there is plenty to like and a lot to work with. I understand he was told pre-season the plan is for him to move into the midfield. Not sure when that is supposed to happen though.

I think people over-estimate how long 15 metres is. You should be able to kick the ball three times from full-back straight down the guts and not reach the 50m line, with each one being 15 metres.

Not sure this post flows logically...? Sydney's winning from half-back, so we need a FB/CHB?

In scary good form, the kick earlier to Rohan's advantage was superb (after a strong contested ball win, too).

It's a tripe opinion, to say that there's no way to look at Salem to date other than as a disappointment. He's less than 2.5 years into his career and has played 29 games. In that time we've seen him dominate off half-back (not regularly, sure), we've seen him develop strong foot skills (certainly a class above at least half the rest of the team), he's worked on, and improved, the defensive side to his game and he's tried (not perfectly) to build the contested ball side to things. Clearly those last two areas need work and I'm sure they factor into him being dropped but there have been more than mere glimpses of quality in his 29 games to date and I cannot accept any argument which suggests it's been nothing but disappointment so far from a 20-year old, 29-game, 2.25-year kid.

Agree, but in a promising sign we pulled 39,921 to our Sunday 3.20pm home game against the Bulldogs. That's more than went to Richmond v Sydney the night before, and occurred on the same day Carlton played Port at Etihad (i.e. two games in Melbourne on one day). If we can keep building the momentum, winning games, and presenting like we're a real AFL club, the membership will rise, the crowds will lift, and the money will flow. Then (and only then) will we be able to stop selling home games. Edit: further interesting statistic: our average home crowd this year is 38,914. That's the sixth largest in the AFL (behind Collingwood, Adelaide, Richmond, Port and Essendon). Whilst we had the ANZAC eve game, we've only otherwise had home games against GWS, the Dogs (on a Sunday) and St Kilda (at Etihad), so not like we've been gifted big-drawing games to date.

Why is the jury still out on Tyson but not on Kelly? That's complete tripe rjay. Just because he's out of form right now (and potentially you're upset we did the deal) doesn't mean he's been disappointing "no matter which way you look at it". He's being asked to play a position he didn't grow up playing because he was drafted to a club with pathetic foot skills, forcing Roos to put him on half-back. There's no doubt he has a lot of things to work on but he has, in his 2.25 years of football (yes, less than 2.5 years into his AFL career), already showed development into a role he wasn't supposed to play.

The 6 day break before the Darwin game isn't so bad. Playing at Etihad the week after the Darwin game is a near certain loss though. We'd most likely lose to West Coast in Perth any week of the year. Win the Fremantle and GC games and, maybe, steal the Adelaide or St Kilda games (both unlikely IMO) and that's a good 5 weeks.

Pedersen going out of the side worries me more than it should, especially given we haven't brought in anyone who plays his role. Tom McDonald at CHF might be the solution the FD is going with but I don't like it. The more so given Brisbane's playing two ruckmen. We should have more than enough talent across the park but I can't shake a nagging feeling that we've picked a weaker side than we could have.

You're honestly not sure why we've moved to re-contract Oliver this early? I think the evidence is relatively clear.

I would have preferred Garland to be dropped too but I think you're forgetting just how poor Dunn's form was prior to being dropped. You're making it sound like he's a star. I think what we have learnt so far this year is neither Garland nor Dunn look like they're a part of our future anymore.

I don't think Salem's been in the best form this year but we've kept players in on a lot less than what Salem has shown. Two cases in point: Michie and Garland. It sounds like ANB, OMac and Kent are all going to play which means one of Hunt or Harmes is going to be dropped. Whilst I'd have thought Hunt would go before Harmes, Harmes fits the bill better on a like-for-like basis, so I'm not entirely sure.

Just something that really frustrates me about how we get portrayed in the media: St Kilda lost on the weekend by 100 points and kicked only 3 goals in the entire game, but there doesn't appear to be a huge amount of heat on them right now. I guarantee you that if this happens to us at any point this year, all hell will break loose and all we will hear is "is Roos' heart in it?", "has Melbourne improved?", "we've gone backwards", "need a clean-out" etc. etc.. Not sure why it frustrates me so much, but it does.

Why? We didn't look flat or tired, nowhere near as much as we did against St Kilda or Essendon. Today's loss was all about skill, and our lack of it in crucial moments under proper, AFL-grade pressure (i.e. not what we got vs the Suns).

The turnovers and the mistakes up the ground are the biggest problem IMO but you're right re: Garland.

6 - Jetta 5 - Viney 4 - Kennedy 3 - Tyson 2 - Watts 1 - Stretch

Our effort was there and in small patches we looked likely but far too many skill errors, bad decisions, fumbles and dropped marks against a top-4 side. Jetta was outstanding and I really liked Tyson's game, doing the small things like he should be doing. Garland is a total liability in the side, completely wastes the valuable spot in the 22 he has. Should be the first one dropped. We need to learn how to clear the ball from stoppages when Gawn isn't dominating. That's the second time in three weeks the opposition has nullified his dominance and we've lost both games. Bugg tackles a lot but isn't clean with the ball and this is contributing to our turnovers. I'm not sold on him holding his spot as we start to regain Brayshaw, AVB, Trengove, Lumumba etc. I lost count of the number of times Watts was ignored after a 50m+ lead into space. He got frustrated from that and let it affect his game I think. Not a loss to cause too much concern but a reminder that there is still plenty of work to be done.

Cold and overcast but not raining at the moment. A bit of wind and/or a bit of rain will only help us, you'd have to think.

Vince to shut down Bont like he did at the G last year. Stringer needs close attention. When they played Hawthorn Stratton wore him like a glove all day. Whoever we send to him, whether Garland or TMac, should just run with him all day. I worry that with a zone defence Stringer will use the open spaces to do what he likes.

They've actually played 7 of their 8 games at night so far this year (the 8th was under the roof at Etihad, too). They've got their next three at night too, making it 10 of their first 11 games at night, and I think of those 11, 9 of them have been or will be on FTA TV. Ridiculous fixturing. You know they changed it back to the Fitzroy logo, don't you?

Whoever it was that got the free kick on the wing with 40 seconds to go and didn't look backwards/sideways for a free player exhibited a kind of inexperienced mistake that you don't usually see from teams like Sydney. Good to know we're not the only side that does that.