titan_uranus

I said pre-game this had a loss written all over it, but the recent Melbourne had me believe it wouldn't be the same. Unfortunately, I've been let down. Again. Really, really disappointed.

I've never been a big fan of Dunn but I can clearly see the value he is adding to the team and to our defence. There's no obvious replacement for him on the list but even if there was I'd be picking Dunn over him right now. I've never liked his faux aggression but he's reduced that. I also didn't like how often he called for the ball in poor positions on the weekend, but that got better as the game went on (as did the rest of the team's decision making). I like statistics as evidence to back up a point but DE is a meaningless waste of space.

A few weeks? No way. I think his worst game was the Richmond game but I thought his first month was solid. The kind of role he's playing, though, he needs to keep his impact high (ditto Petracca, Bugg, Harmes, Hunt and Wagner) because the competition for spots is high. But I don't think he's done a lot wrong so far.

A win this weekend would be huge for our confidence. Knock off this 10-year Saints hoodoo, at Etihad as well. Three in a row would be nice, as would winning as favourites and with some expectation and good press during the week. And prove we've learnt from the Essendon game. In any other year this would have loss written all over it. This year, maybe not.

Great news, but mainly because he fulfils the role of insurance. I cannot see him playing a single game this year with Gawn in the side. If Gawn needs a rest or (heaven forbid) gets injured, though, Spencer would slot straight in and take his place. He'd have to play the same role (so I hope his tank is close enough to the level Gawn's is at).

Something I noticed for some odd reason watching the video of all our goals on the MFC website. If you go around 5.24 of the video, Frost gets a free kick just forward of centre. Around him are players including Gawn, Viney and Bugg. As soon as the umpire says it's Frost's free kick all three of them immediately sprint off into the forward line. By the time Frost kicks the ball to FF (he doesn't take too long), all three of them are at the next contest. That kind of running and spreading has not been evident in our play since...ever. It's a small thing, but it's those kinds of things I see us doing now on a regular basis.

Can't agree with Fifty-5 or anyone else who thinks there's a trend in Salem to be weak in the contest. He made mistakes on the weekend but so did McDonald, Dunn, Lumumba and, well, probably every single Melbourne player. The upside Salem brings undoubtedly IMO outweighs the kinks he needs to keep ironing out. Agreed. Salem is an integral part to our side. I'd like him to work on his bodywork and positioning in marking contests but I suspect that will improve as the team continues to gel and he continues to develop confidence in his position.

I'd swap Oliver and Brayshaw - Brayshaw just looked a step or too off the pace last night. Oliver was given a week off to rest, I'd do the same to Gus. Assuming there are no forced changes due to injury, the only other change I'd really consider is Petracca for Frost. Frost is getting better but still can't mark and some of his field kicking is awful. I like the way he goes about it and the FD clearly wants him to work as a third/fourth tall forward but if Petracca is ready to play that's an improvement at that position right now. I'll caution that by saying St Kilda's strength is its running and smaller players so if Petracca isn't 100% fit and/or prepared to gut-run in defence like Frost is, then he isn't ready to play. Given the word of those who have seen him play at Casey, I'll back him in. If Salem or Wagner aren't 100% and need to be rested, I'd prefer to see M Jones take his spot back in the side. Did little wrong over the first month and is far more in form than Garland or Terlich. Kennedy wasn't his best yesterday but his first four games are more than enough to keep him in the side. Hunt showed enough too IMO. Bugg has to keep tackling and pressuring because he turns it over too much. Stays for now but the pressure from the VFL boys will, hopefully, only get stronger.

I don't count any of that as laziness though. The sloppy kicks are a by product of us not being elite, or close to it, yet. The missed tackles happen every week from every team but we stuck more than enough to show we weren't being lazy. Richmond were bad, yes, but there were multiple times when they lifted and upped their intensity and instead of letting them get a run of goals on we lifted too, matched them, and returned fire on the scoreboard every time. That's not laziness, that's being a good side. The skill errors are going to cost us matches against the better sides, maybe even against the worse sides, but they should slowly diminish as we continue to work on this style of football and work together as a team.

Agreed, and coupled with the incorrect and misplaced focus on the outcome of the incident (i.e. the damage caused) rather than the nature of the incident itself, I fully expect nothing more than a one week ban (with the words "after receiving a medical report from the Melbourne Football Club").

AFL commentary, especially on TV right now, is really low quality I reckon. Cometti is good, always has been. Bruce is pretty poor, lots of superfluous OTT remarks (and an enormous bias towards Hawthorn/Rioli, West Coast/Naitanui and Geelong/Selwood/Dangerfield). BT's awful, Luke Darcy's learning but not good. Dwayne Russell's terrible and Sandy Roberts is appalling (genuinely does not know most of the players on the ground and repeatedly confuses players and gets their names wrong). David Schwarz and Kevin Bartlett are hopeless. Hamish McLachlan's trying to be too much like Bruce with statistics and general statements as opposed to actually calling the game. Basil Zempilas is OK but nothing special. I like Cometti, Huddo and Matt Granland. Not a lot else out there. There's a new guy on Foxtel though who gets given the dud Saturday twilight/night game and he sounds pretty good so far though.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2016-04-25/new-afl-tribunal-clause-might-cost-alex-rance-an-extra-week According to this, the MRP can add weeks where an act has the potential to cause serious injury. New clause in 2016. Refers specifically to elbows. With the current prevalence in wider society of king hits and cowardly striking, especially amongst young men, this is an important moment for the AFL. What Rance did was a dog act and the MRP should, IMO, use its powers to add weeks onto what would otherwise be a one week ban (intentional, head high, low impact = 1 week).

Laziness? On our part? What game were you watching? Agree with the skill errors (McDonald...) and some bad decisions (early on we were far too keen to switch the ball without thinking about whether it was the right move or not) and the umpiring (tried hard to keep Richmond in it, they did). But not laziness.

6 - Gawn 5 - Viney 4 - Tyson 3 - Kent 2 - Watts 1 - Garlett

Apparently, according to Twitter, if Rance's dog act of a hit is judged as intentional with low impact to the head, that's one week. The system is [censored]. There's only an offence of "striking". An open hand is the same as an elbow or a punch (or a knee, I think?). A strike in a fight is the same as a strike to a defenceless player on the ground, to the back of his head. Absolute dog act from Rance which deserves 3 weeks but will only get 1 as the MRP will get a medical report from Melbourne which says Watts is fine, therefore only "low" impact. Viney's deserves to be thrown out on the basis of insufficient force but a fine would not be surprising. 1 week would be appalling.

So great to get the monkey off the back. Another strong team performance. 20 goals with Hogan not kicking any (AdamFarr, I can't agree with you, not only has Hogan played far worse games than that but he was actually quite good today, a lot more selfless and again leading well). They tried to play a bit dirty, we matched and then beat them at that game, we out-spread them and we were far more efficient moving the ball. We continue to make too many mistakes and against better sides that is going to hurt us much more, but the game plan is working and the personnel are now starting to both believe and demonstrate that they can execute it weekly. Viney and Gawn absolutely outstanding (Viney surely gets just a reprimand for his strike, if anything?). Tyson also played his best game since 2014 probably, very impressive. Our centre clearance work tonight was fantastic. Garlett and Vince come back to the side and kick 7 goals between then. Garlett was in everything (looked sore though, limped a bit throughout the game). Each of Dunn, McDonald and Pedersen did some very important things but each made some bad errors (McDonald especially, I cannot believe how many awful errors he made). Pedersen's marking is improving by the week as is his gut running, IMO. How clean are Hunt's hands?! I like the kid, really like the way he goes about it. Brayshaw looked spent by the fourth and should be "rested" to bring Oliver back.

Giants for mine take Gold Coast's spot in the 8 and that's probably the top 8 at the end of Round 23 IMO (North, Dogs, Geelong, Sydney, Hawthorn, West Coast, Adelaide, GWS). Not sure any other club (GC, Melbourne, Port, Richmond, Fremantle, St Kilda) will keep it up long enough to make finals. Regardless, would love for us to at least be considered as one of, say, 10-12 clubs who can make finals.

It's going to be a while before many of us develop that true confidence. A win today might do it. Getting the consecutive wins monkey off our back might be the turning point my MFCSS-wired brain needs to genuinely believe.

Nice article. An interesting point I noticed: "The footy program is like nothing I've seen in my time here ... how committed our coaching staff is to developing young players, not sitting around waiting for them. Age is no excuse, experience is no barrier." Not trying to start another instalment of "drafting vs development", but surely this helps explain how much more was wrong than simply drafting.

To move on from the above waste of space... I love seeing North and the Dogs in first and second on the ladder (not a huge North fan but it's a different face at the top, which is a positive IMO). But it's Sydney, Geelong and Hawthorn at 3, 4 and 5. The AFL needs those three clubs to fall apart. Hawthorn has already had to play the Dogs, Geelong, West Coast and Adelaide, hasn't had Roughead all year, hasn't even played that well, and has a 4-1 record. That sickens me.

Agree. We looked awfully slow against Essendon. We were miles faster than Collingwood and, for periods of the game, we also looked faster than both GWS (one of the fastest sides in the comp) and North.

Hell, us MFC supporters aren't confident enough yet, so it's not surprising the general football populace takes our form with a grain of salt. There's been a lot of talk this week about not having won back-to-back games since 2011, I'm sure that's in many people's minds. Plus Richmond's past two games, though awful, were against Adelaide and West Coast, so I think some people are prepared to give them some benefit of the doubt whilst no one ever gives Melbourne any benefit of any doubt.

As for the game, that was a borderline holding the ball on Smith (IMO he elected to ride the tackle (i.e. prior opportunity) and then dropped it), but the bigger issue for Adelaide was Jenkins' kick just before - he had Walker running towards goal but elected a ridiculous left-foot snap which went straight up in the air and wasted 4 or 5 seconds waiting for it to come back down.

I know a lot of Hawthorn fans and I have a strong belief that many of their supporters are "fake". They've signed up because it's "in" - Hawthorn is a winning side, it's "fun" watching them play and being associated with them. But they're not real supporters. They don't actually go to games, they don't dedicate themselves. If Hawthorn stops winning their membership will fall to a truer number of around 50,000.

Pedersen, Hunt, Kennedy, Garlett as the bench. Not that bad. If Garlett doesn't get up, we bring Petracca in. I like where this club is going. Now to ensure we don't do an Essendon. A corner can be turned this weekend.