titan_uranus

To me, these two posts sum it up perfectly. Grimes has been making the same mistakes and has had the same flaws for 6 years. He's physically underdeveloped, his decision making is as bad as anyone's in our side, and he's a terrible, terrible kick of the ball. His best games are fantastic and add a lot of value to the side (think back to his work in the win in Adelaide) but those games, rather than being the norm, are becoming the exceptions to the general trend of mediocrity. But what if there was Nasher? What happens if/when Kent gets back to the form he had early on in the year? Or if Strauss/Blease/McKenzie/Riley can push their stocks further up? Then what?

I wasn't able to follow the game at all day, which in the past few years would hardly have bothered me, but these days is very frustrating. Interesting to read on here that Grimes had a shocker - I read the AFL.com report (not that that's the bible of football mind you) and they said that Grimes was keeping Wingard quiet - not true? Without having watched how it went down, it strikes me as rather indicative of our season - for large parts of the game we are not just competitive, but better, even dominant at times, but we lack polish and class, we make mistakes and we have lapses. Hence, we get outscored 51-0 in 30 minutes of game play and come out on top in the remainder of the game. We lost the Dogs game the exact same way. How many games have we had the lead in the fourth quarter at some point in? Obviously the three wins, plus today, the Dogs game and the GWS game too. That's an enormous indicator of how far we've come and how much better we are this year.

My view on GWS is that a team in Western Sydney, like a team on the Gold Coast, is critical to the AFL's long term success and is a good thing. That team being absolutely putrid with all the talent it has, though, is not a good thing. The team feels far too sterile at the moment; though Gold Coast is only one year older, they already feel and appear to be much more of a 'team' than a bunch of people playing in the same jumper. Too early to make any call on GWS, but they have a lot of hard work to do - it's not just going to happen because they have high draft picks, they need to make it happen.

A bit of a silly comparison, given they play quite different roles, but I'll take it. Seriously, the spud averages 1.1 marks a game. 200cm tall, no marks. What a flop. At a pinch, because those three are all non-Victorian players. Swallow's also having a good year, whilst Whitfield is progressing OK in a side that should be better. Scully, though, knew what he was doing when he took the money and ran - get away from the media and away from the spotlight so that if the form didn't return, which it hasn't, no one would care. The irony is so, so good.

Go take a look at the delisting at year's end thread. Bleese. Everywhere.

Blease, Strauss, Byrnes, Evans, Nicholson, Tapscott, McKenzie and Fitzpatrick all have questionable places on the list. They won't all go, even if none of them improve between now and season's end, which is unlikely (though not impossible, given some have been on the list for nearly six years). At worst Barry should be a rookie in 2015. How does Harmes get upgraded before Georgiou? Not saying Georgiou should be upgraded, but I would have thought based on what we've seen so far he's in front of Harmes. Why? He has a few limitations and with our list beginning to improve by the week, he's going to be left behind if he doesn't lift his game at Casey.

Apparently this is indeed correct - http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/melbourne-demons-cocaptain-nathan-jones-to-choice-birth-of-child-over-football/story-fni5f22o-1226871420666

I would have thought you'd be the first to accept that just because a few people thought something before the majority did doesn't mean they necessarily were right. The issues that were identified in that thread were all present up until this year - the faux aggression, the OTT niggling, the poor up-and-under kicking. Yes, the defensive work was there last year, though we can probably still debate whether or not the statistics relating to his one-on-one prowess were that valuable in the circumstances. For the most part of his career, Dunn's been a poor performer. Last year he may have taken some steps towards the player he is now, but the true flourish has come this year.

He's taken the positives of the good games he had over the last few years and worked hard to remove the negatives. So we don't see much anymore of the fake aggression, the embarrassing attempts to rough up opponents, the finger pointing, the yelling without doing anything, or that stuff. Football-wise, we aren't seeing those terrible up-and-under-look-at-me-I-can-kick-it-50 kicks anymore either. Instead, we see a quiet determination, strength in the contests, smarter kicking (both short and long), and proper leadership. Whether it was all internal or Roos/the coaches helped get it out of him, he's done a great job of bringing the positives out. Good on him.

In: Jetta, Frawley Out: Salem, Dawes We've seen this year that Roos isn't going to give players one game then shunt them back to Casey. Toumpas may have gotten a lucky break last week, but now that he's in I think he'll get at least one more game. Meanwhile Salem struggled against Richmond and I think could benefit from a return to Casey now that he's had a good run at AFL level. He'll know what's required and what he needs to work on. JKH to return to playing full games (was not a fan of him being the sub), Toumpas or Riley to start sub this week.

Love that Viney's tackle got a mention. Those two Ballantyne goals though, especially the first - wow!

Meanwhile at one centre bounce Vince had to ruck due to a blunder with the timing of the interchanges and neither Pedersen nor Dawes realising what was going on. We won that centre clearance too

The OP went too far one way but this is probably going too far the other way. He didn't say we 'should' be 7-2, but that we 'could' be. And to an extent, he's right. We could have won the St Kilda game, and the GWS game, and the GC game, and the Dogs game. We were in each of those in the fourth quarter, either leading or very close, and played periods in each game where we were the better side. So we could have won any of those, just like we couldn't have won the West Coast game and probably could not have won the Sydney game. But that in itself shows the improvement - we have been in 7, maybe even 8, of our 9 games so far, to the point where we've either won, led in the fourth, or at the very least been close enough to the lead in the fourth to feel like we could get there. That wouldn't have happened 7 times last year in total (maybe not even 7 times in the last two years).

Howe, McDonald and M Jones all coughed up disgustingly bad turnovers under pretty much no pressure yesterday, but each of them did a lot else right to make sure it didn't lose us the game (which is a marked improvement on recent years). Nonetheless, they need to all improve their short kicking (Grimes does as well, as does Terlich, as does Bail). When playing decent sides, giving up goals due to laughable errors is going to kill us.

Saying you'd rather listen to Sandy Roberts than Dwayne Russell or BT is a bit like saying you'd rather have your teeth pulled than your fingers broken. Neither is pleasant, both want to make you scream. Sandy's awful. Really, awful. Dwayne is incredibly annoying, BT somehow worse. Football commentary these days is just shocking.

Well if we're going to do that, then it's pick 5 for Pedersen, isn't it?

The only thing I've seen in Spencer that suggests he'll make it is his aggression at the contest, especially stoppages. He's not close to Gawn or Jamar in the ruck, he can't mark, and he can't kick. I don't think he's going to make it, but I suppose as Jamar gets older, we'll need someone on the list to fill that void, and it's probably going to be him.

According to Wikipedia, the average crowd we've played in front of this year has been 30,858. That's not so bad given we've played games against St Kilda, GWS, West Coast in Melbourne and the Bulldogs.

http://www.afl.com.au/video/smart-replay?round=CD_R201401409&matchId=CD_M20140140903

Absolute crap. Watts' intensity was evident from the first bounce. He was tackling, chasing, pressuring and putting in repeat efforts all day. His fourth quarter effort was not due to a lack of trying in the first three. It was due to him being a superior athlete compared to most of Richmond's VFL-grade hacks. And then you play the 'but he's only performed well against crap opponents'. Half the reason they are crap is because we take the pressure to them. Regardless, we are Melbourne - every game we play is a challenge in some regard. Richmond and Carlton were 2013 finalists, FFS. Just accept the fact that you may well be very wrong in what you thought, and still think, about Watts, and acknowledge that yesterday he played a strong, skilful game.

I've noticed this change in Dunn too, he no longer tries with the faux aggression or the continued jumper punching or niggling. He plays a much more honest game now, and he's better for it. He also doesn't spend ages pointing and telling teammates what to do, he actually does it himself now, which is fantastic. Agree. Thought he was soundly beaten again yesterday. He has no core strength and makes unbelievably bad decisions with the ball. His best work is as a loose defender where he can use his courage to drop in front of leads or to cut off forward thrusts. But he's not a tagger, nor a midfielder.

I'm not sure how selection is going to go down for this match. If we don't bring back Jetta, we'll be asking Grimes, Terlich and probably Garland to play on Wingard, Monfries, and Gray. Could work, but Jetta's done a pretty good job of shutting out small forwards and Wingard is a match-winner on his own. I'd be inclined to bring him back for Salem, who I think has hit the wall a bit. As for Frawley, if Dawes misses I'd make that straight swap, but if Dawes stays then I'm not sure how to work him back. Dropping Gawn would be harsh given he played quite well yesterday, but if we don't drop Gawn then who goes? I also prefer Pedersen out of the ruck, but that may be a sacrifice we have to make. In what regard is Garland untouchable? I don't think he played well yesterday, nor did he play well last week. It's probably a case of finding his feet at AFL level, but right now we are tight for positions and I'm not sure Garland is in the 'untouchable' group right now.

No, you could not. McDonald is doing a lot of things right. He beat Riewoldt all ends up yesterday. But he cannot kick and he makes some really poor decisions when he gets the ball.

Usually I'd agree, but not this year. This round we had Matthew Nicholls, a Grand Final umpire last year. Last week we had Matt Stevic, a Grand Final umpire in 2012. In Adelaide we had Ray Chamberlin who apparently is rated quite highly, ditto Dean Margetts who we had the week before. The problem is not the umpires we're getting, it's the way the entire umpiring team is officiating at the moment. Holding the ball is becoming a farce, 15 metres is no longer 15 metres, and certain rules no longer apply it seems (kicking in danger, for example).

Add M Jones, Trengove, Toumpas, Riley and Michie, plus cameos from JKH and Salem. Then put Jamar in the ruck, with Gawn as the number 2. Now we are getting somewhere - a strong starting midfield, and the prospects of some pretty decent depth to go with it.