titan_uranus

As a general rule I'm not against re-signing players at early opportunities. It's good for player morale (theirs and the wider list) and shows we're a fair and reasonable club to those who we may want to attract in future years. Having said all that, I am personally very much a Laurie sceptic. I do not see enough promise in him to think he has what it takes to be a successful AFL player. I would love to be proven wrong but I wouldn't have thought Laurie is a priority for our list at this point in time.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Lever is either out, or named but a late out. Tomlinson and Petty to cover him and May.

Not quite. He said we're confident in Lever playing. He will train today but I wouldn't be surprised if the position is "he has to get through training". May is doing some running today which is probably a good sign.

Well to be fair, he does have a midfield featuring Butters, Rozee, JHF, Wines, Drew and Boak, and a forward line featuring Dixon, Marshall, Finlayson, Rioli and SPP. If he’s backing those two areas of the ground to be as dominant as they ought to be, and Ratugolea and BZT to help in defence, perhaps it’s not all that bad for him to still want a high press?

What’s straightforward about Brisbane- Collingwood or our game?

I suspect so. With time he’ll get stronger and more of his tackles will stick. His willingness to two-way run is fantastic though.

They’ve got Ratugolea and Zerk-Thatcher as their new key defenders. I don’t rate ZT but he beat Tom Lynch on the weekend. They free Aliir to be like Lever. That might be a reason the FD pick Tomlinson and, if Lever plays, put Petty forward. Make Aliir a bit more honest.

This is a ridiculous take. Even if you have high expectations, being this critical of an 18 year old after his first VFL match ever is completely insane.

I suspect (with no medical knowledge) May misses the next three games pre-bye at a minimum. Tough slate of opponents to have in that stretch - Port, Adelaide and Brisbane are all pretty well stocked with tall forwards.

Chapman and Cox are defenders, Cox was in the AA squad in 2022. They are both better than Pearce, as is Luke Ryan. At full strength they are a strong defence and one which I think most people don’t appreciate.

Not sure about Fremantle's depth. Yesterday was only North but they were missing Chapman, Cox, Darcy, O'Driscoll and O'Meara, plus OMac and Worner who played last week, plus a few others (e.g. Corey Wagner and Ethan Stanley). Perhaps against a better side they wouldn't have won but they're 2-0 with quite a lot of talent to come back. And I wholly disagree that they "need" key defenders. Their best 22 defence is top 4 quality.

A consequence of the injuries being to talls and the lack of a rotation was that TMac played 100% TOG and Brown 96%. I'm fairly confident that wouldn't have been our plan going into the game and so it may result in either/both of them pulling up sorer than we'd have wanted. They may get up for the Port game but may not be able to do that and then do a 5-day break into the Adelaide game.

There have been a few posters on here who have felt we're showing some signs of the selflessness that many saw in 2021 and felt they didn't see enough of in 2022-23. One effort doesn't define culture or attitude but the Trac defensive goal-line effort yesterday IMO shows more than just Trac's own mindset. They showed the behind the goals footage of it on the afl.com.au The Round So Far last night. Petty, Rivers, Windsor and TMac can all be seen instantly and instinctively raising their hands in celebration of Trac's effort, and we know Gawn gets straight to him as well. That acknowledgement from his team-mates is equally as important as Trac's effort in the first place. It certainly supports the proposition that there's something a bit different about us this year, in a good way.

Some MFC supporters started getting frustrated at our kick-mark play in the fourth. I thought it was smart - we were down one on the bench and hadn't been able to give Brown or TMac any rest. Keeping the play a bit slower for a period made sense to me.

Looks like we will need two of Hore, Petty and Tomlinson in the starting 22 to cover for May and Lever. The Petty decision presumably comes down to how badly the FD want him in the forward line. Personally I think we will be OK with Brown and JVR forward as we were in the second half today, and therefore I'd go with Petty back. That also perhaps avoids the need to bring Tomlinson back if we think Hore can do the job.

6 - Petracca 5 - Fritsch 4 - Gawn 3 - ANB 2 - Langdon 1 - Howes

Yes, Hawthorn were bad. Really, really bad. But we just adapted so brilliantly to losing two of our most structurally critical players. It wasn't just Petty moving back. TMac was good too (and played 100% TOG!), Hore played his role and I cannot get enough of Howes and McVee. And it goes beyond that. To compensate for the lack of rotations and to ensure we still had the ability to get Petty onto the bench in the fourth, Brown played 96% TOG. 96%! He wasn't amazing today but his leading and presenting at the ball carrier sparked us in the third and remains vitally important. Trac's game was incredible, but the sign that this was a good day for us was that after him, it isn't all that clear who our next best handful were. He was so far in front of everyone else (give him all 6 Brownlow votes) but we had so many players play well. Bear in mind Oliver was down on the previous two weeks too (side bar - Finn Maginness can GAGF). Langdon and Chandler hit some form, Windsor's running is a beautiful thing to see live, Pickett is a weapon, and JVR improved as the game went on (I like him rucking, I think it helps him get into the game when he's otherwise quiet). The second quarter could have been better but the way we professional dismantled them in the second half despite May and Lever being injured was precisely what a good side should have done.

Collingwood are so far off it that I’m not sure beating them right now is necessarily a sign that St Kilda are any good.

I wouldn’t have picked him. What we saw with Spargo in OR is what I’m concerned we’ll see this week, and that’s before you consider tall/run balance (we either drop a runner for a tall or we play a tall as sub which IMO isn’t a good idea).

Meh, the Dogs choose to play games in Ballarat, who cares if it’s their first home game of the year.

We're now undefeated against Hawthorn over the last 6 years (7 wins and 1 draw in that period). If you could go back in time to 2016 and tell a Melbourne fan that we were going to be unbeaten against Hawthorn for 6 years you would have been ridiculed. We lost 13 straight games across 10 years at one point there, and ended up losing 15 out of 16 games across 12 years.

It's a good thing that a genuinely quiet game from Fritsch still resulted in him having three shots on goal (all of which were kickable). I think he was only goalless in a game (not including when he got injured in Alice Springs) once last year so it's a very rare occurrence.

Way too much Schadenfreude going on here. They've lost to arguably the two best sides in the competition, playing games in March.

If Sam McClure did even a cursory bit of research he'd find that in 2023 we had the 2nd highest rate of converting members into home attendances (Fremantle was 1st). Our home crowds are excellent given our lower supporter/membership base overall. However... Whilst the vast majority of us cannot go to every single game even when we want to, I have always felt that there are too many Melbourne supporters/members who use their attendance as a form of protest too much; in other words, people who could go, don't go, because they're unhappy with something (on field or off) and want to send some sort of message. That sort of attitude is evident in the thread about Kate Roffey's "be like Collingwood" comments. How many people said "I'll go when we play exciting football" or similar?

The other promising thing was kicking 100+ with Fritsch being blanketed most of the day (he should have kicked at least two goals from the shots he did get though, but he was otherwise well beaten by Jones).