titan_uranus

The one rider I’ll put on Brisbane is that they have had a relatively brutal fixture. GWS, Geelong, Carlton, Collingwood, us, Fremantle (away), North. Their next month is GC, Adel, Rich, Haw. If they can’t go 3-1 or 4-0, then I’ll be happy to say they’re done.

It’s an interesting article and no doubt right up your alley, but on the bolded bit I don’t think that is right, Richmond had the bye last week too. Plus at any rate the “away” factor for us wouldn’t apply as much in an MCG game against Richmond.

I don’t think any of this is right. Last night wasn’t a case of being switched off or lacking hunger. It was simply a case of us committing terrible turnovers by foot.

I don’t know much about Andrew Wu it his views on us but this reads like it’s laced with disrespect. Never mind that it’s Caleb, not “Jacob Windsor”, or that our ability to score in 2021 wasn’t confined to just the last two finals. He writes about Turner kicking goals as if it’s a bad thing, that it reeks of desperation. If it were Geelong who had found 3 goals from a kid, what’s the bet the commentary would be “they’ve found another one, how do they do it?!”. And the gratuitous reference to “smoking them” at the end, when the article has nothing to do with May, or Collingwood, or anything related to that story, just to me feels like disrespect. End rant.

A reminder that despite being tagged and clearly not being at his best, Trac still had a game-high 7 score involvements.

6 - Gawn 5 - May 4 - Lever 3 - Langdon 2 - Turner 1 - Rivers

The first half turnovers were awful. At one point I thought there was a jumper clash, we were kicking it straight to them. But if it wasn’t for the turnovers they otherwise barely troubled us. Fewer second half turnovers saw us blow the game open. I get the whole “play like that next week and we get destroyed” thing. It’s obviously true. But I’ll bet we won’t play like that next week. How often have we found these ANZAC Eve clashes to be tight, scrappy and contested early on? Feels like most years. The Geelong game isn’t going to look like that. Plus I’d account for us taking a bit of time to adjust after the bye. The backline is going gangbusters. Windsor’s turnovers aside, he’s doing so much right off the ball. Contrary to some on here, I liked Howes’ game and feel like he is reliably holding down a role without fuss. Turner could be a revelation. I noticed that Trac, Oliver and Viney all had around 76% TOG. Something feels up with their fitness - whether they’re injured, “loading” (shudder), or we’re deliberately resting them more in game. But it’s a bit weird. Woey was poor, sadly, and we barely gave Laurie a look. But I’m far more concerned about Petty and, to a lesser extent, Sparrow. Looking forward to how we follow this up next week.

I’m not 100% sold on Turner for Brown but I’m happy to back him and the FD in to try it. Perhaps trying for a more defensive forward sort of role, the sort we might be using Melksham in if he were available. Tholstrup out a sad but correct call IMO. Just not quite ready yet. He’ll be back. I’m very, very unsure that Laurie is now or will ever be good enough at AFL level but I understand the importance of rewarding VFL form and with Salem out, we needed another runner (whether starting 22 or as sub) so he earnt it.

This feels like recency bias. We lost our most recent game whilst sides like Carlton and Collingwood won, so it feels like we’re sliding. Go back two weeks to find Collingwood a kick off losing to Hawthorn, Carlton an umpires’ decision off losing to Fremantle (who just lost to West Coast), and Sydney losing to Richmond. We’re two games clear of Brisbane who are winless at home. We’re one game behind two sides who have looked amazing in Carlton and GWS. And we’ve done that despite having had 50% of our matches to date interstate (we’re not the only ones in that camp but it’s equally not like we’ve had some dream fixture run so far). On the first six games’ evidence I don’t think the conclusion is that we can’t match the top 5 sides. I think it’s that we’re still very much in that group.

Does anyone actually think they’re not the real deal? They should be the best side in it. They have the best list in the comp, IMO. Imagine taking our midfield, giving it a bit more depth, and then chucking Curnow and Mackay in front of it.

We won our first 10 games in 2022… Edit: I see he’s deleted the Tweet.

We copped flawless Brisbane last week. They love playing us and got themselves up for that game. Reality is they are a mid-table side, at best, right now. They will end tonight with the same number of wins as West Coast. Meanwhile Geelong’s had an easy draw so far but equally still have 7 games to come at GMHBA. Lock them in for top 4, sadly.

I didn't think the Tribunal could surprise me anymore. I was wrong. In a long and sad history of them, this may well be the most manifestly unfair and illogical decision the Tribunal has ever made. Put to one side the fact that Cameron has had a number of previous fines - remembering that the AFL says a fine is a genuine punishment, because an intentional strike to someone's gut is "punished" with a fine. Even if he genuinely had never been suspended before, that should be almost entirely irrelevant, and particularly when discussing head high contact from an action such as a sling/dump tackle where the AFL has had significant focus of late. We are now going to see repeated Tribunal headings convened by players who haven't been previously suspended, who say "well if Charlie only got a fine, what about me?". It's a circular argument and one which no one out there, except presumably Brisbane supporters, should stomach. (PS: this has nothing at all to do with the fact that the victim of the tackle was a Melbourne player. That's irrelevant too, and I do not at all buy into the conspiracy theories. This isn't a conspiracy, it's incompetence).

We had the MCG game on our terms last year for most of the first quarter and part of the last. Regardless, the “magic spell” isn’t some sort of secret formula that only Brisbane have. It’s just talent - they’re a good side and are capable of matching/beating us in the middle. Any side who can do that can beat us. They haven’t “worked us out” anymore than anyone else has. They’re just better than most other sides.

The conspiracy theory is that the MRO refrained from penalising Butters because to do so required high contact, but a free wasn’t paid on the night. Second week in a row the umpiring in a Fremantle close loss was under the microscope.

Don’t disagree about us. Just noting there’s a stack of clubs outside of us and last year’s grand finalists who appear legit this year.

Right now it feels like GWS, Port, Fremantle, Carlton and Geelong are all legitimate flag contenders. For whatever reason, IMO the jury's still out on Sydney. I can't shake their fortnight of a loss to Richmond then trailing West Coast for a half. But you can probably add them to the list. That's six sides before you get to Brisbane, Collingwood or us. It's a pretty strong year at the top, IMO. It doesn't help us that we have each of Brisbane, Collingwood, Port and Fremantle twice each.

I don't get to watch Casey much so I rely heavily on Demonland to help me with our VFL performances. It's hard, therefore, when I come on here after what I assume was a gritty win and the thread is substantially posters taking pot-shots at Jefferson. Just on a rudimentary reading of the stats, I'd have hoped to see healthy discussion about what Disco offers as a forward, whether Laurie showed enough to suggest he might add to our AFL midfield mix, and whether Schache did anything different in taking 7 marks and kicking 3.1.

I find this sort of reaction to our losses funny. Each time it's "we've been worked out", "this is the blueprint". Most of the time the result was brought about by something different anyway. We haven't been beaten this badly in the middle in 5+ years. At any rate, the idea that smashing us in the middle puts you in a good place to beat us is hardly earth-shattering, is it? It's almost akin to saying "the blueprint to beating Melbourne is to play really well".

I don’t think we need the bye for general fitness reasons. I think we need it because we’re carrying too many players with injuries. Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we put in a stinker in Round 5 last year vs Essendon? Ended up our worst performance for the year.

No way. They are clear on why head high contact gets upgraded to medium. So Sydney’s not achieving anything this year?

Wait, which one is it?

They had most of these injuries two weeks ago when they beat Sydney. Take no one for granted. The competition has never been more even.

I'm with @DeeSpencer on this. Oliver has to play predominant midfield or not at all. Last night he was just a complete fraction of his usual self and it's clear to me the FD realised it and left him at half-back accordingly. I'm in the minority on this, I know, but I thought Woey was OK across half-back last night. I think we need to put more minutes into him so I'd be looking for ways to keep him in the side. I think we can cover for Rivers moving up the ground, particularly once Hore and Salem come back in 3-5 weeks (I assume), but until then I think we have to focus on the midfield and deal with the backline as best we can, rather than the other way around. I get the pressure issue with Brown/JVR/Petty/Fritsch but it's easier to cover when Pickett plays and Brown made us much better in the previous weeks when we weren't constantly on the back foot stoppage-wise. I'm not going to be mad if we make a change there but for the same reasons as above, our focus IMO has to be on maximising our stoppage game. There aren't players on our list capable of generating winning scores without a good midfield performance to help them.

Since Round 1 2021 we've only lost 8 H&A games at the MCG, including last night (out of a total of 39 H&A games played at the G). Whilst we've also lost the four finals, the point about losing H&A games is that H&A games are where we prognosticate about our finals/flag chances. And the point about the MCG is that that is where the majority of us members go to watch us play live. Also, this is the earliest into a year we've lost at the G since 2019 (we lost in Round 3, 2020, but that was on 28 June given the COVID shutdown, and was played in front of no crowd). We didn't lose at the G in 2021 until July whilst in 2022-23 we didn't lose until the last weekend of May. So last night, we all walk away being somewhat "shocked" by losing, because we just aren't used to it of late, and particularly not this early into a season. We're all a little shaken by it and it naturally makes us start to question 2024. I think that explains why there have been so many posts here along the lines of "I don't know what to make of our season", or "I was sucked into the four wins", or "we weren't really any good against Port/Adelaide". I don't actually think last night tells us much we didn't already know. We are not talented enough forward of centre to win games when we are beaten in the midfield. The same thing happened in Opening Round against Sydney. Not coincidentally, Pickett missed both games. A low inside 50 count makes winning hard enough but doing it with a sub-optimal forward 6 missing its most naturally talented ground ball player makes it near-impossible. We can keep ourselves in games with our collective defensive effort. It's been said a lot but keeping Brisbane to 82 points and 22 scoring shots was a great effort given how dominant they were in the other two-thirds of the ground. Indeed, if Trac had kicked that goal after the JVR goal, the margin would have been back to 30 points with 9 minutes on the clock, and we'd have kicked 3 goals in about 2 minutes. The Brisbane supporters around me were already nervous before his miss, given what happened late in our game last year, and the Melbourne crowd was awakening. The fact we were even able to be in that position at all was due to our ability to restrict their score through the first three quarters. But as much as we keep ourselves in games, we also know that when push comes to shove we are prone to being beaten when we are not on top in the middle. So we can't keep playing an unfit Clarry, or an unfit Viney, or an unfit Trac (Clarry's clearly unfit, Trac came off a lot yesterday and was getting strapping so it won't surprise me if he's carrying something, and Viney looked like he still had the flu a week later). We certainly can't play multiple unfit midfielders. When Pickett doesn't play we need to find someone else to inject spark into our CBAs, and we probably need to accelerate the transition of Rivers into the middle because his run and carry is needed there. I doubt we'll see a collective Oliver-Trac-Viney failure like last night again, but if we do, bank on a loss, because we aren't good enough to cover for it.