titan_uranus

There’s fairly enough plenty of focus on the players taking the actual shots, but there’s no doubt that on the weekend and historically we take low percentage shots. @WheeloRatings ’ shot map shows how many shots we took on the angle and outside 30m. Our expected score was 83.8. We had 28 scoring shots. So that would still have looked like 11.17.83. So with the shots we had we were still expected to kick inaccurately. The shots were too often too hard. We’ve done better this year at generating better shots on goal. Last week was a regression IMO.

Photos from training today show them in blues and whites, with the blues looking like the senior team. TMac, Laurie and Jefferson all seen in blue. Culley, Campbell and Howes all seen in white. Perhaps some insight into selection?

Yeah like those unserious Hawks who won 4 flags whilst selling 4 games a season to Tasmania.

The right suspension. Worse than Mills’ hit last week. Absolutely deserves two weeks. Lucky he didn’t seriously hurt NWM. Quite frankly, it was idiotic and he has to learn to be better than this.

I personally also think he won’t make it but it’s poor list management and leadership from the FD to never give him the chance to prove us wrong.

@WheeloRatings can you please contextualise those numbers? How does our 162 rank this year and under Goodwin? And what about the fourth quarter 132?

@poita ? Hyperbole? No, never.

AJ suspended. That’s two suspensions in, what, 5 games? I get that aggression is his thing, but if he can’t control it then it’s useless to us, and therefore so is he. JVR replaces him. I don’t care that Jefferson kicked more goals in the VFL, JVR’s the better prospect and can take AJ’s ruck minutes. Sharp to be dropped for Viney if fit. If Viney not fit, find someone else to take Sharp’s spot. Give Laurie at least one full game before we drop him (likely for the final time, tbh). Lever needs to find form pretty soon. We can’t keep TMac in the VFL in the form he was in if Lever isn’t playing just as well.

Completely agree. I’m probably going to do him a disservice here by tagging him and potentially misquoting him (apologies in advance) but IIRC @binman ’s theory for why we were a strong chance to lose today (he was proven right) included that we would be loading and training to be “cherry ripe” for next week, potentially to this week’s disadvantage. If that’s indeed what we’re doing, it’s madness. At 5-6, with the draw we have, we should be doing everything to win the games we have left against the weaker sides, today being one of those wins. Prioritising fitness for KB or some other period in July or August is useless when you start 0-5. Who knows if this is what actually happened of course. But record low pressure levels and a stack of players barely touching it compared to their usual output (Langdon had just 13 touches! Clarry 16, Rivers 14, Salem 14, Langford 10) maybe suggests something was up. Maybe.

Were we loading? I hope the club is as embarrassed as we are angry. We’ve not only just [censored] 4 points down the drain, we somehow managed to again lose by 30 points, taking yet another percentage hit. We conceded 6 goals in the first quarter to St Kilda. They’d barely kicked 6 goals to three quarter time in the last two months.

Garry Lyon admitted on radio earlier this year that he hadn’t appreciated how good Tom Barrass was until he saw him live, as he’d only seen him on TV when he played in Perth. Studio-based commentary is sub-standard. Foxtel know that but don’t care.

My current thinking around the "run home" (which at this point is better described as the second half of the season). We have 12 games remaining. 6 of them are against sides currently below us on the ladder (St Kilda x 2, Carlton, Port Adelaide, North Melbourne, West Coast). The other 6 are, obviously, against sides currently above us (Collingwood x 2, Gold Coast, Adelaide, Hawthorn, Bulldogs). If we win the 6 games against the sides below us, that gets us 11 wins. We'd then need at least 2, maybe 3, of the other 6 to get into the top 8. For every game we drop against the lower ranked sides we have to win another one against the higher ranked sides. It won't be easy, but it's doable. Going into the byes last year Hawthorn was 4-7 with a percentage of 82.8%, but got their percentage up to 118.5% by winning 10 of their last 12 games - however, 6 of their last 7 wins were by 60+ points, including a 124 point win vs North in the final round. If we fall short, we're going to seriously rue the loss to GWS most of all, and then the terrible fourth quarter drop offs vs North, Geelong, Essendon and Hawthorn. The percentage damage we took when those margins blew out late could easily ruin us, if we do get on a roll from here.

That wasn’t to the head. It was to the side. Seemed totally fair to me.

I’d say “decent chance” for finals, at best, not “almost certainties”. We have a tough fixture and strong competition for top 8 spots, and we did exhibit some truly rank football 6 weeks ago. One week at a time.

A good question. Surely Laurie gets a go.

Fully agree that we can’t get too confident this week (or any week tbh). But St Kilda have lost 6 of their last 7. Yes the win in the middle was a 10 goal win over Fremantle but Freo didn’t turn up that day. They’ve also lost to West Coast and Carlton in the last 3 weeks, neither of whom are good/in form. Again, don’t get me wrong, if we don’t bring our A game we lose, but I’ll say that every week. Just like Sydney, my view is we are a better side than St Kilda and should win this if we play anything like we have the last 6 weeks.

Well we’ve beaten Brisbane, and Fremantle (9th, out of the 8 on percentage only), lost to GWS (8th) by a kick in somewhat unlucky circumstances and played well against Hawthorn. That resume isn’t actually all that bad. Hawthorn, the Dogs and Adelaide have each only beaten one top 8 side (GWS for both). GWS has beaten two (Collingwood and Geelong).

Scapula yes, but club saying 4-6. Injured in the incident before the Mills hit. Viney likely but not confirmed. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/1792732/injury-report-strong-session-strengthens-viney-case

Spargo confirmed out for 4-6 with a scapula injury. Viney likely but not confirmed. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/1792732/injury-report-strong-session-strengthens-viney-case

The latest example of the MRO system being the AFL's most embarrassing joke. Why does the "potential to cause serious injury" thing get rolled out some times (e.g. Pickett on Smith in 2023) but not others? Why not here? What Mills did was reckless and had clear potential to KO Spargo, even though it didn't. Meanwhile Paul Curtis gets three weeks for a tackle that was almost done perfectly but still accidentally caused concussion, whilst Jackson Archer and now Alex Pearce get three weeks for largely unavoidable collisions. Just a genuinely broken farce, the MRO.

Viney for Spargo. I'd be comfortable making that change even if Spargo is fit - IMO he's clearly 23 out of 23 right now and Viney will come back assuming he's fit. Interesting question if Spargo's injured and Viney still isn't right. Laurie? TMac for Lever if there's even a shadow of doubt over Lever's fitness. Wouldn't be surprised to see May "managed" this week either. AJ stays until JVR puts together weeks of good VFL form. Not one match against the bottom side. I'm not convinced by this. As in, I accept he's doing more than the raw stats often show us, but I'm not convinced that's keeping him in the side. Who is at Casey right now who is banging the door down to take his place? Laurie? And that aside, if he and Viney are both fit this week, and noting you've already accepted Viney is an automatic selection, who makes way for Viney?

I've now had the chance to watch the replay and my first thought was that @fr_ap was spot on to highlight Sydney's pressure. Yes, they were poor at moving the ball, and they fell apart late, but for most of the game they were giving us properly strong opposition. We were just better than them, and had we not had a series of unfortunate misses in the second, we should have been 60 points up at half time. The other main thing I liked was seeing Sydney seriously challenge us early in the third, only for us to steady and bite back. Hayward had a chance to bring the margin back to 11 points and they looked like they were about to have their one good quarter but thankfully he missed, and from there we put them away. We're as in form as anyone else right now and we're playing a brand that stacks up - it starts with proper defensive pressure across the entire 18, and we're outscoring on turnover. This football can win us enough matches to make finals, even despite the 0-5 start, so long as we can keep it up. Enough's been said about Koz and Gawn but I absolutely loved Langford and Lindsay - we have nailed those two picks, so much so that I genuinely no longer give a rat's tossbag about Essendon holding our first rounder this year. Enough's also been said about AJ but my view on that is pretty clear - he holds that spot until JVR puts together weeks of consistent VFL form. Then JVR can have that spot back. JVR's clearly the more talented long-term fit for the team.

We have St Kilda next week, not Collingwood.

We won all four quarters, including 8 goals in the fourth, winning it by 3 goals despite Sydney having had 2 extra days’ break and us playing in Brisbane last week. Any reason why Langdon only played 78% TOG? Very low by his standards. Managing him through this tough part of the fixture? Pickett did everything he did despite only 76% TOG. He only played 3/4 of the match!

I haven’t seen the game but if their pressure was 220 in the first half and we still managed to win both quarters and lead by 20–odd, that’s a stunning outcome and, like you, probably going to be my favourite thing to come out of today. Although also, @jnrmac will be happy as we won all four quarters!