titan_uranus

Ralph’s post is fence-sitting junk. “Could” miss “up to” 4 weeks. If it doesn’t happen he will say the scans returned better news than expected. Otherwise he can laud himself as being “first” with the news. If Oliver misses, he’s irreplaceable. Doesn’t matter what you think about Dunstan, Harmes or Sparrow. No one in the league can replace Oliver. We will just have to do our best to find a player or players who can take his minutes and work with our setup. As for the MFCSS on him playing out the game - how about we get (a) confirmation he’s injured and then (b) someone who knows something about injuries to tell us what impact, if any, playing on might have had.

What are you on about? The tackle that TMac got caught in has just been deemed illegal by the MRO. Unless Port take it to the Tribunal and succeed, Jonas' tackle was illegal. The result should have been a free to TMac, not a free to Jonas.

Other than here on Demonland, have you seen any coverage of our game which suggests that the scoreline flattered us? Or that we've been found out, or that we're no good or that we can't win the flag? I haven't. As I argued in the post you quoted, I believe too many Demonlanders have unreasonably high expectations and treat losses like evidence that we're fatally flawed. Craig McRae regularly talks about needing to play the minutes to beat the Pies. Port had to play the minutes to beat us. Despite bringing elite pressure all game and having Butters play his career best game, they were an errant Fritsch snap away from losing to us. Think back to 2018 and 2020 when we would dominate stats but fail to capitalise on the scoreboard, and lose games as a result. Demonland back then treated that as failure. Now, we're being beaten in stats but finding ways to either win or keep the game close, and Demonland treats that as failure too.

Trac had 2 CBAs in each of the first two quarters (2/4 in Q1, 2/4 in Q2). Then 5 in each of the last two quarters (5/9 in Q3 and 5/5 in Q4). I wonder whether his ankle impacted his ability to play consistent midfield.

I don’t know if I’ve seen anyone suggest we need to bring an additional tall in. I agree with you, we can’t get taller. But we need to ensure the talls we play can impact as talls. JVR struggled on Friday and TMac’s mobility and strength are waning, fast. I’m not sure they’re the best combo.

Jordon was the sub so to bring three in and leave him as sub you need one more out. Personally I can see Jordon getting Hunter’s wing.

I don’t think we should take any opposition lightly, other than acknowledging that Hawthorn, North and West Coast are terrible. But you have a habit of pessimistically turning opponents into giants. If Fremantle’s formline were ours, this board would have completely written us off.

When we are inaccurate, it’s because we suck. When our opponent is inaccurate, they’re unlucky. FWIW, most of their misses were from 45m+ out. In the wet, those were hard kicks. They weren’t getting easy shots, despite dominating time in forward half. Our defensive system held up for much of the game under high pressure. You’re as optimistic as the next guy but can only see the negatives? Not sure that’s how optimism works…

Lol yeah because they’ve beaten Hawthorn, Sydney (an interchange infringement away from losing to North) and Geelong missing 8 best 22 players? If that was our formline you’d be arguing the jury is out.

The Hunter one sucks but was the likely outcome. The AFL hate head high contact no matter how unreasonable Rozee’a decision to lead with the head was. It’s an absolute farce though that Jonas has just been suspended for something for which he was awarded a free kick. Broken. Absolutely broken.

Turner can play Petty’s role from 2021-22. Hibberd then plays the role he played in 2021-22, as does Lever.

You’ve undone your own argument by referring to Collingwood. Collingwood get beaten in key areas for 1-3 quarters many weeks. But they win because of their system and belief. They often only need one quarter (often the fourth) to get the job done. That was nearly us last night. Our system is such that we held up well enough defensively despite the ball living in our back half, and whilst they missed some shots, 8 of their behinds were from 45+ metres out. They were taking low-ish percentage shots. Like the GC game, the general vibe amongst non-Melbourne supporters is that last night’s game was a good game of intense, finals-like footy. Many of us on here have set their expectations so high that seeing us in an arm wrestle and struggling to dominate equates to non-competitive or incapable of winning the flag. I don’t agree with that argument.

He was stunned enough to be low. The “potential for injury” lottery will see it go up to medium/high.

I would like to see Rivers play more midfield. He has pace, a good kick and core strength. We have Salem in now to help cover the backline.

The fact that Brisbane don’t have an ANB type player in their forward line is one major reason they have been found wanting in recent years. They lack role players. ANB in form is a critical role player for us. His lack of impact last night is part of the reason we struggled. Not enough forward half pressure, not enough of his link up play. Who exactly do you think in our 23 last night could have run with Butters? And don’t tell me we should have picked Harmes. How many times this year have you said Harmes is cooked?

I think he was reasonably contesting the ball but I suspect he‘ll be given 1-2 weeks (depending on whether the MRO gives him medium or high impact, as to which it’s a random lottery) and we won’t challenge as it’s too hard to overturn.

It’s depth, IMO. We have Trac and Oliver, then Viney, then not enough. The strong sides this year have more: - Port - Butters, Rozee, JHF, Wines, Boak, Drew - Brisbane - Neale, Dunkley, McCluggage, Ashcroft, Zorko, Bailey - Collingwood - De Goey, Mitchell, Adams, Pendlebury, N Daicos, Crisp - Geelong - Dangerfield, Atkins, Holmes, Blicavs, Guthrie - Bulldogs - Bont, Libba, Treloar, Macrae, Smith When Trac and Oliver dominate, they are so good that we as a side are too good. But when they can’t or don’t dominate, there just isn’t enough to work with. Sparrow, Jordon, ANB, Brayshaw, Harmes - they just don’t stack up with our competitors’ 4th, 5th and 6th mids.

I personally never liked the Petty forward move, in part because I didn’t want to disrupt what I thought was a reliable area for us (the May, Lever, Petty trio). I don’t think Lever’s form is as bad as others are suggesting but it’s certainly not as good as it was in the first few weeks where he was in AA conversations. I’m not sure whether a third tall will help with that but I’d suspect it would. Turner struggled in his only game so far but I wouldn’t be opposed to giving him another go.

I agree that of late we have been coming up short against quality sides and that ideally we’d be winning more of these top 4 contests, but in most of the recent losses (I think Brisbane and Essendon this year are the only outliers) we’ve led for long parts of the game. It’s relatively fine margins, hardly a suggestion we’re toast. They have a very good midfield and slaughtered us for time in forward half, yet our system and structure helped keep us in it and when we turned the midfield tide in the third we scored at will. The crowd, some crucial free kicks, and our fumbles helped get them the momentum back but despite being well beaten in the middle for three quarters and despite Butters playing an all time elite game we lost by just 4 points. As I said, it’s fine margins sometimes. JVR was undisciplined and TMac was slow, it’s not their lack of marking that got to me.

One of JVR and TMac needs to go IMO, can’t play them both in the same side. Maybe time to give Brown another go. Sparrow will come straight back, one of the defenders will go - Bowey if injured. If not maybe McVee. I like him but he’s been quiet recently and the balance of the side is out.

6 - May 5 - Rivers 4 - Oliver 3 - Petracca 2 - Hibberd 1 - Hunter

I get people are emotional after a loss but for [censored]’s sake there is some absolutely ridiculous stuff in here. We lost by 4 points on the road to a top 4 side in extreme pressure in the wet. Only Melbourne supporters with wildly misguided expectations interpret that to mean we’re done for the year, or that Goodwin can’t coach, or that our side has lost its hunger, or worst of the lot, the classic “we fluked the 2021 flag” rot. I’m gutted that we didn’t hold on but we got the wrong end of the umpiring stick when the game was on the line and we couldn’t shake the fumbles when we needed to. Our unbalanced side (Salem for Sparrow didn’t work) couldn’t stay with Port when the crowd and momentum lifted. The third quarter showed how good we can be but we started too far behind and needed to kick the first of the last to steady the ship. JVR’s free kicks late capped off a really ordinary night. I thought TMac was terrible too and I’d prefer not to play them as our two talls next week.

If we lose we’ll be 1-2 against the top 8. I get the sentiment but with limited opportunities to test our game against the top 8, I don’t know if a loss will mean our gameplan has to come under question. If we lose, Port will have beaten us, Brisbane and the Dogs. They may well deserve to be in the same conversation as Brisbane (no one currently is in the same conversation as Collingwood IMO).

To be fair, their midfield is full strength. Butters, Rozee, Horne-Francis, Boak, Wines. With Lycett back they’re now also playing a proper ruckman so that’s our big challenge, although when Lycett’s off they have to run Finlayson against Gawn/Grundy. I’m also worried about Aliir doing as he pleases against TMac/JVR and setting up their scoring chains from the backline.

No Dixon, Marshall, Georgiades, Rioli or Fantasia. They’re good, but this is an opportunity.