titan_uranus

The 5-day break is going to dictate selection more than anything, I suspect.

Assuming Petty is concussed, TMac gets that spot. Not that there's anyone else though.

Gawn to me looked sick/injured, just didn't look to be moving fluently at all, and spent much longer periods on the bench than usual. I'd be surprised if he's rested but not surprised at all if we keep Heath in to manage Gawn's minutes on Friday.

Personally I forgot Laurie was in the side until he bobbed up for a disposal late. I'd give that spot back to Lindsay.

I'd keep Taylor and Jefferson in for another week.

6 - Chandler
5 - Langford
4 - Langdon
3 - Turner
2 - Tholstrup
1 - JVR

All four wins have had "that's the best win we've had in ages" vibes to them.

We had no business beating them with the respective sides fielded. We fell 16 points behind, and then after throwing an incredible third quarter at them, we fell behind at the start of the fourth. The maturity to come back from that, steady, get the 3-goal lead, and then hold on, was incredible.

And we did it without having Gawn or Koz play a blinder; Gawn, indeed, looked sick/injured/off today. Can't recall the last time we played a game like this without Gawn dominating, to be honest.

King mentioned pre-season that he wanted to see versatility in our players. That's starting to pay off. Fritsch up on the wing today worked really well. Tholstrup looked at home at half-back, as did Langdon. Langford tore up the wing, when he's ear-marked for inside mid. Latrelle got up the ground today too.

When we're scoring 100 points and our best players are Langford, Langdon, Chandler and Sparrow, you know something's going well.

Finally, a note on the crowd. 41,000 today, probably 25,000-odd were MFC supporters, maybe more, but the noise we made as we surged in the second half and then held on late was intense. We've been filling Levels 1-3 of the members weekly, and against mid/low-drawing sides like St Kilda, GC and Brisbane. The vibe at the game is the best it's been since 2018, I feel, and it shows - I don't think it's a complete coincidence that our four MCG games have been great whilst our two road trips haven't. We still have MCG games against Richmond, Collingwood, Essendon, Hawthorn, Geelong and the Dogs to come, so let's hope we can keep the strong crowds and the noise up.

Looks like Cross, Kentfield and Henderson are all playing for Casey right now, which would probably suggest Fritsch is OK to play?

Even allowing us to play at the level we played v Gold Coast, this will be a tough ask.

Brisbane’s list is stupidly good, miles in front of the other 17 clubs IMO. A-graders everywhere, young talent everywhere, solid system.

Their scoring prowess should be too much for our very sub-standard defence.

Having said all that, I felt the same way before the GC game, plus we played some really good footy for 2-3 quarters v Fremantle. So you never know.

26 minutes ago, Dee*ceiving said:

Out. Salem, Melksham, McDonald

In. Moniz-Wakefield, Kentfield, Laurie

Petty goes back

Smaller, faster, more agile

Better balance up forward

This is where I'm leaning. I'm very much on record as not being a Laurie fan but he was the one who got the call up to replace Fritsch vs Gold Coast so I presume he's next in line whilst the likes of Cross, Rivers, Jiath, Viney and Bowey remain injured.

Kentfield forward, Petty back, TMac out. AMW replaces Salem. Laurie replaces Melksham. Reasonable balance, improved running.

Our half back line will be interesting.

No Salem, no Bowey, no Rivers, no Jiath. All feasibly best 23 players who can rotate through there.

11 minutes ago, VNightCityLegend said:

Don’t like to admit it, but St Kilda are a pretty good side. The way we beat them and then to win in similar fashion against Gold Coast makes losing to Essendon by essentially 8 goals is just utter garbage.

I’m still in shock how we lost yesterday.

Jury's very much still out on St Kilda for mine.

Port are not very good this year, having already lost to North and West Coast and with wins against Essendon and Richmond only.

Need to see more from St Kilda before considering them a good side.

Just now, BoBo said:

Sorry I’m just trying to understand your post, so we’re the first team outside of those teams beating/losing to each other, to lose to them?

Yes.

Break the competition up into those 6 clubs and the other 12 clubs.

Those 6 clubs are 1-13 against the other 12 clubs.

6 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

JVR has to go. He had a player rating yesterday of -3 which is essentially playing one man down.

The AFL hate gut punches or even light taps to the guts which is what did Disco did yesterday. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets pinged a week by the MRO.

Turner didn't get cited, but Lever did (a fine), for striking Edwards. Is that who you were thinking of?

5 hours ago, bing181 said:

You did not expect inconsistency at all.

Apart from the hyperbole ("likely wooden spooner" ...), inconsistency means EXACTLY what you saw yesterday. Wild swings in performance, across and within games. An inconsistent team is one that might look dominant one match or quarter and underwhelming the next, might beat a ladder-leader one week but then lose to a cellar-dweller.

What you expected was in fact the reverse, consistency, where we'd more or less perform to a similar level every time we ran out onto the park.

If you hate losing fine, but don't kid yourself about "expecting inconsistency".

You are so unbelievably sanctimonious, but you're also hypocritical.

So we're all supposed to expect losses, however bad, to however bad of an opponent, and we're all supposed to expect inconsistency, no matter how wildly good or bad it is.

And yet your first post on this postgame thread was:

On 11/04/2026 at 16:15, bing181 said:

The kind of performance most pundits predicted for us at the start of the season.

Hopefully an aberration, but doesn't augur well. And hate to say it but Essendon's young players looked a lot better than our young players.

"Doesn't augur well"? I thought we were supposed to expect inconsistency?

And then saying you "hate to say it" but Essendon's kids looked better than ours? The same kids who looked awful when they were 0-4, whilst ours helped us beat Gold Coast (plus St Kilda and Carlton)?

You're so quick to insult anyone who is disappointed by the result and yet after one bad game from our kids, and one good game from some of Essendon's, you're now arguing that their kids are better than ours?

If you assume that Richmond, Essendon, West Coast, Carlton, Port Adelaide and North Melbourne are all going to be bottom 6-ish sides, then through the first 5 weeks, we are the only club. to have lost a game to those 6 clubs, other than those 6 clubs themselves.

So Rivers was fit enough to play this game?

What the [censored] is going on with him? Dropped, but apparently injured, but not on the injury list, but spoken of as injured, but then played a VFL scratch match.

1 minute ago, GawnOfTheDead said:

Fully Agree. I wish you could find those stats on the AFL app. I haven’t seen them before.

Would be interested to know what the pressure was at throughout the various quarters and compare it to last week.

The pressure stats are published by @WheeloRatings in the Stats File thread every week.

Just now, praha said:

Only paying $2.93 against Brisbane. Very short.

Well we are 3-0 in Sunday 3.15pm games at the MCG this year...

PS: @Adam The God see what I meant earlier this week when I said losing today would undo our efforts vs Gold Coast?

On the field we took a massive step backwards.

Off the field, how many do you think we'll get to the Brisbane game next week off the back of that?

Heath or Kentfield for TMac.

Rivers or AMW for Salem.

If Melksham is injured, I expect Laurie to get that spot back, although personally I'd go with pretty much anyone else (shame Cross is injured). Jeffo another option but I think we're already too tall, so I'd only be considering him if we decide to drop JVR.

If Rivers is fit, we could bring AMW in for Salem and then Rivers in for, say, Culley, Windsor, Langford or Lindsay, if we feel we need to get one of them to find some form at VFL level for a bit.

I knew going into this season that we were going to have bad games. I accept that we are going to have bad games, and we'll have more before the season's done.

But I can't accept losing by 45 points to the worst side in the competition on a 17-game losing streak. A side who had only won 4 out of 16 quarters before today. Not when just six days ago we played finals-quality football against a flag-contending side.

So whilst I can stomach losing, and 3-2 after Round 5 exceeds most Demonlanders' pre-season expectations of where we'd be at this stage, today has to be seen for what it really was - a stinking failure, not just a standard bump in the road.

We won't compete with probably any of the 17 other sides if we can't/don't run. King mentioned in the presser that we were "lethargic", and that we have to learn to be "unconditionally ruthless, selfless and connected" (his buzzwords). I'm guessing he's seen a bunch of our players who just didn't work hard enough. I'd be surprised if we don't drop a few.

The other thing was him acknowledging the "hunter v hunted" mindset issue. No doubt in my mind he thinks we struggled dealing with the pressure of expectation. Not exactly surprising, as this group of leaders has been struggling with expectation for years. But I appreciate that he raised it.

27 minutes ago, Red But Mostly Blue said:

Yeah agree. Still perplexes me how 22' was so low (even taking into account interstate teams).

Different situations though. 2018 was our first finals campaign in 12 years and our opponents were Geelong and Hawthorn. The excitement for us fans that year is probably incapable of being replicated, even this year.

2022 was the year after we’d won the flag, still some tentative COVID restriction hangovers, and interstate opponents.

2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

I’m seat 1A on the Wildcard bandwagon but hate the idea that both games could be sold to a city.

Really hope the AFL listen to the fans on this one. Most people will accept the top 10, but no way will they tolerate finals being sold.

If the AFL listened to fans we wouldn’t have a wildcard round.

41 minutes ago, BDA said:

i'm all for the idea of a wildcard round as long as we finish 9 or 10.

if we finish in any other position i'm against the idea

I wonder how the Demonland wildcard supporters will feel if we somehow finish 7th or 8th this year (which, FWIW, I strongly doubt will occur).

If this is true…[censored] me and [censored] the AFL.

We’re so commercialised that we’re not only going to deprive 7 and 8 of being in the finals, and we’re not only going to make them play an extra game just to make more money and because some people can’t go one week without the “content” of AFL matches, but we’re then going to deprive those sides of home ground advantage, again to make more money.

10th will have more losses than wins in the H&A season but if their home state pays the most money, they could be given a home final against 7th.

What a [censored] joke.

In Fritsch

Out Laurie (omitted)

7 hours ago, DubDee said:

Umps gave us 3 50’s in the third Q

They were sorta there but often not given

Sometimes you gotta admit you got the run of the green

Nah all three of those were clear cut and get paid every week. Two were GC forwards not coming back to “the 9” when we had the ball on the line in the back pocket, and one was a GC player coming off the mark after standing on it and getting called to stand by the umpire.

Hardwick would have been furious with them, surely.

7 hours ago, Garbo said:

Get the feeling if fritsch is fit it will be Culley that makes way, Laurie would stay in as he plays a different role. Fwd line looks a little unbalanced if it’s JVR, Mihocek, Melksham, Fritsch and Culley all playing as marking fwds. The only ground level fwds left would be Latrelle and Chandler. Not that Laurie spent much time down there but it still doesn’t make sense.

Culley’s not playing forward, he’s playing wing. Whilst I’d like him to get more of the ball, his two-way running is on display and he ends up floating forward when he can to stretch opposition defences.