titan_uranus

Barring unknown injuries or suspensions, I imagine there's one change coming and it's Pickett for someone. I see a few options for how we might approach this. The first is Brown, given we went on a scoring rampage when he was subbed off and given he may be a bit sore. Whilst it can work, the risk is we'll be going into a game with Petty and JVR as the two tall forwards, with a combined 3 games' experience of being forwards at AFL level. I personally didn't think Petty was fantastic today and I don't think we can go into a game with just those two as forwards, particularly when one has to relief ruck. So if we want to keep Brown in for balance, we can either swap out a mid/forward type player, or a defensive player. Whilst Hibberd or Bowey perhaps weren't our absolute best today, moving out a defender throws the balance out as well, unless we send Petty back into the backline. Otherwise it's a mid/forward. But I don't think any of them were poor enough to be dropped. I thought Sparrow's centre clearance work in the second half helped us get back on top. I think Spargo and ANB are playing their roles just how the coaches want them, and they are criminally underrated on here. I think Chandler's doing enough in his role and we're not dropping Fritsch. Meanwhile I thought Jordon's game was great and though it could have been a coincidence, maybe his rotations with Langdon/Hunter helped them both play well. A hard call, but I expect it to be Chandler or a defender (Bowey, McVee or Hibberd).

Where's Sam McClure now? He said he expected 40,000 (before moving the needle to 42,500 after speaking with Richo). We drew a few dozen short of 42,500 on the same day 130,000+ people went to the Grand Prix. Would love to hear him say "good on Melbourne supporters" but no doubt we'll either hear nothing, some sort of clip that it still wasn't enough, or another snow joke.

Hands down our best performance since the Grand Final. In the third quarter they were all over us in all facets of the game. The way we responded, and turned the game on its head, is incredibly impressive. It would have been against any side but to do it against IMO the best side other than Collingwood, a side who has the wood over us and would have had fond memories of running over the top of us in the QF last year, and who were Hickey short of full strength (Reid wouldn't be getting a game in front of McDonald or Amartey right now), is huge. And we did it without Gawn, Pickett and Salem. And we did it with new faces and players in new/tweaked roles. I thought Oliver was outstanding all day. Grundy's game got better as the day went on, albeit without much opposition. Lever continued his strong start to the year and I loved the way we rotated Jordon through the wings and perhaps helped bring the best out of both Hunter and Langdon. I found it interesting that we were 0-6 in centre clearances in the first quarter but 5 goals up. Last week we were leaking goals from stoppage. I suspect we gave that area a bit more focus. I'm sure having May back contributed to it too. I also find it interesting that we're the highest scoring side in the competition so far, but not even in the top 8 for average points against. This is a bit of a new Melbourne, perhaps, although we've probably had a tougher first three weeks than most other top 8 sides. We've clearly acknowledged the need for us to have different "looks", both positionally and within games. We're seeing changed centre bounce combinations (Rivers was in there today, is that a first?) and we're now seeing things like Petty forward. This is a flexibility and willingness to change that is new to Goodwin. The fact we're now winning more based on our ability to score and less on our ability to hold opponents to ridiculously low scores is probably also testament to our new-found changes.

For all of Fox’s trumpeting about how good their coverage is, it’s pathetic that they don’t send their commentators interstate.

What role did he play? And therefore whose spot might be vulnerable if we lose today?

St Kilda have Gold Coast next week, then get Collingwood in the Gather Round (i.e. avoiding having to play them at the G), then a further three straight games at Marvel including Port and North. They are going to build up a massive head of steam in these first 8 weeks and could well be 6-2 or better. Which I suppose they'd want to be if their only interstate game in the first 8 weeks is the Gather Round neutral game.

When was the last time any side kept up blistering form for 23 weeks? Even if they stay fit enough to play like this through winter, they have to stay in form whilst sides start targeting them in more depth. We didn’t cope well with that last year.

It's disappointing. TMac at the level he was at in 2021 would have made us a better side last year and would make us a better side right now. Unfortunately on what he's shown this year since coming back from injury, that form is way off.

They also remind me of Melbourne in 2022. First month of the season and most people have them well in front of anyone else. But they play a physically taxing style and will need to sustain it for another 5 months just to get to the finals starting gate. If they're playing like this in September, then outside of Sydney the rest of the competition has a lot of ground to make up to compete for the flag.

Well when it's 10 scoring shots to 1, Collingwood is +25 in disposals, +10 in CPs, +6 marks inside 50 and +5 inside 50s, you'd want to have a good defence because if they don't arrest the momentum the dam wall is going to burst.

I had initially wondered whether we were going to change things up and drop TMac. It’s risky no doubt, as JVR now clearly has to relief ruck, but it’s a different look forward of centre and means we go with two talls, Fritsch and at times Grundy. It’s not exactly short. I like seeing Hibberd in, you’d imagine it means Brayshaw, Rivers or Bowey play further up the ground. Unless Hibberd runs with someone a la Dusty last year. Strange we haven’t named Tomlinson as an emergency.

So for the second time in three weeks this year Sam McClure is having a go at our crowds: Faced with Richo querying him, he says he's "done the numbers" and we have the "lowest percentage" of members attending games. Let's check those numbers. Last year we averaged 39,218 per home game (or 42,508 excluding the Alice Springs game). Last year we had 66,484 members. That means our average home game attendance was 59% of our membership (increasing to 64% if we exclude Alice Springs). By comparison with the other Victorian clubs: Carlton's home average was 56% of its membership (49,784 out of 88,776) Collingwood's was 48% (48,573 out of 100,384) Richmond's was 46% (46,485 out of 100,792) Essendon's was 46% (39,754 out of 81,662) Geelong's was 37% (26,875 out of 71,943) Hawthorn's was 33% (26,502 out of 77,079) the Bulldogs' was 48% (24,655 out of 50,491) St Kilda's was 42% (25,386 out of 60,172) North Melbourne's was 29% (14,368 out of 50,191) Obviously for Hawthorn, North Melbourne and the Dogs, these are affected by their 3-4 sold home games each year, same for St Kilda which like us sells 1. And obviously the size of the crowd at a game isn't purely dictated by the home team, it depends on the away team too. But on these numbers we are not the "lowest percentage", we're the highest. And that was in a season in which we were away on the two biggest games we play, ANZAC Eve and Queen's Birthday. I'm not sure how else you're supposed to measure the percentage of our fans who show up to games. Would love to know what "numbers" Sam McLure "did" here. Or whether perhaps he's just another typical anti-Melbourne [censored] who loves to stick the boot in for the fun of it.

Jordon named in the 22, so we know he, May and JVR are all in. That’s likely the three changes (for Tomlinson, Gawn and Harmes). Disappointed Hibberd couldn’t get in.

I'm not expecting a starring role but perhaps a bit more optimism is warranted. This is a guy who averaged just over 2 goals a game for 16 games in the VFL last year, who's added a pre-season to that VFL year, and who opened this year's VFL season with 19 disposals, 11 marks and 1.1.

With TMac's current form there's half a chance JVR gets their 2nd best defender even if TMac plays. I hear you though, no TMac would put heaps of pressure on JVR. I suspect TMac gets another game and will be asked to do the relief rucking.

My point stands, perhaps even gets stronger. You've seen an article linking Geelong to King and you've inferred from it that we're not thinking about any forward at all. Again, that is a very silly thing to be thinking in March.

So is JVR coming in for Gawn, or are we going to go a bit smaller, swap JVR for TMac, and leave Gawn's spot to a mid/smaller player?

Of the many things I don't like about this thread or your post, you have no idea whether or not we have any interest in King. You have seen an article suggesting Geelong is interested and you have inferred from it that we therefore aren't interested. That logic is flawed. It's also silly given it's [censored] March.

FFS. It's March and already someone's "annoyed" that we're not targeting a player for a trade. You want to know what our plan is to improve our forward line? How about we see how the 2023 premiership season goes for a bit longer than two games first?! FFS.

North isn't "very young". Their side vs Fremantle had an average age of 25 years 7 months and average games played of 101.2 They were older and more experienced than Fremantle I25 years 2 months and 80.6 games).

Rarely do we see another sides' supporters as arrogant as this. Gee I hope we turn our [censored] poor form against them this week.

There's no point saving him for that role if he's not performing. We tried using Harmes in a run with role vs the Dogs but it didn't really do anything.

I'm not sure a better option is on our list.

It's Grand Prix Sunday. The crowd isn't going to be amazing. For context, on GP Sunday last year Hawthorn played St Kilda at the G at 3.20pm and the crowd was 30,926. Both sides were 2-1 at the time, Hawthorn's only loss was by 1 point and St Kilda was fresh off a 5-goal win over Richmond.