titan_uranus

Best: The sound of the crowd before the first bounce of a big game Being at the MCG for any game, whether it's the lead-up, mid-game, or the aftermath Talking about footy with friends, colleagues, family, and everyone on here during a season Worst: "Fan activation" - music after goals, promotions on the ground during all the breaks, etc. The media (particularly AFL.com.au and SEN) pushing trade/free agency/draft stuff at us all the time to make their own self-fulfilling prophecy that it's the stuff the people want to hear about. This week, before Round 1, we had two new podcasts launched, both talking about trades/FA/draft picks. They'll be weekly. All year now. One of them, Gettable on the AFL website, replaces AFL Exchange, which was a really good weekly AFL-discussion podcast. So we now have AFL.com.au telling us that we'd prefer to be discussing free agents in March than to discuss the actual damn football. The difficulties getting home after a game at the G, particularly at night. Bottlenecks galore, inadequate number of trains, late finishes compounding the situation.

Something I took out of Goodwin's interview on the MFC website was that he said we'd look at the sub not just as a "tactical sub" but as a "load management sub". Barring in-game injuries, I suspect we intend to use our sub to manage the minutes in the legs of kids and veterans.

Thanks for the report kev. Cherry picked these two because IMO they're critically important. Tomlinson's pace is the major reason he's got so many detractors on here. If he can bring any sort of speed tomorrow night, we'll be in a much better position. And if Brown's turning circle is somewhere near reasonable, then I'm hopeful of a return to Round 1 2022, where he probably played his season's best game, dominated Keath and should have kicked 5 goals.

Agree @Jaded No More. This is just @poita doing poita things. Poita last year bemoaned our lack of changes and the staleness of our side. Now they're arguing we should be playing Jordon/Hibberd/Melksham instead of McVee/Chandler/Laurie.

Chandler's playing. Do you mean Jordon?

On team selection, I'm surprised Jordon has fallen behind both Laurie and Chandler, but many have bemoaned our lack of depth/variation to our side, so it's not surprising we're trying something new with that position. It's disappointing in some respect that the FD think Tomlinson, off the back of a poor pre-season form-wise, is a better option than Turner, but whichever of them got the spot we were always going to look thin without May. Reality is with May, Viney, Fritsch and Salem missing, and our opponent being a top 4 contender and missing just Weightman (Gardiner too but I do not rate him at all), we should not be favourites. I'm firmly of the view that a win on Saturday will be a massive achievement and should not be expected at all.

The club and Richardson say it's a calf, pretty sure the media report that it's a hammy is a mistake. Lobb's awful at ground level. Naughton's OK (not a lumbering oaf but not amazing). Ugle-Hagan's better but traditionally hasn't had great fourth quarter fitness (you'd expect that to have improved over the pre-season though). Darcy's 208cm and is unlikely to be amazing at ground level. He won't be any better than Gawn. It's not exactly ridiculous to argue they are going to be weaker at ground level than they will be in the air. They will also be slower on the spread. Yes. In the air. He took 9 marks, 3 of which were inside 50.

Wowee. But Carlton again choking in a close one. O'Brien made a massive mistake in their Round 22 loss to us last year and then tonight tears off down the wing when they're trying to ice the game, stuffs the bounce, then misses Mackay on the kick. And then Carlton unable to stop Lynch marking it.

That would have to be one of the hotter days for a game in Melbourne. Helpfully, I believe they are forecasting a cool change to come through before our game though.

You’re posting as if the injuries are in the club’s control, which they’re not, and that other clubs seem to have avoided them, which they haven’t (as others have posted). It’s absolutely a silly position to take. Injuries happen (Salem’s isn’t an injury per se, but anyway).

What a silly thing to say/think. On this logic there would be 0 injuries at all clubs going into Round 1.

Not sure if this has already been posted, but Sam McLure’s already stuck the boots in with a snow joke and the season hasn’t even started yet. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/bombers-reshuffle-new-boss-makes-his-mark-to-defuse-football-department-tension-20230315-p5csbs.html The context is that apparently the MCC expects our game to draw a lower crowd than Hawthorn v Essendon on Sunday.

If May misses it can’t/won’t be Smith replacing him. He hasn’t had a full pre-season, and hasn’t he been training forward? Tomlinson or Turner should be the replacement, they are key defenders and whilst neither holds a candle to May, the point of having key defenders as depth is to call on them when a first choice defender misses. Will be a massive test to beat a fellow top 4 contender with May joining Viney, Fritsch and Salem on the sidelines. That’s a lot of talent out.

So who gets Fritsch’s forward line spot? Chandler?

Yes, Ugle-Hagan played brilliantly against us. But that was an exception, not the norm. He kicked 5 against us but then just 3 in his subsequent 5 games. Lobb also played brilliantly against us in Round 11, but then was awful in the later return game. If we back our intercept and midfield defensive pressure game, as a backline we should hopefully be able to stop them getting easy marks inside 50 without necessarily needing to play a fourth tall defender. Plus, as you say, Darcy is being used as a forward because he's not fit enough to run out an entire game, plus Lobb has to give English a ruck chop out. Do you mean we here on Demonland, or the club?

I don't agree. I think the Dogs' best 22 going into 2023 is better than it was in 2022. They've lost Dunkley, which is a major loss, but the Dogs are probably the only side in the league who can lose a midfielder of that quality and cover it - they had over-invested in their midfield in 2022. Their midfield still has Bontempelli, Macrae, Treloar, Smith and Libba whilst they're now working Caleb Daniel and his elite kicking through there too. Their forward line now has height and instead of Josh Bruce as the second tall they've got Lobb and Darcy to spread the load (I don't rate Ugle-Hagan highly but he gets to be a bit of a Fritsch-style forward there). Whilst down back they've added Liam Jones who from all reports continues to be more than capable at AFL level despite his year out. I think there are better sides holistically (Geelong, Brisbane and us) but I think the Dogs are more likely to make top 4 than they are to miss the finals.

Cotchin got a fine for "misconduct". Free to play Round 1. The AFL's protected species.

Anyone can put anyone they want in a list of who they think will be good in the upcoming 2023 season. So sure, put Dusty in the top 10. Come October, let's see if he was in the 10 best players in the league. But if we're talking "power rankings", i.e. who are the best players right now, Dusty's not close to the top 10. Whilst he might be top 10 for the "all time" power rankings, he's not currently one of the 10 best players in the AFL. The ESPN list @poita posted is not too bad on that front, but I wouldn't have Tom Lynch in my top 10. Oliver and Petracca should be in most top 10s, as should Cripps, Andrew Brayshaw, Jeremy Cameron and Miller.

I suppose where I can’t get around this is that we’ve seen very little of Petty forward to have the confidence you have that he’d be a 50 goal forward. That’s a seriously good forward (9 in the entire league last year). Yes he can take a pack mark but you’re assuming he can do that repeatedly, Naughton-esque, for an entire season having not trained there over summer. It’s a much bigger leap to make IMO. Where I find it harder to get around is that we know he is an integral and important part of our defence and if we make the change we have to replace him with Tomlinson (questionable although I’m a fan), Turner (1 AFL game of experience), J Smith (never played more than 4 games in a row due to injury and at any rate not a lockdown defender) or JVR (who hasn’t trained as a defender). So it’s doubly risky.

Haven’t seen the game but I’m loving what I’m reading in this thread. All sounding positive with Viney, Fritsch and Salem all still to work back into the side. Why? Petty’s played 2 years in defence, and done very well at it. Why are so many so obsessed with Petty as a forward? Van Rooyen’s trained all summer as a forward. What makes you recommend him as a defender option?

Our fixture didn't allow us to rest players after the bye. The only real chance we had was in the WC-North fortnight. The back half of our year was top 8 side after top 8 side, 8-point games every week, with our top 4 spot on the line. If we'd rested players we had every chance of slipping down the ladder. Meanwhile how did Dunstan and Weideman do in 2022 when they played senior football? Neither had performed at AFL level all year. You can throw as many "proactive" buzzwords into your post as you want but we saw during the season that players like these precise two weren't able to play at the required level when previously called upon. As others have already pointed out, the evidence in front of the FD at the time meant that rolling the dice with the injured better players was a more than reasonable call.

Correct. But have you ever met someone who likes it? Or read an article which suggests there is someone out there who likes it? Are there actually people out there who go to games because there is music between goals? Or alternatively, are people turning away from football games because there is no music in the 30 seconds between goals?

Just because you're cynical doesn't mean players like Brown and Wood are, too.

I literally do not know a single person who likes music being played after goals. It's the sort of thing that is devised by "consultants" who are tasked with coming up with ideas to get more people to go to the game. It falls within the ridiculous concept of "fan activation". Whoever thinks this is a good idea knows nothing about football and knows nothing about what might actually encourage people to go to games.

Maybe. But this was a practice match and Geelong are notorious for not giving a [censored] about them. Last year they lost to Gold Coast by 4 goals in the pre-season. In 2020 they made the GF after losing both pre-season matches to sides who didn't end up even making the finals.