titan_uranus

They've won their last four and only lost twice on the road all year Having said that, the Dogs are a number of levels below Collingwood and indeed all other finalists, so it's very easy to get fooled by that comeback.

At the ground it looked like a multi-weeker. On replay he collided with his chest, not head, so I'm comfortable with just a fine. A relief for us IMO. Harmes was one of our better players early and with Jordon injured we don't have a replacement for him.

Our game was the best balance of defence and scoring until three quarter time, when the game was despite your MFCSS well and truly alive. It was clearly done after Heeney's goal, if not earlier after the Melksham miss. Melksham kicks that (for him, routine) set shot though, and who knows what happens. Time will tell whether Sydney's the best side in it. They looked like it this weekend, but Geelong had insane levels of pressure on them going in and perhaps that will be freed for the prelim (obviously I hope that's not right).

Can't say I feel sorry for the Dogs at all. In fact, I take a degree of joy from that.

Luke Jackson premierships = 1 Hayden Young premierships = 0 The 2019 draft is a key reason we won the 2021 flag.

The principal problem I had with the mid-season loading argument was the way it was used to explain why we lost those three games in the run into the bye. The only way that argument could be shown correct was to see us running games out with aplomb at the end of the year. That hasn't happened, at least not in any way we supporters can see. We don't look to be any fitter than our opponents, nor in any way fitter than mid-season. Accordingly, either our loading program just didn't work, or loading wasn't a reasonable explanation for why we lost those pre-bye games. Either way, we can put the debate behind us now, can't we?

That Richards tackle on Switkowski gets paid high to the Dogs every time.

Source? Does that mean the prelim, if we win, will also be on the Friday? Certainly better against Brisbane, but the pressure level vs Brisbane was nowhere near vs Geelong.

15 points down at half time to a side who shouldn't have finished 10th, let alone 8th, is an insipid way to start your first final in 7 years.

Bedford was really poor in the fourth quarter of the Geelong game. Looked to be well behind the pace when that game got hot. I'm not sure he's good enough to be playing AFL finals right now.

If TMac was closer to full fitness, I'd be bringing him back for Melksham. But we can't afford to play him when he's spent so long out of the game. Particularly given the odds of us playing an under-fit Petracca will be high (he'll declare himself fine to play and the coaches won't go against his word).

I didn't disagree with you about the impact of the turnovers. Where I disagree is when you cited our better players' turnover numbers as a defence of the bottom 6 players who had fewer turnovers. It's not as simple as "they had more turnovers therefore they were more of a problem". As I said, players like Viney and Brayshaw are getting more rushed kicks from stoppages which are less likely to be retained. Players like Melksham and ANB are getting the ball with more time and space and are botching kicks under less pressure. And at least Viney, Petty, Lever and Hibberd contributed to keeping us in touch. On the same topic, Parker was probably Sydney's BOG but had 8 turnovers. Papley had 7, Mills had 6. Also not sure about your stats - AFL website has Lever at 3, Hibberd at 2 and Petty at 1.

I cannot begin to explain how much I detest this post. Honestly, there's little more "pathetic" than bagging out our club for their efforts this year. You write as if defending a premiership is both easy and supposed to happen. Neither is true. We had just one fewer win this year than last year and finished 2nd after the H&A season in a year that has produced high quality football from a number of sides and has produced as even a top 6 as we've seen. All that with 11 of our 22 games against the eventual top 8. Arguing that the wheels have fallen off because we lost a close game to a good side is ridiculous. And I will never let anyone get away with trying to reduce our 2021 achievement into a "heist", or a fluke, or anything like that. Our 2021 season was one of the great seasons of recent memory. If you want to hold every future Melbourne season to the 2021 standard, that's on you, and you're going to get disappointed because you're being unreasonable.

Source? Won't they just put the Geel/Coll prelim on the Friday for a 7-day break for our semi winner, and the Sydney prelim on the Saturday for a 7-day break for the other semi winner? Last night we gave up frees and 50s for trying to be "tough". Brereton's often wrong, and I reckon he is here again. Of all your awful takes this year, arguing our backline isn't actually that good somehow takes the cake. Demonland: Goodwin never makes any changes Also Demonalnd: how dare Goodwin change our ruck set up. There have been plenty of games in the last two years where Jackson's flourished with more time in the ruck and Gawn has been a terror for our opponent up forward. It's not surprising at all that he tried that last night. The fact that we lost doesn't mean it was the wrong tactic.

If you want to be optimistic, this is one way to approach last night. Petracca injured, Gawn average by his standards, Lever poor, Sydney absolutely on fire, and yet we were only out of the game in the last 5 minutes.

But Viney, Gawn, Petty, Lever and Hibberd all contributed in other ways. Brayshaw didn't, nor did Sparrow (other than his goal), ANB, Spargo (other than two kicks inside 50) or Melksham. You also have to contextualise the turnovers. A rushed kick from a stoppage (e.g. Viney or Brayshaw) which the opposition marks is a turnover, but vastly different to a no-pressure kick inside 50 (e.g. ANB). I'm not saying that excuses the high volume of turnovers from the guys you mentioned, it doesn't, but at least the players you mentioned are contributing in some way to offset some of those turnovers to at least some extent. For the others, we're getting nada out of them.

Injury clouds over Trac, Spargo, Fritsch and Melksham. Make no mistake. Winning it from here will be an incredible achievement.

This. The noise after the Sparrow goal was insane. But the Melbourne crowd went silent in the fourth because the game was gone.

We’re not making multiple changes. Harmes might get suspended, and without Jordon we don’t have an obvious replacement. Melksham should be dropped for returning to his laziness. If he’s not kicking set shots he’s useless. But TMac’s not likely to be fit and there’s no obvious replacement. But reality is these changes are fluttering around the edges. If we’re any chance we need a much better team effort from the 20-21 who will played tonight and will play next week.

They were incredible. Unfortunately we were not. We had the two best players on the ground in Oliver and May, but it fell away badly. Fritsch aside the entire forward line struggled. Jackson struggled. Brayshaw was terrible. Wirh Trac hobbling, it was too much left to too few. They scored 12 of their 14 goals from turnovers. May turned it over with two shocking inboard kicks, but across the ground we put our backline under pressure by giving up the ball all night. The free and 50 against May on Buddy were two absolutely disgraceful decisions. Utterly abysmal. The umpiring was horrendous all night, both ways, but those two were just disgusting. Turned the momentum, for sure. But Sydney are our kryptonite. They won’t relent in the middle no matter what we throw at them, and their backline is too good for our forward line. It’s actually spooky how similar tonight was to Round 12. Huge pressure on us now to beat Brisbane, a side we have the wood over. I’m hoping with the pre-finals bye, that a week off is a bad thing this year, so I’m trying to tell myself this is a blessing in disguise. But I doubt it, unfortunately.

Sounds wrong for two reasons: We haven't lost yet Don't they have Darcy Fort they can just bring in as a ruckman?

I don't recall if he/she has been accurate in the past. But I believe one of the reasons people are so wary of his/her posts is he/she was the one who posted a series of inane riddles one year about a massive trade which never eventuated, which frustrated people.

Richmond were never as good as their late season wins suggested. A fixture filled with non-finalists. Neither of these sides can defend, which meant neither of them were a legitimate flag threat. But because they played each other this week, one of them had to win. Richmond will be kicking themselves that they couldn't beat an out of form known finals choker missing Rayner, Answerth, Adams, Lyons and McInerney after 3 minutes. The ARC review probably led to the correct call overall (was probably a behind given everyone's reactions), but once the umpire called it a goal, even if that was the wrong initial call, the video evidence surely wasn't enough to be conclusive. However, I'm not sure that was a free against Daniher moments earlier for the push in the back. Looked to be a legitimate marking attempt from him.

He's lucky if you ask me. The ball was gone. He comes from metres away with heaps of time to change his mind. He lines him up well before reaching a defenceless player whose body is exposed. Woewodin's out of bounds FFS. He castles him, and he gets concussed to boot. Stuff the guilty plea discount, that should be four weeks minimum.

Before the pre-finals bye, the major reward for finish 1st was the easier QF and therefore the easier road to a prelim. You'd get the week off but 3rd/4th would be forced to slog it out in a semi before you get the 1v3 and 2v4 scenario. The pre-finals bye dilutes the advantage of finishing top because everyone gets to rest and rest. If we ditch the pre-finals bye, as we should, 1st will get some of its mojo back. Geelong's better than this, but I generally agree with your overall position. I think Geelong's overrated. All this media bleating about how they finished two games and percentage clear of 2nd: they played North and West Coast twice each, which no other top 8 side did. All this media bleating about them being undefeated post-bye - they played three top 8 sides in that run, two of them at GMHBA and for the third they KO'd one of their best players then only won by a kick. They're better than previous versions, and they're clearly in contention for the flag along with us and Sydney, but no matter what Chris Scott or Joel Selwood say externally, there cannot be any doubt that the pressure is squarely on them to produce good quality football in a final.