titan_uranus

Of all the ridiculous things you've said since you opened your account on here, this might take the cake.

My seemingly all too regular comment: the system is broken. Larkey tunnels a completely defenceless player. He was in complete control of his actions, was not under any pressure, and was effectively pre-medidated. One week. Cotchin kicks Walker. No weeks. Players execute bumps or tackles crudely - weeks are thrown around like we have so many to dole out it's not funny. Don't get me wrong: I am in favour of suspending players who elect to bump but then make high contact (i.e. not Lewis Young). But the system continues to over-penalise the wrong conduct, particularly by focusing on the outcome and not the action, and under-penalise disgraceful conduct such as that of Larkey and Cotchin.

The tactic of leaving a forward deep, behind our last defender (whether that's May or Petty) is a good one. But it requires the opponent to then be able to match us up the ground. There's no benefit to having someone that deep if you can't get the ball to them. Hawthorn did well to get the ball to that deeper player more often than I would have liked. But, we were 6 goals up late in the third quarter before tiring. And we missed a number of simple shots in the fourth. The summary being: yes, that tactic might be a good one, but like any tactic deployed against us, if you can't do it for four quarters, and we're even close to being "on", you're in trouble.

He's played four games in a row once (Rounds 15-18 in 2020). That is the one and only time he has strung more than three games in a row together. He's managed three a few times, including Rounds 1-3 this year.

The injury report suggests all five COVID protocol players are ready for this week. But I recall Brown was "ready" for the Port game but we chose not to rush him back. Wonder if ANB will fall into that category. Lever's not on the injury list but I'm not convinced he's fully fit. Anyway, expect him to stay. Would expect to see Petty, Jackson, Sparrow and Pickett straight back. Smith, Melksham and one of TMac/Weid make way for the first three. As for Pickett, I wonder whether we might give Bedford another game - if so, Dunstan's the likely player to miss, but could become the sub in place of Chandler. If ANB is also fit, and we bring back all five, it might be moot. You would expect that Bedford and Dunstan will both make way, one of them moving to the sub role.

Was in the third quarter on the members' wing. He was pushing for a spoil/mark, from memory, landed a bit awkwardly and then reached down for his ankle. That was that, I think.

I continue to believe MFC supporters just aren't used to night games. We've spent the majority of our supporting lives attending games at 1.10pm, 1.45pm, 2.10pm or 3.20pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Even a Saturday twilight game at the MCG is uncommon, let alone Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights (we've had games on all five of those timeslots). Of course, our first day game for the year is this weekend on Mother's Day, which doesn't help. Our next two MCG home games are a Saturday twilight game and a Saturday night, so we won't get to test my theory for a while yet. Whilst night time and prime time games are what the club wants from a marketing/sponsorship perspective, I reckon if the club polled its members it would find that, for attendance purposes, members would be asking for day games.

Almost no chance at all given 6-6-6. We won't be using one of our six defensive spots at a centre bounce on a midfielder who pushes up into the stoppage. That will leave us with an outnumber in defence and as Trac won't be getting first hands on the ball, we gain nothing in terms of the initial stoppage. If the three mids in the middle don't win it, a quick kick goes straight over Trac's head into an outnumber situation.

Fremantle IMO are definitely the real deal, along with Brisbane and Sydney. Fair call on the others. I keep thinking the Dogs will get going but their three wins to date include North and Essendon, and they are yet to leave Victoria. They really need to show something against a better side soon. Their run to the bye is Port (away), Collingwood (MCG), Gold Coast, West Coast (Perth) and Geelong. They'll belt West Coast by 100, but they probably have to go 3-1 from the other four games at worst given how tough their post-bye fixture is: GWS (away), Hawthorn, Brisbane (away), Sydney (away), St Kilda and us all in a row, followed by Geelong (GMHBA), Fremantle, GWS again and Hawthorn again. Richmond IMO are far too inconsistent and belting West Coast means little in terms of their ability. I'm interested in whether Toby's return for GWS sparks them. Three straight home games for them - if they can beat Geelong this week, then knock over Carlton and West Coast, they'd be 5-5 and right back in it.

I love the optimism but I highly doubt 12 or 13 wins will be enough for top 4. Brisbane, Sydney and Fremantle are going to be pretty good all year, I think. Geelong are 4-3 but only have four more games against the current top 8 (compared to our 10), and still have 7 games at GMHBA. We're 7-0 but we have a tough fixture to come and with interstate sides in contention for top 2, the pressure will stay on us until we've locked away top 2.

So if the bottom 2 are West Coast and North, who are the bottom 4? Essendon and Gold Coast? Adelaide perhaps? Port and GWS might be finding some form. Suns finishing bottom 4 will surely cost Dew his job. Essendon finishing bottom 4 might cost Rutten his job.

As a reminder of the importance of these early season wins: We have 15 games to go, and of those 10 of them are against the current top 8.

Dogs struggling to get away from a pretty average Essendon. Everyone's waiting for the Dogs to start a fightback to save their season. I'm not convinced it's going to happen. Right now it seems the best sides in it outside of us are Fremantle, Brisbane and Sydney. That may well be the top 4. Geelong has a whole lot of weapons but can't stop sides scoring. St Kilda and Carlton are 5-2 but neither is convincing.

So just to be clear, your summation of those players' games would be to highlight singular mistakes each one made?

6 - Gawn 5 - Petracca 4 - Oliver 3 - Viney 2 - May 1 - Bowey

Trac and Pickett can be selfish a bit too much, agree with you there, but to lump Fritsch and Brown in with them is harsh IMO. TMac right up there with the first two unfortunately. I can understand how TMac's mistake marking Harmes' goal happens, but it really shouldn't have (he was under zero pressure, it's not like he was worried it might have been spoiled or marked).

Smith will miss through injury - Petty takes his spot if he's ready to go, Tomlinson I suppose if Petty's not ready. If Sparrow, Pickett and Jackson are OK to come back, they come straight back. I reckon the FD will value TMac's positional flexibility, and they may well have considered Weid the true Jackson replacement given Weid did the relief ruckwork. Melksham makes way for Sparrow, but that then leaves a tough question on who makes way for Pickett. Bedford is the positional replacement but it would be tough to drop him. Does he hold his spot over, say, Dunstan?

My point about Smith and Hunt is that both can be loose and aggressive and when they're both doing that at the same time it presents difficulties with our zone and coverage. It's been a weakness for us all year when both have been in the side. Ideally we'd only have one player like them in the back six, and I suspect we'll see that again when Petty comes back to presumably place the injured Smith.

Having had the chance now to watch the replay, I walk away impressed by that performance despite the indicators that it wasn't near our best. Hawthorn approached us tactically in a way that I expect other capable sides to do this year. Faster ball movement and leaving forwards deeper. But to do both of those things requires you to be able to play near-perfect football for four quarters and Hawthorn can't - as a result, their turnovers gave us goals in the first half and then our stoppage game got going in the second half, which I'm sure was in part because they kept deep forwards rather than rolling players up to stoppages. Better sides will do it for longer and that will present big tests for us. But last night we managed to stem the tide, absorb the punches against us, and then counter, a hallmark of ours, despite missing 6 best 22 players and Lever seemingly not fully fit. Gawn and Trac were great, Oliver worked through his tag pretty well I thought. Langdon copped a tag and whilst he didn't get any of the ball I rated his defensive work. May had a lot on his plate with Lever seemingly not fully fit, Smith poor before injury and TMac again having to plug a hole. Really liked Bedford's approach, showing his wares with a full game. The half volley collect for Brown's snap goal was amazing but by and large he is still not clean enough at ground ball and that's a big area in which he needs to improve. Forward line work still not fully right. Brown did well to kick 4 (don't be fooled by three coming from frees, two of those frees were blatant and a result of Brown taking front position and the third was probably there, if a little lucky) with the way the ball was coming in and with usually both Frost and Sicily covering him. Had chances for 2-3 more goals but some of the kicks inside 50 were just no good, again. Fritsch and Weideman didn't ever appear to be able to get separation inside 50 and even though Bedford worked hard, he didn't have the sort of spark when the ball hit the deck that we might usually get from Pickett. Still, as I said earlier, with the disruption mid-week, the number of changes, and the aggression Hawthorn showed, that's the sort of game we'd be forgiven for dropping. Pocketing another win in those circumstances is huge IMO.

ANB won't be ready to go, will he? Only entered the protocols on Friday so won't be able to train mid-week.

I've only seen highlights but some early thoughts: These are the sorts of games we're "supposed" to be losing. We had five changes from last week, we have seven premiership players out (six of whom are clear best 22 players), we had three key forwards playing in the same side, none of whom are ruckmen (yet we asked one to ruck), we had Smith and Hunt in the same backline, we're playing Melksham who for long parts of the last 12 months has not been at AFL level form. But we're not just banking wins, we're doing so at a percentage of 146% We conceded 11.15. That's 26 scoring shots. That is the most any side has had against us since Round 20, 2019. Obviously 2020 was shortened quarters but that's a worse result than all of our premiership year. The 81 points against was the worst since we lost to the Dogs in our last loss, but inaccuracy stopped Hawthorn scoring more. That indicates we were not at our peak defensively, and arguably quite a fair way from it

Funnily, I feel the same way about our second halves, but we're also 6-0 in first quarters this year (the only team to have won all six first quarters, too). Grainger-Barras is technically "managed", although he's an emergency. I think maybe they're giving him a break.

So we'll be going in without Salem, Petty, Jackson, Pickett and Sparrow (and Hibberd, depending on your views on him). Hawthorn, meanwhile, will be missing Jiath, Lewis, Grainger-Barras and two ruckmen (McEvoy and Reeves).

Just to be clear, the emergencies are our second row of depth, not our first. Our first row of depth includes TMac, Dunstan, Smith, Bedford and (arguably) Hunt. They're all playing. When Salem, Petty, Jackson, Pickett and Sparrow return, that first row of depth returns to the emergencies and you'll be less concerned. Having four players forced out due to COVID and having the ability to bring in three premiership players in Lever, Viney and TMac, into a side that is 6-0, is a remarkable position to be in.

The fixturing decisions here aren't that surprising ultimately. Ideally Round 12 vs Sydney would be the Friday night, but Sydney already had the past two Friday nights. Mind you, Essendon's been given three Fridays in a row, but it doesn't surprise me that we missed out on the Friday night there. As for Round 15 vs Brisbane, again ideally it'd be the opening game on a Friday night but Channel 7 is obsessed with Thursday night games and given we are both coming off the bye that, again, is a no-brainer of a decision for the AFL. I would agree with @Lucifers Hero that there are too many Dogs games in prime time. Their first five games were FTA night games. They're Friday night in Rounds 8 and 9 and Saturday night Round 11, then have Friday night, Saturday night and Friday night games through Rounds 13-15. It looks like pretty much all of these games will be on Channel 7. Which really means any weekend you want to watch football, you're getting no choice but to watch the Dogs. Let's be honest: Fremantle vs Brisbane would be a far better Friday night game, on current form, than Bulldogs v Geelong in Round 12. But we're not getting Fremantle vs Brisbane in a prime time game. Because byes allow clubs to be scheduled on Thursday nights without short breaks. Without byes, clubs can only get into Thursday night off a five-day break (given they can't both be on a six-day break or you'd be repeating the previous round's Friday night game).