Swooper1987

Since Simon Goodwin became coach in 2017, he has only had one season with a win rate less than 50%. 2019 was that season. Yesterday saw him record another "winning" season. That's 6 from 7. One better than the previous best Melbourne Coach in my life time, Swooper Northey, who went 5 from 7. Neale Daniher had 6 from 10, although his last season ended after 13 games. Norm Smith coached for 16 seasons and had three less than 50% (including his last 2). Congratulations Goody. Only one team can win the flag each year but you have coached a team that has been super competitive over a long period of time.

Pretty good Joe, I thought Gawn was a tower of strength all day. 8 marks is a big return.

6 Viney 5 Kozzy 4 Gawn 3 Brayshaw 2 Chandler 1 Rivers

Top 4 are all split 2-2 now. Collingwood has beaten Port twice and lost to Lions and Melbourne; Port lost to Collingwood x 2, beats Melbourne and Lions; Melbourne beats Collingwood and Lions loses to Port and Brisbane; Brisbane loses to Melbourne and Port and beats Collingwood and Melbourne. Pretty close between them all too. Most of the games have been within a kick or two.

One of the easier BOG's of all time I would've thought. 6 Gawn 5 Petracca - he was excellent and the the third best man on the ground behind Max and Daniher who was very nearly a matchwinner for the Lions. 4. Melksham - such a clever player, sometimes too cute but did a good job on Andrews and then proved to be the matchwinner. 3. Viney - an amazing defensive and offensive game, again! 2.Brayshaw - Gus doing the team things again 1. Pickett - Koz was back to somewhere near his best. I really liked Rivers, Bowey and McVee. I thought they displayed great poise and footy IQ. All three of them could easily feature.

Here's the thing with the rising star award. Neither Dane Swan, Gary Ablett Jnr or Jonathon Brown ever received a nomination. That tells me all I need to know about it, and the people who judge it.

A good victory against a team who are incredibly difficult to play against most weeks. Think what you like about Ross Lyon, but he is an outstanding coach and his teams are very difficult to beat. St Kilda did a lot right tonight but so did we. It was a game between 4th and 5th and that's what it looked like to me. That quarter and half in the 2021 GF that everyone seems to judge our performances by is an unfair benchmark. Reality is imperfect games like tonight. Arm wrestles that if you do enough right at the right times sees you take a hard fought victory. That's footy. And the criticism of Gawn and Grundy is out of line, Marshall played a wonderful game - he is an excellent player. Gawn and Grundy both played important roles tonight. Grundy won a lot of clearance and Gawn took 6 marks including three contested and together they matched Marshall's disposal numbers and beat him in hitouts. Gawn won't be the player he was because the team doesn't require that now according to the coach. He believes our best chance of winning a flag is two dominant rucks and I think if we are to go deep into September they will prove our biggest point of difference.

I'd much rather he take as long as he needs than rush him back. In all honesty, him missing is far from the reason we've not been winning much. The mids have done a great job in his absence, Viney has really taken the bull by the horns, Sparrow has stepped up, Tracc is having a great season all bar his kicking for goal, Brayshaw has played some good footy through the middle. Together with our remarkable defence, they've been the reason we've been in a winning position in every game since he went out. Now if we can just hit the scoreboard!

35

Today we were +27 inside 50's; +19 clearances and +42 contested possessions. Since 2012 teams with +25, +15 and +40 before today were 10 wins and 0 losses and 9 of the wins had been by greater than 50 points. So in a nutshell, that's how well and how badly we managed to play all in the one afternoon.

Great defensive effort again and winning clearance easily even without Oliver. Petracca has 12 goals 19 behinds and 15 complete misses for the season. That, unfortunately is our season in summary. When arguably our best and most talented player can't finish the great work that the defence, and often himself in the midfield, starts we need look no further. Goal kicking is fundamental to success in footy. I remember the great North team of the late 90's coughing up the 1998 flag due to horrible kicking in the GF that year. It's such a waste of talent. Unlike most here, I don't lay the blame at Goodwin's feet. These guys are professional footballers, mostly paid big money to kick goals. Up until 5 or 6 weeks ago they were doing it. What has changed?

Definitely not banged up. Still working things out with the front half. Gawn is fine. Coaches votes in 5 games this year in what is in effect a new role. He missed 4 with injury but that is well and truly recovered. Horrible conditions for big men last Thursday. Viney's style means he's going to cop plenty of hits and will miss the odd game here and there. Hibbo is a week to week proposition but fortunately we do have reasonable defensive depth - Bowey and Tomlinson both available but not selected last game. I'm still optimistic.

A standout horrible decision in a year of very ordinary ones. Sicily is about as unlucky as anyone could be and Mansell is certainly stiff to get the same penalty as De Goey. I cannot believe that a tribunal acting reasonably could arrive at a three week penalty for Sicily. I thought he should have been cleared. Hawks must appeal this.

Probably need to go 8 and 2 to be sure of top 4 with the extra game this season. 7 and 3 might do it. Our best is still to come and if we can steer clear of injury the second half of the season will be better than the first. Gawn and Grundy will be the difference in a few of the games to come. It's a considerable advantage and a luxury that all of our opponents to come don't have.

Probably posted elsewhere but the coaches were all over the shop. Only Viney 10 and May 7 got votes from both coaches. Salem 4, Crisp 3, Gawn 2, Fritsch 2, Petracca 1 and Mitchell 1. I guess it was that sort of game.

Tomlinson was fantastic today. He balances up the defence really well. Having salem back and playing near his best makes a massive difference too.

Danny Hughes was a very "robust" full back in an era when knees and elbows were weapons. He hurt a lot of opponents and always flew the flag. That Northey era Melbourne side had a few blokes who walked a fine line - and I loved them all! Grinter who knocked out many, but by far the hardest and at the time fairest bump was the one he laid on Chris Mew in the 1987 preliminary final. Unbelievably Mew played in the GF the next week but barely touched it. Strawbs O'Dwyer was another with particularly pointy knees and elbows and a pretty decent rap sheet. Earl Spalding was another of those "ungainly" types who always managed to make contact with an opponent. Dean "Dog" Chiron was another ripper. He terrorised John Platten to the point that Dermott Brereton knocked him out cold in 1988 and that was the end of him. Part of our relative success in the late 80's and early 90's was built off a very hard edge from a good number of players. We were truly very hard to play against.

De Goey will go straight to the tribunal. He'll get a nominal three before they appeal. Harmes deserved his week. Was a little unlucky that Cotterell fumbled but that's how it goes.

6. Petracca 5. May 4. Salem 3. Gawn - very good second half and superb last quarter 2. Lever 1. Van Rooyen Really Petracca was the stand out but May's performance on Curnow was excellent. Don't underestimate the role Tomlinson played. Although beaten by his direct opponent he was part of a system that kept an AFL team with two Coleman medallists to 44 points. He freed up Lever to do what he does best.

I am not surprised Gawn and Brayshaw polled. Petracca was an obvious best on. Gawn beat Darcy pointless before Darcy was injured half way through the second quarter. Brayshaw played his best game for the season.

We weren't great today at all. We looked like a middle of the road side. Which is what we've been since this time last year (and probably a bit before that to be honest). However, we had opportunities to win in the last - Van Rooyen, Pickett and Brayshaw all missed set shots in the last that were gettable; Koz bellied that one in the third and they got a couple of soft ones (Amiss in the first and the missed throw in the third). The criticism of Gawn and Grundy is misplaced. They had 34 disposals, 9 marks, 5 tackles and 55 hitouts between them and were beating Darcy pointless until he got injured. Jackson will get the plaudits because the narrative is about him today but he wasn't significantly more influential than either of our rucks, let alone both of them combined. What killed us was our inability to get our hands on the ball. Other than Petracca and Brayshaw, no other Melbourne player topped 20 disposals. We looked top heavy forward and slow and uncertain in defence. The effort was there. I liked Sparrow's game. He was important in the last quarter. Carlton are missing a number of important players next week and bereft of confidence. Our approach needs to be ruthless.

Good on him for choosing his time. He goes out with a record that any would envy. He rebuilt a club from rock bottom, kept the wolves at bay and came out a three time premiership coach. And in the end the media never got him! That is a brilliant career.

We won without him last year against Port in Alice. Rozee got 33, Boak 29 and 2 goals, Houston 28, Butters 20 and Robbie Gray and Drew had 23. Sounds a bit familiar doesn't it? For us Viney had 28, Trac 30, Langdon 24 and Brayshaw 20. Sparrow played quite well with 18, 6 marks and 6 tackles and of course Kozzie kicked 6. Port were in not bad form at the time either. Freo's midfield is pretty good but not as good as Port's.

Likely that he'll miss a couple and be back for Collingwood. He only missed one with the broken hand last year. Not ideal but not insurmountable. Time for a few others to lift.

This is the issue. It's the number of possessions and quality of them that hurt us. We have zero capacity to limit opposition mids either through design or lack of options. Merrett blew us apart and the other Bomber mids had a field day; Brisbane collectively torched us; Anderson and Rowell were dominant (and that was without Miller); we all saw the collective efforts of the Port brigade. We are bereft at shutting down a dominant opposition, or too arrogant with our belief that our guys will just get it done. Unless we find a way to shut down a dominant opposing mid this will continue to happen.