Fanatique Demon

6 Salem

5 Jones

4 May

Getting difficult now...

3 Oliver

2 Viney 

1 Fritch

_____________

- 8 Brayshaw

22 hours ago, spirit of norm smith said:

About 10 were deserving of votes

6- Viney 

5- Gawn

4- Oliver

3- Lockhart 

2- Tmcd

1- May

apologies to Frost and Petracca 

I agree with Spirit.

1 hour ago, John Dee said:

6. Gawn

5. Harmes

4. Brayshaw

3. Oliver

2. Hore

1. May

 

Ditto. (And Max was extremely unlucky to lose out to Treloar for the trophy.)

1 hour ago, nosoupforme said:

JKH is a shoe in for next week barring injuries. Thought l would let you know early.

Oh! the rest of the above look good as well.

Agree, NSFM. (Except that is "shoo-in".)

3 hours ago, John Dee said:

6. Gawn

5. Hore

4. J Wagner

3. Baker

2. Viney

1. Harmes

 

Agrée, JD! 

2 hours ago, dl4e said:

It is an odd year.

Lucky for us, 2020 we be an even one.

7 hours ago, Mad_Melbourne said:

Does anyone ever think about what would be said if Omac made the error in the last quarter that Frost did? 

 

Omac has played well since his VFL game, his ability to spoil is underrated. He will make a few mistakes, like all players do. When he makes a mistake it’s the biggest issue in the world, when Frost makes a mistake it’s widely accepted as a flaw in his game. 

 

Out defence has been much more solid now that we aren’t playing that stupidly high line that we were playing. Much easier to stop the ball from moving past when we have players playing behind opponents with a sweeper rather than always taking front position. Jetta and Hibberd are two of the most aggressively positioned defenders in our team and without them we have pretty much all defenders taking a much more defensive positions which is interesting 

Remember we had exactly the same problem at the start of 2018? It took us 4 or 5 weeks to sort it out. Then 2019 rolled around and we did it again. Can't understand why we didn't learn from last year and start 2019 with a more sensible defensive set-up. Isn't that what coaching is about?

I'm glad to see this thread is back on track after all those childish and insulting posts. Why can't we accept that we have different opinions, but that each of us is entitled to that opinion? Play the ball and not the man or woman, folks.

4 hours ago, A F said:

Talk about typical Melbourne. Only Melbourne turns what should have been a 6 or 7 goal (minimum) victory into a loss.

Our kicking in front of goal was pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

I can't recall Petracca ever snapping a goal or kicking a goal around his body. He missed an absolute soda in the third to go with his under 12 miss in the first 5 minutes of the game. Great that he's getting it, but by missing shots, he's undermining all our hard work. Practice your set-shot kicking.

Tom McDonald needs to do the same. His snap from the pocket was not AFL standard.

Baker was okay in his debut, but struggled with the pace at times. But he's a better option than Stretch IMO. It's an indictment on our outside mid stocks that he's still getting a game. I don't want to be mean to Billy, because he seems like a real trier and I don't think the yo-yoing selection he's faced in the last 2-3 seasons has helped his development, but we can surely see he's not going to make it now.

And I'd love to be able to see what everyone sees in Fritsch, but I'm sorry, his lone asset of skill now alludes him too. Turnover merchant.

As for our leadership, it'd be easy to say that we have a lack of it, but I don't think it's as simple as that. Gawn was for the most part brilliant tonight and Viney tried hard, but needs to play to his limitations more often. But I want to point out something Jones did tonight that for mine, turned the momentum of the game.

It's nearing the end of the third quarter. We've dominated most of the game and are 19 points up. We fail to capitalise on a forward foray and it pings up the other end and there's a stoppage. Our almost 300 game co-captain stands Shuey at the stoppage in our defensive 50. The ball is about to be bounced and Shuey jogs to the other side of the contest. Jones fails to see this and is caught ball-watching. West Coast win it, Shuey is standing by himself as Jones is still ball-watching, and Shuey kicks a relatively easy goal from a defensive stoppage. A goal we should never concede. If it were a first or second year player, you might be able to cop it, but there are not many players with Jones' experience that would switch off like that or lack the game sense in that moment like he did.

This closed the gap to 13 points and the Eagles propelled forward again and managed to get another shot on the siren that Sheed missed. It's embarrassing to call Jones a champion of our club. He's no Flower. He's no Lyon. He's no Neitz. He's no Schwarz. Leadership-wise, James McDonald was a mile ahead of him. Nathan has been a loyal servant who we could say wore the jumper with care in very dark times for us. Constantly putting him up on a pedestal is lovely, but it's sentimental for sentimentality's sake.

On the positive side, our ball movement at times mirrored 2018 and we played with dare and a dash. It was terrific to see. Particularly, in the first three quarters.

We also set up defensively really well and we stopped West Coast from switching the ball too easily.

I thought Petty was quite impressive in 1v1s, despite occasionally getting caught in transition.

Salem was again a stand out. His tackling was a real feature. 

I'm liking what Hunt is bringing to our forward half, but he, like the rest of the forwards, needs to continue to work on his goal-kicking from set shots. That said, he's been pretty good from set shots this year.

Harmes has become a proper mid. He's on the cusp of A grade now IMO. He's almost as important to stoppage wins as Oliver. But WTF has happened to Brayshaw?!

Anyway, that was the inevitable nail in the coffin for our 2019 season. You watch us win 7 or 8 games now (GWS, Freo, Lions, Carlton, Dogs, St Kilda, Sydney and North) and finish 12th or so and miss out on a top 5 draft pick that we could really do with to strengthen our forwardline or midfield.

Great post. I agree with you 100%. 

Brayshaw doesn't even look interested.

Lové Oliver, but hé seems to kick without looking.

3 hours ago, Deeko2 said:

Just read the report on the Melbourne FC web page about Hibbo only being out for a couple which is handy.

It’s hard to compete when your first choice backline is looks like:

FB:  Knee.    Knee.     Concussion

HB:  Groin.    Groin.    Collarbone 

emergency (Lewis) to be advised.

 

edit: forgot our forward line:

HF: Knee.   Soreness.     Ankle

FF:  Foot      TMac       Jeffy

 

 

 

Funny but true, Deeko2.

Brayshaw minus 5

Garlett minus 4

So you think name calling is ok. Keep it adult, please.

7 hours ago, Demons11 said:

Doesn’t deserve it?  You are a clown.

The bloke deserves all the accolades coming his way for what he has given the club.  

 

So you don't agree with my opinion. Ok, but you might refrain from name calling. Show some respect. 

Familiar territory. Our comfort zone?

A friend and I had an interesting WhatsApp exchange. He's a Saints supporter. His idea was to merge the two clubs to make way for a Tasmania team in 2020. Not suggesting that's a good idea or would ever happen. But he said the Saints had the better list and he could easily find 13 current Saints players who'd be walk up starts. I thought surely we'll have more than 13 in a combined team with the Saints.

So, who are our 13+ players? On this year's form I found only 7: Gawn, Oliver, Brayshaw, Harmes, Salem, Viney and Melksham. Add Injured players May, Lever, Jetta in the hope they'll make good recoveries and recapture their form. Now I have 10. Maybe include Tom Mac because he'll put through this slump. So that's 11. After that it gets seriously difficult to find others. Conclusion? Maybe he's right. The Saints have the better list and we have 11 real players and a lot of pretenders. Perhaps we could offer the pretenders to the new Tasmanian team ?

Dee Zephyr, you have my vote for prophet and assistant coach. 

You're right. The cupboard is bare. And he's the captain so it's unlikely he'll get dropped. Hardly the way to earn most games in the famous #2. In my humble opinion.

1 hour ago, the rolling fog said:

Chatting with non-MFC supporters last night at the bar post-match the consistent theme is from them is that we're too polite with no mongrel whatsoever 

Yes Rolling Fog, our players are far too polite. Unfortunately they're more polite than some of the contributors to Demonland.

3 hours ago, Nasher said:

@praha- it’s also within threads. Nathan Jones should apparently stand aside cos this dude thinks he isn’t worthy of second place on our all times games list.

First, Nasher, I'm not "this dude" but a member with an opinion to share.

Second, he shouldn't stand aside because I think he's unworthy of second place but because he isn't up to it at the moment.

Understand?

Jones: two games short of Robbie Flower's 272. Have appreciated all Jones has done, but he doesn't deserve to pass Robbie. Or to hold the record for the #2 jumper. Stand aside, Nathan.

Lockhart - don't get caught

oliver - handball it wider

Jones - prepare for retirement

Lewis - media career awaits

Brawshaw - find a teammate

Viney - try some skill

Frost - think/act quicker

Gawn - never gave up

Tmac - much better effort

Stretch - earned another game

Garlett - worth a try

Smith - that, and better

Melksham - showed up mids

Salem - one with class

Hibberd - played fumble ball

The rest - can't be bothered

2 hours ago, Deecisive said:

i understand ANB is one of our fastest players, has the best endurance. has anyone seen any of that this year. All i saw was him running around in circles half chasing tiger players. he got a luck goal, because he was so far away from his player at the time who would if he had got the ball would have sent the tigers into attack. I do not see why this guy keeps getting games. he was dropped for a poor effort a couple of weeks ago and gets a recall based on what. .

And what's with his giant wide-open mouth when he stops running? Is he yawning?! 

His play could put me to sleep.

Hard to find winners, but Tmac and Hibbo did their jobs despite making plenty of mistakes.

I generally love Oliver, but he played poorly. Yes, plenty of possessions but fumbled, missed targets and ran lazily. I thought he looked injured, disinterested, or both. 106 "Fantasy Points"! The name says it all.

So my votes are

6 Gawn

5 Melksham

4 Tmac

3 Hibbo

2 Brayshaw

1 Salem