Lord Nev

Not sure what the problem is tbh, I was having a dig at myself, but somehow even that annoys some...

Sorry @Demonstone but you're completely wrong and here's some stats that actually could mean anything but I choose to interpret them in a confirmation bias way to start an argument that will never end...

Absolutely. Love the souva. Just imagine the amount of mongrel we'd have in forward 50 in a year or two with Larkey, JVR and Pickett in there.

Yeah, was a bizarre comment by him, but he did make it, and just using it to illustrate the crowd can give players a lift.

My point is, you can't say: 'We'll smash Freo because loading, and all the analysts and Joe average don't understand that. And the Pies are in trouble next week' And then say: 'Well we lost to the Pies because we're still 7 weeks away from optimal performance'. That's clearly moving the goal posts IMO. As you point out, there's clearly a lot of nuance and context to every game, as well as our form etc etc, none of that is an argument from me, but if you're (binman) going to take credit for your particular loading theory being the reason we won one game (especially when you go so over the top in criticizing footy commentators), then you need to conversely be willing to cop it when your prediction doesn't come to fruition the very next week.

The previous week was a different team. No one has said a hostile crowd means a loss. All that is being said is that in the game on Friday the crowd was a factor in lifting the Pies.

No one said the crowd alone beat us.

You are mate. You said last week we were able to be ruthless "from start to finish" because "the club knew we were going to have the legs to do so." Now we're running out of puff but that's also completely expected? Come on mate.

Wouldn't put any of the SA, QLD or WA teams in the same category as Collingwood form wise though. Don't think anyone is saying home crowds solely determine a result.

Add a ruck to that otherwise we could be in big trouble. Our ruck lineup next year could be - Gawn.... that's it.

Don't agree on this at all. We clearly ran out of steam in the second half, that doesn't 'mirror' last year at all. No one has 'ridiculed' you from what I've seen, but just like the rest of us here you should be prepared to ride the bumps of Demonland. You accepted the praise last week when we beat Freo so you should be prepared to cop the criticism this week instead of (IMO) trying to change the narrative you yourself had previously set.

No, that's how YOU believe it works, and that doesn't make it fact. My theory of loading is that by now we should be at our peak and then the focus is simply maintaining that until grand final day. Given you base a lot of your arguments on what happened last year then i find it a bit strange you are now saying it's different this year.

It's a fair point, especially in the light of Richo and Goody's responses to Langdon's comments. Also, here's Trac;s thoughts: “We need a crowd first to actually get ourselves going, no one comes,” he said. “When you come out and only see 30,000 there …”

Can't help but feel you're moving the goal posts a bit here mate. Here's you above inferring we'd be right from round 18, later on you moved that to round 20, and now you're saying it's another 7 weeks away? Don't get me wrong, I'm a loading believer, but I don't think you can keep moving the goal posts on it to suit the results.

Yeah that's probably fair, when I say 'second half' I don't necessarily mean the entire half, it definitely lifted as the half went on. Hang on though, why are we factoring in loading? You've famously said we'd be flying from last week, shouldn't that mean we would have been flying for the second half this week? I don't think we should fall into the trap of solely blaming loading for the result either way. Personally, I think it's more to do with how we're handling the 'resilience' piece this year. Definitely seems we've continued that under Selwyn and we're pushing players who are sore or not 100% like we did last year, but we haven't been as lucky with injuries this year as last and I believe it's having more of an impact this year. Similar to loading, I wonder if we could have handled some of the players better this year in getting them cherry ripe for finals rather than riding their injuries through the season.

Second half tackles were - Melb 27, Coll 46 They clearly lifted their pressure in the second half and we couldn't cope with it. The handballs in the first half were more our 'usual' style of handballs - run and carry, give and go style, but in the second half it looked like the majority of our handballs were under immense pressure to a player within a metre who was immediately tackled a lot of the time. The context was very different IMO.

Do you disagree? Do you think that ranking has any correlation to our performance over the last 10 or so weeks? He should be better than on par for pressure given where he'd be in relation to those key forwards for goals, marks, contested marks, marks inside 50 and score involvements. Not sure what Weid or Jackson have to do with anything? I'm not saying either of them should be in his role or picked ahead of him. And I don't buy into the what ifs mate. Weid averages 1.3 goals per game so by your theory he'd be 3rd on our goal kicking table if he was picked every game. Brown has played 15 games btw. Again, I don't want Brown dropped, I want better support for him so we get actual value for his talent and effort. Having Brown taking marks on the wing and kicking inside 50 to Spargo is not ideal IMO.

Sure, game would have looked different had we converted some pretty regulation shots, but IMO we just could not hack the Collingwood pressure in the second half and massively overhandballed and that cost us the game. We had a handy lead early despite some poor goal kicking.

Don't agree on this narrative that is kicking around. Yes, we won a lot of the areas we like to pride ourselves on, but IMO these stats were the most indicative of our performance, particularly in the second half: Tackles - Melb 59, Coll 71 Handballs - Melb 208, Coll 99 In the context of how the game played out, that handball stat is telling.

No I'm talking about the delivery inside 50 mate. Spargo and Melksham are our best users for that.

It's an indicator when he has 10 handballs compared to 6 kicks. Not what you want from a key forward and indicative of our game as a whole on the night. 1. Our game style is built on pressure and our forward pressure has been lacking. 2. How does Brown compared to those forwards for goals, marks, contested marks, marks inside 50 and score involvements this year? Yes, I do have a high bar for Ben Brown as I think he's a very very good player. I actually find it completely bizarre how much of a let off he gets on here. Former Coleman winner who is now just a 'try to bring it to ground' player. IMO Brown's stats were not fully indicative of his performance. He was messy, slow and at times not competitive. He also turned it over 5 times out of those 16 disposals. Agree on this. It's why I don't completely blame Brown even though I think he should be playing better.

Agree on a lot of this, but if we drop both Spargo and Melksham and replace them with a key forward and panic kicker you can forget us taking any marks inside 50.

Not just Spargs, happened with Pickett too. I get that we have the pocket delivery part of the game plan, but surely it also allows for hitting up teammates in open spots?

JVR is worth trying IMO. He can't be too far away given he's been emergency the last couple of weeks. I think JVR's intent and ability to stand and mark will compliment BBB's attributes well, and with Brown roaming higher up it possibly takes some of the load of JVR to have a fully capable 'AFL tank' yet. ATM it just doesn't make sense to me to see Brown taking a mark on the wing only to turn and attempt to deliver to small forward targets. It might work, it might not, but we need to try something actually new if we're going to keep throwing the forward structure back and forth.