NeveroddoreveN

Message to Clayton Oliver, sensational game again but please for the love of God... Don't go the bump! You got a Brownlow to win and my money is on you :P My heart was seriously in my mouth for that moment, he was lucky to collect his body!

Strangely confident we will relish the fast surface at Marvel, and run over the Saints in 2nd half. May/Lever to again dominate. Oliver/Petracca to run wild. Tmac and Fritsch all to hit the scoreboard. Kossie scintillates and kicks 3 to get fans super excited. JJ backs up with another good game. Lots of cameos from the rest. We win the clearances and Saints look lost for answers. Demons by 25+ We should have more run in the legs, Saints one less day to rest and played in heavy conditions. Expect to finish off quarters strong, Go Demons!!! Pregame prediction actually in the ball park for a change! Close enough go Deeeeeeemons!

Players to refer back to Game Day threads for constructive feedback post-game. There will be no mention of learnings whatsoever!

Strangely confident we will relish the fast surface at Marvel, and run over the Saints in 2nd half. May/Lever to again dominate. Oliver/Petracca to run wild. Tmac and Fritsch all to hit the scoreboard. Kossie scintillates and kicks 3 to get fans super excited. JJ backs up with another good game. Lots of cameos from the rest. We win the clearances and Saints look lost for answers. Demons by 25+ We should have more run in the legs, Saints one less day to rest and played in heavy conditions. Expect to finish off quarters strong, Go Demons!!!

So all the emergencies should be listed as outs? Only if if they played.

Hmm i don't like the cheap shots that you speak of, but if a good tackle is laid, no harm in getting under their skin and letting them know. Kossie does it well. Guys like VDB and Lynch not so much. I don't like it when other players get in to pat them on the head etc when they were not even involved in the play. It is all part of the game though, with bunch of alphas trying to prove they are superior and maybe putting someone off their game. Happens in every sport, at every level of it, women and males alike.

He has a shocker last night! Oliver works a lot harder. Cripps just wants to bash down walls. I do wish Viney was his size though, they try and play a similar style of game, by crashing and trying to do it all themselves at times.

Lmao since 2000 i knew it was bad 1st rounds but that is crazy! Sell us hope this year Demons! Have the feeling we going to come out blazing on a fast circuit and big crowd...Melbourne by 4 goals. St Kilda have plenty of weaknesses, should be a cracker! Kossie to have an absolutely blinder, delighting fans and media alike!

Our coach holds the keys to the Ferrari....Ridiculous he has gone from back to forward and now back again. Hunt runs in straight lines and rarely is allowed to burst from backline. They experimented with him there for quite a while, he still has same issues of not having any/many tricks like a sidestep to avoid a tackler. He looked like a gun early on, he has gone so far backwards i am not sure what to think of him as player. Actually i do, after 9 years in the system he should be far better and have developed some tricks to his game. He has not been developed well at all,unless you count grabbing teammates on the ar$e as one of his tricks.

I think the midfielders as well as Gawn are responsible to get it right. It seems to me that quite simply the oppositions midfield work harder/smarter than ours, particularly at centre bounces. We are slightly better at stoppages around the ground, as we have more players around the contest,so we are not always outnumbered on the outside. In the midfield though you got generally Clayton/Gawn then take your pick out of Harmes/Brayshaw/Viney/Sparrow. Clayton is doing his job and some. Gawn is not thinking where to tap to advantage....he hits to the outside often enough and nobody is even there. We basically need our other onballers at least negating that by one of them always being on the outside, if not both. It is really upto Harmes/Viney/Brayshaw/Sparrow and even Petracca to work harder to get to the outside and balance out the contests. They need to be far more disciplined and trust Clayton to win the ball if tapped to him in close and have options on the outside. They all get sucked into the contest way too easily and is one of the reasons we win the taps but lose clearances so often. There is no balance, and none of them are sacrificing their natural games so we can actually get the ball out with some type of regularity.

Said similar before myself. Max wins his tap then does nothing to help the midfielders clear the congestion. He is a liability almost when the ball hits the ground. He needs to start throwing his weight around, he is a huge unit but Spargo plays with more tenacity around the contests. Max needs to start playing with lot more aggression, clearing paths for our onballers by blocks/screens or just throwing himself at a contest and make things happen. Complaining to the umpires shows the weak mindset he actually has during games. Seeing him being bullied by comparative midgets says a lot about us. He is our Captain and if he does not lead by example and fly the flag occasionally, who will? Love Max as a "character" and apparently he trains like a dedicated footballer should, but it is time to show a hardened edge to his game to not make him so easy to play against. I don't think Max gets angry though, or he never shows it by his actions. Every match is a virtual war, he needs to start playing accordingly. ATM a player like Mumford would do a lot more for our esteemed midfield. FFS get angry and SHOW it Max!

I will have a crack. In a better team like Geelong or Richmond he would be less likely to get tagged. With better players around him and better coached team he would have others screening/blocking for him more often. Atm he has to do things the hard way because he is every week tagged. We need players like Harmes/Viney/Brayshaw to do a lot more blocking for him....or getting out into space to receive his handballs. Those 3 players i mention do not require teams to put any thought into us....Tag Clarry and Petracca, let the others do whatever. Our midfield does not scare any of the other teams right now. Viney/Brayshaw/Harmes all need to hurt the opposition in some way. Currently they really don't. All are overpaid for their output and consistency/value to the team. Would be paying Oliver whatever he wants....i would go as far to say that would not swap him for all of those 3 put together. He is THAT valuable to us. Without him we drop off a cliff.

They have a few speedsters. Who would Jetta play on? Can he keep up with any of them? I think you could play Hunt on Butler, Langdon on Hill and after that am struggling to find good match ups for the others. Jetta played much better than expected vs Freo but i am not sure he has any easy matchups this week and is likely to get exposed. I would have Bowey in there for the extra pace that is going to be needed against their mosquito fleet. Will be interesting selecting team for this week! If we go too slow against Saints they will tear us to shreds at times.

I actually thought our forward line functioned quite well against a good Freo defence. The tackling by all players in that area seemed to really step up. If all our forwards continue that type of pressure they will all chime in with goals at various times. Not worried about Spargo/Kossie lack of goals as they set others up with their disposal + pressure. Fritsch looks like on any given day he could bag 5-6 goals. He needs to nail a few more from tight angles but from what i noticed he is only ever few degrees off in accuracy, it will come. Tmac is the best game i seen from him in nearly 2 years, hope he continues to build on form/confidence. Majak is probably the only other forward bashing the door down atm....would love to see what he can do, surely he is in the frame to get picked this week....even if just as emergency sub!

See him having much more upside that Harmes atm. He does not get sucked into every contest, has quick hands and structurally is smart with his positioning. He will get better the more he plays. Much more worried about Harmes output for the time he spends around the ball. If he is not tagging he is getting lost wherever that me be on the field. Honestly both deserve another week, allowing Viney to get in more match practice and his fitness closer to 100%.

Did you even watch the game lmao? Membrey was really good for the Saints, marked nearly everything that came his way, also his kicking was good. So dismissive of a player who had a great game, and usually kicks at least a few against us at the least.

Really surprised so many are picking Melksham in the team. He has done little in the last 2 years, does not tackle, does not work hard enough, has had no preseason games/form....GET HIM IN. I am presuming those selecting Melksham really want Goodwin to lose his job. Melksham needs to be absolutely banging the door down with form in the reserves. He is so far from an automatic inclusion i really wonder about some of our supporters sanity thinking he is even in the conversation for a place in the team.

Great podcast will definitely be listening to this on a regular basis. The flow of it is so easy to listen to, amazing job guys!!

100% agree he can become an incredible player for us. His work rate has gone up a few notches and he did wheel out of some contests and into space which is something we have seen rarely over last few years. I too rate rate some of our guns pretty highly and likewise expect more from them. Like Salem ...yesterday had a good solid game but went missing for large chunks of it. Petracca had a good/average game but was still quite effective. All 3 of these players can improve quite a bit. If and when they do, we have the nucleus of a very dangerous team with May/Lever/Gawn. Seeing Tmac rediscover some form is also really exciting for us. He needed that confidence boost more than anyone i can think of on our list!

Bit harsh on Oliver. He could not touch the ball in the first 10 minutes of the game and at that stage Freo were 8-0 in clearances. Clayton was getting held so often at stoppages. Freo never really let him do as he pleased there. The bigger issue was Harmes playing on the outside....He got pushed into the contest so many times it was ridiculous, it just kept happening and it freed up the outside for them nearly every time. Oliver did not win a heap of clearances but his work rate all over the ground was exceptional. 35 disposals at 80% efficiency and 9 score involvements says he really was an influencial player. He was pretty much tagged all over the ground but still managed handballs that put team mates into space. If he won more at the clearances /stoppages like he normally does he would have had 50+ possessions. Was watching him very closely as i had $ on him to get most possessions....If he continues to play in such a manner, he will be firmly in Brownlow contention. His work rate was off the chart and he was bobbing up all over the place and i believe he will only get better if he continues to work so hard. He hardly deserves criticism for such a game anyway....If it were Jones or Hunt i could understand.

Laid a nice multi for Clayton Oliver and Melbourne to win by 1-39 points. Happy with the win, and just getting the 4 points. I think will leave it til bit later to review our performance. That game was a lot to digest, good and bad!

Who has actually kicked goals so far? This thread is so confusing as to wtf is actually happening!

Agreed he does not have the same pace. He does have elite kicking skills though but "chooses' to take safer options way too often. Salem can be so much better and have a much higher impact than what he currently does though. I have expected Salem to really step up for few years now...imo he just seems complacent and not pushing hard enough to go to the next level/s. Hopefully this year!

I reckon Salem is much better than your average AFL player but not quite in the elite category as yet. Watching Saad play in the same position last night is where Christian should be aiming. He needs to run and carry, as well as taking on the tough kick inboard a lot more often before coming elite imho.

He took his chance i guess in a half of footy. One thing i did notice is he was playing with an intensity that he rarely showed with us. Generally he just looked lethargic for most of his games with us and was often 2nd to the ball or having little effect in nullifying a contest. Happy for him also. He badly needed a fresh start. We put a lot of games into him. Hope it all comes to fruition at Carlton for him. Keep up the intensity Oscar, it is required in the AFL.