NeveroddoreveN

Next time this happens Max should run straight over PP/Butters/whoever is blocking his path creating an all in brawl. It is about time we stood up. i would prefer to see a lack of discipline for a few chaotic moments and actually stand up to this BS. The weak approach is to do nothing...it will simply keep happening. The whole team needs to be a little more on edge and much more unsociable/tough to play against. Standing up for teammates should be a given. To me this is a massive indictment on the club and insinuating we don't have great culture/unity/strength/spirit. We need to respond and make other teams realise we will NEVER allow ANY of our players to get treated like that. Massive response required by whole team. Expect them to all come out breathing fire this week vs Freo. If we don't play on the edge of unsociable i will be very suprised. Freo are in for a shock this week.

Good work Sammy! Most hamstring injuries don't require surgery and lifting weights with your arms is not going to damage those hammies! Out for up to 4 weeks but recovering well. Great Journalism!

I was not talking about weekly ins or outs....just a few possible positional changes. Fwiw none of your changes are overly inspiring. We are going to look a much less talented team on paper this week. *Clearly if players are injured or suspended they will need replacements...but that is pretty darn obvious!

Presume we will put JJ on a wing for Hunter. Curious to hear what Rivers does this session....In the backline or with the mids? We actually have few options in Harmes/Sparrow to possibly share the role. You know sorta what you are going to get with both....We could be much more dynamic with combination of Rivers/Kossi/Viney.

Have played and watched enough sport to know this is sometimes not enough. You HAVE to fly the flag at times. We were flat and they had all the initiative for 3 of 4 quarters...We needed a spark. Max has had this done to him mupltiple times now. Maybe a response actually is required, You can't allow one of your most influencial players to get bullied out of playing for the day. Going harder is great, but sometimes the team needs to take a stand for supposedly one of our most loved players. You never see them try to target Viney in this way, why is that???! Because he gets better under that type adversity....Max goes to water, he needs a chop out quite simply. We seem to play that much better when we play unsociable football, a bit of pushing and shoving can fire the whole team up. We should have been flying the flag for Max. We missed a trick imo.

Honestly Max need to harden up and retalliate sometime himself. He had Powell-Pepper and Butters doing most of the bumping and annoying. Both are half his size. If he does not react himself how are others in the team to even know it is happening? Max tends to be right off every time this happens. Here is a tip though Melbourne....You defend your own...Every player. Get in there and fly the flag for your captain. Watching the game it appeared we gave them the initiative for 3 quarters. The only time we really fired up was in the 3rd quarter when there was probably the most niggle in the game. Starting a brawl can change momentum and get players cracking in that much harder. I think we missed a trick by not reacting to all the niggle he received on the day...Maybe next time!

The levels of hysteria in this thread are actually laughable....Breathe people! Of course we are not going to find a like for like replacement for Clarry! We have been way too predictable to opposition teams with our midfield setups. Without Clarry we get a chance to evolve. Of all our young players this year i think Rivers has been the one that really upped his output/effort. Throw him in the midfield for the next month.... we might actually develop a balanced inside/outside player with skills and toughness to match. This team has been carried by Oliver for a long time. He gives 100% every week. You don't need to be as gifted or talented as him....BUT we are going to need the whole team to collectively lift and play closer to the 100% that each are capable of. (Many in the team are just cruising atm....Maybe we will just be better without him as the penny drops for some within the team?

If Garry was not commentating our game.... He would be on the matchday thread going mental like many Demonlanders i would imagine!

There has to be simple solutions to a rather silly problem. How about each journalist is invited and they write their best question on paper....If it is accepted the 3 or 4 journalists step forward closer to microphone to ask their questions when required. As it is... do they just randomly pick reporters to ask the question and place them in random corners of the room.....Has always been messy part of the game that seems to not be an issue within other sports.

I actually disagree with his inclusion He has been woeful playing for Casey last few matches. Watching Tmac and BB not bringing the ball to ground on repeat has been main issue why both are not playing. They are both liabilities when the ball hits the ground and repeatedly their opponents are rebounding directly off them. With JVR and Petty they are not letting the cheap intercepts happen all day long. Both are competitive when the ball hits the grounds through bumps/tackles. I don't think Tmac or BB offer much in these areas. Our forward line is functioning pretty well and a big part of that is the fact that Petty is rarely getting beaten in contests, same with JVR, they halve a lot of the contests that they don't win.

So.....he is past his best but should be included ASAP to play 1sts regardless of form?

Hmm interesting you think he is slipping. Thought he has been pretty solid player this year, more consistent than most anyway! Our rebound off the half back is an interesting one. It seems we prefer to use Rivers/Hibberd as running HB options, McVee has lost a bit of his dash last few weeks and i think Bowey is like our designated inside preferred kicker. Ideally would like to see him with more run and gun in his game as he is really creative i am not sure HB allows him to do that all that often. He was pretty highly rated as a junior as a HF and even wing at times....would like to see him tested in these roles. Flexible players are valuable ones, Goodwin should experiment with him a little. Would be a shame to see him pegged as HBF for life, much like Salem :P

You clearly have Salem bias....He has been average for few years now and his body is not holding up well to the rigors of AFL . He started taking lot of soft easy options for kicks and started losing a lot of one on ones + was also tagged out of games easily. Bowey is a much better version with much bigger upside. I think we have seen Salems best footy already...Hope i am wrong! I think there is room to actually play both Bowey/Salem in form, both are great in the backline but would also be very creative forwards, i would personally release one of them forward. *Always loved Salem as a player but have been frustrated mostly by his management and playing well below his best in recent times. It frustrated me even more to drop an in form Bowey for him when he was clearly not fit and had very little impact (happened few times). Bowey should play 200+ games for us at a really high level, he is tough at contest, takes a good mark for his size and is super creative and hits targets both by hand and foot.

Having watched both these teams in every game....Really actually think Hawks have a better system/mids in form and have been better in their games for longer. Fremantle "have" to win this one, not sure they can with their coach and players not on the same page...their plan is all over the shop and JL is not inspiring them, they seem flat at start of every game. Hawks by 5 goals.

Sarong, But oh so right! It's how i feels when barracking for anyone vs Freo. They really could be bottom 4, even NM, Hawks, GCS are all chances of winning more games atm. West Coast are looking a likely spooner.

On what wage or position!? Have not seen him play a great game in at least 3-4 years now. Don't think any club would be interested....Really sad for a multiple Brownlow winner!

Jiust add the 30 minutes for ANY sports as they often go into the next program. It is not a waste of memory, you simply delete after watching it anyway most times. If you want to continue to pull your hair out missing end of sporting events don't add it :P Simples!

Tomlinson should be next in pecking order he has done everything to stay in contention. Blake Howes had his best game last week but i would be letting him replicate that for few more weeks to be more AFL ready.

Was from one of the Sydney posters....i should have checked it b4 posting that part, we actually kicked 7 for last Q.

Much to like, in no particular order! Coaching....Often playing Sydney, games are lost within the coaching box. It was nice to see Goodwin/Yze making some wholesale changes. Sydney usually just sweat on us to win clearances (Like Brisbane did most of last week). We let them win the ball, and sweated on them instead. We start adding these layers and we are going to be fearful to play against. Players are in better positions when we man the outside too. It is a subtle shift we needed to make. We have been beaten in the same manner many times. Hunters>Hunted! Petty and JVR were both huge for us in the forward half. Most kicks in their vicinity were brought to ground, our smaller guys relished this and our forward line looked better than it has in a long time. Nearly every team has a CHB type like Mccartin...Petty could be huge in this role as it stops a lot of the rebound they get from taking intercept marks all day. Chandler was exceptional all over the ground, so much to like about his game...his best so far! McVee is amazing, he just glides through traffic. Stunned how quickly he is coming on! Spargo. Probably the most impactful 6 possession game i ever seen. The bunny hop contender for mark of the year, could not stop laughing! JVR, take a bow kid! First minute injected into the game and he lays a massive bump. Competes all day, brought ball to ground regularly, tackled and looked a nice kick. Great debut! JJ played a great game. Was creative, hit targets and even showed some flair. If he plays like this on the regular, Harmes is going to find it impossible to get back into the team as a mid. Grundy & Hunter their best games for the Dees so far. Both building and fitting in nicely. All of our regular guns played well enough, but i thought our bottom 6 today were suberb. If Viney is your weakest link you have sooooooo much to be bullish about! It seems to contend this year, going to need to kick big scores. There are not too many that could kick 11 in the last quarter. Both Melbourne and Collingwood are going to blow some teams away in short periods. So glad we have shifted away from defensive style to a much more dynamic and inspiring style where players get to show their skills. So much to build on and get excited about! Go Demons!!!

Thank god honestly. Picking an out of form/unfit Tom has already helped derail previous seasons. Picking "fit" players in a brutal game > someone that can't really jump or run but is tall and sometimes competes. If we learnt anything from last year it should be not playing injured or out of form players til it is way too late.

I believe this is assessed over a 2 year period. Why we did not receive compensation after dropping to 17th in 2019.

Really? At this stage of the season no way they are tanking. Results-wise you could say Doggies were tanking with a vastly superior list. How about Freo? GWS? If this thread was 20 rounds into season and the have lost every game up until that point by 10+ goals it has some merit....But until that time, this is actually one of the most ridic threads i seen on Demonland. Call me an Ostrich, they clearly have more sense than some of these humans!

Doggies tanking also....Ridiculous to think anyone is tanking 2 rounds in to the season. Take your meds!

Hard to get a grip on this one...Not much went right! Reading through the pregame stuff here on Demonland gave me some concerns. Overly confident, we are going to smash them because X,Y,Z and Brisbane are bad. I just pictured our team lapping it all up on the plane ride there and getting a false sense of where we are actually at. i don't think one person predicted Brisbane would win this one. Goodwin has really not learnt from last years mistakes. Rushing back stars who have not trained properly/full intensity for nearly a month is not good practice. It will continue to backfire....pick FIT players. Watched Harmes pretty closely last night and there were stages where he was just running around, just trying to touch the ball, no keeping structure, no hand on opponents, so little impact at any stage. He needs to be dropped off back of that. JJ/JVR/Scache, honestly anyone replaces him, he would not be missed on back of performance like that. Melksham i said at end of last year that we are going nowhere while he is in the team. Put in a talented kid like JVR instead, give him a chance. Could not be worse. Both Viney and Fritsch looked like they could have played for Casey this week....they needed the hitout. Stop rushing in stars that are NQR! Seeing last month or so of training reports most of could see neither were prepared for this. We missed so many opportunities to move the ball better...instead we chose to burn the easy 15-25m targets that were in the clear, to kick it straight to the extra defender. It must have happened 20-30 times i saw, direct turnovers for no reason other than bad choices by so many players....Is this part of our gameplan? We have a few good decision makers, but yikes we have a lot of guys that seem to opt for the worst choices possible, just need to be better. Use your eyes and skills, you train all week to be better not just dump kicks to outnumbers. Devastating to lose Max. We have options in Schache/JVR as possible replacements for him. Have to include at least one of them next week.....Tmac will burnout fast if he has to play this role for long.