Altona-demon

My god - its all suddenly clear to me. MFCSS can be as a deep as the entire universe being aligned against the club, or as simple as disbelieving in the efforts of the MFC on game day (and by obvious extension the maggots internal bias against the MFC faithful). It's deep explanatory power of all negative phenomena makes it hard to shift - so what is the yin to this yang. Is there a possible state where everything and anything aligns for MFC winning? Because seeing some of the injuries (and suspensions) that other teams have suffered prior to playing us - I have begun to wonder.....

Thanks @TRIGON - agree 100%, it's strange we might look back at this group and look at those first 4 games in a completely different light (pending on future results) - certainly felt and feels like something has changed or turned.

Winning this much is a strange feeling right? But it's caused me to reflect on what it means for this team and club more generally. A couple of observations. 1. This might not gel with some people on DL, but our squad was dominated by losers. Repeatedly our stars (Viney, Brayshaw, Jones, Oliver) had lost lots of games. And when the blowtorch came on in the Norf game it was interesting to watch Brayshaw in particular start to fluff kicks, or just heads start to go down. That all too familiar MFCSS started to come on, that familiar old feeling as we waited for our team to roll over like good trained losers. But we didn't - and why? Because we are now starting to build a winning culture - people who just win. It has been instructive to watch conditioned winners in the young team (who have probably always been winners in their younger careers) come in and play with that youthful exuberance and unencumbered drive to win. These guys don't have the baggage of being habitual AFL losers like some of our more senior members of the squad. I think this makes a HUGE mental difference in pressure situations and has been one of the most positive changes in this team, this year. 2. This team still plays with the yips. When Dusty Martin takes a forward 50 mark - you can see he is relishing the moment and wants to kick the goals to win the games. Oliver, Petracca, Max, Brayshaw and Kozzie are still not there yet. Look out when this winning confidence starts to do what it is doing to someone like Tom McDonald (confidence 200% atm). There are more gears to this team. 3. MFCSS is just another way of saying you don't trust the club. I've been trying to put my finger on why I suddenly don't feel anxious about the club during games. Then I realised, I actually trust this team. They say trust is something that cannot be given it must be earned. And being a generally positive person, I freely admit I've given my trust quicker than some other DL'ers may do - but jesus when they keep working through games I knew that they would lose in the past (in my heart of hearts) - then trust will flow. It's a strange feeling to trust a team to win - feels good. A last point, if you want a reflection on where this club is now think about how Carlton FC must feel about their team and squad, because I can guarantee you they have a really strong case of the CFCSS. Put another way, if we really want to beat Carlton this weekend all we need to do is get inside where we as a club have been at for the last three years before we began turning this corner. So here's how you beat a mentally weak, habitual loser of a club: 1. You niggle them, pressure them constantly, and beat them early. In short you bully them on the park and let them know that they are not at the same level as you are. They lack resilience 2. You play a four quarter game and never have patches where you aren't competing. You are ready to pounce when they inevitably have that patch in the game when they question whether they are good enough to win and they go quiet. 3. You hit them late in quarters 4. You get on chains of scoring - once they are down they struggle to bounce back and lack resilience. If these weaknesses sound all too familiar, that's because they are, that was us less than 12 months ago.

Some stats based reflections: 1. Much has been made of Melbourne's average of 12-15 inside forward 50 tackles. I wonder what the key drivers of that stat are, because I think there are a few things that need to be considered: a. This could be correlated with poor entries inside f50 - a trend that Melbourne has had for the last 4 plus years. Is efficiency going inside forward 50 (defined as entries resulting in score involvements) negatively correlated with forward 50 tackles? b. Are inside forward 50 tackles normally distributed across forwards - assumption is no, as tall forwards are likely to create contests resulting in small forwards making tackles. c. Are certain forwards (Melksham/Fritsch) correctly judged based on argument 1b. above? Intuitively without analysing the data on the tapes, it seems very clear to me that if Ben Brown, Fritsch, Tom Mcdonald are tackling, then the system is not working perhaps as we intended it to work.

I think this is a fantastic post - thanks for that analysis. My other thoughts were that the delivery method into forward 50 was down on previous weeks. We couldn't kick to space, but seemed to kick floaty balls to aerial contests - which I wouldn't classify as a BBB strength. Wider open space, more direct kicking, and as you say drawing two defenders, let's see how he goes on the "G". It's very exciting. I think the comment that Bedford and Chandler breathing down ANB's neck is very on point, he can't afford too many quiet games with that talent in the 2s.

He was very poor. Just bombed into forward 50 when he had unpressured possessions - EXACTLY the sort of behaviour we are trying to eradicate in our midfield group. Sticking hard tackles - again something we are defining brand on. It's not terrible for Oskar but he's not at the level of this group yet.

I think maybe Hibberd to Papley - similarly explosive in first 20 yards. Rivers is also very quick.

Much better to have had Sparrow - but he did play on Thursday. He is the like for like replacement, even improvement on Jones or Jack. Was v. impressive in the 2s and was surprised he was dropped earlier in the season, I thought his role playing through the first games was a large part of early season wins..... If this is Jack's foot now what will his foot be like in 3-5 years. I am seeing a lot of downside.

What is the reason that the membership portal is done through Ticketek? It is beyond abysmal sign up experience. And working myself in digital, I often wonder what the drop off rates are in that membership funnel? Do the Demons get access to that data, or the meta data like when and from where these people are signing up to better inform our marketing activities? For example, if it is (as I suspect) that people sign up post game - probably makes sense to do targeting e-marketing in and around that time (ie promos etc). Just a thought...

Agree @DeeSpencer he's not a pressure forward, that is not what he brings to this forward line. At the moment based on watching the Casey games his role (in that system), is more of CHF roving quite far up the ground. His work rate was more impressive (in terms of Ks run) in the 2s then Ben Brown was in the 1s. However, that can be system related. His efforts to get up the wing and then back to the square to split contests where a notable part of Weid's game against Norf. I wasn't seeing similar efforts from BBB, and I am not sure he has that tank and speed anyway to do that. Second thing I think that Weid probably does slightly better than BBB is protect the drop zone of the ball and body up on a defender a bit better - but again small sample size to see whether BBB can do this. For now Sam probably stays in the twos. Only change I can see is Petty coming in for Tomlinson and Sparrow should play. Cannot state enough for those who watched the Casey game last week how good Sparrow was - not only is he tough on ball, his entries into forward 50 where bullets to advantage. The comparison watching Oskar Baker enter forward 50 this weekend was stark. Not only that, he is silk inside and outside - with his decision making, he is a real Viney replacement. Would love to see him get a game.

Hard to judge BBB on one game at AFL in this set-up - a better sample size of three-four games will tell. An early observation was that our inside 50 entry was not good enough to use a lead up forward like Ben Brown. Reminded me of the last two years watching our players sit the ball on top of Tom Mac's head time after time. Oskar Baker, Clayton, Christian, ANB, all wasted un-pressured forward entries by being unable to kick to advantage. It seems that Charlie Spargo, Kozzie Pickett, and Melksham (one beautiful flat entry) are the only forward of centre players who can be trusted... I couldn't believe how incredibly lack-lustre and poor some of our players where in this game - especially vis-a-vis Richmond. Max was terrible - and so is the umpiring, you cannot continually whack him in the back of the head, the club needs to raise this with the umpires as per Clarkson, it's not on to protect the head in some situations and yet ignore it in others.

Weidemann is a 5 year plus forward for us still building into his frame. His forward craft running patterns, marking above head, team first etc i'm a very big fan. I think we are flag contenders two years from now, and Sam is a large large part of that.

Weidemann was very good and did all the team things. He could have easily kicked 7 if he was more selfish. He'll play - but let's see him play more and more footy consistently. He is so clearly far too good for this level though. It can't be good for his long term development to keep beating up on part time footballers.

So the powers that be maybe have decided that Melkshams ongoing lack of tackle is analagous to playing a deep full forward and having a three headed monster in Tmac, LJ and BBB. Wow that's a tall forward line - not quite WCE tall but still v. tall. Granted BBB plays more as a leading forward. Excited to see how this affects the balance.

Wow surprised that the dropped Jonesy - very brutal move. very brutal. Sends a pretty clear message.

Link fellas?

That is exactly how I felt - just proud, been so sick to death of the "meek" Melbourne - pretty winners mentality and culture that seems to have been around this club for so long. Now when one of those cheap Richmond hacks put on a shot, there were players streaming in to settle the score. And with Kozzy we finally have an aggressor and not in the Jack Viney way - we can hold our backs up straight and let's bully some teams.

Ditto - was pretty absymal watching the Casey Richmond game on the livestream....looking forward to this Thursday night game. Wowee - so good watching some of our AFL boys go at it, and then some of the up and comers.

Loved that too @DeeZone it's very impressive how LJ can spread from stoppage, and somehow beat midfielders to their first touch. Often that second touch following a tap out to advantage, really gets us driving forward and seems to let the midfielders to sit on the outside.

agree with that, didnt like Sparrow on the bench.

this might be a weird way to think about this question, but what would Richmond do if they were in the same situation? Or what would the Hawks do? How does Melbourne, build depth, insurance, and put games into our younger players? Some sensible hedging could be: 1. Sparrow in for Jones. 2. Chandler and Bedford come in for Kozzie and Spargo. 3. TMac and Bayley Fritsch both rested for Ben Brown and Sam Weidemann.

Oh yeah - Hunt's run off half back was SOOOO good. Riewoldt is such a [censored].

I know that this will be discussed at length during the weekly list of Demon's podcast, but I thought, would love to see a thread of what people thought was their main highlights from the game. I might be going over it a bit too much - and maybe should move on - but gee got to celebrate the great wins! Watched the replay yesterday, even better on second watch. Anyway my top 3 highlights from the game: 1. The Trent Rivers spoil to stop a certain mark to Riewoldt. Just the look on the face of Riewoldt, it was an act that I think captures perfectly the changing nature of this side. It was almost as if Richmond just kept expecting us to fold, and in that moment Riewoldt expected it to come to him - think again. This moment, plus the notable involvements of Dogga and Kozzy, excited me because it showed an "unburdened" young brigade coming through who know winning and don't have any baggage. 2. The Kozzy Pickett no backward steps - let's be honest, like the hawks last week, Richmond tried to bully the Dees. We have always had a perception of being mentally weak (- for example when Port got after Max a couple years back). I certainly have never seen us be the aggressor. Nice to have an element of bully in our team as well. Kozzy scares defences more and more each week, just opening up more space for Tommy Mc.... 3. Charlie Spargo's tackle on Houli. I could watch this over and over again. He's quickly becoming a fan favourite. Love it!

I want this to be the breakout game where Christian buries Dusty, and all the talk is about Petracca and how quiet Dusty was. Whether or not it is that career defining game, i'm not sure, but I hope so. Similarly, I feel like Kozzie has been on the edge of a 5 goal performance for a long long time now (hitting posts, missing gimmes etc), I feel like he could go very big here on the big stage. I am tipping him to explode in this game.

Tend to agree @binman it will be a good barometer of the systems strength, and also the strength of belief that the team has in the system. It was notable that when presented with a tactical puzzle against the Hawks, the nature of our ball movement seemed to revert (through the middle of the ground - and also entering forward 50), I wonder what will happen on the weekend. Any views on a "weakness" in the Richmond gameplan or personnel?