Nairobi_Demon

Great post, @binman. One comment and one small request. I agree with all of the above, the only part I wonder about is the strategic advantage of targeting the King’s Birthday match. From the perspective of giving the team and supporters belief and living up to the hype, it makes sense to prioritise this game. But in terms of winning the battle and given current ladder positions, matches against Brisbane, Geelong and possibly St Kilda may be more important. The Pies are already three games clear — and although they do have a tough second half of the season — I wonder whether we should be targeting position 2 on the ladder rather than 1? P.S. Great if you could add a hyperlink to your note on the first act. I think I missed that. 😁

From the TV footage, Max was very unhappy at the end of Q3 and the commentators were suggesting he was naming names for poor effort. Anyone at the game have a sense of what Max was dirty about?

Such poor connection through the middle and into the forward line. I now just assume that players such as ANB and even Brayshaw will more often than not cough it up. Here’s disposal efficiency for those moving through the middle Viney 37% ANB 44% Brayshaw 52% Grundy 53% Petracca 58% Harmes 64% Pickett 64% Langdon 74% Sparrow 78% Salem 79% Gawn 87% In contrast, I could only find 1 Walyalup player on 50% and almost all were 60-70% plus and they were facing just as much pressure as us. The decision making and skill errors behind those numbers are killing us.

I’ve also felt that “bees to the honeypot” has crept back into our midfield over the past few weeks. I think the biggest culprit is Brayshaw when he’s in the middle / stoppage. I’m gonna watch for this and him carefully this week.

Was this a good match to lose? While we always want to bank the four points, I increasingly think that “it’s not enough to play 1 decent quarter to win” is a better lesson than “we can still scrape by playing about 1 good quarter”.

I was less frustrated that we kicked it to the same spot, and more frustrated that our stoppage work was so poor and it would just come straight back in

Our small forwards were missing in action

We rectified the clearance differential in Q3 and it made all the difference, particularly because if we lost the centre clearance and they got it in their forward 50 we couldn't for the life of us get it out. We managed to rectify clearances largely because Petracca spent more time in the middle.

Super excited that Salem is back - that is all I have to say 😁

This is certainly a valid point of view and worth considering. I guess it comes down to the intention of the name change. It could be about the club respecting the traditional owners but it also could be about popularising the use of aboriginal language and particularly place names amongst us all. My understanding—and I’m reaching back to my undergrad anthropology classes so happy to stand corrected—is that many important places have multiple names, some of which are more sensitive/secret and some public. My assumption is that narrm would be from the public lexicon and thus appropriate to use. As an aside, my understanding is that Geelong is derived from the aboriginal word jillong and relates to the location a certain bird is or perhaps was commonly found. We use quite a few aboriginal place names and other terms in our Australian English, often unknowingly.

Can’t recall if we discussed this last year, but is it possible to change the name of “demonland” to “narrmland” for the next two weeks? Realise that Narrm replaces Melbourne, not the demons per se, but it could be a nice nod to the club’s initiative.

I heard the government was planning to call it Monarchy Day but I’m a long way from home - any truth to that?

For a few weeks now I’ve felt our handball decision making has been poor and passing/receiving skills sloppy and often fumbly. The Choco kicking clinic has for the most part worked wonders, do we need a Choco handballing clinic?

Fantastic interview. Seems like such a relaxed and genuine chap.

There were multiple times that he seemed to be fanning or patting his chest, I think towards the bench. Like he was having trouble breathing. Does he always do that?

I’m excited by JVR but it looked like he was well beaten by Balta for the first three quarters. Was it only after Balta moved forward or was perhaps rested and a much younger player was on JVR that he found his space and groove? The fact that JVR didn’t hang his head and grabbed the opportunity says a lot - he’ll learn to play on more experienced defence but it’s that attitude that excites me most.

Grateful for the panels comment on the lack of pressure and run through the middle - it seemed we just couldn’t go with them and they had spare players everywhere, they just waltzed through the middle, and could enter their fwd 50 with little pressure on the ball carrier, thus asking the impossible of our defence. The question is why? Reading between the lines of Goody’s presser, he acknowledged that they would review their preparation during the week but he seemed to suggest that he didn’t think this was the reason for why it didn’t look like Melbourne. I don’t buy the missing player argument and I don’t think Goody was entertaining it either: a game should still “look like Melbourne” even with a few missing players. Indeed, that is why we have Casey playing with the same approach. If it’s not preparation, not missing players and not niggles so early in the season, it must be effort/attitude. Even if you don’t fully agree that attitude was an important explanatory factor, I’d be curious for the panel’s thoughts on what concrete actions the coaches can take, particularly when it’s not about the performance of one or two individuals but seemingly most of the squad? You arguably can’t just single out one or two players and push them back to Casey and you also can’t dump half the squad but, at the same time, surely some accountability is necessary if a ruthless culture is to be built and sustained. Sorry, this has turned into a long question and commentary so feel free to weave into the discussion as you see fit.

Fantastic interview, very insightful, and for me it confirmed loading around the bye is a thing 👍

Cats can’t get it into their fwd line at all, Pies helped by favourable umpire decisions on around their half back, but gee the Pies play fast

Which team do you think is our biggest threat?

McVee seemed to be on him quite a lot

Thanks Heart Break. I’ve been receiving other emails like voting at the recent AGM and this week a 40% voucher for the store, but I’ll shoot them an email 👍

That seems very inefficient

Not received anything yet

Can someone post the score? (can’t watch unfortunately)