1964_2

4 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

Yep, definitely agree on all that. Laurie could be this year's Bowey with giving us a bit of a lift at the right time of the season too. Could use his kicking going forward that's for sure, Spargo seems to have lost that part of his game lately.

Spargo definitely been quiet, and lost some of his offensive edge. But think he is still ticking the defensive role playing box, which keeps him in the team. Same with ANB, and Kosy.

If we compare to last year, usually at least 2 of the 3 would add some offensive output, to their non-negotiable role playing requirements. Too many games this year only 1, and sometimes none of the 3 have contributed offensively. 

All of Bedford, Laurie, and Chandler probably have more offensive upside than Spargo, but can they meet his weekly defensive role playing requirements? I don’t know the answer 

5 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

Yep, if you had to pick just one tall from tonight it would clearly be JVR, no argument there.

Agree on freeing up Salem, my preference is to get Gus back to the wing to do that though. We're losing out from a team perspective with Gus at HB and JJ on the wing IMO.

Given we have more depth in the half-back flank position, definitely think it be worth returning Gus to the wingers club

We know Dunstan be a finals replacement for an injury to any of our starting midfield (and I am sure he would do a good job), but think we should use the opportunity next week to see what Laurie can do on a flank. 

15 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

Feel free to talk footy mate. Everyone seems a bit angry tonight.

In:  Laurie, JVR, Hunt

out: Oliver, Bedford, Bowey

Hunt to play more defensive, and free up Salem. Bowey to get his form back in the vfl. 

Harmes, Sparrow, occasionally Kosi to cover Oliver midfield rotations, with Laurie hff improving our inside 50 entries. (Oliver to not be a hero and rush back. Enjoy a week off, and be ready to explode on return) 

JVR to assist BB (Bedford unlucky, and structural rather than dropped). JVR taking contested marks in the wet deserves his chance. Was significantly better than Weid in the game I just watched. 
 

19 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

IN: Laurie, Dunstan, Weid, JVR

OUT: Spargo, Clarry, Ben Brown, Bedford

 

I am going to resist the facepalm. But out of curiosity, did you run with this to see how many facepalms you could get? 

24 minutes ago, drysdale demon said:

I'm calling BS on this, you also said a couple of years ago that Oliver wanted to leave because he didn't win the B&F.

Not completely false. He met with Carlton 

4 minutes ago, von said:

Very good chance we showed them nothing deliberately 

Rope-a-dope :-  Hopefully! 

We definitely held some strategy back in the loss against the dogs same time last year 

1 minute ago, Mickey said:

I think this is where we need to be really strong as a club. We need to tell him that, if we take at face value he is genuinely homesick, then we'll facilitate a trade in good faith. But it's to whoever gives us the best deal. And then we say to Freo and WC, cough up and we WILL trade him to whoever offers us the most, no walking him through the draft WC or he goes to Freo, no low balling us Freo or he goes to WC.

If he doesn't like it and wants to nominate a club and screw us over, then we tell him 'No deal, enjoy your year at North'.

That’s it. If he isn’t happy with either WCE or Freo, then the “homesick” excuse is not the main factor! 

15 minutes ago, willmoy said:

I will be concerned if he takes a possie of a bloke like Weideman who has stayed extremely loyal.

And by the way two wins while not in the team.

Can’t read much into that stat, given our 2 games without him have been Hawks and crows.

Just got over the line against the hawks without him :- Hawks without their usual ruck, and Gawn dominant 

2 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

If Jackson wants to go home, that's WA. I have zero interest in helping him get to Freo, because after 3 years at the club, where we made him a rising star, premiership player and worthy of a million dollar contract, we frankly owe him absolutely nothing.
We certainly don't owe making him a premiership player at Freo, who is our direct competitor. 

We have done nothing but right by him, and if he chooses to screw us on the way out (and yes that is a big if), then I hope we play hardball and make him go to West Coast or he can end up at North.

Our club can't afford to stuff around during this premiership window, as it might not come around again for a long long time. 

If he appreciated what he has received from us, he would stay for 2 more years (despite wanting to go home). 

If he goes this year, I think it just shows that he thinks he is a superstar and we were lucky to have his services. 

9 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I think what gets lost about Kardinia Park is that it is a narrow ground but is also longer. It is not a "smaller" ground, it is a skinnier ground. The Cats play the length well, several times they had players congregating at half forward where they raffled it and also picked through the zone at half back before going long. Trying to go long from deep in defense or across half back plays into the opposition's hands because you end up in no man's land (similar to Subiaco).

Yep, too often they had free mids across half forward who had just run harder to space on a fast play. 

4 minutes ago, Fat Tony said:

Scott is an excellent coach. We need to mix it up a bit because while our predictability was a strength initially, it can become a bit of a weakness if Max isn't marking everything.

Completely agree, the long down the line to Gawn/Brown, would be much more powerful, if we switched out of the backline more often, and forced the opposition to defend more potential scenarios. 

At least we have learnt some lessons now and not in the finals :-  lets just hope our coaching group are not too stubborn/proud to make some fundamental changes to the way we play. 

28 minutes ago, Fat Tony said:

Chris Scott spoke about our predictability in his post match conference.

He spoke about how we regularly have two 200cm players going up in packs and how they stopped it by making sure the crumbs didn’t fall gently to the front where Oliver and Petracca position themselves.

I would like to see us trying a few things before finals, such as occasionally attacking with short kicks through the heart of the opposition zone. While we might give away the odd turnover goal, it would make us less predictable. 

How smug was he. Well deserved though. We were out-played and out-coached.

It sounded to me, as if he was proudly showing off how he had cracked the code :- and making sure other coaches/teams would catch on to his views on the key reasons why we were beaten 

15 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

We either need to play Gawn/Jackson forward more when they're not rucking, or we need to pick Weideman until TMac's back. We can't be that small forward of the ball.

Bowey and Salem both struggled tonight. With Rivers and Hunt out of the side, there is competition for their spots.

I'm not convinced by Bedford. His Brisbane game was good but he is too fumbly under pressure and with our run home, we're copping pressure each week. 

If teams are going to copy Geel, and not bomb it anywhere near Gawn then he needs to play as a 70-80% permanent forward. 

I don’t think we would miss much, not having his hit-outs 

28 minutes ago, mo64 said:

Whilst I agree that the gap between VFL and AFL is massive, unless you give players an opportunity, how can they prove themselves?

JVR is a must in for me. You can see from the highlights that he's prepared to sit under the ball to take a mark, which is something lacking in Weid's game. And if he was selected next week, he'd probably be matched by Trent McKenzie.

In favour of this. If it’s too soon, and he struggles, it will be some motivation for him over pre-season to work harder 

& It would give our list managers a better idea of how urgently we need to add forward line talent for next year. 

23 minutes ago, Vipercrunch said:

I get it. You’re a pessimistic hand wringer and feel more comfortable thinking we will fail. You do you.  I’ll do me.  We’ll find out in 2 months who had a better read on our current circumstances. 

Assuming you meant to say “you do you Champion”  

1 hour ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

The big question now is what will be the level of booing and angst that young Luke will receive at the G next year when Freo come to town:

Peter Walsh 0/10 “happy that he found a new club” level

Sam Frost 5/10 “we’re ok that you found a new home but you’re entitled to an obligatory boo” level

Jeremy Howe/James Frawley  - 7.5/10 “you traitor” level 

Tom Scully - 11/10

Above Howe/Frawley level, but just below Scully 

1 minute ago, dees189227 said:

Yep and it was worse because he went with a dumb dribble kick. I really hope Goody shows this. 

Is the only selfish player in our team :- Needs to stop 

1 minute ago, The heart beats true said:

If he leaves I’ll never forgive him for leaving us when he could have been part of long term success. He could have been drafted to the Suns and really struggled having to be the number 1 guy. He’s benefited greatly from the experience of those around him, and the opportunity that gave him to have success. We’ve undoubtedly increased his value more than he’s increased ours in terms of his next contract. Would a new 3 year contract have killed him? He’d be 25 and still able to go home on a big 5-7 year contract.

He will be reminded by me at every Melbourne game that I support the Demons, and if you turn your back on the family you have to deal with the consequences. 

Agree with this. If he departs end of this year, no invite to the premiership reunion, and will be remembered as having character only marginally above Scully’s

Stay 2 more years, then he be free to do what he wants, with everyone’s blessing. 
 

35 minutes ago, binman said:

That was God awful.

Paid $90 for a crap seat in a glorified shelter shed, and the dees serve that up.

They smashed us. 

Good on you for making the effort to get there :- as painful as it must have been. 

We won the prelim by 83 points. Assuming cats don’t have the flu/gastro tonight, I will say they will show 2-3 goals improvement :-  So Dees by 65 points 

34 minutes ago, Neil Crompton said:

Not sure about anyone else, but I think I’ll read another topic for a while - at least until this one gets interesting again.

Brother 1:-  “Mum, my brother pushed me”

Brother 2:-   “No I didn’t, he pushed me” 

Mum:-   “Ok boys, I get you are nervous about tonight’s game. Both go to your rooms and relax for a while” 

:) 

Ross Lyon just tipped against us again. He can’t stand us. I wonder what we have done to upset him.

And Lloydy picked against us because of our forward line issues.

Too funny. 

19 minutes ago, old dee said:

Not until there are injuries binman. He is a battler!

And not if Bedford proves up our smaller forward line structure against the cats 

1 hour ago, Little Goffy said:

Remarkably, last year when we started the season missing a number of forwards and were all anxious about even getting off to a respectable start that would keep us in the running for finals, we averaged more than 90 points a game for the first half of the season.

From Round 13 to 19 (incl.) we had a serious drop off to only about 70 points per game and this was of course when we lost three games and drew against Hawthorn.

Then, of course, it all clicked and we thumped our way to glory, averaging 107 points per game and pushing even higher in finals - just shy of 120.

Meanwhile, in all three losses this season we failed to break double-figure goals, despite this season overall being higher scoring for us.

I think the problem is that when our whole-ground domination and harassment falters or when our opponents have the steadiness to cope with it, we are missing a bit of ability to get a goal against the flow here and there, courtesy of a forward who can just make it happen even when the system isn't going smoothly.

We are in the absolute top group for inside-50s, but other teams around us are turning that into one goal a game (Bulldogs, Cats) or even two goals a game (Tigers, Lions) more than us, and the common factor in all these teams is that they have at least one forward who, sometimes, it doesn't even matter how good the kick coming in is.

The story is told that our top 4 contested marks players are not forwards; Gawn (3rd overall), then Petty (37th) May (47th) and Jackson (54th). It is Sam Weideman who leads or forward line contested marking.

It's another reason I like the thought of keeping Serious Sam out there even when Gawn & Jackson are in, so that between them they\ stars can spend more time up forward being a tall target while Weideman takes some shin-beatings in the ruck.

Agree with what you are saying, but just don’t think it’s a problem. 

We win games from the manic pressure, and defensive dominance etc up the ground. While it is tough to bring this every week, and may result in 1,2 or even 3 more losses for the remainder of home and away season:- Our strategy is backing in that we will bring this manic pressure, and defensive dominance for every final, and hence why scoring and the forward line won’t be an issue for the games that matter most. 
 

8 minutes ago, Vipercrunch said:

There's a lot of talk in the media about our supposedly struggling forward line and ability to score, one of the latest examples is this discussion between Tim Watson and Garry Lyon (https://www.sen.com.au/news/2022/07/04/the-only-major-concern-lingering-for-melbourne-ahead-of-finals/).  And I, as much as the next MFC supoorter, would love to see us kick more goals from more traditional methods (lead and mark or contested marks by big key forwards), but I also suspected that this was just more of the media having selective memory about what we did in 2021.  The numbers speak for themselves.

 

 

Great post, thanks