Fromgotowoewodin

I dunno about his commitment but Christ he was bad tonight. Fell over about 8 times, kicked it out on the full more than once, was the target of some kicks to the square (why I don’t [censored] know) and stood flat footed while a Carlton player marked both.. waste of space and I would say choked under the pressure.

May was unreal tonight but looked sore, I think he’s got 2 years left at the most but it might even be 1, same with Max - especially if we continue making him ruck solo against 2. FMD how did we not make better use of Grundy? How do we end up with 2 all Australian rucks and it’s just “oh sorry it didn’t work”. 10 i50 marks tonight, 5 short of our average in wins. Score of 71 points, 29.5 points short of our average in wins. Take more marks i50, kick more goals, win games.

Gut feel on seeing the names I wasn’t thrilled. I was hoping we’d go for Grundy in with Gawn 30% or more forward to drag in some marks. Was disappointed for Hibberd. With more time to think about it Tomlinson makes sense, takes TDK or Pittonet and frees up Lever to play on a smaller fwd and take intercept marks. If Jack Martin was playing Hibbo probably stays in. Spargo at least shows they know our delivery i50 was bad and someone needs to hit targets. Marks i50 are desperately needed. Whether he can do anything about that given his time out of the side is another matter but let’s hope. Jordan was the obvious one, no other option really, he’s not brilliant but he’s consistent. I think we win, half a game and 30-odd wasted i50s last week and we got close to the pies. Play 4 quarters and hit some i50 targets and we’ll have the blues covered.

The going theory seems to be that it’s just our game plan and there’s no other way around it, we just have to accept the junk i50s and hope we snag a couple of extra goals through better conversion – doesn’t seem like a sustainable way to win finals and I doubt that’s what the coaches are staking their careers on. It is actually the connection (Goody hasn’t been lying to us). Yes, our disposal & kicking efficiency aren’t great, both are below the AFL average (DE% is 70.9% vs AFL average 72.7%), however in our wins we’re up at DE% of 73% and our losses we’re at 67%. Oppositions also only average 71% against us overall, and 69% in our losses indicating pressure is up on both sides in our games. Our defence is rock solid, 49.4 i50s against us over the season, 47.9 against us when we win, slightly up at 52.3 when we lose. Points against are 71.7 all year, 69.9 against when we win, 75.1 against when we lose. Hardly any difference, under a goal. What does make a difference is our forward half. I50s don’t vary that much, season average is 58.2, in wins we average 59.4 and losses 55.8 – a difference of 3.6 i50s, but when you look at scoring in wins we average 100.5 points and losses 65.5, so how does a difference of 3.6 i50s equate to a difference of 35 points? Is it just goal kicking accuracy? No. If we just converted our 19.9 scoring shots in losses at our season average of 54% (goals per scoring shot) we’d kick 11.9 – 75 points which is a draw against our opposition’s score against us in losses. Over the season we average 13.11, in wins 15.11, losses 9.11 – 6 goals better when we win, 6 straight that is. It’s not conversion of behinds into goals, its conversion of i50s into goals. And why the difference? Marks i50 – we average 15 marks i50 in wins, and 9 in losses – there’s that difference of 6 again. 6 more marks i50, 6 more good chances at goal, 6 more goals. In losses we average 55.8 i50s, which we convert into scoring shots at 37% (vs 41% season average). If we converted i50s at the season average we’d have 23 scoring shots instead of 19.9, and at our season average conversion we’d kick 12.11.85 – enough to beat the average score against us of 75 points without improving our conversion beyond the overall season average. If we had converted our 69 i50s into scoring shots at our usual 41% we would’ve had 28 scoring shots and kicked 15.13.105. Easy win. Now yes repeat entries only happen when you don’t score goals, so if we’d been hitting targets and kicking goals we would’ve never got near 69 i50s, but nor would we have needed to. We beat them convincingly on KB in our second worst goal-kicking effort of the year with 59 i50s (+10), we didn’t need +32 if we hit targets. We can afford to open up the game more and create space i50 – we’ve done it at times through the year and Brisbane and Essendon are the only teams to get 100+ against us. But what we have to do is find targets. We don’t have targets you say? Everyone’s injured? Yes Petty is out (premiership CHB, not a longstanding pillar of our forward line, though it’d be nice to have him). Yes Melksham is out (who only came in from the cold in rd 16). BBB out, probably not coming back – he’s the only one of our premiership forward line or our first choice early season line-up unavailable. We need more out of TMac who is coming off an injury, and I think Gawn needs to go forward with Grundy in to do more rucking. But Max needs to move. Standing 20m out waving for the ball isn’t the way, he’s marked on the lead before and he needs to do more of it. Defenders will panic if he’s on the move, they aren’t so worried when he’s standing still as they’re seemingly allowed to hold him and jump all over him without any penalty. We need the forwards to move and create space, and the mids to move it quicker but slower, quicker ball movement but slower thinking, they’re panicking with the ball and dumping it i50 because there’s too much hesitation going from half back to half forward. Hit targets and we win this week, and would win a GF against the Pies or Giants – the challenging bit now would be Brisbane who’ve unlocked our defence twice so we’d need an above average score to beat them, but we can worry about that after we beat the Blues.

So we’re all soft? Except for you of course. Not as passionate and rusted-on? Sorry I think you’ll find we’re pretty rusted-on after waiting from birth until 2021 to see a flag. If you’re so envious of those 4 clubs there’s an easy solution. We’ve all had a lifetime of snow gags and other [censored] hung on us for supporting Melbourne and you’re on here doing it because you imagined we might not turn up to a game that hasn’t happened yet (and has now sold out). Spell please.

I’m still lost, what price do you pay for being the most dedicated of our 70,000 supporters that the other 69,999 of us fairweather supporters don’t pay?

Please. 93k last week and they finally got started about half way through Q2. We did our bit. And the price YOU in particular pay for barracking for Melbourne? That you’re associated with the rest of us flakey supporters? Dial it back a bit matey..

How crocked is our forward line? Despite the drama through the year personnel-wise it’s actually not that bad. Our Rd1 forward line as named: Chandler, TMac, Spargo, Koz, BBB, ANB. Grundy on the bench, Fritsch out injured. Rd2: Spargo, TMac, Chandler, ANB, BBB, Trac. Grundy and Fritsch on the Bench. Koz suspended. Rd3: Bowey (?), JVR (debut), Trac, Chandler, BBB, ANB. Gawn our injured so Grundy in the ruck, Fritsch and Spargo on the bench. TMac was dropped, back the next week for BBB who got injured. Why am I wasting your time with this? Well if you look at the teams selected when we had a full list the key one missing last week was BBB. All others are available (noting that TMac and Fritsch are only just back of big layoffs). Yes Petty has come and gone, as has Melksham but aside from Brown we have our first choice forward line available for selection. So if we aren’t that injured what’s the problem? It really is connection (as Goody has been saying for 2 years and seemingly unable to permanently fix). BBB when fit gives us what we’re missing which is a forward who knows how to lead and create space. TMac also leads up as goes JVR, but they’re not as persistent at it as Brown. It’s also hard to be persistent at it when your leads get ignored in favour of bombing to the hot spot. The mids need to move the ball quickly, we seem to wait at half forward for the perfect target while defenders clog up space and our forwards stand around at the top of the square. Yes we get a lot of repeat entries with the theory being that builds pressure but against good teams junk entries aren’t worth anything. 69 entries for 7 goals is a lot of junk entries. The forwards also need to move and get out of each others way, work to create space for teammates and accept you’re not going to be on the end of every pass. Watching Brisbane last night you hardly ever saw Daniher and Hipwood on screen at the same time, when one was close to goal the other was up the field. Cameron one out in the square, have we ever seen Koz or Fritsch or any forward one on one in the square this year? It’s not rocket science and it doesn’t require players we don’t have, it requires working for each other instead of for themselves and it requires the mids to take risks and move quickly.

No guns. 3 forwards traded last year, Lobb (spud, was always going to the dogs), McStay (pretty much a spud, always going to the pies), Weid (well.. we let him go). We did the best we could with Grundy. I get more annoyed by the week that we haven’t found a way for it to work, Gawn was massive in the second half but beaten by their two rucks in the first half, and neither of those two are fit to shine his boots.

I don’t know if we’ve executed them at a high level all season, lost before with massive inside 50 numbers. But it’s still a choke. Blew the start, then got it back on our terms and kicked ourselves out of it.

I think Maynard maybe gets 1-2 as contact was shoulder to head, maybe gets off - chook lotto at the mro is beyond my understanding. No real beef with it, he was in the air and didn’t have any way to stop, unlucky for Brayshaw and really stuffed our night early as Laurie wasn’t sighted. As for Cox, he tried to do Trac’s knee, is a known grub and can snap both ankles as far as I’m concerned. Low human.

In my view Stafford has to go, forward line is a joke. No movement, and yes we also get it in slow but it’s easier to get it in there fast if there are targets moving for you. Painful to watch, and every time the pies shot forward in the first half there’s a forward one on one in space. Kill me. Are we wasting the premiership era? Well we have a flag so it’s not a total bust. That makes us a good team imo. Great teams win multiple flags (Brisbane, Geelong, Hawthorn, Richmond). People remember the great teams, they don’t remember the one-and-done’s. We’ve got 3 weeks to get to great but it’s going to take a major change in thinking about how the forwards move and I don’t think there’s time. Can we go again next year if we bow out in a semi or prelim this year? Yes but it gets harder, and we need some fresh blood. We clearly hoped (I certainly did) that BBB and TMac had more in them, that was wrong. We needed a key forward, couldn’t get one so tried Grundy, hasn’t worked. Annoying bit is we can almost get it done with the personnel we have, but not if 18 players are standing flat footed inside 50 every time we go forward. We’re almost great.

Time to see the fitness boys, gonna need a big second half. And ffs can Trac get near it..

Damp walk from Flinders, will be wet weather footy. Mudlark Hunter to have a BOG 33 and 2. Go Dees

First few seasons it was kick/chase or kick to contest & repeat, now that they’re getting overlap run and some longer kicking they can move it so much faster and scoring opens up

The guns really stepped it up this quarter, fumbles galore first half but they’ve been clean as since half time (except for goal kicking)

Contest + Defence repeat entries coming from contest around the ball and intercepting when they come out = goals

Looking a lot better when we hit targets by hand and foot

Hopefully run it out better than them, tidy up the skills and we should get some more looks at goal. Really only behind by that double umpiring howler of Harris getting her head taken off in a marking contest then giving them a shot for goal from the square. correction: on replay it was Campbell not Harris

I don’t think Smith can do the job on Moore, as Melksham said in his interview with Andy the role is to get dangerous yourself but also be in range of the defender so you can get to them and spoil/interfere when required - I don’t think Smith has the awareness to manage his position as well as Melksham, or other more natural forwards. I would think Fritsch would be the one again, and with a bit of luck Moore might feel some hamstring tightness trying to go with Fritsch on the lead. I would expect TMac to come in for Melksham and play his normal game of leading up to the wings and giving us a target with JVR out of the square.

I’m going for 93k: 2018 we got 91.8k against the Cats and 90.2k against the Hawks. 2022 Pies got 91.5k against the Cats and 90.6k against Freo. I reckon we’re good for a few more in the MCC than at a Freo game so guestimaths says 93k.

Also Q49, hopefully 50 and 51 are also Dees so there’s a buffer from the ferals

Biggest deficiency is no right foot, hence he gets trapped into kicking along the ground or underground handballs etc to get out of trouble. Smart player for all that..

Making it hard for Tomlinson so far

Sparrow would want to sort his fumbles out by the end of the match