RadishDee

Looking at some of the game thread post on Demonland for this game, the comments on the game plan already concern me. Though I didn’t see any of the game. Does the game plan work with the players we have? How many weeks do you think it will take to know if it will or won’t work? Are we going to do the same as last year, try and make a game plan work that doesn’t given our strengths and weaknesses only to abandon it mid season?

MIDFIELD Was it just me or did we seem a lot better not only without Oliver but after Sparrow went down? Do we usually too many midfield bulls who can only extract the footy and can't run, chase, apply pressure, or execute kicks? It seems to me that the makeshift midfield in the second half against the Suns was made up of players with better kicks and better run, is this the difference? Is this what the midfield should be? Fewer Viney/Oliver/Sparrow types and more Trac/Riv/ANB types? OLIVER It's pretty amazing how much better we look without Clarry. Does the panel think the mentality at the selection table has been that an injured Clarry is better than the next best replacement? And if so, has this mentality been found out as wrong? 'CULTURE' If we suppose that there is a cultural issue at the club, what does that panel think is the source of it? Is there division within the playing group and if so, what is the divide? Surely Trac, Gawn, Vines and the other leaders are all on the same page, so who would be on the other side of the divide, if it exists at all?

Did I travel back in time? This game felt exactly like the final against Carlton last year. A hard-fought, brutal, contested game. Our pressure and contested ball were good. Poor discipline taking away shots at goal. Each of our goals felt like it took 4 times the effort of theirs. Had chances to put the game away in the fourth quarter but didn't take them. Lose by under a kick. I think this game underlines why the gameplan needed to shift this year. We don't have the forward line to kick goals in a congested forward 50. We need to change to a transition game plan so we can use the players we do have to score in an open forward line. Unfortunately we don't have the midfield players and defenders to execute it. This year was a tough one, but next year we could come back, the gap from worst to first in the AFL is pretty small at the moment. Thinking ahead though, should we move beyond the transition game to whatever game style will be after that? Get ahead of the pack. What will be the game style to defeat the transition game? Can we rebuild into that more easily?

CONDITIONING Looking at some stats for some answers I came across our points conceded as interesting. In 2021, we allowed 80 points on more on 3 occasions and lost all 3. In 2022 it was 8 times and we lost 7 of 8 (beating the Hawks 91 - 81). After the winning streak was broken, the scores conceded were really inconsistent with it see-sawing back on forth every week. In 2023, we also conceded 8 scores of 80 or more, but only lost 3 of those (hence the forward line becomes the issue because we lost a lot of games not conceding a big score). This year in only 20 games (rather than 24 or 25 in previous years) we have conceded 10 scores of 80 or more and lost 9 of those 10 (Port being the exception). What's clear is that our defence is significantly worse this year, especially since the middle of the season. So what's changed? I put it down to 3 things, personnel, game plan and conditioning. So which is the main culprit? Conditioning to me is the main issue. We look slow. We're second to contests, and also getting cut up on the outside. Meaning that our players are getting stuck in the middle. The zone isn't working as well as it has previously and we're much easier to open up than in previous years. When we think about it, this makes sense. Our teams in the last few weeks have been young. Young players haven't developed their tanks yet. But on the other side, we also play a lot of older players (Gawn, Melksham, McDonald, May and Viney all playing recently and over 30). So we have a fairly stacked team of late with about half the playing team (11ish by my count) either 18-21 or 30+. It doesn't make for the fittest group on the park. Can we improve this next year? I think we can. The pre-season was very compromised as has been much discussed. With an extra few weeks break and the chance to come back with a full list I think 2025 looks alright. KOLT I'm loving Kolt! Has anyone on the panel noticed how often he pops up in the right areas in the forward line? When a key forward is taking a mark or there's a scrap on the ground, the Kolt seems to be there more often than not. With another pre-season under his belt I think he'll jump to another level next year. PETTY Has been really good recently. Not hitting the scoreboard very much but is taking important marks on the wing. JEFFERSON I was surprised to see that Jeffo has the most VFL goals of any AFL listed player. With one more pre-season under his belt, does the panel think that he'll be ready at some point next year. 2025 The main thing we will have to do in the offseason is refresh the list. In addition to the 2 dead spots on the list there are multiple players on the list that are sadly just not AFL standard anymore: Schache, Hunter, BBB, Tommo. I know the podcast has been down on our list and talent, but think about how much better we could be with even 3 of those 6 list spots taken by players that actually might improve in the future. The 3 recruits from last year (Billings, Fullarton and McAdam) have been disappointing, but another Demons pre-season will improve their fitness which can only help. While I'm not bullish on Billings and Fullarton, I think McAdam has a chance to make a difference if he can get fit. With a good draft and 2 recruits better than previous years, I think we can build and challenge again next year (much like the Cats and Swans have done). Have faith, the core of this team is still excellent and the rest of the team will come. Though I have to say the ruck position specifically gives me cause for concern. Our next generation ruck got pilfered and we can't seem to develop a new ruck (which is very unlike the Melbourne of the pre-Gawn years). Can we get a ruck to play after Max? Will Verrall be ready?

PSYCHOLOGY I loved the discussion on mentality and psychology from the last episode. The negativity in our beloved football club is self-evident on the field, for example the moment between Max and Maysie in the last quarter. But it's all over. The players look stressed and in their heads. I hope the club finds a way to change this or I fear this season is going to be like 2020. Is part of the problem games at the MCG? This may sound like heresy, but the MFCSS is strong and I have often felt in the last 5 years while watching the Dees at the 'G that when a Melbourne player makes a mistake, there is an audible groan from the crowd. This has to have an effect on the players. Was part of the massive success of 2021, the fact that all the finals were played outside of Melbourne where most supporters were not overburdened with MFCSS? I remember from Maxy's book that the mental changes in the offseason going into 2021 were fundamental to the success in his mind. Could the MFC faithful out there try and bite their tongues and see if anything improves? Or is the MFCSS too strong? FORWARD LINE Whatever the outcome of this season is, the footy department MUST find a solution to the forward line woes for the 2025 season. It was the problem in 2022, 2023 and part of the problem in 2024. It's the only significant long term problem we have (I'm still bullish on the midfield in terms of talent and experience) and the team can't continue to accept that.

Pondering the last month or so of footy, the 2 most disappointing sides have to be Melbourne and Adelaide. With Burgess in charge of fitness at the Crows and Griffiths, a Burgess acolyte, in charge of fitness at the Dees, is there something common in the training of these 2 sides that could be causing these results? Are the training methods out of date? Are they training in a hard block in May that's going to pay dividends in the rest of the season? Is there too much focus on fitness and not enough on skills? It just seems interesting to me that those 2 sides, who should be fit are languishing at present.

Building on my suspicion that the Dees aren't able to effectively move the call to the forward line... I ran some stats on intercepts, intercepts allowed, points from turnover and points from turnover allowed and it makes for interesting reading. Melbourne currently rank 16th in the league for turnover points per intercept (0.60) and 14th in turnover points allowed per intercept (0.73). Similarly, if we look at scoring shots from turnover per intercept, Melbourne score from 17.8% (16th) rank of intercepts, while allowing scores from 18.4% (11th) of intercepts. Interestingly, the defensive side has gone down from 16.4% (3rd) since the Carlton game (the last full game before Lever was injured). So my reading on the situation: Without Lever we are stuffed at the moment. We haven't been able to consistently move the ball downfield from intercepts all season, but without Lever the defence is completely stuffed. The intercept numbers are about the same (68 without and 69 with), but it's the non-intercept parts of our game that are suffering. Lever was patching over the holes, but the game plan isn't working yet. The top 8 teams are more consistent than Melbourne at scoring from their intercepts. They regularly score on more than 20% of their intercepts, with very few games between 10% and 15% (Melbourne has 4 games of 13 in this range, Sydney, Carlton, Port and Geelong all have 1). Surprisingly, we seem actually seem to be improving slightly in this respect, with our last 5 intercept scoring %s being 13.1%, 15.0%, 22.5%, 16.4% and 21.5%. Getting Lever back after the bye should help the defensive part of our game. But it's the ball movement that really needs to improve if we want to compete this year. For what it's worth, this data kind of says we should have won today, but scoring 4.10 from turnover and allowing 10.1 from turnover is absolutely where the game was lost. Is this a fitness issue? We're too tired when taking shots to kick accurately (JVR execpted)?

GAMEPLAN The Red and Blue-print simply isn't working. When we turn the ball over in the back half our disposal is not good enough to successfully move the ball to the forward line. We actually ended up with 1 more turnover than the Dockers today, but got significantly outscored on turnover (I'm sure Binman has the stats). Yes Fremantle's pressure was good, but not enough to show that kind of difference that leads to a 96 point loss. I think we simply don't have the personnel to make the gameplan work. We're not skillful enough to move the ball fast without turning it back over and we're not good enough in the air to take the contested marks necessary. We have to fix at least one of those. Should we persist with the gameplan? (for the record, I think Goody will persist because that's his nature) What changes can we make to turn the gameplan around? Is it as simple as JVR coming in or are there other structural changes we need? TACKLING Our tackling technique seems very poor. Countless times today Fremantle players would push off Melbourne players in tackles. Are there any recorded stats on missed or broken tackles? Surely we must be amongst the worst at successful tackles. PERSONNEL Again, I will put forward the point that we look much better with 7 talls than 6. With 6 it means that there is frequently only 1 tall forward to kick to when we boot the ball from D50 (1 tall forward is on the bench) and they consistently lose those contests in a 2 on 1. 7 talls means that we should have even numbers at those contests and it gives us a chance.

While the Dees were good today, I have been pondering the long-term viability of the red-and-blueprint for the rest of the season thinking about what has worked and what hasn't worked. (Stick with me here) The ability to intercept or otherwise cause turnovers doesn't seem to be a problem. for the Dees It's what we do with the ball once we have it that can cause problems. To transition a back-half intercept into a score, the team with the ball must be able to quickly move the ball into the forward 50 by either: a) taking uncontested marks to move the ball forward, b) using handball, run and carry to move the ball quickly, c) taking a contested mark (usually on the wing), or d) win a contested ball off a marking contest (again, usually on the wing). We know that the Dees aren't a great kicking team or a great speed team (for 3 quarters anyway - I believe this changes late in games which makes us look a lot better because it opens up more transition avenues). So option a) and b) are not reliable to build the red-and-blueprint around. That leaves us with c) and d), which both rely on big body forwards to compete in the air around the middle of the ground. When those forwards aren't marking, the smaller forwards and mids need to gather the ground balls so that we can score. My theory is that when we look bad (e.g. vs Lions and vs Eagles), the forwards aren't taking marks on the wing and the mids and forwards aren't in the contest, so our transition from turnover ends on the wing and is over being it begins. Do we have access to any stats on percentage of turnovers transitioned to scores or something like that? To this end, I think we are best suited to playing 7 true talls (2 forward, 3 back and 2 rucks). It gives us more options to win the contested ball on the wing and drive the ball forward. This is why I'm very concerned that Goody has moved to playing 6 talls again with McAdam and Fritsch playing hybrid, but the wing is not where either excels. A key player we need to find (either internally or externally) is a big bodied tall that can play forward, bring the ball to ground and play backup ruck. JVR fills this need, but I think we need a second. If the player in question can be a bit of an enforcer to deal out some payback for the elevated physicality sent toward Max, then all the better. What does the panel think? Can this be Verrel? Jefferson?

Hi gents love the pod. I didn't get to watch almost any of the game, but it seemed to me that the 5 day break was an issue for us, hence the slow start. Once both sides tired out, we seemed to have the run of the game. Is that what it looked like live? Not too unhappy with the result, a win would have been better for sure. But I have to think that in another game and in a final with full breaks, we would be the fitter and better team. The first quarter was bad, but I think it has to be considered an outlier, rather than an indication of where either team is at. Does the panel agree? I think Binman's notion that each game is not a litmus test on flag credentials is especially important now. We've looked good in many games and looked bad in small stages. I think our best footy is right up there and probably the best 2 or 3 sides in the comp. The challenge for the Dees is delivering that consistently in September. The change to the Red and Blueprint means that sometimes it might not quite all come together, which is not a problem in May. We're growing and improving and Goody always says the team that wins the flag is not the best team, but the team that improves the most. I think we have that in us. Go Dees.