Hards

I was pretty sick at the time and never actually watched this match, but watching it back this afternoon for the first time I found it pretty interesting. A quick refresh - down nearly four goals in the first quarter, down by a couple of goals in the last quarter, turned it on in the last ten minutes to quick the last five goals to win by 18 points. Since this game both coaches have been sacked, and the two sides have gone won 15/31 and 6/31 in the season and a half since. Playing that night: Luke Ball, Nick Riewoldt, Brendon Goddard, Steven Baker, Leigh Montagna, Robert Harvey, Stephen Milne, Justin Koschitzke, Sam Fisher, Nick Dal Santo, Jason Gram, Andrew Thompson, Stephen Powell, Justin Peckett, Leigh Fisher, Fraser Gehrig, Brett Voss, Aaron Hamill, Michael Rix, Max Hudghton, Raphael Clarke, Xavier Clarke Cameron Bruce, Brock McLean, Jeff White, Brad Green, James McDonald, Travis Johnstone, Byron Pickett, Colin Sylvia, David Neitz, Daniel Ward, Daniel Bell, Brad Miller, Adem Yze, Matthew Bate, Ben Holland, Russell Robertson, Jared Rivers, Nathan Carroll, Matthew Whelan, Aaron Davey, Nathan Jones, Mark Jamar Now the Saints have lost Thompson, Powell, Peckett, Voss, Hamill and lets add Gherig to retirement since. We have lost Neitz and Pickett. Saints had one 300+ (Harvey), three 200+ (Gherig, Thompson, Peckett) and seven 100+ (Baker, Hamill, Hudgeton, Milne, Powell, Reiwoldt, Voss) Dees had zero 300+, three 200+ (Neitz, White, Yze), and nine 100+ (Bruce, Green, Holland, Pickett, Johnstone, McDonald, Robertson, Ward and Whelan) Relatively even, although the Saints 100+ gamers are older than ours, as there's a lot of guys with long term injury problems. The under 100 gamers: Saints Runners: Ball, Clarke X, Clarke R, Dal Santo, Goddard, Gram, Montagna Key position: Fisher S, Koschitzke Undersized Key position/Mid-back: Fisher L Ruck: Rix Demons Runners: Davey, Jones, McLean, Sylvia Key position: Bate, Carroll, Miller, Rivers, Undersized Key position/Mid-back: Bell Ruck: Jamar My contention is this: We were in a far greater shape than St.Kilda were at this time. Nearly our entire spine was young and developing (Bate/Miller, Rivers, Carroll), and we were far less reliant on the older players, who were either on the verge of retirement, often injured, or both. We were second in the league for tackles and our scoring both for and against had us in the top five. It seemed we had added some hardness to the more open style we were playing in 04 and 05. Both sides in 2006 were not Premiership sides, but they were on the track. One was fighting the closing of the window, the other was just opening. One was going to have to regenerate retiring players, the other was going to have to upgrade at a few positions. One was running out of time to do it, the other had time on its side. Both changed the way they play their footy at the start of 07. Now its 2008, we're bottoming out and the Saints are just about doing the same. If you've got a copy of that game try and sit down and watch it before Sundays game. Watch them in comparison. Hard to believe it was just 18 months ago.

Saints will come out very tough this week, nothing short of the effort we started with against Hawthorn will do. I don't believe they are that good, and their coach is trying to enforce a style foreign to the players they have drafted for, traded for and moulded over the past six or seven years. Even with Schneider and Dempster as ex Swans players in the Saints system unless you have a whole team built to play that style it doesn't work. Sydney's hard in and under guys Bolton and Kirk are miles ahead of the Saints equivilants. So where a Schneider and a Dempster can work off that in Sydney they can't for the Saints. And Sydney wouldn't trade for guys like Fiora and wouldn't draft guys like the Clarke brothers because it doesn't fit their style and work ethic. Unfortunately for St.Kilda (and fortunately for those of us who hate that footy club) they'll never be bad enough to bottom out but never good enough to win anything.

I like this idea, but going forward we're going to play Miller and Bate as high leading half forwards, and Sylvia's body will never allow him to play full games in the midfield, so he's going to be rotating through half forward and the midfield. That's how half forward setup going forward, with Davey and Wona moving up and down between wing and the forward pocket. We need a full forward still, and while Dunn has great goal sense, he isn't a strong enough lead/mark to play full forward. Two years ago I had him pencilled in in the role that Bate is now playing, with Bate playing more in the midfield. That's gone the other way now, and that's fine as Bate can play that role well, but I'd like to see Dunn up forward and not in the midfield. That said, I'm finding it hard to fit him in.

The structure has changed remarkably since Round 1 and its beginning to pay off. It will give us a basis to work around in the coming years. Compared to round 1 we had 26 more possesions as a team - 25 were kicks. Big change and in combination with playing some key leading players at half forward it creates space for our forward line to work in. Definately step in the right direction.

By the way Andrew Demetriou said this morning we're in a worse position than North were in late last year, when they were told Gold Coast or die. Ouch.

Someone from the Kangas said it on radio, might have been Eugene Arocca, a few weeks ago - approx 2500 members from the Gold Coast didn't re-sign this year. And there are others that did re-sign anyway from the Gold Coast - maybe they will drop off, maybe they were Kangas members originally anyway. Their figure at the moment will be inflated by a number of non-North supporters, for sure, but at 34k even if that was up to 4k, they've still added around 10k members in Melbourne. North's membership surveys showed 90%+ were happy with the team on the field and 85% were unhappy with the way the club was being run off the field - they felt the club was too much in the AFL's pocket, and with Brayshaw on board and a firm and final no to moving to the Gold Coast they've turned that figure around substantially. How else do you reckon Brayshaw was able to convince investors and sponsors to pump in enough money to increase the footy department's budget by 600k this year and a 1M next year? There's a lot to be learnt from it I reckon. Nothing is ever put in the "too hard" basket at North, every challange is an opportunity.

The members are out there if you sell yourself to them right - look at the Roos. No one would have imagined they had the potential to get 34k members, and that's despite losing a few thousand Gold Coast based members from last years figure. You need on field success to go with it though - you can't sell a losing product.

Don't anyone get sucked in to thinking this is Jeff just having a crack at us. The AFL have outlined to the club in recent times that they are concerned about our lack of a presence in the public, our lack of a brand and the financial state of the club. There are major issues that require the footy club as a whole, board, players, staff, past players, members and supporters to come together and solve. We can talk all day about how by R1 2009 Hawthorn will be the only Victorian club to sell home games interstate, but that won't do anything at all to help secure our position in Melbourne. Whether Jeff Kennett says it, or Andrew Demetriou says it, or Jim Stynes says it, it doesn't matter - the truth is there are major problems to be fixed, and the danger of our club dying is greater now than it ever has been.

Benny Holland!

Very sad. Always my favourite Dees player. Picked him early, I think I still have the jumper that has 38 on it for him. I'll miss making the best FB in the game Mal Michael look second rate at the Gabba in 2002. I'll miss Luke McCabe's collarbone (though probably not as much as McCabe does) I'll miss the battles with Carey I'll miss silencing the critics with big bags of goals I'll miss the 55m goal when the team needed it I'll miss the Captain. For the vast number on here who barely remember anyone else wearing number 9 footy will be a different experience without him. I'll miss our only leader

Hopefully this is the end of the chopping and changing of where he is played. I know Daniher said he wanted him to be able to play both ends - in the last ten years there are maybe five guys who could do that well. It's proven very hard to swing from one end to the other and be successful.

I saw one of Natanui's games earlier this season and reckon he lost two or three hitouts all day. Amazing athleticism, just jumps all over guys with much bigger bodies than his, and his reach and so good that he can still direct the ball to a teammate rather than just get a hand to it.

http://melbournefc.com.au/tabid/7415/Defau...px?newsid=59223 If you were unhappy about the lack of a members scarf this year get onto that page and register your disappointment. The page says "Feedback last year indicated that members wanted a shift from the traditional member scarf". I very much doubt that is the case. Especially judging by the number of people you see at games this year still wearing their 07 scarf. Get on and fill out the survey, takes two minutes max and it'll give the club some good feedback.

Not sure what all the fuss is about - for the first 6.5 weeks we were clearly the worst team in the past decade.

Yeah absolutely, I'm not saying the intention was to over handball, but the emphasis has come from the coach with the new gameplan to handball to release guys - the difference between us and Port where he's taken it from is that they have guys who can sprint to release themselves, like the Burgoyne's, Rodan etc. We don't have that express pace, but we have some pretty decent lead up guys, and in the 2nd half this week we used the ball by foot substantially more. Where Port would hit five or six handballs, we started hitting two or three then kicking. The turnovers come from the fourth, fifth, sixth handball, not from the first couple. If the ball is in a pack and the in and under gets the handball to a teammate, and he hits gets the handball into some space for the third teammate, then the next possession should be a kick. That's what it was in the 2nd half, and once we started doing it a few times it spread the Dockers mid-defenders out and created more space infront and behind half forward. It was perfect, exactly how we should do it, and the result (the increased scoring rate let alone the victory) showed it. We got better quality inside 50s because we started using the space on the ground instead of getting congested in the middle. And it all feeds into the next step - the more you're able to have multiple identifable targets at half forward the more space there is off the stopages going forward for our mids to run into. If we get some space to run into and we bypass the hit up half forwards then they've dragged defenders up enough that there's space behind for our deeper forwards - that's why we had Robbo getting some one on ones, or two on twos with him and Green or him and Wona, and they resulted in goals, rather than being bottled up in a pack of 10 from a slow delivery forward.

We were able to move the ball by foot in the second half, largely because we finally had options to kick to at half forward. With Bate and Miller providing a target it opened us out to allow us to run. We moved it faster because we moved it by foot a lot more. Not all the time, but much more so than we have at any point this year. We also changed our forward setup at centre bounces, pushing everyone right up onto the centre square and isolating Robbo or Wona - doing the same thing that having Miller and Bate at half forward does, drag defenders up and create space behind. And funny enough the confidence returned pretty quickly when we started doing this, playing to our strength, counter-attacking with quick movement and numbers in waves. When we stopped stuffing around with the ball and allowing their numbers to get back we went from a 3 goals a half side to a 14 goals a half side. I hope we continue with the same practice in two weeks time.

He can definately find the goals. Tarrant's arrival and his own injuries took away his spot in 07 but he was pretty good in 06, as he was breaking his way into the side. He's pretty athletic and he can mark pretty well - sounds like one of those "back then he was good" things to say but you should have seen him in 06 up forward. I'd still like to get him, reckon he could be a handy third tall forward.

Loved the use of the ball in the second half, spreading the Dockers out by kicking it more and it worked a treat. We suddenly became more focused, more confident and much more potent going forward. Bate is incredibly important to that setup, and Miller played the best game of his life. If the style we played with and the structure we used in the second half is the direction we're taking, then we've got something to work with. RIP "The Panic Handball", and I never thought I'd say it, but all credit to Dean Bailey for making the changes halfway through todays game. The instant results show that its the way forward for us and gives us something to build on in the coming years. And all this happened while arguably our best player for the year, Jones, was held to just four touches.

Its written as two separate clubs, what's wrong with that? The club he barracked for as a kid (us) and the only club to have made the finals in 07 (Collingwood)

All jokes about poor form aside, there's 15+ blokes that deserved to be dropped. The guys singled out each week (Buckley, Moloney, Dunn, even Yze) are a bit unlucky. They seem to be copping it in the neck ahead of guys who are far more out of touch. Then again you can't make 15 changes a week. I dunno, I just reckon those three have been stiff.

At times he seems like the only one not to have lost his confidence. Not sure how effective having the ruckman deep behind the ball is either. White may have ended up with 23 touches, but its where he gets them that counts. 10 man defense does not make a Premiership.

Apparantly we set records for the most touches in our own defensive 50, and had a few guys get more than 10 touches in just the back 50. That to me is the most worrying of all the stats.

When Col gets 15 possessions we'll discuss it.

That trumpter is the sole reason we haven't won games for the last 18 months. Not that he can't play the song, but have him not play this week, and if we get up, put him in a box with the 70s red and blue jumper and Andrew Lamprill and never speak of it again.

Leigh Matthews' constant pushing of Travis is what we needed to do 10 years ago. Where we patted him on the head and said well done when we got something (anything) out of him, Matthews will stay on his arse until his best at Melbourne becomes his worst at the Lions. It's just what he does.