Vipercrunch

Clearly we're suffering from LOPH (Late Onset Premiership Hangover), and at precisely that moment in the Fremantle game, the entirety of the MFC organisation suddently succumbed to this darstadly malaise.

I love how he very carefully considers his response so he doesn't give too much away while still being as informative as possible.

True or not, it's nothing more than some mildly piece of trivia which in the end is utterly meaningless.

Gary Ablett won 3 years running 2007-09. That's it. Goody won in 2006 😀

He's special. Leading the AFLCA MVP again too, despite Gawn and Trac also getting plenty of votes.

Yeah, that's how I interpreted what he said as well. It's just his opinion though of course.

"If we finish ninth because we try to prime ourselves to be at our best later in the year, then we'll live with that." (Scott in the press conference after their WCE game) If he'll live with missing finals completely, you'd think he'll be ok with finishing outside the 4.

I shudder at the thought of another trade period trying to get a fair deal over the line with Peter frickin Bell....

There's a link to the presser here with some time blocks to specifically listen to (assuming that like most, you have zero interest in listening to Chris Scott for any longer than you have to) Top 4 is of course preferred, but I think going forward teams will now lean towards risking a top 4 finish in order to make sure they nail their in season loading.

Time will tell, but I think we'll see it more and more often in the coming years. Chris Scott believes loading is the only way to win flags and is willing to risk finals by doing it. He clearly thinks missing top 4 is not the be all and end of all.

God I hope not. That was horrible last year.

There's plenty of evidence (MFC last season, Chris Scott's comment from the weekend to name two) to suggest there is another 4-5 week block of loading to come. Don't expect the form and execution turnaorund to happen until at least rounds 18 or 19.

I've tipped us to go 5W-4L, finishing with 15-7. If that means we finish outside the top 4 then so be it. As long as we aren't overly affected by injuries (and other uncontrollables), we can still win the flag from outside the top 4 if we gain all the benefits from this period that we are hoping for. Looking at our next 5 games, theres every reason to suggest our toughest opponents could very well be Port and Western Bulldogs who can't risk loading. Geelong have made it public they are loading and should expect poor performances over the next period and Brisbane looks like they are too.

I have no doubt if we prepare well now and aren't hit too hard by injuries, we can win from outside the top 4.

I think any deviation away from the 4 week cycle shown so perfectly in the graph posted by @BW511would be a compromise to the overall outcome. That doesn't mean any deviation could be perfectly justified as there is always so much going in within clubs.

Very nasty and not very pleasant viewing. He's a good kid too 😞

I think the shorter preseason would have meant we worked a little harder on the track over the early H&A season period compared to 2021, but I think the main two cycles we want to get in will be the same. One 4 or 5 week cycle before the bye, use the CBA agreed 4 days off over the bye as a rest/recovery period before another 4 or 5 weeks after. This will leave us with the final 4 or 5 rounds to iron out gameplan, form and personell issues and training will become all about maintiaing the fitness levels rather than improving fitness. What this means for how we perfrom against Brisbane is anyones guess though? We won our game after last seasons bye against Essendon, but played quite poorly. This year the bye is extra short though, so we won't be getting in a full week of heavy training before we play (maybe 2 sessions), so could come out quite fresh. The other unknown is what Brisbane are doin. They will be desperate to avoid going out in straight sets again, so might be loading to the extreme. It could be a very error riddled game.

I suspect our decision makers think the risk of missing the top 4 is worth the reward of being cherry ripe. Scott suggested in his press conference last night that Geelong are hapy to miss the finals completely!! I would be more than happy to miss top 4 if we get there as fit as we were last year.

ABC Grandstand are going to address the comments of Scott shortly.

https://www.afl.com.au/video/783218/full-post-match-r14-cats?videoId=783218&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1655549142001 Scott talks a lot about loading a lot in the first half of the press conference. It actually seemed he wants it on the agenda. If you can't stomach listening to too much, have a listen to 2.50-3:10, 4.20-5.30, 9.10-9.35 (even saying it comes with no guarantees!!!).

That’s a key reason for the lack of discussion about it. Betting firms run the footy media and have a vested interest in punters being in the dark about this. They want bets placed with the heart of supporters, not their well informed brains.

“Scott’s gave context to the performance post-match when he said the team had ramped up its mid-season program significantly as part of a bigger plan to peak during September. "It's what we do during the middle period of the year. We double down, even more than we might have done in previous years," Scott said. "We might cost ourselves a little short-term, but we set up our program to be at our best when it counts. "If we finish ninth because we try to prime ourselves to be at our best later in the year, then we'll live with that. "We haven't been able to execute that over the last few years anyway. That's a reason to do it better." The section I’ve got in bold is why I think Melbourne is not done with the loading for this year and have another 4 week block of hard stuff on the track to come. Our 5 games post last seasons bye also informs that opinion.

As someone who has never placed a bet in my life, I'm more than happy to be schooled by you @binman about this. In 5 weeks when we're 12-6, hopefully you get the odds you are looking for. Then the fun begins 🔴🔵🔴🔵

The betting markets don't think the wheels have fallen off at MFC, and unlike footy "experts" in the media, they are actually held accountable for their prognostications.

The big unknown is what's going on behind the scenes with Daw. When he has played VFL he has been good and I would be confident enough for him to come in. It is after all why we drafted him. Problem is he keeps missing VFL games without much explaination from the club so it's anyones guess as to his current fitness, health etc. If Daw is ok:- IN - Daw, Weeds, May OUT - Gawn (inj), M. Brown (omit), Turner (inj) If Daw is not ok, just Weeds and May in for the two injured players. As much as M. Brown seems to have struggled, I'm mindful how long other players took to get up to speed to AFL level when it's been so long out of the level, so it would be fingers crossed he can show improvement. Bedford back as medi-sub. Chandler looked very lost when he came in last week, which was a huge surprise because I hadn't seen that from him before.