layzie

absolute garbage toast. Can’t even win contested ball now. Poor performers all round. A little credit to Trac though he’s having a dip.

Why didn’t Oscar just let that roll over?

Frost is just horrible tonight

Mids need to get busy fast.

Huge let off

Here goes! About to finish up here nick off for a quick gym session, get home and swing to the sweet sounds of Buddymania.

Really good thread and awesome summary there LH. I think we all know our own game plan pretty well but not others. I found it a bit funny on Sat night when Richo said if the Pies get to 180 marks the Eagles won't go with them despite the fact that West Coast play the kick-mark style probably better than anyone.

I think there's some good points here. Not going to go into full recruiting bashing mode but it does looks like we went real hard on contested animals. I don't doubt for a second that they knew we couldn't have a team full of these and were doing everything they could to balance it out with some speed and outside class, you need a little luck when recruiting players. However it is worth asking these few minor questions, could we have benefited from one of these types that would have come cheaply? Did we absolutely have to get a promising ruckman to sit in the reserves? Could someone like Aaron Hall have been a good calculated risk? I'm not going to pretend I know the answers to these questions but after 3 weeks seeing what we've seen with the same repeating issues I think people are well within their rights to ask them.

6.Brayshaw 5. Harmes 4. Gawn 3. Fritsch 2. Oliver 1. Lockhart

Well I’m not gonna be too long in my summary. I found myself writing lines and lines after losses last year, this year I just don’t give as much of a toss about analysing something to within an inch of its life. 1st quarter was our worst quarter so far and that is saying something. Some real token efforts, no direction, no cohesion, no skill or even ability to hit targets, fumbling marks, and a defence that has played a zonal system so long that no-one has any accountability whatsoever anymore. The last one not just being limited to us I see it league wide. Man on man defending is dead in the water right now and with rules favouring defenders less than ever why the hell would you want to be one? (Wait hold the sultanas a moment! Is he defending our back line?) No I am not, they were absolutely terrible tonight as well. When there is a centre bounce I see us having no problem being first to the ball, but the 1 or two touches and the positioning of our mids after the contest stood out like a sore thumb. The number of times we’d win a contest, get a little muffed handball along the ground where we had no-one a couple of metres forward of the ball and Heppell was positioned beautifully off the contest was a joke. We got it together when we got our spark in the 2nd. Then me and my mate decided to leave our trident seats on level 2 to sit with other Essendon mates for the 3rd in the Olympic. WORST DECISION EVER OF ALL TIME. I am never ever doing that again unless we’re are 10 plus goals up. It got to the 20 min mark and I was literally counting the agonising seconds before we could p*** bolt back to our proper seats. That quarter hurt, a lot. The last was the usual, mini flurry, back breaker goal, rack em up. Whatever. Thought Gus was reasonable but same issues with disposal, Harmes reasonable, Hunt serviceable (keep him forward for a while), Lockhart could be a find after all and the Wagners gave us a bit of hardness and second efforts. Fritsch looked like the only one who could hit a target in the 3rd. No after game sorrows drowning I came straight home and started to photoshop McDonald-Tipungwuti photos and superimposing cans of Woodstock into them (I like to call him McDonald-Tipawoodie) for a joke and to take my mind off it. Now I’m listening to Crash test dummies - Mmm Mmm Mmm on repeat about 15 times in a row so far. I dunno but that song sums it all up beautifully. Im not crazy by the way, just a Melbourne supporter Well look at that, I guess I did analyse things to an inch of its life what of it? Don’t even really care who we’re playing next week, would be nice to win but game planning for opponents is a total waste of time right now when we can’t even beat A team.

Gift from the gods

Time to make a statement

The lift came suddenly! All started with that bit of confidence from Clarry to Melky. Keep it up!

May have saved our worst quarter for now and that's saying something. I've seen junior footy games more organised than this. Everyone hunting the ball.

The accountability in defence is non existent

Feel like it's a coin flip this game. Nothing much else to say, hope we keep it in close. Ready to go.

Doesn't strike me as a player with football smarts currently. Feel like we're always hanging on everything and want him to be incredible.

Yay David 'Do some damage' King.

It can't be rocket science. Have a 12 % scoring ratio from a million inside 50s and concede every time the opposition gets 1 and you'll be a bad football team. Game plan is very simple at the moment, win contested ball, punch it in to 15 metres out in front ping pong back out and get beaten out back.

No comment at all. Saw my brother tonight who I have barely seen in 6 months and watched the match together but mostly caught up on life. Not even gonna do votes.

What a joke

Yeah nah

All over us

Backbreaker

100 % agree with most here. Pace is a very nice thing to have but speed of ball movement will always win out. The number of speedster mids that have ben drafted that could burn up the grass but couldn't play dead is gigantic. It may be good to have in cases of spreading a bit quicker and tracking back but that's about it.