jnrmac

They can do though and our ability to clear D50 ground balls isn't great.

There was a graphic on On the Couch that showed Melb as no 18 for D50 stoppage goals . If I read that correctly it shows that teams aren't bombing it on and are happy with short kicks or dirty balls into our D50. If they can score, great for them. If they can't then they force a stoppage with the likelihood of scoring based on the stat above being quite high. We are leaking a lot of goals this way. It also means our strategy of scoring from turnover is under huge pressure as well.

We are odds on to play Carlton and mcKay back into form next week Its written in the stars

I used to do that. Its quite instructive.

Here's an interesting table I found. The team first to 6 points wins around 60% of all games. First to 70pts wins around 90% of all games. Stats are rubbish yeah?

I think the thing that frustrates most of us is getting beaten the same way. We lost 8 games last year. All the same way. We were leading. and were overun by teams running with overlap handball and chip kicks keeping it away from May and lever.. This year isn't much different. And its not apparent that we have made any adjustments to that. We rely pretty much solely on turnover in our defensive half. And when that breaks down we look very ordinary. Early in the year our accuracy covered a lot of cracks. But we also moved the ball into the top of the 50m much more than we are doing now. I'd like to think thats the way we are going to play and we are hiding it now for finals but frankly thats laughable. Goodwin is a coach who has one way to play and says 'if we play the way we want we will win the game' This becomes more than frustrating when its clear we are not being allowed to play the way we want and make no or few changes to counteract that. As for our depth. Guys like Chandler, McVee Roo and showing signs of tiredness and aren't doing the things they did in the earlier rounds. When you don't bring in fresh legs the guys at Casey stagnate and can't just turn it on if they get picked in round 20 to cover an injury. We need to rotate more players through the team and keep everyone fresh. We don't seem good at learnings given we talk about it so often

I'm not sure. I make a mental note of it at the end of each quarter.

Those numbers are distorted by our last quarter

Teams look to control the ball against us by short kick and marking. We guard grass and let them do it. v Freo us 62 /them 92 v Port 41/70 v Hawks 105/72 v Suns 66 /94 v North 95/124 v Rich 103/81 Rich don't play that style of game v Ess 71/89 v Eagles 95/75 v Swans 92/94 vLions 69/92 v Dogs 117/71 Teams know not to kick long to May/Lever and we are not great at dirty ground balls or short chip kicks. The better teams control the ball and chip their way through our system. The poorer teams try but can't keep it up. Rich play a similar style to us in that they want to move the ball quickly. And when we do get a turnover teams have become better at stopping us rebounding. We seem unable to 'control' or block the corridor any more nor keep the ball inside our fwd 50. Rarely any small players at the feet of contests and the running around the boundary seems so much easier to pin us to one side. There are serious things wrong with our game plan that teams are exploiting because we are so predictable. As for our centre clearance work it is abysmal. The number of times Max would tap the ball fwd and Freo players would pounce and run it away in a cross cross pattern was infuriating. Freo lost their key ruckman in the second qtr and we were still monstered in the air. We are a very one dimensional side with a totally dysfunctional fwd line. Our depth is now being tested and its frankly not very good.

Let's hope thats the end of that jumper and the God-awful song. Its like a new curse we have brought on ourselves. Whats our record? 2 wins 6 games?

Need to shut down the dirty balls into our D50 We have been smashed in this area

I think Jacko might know that strategy

So Robbo (apparently starting his name with SL is banned here FGS) has lashed out at Melbourne and JLo says Freo has the number 1 ruck combination in the AFL. Fantastic. The more pressure on this team and the coaching staff the better.

Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir reckons he has the best ruck combination in the AFL with Fremantle sitting No.1 in both hitouts (52 per game) and hitouts to advantage (15 per game) this season I am hopeful Max and Grundy read his comments. All duck no dinner!

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The pundits were saying the Dogs' 4 pronged tall attack would rip us to shreds.

The game was lost on ground balls, inability to mark and a clearance mauling

Some like me have MFC Memberships but sit in the MCC area. There's quite a lot like that who simply want to support the club financially and directly.

We get the gate receipts.

I wouldn't expect them to turn up very often??

Nothing, He twigged too late. But in previous circumstances the ump calls for the oppo player to clear the path and get out of the protected zone. Failure is automatic 50m

Hunter is a smart footballer but should have 'tripped' over Rozee who dived on the ball. ANB does that all the time. Just like Lever should have run into the PA player and earned a 2nd 50m penalty. But they're just footballers I guess.

Good to hear. I presume they will argue Hunter was moving towards the ball and then stopped and turned as Rozee lurched fwd to hit the ball away. Effectively he cannoned into Hunter. Plus the impact level was not medium as he went on to star in the game. At least thats how I saw it.

He's right. Was shameful how nobody stood up for Max

A win would have been hollow. And even during our first 10 rounds last year we were not playing good footy bar a few quarters here and there. The problems are the same however and the manner in which we play big games, games when we are favoured or when teams play a specific way to try and beat us. Aside from the great move of petty tagging McCartin against the Swans we rarely try to combat oppo players directly preferring to 'play our way'. Well when playing our way isn't working, we need to do something differently. We used to have a great record after half time as the coaches would adjust things and players would reset. Our final quarter record is good this year but we frustratingly allow teams to get a 'sniff' early way too many times.