RalphiusMaximus

I haven't seen the game, but the stats say we weren't that bad. I think people need to take a real look at the team the bombers put out there. Only 4 top-up players, a Brownlow medalist, and several other very good players they have imported. Far from the best side they could have fielded were it not for their little court case, but they had a lot of quality on the park. From the comments I've read, it sounds like we needed a decent tagger out there to stop some of their midfield run. Maybe dropping Jordie was premature?

OK, I admit I seem to have been wrong about vandenBerg. He's come on much more quickly than I anticipated and seems to be fitting in to the AFL pretty nicely. Great effort on his part. I think at this point he's clearly leading the pack when it comes to the rookies and probably gets the first promotion. He could easily be playing round 1.

Great to see. Let's get these contracts knocked over at the start of the season.

Isn't that kind of the point of this thread?

He was on his feet until he was tackled to the ground.

I don't begrudge Rivers the move to a better side. He served our club well for ten years and realistically was never going to get deep into finals with us. In his case there really wasn't anything more to do at Melbourne except maybe help train up his replacement. That's a huge difference to Clark and Frawley. Frawley gave us one good season then chucked a wobbly, played like crap and walked out the moment his contract was up. Clark doesn't need his dubious acts listed again. Neither deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Rivers.

Viney was pinged when he hadn't picked up the ball. He fumbled, was tackled without the ball which then wound up between his legs and under the body of the tackler, and somehow that was HTB against him. I'm pretty sure that was a Melbourne special.

Looking at the form this pre-season, I think Tom McDonald is going to have a real "break out" year and gain universal recognition as the next big thing in defenders. His game on the weekend was close to flawless. He's backing himself to take marks defensively, his spoiling is good and his rebounding and attacking play has improved out of sight. If he can play like he did on the weekend all season he'll be knocking on the door of the AA selectors in six months.

I would like to throw another thought out there. Tom McDonald's kicking. I know people on here like to have a go at him, but his kicking in this match was top shelf. He was nailing difficult kicks, putting the ball to advantage so that only our players had a chance of taking it and had a 90+ efficiency rating. I really hope this is something he can do consistently, because he's turning himself into a real weapon. The run he made from the HBF across CHB and out the other side with repeat 1-2 handballs was as good as anyone in the league.

I think the wet tram ticket thing needs rethinking. Have you seen the way those PSOs carry on when they think something is wrong? I wet tram ticket would probably result in a six-man body slam, headlock, being dragged off the tram and the police being called to arrest you for being uncooperative and resisting their pseudo-powers.

Love the timing of this game. I finish work at 6 and that's an hour away from Etihad. I actually did want to go along, thinking it would be the usual 7.10 or 7.30 start. Now I see the game will start before I finish for the day. Awesome. As for the side, I really want to see Fitz given a run. This would be an ideal opportunity for him to show a bit against a pretty weak side. Put Frost in the backline where he belongs, Fitz as the spare forward/extra ruck and bring Brayshaw in as a sub. Watts gets a start. Van Damn gets a week off for concussion, not sure who else would miss. Maybe Hoges is due for a rest before the real stuff starts?

I'd give him a pass, but he certainly wasn't dominant. He took a few good grabs, held his own in the ruck and didn't have any of the shocking kicks we saw from him against Freo. Also came very close to a supergoal from the boundary but it was touched on the line. He had a very clear free kick denied to him while playing forward, the usual defenders trick of grabbing one of his arms and forcing him to go up one-handed. Apparently the umpires can't see that when it's done to a Melbourne player. Speaking of umpires, they were disgraceful. The number of poor HTB calls made against us was insane, while we couldn't buy one against the doggies. Then there was the "holding" free against Dunn to set up a shot on goal for Grant, the above non-call for Gawn, a clear in the back that was instead called HTB (what a surprise), Jones being pinged for HTB when he was slammed from behind the moment he took possession, Viney being pinged when he never had possession and another who was tackled before he hit the ground and was pinged (can't remember who it was). Basically, Melbourne didn't get prior opportunity at all.

Doggies have a gameplan. It's going to cost them goals, but if their forwards can get their act together it might work. They want to play zone defence and counterpunch. I don't think the zone is really viable, as we saw in the first half when our players had the freedom to chip around until they found an opening. When they changed up and went man on man they were far more competitive, but I don't know if they'll do that during the season or stick to their guns and cop the losses. Could be a form of tanking in action.

Hogan was in no way disappointing. He's rusty, he lacks touch, but he's running hard, crashing packs and making his presence known. Sooner or later he'll get his touch back and those marks will stick.

I don't know the dogs well enough to spot the gaps, but they lost a bunch of experience over the trade period. A Doggie fan mate said that Jones has more games than the entire Doggies side minus Minson. Commentary said they were playing seven draftees. VDB threw himself into t dog sandwitch and won the ball for us. I don't think he's been back. McKenzie I've seen a few times getting in the way and knocking the ball away from his opponent. I think he's playing as a full on tagger, but can't be sure.

While they are putting no pressure on us at all, I'm still loving this. Some of the ball movement has looked AFL standard!

Also, regarding the ease of obtaining a depression diagnosis. I have a doctor who would LOVE to be able to call me depressed despite the fact that I have no symptoms whatsoever. Every time I've been in there in the last decade or so she's started in with the depression questions. I think it's some sort of blanket diagnosis that will spare her the trouble of actually doing her job.

I would have no problem with that scenario. You know why? If Clark had gotten back on the park and played out his contract with us he would have had massive currency as a mobile marking forward who kicked a bag of goals for us. Rather than the cats offloading a fringe player to Collingwood they would have been forced to give us their first pick to get him. This is the pick that they used to snap up young Nakia Cockatoo. If THAT trade had happened, either we bundled the pick with another to get Dangerfield from Adelaide or we grabbed Cockatoo or another top young talent with the pick. of course, if he'd stuck with his contract then he'd still be with us as the contract would not have expired yet anyway, so even better would be him kicking 60+ goals for us this year then being traded next year to a contender and us getting a spare first round pick in the next draft.

That might work if the poor disposal were something that came on as the team got tired. Sadly they generally start out that way.

I guess I can console myself by thinking that he started out like this for us too. He played half a season of his six year deal, injured himself and that was it. If Geelong get half a good season out of him and then nothing more I won't begrudge them that. It's only if he stays healthy and has a long, prosperous and premiership-filled career that I'll be truly [censored].

Hogan signed longer term last year didn't he? Brayshaw just signed a new deal. Jones quite recently as well. All of those would be front-ended to free up some cash for the FA period this year and next. I'm sure there are a few targets who have already been spoken to about the opportunities they may find at Melbourne. It's now up to the team to produce some decent results and show that it's not a dead-end career move to come to us.

Honestly, fitness is great, but what we want is players hitting targets rather than high bombs. I'd take less running if we could do that regularly.

5 Goals...

According to the Italians nobody in Australia knows how to do that.

And he's just kicked three in the first quarter against Adelaide. We should have gotten better compo for him.