praha

Viney will play at least 1 week in the VFL I'd have thought. His injury means no running at all so you'd think he'd need a run in the twos before coming back into the squad.

I wonder if it bumped up on Sunday. Our first home game since round 1. TBH I can't see us bettering last year's total, which would be pretty terrible. I predict 34,900.

The team that has the ball more always tends to get more free kicks. A lot of the calls yesterday for both teams were very soft, but a lot of the obvious ones weren't called for both sides. We got a ride yesterday. Everyone around me was carrying on about obvious frees that weren't called, but we got some absolute pearlers, Hogan's in front of goal included. At the end of the day, if you're second to the ball all day, you're going to get calls against you. Melbourne seems to get the tough end of the stick because it's rarely the first with the ball. Richmond last week had more of the ball for three quarters and got some shocking calls in their favour. But we worked hard, controlled the game and won comfortably. In the last we were first to the ball and got some silly but certainly "there" free kicks.

Added "Win a final outside of Victoria". Really? I don't think it matters. We've had a few 5-goal bags.

That is depressing reading.

I don't buy the "they are the best team in the comp" argument. They have flogged us by 10 goals every game since 2012, which was before they were the league's best team, and in 2013 they were good, but hardly the "best". We continue to get pounded by them in the same area - the middle - and yesterday was as much a flogging in that area as I've seen. Vince, Jones and Tyson didn't give a puff the whole game. Even if we had have taken our chances, they were still a 10-goal better side, easily. They'd have found a way to still get ahead. As I mentioned earlier, the biggest disappointment was that the game seemed like an exercise in minimisation right from the opening bounce. We were NEVER in it. They were a 10-goal better side from the opening bounce, and dare I say that by the end of it they were more than an 11-goal better side. It felt more like a 20-goal loss. We never went out there to win it. It was always a case of, "how do we keep the margin as low as possible", and then when all else failed, everyone lost the plot, as Roos said. That was a different sort of loss compared to similar beltings in previous years. We didn't have the cattle or experience in 2012, 2013 and parts of 2014. Yesterday, they simply had zero urgency to win. It was astonishing how much uncontested ball they won. This team simply has no plan B if they aren't able to slow the ball down. I hate to harp on about Jones as I have in many other threads on here but once again he shows he also has no plan B. He was given a football lesson by players with less experience. I don't expect him to do everything but twice this season he has gone missing as soon as the pressure is on. It's been very disappointing by his standards. Once upon a time he'd simply "go through the motions", but yesterday and against GWS he never took that extra step to at least be commendable in defeat. We had no standouts yesterday. Garlett kicked three goals, but when? The delivery was shocking, granted, but they all felt like junk-time goals, even if they were so early in the contest. He's not damaging enough. As soon as we got a run, he missed two sitters. But he kicked them when we were 25-30 points down. We also didn't get a single goal, coast-to-coast off the rebound. Granted Freo are a very well-drilled, disciplined side defensively but our key players lacked concentration. Jones missed a handball target from 5 meters away on our defensive 50 when we had Tyson alone on the wing, Vince in the middle and Hogan alone across half-forward. That's a lack of effort and concentration. Twice now we have regressed back to the same sort of "we're not going to win so let's just wing it" mentality that we saw in round 2 against the Eagles last year. Freo gave us a football lesson. When it was 10 points they were dominating, and eventually the final margin normalised and reflected the actual story of the game.

Yep. By the looks of it, he's been "Melbourne'd": came into the club with plenty of promise, started off well, peaked, and then dropped back down to the level we should have expected!

I thought what was most disappointing was that right from the start it always seemed like an exercise in minimisation: keeping the losing margin as low as possible. I never felt as though the team was confident it *could* win. Once the last started though, as Roos said the team effort went out the window and players just lost the plot. Ignore open teammates, tried taking on 30 players, snapping ridiculous shots on goal. They went back into, "We're losing so stuff it!" mode. Before that though it was, "Let's see how long we can keep up with them" mode. It was a clinic from the opening bounce.

Inanimate carbon rod.

Added "Beat Fremantle" & "Beat a Ross Lyon-coached team"

Brayshaw - Competitive and consistent Cross - Beaten but committed Dunn - 2014 a memory Garland - Constantly out marked Garlett - Not quite damaging Grimes - Locked down Ballantyne Hogan - Didn't get delivery Howe - Going through motions Jamar - Old and tired Jones - Outran all day Kennedy-Harris - Constantly found out Lumumba - Really just "there" Pedersen - Better than Dawes McDonald - Contained their best McKenzie - Dear God why!? Michie - Run outta MCG Newton - Did he play? Salem - Standard loose game Tyson - Can't break tag vandenBerg - Tried all alone Vince - Out of depth Watts - Will never arrive

We were horrid all day. Freo played in second gear all day, had all the run, all the pace, all the positioning, but were very average going forward for 3 quarters. I thought they were a 20 goal-better side today. If we didn't have Garlett, who would have kicked our goals? We didn't kick a single goal off a rebound. We are lucky it was only 68 points. Saying it was commendable for 3 quarters is comical.

Him being the sub imo suggests Roos is confident we'll put up a fight. Bring him in around the 3rd or start of the 4th to put the final clamp down in the midfield and let us hold out. Bizarre and surprising, sure, but intriguing.

If he wants to go they'll need to seek a trade. Who would you want?

Freo will need to trade for him if they want him. We'll take Fyfe.

Sack Roos.

See I took it as him not wanting to be at Melbourne.

AFL Members confirmed to be showing it: http://twitter.com/aflmembership/status/593950432101183488

Who talks about finals during the pre-season? Pre-season is reserved for talk about the following year's draft.

The optimism in the Bailey years was completely justified though. We were beating teams by 100 points and yeah there was inconsistency but we all know Bailey and his department were victims of shocking boardroom mudslinging. We played really attractive footy and times and broke a membership record in 2011.

Pointless thread. Are we "better than" Richmond? They are still a finals team. At the end of the day it's all about who shows up on the day. We are better than every team if we play four quarters, play to our strengths, and stifle the opposition's area's of strength.

In Trapper's defense, I thought he was a spark and an "x-factor" in many, many games between 2000 and 2006. Watts' demeanour and attack at the ball is similar to Trapper's but we certainly got more out of the latter imo. In Trapper's first 7 years we got a hell of a lot more than we've gotten out of Watts. Granted however he was playing in a much better side.

Crowd predictions? I'm calling 29,000. You'll get 5000-6000 Freo fans here for the match. Super nice weather and dare I say we could hit 33-35k.

Lots of Demons supporters in the Members and Ponsford but a few thousand Toiges fans, too. It was a 3-1 ratio, at least.

It's amazing what winning does.