Adam The God

Yes and no. Tonight we got some of our slingshot ball movement going again that's been missing since Round 10. Coast to coast goals have been rare in the last 6 weeks, but we got a few of them tonight.

Dreadful post, but good on you for your opinion.

Helps when you play mostly forward. If Sparrow and JJ can stand up again the next two weeks, we can afford to play Tracfprward for longer and he becomes a dangerous proposition.

We'd forgotten how to win, so very glad to get over the line. The biggest area of our game to improve is ground ball. We were smashed in that area. I'm sure @WheeloRatings will give us those numbers in the stats thread 🙏. St Kilda's run for pretty much the entire game was incredible given they were down to one on the bench by the end. Some of the commentary on the Facebook pages are deadset ridiculous. People constantly going Kozzy, when he's played another 87% TOG game (6th most for us) and had the third most pressure acts on the ground with 26, behind Gus on 27 and Steele with 30. Some nuffy called up 3AW and whinged about him as well. Tony Shaw stuck up for Kozzy. When Tony Shaw is speaking more sense than you, you know you're in trouble. Meanwhile, people having a go at Grundy, who was probably one of our better players, and certainly not a long way behind May and Trac. FWIW, Grundy had the most clearances for us with 7, 4 tackles and 5 score involvements. Too many people have absolutely no idea about the modern game. I heard people still screaming out 'man up' like it was 1996. We got the win, move on to Brisbane.

Hill, Higgins and Membrey? Fair dinkum. You don't reckon our best goal kicker and the best contested player in the comp would even that up? Nah, of course not. FMD. Were you at the game tonight?

Last time around (Round 8, 2022), we smashed Saints from stoppages, scoring 49 points to 13 from that source. Now that we've got our stoppage game back, fast deck, I'm hoping (even without our best stoppage player), we can score heavily again from stoppage, because I think it'll be heavy going from turnover tonight, as St Kilda will look to get numbers behind the ball.

I'll tell you I'm glad to be going to Marvel and not the G tonight, Bitters. Should be an interesting contest, if not an arm wrestle.

This is unfortunately an attitude of many Melbourne supporters I know...

This is what I was implying in my post. When Channel 9 used some data from one of our recent games, they didn't compare it to our shots across the entirety of the season, they used one game earlier in the year as a comparison. That's not a big enough sample size, and they basically used a small data sample to fit the narrative that we're suffering forward connection and taking harder shots from more difficult angles, hence inaccuracy. It's a really shallow, lazy analysis. Further, many Demonlanders have bought the line that we don't go central and are too safe with our ball movement. Our problem in these situations I believe (as you say above), is that we go too slowly to the central hot spot, but we're still taking risks by going centrally. As you and @WheeloRatings have pointed out, there are more exits for the opposition to expose on turnover in these situations. Compare this to last year in the second half of the season, and I reckon the data would tell us that we went to the pockets far more often than this year. Therefore, I'd argue Goody has changed this too up, but managed to maintain defensive integrity behind the ball even when we do go centrally. Part of this is likely allowing the opposition the +1 at the contest and using our player as an interceptor across the forward 50 for dump kicks, and to potentially prevent the opposition chaining out.

Funny thing is half the people whinging that we don't play an arousing enough game style, would be saying the complete opposite if our team was Collingwood. They'd be saying all that matters is premierships, playing an exciting brand during the H&A season that falls over during big finals means nothing without flags!

St Kilda have 'significant' outs? You're an A grade hedger, Steve. Already laying the ground work for a lose-lose situation for the MFC. Binners has responded in a kinder, less inflammatory manner than I would have managed, but he lays out my thinking. There's a huge contradiction in your constant complaints and criticism of Goody. Binman and I both said we'd beat Collingwood in the lead up to that game, and sure enough, despite not winning by 5+ goals due to ordinary accuracy again, we beat the media darlings that you seem to rate so much.** We and others have pointed out their vulnerabilities that 3rd and 4th placed teams have now exploited in 2023. Whilst these results don't necessarily say anything about their chances of ultimate success at the end of 2023 (look at Hawthorn's 2015 record against 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th during the season), it's more the vulnerabilities in their game plan that have been repeatedly exposed in big games now. 2 of the 3 big finals last year and the two games against contenders this year. At what point is that enough evidence to suggest their game style doesn't stand up in contested, pressure games? You're having your cake and eating it too btw. If Collingwood are so great, reckon it might be reasonable to show a bit more humility towards Goody and our team, given we beat them. ** And before you go on again, I've constantly said I admire McRae for what he's been able to do in a short period of time, but the fact is their game style is a huge gamble, every play and it leaves them open on every play...

Not sure this is what Goody ever said. Happy for you to cite your source though. He said forward connection at the time was the least of our worries. And frankly, forward connection is not our issue at the moment, although we could always do better at everything. We are generating enough shots on goal, we are not converting them.

So as fatigue lessens, you'll get more options as players can work their opponents into space, which opens up central channels and leading lanes. Central/corridor ball movement is then less risky with options present ahead and wide.

No, our game is based around contest, so our ball movement is framed around ensuring the opposition doesn't have easy exits from our inside 50s after CP, and if we turn it over in transition, we'd prefer to turn it over in wider defendable areas, rather than the corridor. It has its downsides for sure. Lower scoring results, but if we have the ball the other team doesn't. The thing is we're not struggling to generate scores, we just can't kick straight.

It's on your list though, isn't it? And why else would you change your ball movement mid season after being the highest scoring team to Round 10, using a direct central and corridor approach? Be interested to hear. Goody clearly plays the percentages, so if fatigue is a problem/a factor, he and the coaches are likely to encourage more conservative ball movement...

Yep, totally. And how many times have we seen Port smash the H&A season and look like winners, only to collapse in the finals series. Still, it's a new season and who knows, but I reckon you're spot on.

Ma'am 👍👌

Yeah, I wonder why they would have changed their ball movement strategy during the middle of the year, just as they did in 2021 and 2022...? I wonder what it could be...

Similarly, how long can Port keep their momentum up? I wouldn't mind betting their strategy is based around getting a top 4 spot and hoping their home ground advantage puts them in a GF, but they don't appear to have fatigued like us, Brisbane and Collingwood, which leads me to conclude that they've got a different program to us, so I'm betting their form will drop away. But top 2 is looking good for them.

Well, yeah, if we'd kicked straighter the last 5 games, we'd be equal top, having beaten Port, Freo, Geelong and GWS, and very likely on top with a percentage advantage given the number of scoring shots we've been able to generate. If this turns, we'll be very difficult to beat. Let's hope it starts tomorrow.

I'll still back Kozzy kick his 40 goals again this year. 22 goals so far. He is an excellent small forward for his age.

Well, we went to the pockets against Geelong too, but more often than not, we seemed to go to the 25m hot spot. I'd love it if someone was actually able to back that up statistically. Is this data something you have access to @WheeloRatings?

This is overblown too. Against Geelong, we went centrally extremely often and it didn't impact on our scoring accuracy...

Did people actually watch the Geelong game? Stewart was okay against us, but I keep reading how Stewart dominated us. He only had 8 intercept possessions for the entire night, Henry had 9, and IMV was more influential that Stewart. But far and away the most influential interceptor and defensive player on the ground that night was Lever with a game high 14 intercepts and then Rivers with 12, yet it was apparently Geelong's interceptors that dominated us. How about we didn't kick straight and that's where the game was lost? 23 scoring shots each. Kick straight against the Saints and we win.

Whilst it's potentially the weakest forwardline on paper in 3 years, we generate a lot of scoring shots from our mids. It'd be nice if our half backs pushed up a little more and hit the scoreboard too. Last week we had Trac kick 0.4, Langdon 1.0, Hunter 0.2, Sparrow 0.2 and Viney 0.1. That's potentially 10 goals from midfield in ridiculously wet and difficult conditions. Under the roof at Marvel, I expect us to be able to generate 20+ shots at goal. We just need to kick straighter. St Kilda over the last 5 games have managed 18 scoring shots against Hawthorn (a loss), 20 scoring shots against Sydney (a win), 15 scoring shots against Richmond (a loss), 16 scoring shots against Brisbane (a loss), 25 scoring shots against the Eagles (a win). In each game, their opponent has had more scoring shots against than St Kilda, except against the Eagles, where St Kilda managed 8 more scoring shots. We should get the chocolates here, particularly, if May can blunt King and keep him to a goal or two. Just kick the [censored] thing straight and finish off your hard work, Melbourne.