Adam The God

If he is tiring he's not showing huge signs of tiring IMO. He did shirks contests a few times, particularly against Cameron who he could have halved with his aerial prowess. His role model is Trac who regularly shirks going back with the flight. I made this point very early in this season and was told the game was changing and that going back with the flight and potentially getting injured is less of a priority these days. I take that point and admit my viewpoint was dated. I think that's the way the game is going. Players are regularly dropping out of aerial contests to protect themselves. It is what it is. The players are human after all and have lives to think about after footy. Trac suffered a near death experience and there is an article in the press every couple of months about former players with concussion symptoms and likely CTE, which btw is very likely contributing to suicide amongst former AFL players. The 2025 game is a different beast. It's an aerobic game that impacts decision making and the difference between being top of the ladder or outside of the 8 is executing under fatigue and under pressure.

Yep, me too on Whitten and my tears. The problem is he needs the ball coming to him and fades in and out of games as a forward, like young forwards do. Whereas when playing defence, the ball comes to him. He stays back IMO. Lindsay looked far more tired. He was subbed after lying on the ground exhausted grabbing at Hill's ankle that gave him his only goal for the day. Conversely, Langford was our 6th highest disposal getter with 19. Lindsay managed 8 to nearly the end of the 3rd, making him 3rd equal lowest possession getter. Windsor managed 6 in one quarter or so.

Hard game to analyse outside of we let ourselves down with goalkicking again. Sure, we butchered the ball at times, but so did they. They just butchered it less. If Trac could kick, he'd be the best player in the comp by a mile. That miss streaking into goal had to be kicked on the outside of his foot, not a drop punt when your body is facing the pocket. Thought we controlled the game for at least 3 quarters, but they were more efficient. We did so well to make them turn the ball over multiple times, only to take the wrong option going forward. I do think that Trac and Clarry are trending back to their best though, and soon, history suggests they'll be more damaging on the scoreboard. We still failed to turn many of our slingshot chances into scores and when we did get it inside, we missed 3-4 chances that would have had us comfortable winners. Starting with Melky's miss from 30m straight in front and Fritta's wasted chance to go back and kick 4. Compare Petty's miss in the pocket to Mihocek's goal from pretty much the same position. One kicked it straight through the middle, one kicked it on the full. Rivers straight out the front of the stoppage in the 1st or 2nd quarter misses, but Sidebottom kicks his. It only takes a couple of opportunities to go our way and we're winners. A disappointing loss but I'm surprisingly philosophical. I hope the team responds next week.

What's May thinking though? "Max, we had 30 seconds left, you should have finessed it up the line to the contest?"

I turned to my old man when Max went for it and said I'm not unhappy he went for it. He had to. May is a firey character, but he should know better. With 30 seconds on the clock, you have to take a risk. I suspect May would like to have his time back. I've no problem with Max doing what he did. Rationally, nor should any other Demon.

When Demonland has too long to discuss things it invariably becomes about potting the club.

Caro is a good newsbreaker, who does a lot of the AFLs biding. The fact she hasn't really touched this suggests that a number of clubs would he implicated (good - they should be dragged over the coals like we were), and with her track record on turning a blind eye to Richmond, they are probably one of them (Lynch?).

I've always liked the KPF and second KPF/ruck. That could be Jeffo and JVR, but it has to be Petty and JVR at the moment. Jeffo will fill the Melky role in time, if he makes it.

In: Viney, JVR Out: Sharp, AJ, Laurie McVee May Lever Bowey Turner Salem Windsor Oliver Langford Langdon JVR Chandler Kozzy Petty Melksham Max Trac Rivers Lindsay Fritta Viney Sparrow Sharp I think that's the strongest team we can put out on the park if Viney is fit. The sub role is up for grabs. Sharp does have good assets for the sub role and almost always hits the scoreboard. If Laurie was more trustworthy, I'd have him there.

Yep, we allowed them a lot of transition goals because our pressure and contest was poor.

I'd argue lots of posts saying the game plan doesn't work without being specific. The only thing most critics can point to is bad goalkicking. 🤦

Just thinking on our defence, I liked that we tried Turner forward in the last, but he seemed lost after that first shot on goal. We certainly have issues with our KPFs, but Petty is serviceable and JVR will find some form at some stage. The bigger questions for me surround our defensive set up. I have genuine question marks over May and Lever moving forward. May because he's starting to lose 1v1s and is slowing down. Lever because he struggles to play on smalls or talls and if the game is fast, I don't trust him to win contests behind the ball. May started to try and hit the corridor kicks yesterday and we need more of that at the right time. Turner needs to stay back IMV and I know @Slartibartfast is a Howes fan like me and has suggested if Howes came in, Windsor could shift to the wing, perhaps Lindsay to half back to use his pace and ball use. I also hope we get Adams into the team if there are injuries to May or Lever moving forward. I'd structure the back half of the ground as follows: Howes May McVee Bowey Turner Lever / Lindsay Windsor Oliver Langford Langdon and Chandler to remain high half forwards. Rivers to stay in the midfield.

Lever was terrible at AFL level, TMac was terrible at VFL level. Wrong lever to pull.

I'm not going to explain the differences again. Read any of my approximately 20 posts on the matter this year.

You continually shift the goal posts. I pulled you up because you said the game plan doesn't work. When I pointed to our previous two wins, you started talking goalkicking. If you'd started with goalkicking and not mentioned game plan, I would have agreed with you, but you started with the shallow analysis of the game plan doesn't work. I don't think any Melbourne supporter would disagree with the far from enlightening idea that our goalkicking is often atrocious. Aside from the end of 2021, the start of 2022 and the start of 2023. If Chocco is still deemed valuable for our development pathways, keep him on, but we need a new voice for goal kicking coach.

Did Brisbane give up? That doesn't bode well for their season.

You're avoiding the question. Did the game style work the last two weeks?

Did it work last week? Did it work the week before?

It wasn't that hard if Oliver kept finding himself free in the corridor, hence the 3 goal assists to half time.

Lol mate, you are king of the flip-flops. You had it slammed shut at Round 3 too, and then it miraculously opened itself the last fortnight.

We had 3 top 4 finishes in a row. You might have been negative all the way through 2022 and 2023, but I loved it. And the 2023 flag was there for the taking if we'd had a bit more 2021 luck.

No one was tagging Oliver. To half time he had 6 disposals. 5 of them were uncontested and 1 contested. He had 3 goals assists and 4 score involvements to half time. He couldn't break from stoppage, that was the problem.

I'm glad you're at least acknowledging the likely loading, because it was pretty clear our guys couldn't cover the field. The first half TOG for a bunch of our guys was really unusual too. Only one mid (Trac) cracked 20 disposals (with 7 pressure acts) - Max equalled Trac with 22 disposals for a team high touches. Oliver had 16 touches (10 pressure acts!), Rivers had 14 touches and 17 pressure acts (spent a third of the game at half back). You then had our best pressure player over rhe last 6 weeks in Tom Sparrow with only 11 pressure acts, Chandler with 14 pressure acts. These are not guys that don't bring consistent effort. It's just they couldn't get out of first gear.

He's a decent sub role player. I think we pulled the wrong rein today with Laurie as sub and Spark as a starter. I thought that before the game too. That said, Laurie was horrible when he came on.

I think we can win enough games to make finals, yes. There are more than enough historical examples to not rule us out. As I've already noted, Hawthorn were 5-7 with a percentage of 86.7 last year at the same time. In fact, Hawthorn ended up being 8-8, with a percentage of 94.2 at Round 17 last year. They finished with a percentage of 118.5. We had a bad day in the Alice, just as we did against GWS in Round 16 of 2023, kicking 5.15 that day and then coming out and winning the next week with a very straight 12.7. We're not dead yet.