Adam The God

Just watching the replay for a second time. Our pressure was outstanding. Our defensive shape was even better and as others have said, it completely spooked the Bulldogs. They couldn't move the footy. When we bring our work rate for the shape and the pressure game, I can't see any team in the comp going with us. I've never been able to say that in my almost 34 years. I thought Oliver was incredible. His consistency at being elite is elite. Harmes' tag game was brilliant, but as when he plays thst negating role, he hits the scoreboard, which makes him and our midfield so dangerous. Gus played one of the great defensive games you'll ever see. He lost one contest in the second quarter, otherwise I don't think he lost one and was integral to ensuring they couldn't transition the footy. Superb game. Lever, May and Petty were all terrific as our defensive bigs. Lever sets us up so beautifully and we all know his ability at reading the play and knowing when to go. Watching live I felt Hibberd had struggled, but he's pretty solid. Salem is the one that really struggled. Can't remember him winning a 1v1 and made some uncharacteristic errors by foot. Hopefully that's his one off week. Rivers is an absolute beauty. His first half was brilliant. The rest of his game was solid too. He wills himself to win contests and then at pace uses the ball so well. He will make a very good mid, I reckon. The forward chemistry was good, but that first half from Weideman was not good enough. They constantly tried to play through his man and he laid one tackle. He was our weak link, despite crashing a few packs. He worked his way into the game though and should have ended with 3. It's a bit of a watch this space with him. I hope that second half gives him the confidence to take the second half of the season by the scruff of the neck. McDonald kicked some important goals as usual and continues his very good 2021. Fritsch got into the right spots this week, but the distance between his best and worst is staggering wide. He can be a game breaker and an out and out liability other weeks. As others have mentioned, our role players were excellent. JJ, Spargo, ANB, Jackson and Kozzie all brought tremendous frontal pressure that made it easier for our mids and backs. Some of JJs repeat pressure acts in stoppage were phenomenal and he hit the scoreboard. He's a ripper too. Petracca was good without starring and aside from two dropped uncontested marks that could have cost us, Max was much better. One of the most impressive Melbourne wins I can remember. Langdon missing for next week will make it very tough though. I hope we can bring the same intensity and work rate next week. If we do, we're a big shot.

Great coaching. I think many who had questions over Goodwin had them due to lack of success or consistency of success. Most, if not all, would be more happy that we're playing so well.

Outside of Oliver, I reckon our most important player. This could be dangerous with Brisbane. A massive massive loss.

I'd argue the Crows were able to score because our forwards failed to lay enough tackles.

I reckon a lot of it's down to having a clear role, playing within those parameters and keeping the decision making simple. Historically, he'd be gassed from all his running and would turn it over or fumble it. I think it's good coaching and clearly he's stepped up to the plate. Well done, ANB.

Parish is very Treloar. Which is no disrespect to either player. Can win their own ball, but are better on the outside.

Yep, and that pressure is great for ensuring we rarely drop off in performance. ?

Brown will get his turn, but I don't think the club will be too worried about the money paid to Brown. I think they'll love having him as depth and putting pressure on McDonald, who it must be said, has had some pretty erratic form slumps across his career.

One of the ongoing narratives of 2021 has been who makes up our best forwardline. Is it a horses for courses situation or should we be looking to lock in a consistent set up? Given we've been able to get those early wins on the board, we're now able to experiment a bit more on what that best make up looks like. At the start of pre season, it's clear we wanted Weideman and Brown to be in that mix and that we'd play McDonald up the ground on the wing and potentially as a mobile half forward (see the Fritsch role). It's quite likely at this time, the club saw McDonald in direct competition with Brayshaw on the wing and Fritsch or Melksham in the forward half. When Brown and Weideman both went down in pre season, it gave us a new set of problems, but it also gave Tom an opening, which I think is fair to say he's taken with impressive maturity. Ironically, IMO Tom's form and Jackson's continued improvement has played a big part in us struggling to find the right position and synergy when it comes to Brown and Weideman. They clearly don't want to play all 4 talls, because they must think it messes with the pressure system. As Alan Richardson said on SEN recently: “The forward line is a little bit different and we still think it’s our best option to have the three talls. “We’ll keep working with that model and we see ‘Weids’ as a big part of that.” So it's clear we want 3 talls from Weideman, Jackson and one of Brown and McDonald. But I think we could be missing a trick here. The key question and the potential trick to unlocking the synergy in the forward half is about whether we could use Jackson's versatility more through the midfield (as a genuine mid) and then as a pressure forward who is great at ground level. Jackson is 1 of probably 5 players (Oliver, Petracca, Jordon, Salem and then Jackson) who is the cleanest below their feet. And he's been doing this in traffic too. So could we use him in the midfield in larger stints and then forward, and think of him as a tall playing small? He'd be a headache of a match up given his height and athleticism, and importantly, his cleanness. We could then aim for all 4 talls, but I think they'd still like to keep Weideman and one of Brown or McDonald. Not all of them. I'd personally go with Brown before Weideman, but the club clearly holds a different view at the moment. The other question hangs regarding the make up of our mid sized and smalls to compliment the talls. I've said for a while that not only do Melksham and Fritsch play a game that is not combative enough, but their functions appear to be too similar in our set up. IMV, we can't carry both, particularly if they're not hitting the scoreboard strongly every week. And even then, I'd argue that's a dangerous precedence to add to your forward set up that relies on pressure and locking the ball in our forward half. This similarity in the way Melksham and Fritsch play is why I think they've added Melksham to the midfield rotation to give him more versatility, but I don't think it's adding to our system as much as we could get from other tweaks. For example, I'd much prefer to play Jackson in Melksham's role. We can also roll Harmes or Jordon or Sparrow or Viney through the midfield and that forward pressure role. Obviously, not all in the one team, but Jackson's versatility unlocks this potential depth in our team and system. As for smalls, IMV we're a bit light on for them, but ANB, Spargo and Kozzie are obviously the three incumbent pressure forwards. Sparrow, Bedford and Chandler are back ups. So the rest of the rotations and role players need to come from the midfield rotation. Viney could be added to this group and they might look to play him through here more for a few weeks to protect his foot. Sparrow could also play this Melksham role where he plays majority forward and then rolls through the midfield for 4 or 5 centre bounces. So where does all this leave us? I'd be interested to hear Demonlanders thoughts. For mine, I think the best make up, form permitting, is Brown, McDonald, Jackson, Fritsch, Pickett, ANB, supported by Spargo, Viney and Petracca. While Viney is out, I think playing Harmes taking some forward time is a good idea as he's strong above his head, but rotating midfield with Petracca. In reality though, I think the club will try to fit Weideman into this set up and if they don't want to play Jackson as a genuine mid yet, while McDonald keeps his form up, it's likely Brown that will sit it out.

I'd think there'd be no chance of them changing mid season to 16 minute quarters unless we go into a significant lockdown for a few months. Which I don't think will happen.

You're massively overselling Daw and as usual way off with Petty. It's laughable you think the club will drop Petty for Daw. Ever.

Understand public finances. It cost taxpayers zero dollars. As powerful as it sounds (hence the deliberate weaponisation of language and framing), if you understood how the official public accounts work, you'd know it's impossible for taxes to fund federal expenditure. Taxation is the deletion point of currency and spending/marking up accounts is the creation point. Was it misspent public money? Sure. But you or I had no hand in funding it. The sole issuer of the AUD doesn't need its own liabilities back to fund anything, that's nonsensical, but without taxation we'd have inflation. In order to spend, Federal Treasury simply instructs its central bank to mark up accounts. ?

The Fed Gov is imposing austerity and has been outside of JobKeeper and JobSeeker since the middle of last year. Now that they've stopped JobKeeper, there's essentially very little being invested in the Australian people because neoliberals on both sides think we have to pay down gov debt that can only be purchased with dollars created by the government in the first place. As usual, the Fed (the sole legal issuer of the AUD) is leaving everything up to the revenue constrained states, so Victoria are investing when it should come from the Fed Gov. Same with social housing. If the Fed Gov hadn't monumentally stuffed up vaccinations, we'd all be going to the footy, no worries. Even @old dee.

Yep, we can afford to do this too. If we were 5-5, he'd be playing, I reckon.

Melksham has to come out for Sparrow. I think that'll be the move too.

Stevey boy just likes to have a bit of a whinge.

I think Clarry can be better in the long run than Mitchell because he's got that elite burst, but Mitchell is a legend of the game.

I'd be going tall against the Bulldogs. I think we should risk it for the biscuits this week and try and play Weideman, Brown, McDonald and Jackson. I'd play Jackson through the midfield more though, because he's so clean below his knees and is a decent tackler. I worry Weideman is not going to make it, but I reckon we have to find out this year whether he will. The only thing I haven't worked out yet is who comes out for Brown. If it's Melksham then Jackson has to take Melksham's 2 or 3 midfield stoppages as a pure mid and maybe Fritsch plays higher as the midfield/forward connector, that role Melksham plays between the arcs and high half forward. Play Brown and Weideman deep and try and expose their talls. With Kozzie, Spargo and ANB bringing the pressure at ground level with the other mids. Petracca rotating deep forward as well. With that team, that'd leave our midfield as Oliver, Petracca, Harmes, JJ, Jackson, ANB and even Brayshaw (if we utilise McDonald higher up the ground as a wing chop out too). Oliver, Petracca and Jackson as the offensive mids and Harmes, JJ, ANB and Gus as the defensive mids. I think they'll feel this line up is too unbalanced, but I reckon if we can match them in the contest, prevent them spreading against us on the outside and get enough supply with our pressure up, I reckon it's a side that could expose them.

I disagree with this mate, but each to their own. I think he's actually a nice kick. He's just missed a few he should/would normally hit.

Agreed. My assumption was they want him to get more games in the MFC system before playing him in the big time. I like your suggestions RE Sparrow and JJ too, although JJs tackling around the ball is the closest thing we've got to Viney.

Agreed, but I'd be bringing Lockhart in for Nev if Salem is still a week away.

No, you questioned our wingers and our height in defence.

Too many, IMO, view him as purely an inside mid and it is our propensity as fans to look at the disposal counts at the end of games and judge based on this poor metric. It was clearly one of his better games for the year and I think he's really building into the role. This week I don't recall any poor turnovers, so if he can rid those occasional errors from his game, he'll be doing everything right. 22 disposals is a Langdon type game and we rightly laud his contribution.

I reckon some mark him harshly. He isn't at the level that he can get to obviously, but he's playing the lockdown role to allow others to intercept. When his KPD mates in May and Lever struggled, particularly May, it brings more pressure on the back 6. I don't think it's a case of Salem out, Melbourne defensively hopeless. I think we just had a poor night, where we gave Adelaide sniff, they were up for it, they'd clearly set themselves for the game (resting Walker the week before) and one of three umpiring decisions goes our way in the last 2 minutes and we're all having a different conversation on here. May and Lever need to be better. In his young career, it's up to Petty to just play his role until he's confident enough to take on the intercept game a bit more. I reckon they'll be saying to Harry we need to have more composure coming out of the back 50 and just keep things simple. Use May's kicking and ideally Salem's to unlock that tricky kick in the middle. But at the end of the day, when we've turned it over by foot in the middle of the ground, usually our defensive shape prevents us giving up a score. Not to be on the weekend. It's up to our leaders like Max, May, Lever and Petracca to step up. It'd be good to get Hunt in the game a bit more too. Already having Salem out hurt our rebound, but Hunt playing a shocker only compounded the problem. Next week we have to step up as a collective.

Love it mate.