Adam The God

So there was a contest in the third quarter of the Brisbane game where Harris Andrews appeared to ping his shoulder and then grabbed at it. I couldn't be bothered watching the last quarter, but I take it he was alright in the end?

Is this a dig at his Catholic upbringing or have I missed something?

Me too. He also fails to understand how commentary on the TV is supposed to work. I imagine he's a bit like me at the footy. Constant commentary. He leaves no air for the audience to take the game in. It's a wall of Dermie rambling. I still remember when he was on an episode of my favourite Australian show ever (Stingers). Again, an egomaniac. And no, he's not a good actor.

We will because our structure is so good. Pressure helps, but the way we zone the ground means the opposition simply don't have easy uncontested possessions. And if they do get easy touches, they're not outside our offensive 50. Luke specifically said it was only 28 points but felt like a lot more. I didn't read it as ungracious. Quite the opposite in fact.

I thought ANB spoke beautifully on that show with Dermie this morning. Said all the right things.

Dermie is an egomaniac. He's either slightly on the spectrum or has narcissistic personality disorder. He talks and talks and others around him are awkward in their interactions with him and he never notices. As for his comments today, all ex Hawthorn hate Melbourne. Dunstall is the same, but the lack of insight into how we broke the Dogs down and made them play the way they aged is exactly what @binman often laments on the Demonland podcast. The lack of quality analysis in the footy media is very evident. King overdoes it at times in looking for trends that don't mean much, but on other occasions he has some great insight. I reckon he's back on the Demons too.

Yep, as Richo said during the game, we get such tremendous pressure on the ball carrier post clearance that even when we lose clearance, we almost immediately get the game on our terms or at least neutralise it.

We do this though. The other team usually comes at us in second halves. The modern game is about ebbs and flows of momentum and we have this incredible ability to take the game down into a scrap and an end to end scoreless battle. By this stage, we have the lead, so it's about maintaining it and where possible, hitting them going the other way. This doesn't bother me at all. And we have more gears to go to. This is what it comes down to. Stay healthy and I think we can play in a Grand Final. Lose a few here and there and we might struggle. See Richmond 2017 and their lack of injuries all year.

That was the prototype James Harmes negating game. He stops his opponent getting it at the source and then joins in on offence with gut run. It's not strictly a hard tag, but I'd argue it's still a tag. I reckon he's one of the best in the business at tagging and then kicking goals on his opponent. His return to form is a very exciting prospect with Viney still to come back.

He does seem like a muppet, but I wouldn't mind he and Kozzie buzzing about at the feet of our talls. We need another x factor small pressure forward IMO. Agreed. At least he used his body a bit more in this game, but we definitely missed a trick with the KPF in that draft.

She does stand out, although made some errors too, like confusing Petty for Rivers. Not sure how you do that, but she did. Still, a long way better than any of the other muppets. I like how she dissects the game.

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.