Adam The God

That was against GWS who have legitimately 5,000 supporters nationwide if they're lucky.

The way we are setting up defensively is outstanding. We are strangling teams and they have no answer. We need to start kicking straight because it will cost us eventually, but being 4-0 is brilliant! Terrific team performance. Viney, Oliver and Petracca in the midfield were tremendous. Lever and Tomlinson were great behind the ball. I felt our forward pressure was much more like it in the second half. We really lifted the intensity with Spargo, ANB and Kozi really ramped up the frontal pressure and it is vital to how we're strangling teams. Thought Tom McDonald provided a solid target up forward and up the ground. Really important game from him and could give our team another dimension when Brown and potentially Weideman put their hands up. Petracca needs to do less of the Hollywood knocks and taps when he could instead take a clean possession and impact the contest. As I said, he played a great game, but cost us a goal on transition when he tried a fancy little knock on. Did a couple dinky little taps like that as well. He's close to fulfilling that potential many saw in him. Looking forward to watching the replay, because my read on Oliver's game is that we started Oliver mostly forward to throw the tag and he got away from it, so they dropped the tag in the second half and Clarry was influential around stoppages as the game wore on. He and Selwood went head to head in the last and Oliver I thought beat him comfortably. The worst part of the day was the crowd again. 33,000 is pathetic. I know there were mostly Melbourne supporters there, but bloody hell. 40k should be the floor expectation for a game between two Victorian teams at the MCG. I know it was raining and cold, but that's a weak excuse. Lift, MFC supporters, we're 4 zip now, get behind us.

I mostly agree mate, although Port should have won by 3 or 4 goals had they kicked straight.

Yeah, completely agree. I don't think we're anywhere near the standard of those two teams. High intensity and some good team defence on show from both teams. It'd be interesting to see how we'd handle the tempo of a game like that. I think our midfield is equal to both teams, but the cleanness of the defences and the ability for both sides to get those ground balls off contested situations was very impressive. It looked like we were watching two of the top 4 teams this year IMO. I can't see us breaking into a top 4 consisting of Port, Richmond, Eagles and Bulldogs.

Thought Sydney looked very vulnerable against frontal pressure against their half backs. If they can't slingshot against you, they have trouble scoring. If we're on against them, it should play into our hands perfectly. This is the St Kilda formula from last year. Very beatable. They use the ball well, but if you can close down their space across half back and provide them no space to play the chip game that pulls players out of spaces and allows them to transition, they struggle. Essendon showed the way.

Clayton Oliver easily takes this one out. Salem is an important role player and ball user for us though.

This is brilliant. Good get. This says our midfield is working both ways a lot better too. I'm hoping he learns a bit off Ben and when Ben retires, he takes over his mantle. Brown is one of the best lead up forwards in the competition. Only West Coast's Kennedy would be stronger IMO or maybe Hawkins.

He's been tagged plenty of times and even by De Boer previously.

Completely disagree. Oliver went past Cripps two years ago at 21 years of age and is just as good as Neale and Shuey. He doesn't have the influence of Dangerfield yet, because he doesn't hit the scoreboard, but Dangerfield didn't start influencing games until his 5th season. Oliver's been influencing games since his first season. He bossed Callan Ward in his first ever game at 65% TOG. He's incredibly durable and since coming into the game, the first time we've won a game without Oliver pulling the strings in our midfield was literally last Sunday night. It's mind-blowing how so many Melbourne supporters fail to see how good Oliver is.

All the best mids get shut down with a hard tag. Judd, Ablett, Dangerfield, Neale etc etc. This says nothing about Oliver. A good tagger can still prevent ball winning, particularly if the mids are still learning to block for each other.

Oliver isn't just a dime a dozen inside mid, he's a generational talent. Terrible call this. Go after Merrett by all means, but you don't sell your best player to get another good player. Shockingly counter intuitive.

I thought Geelong looked pretty ordinary. Had Hawthorn had a real constant threat up forward and a bit of forward pressure, Geelong would have lost it. If we're on our game next week and Geelong play like they did today, I think we'll beat them.

West Coast are very tall too, but mobile. I'm liking Langdon and Gus on the wings. It was after the 186 game in 2011.

James Kelly... Agreed. I would have thought that was more his uncle. All I recall Long doing was lining up an unsuspecting Troy Simmonds.

Saying nothing about Greene's talent. I'm talking about May's body strength. He was off tonight. He should not be being beaten in the contest by a guy near 10cms shorter and 15 kgs lighter than him.

Yep, good post. Thought for the most part Rivers was ordinary and seems to be experiencing those second year blues. Some of those tackling efforts were not AFL standard. And how did May constantly get beaten for strength by little Toby Green? We structured up beautifully, but then made too many silly errors. Room for improvement.

There's no room for Tmac. Brown, Weid as the key talls, Jackson as the third tall/ruck. Fritsch and the smalls to compliment.

We've got our uncontested game sorted. Provided we bring the required work rate, the pace thing isn't an issue. It's speed of ball movement and skill execution. Get those things right, convert the scores we should and we're a real chance against most opposition.

A lot of that was actually playing a kick behind the ball.

It's notable that we make moves much quicker on game day this year. When it was clear Oliver was struggling, they sent him forward and it could have paid off handsomely had he converted two very simple set shots. Likewise, when McDonald couldn't get near it they moved him mid quarter further up the ground and he started to get his hands on it more. Interesting to see how often Gus was getting back in the hole to support his defenders one out too. It's a similar sort of thing to the way Langdon often plays the sweeper role in behind our defenders as the last man. We're finally using both wingers to impact the game defensively and then on the counter. Hallelujah!

I thought in the first 10-15 mins of the first quarter you could tell our pressure and work rate was a bit off and the Giants were playing some good stuff that we couldn't break up. I put this down to the fact that they brought the run and we didn't bring enough pressure. When the Giants had Davis go down, I thought as the game wore on we'd be a big shot, but then when Coniglio went down, I thought only a Melbourne side could lose it from there. Then De Boer went down as well and I thought Clarry would get off the chain. We really should have wiped them off the park after Coniglio went down and in terms of dominance we probably did, but didn't take our chances. The fundamentals like handballs and defensive marks let us down. Too much Hollywood from Petracca (cost us a goal and momentum at one stage). Oliver needs to convert basic set shots, because when he's being tagged, if he can't break the tag, he needs to be able to go forward and impact the game in another way. Thought McDonald was back to his 2019-2020 form for the majority of the game. Really struggled. Needs to pick it up next week or we're no chance. Unless Brown is ready to replace him. Kudos to Fritsch who nailed his early goals. Needs to do it consistently. Seemed to have a bit of swagger by the middle of the game. If he gets his kicking boots on, that's two goals a game for him easily. Max finished the game out strongly, probably to take the three votes after repeatedly dropping uncontested marks loose in defence in the first half. Like Lever and May, needs to be cleaner. Langdon and Brayshaw offered good outside run. Yze is doing some good work there with Gus. Seems like a good fit out there. If Hunt could kick he'd be an important cog, but he never hits targets - a worry for me out of defence. Kozzie superb for us. He's really found his level now. Brilliant stuff. Really liking out defensive shape, but we have to take those simple marks. Lever and May constantly guilty of dropping easy marks, and Max often spoiling one of them and then falling over himself. Tomlinson the best of our three defenders in terms of solidness. Sad to say Jetts is on his last legs too. Hope he proves me wrong, but he's lost that yard or two and he just can't cover the ground like he used to. I wonder if Hibberd gets the nod over him next week? Despite the hollowness of the win against a severely undermanned GWS (3 down on the bench makes it just about impossible to win in the modern game), to go 3-0 is excellent from our end. We can only beat who is out there, I'd just hoped we'd dispose of them more powerfully, but maybe that performance is coming? Geelong will give us a greater read on where we're at. My feeling at this stage is that we've improved on last year, but we still haven't quite clicked yet. We need that intensity up again like the St Kilda game or we're no chance next week.

Likewise, I think Ben Brown would absolutely adore the way the game is being played at the minute. He'll be incredibly difficult to stop.

What each of the blow outs have shown today is that against the really good opposition you need to take all your chances and put heavy scoreboard pressure on quickly, and then it can blow out. Sydney nailed a lot of their early efforts, so did the Eagles. That's where we can take our game to the next level. We're generating enough scoring shots, we just need to convert them. Fritsch is going to be massive over the next 2-3 weeks, because if he doesn't improve his accuracy, I can see him costing us a game or two. Looking forward to Brown's inclusion, because as a rule, he doesn't miss very often.

Nah, I heard one of them already saying they've got players out. Yeah, two ruckmen. Crouch played today and had little impact. Old man Hannebery? Laughable. People need to get serious here. St Kilda are all system. They don't really have elite talent, certainly not under 25. Maybe King in time, but he's still developing. If they're off at all, St Kilda get beaten.

Had we kicked straight last week, we'd have done this to St Kilda too. They're an overrated side and overachieved last year.