Adam The God

Thought it was a brilliant move to play Gus on Hill. Gus ran around by himself for almost 4 quarters, exploited Hill's unaccountability. I think Gus at half back is working so well it may change the way Salem plays when he comes back. Or Hunt goes out and we lose a bit of pace back there. Our mob completely outclassed Ratten and co in the coaches box though. Some really bizarre coaching from St Kilda. Sure, they only brought a quarter and a half of pressure, but Hill at half back, no real moves with King to play him up the ground or into the ruck to get him involved. We didn't allow him to jump, but surely the coaching instruction needed to be don't grapple with May. Lead up to CHF. I went with a St Kilda mate who was pulling his hair out at the coaching and the St Kilda play in general. It was interesting to hear someone be so critical of their team as I am watching us live. But he was right. They were dreadful in the first half. It really was training drill type stuff for us. The lack of accountability, intensity and intent was marked. I actually thought St Kilda's first half was as bad as we were in the Neeld years. Truly insipid. Guys not chasing, us easily breaking tackles, no blocks being put on, rushed disposal under little pressure etc. Then you could see their energy in the third quarter. We were fumbly all day, but we fumbled more when their pressure came across our half back line in that third. Fortunately, they missed some very gettable shots. I suspect our set up behind the ball simply spooked St Kilda who repeatedly slammed it on the boot from the contest and the slingshot situation, to our set up behind the ball in the first half. Gresham was a major culprit. Given this it was weird to note late in the last, they'd had more intercept possessions than us. It's great leaving a game and going 'we can play so much better but we just beat someone who was in the top 4 at the start of the round by 6+ goals, and we're on top'. Incredible time to be alive.

Still hasn't worked with me, mate. But at least I get a text from my wife saying Go Dees nowadays.

Laurie won't be sub. They wouldn't do that to a player yet to debut, but then I thought the RBA wouldn't lift the cashrate target this week either, so what would I know?

I wouldn't have either of them. Bit we do need to bring in a pressure forward and it shouldn't be Melksham.

Jack Riewoldt's poster in the second (?) was a direct result of Smith getting his positioning completely wrong. He did a couple of nice things and a couple of ordinary things. Our defenders these days rarely do ordinary things, so it sticks out. May's handball was cut off on the wing, which ended up rebounding to Riewoldt. Smith simply handballed under little pressure to Lynch, who turned around and kicked a goal. Not really the same thing IMV.

I like Buckley all of a sudden. What a good bloke.

So this is what I'd go with: In: Chandler, McDonald, Viney, Lever Out: Pickett, Jackson, Sparrow, Smith I think they'll go for Bedford over Chandler and Dunstan gets another game.

Carlton are also toast for this season as Pittonet is out for 3 months. Of course, they could always change their strategy for the better to compensate, like we did when Max went down in 2017 (we became less obvious from clearance), but in both games where Pittonet effectively hasn't played, the Blues have been nowhere. They struggle to win clearance without his taps to advantage.

As going fast is basically the only way to beat our zone. Which puts us in a good position to create turn overs. You could see it with Richmond the other night. They'd chip to about 50m, then another quick chip, which if they then went quickly, could actually enable them to kick over the top of the zone or to a leading forward between centre wing and half forward. I felt our transition was a little off in the first half and they were actually able to hit up three consecutive passes from the kick in to their half forward by moving it quickly. When we tightened this up in the second half, they had to look for the riskier in board option rather than kick it to our numbers down the line, and they turned it over quite a bit. Eventually that will happen over 2 hours of football, and weight of numbers gets you. It's the genius of our system. It requires occasional bursts of anaerobic defensive transition to get into position, and then anaerobic bursts when we turn it over, otherwise it's mostly standing in holes waiting for the opposition to pull the wrong trigger or literally kick it back to us.

I'd add after this that the alternative is to kick it high to a wing near the boundary, a flank or a pocket. Langdon often does a deliberately skyed kick to a contest as it gives our guys time to swarm the crumb. It's straight out of the Richmond playbook too.

Be interesting to see if Mitchell tries something different or just goes with the manic forward pressure. They really are a very small team, but they do have a bit of pace to them. Surely Brown would be far too big for Frost.

Tomlinson more realistic than Turner, but different player to Smith and Turner. Interceptors versus lockdown. But yeah, I'm being slightly facetious. Against a top 8 or top 4 team we cannot have Smith playing in that back 6.

This.

One of the strangest, if not the strangest games I've ever watched. Had we kicked straight it would have been near 100 points. We were that dominant, hey? And Richmond were lucky they took their chances, otherwise it could have still been 5-6 goal win. 30+ scoring shots is insane. And yet with 5 minutes to go there was a slight pang of nervousness amongst the MFC crowd. Bizarre. I had one concern going into the game. All I'll say is I hope Jake Lever is back next week. Alternatively, Turner might need a game.

I've watched enough Dunstan that I don't need a highlight package. He's a clearance player and a high half forward.

I raised an eyebrow when Pittonet got injured and wondered if the same thing would happen again around stoppages as against the Suns. It didn't stop Carlton winning clearances, but it was like the air was sucked out of them when he went off. He's a very good ruckman Pittonet and has a good record against Max. They seem to struggle if everything isn't going perfectly to plan. Curnow and McKay are a scary proposition though. Definitely the most exciting tall duo in the league. I hope Carlton continue to stumble.

Nope. They played together against Carlton, but McDonald also played.

Yep, the better comparison to Dunstan is if Harmes could get a game as a pure mid. Both capable clearance players, but unreliable by foot. Dunstan is probably a slightly better player at stoppages, but Harmes is the better runner.

I'd say Bowey is playing Salem's quarter back role. Gus is adding more defensive stability back there by providing extra cover to the wingers, and enabling our defenders to zone off and rebound strongly as Gus is a good 1v1 player, particularly in the air. He can take good defensive field position and plug holes when our other players attack or zone.

There are two different starting teams named. One on the MFC website and one on the AFL website. Going by both teams, it's Smith for Lever and Brown for Viney. Sparrow, JJ, Harmes and potentially even Brayshaw will pick up Viney's minutes. I'd say JJ will get more minutes as Sparrow has quite high midfield minutes anyway.

It could also be from the club's end. It's best to wait for all parties, then we know how much to pay you.

Would be quite happy to offer Clarry 7-8 years to take him to 32 or so.

I'd like to believe 4, so 4 it is. Thank you mate. 🤣

There's nothing there?

COVID and school holidays I reckon. Thought it was a poor result. St Kilda Gold Coast was even less (18k).