Adam The God

The other thing about the night was Cox coming off midway through the second or third quarter and giving it to the MFC supporters who were booing him off. Complete arrogance. I want to play them in finals.

Just a reminder, Oliver's game consisted of 14 clearances and 8 tackles, with 24 contested possessions from 42. What's the record for clearances? The bloke is an A+++er.

Gotcha. Derps. Thought the post meant Bulldogs' Darcy...

As someone who goes every week, I stopped begrudging fair weather MFC supporters during the Neeld years. When you have 57 years of pain, it'll take more than one flag to build your supporter base up again. It takes consistent deep finals pushes and multiple flags. Look at Hawthorn. A fair weather supporter base, but they all come back when they become good again, because it's never a decade on the bottom. Carlton have the history of 16 flags, so that's why their supporters are coming back. It's also only been 27 years for them.

I'm not watching the game, but yes he is. would love Larkey. I fully expect we'll have an answer on the KPF problem come the end of this year. We may have to pay up, but it will likely signal that we're all in for a 5 year push or a longer term push.

I think there's a bit of truth to both mate. When Collingwood get an inside 50 or move the ball quickly through the corridor that must increase the psychological pressure on defenders in 1v1 situations. It wasn't a big factor though. I just didn't like Trac's comment. It's a cop out.

Well, hang on. Where does he say Jackson goes to Freo? He doesn't. He allegedly says they've been having these conversations for a while. Not the same thing. Your interpretation is often what happens on Demonland and becomes gospel. I'm not saying he isn't referring to pick swaps, but it's certainly not certain that he means Freo are involved. Having worked with a few politicians now, unless someone specifically states something, they'll give themselves room to move. Bit like Goody in his press conference this week in the lead up to the game RE Harmes being selected. The journalists made the assumption and Goody didn't bother correcting him.

Darcy will be gettable? Really? What's this based on? A F/S rarely goes.

Of course, but they both want to go. No point in keeping someone if they want to go. Get the best deal you can while you've still got skne leverage. Our leverage in the Jackson scenario is allegedly LJ wanting to ensure the deal is fair.

Sassy Sunday on Demonland. 👌

If he wants to go... why would we trade Jackson?

You don't think we play the style we do to suit the list we have? Getting Naughton could allow us to go more central, provided we have the crumbers. The way Naughton launches at the ball, it makes it easier for their crumbers or he marks it.

It depends on our list management strategy. Do we want to continue to bring in youngsters to extend our window beyond 5 years or do we go really hard over the next 5 years? Already have Brown and TMac on the verge of retirement. Adding Gunston instead of another younger development player to partner with JVR and say Naughton will depend on the answer to the above question. Gunston also has a checkered recent injury history, so we'd be gambling on 3 talls near 30 with injury clouds. Not great list strategy IMO.

I don't disagree with that as per my post. I was referring to your mentioning of Trac and needing more than 30k to get up on game day.

Bring in Darcy to play alongside JUH and Lobb to play the ruck/forward rotating with English. Weightman at their feet and that's a dangerous forwardline even next year.

I think if you watch the replay, the angle changes didn't actually improve the 1v1s up the ground, but enabled them to move the ball through our zone in the middle of the ground. Collingwood also kicked down the line numerous times to our talls and we didn't get it done. What teams have managed to do is restrict Max's marking behind the ball. And then our guys failed to win the resultant ground ball.

That's rubbish from Trac though. How did they go in Round 11 last year against the Bulldogs in an empty stadium? No doubt the Collingwood crowd played a factor, but if our mob wants to be a great team beyond 2021, they need to be able to do it in high pressure atmospheres. The previous week they managed in a hostile environment...

Spot on. I reckon the defenders need to win more contests. May rarely wins 1v1s anymore, whereas last year he was impenetrable. Petty had his worst match for the year and Lever was mostly unsighted. But we also need more pressure up the ground, both forwards and mids. Does anyone have our post clearance numbers for the season and the Collingwood match? That will tell us a lot. Post clearance pressure rushes the opposition and brings our interceptors behind the ball into play. We've been smashed for ground ball gets too in both games against Collingwood. That all said, kick straight and it's game over. I think we've evolved too much. We sit our zone deeper from kick outs; we play Max more forward (out of necessity due to TMac's injury); and we've started handballing more than we did (as we don't trust our forwards to bring the contest up the ground, but it invites more pressure). The idea that we haven't tweaked is nonsense. We haven't completely changed our game plan, but we've made tweaks everywhere, which you call for in this post RE Clarkson. Bizarre.

What are you talking about mate? Salem, Gawn x2 and Fritsch all missed regulation shots at goal from 20-25m out. That's the game right there.

He's lost it as a finisher. Even that easy one around his body on the left he used to gobble up and he's no chance from 50 anymore.

We had zero bounces to 8 last night and our defenders struggled in ground balls. I'd bring Bowey in for Hunt, because Jake is incredibly clean below his feet, takes the game on and is a beautiful kick. We needed more run off half back last night. The other stat that is telling is they were 10+ for tackles inside 50 (18 to 8), of which I think Elliott kicked all 4 of his goals from. I wouldn't be surprised if 6 or 7 of those tackles inside 50 came in the first quarter or so for us, which shows how easily Collingwood were allowed to exit the ball from our A50. I haven't been a fan over the journey, but it's likely they'll bring Joel Smith in at the expense of Melksham. Smith with play defensive forward and he's actually got some good attributes to play that role. He can bring the ball to ground, cover the ground quickly (apply forward 50 pressure) and can kick a goal. So it's Bowey and Smith in for Melksham and Hunt. Kozzy, Spargo and ANB need to get the job done for four quarters inside 50. We probably missed Harmes' tackling pressure too, so who goes out for Harmes?

Is Optus Stadium a narrow ground? I'm not sure it is.

I'm not sure why we'd be tweaking our system to be honest, because it's not our system that's losing us games. It's an inability to win contests and last night it was an inability to take simply chances in front of goal. I maintain that if we're on, teams can't get through us. At forward 50 stoppage, we did actually push up most of our defenders right up when we were inside 50 and left 2 or 3 deeper with one as an anchor. But the ball came out of our attacking 50 far too easily- see the lack of forward 50 tackles again. Early on in the game we crunched Daicos at half back a couple of times, but for the majority of the game, we let them get it out too easily. Another thing I've noticed against us is teams are happy to get a scrappy kick out of D50 providing it goes to ground, so it can't be intercepted. It's then about pressing the next contest or Melbourne player that is zoning off and trying to get the ground ball that results from the scrappy kick. I think @Watson11's post above about sitting the zone deeper is spot on, although that seemed to be more from kick outs. When there was a forward 50 stoppage for us, we actually pressed our zone pretty high as I said above. So maybe it's about sitting the zone a little higher to defend kick outs?

My opinion was it was a dopey thread, because you've gone the early crow. Reactionary if you like. But are you saying you're the only one allowed an opinion?

Someone with a screen name "COVID Dan" creates a dopey thread. Fancy that.