Adam The God

I think Rivers had him at stages too.

I thought Clarry struggled for quite a bit of the game actually. Started well, but was smothered 2 or 3 times in the first quarter and then struggled to get into the game in in second and most of the third quarter until we went berserk. I said earlier in the year Oliver was a better player. I was wrong. They're just different players. Yesterday though, Petracca was the Norm Smith medallist by quite a way IMO. Fritsch for his goal tally was a distant second. Not only did Petracca kick big goals, including the first to settle some nerves after some early misses, he was so explosive from stoppage at the end of that third quarter. Given the stakes, Petracca's game is the best individual Melbourne performance I think I've ever seen.

Can't wait for the Demonland podcast. @binman and @george_on_the_outerwill say I told you so and Andy won't know what to do with himself. I still can't quite believe it's really happened.

Watching the replay, we made Daniel look like a clown in the second half. Our mids were breaking away from him repeatedly.

How courageous was the Bowey v Weightman match up? Well done, Bowser. You killed him.

Definitely a Melbourne supporter. Last saw him in the Qantas Lounge in 2018 post preliminary final in Perth. He was also donned in his MFC scarf on Fox the other day with Mike Sheehan.

We just sold the family home in Beaver Street. Small world.

I cried all the way through this. Today is going to be super emotional.

Fader is a great track. Love it. As West Aussies, pity they're not playing Optus. I figure they're probably not a band anymore.

As an obsessive Bond fan, John Barry always calms me. Multiple Bond scores will very likely settle the nerves today.

This made me cry. Cuts deep. Come on redlegs, you can do this.

Sensible list management. Who know how much longer McDonald amd Brown have as contributors. A two year deal is good for both parties.

Haha, that is an important distinction. Read things properly, AF.

I like Sparrow as a player, but jeepers, some are really putting their neck out there. @Chook a top 50 player? I hope you're right.

@WERRIDEE, you have the same profile pic as @Yokozuna and when I saw the profile pic in the latest post of this thread I got excited haha.

Yep, agreed, but Luke is never afraid to change things up if they're not working. But you're right, if you have a stoppage players like Libba and Bontempelli you'd be mad not to back them in a Grand Final.

Interesting. So it's still very much the usual suspects in there. Will they change it up? I don't think so, unless they're not getting enough wins at the contest and our guys are well on top. As Clarkson said on 360, you don't want to pull a rabbit out of the hat on Grand Final day. You back your system to win out. I know their entire system flows from the contest, but I think their three starting mids, alongside Martin, will be relatively predictable in terms of centre bounce at least. Does Dunkley go into the stoppages around the ground as a negating mid, probably, but I think we'll have plans for that and a couple of things we'll try if things don't go our way and they're able to chain out of stoppage too easily. I think we'll go 1v1 at the contest and back our guys to zone off, allowed by the pressure created from our mids.

Brown is occasionally funny, but he's got no idea what he's talking about, which just goes to show being an ex footballer doesn't automatically mean you understand the game or how to analyse it. The best thing he has to offer is anecdotes of his 2001-2003 Brisbane days and Leigh Matthews. That's about it.

Seems like a very good family man too. That's important in footy clubs...

Everyone OTC tipped Melbourne to win the flag on Saturday. Brilliant.

Watched it. He was so bloody good. He's such an impressive guy. Seems like a legit great bloke.

Was it that successful though? They still lost that prelim doing it. I reckon we need to play our game. If we're on, we play a pretty bruising game, so that will take care of itself.

I think their talls are a bit like ours. Their number one priority is bringing the ball to ground for their smalls. As Naughton and Scache did last week. Ground balls will be massive. Really hoping it's a dry night.

I wouldn't be so sure on this. I have a feeling Schache will need to play the Bruce second fiddle role to Naughton and they'll use English or even Hannan as the decoy on Lever. They'll know they have to occupy Petty, May and Lever. They won't be able to leave one free, although they may decide Petty is the lesser of three evils and allow him to zone off. As @Dwight Schrute says, their problem is goals. If they don't get them from midfield, they're going to need Naughton, Schache and Hannan kicking goals and if English can keep Lever out of the game and maybe even snag one himself, they might see that as a win. The Weightman match up will be really vital too. He did kick half their score against Essendon after all. So is that Hibberd or Rivers or even Bowey?

Totally mate. As for the contested possession stuff, with Bontempelli's fitness questionable, they may have to go back to Libba at the coalface, which makes them more one dimensional and brings a tagger into the game. @Lucifer's Hero you don't happen to have CBAs for the Port v Bulldogs game do you? Was Libba back in there more? Without Drew starting on him in the first quarter, he was certainly controlling things from the stoppages. When Drew went to him at the end of the first, I wonder, and I didn't notice this, but I wonder if Libba then moved to half forward to throw the tag. He certainly didn't have the same influence after quarter time.