Adam The God

I disagree with this. I think it's opposition dependent and also dependent on how the midfield is functioning at any one given time. I'd also say Oliver is our best mid, but that's a difficult debate.

Hard to tell. He seemed really low on confidence in the first half. Steele was a good, consistent performer for them throughout the game and even though he didn't get high numbers, Sinclair burst from a few stoppages far too easily. The last goal of the second quarter came from very poor defending from Petracca that let Sinclair go. After that, whenever Trac went into the middle, he was all over Sinclair. Hill's another match up that was interesting, because he was brilliant in the last quarter in particular and was being shadowed by Langdon at times, and then other times, I've no idea who was playing on him. I think we kind of backed Langdon to do more damage, but he tried to tighten up on Hill in the last 10 minutes or so, still Hill was dominant. I think Oliver, Gus, Petracca and occasionally Viney still don't know what it takes to gut run a full four quarters. I don't think any of their work rate let us down last night, but I could be wrong. That first quarter point to Membrey (was it?) that came from when they cut us up off half back was poorly defended by the whole team, but I reckon the mids pushed up too high and then didn't push back hard enough. Outside of that, we seemed to be all over them and their goals came from silly little turn overs from us. I noticed one of the St Kilda supporters on Bigfooty said they essentially failed to create any scores themselves and that their goals came from our errors. Tidy up those errors, which will hopefully happen the longer we play this new system, and we'll give up very few chances for the opposition to score. When Viney gave away that soft free kick to Phillips in the second, we totally had that play covered and it was pretty much the first time we let them through the zone at centre wing/half forward. Lots of room for improvement and our mids absolutely have to lead the way here. Gut-running in midfield needs to be a prerequisite for playing at Melbourne.

Are they looking at releasing him, mate?

I like him playing deep. He's so strong in the core and has great balance, that he scares opponents deep (like Martin does), because they know he's going to stand his ground and stay on his feet. It causes panic. He's a genuine super star in the making. I think we should use him precisely how Richmond use Martin, which is that he plays wherever we need him. This is where our midfield depth moving forward is going to be devastating for opposition's if we can keep the group together. Last night, we could afford to have Petracca play forward more, because we had Brayshaw, Viney and Oliver playing midfield. With Viney as stopper, I think it worked well. We have Harmes waiting in the wings too.

That to me looks like about 12 metres.

I agree that it would bite the old Melbourne that was almost completely reliant on stoppage dominance and contested possession. Our game is actually not that reliant on tackling though. It's about cutting off angles, corralling, denying the opposition dangerous areas by guarding space or manning the mark on the corridor side, forcing teams down the line to our set ups, or across the ground, where the zone moves across (with work rate like last night) and denies teams the easy exit. We've a stronger focus on around the ground stoppages than centre bounce stoppages when we're playing teams that can hurt us on the outside with pace. I think we've shown great flexibility with game style from Round 2 onwards. We haven't always executed, but to me we have two very clear styles that we can flick between now, depending on the opposition. This might be more appropriate in @binman's tactics thread but... 1) is the game that works against chaos and speed - the zone sits back, the front half corralls and forces the down the line kick or the switch, the zone moves with the switch and on it goes. and 2) is the three wall forward half game that is more aggressive, but not an 18 man headless chook press (like 2018) and is about a front half territory game. I reckon we're more likely to play "2" versus the lower sides and the sides where we can get on top with CPs and centre stoppages, and we're more likely to revert to the more defensive "1" system for teams on our level that play with speed and control. I'd love to play Geelong or Richmond again. If we bring the work rate, tackling's important, particularly in midfield, but two-way running to ensure we cover the ground properly is more important, and I think we'd give both of those teams a real crack. I'm in agreement with the sentiment that we need to get more out of our forwards, but I'm not sure how to balance that. I'd certainly play Harmes forward. I think he may well come in for Jones or Vandenberg. We also need to find a bit more centre stoppage connection between Max (who is clearly still not 100% fit in my mind) and the mids. We played more defensive in our stoppage set ups last night, which I really liked, very basketball-like. That said, we lost almost all the centre clearances, so it wasn't working to fully neutralise the opposition. We were far better with around the ground stoppages though, where we could clog up the space and ensure the opposition mids couldn't get it on the outside. This is development! And I'm glad we're finally making progress on it. There's no doubt we still need to work on "1" though, because the ball use from back to front last night was horrendous at times. Get this right and we'll defensively strangle teams and then smash them on the scoreboard. A work in progress.

Someone else mentioned this, but Stevie May getting around Clarry straight away after Clarry had coughed up that goal from the defensive stoppage in the 3rd quarter. LOVE that leadership, Stevie.

Righto.

I think one of the most important adjustments to our game has been the ability to maintain our forward structure, ie not push everyone up into midfield so that when we win it, we have no one forward of the ball to kick it to.

I'd have Vandenberg in my team ahead of Fritsch most weeks. One is combative, one is just happy kicking his one goal a game and being an AFL footballer. That said, Fritsch will definitely come back in. I worry about balance in our forwardline and accept that we haven't found the right mix or required consistency yet.

It was one. The second one being attributed to Jones was absolutely Clarry's fault. A soft effort going back with one hand. He goes back with two hands and he marks it. Jones made the right call there. Partly having a go at those saying Fritsch being dropped would hurt the team, but I don't believe we can play Melksham and Fritsch in the same team anymore. Neither bring enough pressure. They made the call with TMac. They need to make the call on these two. I'd be keeping Melksham personally because he's a much smarter decision maker than Fritsch.

I watched the final two minutes again on the AFL website and I don't know what people are talking about on this. Didn't look 15m at all.

His chances are very low, but a few of the commentators were wraps on him. Think he's going to be a beauty for us. Taylor just nails those picks in the 20s and early 30s. And he's got another of those this year. ?

This exchange is probably my favourite one. Gave me a good Sunday morning laugh.

Love Southland, much better than the hell hole that is Chaddy.

Any of those the same muppets, the smug ones that thought they'd win easily prior to the match? So glad we beat that mob. One of my best mates is St Kilda, so that will do me very nicely, thank you very much.

That throws out our forward structure. If they're making a change, it's Melksham for Fritsch. I wouldn't be rushing Fritsch back though. I'd look at Harmes for Jones. I'd keep Pickett in the side. I'd also look at Corey Wagner or ANB too. Pickett may well get rested for the 4 day break and come in for the Freo game.

Really looking forward to the post comments, @Queanbeyan Demon. ?

Leadership this year. Brilliant. I really liked the 'we're nowhere'. That's the way it should be. And that sort of talk should resonate through the group and encourage them to keep pushing until the very end.

Gee, it was good kicking straight. Weideman and Petracca nailing the goals that they did were clutch. Fritsch will have a bit of trouble getting back into the team with his unreliable kicking, lofty 13 tackles and 11 1%ers for the year.

Well, not in part. They were bombing it in because they couldn't get through the zone. Whereas, we didn't have as many inside 50s because we kept turning it over at half forward. I'm not saying it was a flawless performance, but our team defence was outstanding. Agreed. And maybe the players implemented the plan this week too? Had we brought tonight's pressure last week, we win. I reckon they got at least 2 of their 7 goals from free kicks or lucky decisions that went their way and then led to goals.

I look at the 1%ers here - https://afltables.com/afl/stats/2020s.html Haven't updated them yet. Not sure about pressure acts though.

And yet he still says nothing about the game. No comment. Just that we won.

You're kidding, right? May was apart of the team was he not? He's part of our defensive set up. Our defensive system completely smothered their only game - run and gun off half back. That's Goodwin's plan to beat Ratten's one dimensional plan. The players executed, as they did against Collingwood.

Turn overs were dreadful. This is the area of our game we need to clean up. Clean those up, bring consistent effort like most of tonight and we take the next step.