Adam The God

That's why I love it. At least there's some sort of pride about that. And I'd rather say 'Come on Melbourne' than 'Come on Demons'. I've always found the Demons moniker to be cheesy.

I hate the 'Dees' term. I can hear the disparaging words of non-Melbourne supporters whenever I hear it. I occasionally say it, but I most often go with 'come on, Redlegs'. I suspect that face-lifted git from TFS also ruined the term for me. What a prat that man is.

Last week we had the likes of Weideman come crashing in and tackling off the edge of the centre square. We had our mids tackling from everywhere. Today... not so much. I wouldn't watch it again if I were you.

I reckon we'll click this year. I can't set my watch to it, but I have a feeling it'll involve Max Gawn or even Jake Spencer. Unfortunately, we have to remember that the majority of these players were not apart of the insipid Melbourne that we've lamented of years gone by. They are still developing the habits needed to bring consistency to their game and this takes time. I know sometimes Demonland provides us all a bit of solace that others are struggling through this plight with us, but sometimes it also breeds needless negativity. We had a great win against Adelaide, which showed what we can do. When we click we'll go close to that most weeks. That is a terrific benchmark. Imagine adding Gawn and a slightly more experienced Hogan (in the coming years) to that side. But short answer to the OP is this year.

How about any number of attempts to go near the ball from Dean Kent?

I think it's more telling that these guys barely laid any tackles. It's less about converting the shots, because Bugg missed all of those for us. It's more about actually bringing intensity to the forward 50, the middle of the ground and half back. These guys didn't today. It didn't help that our mids' tackles were also well down.

Oh, come on. An AFL player missing the one on 3/4 time? Is that you, Tom? That's 20 metres out and the angle is hardly acute. Disagree. I'll take finals this year. We're not a top 4 side. I'd like to pinch a final if possible, but losing one, as long as it's not a whacking sets the platform nicely for 2018.

I wonder if our doctor will submit a medical report? Hibberd's been huge for us, but a lot of the ball he got today was under duress and I thought his disposal wasn't particularly damaging despite racking up a lot of it. I suspect it was a team defence problem today though. We didn't seem to have that same run, drive or dare that we've had almost every other week this season. I think a lot of what Lewis brings is organisation and instruction out on the field. I can't be sure of this given I'm not out there, but we always appear more organised when he's out there. Was shown up for pace a few times today, but that'll happen. Doesn't mean he's not a vital part of the team. In agreement that he needs to get better though.

We were certainly outplayed, but we didn't make moves quick enough today or proactively enough. I did say that the responsibility doesn't rest solely at Goody's feet, but I think the coaches box was somewhat culpable today.

I would have moved McDonald into the ruck earlish in the third. Pedersen was good in the second term because he started jumping into Goldstein and we started to dominate the clearances as Goldstein wasn't allowed to do what he wanted. As soon as the second half started, you could see Pedersen wasn't jumping into Goldstein in the same way and Goldstein was dealing with him easily. That's when you pull the trigger on McDonald. You brief him at half time and say we're gonna keep going with Pedo as he's giving us a real contest at the moment, but if things go against us, we'll throw you in the ruck and try and keep them guessing and catch them off guard. I also wouldn't have played Hunt. I would have gone Melksham or even Harmes. Probably Harmes actually. But let's put that issue to the side for a moment... I would have moved Frost onto Brown when he started to dominate, but we stuck with Oscar. Okay, Waite may have been too clever for Oscar, but give him a chance to prove himself and switch things back if it doesn't work. Oscar on Brown wasn't working though. I would have kept Hibberd on Mason Wood and made sure Frost could run off Brown. Make Brown accountable. That then plays with North's forward structure. I would have thrown Kent into the middle to see if it would get him going. He was pathetic. That move has worked for Watts in the past. They are in effect forced to lift their intensity. I would have played Pedersen full forward for much of the remainder of the third term and had him leading out of the square, with Watts leading away as decoy and other forwards creating space for Pedo (who is a good mark on a lead as a rule). With Pedersen forward, you can then start to experiment a little bit with Watts and maybe play him on a wing and get his ball use going inside 50 or maybe even in the middle. We didn't try any of these things. We didn't play with our spine enough and when we did it was too late.

I wish people would stop doing this. We will win games we aren't expected to and lose games we are expected to win. There's no point in looking at a fixture and saying we'll win these or lose these. We can beat anyone on our day and we showed as much last week. We just need 8 or 9 of those days for the rest of the season and we'll make finals. Great post. In complete agreement. Me too, mate. Our lack of communication today again points to the fact that we weren't switched on. The kid's name is Clayton Oliver and he's miles ahead.

Frost and... Frost. And to be fair, Hibberd is another outside runner. If Wagner could improve his kicking, he'd be another. It's very Liverpool too. Lose to the bottom sides, but play well against the top sides. First the Ducks lose this morning. Second, Melbourne lost this afternoon. And thirdly, you can bet your house on Liverpool losing tonight and dropping out of the top 4. All my teams. I think I'm attracted to the perennial loser. Maybe I'm the loser. My wife thinks I'm a hopeless loser. Sorry about that. I kept typing what I was thinking. Haha, I said the same thing to my old man and sister. Well, there's karma for laughing at Richmond yesterday. Disagree. It's a lot simpler than that. We didn't bring the required work rate. And whenever you do that, your system fails and anyone even a 17th placed North, can beat you. Did we lack height and speed last week?

How was the deliberate trip on Petracca after he'd marked it and was about to take off? Textbook fifty metres if I ever saw one. But nothing. I don't think we did ourselves any favours today, but had the umpiring been just a little bit more balanced, we may have snatched it. There was a lot of staging going on from our guys today. Bugg was tripped in the same spot that Petracca was, but Petracca got straight up and looked for options. Bugg threw his arms back like he was in a Shakespeare play. Yeah, Josh Kelly would be nice, but on Cunnington, we just let him go about his business and Oliver on multiple occasions was poorly positioned to stop him. Smart move by that prat, Scott. He's a terrible kick as a rule. I almost fell out of my seat when he kicked that good set shot last week against Adelaide. What we got today from Bugg is what we'll get most weeks. He's not up to standard.

3 of his attempts I can recall were 20m out pretty much directly in front. I'm glad he's a fringer, because he's the biggest down hill skier you'd ever see.

It's why I didn't cheer them off at half time (when we were still down on the scoreboard to the 17th placed side), because you could see our lapse coming in the third and we'd played so poorly in the first quarter in the first place! But we never looked like it today. Not once. Not even when Hunt had a clear opportunity to goal and put us in front at the start of the third, but instead was run down.

Thought he certainly earned another game off the back of last week. He wasn't up to it enough today though.

Can't disagree with much of that, mate. In positive news, Wagner hit his first target for the season today. It took him until the third quarter.

Have a read of these numbers and tell me our guys worked hard enough... TACKLE COUNT: Viney - 9 tackles (continues to lead the way in that department) Pedersen - 7 tackles (terrific effort and a surprising stat) Jones - 5 tackles (not enough when you're playing in the guts, but passable - certainly didn't set the tone enough though) And then the rest of the entire [censored] team had the following: Bugg, Frost, Garlett, Petracca, Wagner - 3 tackles each (Bugg and Garlett need to bring more pressure than this) Hunt, Jetta, Kent, McDonald, Oliver and Tyson - 2 tackles each (Hunt, Kent, Oliver and Tyson show with these lack of tackles that their heads weren't in it) When then had Hannan, Lewis, Salem and Watts on a solitary tackle each. That is not good enough for the game style we want to play. What was our bar last week? It certainly wasn't 1 tackle. Not good enough. And to round things out our two skinny KPPs in McDonald and Weideman failed to register a single tackle. Weideman did a couple of nice things in the second half, but fell over, was pushed off it and defenders waltzed past him far too easily in the first half - and he failed to bring the ball to ground like he had done the previously week. Yes, our ball movement didn't help that, but our forwards inability to tackle allowed simple Kangaroo transition for pretty much the entire game. The tackle stat is clearly one of the KPIs for Goodwin's game style. No way Kent keeps his spot next week. I expect Harmes or ANB will replace him. EDIT. Harmes and ANB for Bugg and Kent. It's a bit deck chairsy though.

We couldn't get any run going from half back and it showed how important our half backs have been to our drive and offence this year. North's tackling pressure wouldn't have hamstrung our half backs if the rest of the team were willing to work.

You could tell in the first minutes that we weren't on and that we'd lose. It really was that simple. We were fumbly, made poor decisions, refused to work for each other off the ball and refused to take the game on (except for Frost on a couple of occasions). North's pressure was great and we had minimal answers on the ground or in the coaches box. And why the hell was Frost off the ground for close to 10 minutes at a crucial point in the game? It saw his man kick one and North kick away by 2 and a half. I can understand Oliver being off at that time, which he was, as a midfielder you expect that, but your most important defender? I dunno. Oliver was really well held today, but it was easily his worst game. I can't recall so many of his disposals missing the target. And that dropped uncontested mark in the goalsquare. You just knew we weren't going to win it then. Likewise, Petracca and Hunt both being run down. The captains were terrific last week, but made multiple stupid decisions, which cost us. Their form is emblematic of where we are at. Jones in particular. He's far too inconsistent for an experienced leader. Goodwin was thoroughly outcoached today and the coaches box simply had no answers, but the players made his job pretty difficult when they refused to bring any work rate. We had so many players down today, but kudos to @Redleg who picked Hannan's breakout game. He showed he can play in the midfield and up forward, can win the ball in the air and be dangerous once the ball hits the deck. More negatively, I reckon Kent is just about on the trade table if anyone will take him. He was insipid again this week. Teamwise, my hope is that these losses eventually start to burn in these players and they finally say enough is a [censored] enough and find that level of consistency that is required to be a good football side. I still think we'll make finals and I still think we'll go on a run at some point this season, but as I've also said a few times, we'll win some we expect to lose and lose some we expect to win. This was a bad, bad day though.

Our forwards have laid 1 tackle. 1 [censored] tackle. You don't win games of football playing like that.

Traidbait, Dean Kent. Looks like a footballer, plays like an under 12.

Yep, I'd be concerned too, but I'd also understand that bigger blokes take time. Agreed that if it's linked to his diabetes it is a problem though. But much of the criticism isn't linked to this it seems.

The people down on McCartin shows what a stupid industry this is. How many times have we seen the same thing? A young KPP struggling in his first 5 or so years. It's driven by a media machine that is looking for a short term story and an ignorant football supporting audience that doesn't understand development in the modern game. And before anyone mentions Jesse, he is a very special talent. That is not to say McCartin won't be, but as others have already done, I'd point to Weideman. He will take time. Love that we have Trac though. Will be a superstar.

If that's all it took, you'd do that every day of the week...