Adam The God

As a tongue in cheek post, I'd have to say the Comedy Festival is on this week. https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2017

I think this is all rubbish and far too early to call. When we do get momentum as a team, we could be anything this season. We still don't know how to win. When we start to learn that, I think we'll push hard for the top 8 - even if we lose to Richmond next week. Did you watch the game Dockett? Hannan wasn't brilliant, but he started the game with 3 or 4 possessions in the 5 minutes. A lot of his chasing, along with Jeffy, was key to a couple of goals in the fourth and second. He's still inexperienced, but I reckon he'll be alright in time. Had a couple of moments today that reeked of inexperience, but he was near it. Tyson won't get dropped after close to 30 touches (4th best on ground according to the radio). You don't get dropped after games like that. If a player is getting the ball that much, you work on trying to get him to become more effective with those touches. I'd start by insisting he takes the first option and ensuring he concentrates with those short mid kicks he often misses. As for Viney, I thought he was ordinary and struggled again, but he's clearly carrying and then injury and I think therefore they're sacrificing his offensive game in favour of his defensive game. It's also a great opportunity for him to learn a little more defensive running. Agreed. I think it was the first time in four matches where we played safe footy for the majority of a match. The first three weeks we played fearless footy for the majority of the game, but today we shot ourselves in the foot and weren't prepared to spread hard enough and take the riskier option. To be fair, we're younger than Freo... I think our defence is a work in progress and we've tweaked it over the summer to tighten it up a bit, but I think there'll be teething problems for the first half of the year, if not for the whole year. It's this defence that'll get us a flag in the next 4-5 years, so I'm keen to see how they continue to adjust and tweak. I think it's a bit personnel at the moment. There's not much you can do if Tom McDonald continually drops uncontested marks and Bernie Vince turns it over with little dink kicks. They are two leaders and our biggest strugglers down there at the moment. I don't think it's as bad as it seems. I think our midfield will win its fair share most weeks. We just have to make sure our mids and forwards make the most of their opportunities in front of goal. It must be said again, our goal kicking cost us two weeks in a row. Nice post.

I'm not sure if you're taking the [censored], mate, but there was certainly a really poor piece of management at the second last centre bounce for the game. We had Oliver on the wing. Why the hell would we not have a guy who had 10 clearances in the middle for that all important centre break? Viney had just kicked the goal to put us back in front. It should have been Jones, Viney and Oliver in the middle. Really poor organisation.

I think this is the big one. Leadership was atrocious today. Jones had an ordinary game. As did Viney. Tom McDonald was terrible. This all said, had Kent been able to kick on his non preferred foot, something they've practiced all pre season, that score would have snapped the momentum in the third and I think we would have won the game.

I'll say he will be, BRFE. Who's going to take his place? The thing about an inside player that knows how to get easy possessions is that when he tidies up his outside disposal, he'll be a really damaging player. His first half, despite getting it a lot, was terrible. Thought once again though, he played a really good final quarter.

I agree with this, but at the same time, we did need a tall to take their bigger defenders IMO. And he did bring the ball to ground quite a few times. My biggest knock at this stage is his tank. He struggles for repeat efforts. He also finds himself a little lost on the ground at times and leads up a little too high. He's better out of the square. When he finds himself 45-50m out, it's too easy for defenders to whisk the ball away and there's little implied pressure because the entry isn't deep. I would have liked to see him lead back to the square harder at times. I think the Weideman 'out' call will probably come as Hogan will no doubt we back next week. What might save Weeds is he plays marginally better with Hogan by his side, who compensates for the work rate Weideman lacks at this stage. Hogan's movement also opens up space deeper for Weeds. Anyway, I think it might be time for a Weideman rest.

Oh and agree with those knocking Dom's kicking in the first half. It was dreadful. I think he hit 1 target in about 10. I'm a fan but he needs to fix his disposal by foot in a big way.

We're a work in progress on a number of fronts. Our zone defence is tighter than it was last year, but it's still got a long way to go. Even Jetts struggled at times today. Jetts is one, but we need another regular winner back there. T McDonald is a 24 year old KPB with over 100 games under his belt. He should be dominating ala Rance of 2013-2016. But his consistency for a player of his experience is worrying. Do we really have to go after a FA KPD or a young KPD? We've invested so heavily in McDonald that we really need him to improve. Our ball movement is also a work in progress. We really overused the ball at times today, particularly across our half forward arc. A couple of times when we should have gone to 1-on-1s inside forward 50, we decided to handball back and ended up using a Melksham type who had to kick on his wrong foot with a really shallow entry that failed to put the defence under any real pressure. We had a number of passages today where we got plenty of numbers to the contest, sometimes 4 or 5 Demons to 1 Freo player and still managed to either lose it or the Freo player would neutralise the contest. What I had hoped after last week was that we'd be really hurting and wanting to rectify our win that should have been against Geelong. Instead, we came out sluggishly and I wonder whether the coaches needed to harness this hurt a little more. Further, when we did come to play in the second quarter, we then completely stopped at half time. It seemed as if we thought we had it won at half time. Freo's pressure had dropped off and we'd managed to get a handy lead. Oliver was terrific, though even he at times overused it, and Jeffy was brilliant yet again. This week more than ever though, we missed Lewis' experience and Hogan's presence up forward. It would have been interesting to see how we handled the third quarter had Lewis been out there. How [censored] costly are those two suspensions looking?

I wanted to punch something on the way out of the ground. I was that frustrated. I swear I'm one of the only supporters in the MCC who actually uses their voice. It's supposed to be a home game with 28,000 (mostly) Melbourne supporters and it sounded like a library for the majority of the game. I know we've had some lean years, but I would have thought we'd be a lot louder these days.

Tom McDonald as a defender today. Was he playing in protest at his brother's dropping? What a mug of a game.

I said at the start of the season that unless Vince improved his kicking big time, he wouldn't be best 22 by the end of 2017. I'm not sure he has a position anymore. He shouldn't be getting games ahead of our young mids (except maybe ANB) and he is a liability by foot with fancy little dink kicks that constantly put team mates under pressure. He's too slow for half forward, so maybe it is time to give him a spell at Casey? I'd normally say we couldn't afford a leader out, especially with Lewis already on the sidelines, but Vince does play like a leader, so it might be time for the VFL.

Well, this potentially answers my assumption.

I'm quietly confident about today. Our response to last week's disappointing conversion rate and a Max Gawn-less team, should provide enough impetus to get the job done. Either way, I have a feeling this is a game that will really tell us where our baby Demons are at.

Agreed. If we'd converted early on we would have had the petrol tickets to get home. And not only that, I think we'd have kept going just as hard.

There's certainly a similarity in form that cannot be denied, but personally, I think both will be very good players. As you say though, the diabetes condition would worry me as a Saints fan. This comes from a bit of an ignorant place though. I'd just assume diabetes and elite sportsperson wouldn't mix, but I could be entirely wrong.

He's the sort of player that kids would love. He's not as consistent as the Wizard, nor does he kick as big bags, but his pace and x-factor would bring kids through the gates. Can any parents testify to this?

It's all well and good to froth over Sydney, but they've had ridiculous access to talent with their northern academy. Heeney and Mills would both be Demons if they weren't tied to those zones as we nominated both players in each draft. Personally, I hold very little admiration for them. As we all know, the AFL can't afford them to slip down the table for too long, so they're granted every wish. This doesn't guarantee success (as we've seen with GCS), but it does give them a bloody good head start on the rest of the competition.

Yep. Shut up, Adam.

Haha. Indeed. And Tassie for the Hawks.

How can the Bulldogs be sponsored by Work Safe Victoria? Surely, government organisations can't sponsor sporting organisations. Weird.

And then the kick on the siren. I just laughed.

If the Dogs win this there'll be top 4. Top 4 sides win games like this even when they've been so poor.

Agreed. I'll be intrigued to see how the Crows play teams on the G. I could see us beating them there. We gave them a good run for their money last year. It's shaping as a season (a bit like 2005 and 2006), where anyone could win it and there is no team that would fit the term 'powerhouse'.

If the Bulldogs lose this, that may be important for our own finals aspirations. The Roos won't threaten this season, so I don't mind them winning one.

That was when we were a 7 win team. We should be a team pushing for a flag by 2019. Different situation I think.