Adam The God

I get this just about every week, but this overweight Geelong supporter wanted to start a fight with me for talking. I wasn't swearing, I was simply my vocal self. Occasionally, antagonistic but mostly just watching the football. His on the spectrum 6 year old son also didn't like me talking or supporting my team. In fact, he would turn around and give my sister the death-stare whenever she spoke, so I decided I'd sit behind him and block his vision of her. When Kent scored his goal to put us up by 15 points, the kid was livid and the fat-her couldn't contain himself. Having been down to Geelong many times, for a club that has still only won 11 flags (3 in the past 15 years), they've been a thoroughly unsuccessful and underachieving club for just as long as us, and their supporters have no excuse for smugness. They're going nowhere and Scott, like his brother, is an ordinary coach.

Spot on. I woke up filthy this morning. I can't wait to take it out on Freo next week. I hope the players and coaches woke up feeling the same thing. I want to smash Fyfe, McCarthy and the Hills.

Great post. Completely agree about the system methodology. I think Misson said he was at least a couple of weeks off in the most recent 'Injury Update'. 3-4 weeks from memory.

He's not a starting mid. He's nowhere near as slick in the heat of the midfield. Turns it over and panics. Has a real swagger going now in the forwardline though.

We've pursued business very quietly over the last few years. Not all of it has come off, but we're very good at keeping our heads down, but putting feelers and deals out there. The upside to Melbourne is extraordinary and the media and the football world are starting to wake up to this. If we make the eight this year and even win a final, we'll be hot property for trade targets and Victorians looking to come home. We're not in the North basket - a list of pretenders that never had the list to take them all the way. Reminded me of Melbourne under Daniher.

This would be my biggest concern. Would Shiel be on $500k at GWS? They have a lot of talent to pay to keep them up in that hellhole. I just wonder if that would get it done. It may not. I might be dreaming, but doesn't mean I wouldn't try. And Toby Greene isn't a midfielder. He's a very, very good half forward. One of the best in the league for the last year, hence the AA wraps, but he isn't a mid.

Yep, we'd have to trade, but if we can convince him to nominate us, that'll go a long way to a deal being done. Given our good trading history with GWS, I reckon we could get the deal done. The way they're intent on spreading the age of their list, I wonder if GWS would take our next two first rounders? At this point, I'd back Jason Taylor with second and third round picks to keep improving our list.

Agree with the sentiment, Moonie, but not the targets. I'd be having a big crack at a Dylan Shiel (he is out of contract at the end of 2017). Quick, ball magnet, perfect age bracket (ready to explode) and disposal is improving. Dusty and Fyfe are too expensive and Shiel is two years younger than both.

Tells me Adelaide's midfield works a lot harder than ours. As our midfield progresses, and it's making great gains, we'll find Oscar becomes even sturdier as a defender. He stills plays a bit like ANB, in that he can panic, but I suspect that's an experience thing.

Slightly digressional, but Stretch's speedy development is something that has far exceeded expectations, surely? His sound decision-making and speed add so much to our midfield. I hadn't previously included him in the same conversation as Oliver, Viney, Tyson, Petracca, Brayshaw, Jones, Lewis, Salem and Vince, but he now sits alongside them and compliments them well. He had a terrific first half yesterday (aside from one costly clanger). What he's now adding to his game is the ability to find the ball consistently. He gets himself into good positions, which makes the opposition accountable.

It's worth noting that even in a game where he started with a hard tag and wasn't at his best, he still managed 28 disposals, 5 clearances (equal third most on the ground) and 8 tackles (third most on the ground). He is going to be a super, super player.

Agreed, but Viney is the same and isn't as maligned.

Didn't think the tackle numbers were that bad today from our half forwards. It was kicking it through the big sticks that we had the greatest trouble with.

You want to drop Tyson for butchering the ball and you suggest replacing him with Tomas Bugg? Tyson was horrible today, but worked himself into it last week and usually takes a few weeks to get going after injury. He's become one of the most maligned players on Demonland.

Yep, slightly better, but still way off the pace. He was coming from a low base. There was a moment today where Oliver dished out to Viney in a bit of space, who then had Jones in plenty of space. All Viney had to do was handball to Jones and we would have been off. Instead, he held the ball for what seemed like an eternity and was tackled, the ball spilled out and we lost our opportunity that should have been capitalised on. Viney showed again he's quite slow to think. We also know the knock on his disposal. I think there's a very easy solution for Jack to get back into playing some good footy. Keep it simple. No hero footy, take the first option and he'll start to see some results. Disagree. The MC was right in its decision to go small. They brought defensive pressure. You wouldn't have a leg to stand on had we converted multiple opportunities from 30m out directly in front. Even now, you've got no leg to stand on IMO. We would have won if not for the kicking at goal. I like Pedersen but he wasn't going to win it for us today. Our kicking at goal was. And it didn't.

It's very rare that I disagree with you, mate, but I'll agree to disagree on this point. I do concur on being let down by our forwards' inability to finish though. Jetta and Hunt both kicked great goals too. Perhaps, they should show our forwards how to do it at training this week? Disagree. We don't need another guy who can't kick.

Just a really ordinary post this. Did you watch the game or are you trolling?

Yep, agreed, mate. I do find it slightly staggering though that our guys had to be told not to kick it on top of the small Melbourne forwards' heads, to the advantage of KPBs from Geelong. Surely, our strategy going into the game was to ensure we lowered our eyes and kicked to space for our zippy small forwards to run into? It wasn't to be, but I was strangely confident at quarter time that we were bossing the game to that point and that if we cleaned up our frankly stupid forward entries, we'd start to turn things our way. I was right, but unfortunately that goalkicking of ours never improved. I think Freo will attack us. They played a good brand of footy against the Dogs and got the job done. We'll have to play well next week to beat them. And ANB came off the back of the centre square a couple of times uncontested and his poor ball-handling meant he couldn't gather and keep the ball moving. The backwards kick at the start of the last quarter that completely swung the momentum and cost us a goal, was the right option, but poorly executed.

Yuck. Spencer in for Gawn. The rest to prove that today was an aberration.

I think it's fair to say our defenders struggled today. Geelong looked like marking or scoring every time they went inside 50. Our defence was superb last week. It was pretty ordinary this week. Fancy letting Hawkins mark uncontested on the goal line and that wasn't the only defensive oversight.

Yeah, it's my feeling a bit too. Ironic, isn't it? His decision-making is still a real worry. What I like about him now is that at least he's shown he can find the ball at this level. But just about every time he gets it, you can see him [censored] himself. He has no idea what to do with it. So he's not a great natural decision-maker. I hope this improves, but there's still certainly a question mark over him IMO. Yep. Indeed. We don't have that killer edge that top 4 sides have. Way off, IMO. We absolutely dominated them and simply didn't convert. That's inexperience and sometimes you have those days.

I felt like it was a pretty even performance from our team. I'm a massive Tyson fan and felt he was a big reason for our win last week, but he was very ordinary today. Potentially, one of his worst games for the club. Nah. If you want to dedicate the loss to anyone, it'd be to half our team who missed sitters in front of goal multiple times. Those two being out didn't impact on the result. Weideman's output today was about even with his first two games this season. The fact that Hogan's work rate compensates a bit of what Weideman can't offer at this stage is I guess that influence you're talking about.

If we'd won today given the lack of Gawn, the lack of Hogan and the lack of Lewis, we would be top 4 worthy. We're not top 4 worthy yet, but the progress under Goodwin seems to be steady and I'm looking forward to seeing how we respond next week.

And bookmark it - Geelong won't trouble the top 4. Still being held together by Dangerfield (27) and Selwood (29 years old in May). Those two have got 3 years at best. When they slow down, they'll be a bottom 4 side with their lack of midfield depth. Hawkins is also 29 this year, so their window is closing and they won't seriously challenge again with this current crop, which is great, because they give me the shits.

Can we start to question Vince's place in the team too? As I've said before, he won't be best 22 by the end of 2017 if his form continues. It's a strange feeling. I almost feel like we won. We dominated the majority of the game. I don't think I've been so positive about a 5 goal loss ever. I'll back us to learn from this. We'll have these sorts of losses this year and we knew we would, but now we know our game style holds up. Despite our really poor defensive effort today and losing the clearances after Gawn went off, we still managed to get ourselves in front by 15 points at the end of the third. I hope we've planned for a lack of Gawn at some stage and against Sandilands, we may have to concede the tap and rove off him. It'll be a great test for our young midfield. Looking forward to seeing how Spencer goes too.