Adam The God

Totally, it's certainly not over.

A fresh Bailey Laurie struggled to get the distance on his snap from 25m. Sharp missed from directly in front, snapping, but under 12s type stuff, no pressure, an easy around the body shot. Melksham 30m straight in front in the last. Kozzy's in the first. 20m out. That's 4 right there.

Lowest pressure match under Goodwin too, I believe. Let's wait to see the pressure stats on that count, but if you don't bring pressure, you let them transition the ball from one end of the ground to the other, and have simple marks at the top of the goal square. Didn't Butler have all his goals from the top of the square? You can't let Wanganeen-Milera run around by himself though.

Hang on, hang on, hang on. We had 8 more scoring shots, most of our 28 shots on goal were extremely gettable. No one was good today except May, but to put this on the midfield misses the point. Like the first half last week, and so many times before over a long period of time, if you can't kick basic set shots, you won't win games.

The lowest pressure we've had under Goody apparently. May the only winner on the ground. Probably our worst performance since North. Kick straight though and we win by 4 or 5 goals. Turner and Melksham missing in the opening minute of the 4th basically put paid to the game. These are the sort of games we'll have unfortunately. Deeply frustrating and our conversion rate will mean we will struggle to be competitive against any side. Play like that again I hate to think what Collingwood would do to us.

Yep, agreed, history would suggest we'd bank on quantity over quality eventually leading to a higher score than the opposition in combination with strong defence behind the ball. However, as we've started to change our list over the last two years, we've now got a greater spread of better ball users. Having McVee, Salem and Windsor behind the ball; Lindsay and Langford on our wings; and Spargo and Kozzy kicking it inside, we should improve this ability to convert more inside 50s into scores and need less inside 50s to kick winning scores.

Interesting, I've never seen that, but I just go straight to Kayo for footy content.

Binge doesn't have the footy, Kayo does. They're both owned by Foxtel.

It's exactly this example that came to my mind too when Wheelo posted those stats again.

Our senior mids were the culprits. Trac, Viney and Clarry. They all dump kicked repeatedly inside. Now they're learning to give the hands or go shorter.

It just depends how flakey spots 3 to 4 are. I don't expect the Suns or Crows to be in the top 4 come the end of 2025, but I guess we'll see.

Suns lost to Freo today on their own deck. Definitely not a lock for mine.

I'm not watching it, but can anyone tell me, are we trying to play the same style as the AFL team? Surely...

Haha, plenty of spots up for grabs nonetheless.

Okay, so leading into another important game tomorrow, a win against the Saints will have us right amongst the 8. Win tomorrow and it starts to put the pressure on those shaky teams above. Namely Hawthorn and Freo. But even the Suns and the Crows have a history of choking and it's hard to get a good read on the Bulldogs and Geelong. In other words, there are plenty of spots up for grabs. Our percentage is the real watch and although if we keep improving this will take care of itself, we know as Melbourne supporters that a percentage point here or there could mean a 9th finish versus 8th (see 2017). In a strong 2-3 week block, 89.3 can turn very quickly to 100 and we're back amongst it percentage-wise. Just as GWS' 109.9 and Hawthorn's 110.2 can turn south towards 100 if they have a few slips, and Hawthorn definitely have the yips at the moment. Brisbane and Collingwood are the only rational locks for the 8, but I reckon the rest of the spots from 3rd-8th to Round 12 are up for grabs. And like scoreboard pressure within games, keeping the heat on those above us by winning games puts pressure on those with spots in the 8. We will lose games, that's a fact. I hope we don't drop tomorrow though. It is a danger game.

This post should be pinned to the top of most threads.

I don't care about other teams. That's why I just listen to the Demonland podders.

🤣 the perfect. Can come on and kick 3 against the Pies. Or even more romantically, he can kick 3 in the final quarter against his old mob the Lions. We can dream.

If Laurie does well, he has the spot for 6 weeks IMO.

Sharp is a much better sub idea than Laurie. Laurie needs a whole game to.impact and warm into it. Sharp has good assets for a sub.

The most surprising thing in this thread is that people have been bothering to listen to a footy podcast produced by The Age.

We should have given him a 10 year deal! Meanwhile, Essendon are no better than 2015. 👏 Gotta love it.

And then I'd argue won us the final against Hawthorn in 2018.

Bloody St Kilda inflating wages all over the shop.

Completely agree with the cheaper Derksen (and Aleer), and I'd also hope we're targeting a midfielder with good ball use. We don't need to spend big on a KPF IMO.