Adam The God

IMO, Melksham played a very Melksham game. Which is to say, not like last week or the Carlton Round 21 game last year. Paging @george_on_the_outer...

It'd be ironic if Petty replaced May, Tomlinson stayed in and May missed out on a premiership. ;) Never gonna happen, but if we had a fit Petty, I would seriously consider giving May a week or two to rest. I'll look forward to this. A poster without less feel for the game or the team they're following, there probably isn't.

Great post, although I think people forget that we lost the 2nd and the first 15 mins of the 3rd quarter in the GF quite comfortably. We played a great first quarter, an irresistible 10-15 mins at the end/second half of the 3rd, which knocked the stuffing out of the Bulldogs, and then we hit them with a great last quarter. So I think it's really important to remember that even in that huge GF win, we struggled to play 4 quarters. I think if we can find 4 quarters of consistent Melbourne football this year, no team will beat us.

Agree with this. I hope we play the opposition in front of us @rpfc. For example, I hope we play Collingwood exactly the same way we played them on KB, but with greater accuracy. But if we're playing Brisbane or Port, I think we could allow the game to open up a little more and go more offensive as you suggest elsewhere on this thread. He didn't do his regular radio spot on Monday morning because he was too sick, so even though he trained all week, I wondered whether this was a factor today. Because he was definitely a little bit off at times.

Great post mate. ❤️🙏

Agree with most of this mate, but not convinced Hibbo gets a game anymore. Who does he replace? I think McVee was well beaten today, but he probably gives us more offensively than Hibbo these days.

Woey... Clearly Woey... Woey was even taking some wing minutes today as Spargo does. We are getting some games into young Woey and making Charlie earn his spot. All healthy outcomes. Yep, he's a really handy 1 or 2 quarter player. I don't mean to be too hard on him, but he does tend to fade after the first half in full games. Was a really great sub today. I think we've found our super sub. He's so versatile too. You mean like Collingwood in Round 15, who were 6 goals up just prior to half time? And on the same page you claim Collingwood as premiers. Big braining posting. 👌

I'd much prefer to win the close games that we lead all day than do what Collingwood do every week, which is get outplayed and outscored for 3 quarters and then play a great 4th quarter. It's unsustainable and you wouldn't want to be relying on it in finals too often.

It was a funny old game. We were scintillating for patches of that game, our best ball movement since the first 9 rounds, completely cut them up. Our handball through the corridor and our runners forward of centre is what I hope we see more of across 3 or 4 quarters in the finals series and the lead up, because it's utterly devastating football. Topped off by accurate kicking. That's our blue print. But on the flip side, we had patches of really poor football where we failed to defend the runner (that handball receive game that Collingwood love), lost critical 1v1s repeatedly (May has had his two worst games for Melbourne two weeks on a row, a deadset liability in the contest and ball in hand most of the time) and gave away silly free kicks (think Melksham in the last - we had them pinned in for a forward 50 stoppage, he gives away a silly free kick, then mouths off and concedes a 50m penalty - pressure valve released for Adelaide). I thought Max's ruck work was superb for most of the game. I'd argue it was his best connection with the mids all season, but around the ground he dropped too many marks/was spoiled too often. And to me, this is where Grundy has huge value in being able to give Max longer chop outs in the ruck and provide the team with an additional tall target around the ground, so it's not Max being clobbered every contested marking situation. I'm not totally sure whether they'll go 2 or 3 KPFs at the pointy end, but Grundy probably gives us a similar contest to both JVR and BB today. And maybe that's fine if we have a firing Fritta? I thought Viney was great (I know he was buggered, but Smith's goal in the last was a direct result of Jack not being able to go with him though); Trac had a funny game, very dominant but also sloppy at points; Kozzy and Chandler were a terrific 1-2 act, and doesn't straight kicking make Chandler look like a completely different player? Tomlinson was also solid and Rivers explosive off half back. It was probably Gus' best game for the year too IMO. But back to the forward set up, I felt the balance was off last week given how easily Brisbane kicked some of their transition goals from the back half, and again, this week, we allowed the runner off half back to repeatedly get handball receives and move the ball through the corridor. My feeling is it's either personnel or what we're trying to do with our ball movement. By which I mean, we seem to be pushing quite a few of our forwards up the ground, so that there's then space in behind for our forwards to slingshot back into. The problem with this is, there's not enough defence from behind the opposition kicker at their half back. So we're seeing handball receives or simple uncontested possessions from half back and it's setting up scoring chains against us. Would be great to know how many points Adelaide scored from back half chains too. And for large portions of the game, we actually lost the territory battle. Unusual, particularly given we won CP and stoppage. I don't want to have a go at Woey Jnr, because he's a young player and I think he'll have a good future (kicked a great goal and did a couple of nice things too), but the last two weeks in particular, he seems to have been really lost in our zone a fair bit, and I wonder if just one chink in the chain at half forward for us is enabling the opposition to score from defensive half chains in the manner they have. I think ultimately Spargo will replace him, whether it's next week or the week after, but is that enough to fix our inability in the last fortnight to defend transition from the back to the front? Anyway, very happy to take the 4 points, and I hope we get Clarry back soon, because I felt JJ faded quite noticeably in the second half and struggled at half forward. Top 2 is still a shot, although I think Brisbane may well go ahead of Port now, and with Brisbane's superior percentage to us at this stage, it's going to be a hard road finishing top 2 unless we have some big wins (North and Hawthorn?) and win every game from here.

And without Walker, we win the game easily. I think Jack was just buggered. He put in a huge shift today. So much so that he couldn't go with Smith for one of those last goals.

Conversely, Collingwood have only beaten Port twice and lost to us and Brisbane. I agree though, top 4 teams are very evenly matched and then there's daylight between the rest of the comp. Geelong would lead the rest of the pack, but away from Geelong are very middle of the road.

I'd like to see it too, but I'd rather we started rolling him through the midfield first.

He did some nice things, but was completely lost in the zone more than once. I thought he'd be dropped this week, but I'm glad they're persisting. Only one way to learn your way through a zone. It's to play in it more often. It's not like small forwards at Casey are really pushing their case strongly.

I very rarely listen to footy analysis outside of the Demonland podders. This is why. Stop doing it to yourself, Binners! 🤣

Yeah, I don't blame the defenders necessarily. I blame the mids and the half forwards frankly. I'm on record saying I felt our forward mix was off. What we gave to score, meant we almost gave up too many scores the other way. May really struggled, but the rest of the defenders held up their end of the bargain and I expect May to be better this week. If it's Round 20 or 21 or even better, a final, are we allowing those transition goals? Probably not and I would certainly hope not. I'd add Hipwood's goal late in the 3rd on the boundary too. Left footer remember. There was definitely some brilliant goal kicking on display.

But the majority of their back half chains in the third for example (4 of 5 goals from defensive half chains) seemed to start from stationary plays. So the press doesn't come into effect. The zone sits there, but there's no press. When Brisbane would gain possession in the back half, it seemed they were able to find a short option that the zone would then muzzle. The kicker or would switch back again, and Brisbane players would find themselves in metres and metres of space on the opposite wing. They'd then move the ball along the wing without us getting anywhere near one of their players and certainly nowhere near the ball, and kick goals. Coast to coast. It happened more than once. We rarely give up in a coast to coast goal in a 10 game stretch these days, let alone 2 or 3 in the same quarter. I'd be staggered if Chaplin and co were happy with our zone defence and our work rate in defensive transition for the majority of the second and third quarters.

As it turned halfway through the first. I think we were really on top for the first 15-20 minutes of the first and for 5-10 minutes of the 3rd and all of the 4th. I agree we're not there yet with our collective ability to cover the ground yet. I don't expect this until Round 20ish (ie the Richmond game). And that's quite possible that the short kicking game had to be abandoned by the Lions as they tired. It's not the short chipping game that's beaten us in the past though IMO. That's usually up one wing or through the corridor without switching. And our zone should protect against the switch, because it did on the first kick, but when the ball returned to the opposite side of the field, it was too easy for Brisbane to transition the ball without us touching an opponent. To me that's a work rate thing, but we'll agree to disagree I guess.

And DB has absolutely no agenda here at all...

We also didn't transition effectively and reset our zone backwards and forwards from either wing. We transitioned once and all it took was another switch back to the original spot to then have players out everywhere on the original side. That's a focus and work rate thing from us. And good work rate and synergy from them. At the end of the day, we need to play 4 quarters and we managed a half (if I'm being kind) against Brisbane. You can rarely get away with that against the very top sides. It's just we happened to spank them when we were on top and made the most of our chances.

Two of those guys are playing on the inside, while one guy is swanning around like Fabio on a wing by himself. Completely bad faith comparison... The better comparison would be pur wingers, Langdon (73% DE) and Hunter (66.7% DE). The AFL ap says Smith's DE in 2023 is 66.4%, so not sure where you got yours from, but we signed Hunter for cheap and he's playing a solid role. Have no idea why we'd want another winger. If he came for free, sure, but he won't.

Thanks mate. So your take on this stuff with Reid is West Coast posturing or are they targeting multiple top 10 picks?

The FD clearly don't trust Tomlinson on really big KPFs and that's fair, I reckon, based on his form earlier in the year. His best game was against Collingwood, who really only had Cox. I reckon we would have been worried about Hipwood or Daniher with Tomlinson. Tomlinson might be an okay match up for Fogarty, but even he might be too strong. My gut is they're going to try and play Petty again this week and rest him against Richmond. Time will tell.

@Pennant St Dee, I asked you earlier in this thread mate, whether there's any chance Curtin could get through to our pick (say West Coast go with Reid) and if he did, would we take Curtin. What are your thoughts currently? Please and thank you. 🙏

Agreed. But if we finished 2nd, we'd be playing Port or Brisbane at the MCG. Probably Port. I can't see Brisbane finishing top 2 now, but I've been wrong before.

The absolute ideal scenario is us hosting Port or Brisbane at the MCG in a QF. But I concede this is very unlikely, it could happen though and that's a better outcome than Collingwood in a QF. We can win the flag from 4th, 3rd or 2nd.