Adam The God

Did people actually watch the Geelong game? Stewart was okay against us, but I keep reading how Stewart dominated us. He only had 8 intercept possessions for the entire night, Henry had 9, and IMV was more influential that Stewart. But far and away the most influential interceptor and defensive player on the ground that night was Lever with a game high 14 intercepts and then Rivers with 12, yet it was apparently Geelong's interceptors that dominated us. How about we didn't kick straight and that's where the game was lost? 23 scoring shots each. Kick straight against the Saints and we win.

Whilst it's potentially the weakest forwardline on paper in 3 years, we generate a lot of scoring shots from our mids. It'd be nice if our half backs pushed up a little more and hit the scoreboard too. Last week we had Trac kick 0.4, Langdon 1.0, Hunter 0.2, Sparrow 0.2 and Viney 0.1. That's potentially 10 goals from midfield in ridiculously wet and difficult conditions. Under the roof at Marvel, I expect us to be able to generate 20+ shots at goal. We just need to kick straighter. St Kilda over the last 5 games have managed 18 scoring shots against Hawthorn (a loss), 20 scoring shots against Sydney (a win), 15 scoring shots against Richmond (a loss), 16 scoring shots against Brisbane (a loss), 25 scoring shots against the Eagles (a win). In each game, their opponent has had more scoring shots against than St Kilda, except against the Eagles, where St Kilda managed 8 more scoring shots. We should get the chocolates here, particularly, if May can blunt King and keep him to a goal or two. Just kick the [censored] thing straight and finish off your hard work, Melbourne.

Kozzy is also playing significantly more TOG. As an example, he played 93% TOG against GWS. An insane number for a small forward, and clearly it's robbing him of creativity and energy. I just hope that strategy pays off in the end and we can use him in CBs again like we did in the first 9-10 Rounds.

So that's a no, you won't be attending on Saturday?

Agree that's very likely.

Not with King and Caminiti forward. Goody intermated they won't be tweaking the defensive 7 anymore too.

Melksham gets to 100 games with the club this week doesn't he?

Fascinating selections. So Smith or Chandler the sub? We seem to have gone away from the three tall forward set up, and will go with Brown and Gawn/Grundy. Melksham is near the end, if not done, and I don't like his chances of impacting this week. Aside from Kozzy and maybe Brown, there's not much to get excited about in the forward half. We're going to have to get a few goals out of Trac and our mids too.

But also the fact we took our chance in 2021 relieves the pressure moving forward. I just hope we can keep the rest of the list fit and keep our top 4 spot. If we do, we're still a huge chance this year. Just need to start converting our chances in front of goal.

Maybe 3.5 hours 😉. But I deliberately aim to arrive 10 mins before the bounce.

I also have an MCC/MFC membership and have a two year old son. I prioritise the footy for 3 hours on a weekend, but each to their own. I know not everyone is like that.

I don't have a problem with Marvel at all. Parking is just as easy as the G (since there's barely any parking at the G anymore) and you're much closer to the game at Marvel. I find the atmosphere to be brilliant. The Bulldogs game last year was extremely loud. Reckon people might be snobs. 😉

I give up with you, East Bentleigh.

Are you going this week, Steve? The team really needs your help with their arousal levels.

If you can't hit difficult kicks, you're hardly going to change the angle. And you shouldn't. You should play the percentages. This is why getting better users forward of centre has merit.

It's interesting, because Marvel is a very fast deck, you don't wanna carry too many big guys, it'll ping out quickly on slingshot if the exits are vulnerable.

Unless they do what @GCDee suggested and bring in Tomlinson and play Petty forward.

Is that Gawny in the background saying 'Good one, Ooz'? 🤣 And you can't say we're careful with selection. This is a huge game to be debuting someone in.

Taj to debut. Fascinating. Wonder if this means Hunter or Bowey go forward... Just announced on the MFC Insta account that he'll debut this week.

Pity about Jake Rogers. Looks like he'd suit our mids beautifully.

To be clear, I'm reading between the lines here. When asked about JVR's VFL form, he said "we sent him back with some clear things that we wanted him to work on and he's started to implement them throughout his training and throughout his performance, so that was really pleasing..." He then continued with "...he's a good kid, he's gone back and he's gonna work on some things and when he comes back in, he's gonna come back in a better player." Goody was then asked whether ideally they'd give JVR more time in the VFL, with the questioner implying that if JVR has some things to work on at VFL level, would an ideal scenario be JVR playing at VFL level longer. Goody responded with "yeah, look, he's still 19, you know, he's still learning his craft, he's still learning his forward craft play at AFL standard, confidently every week. You know, in his first 12 games, he's kicked 17 goals. I'm sure in his next 12 he's gonna have even a bigger impact, not only on the scoreboard, but in how he plays the game. We're really confident that if we keep developing him the right way, that in the long term, we're gonna have an absolute beauty of a player for us. Ah, that's our plan for him. Is to develop him the right way and make sure that he's ready to play to really elite level of AFL footy throughout his whole career."

So going by Goody's presser, it seems like no JVR this weekend.

Was it a closed training session?

Ancient history with a different management team. The current team have overseen 2022 and 2023. And I don't have a particular problem with Clarry arguing his case on the training track...

It does seem like we stuffed up management last year and we're possibly stuffing it up again...