Adam The God

I reckon it'd be even better if we gave Clarry another week off and beat them anyway.

I'm confident either way, with or without Clarry. Our mids will be under pressure to step up if Clarry doesn’t play. That'd hold us in good stead.

If Daicos can't get the same amount of ball because we beat them in the contest and pressure the outside ball, he becomes less of a problem. I think we've got the best system, it just has more evolution to come.

Exactly. So it's not about covering him on kick ins. You back your system in to beat theirs and have players responsible in each phase of the contest and area of the ground. And you set yourselves up to score big on turn over. Tick. Which means they'll be -1 in the back half. If they choose to send another half forward or winger up to the contest to be a +2 at the contest, that makes them -1 at either end of the ground. I'd suggest that what many of us have said, RE Smith playing a defensive role on Moore will also come to fruition. This means the rest of our forwards have a +1 advantage and hopefully Smith can take out their best interceptor. I'm really hoping we give Clarry another week off and we test ourselves against them without the best contested player in the league.

This is another reason we've tried to model our game on theirs and early in the season, our accuracy was very much like theirs in key games last year. But much of this is about where their players kick goals from. Often very central positions.

I don't mind him taking kick ins. And I suspect neither will we. It's the outside work that we'll try to stifle.

I hope Collingwood go tall and then it pours down.

Well, it's interesting, on their defensive 1v1s mentioned in my previous post, according to the AFL ap, Daicos of the Nick variety, hasn't had a 1v1 this year or hasn't won one. He's 0.0%. He doesn't intercept, he doesn't even rebound heavily. He's a good old fashioned loosey goosey receiver. He knows the right spots to get into and is an elite kick, and he has a great tank. Will be fascinating if we put extra time into him. I'd imagine we'll have a plan for him in each area of the ground, but I can't imagine we'll do much more than that. We'll back our system.

I never go near Level 2, 3 or 4. It happens every week on Level 1.

We were still allowing -1s at the contest against Carlton.

Because the attraction for me is live football. The food and beverages have nothing to do with it. Each to their own, until of course you start blocking my view because you're off to get another round...

You're not one of those MCC members who leaves their scarves across seats to save them, while you're off having dinner are you? Because as the attendants always say, you're not supposed to do this. It's prohibited. That particular approach gives me the S's. We pay $10 a ticket to reserve seats at the big games. It's worth it. Then we can turn up whenever we want.

I wonder what crowds would be like if there was no alcohol served at the footy. I go to watch the footy, not network or to have drinks with my mates. As far as I'm concerned, you may as well stay at home if you spend half your time in the bar. But again, some MCC nuffies go purely to network. I'm not advocating no alcohol at games btw, just that I think a significant portion of the crowd wouldn't attend without it. It's become so engrained in the fabric of footy. The last few weeks in the MCC has been intolerable. People stand up in front of you 25-30 times a game, mid play. They don't even wait for stoppages anymore. I'm sorry to hear this about your co-worker. That's pathetic.

IMV, this is what makes him stand out from the rest of our defenders, other than maybe Bowey. Once he gets a little stronger, he could well become that Nev Jetta lockdown type, but with an offensive ability that Jetts never really had. He's been a great pick up. Struggled for a few weeks there, but unlike some of his team mates, seemed rejuvenated on Friday night.

The commentators and many Demonlanders too. You watch.

I agree. The quietness of Melbourne crowds do my head in. They're not always quiet, but often they're quiet at the wrong times. I remember going to a game against Port at the G in the early 2000s. There was something like 12k there. It sounded like 50k, so we can make noise (think Geelong and Hawthorn 2018 finals as well), but we don't do it consistently. And I have to say, sitting in the MCC, there are so many Melbourne people that just simply don't understand the rules or have a decent feel for the game. But all clubs have nuffies.

FMD, Steve, fancy complaining others aren't turning up when you're swanning around in Europe.

Spot on. I think the point stands though. They're managing him in game, it would seem likely to have him ready to go against his former team. Or maybe they'll continue doing this to balance out our reliance on him during the Gawn injury weeks.

Completely agree. We've tweaked our game style to beat Collingwood. We've become the scores from turnover kings, which is Collingwood's kryptonite, because as you say, they commit so many numbers to the contest and forward of centre, that they concede on slingshot if you can pressure them and/or win the initial stoppage contest. On resting Hibberd and having a fresh Oliver, they also clearly managed Grundy in game last week, playing only 67% TOG.

As I said in my previous post, if you're fatigued, it makes sense that you would tend to go wider and to the easier options. If we time our fitness program again like we did in 2021, so that we're running on top of the ground in the those final rounds and into finals, you'll see more central ball movement and therefore the stronger likelihood of greater accuracy. It's all interlinked. You can't maintain that sort of ball movement for 23 weeks. You go through ebbs and flows with fitness. As you acknowledge, our ball movement earlier in the season was very different to our last few weeks. It'll return at the back half of the season. Let's hope we have the personnel on the park to ensure the scores are big.

If you think about the forward structure during the H&A season in 2021 and then the last few rounds into the finals, it was chalk and cheese, and we went far more centrally.

That was me I think. I noticed it on the MCC side, where I sit. When we were defending in the 2nd or 3rd. It's not something we kept up all game, it's a bit like the Richmond 2nd or 3rd quarter where I noticed it. I'd be intrigued to know whether anyone else is spotting this too. And as I said in that post, we didn't stick to it on transition. We played a zone when Carlton switched the ball to the other side of the ground.

I'm not sure if it's supported by data, but to my eye at least, we seem to have varied our ball movement as fatigue has set in too. Earlier in the season, we were going very centrally to the central 20m out hotspot, and the last 2-3 weeks we've reverted to the pockets, and it's seen accuracy decrease. I wonder if it's a deliberate thing. Like, the coaches have said, look, fatigue will hit you earlier in games/you'll carry it in with you to games, and so take the easier options when they present. And that means not having to defend corridor/central slingshot, so entries become wider and safer towards the boundary. But with this, comes greater inaccuracy.

I agree OD. We need to kick straight. It's less about field kicking for me, obviously that's important, but it's about trying to replicate our early season accuracy.

And sorry, I've missed this. How are the team ratings calculated?