Binmans PA

Ooooh, here we go. Demonland's time to shine.

Why are you shouting the whole time, Picket? My internet ears hurt.

We were not the two best sides in it that year...

It's not a huge elephant room. We wanted to keep him and were [censored] off when he sought a trade to GWS, when we were giving him game time, had invested in his development as an NGA and then a primary listed player.

Yep, I'd be getting in his ear at the end of this season and saying Max has one year to go (particularly if we win the flag this year), and the ruck mantel at Melbourne is yours from 2025.

It was the right move from both parties.

I was behind him, so we knew as soon as it left his boot. Amazing.

Also, you never had the same sorts of roars in the 2021 finals because most of the real fans weren't there.

How spine-tingling is that roar when he nails it? So good. ❤️😍

One of many fascinating sub plots to come in this game. I seriously cannot remember a more evenly poised QF. Should be a cracker and hopefully reignites the rivalry that has become more driven by our side than theirs. We win and go on to win the flag and the rivalry is legit again. First time we've both been legit contenders and have met in a final in for 59 years.

I dunno. I actually think he's in the Melksham mould of defensive forward. He can play on a tall, jump on their head or bring the ball to ground minimum. He's probably not as good a kick as Jake, but he's reasonable.

Murphy will play on JVR, I reckon, and there's Maynard too. They've got plenty of defensive options. It's more about making them accountable and hurting them on turnover and bringing the ball to ground to prevent the intercept.

Smith and Fritta both played on Moore last time and Fritta had 6 scoring shots.

Who's first for CPs mate? Any idea?

I reckon Sparrow can do the job. But I don't think it fits with our philosophy.

Melksham's injury might mean he has to play deeper for longer. We'll see. We've definitely got some weapons up our sleeve.

That's a good list management strategy there, Ethan. 😉

I'd rather him at the feet of our rucks. How often does he win that first possession in the middle? It's that rare mix of agility and ability to read the play.

It depends if we want to spend the salary cap on another mid or if we want to spend it on a KPF to support Petty and JVR.

I think it's the breakaway pace that Parish has, IMO, that would be attractive and different for our midfield, but I think he'd have to get way better defensively if we was to get a game with us, and who does he replace in midfield?

Sorry to quote myself, but just thinking further on this. The more players stationed in our defensive half, the easier it will be to generate scores in our forward half, because there'll be space if you win the contest in the defensive zone. Without Daicos, I wonder if we do try something unusual like +2 behind the ball? I think it's very risky against Collingwood's kicking and run and carry game, but maybe if we win territory (which is likely), we can defend those counter attacks and slingshots with more numbers behind the ball. Have we shown our hand to Collingwood? Very interesting...

How many times has it become obvious that the Melbourne way, just like it was at Hawthorn, is to back in your own system? The most we do in this space is play defensive forwards on interceptors, which IMO we very likely pioneered. And occasionally we'd run soft tags through the middle (Libba and Neale in '21 come to mind). I said after the Port loss that despite letting Butters run around without a tag, to 3/4 time in that match, when he had done his damage, we led, and that as a team, we simply didn't get the job done that night. Had we tagged Butters or had we tagged Gulden, we have to change the way we want to win the ball, defend the wider ground and how we want to move the ball. I think in a final we'd likely use a soft tag on Butters, because we haven't shown our hand in this space at all for close to two years now, so it's an option. But I wouldn't tag a Gulden. I might tag a Nick Daicos though. Fortunately, we may not have to deal with that prospect. Goody's philosophy is pretty clear in the way he defended Clarry after the Hawthorn match.

I'm not convinced from looking at the vision that we did go +2 behind the ball. Either way, I think it's something you can do on the SCG and would get massively exposed on the MCG, where the opposition can use their +2 at the contest or from their own half back to cut any defence to shreds if the ball use is good enough. That was a move for the smaller SCG and nowhere else, if in fact we did actually play +2 behind the ball.

I rate him, but I'm not sure how he fits into our midfield, let alone the salary cap question.

Imagine Jimmy and DeeSpence in a room together discussing the MFC. What a barrel of laughs.