Akum

Do you have to look at the footage to know that Judd's gonna get off?

So are they gonna fine the ump for making contact with His Juddship??

... head-butting his fist, perhaps repeatedly.

They'll call it "accidental" and no case to answer.

Another thing about our "big four" (TS, JT, JMcK, JG) is that the vast majority of their games have been good or better than good. For such young mids, their consistency as individuals has been outstanding. I was surprised to learn that this is really the first full game they've played together. Certainly didn't look like it. They're going to be very difficult to stop, and it's going to be impossible to keep all four of them out of the game.

Totally agree.

... and that all depends on players running off the ball and presenting forward of the ball.

Quote about Scully against Essendon from the first article: "He gained the third most metres of any player on the field, while still being monitored in terms of his game time." Scully's game time was 74%, to be exact. Unbelievable.

A soft-as-melted-butter free. Remember "he was trying to get rid of it, that's all he has to do"? One rule for some ...

Good: The best-players list in this morning's Age: Gysberts, McKenzie, Trengrove, Scully. The first of countless times over the next 10-12 years that we'll be seeing those names, whatever their order, as best for Melbourne in next day's paper.

At a few centre bounces in the last quarter I wondered why Jordie was on the wing and not in the middle. Can only have been because he'd given his body such a battering in the first three. He must have been absolutely spent. So often he just threw himself at the ball at the feet of two or three Bombers to stop them taking it away from a stoppage. That's the stuff that never ends up in stats, and as good as his stats were today, they don't do full justice to his game.

What I love about him & Nicho is their desire to take on their opponent for pace. It doesn't seem to occur to them that they might be brought down, they just have confidence that if they put the foot down they won't get caught. And it's unusual for such a speedy player to be so tough too. A great package, and a sensational rookie pick-up.

Good thread JL. And both of them were so hard at it. Bennell especially went where angels fear to tread on some occasions, grabbing the hard ball in heavy traffic & using his pace to break free.

What I loved about him, and Evans for that matter, is that they're not afraid to take the game on with their pace. Nicho especially, a number of times he put on the afterburners through heavy traffic.

Yeah, if he kicked it, would have ruined the moment. He has a sense of theatre.

He looked like he totally belonged there. As did Nicholson & Evans & Strauss & Gawn. And they will only get better.

Perhaps you could say that on a lot of levels, tonight is a major test of character. First & most obvious, it's a test of character for the whole team - to stand up as a team, to play as a team (not as individuals), to back each other up. With everything that's happened this week, we simply cannot go through that sort of a week and get a pathetic tackle count and get smashed in contested possessions. And the die was cast at selection by the dropping of 3 forwards who have their good points but who just didn't (and don't) pressure their opponents. If Bombers are allowed tonight to bring the ball out of defence without being under any pressure, it's an epic fail for the forwards. It's a test of character for our leadership, especially Bailey & Green, for obvious reasons. And it's a test of character for some of the younger players. For various reasons, Bennell, Morton, Jurrah, Watts, Strauss, Trengrove, Jetta & to a lesser extent Scully all have something to prove tonight. It's a big chance for all of them to stand stall; it's likely that some will & some won't. There will be other chances for these guys, but those who do stand up tonight will gain a lot of respect. With such an inexperienced team, against such a good opponent, I'm not so fussed about whether they win or not. It's more a matter of being able to hold their heads high walking off the ground at the end.

I thought Jones was great value a couple of weeks ago (perhaps against Saints, not certain about that) when played off wing or HBF, so that he could avoid the heavy traffic. He won a lot of contested ball, but was able to find a bit of space, and generated a lot of drive with his hard running; his disposal was mostly pretty good too, very good at times. Last week he was back in the middle and struggled to break free of the heavy traffic.

As Dermie pointed out this morning, we've turned over our whole forward line this week. Newton injured, Bate & Petterd & Maric dropped, Jurrah & Jetta on the bench. The reason is that none of these (except perhaps Newton) put the slightest pressure on their opponents when they had the ball. That goes for Dunn too, who could have been included but wasn't. The message could not be louder or clearer, in particular for Bate, Dunn, Petterd & Maric. The minimum job requirement for a forward at MFC from now on is to put pressure on your opponent when their side has the ball. If your direct opponent can continually rebound and set up under no pressure, then from now on your AFL career at MFC is on the line. Those who are selected in the forward line tonight can surely be under no illusion about this. Forward press, zone, or just one-on-one - it doesn't matter, you MUST apply pressure. On the other hand, I hope that this also means that Bailey has given up on this ridiculous tactic of having nobody forward of centre. If the forwards are expected to gallop up and down the ground to be defenders one second and then somehow get to their forward positions within a second or two of the ball being cleared from defence, then they're never going to have enough in the tank to apply forward pressure once they get there. Bailey needs to let at least 3 or 4 of them stay forward of centre, and they're the ones who will be responsible for forward pressure.

I wonder if a reason for leaving Warnock in is the risk of McDonald making his debut as a key defender on an absolute shellacking. Strauss's confidence was badly dented by his debut against Hawthorn.

One more reason it would be so good to see Strauss step up into the defensive-kicker role.

The silence is deafening.

What puzzles me this year is this strange phenomenon of a player who has played out a game with a little "niggle" that during the next week turns out to be a significant injury. Jamar, Davey, now Newton; Scully (to some extent, I can't remember whether he played out the game) in pre-season.

Please tell me you're not Lynden Dunn!

Great thread, lots of constructive suggestions which have a few things in common: * Running off the ball, whether towards the ball carrier, into spaces, or in predetermined patterns * Minimising handling of the ball - most teams that beat the press kick far more than they handball. The flood was beaten by teams like the Bulldogs who had a number of midfielders with good disposal, especially by foot, and who would run hard all night. The forward press requires a similar set of skills, but from defenders rather than mids. On the other hand, once you get out past the forward press, a goal is pretty much wide open, so the rewards of beating the press are high. * Being prepared to kick to a contest if necessary, because it has been predetermined what the players in the contest will do (hit it either over the boundary or out the back to runners if the kick is down the guts - we actually have players who can do this well). * Above all, some sort of team structure (preferably a number of options) where there are designated targets and the kicker knows who they are and where they're going to be, without having to first look for them and find them, and the designated targets know where they need to make position. Th best example of this is Collingwood taking the ball around the boundary on the "fat" side in a chain - each player knows there is a team-mate running into the next space, so as long as they keep the ball moving, they know exactly the space they need to kick to and can do it without having to look up. In other words, the time taken for decision-making - to look for team-mates, decide upon a target and try to get it to them - is taken out of the equation. It means that the emphasis is on team play, team structures, and thus minimising decision-making. This is why it takes time to get it right (and IMHO we made a bad strategic mistake by choosing for so long not to focus on team structures for the sake of "player development", while everybody else was spending off-season time perfecting their team structures). If bad decisions & turnovers are being made repeatedly and by different players, it means the team plans either aren't in place or aren't working because they don't know what they have to do.