Akum

And whom did Neeld back and whom did he tell to suck it up?

Interesting how they've named the AA team. Compared to how they arrange the match-day teams, they've subtracted a forward pocket & a back pocket, added two wingers, and kept 6 on the bench. If it gets Elise O'Dea into the starting 16 (as a winger) instead of on the bench, I'm all for it!

... and JKH.

Is that Melks being ragdolled by Clarry?

Yeah, fair enough, it's a reasonable point to consider. It's a matter of whether it works out to be more a weakness or more a strength for them. And that depends on a number of other things. In my opinion it works only with rapid precise ball movement (Hawks & Dogs), pinpoint delivery into the f50 (Hawks) or a flotilla of smalls at the feet to gather the crumbs (Dogs). For it to work for Carlton against us, a lot of other things would have to go badly wrong e.g. getting smashed in midfield + allowing them to move the ball like threepeat Hawks + multiple horrendous turnovers that catch us out of position + first-gamer tearing it up + our whole defence having a collective shocker. Or we just don't come to play with the same intensity. If so, it will be all those other things that do us in.

Yeah, the expression dates from around the Neeld era after years of punishment & false dawns. The totally understandable (at the time - not so much now) belief that everything that happens at MFC will turn out badly.

This is such a common fallacy and it keeps cropping up - that playing three talls in the forward line gives you massive marking power and a huge advantage. It simply doesn't. Say, for the sake of argument, they do pick McKay in addition to the other two, and we put Jayden Hunt on him. They'll only have a marking advantage is if they can isolate Hunt one-on-one against McKay. This means their highly-skilled (cough cough) mids would have to move the ball fast and precise, with neither of the Macs within range, and pinpoint that final pass low & hard to McKay's advantage in the contest. Extremely unlikely. Especially= if McKay in his first game turns out not to be as good a contested mark as Hogan. It's far more likely they'd bomb it high, thinking that would exploit their height advantage. But it won't. It makes it far easier for the Macs to get to the fall of the ball, and if there's more than 2 from each side flying for the ball, it will just about always hit the ground. Even if McKay against Hunt does work for them once or twice, then Hunt will spend the whole game running unopposed out of defence setting up scoring chains. I learnt my lesson in the drawn QB game against the PIes, in about 2010 or 2011, when they were one of the best teams in the comp. They went in with Cloke & Leigh Brown in hot form in the forward line, and also picked Josh Fraser. We had Frawley, and one other defender, and I think because of injuries our third tall was Joel McDonald. I thought we'd get killed in the air, but the threat didn't materialise, and we nearly beat them because we played an extra small and ran them off their feet. We've had a number of games since where we've lost because we went in too tall. I can't remember a game where we've lost because we went in too small. If Carlton play three tall forwards, they'll be handing us the game on a silver platter.

The other factor here is that clubs like the Blooze believe, rightly or wrongly, that we're their one big chance for a win this season, and that if they come prepared to hit us hard and to take the game up to us, we'll fold. IIRC Woosha said something like this last year.

Thought I read somewhere that Tyson had a big final quarter?

Watts played very differently against Aints, could only have been to instruction. He usually doesn't fly for marks against Hogan & Weid, but he did a few times on Sat. He got his hands on the ball that Garlett roved for his third goal. He also got hands on the ball that spilled for Hannan's brilliant second. He usually stays down for a pack marks and often picks up the crumbs and dishes off, but it seems he was instructed to "play tall" and leave the crumbing to the small forwards and try to either mark it or bring it to the ground to our advantage. Ultimately this will work well for Watts. He & Hogan, when they play forward, often lead right up the ground for the kick out of defence. Neither of them did this at all on Sat. This could have been because Goody wanted the defenders & mids to run or kick the ball out of defence, and for the forwards to not move too far up the field, so that they're in position for the next kick. This seems obvious now, but it's not something we've done for years. It worked really well for Hogan, because the ball was moved so quickly they had no time to double- or triple-team him, so he could take advantage and grab some great one-on-one contested marks close to goal. Watts also seemed determined to take the responsibility to kick the goal when he got the chance within range, rather than trying to give it off. I reckon that it will be far better for Watts to play like this, and far batter in terms of retaining our overall structures and team play - forwards getting the ball closer to goal and then holding it in, and quicker movement out of defence through the middle. And I wouldn't be surprised if this was his "intensity" problem in preseason - he wasn't adjusting to this changed role and kept slipping back into his old way of playing. Probably why we never really got an adequate explanation either - they didn't want to talk about it too much. And explains Goody's post-match comment about being "really happy the way he flew for the ball", which struck me as a bit odd too.

The other great thing about his handball to Jones is that when Ross tackles him, he makes sure he takes Newnes (#16) to the ground with him. Newnes is closest to Jones and the only one with any hope of tackling him. That's why Jones had that extra second to steady.

Nobody is saying that OMac is fine as he is, or that he doesn't need to improve on his mistakes. Least of all Oscar himself, I'd expect.

I just checked and you read the columns wrong. Garlett had 4 tackles (the next column) and 0 frees against.

OMac wasn't "isolated" against just anyone - he was "isolated" on one of the best one-on-one tall forwards of all time. Not many coaches in the AFL would be comfortable about their 2nd-year defender being isolated on Nick Riewoldt, who has built his stellar career out of getting "isolated" one-on-one with some of the very best defenders of all time and, at times, making mincemeat out of them. The whole aim of a zone defence is that you DON'T get defenders isolated in one-on-ones. If you do, repeatedly, it means the structure has broken down, and that was the problem. These words from Goody were in the context of how well the defence as a unit did after quarter time to hold their structure and avoid getting "isolated".

Thought we stacked up pretty well against the other winning teams. If we play like that, we won't often be beaten. Also thought that out of all the losing teams, the Saints were easily the most impressive. Don't understand all the doom & gloom about them, they'll be thereabouts at the end of H&A season. Although the unknown factor is how much they were kept in the game by Riewoldt.

Hannan also snapped one with his left & one with his right (and both were great snaps) as well as some very good short passes with either foot. What I liked is that he's reliable - you can count on him to do the right thing at the right time - and also has X-factor. Unusual combination.

O-Mac had a great passage of play that could have set the scene for our comeback. Check out the lead-up play to Watts's goal. Hunt wins the ball at half back, turns around and kicks it to T-Mac in back pocket. O-Mac runs to the other pocket as soon as he sees Hunt turn, and gets the switch kick from T-Mac. There's nobody free, but instead of bombing it to a contest (this is right after quarter time, remember), he waits, is told to play on, but Lewis has made position on the boundary line and he hits him with a neat 20-30m pass. Lewis too has nobody to kick to initially. But instead of just ball-watching, O-Mac has actually run about 60m (past Riewoldt on the mark, who didn't chase him) and made position on the boundary line 30m downfield from Lewis, who hits him with the pass. O-Mac plays on immediately, and with a beautiful zone-splitting angled 40m pass he hits Petracca on the front corner of the square. Petracca plays on quickly and belts it over the back of the zone where Watts, who started running towards goal as soon as he realised it was Petracca, takes an unopposed mark & slots it. O-Mac's play here converted a back-pocket stalemate into a goal in the first minute of the second quarter. Sure, others played an important part, but it was O-Mac who set up the play. And it was at a crucial time in the game, when we had to make a statement after the first quarter. I'm saying that 9 out of 10 defenders wouldn't have bothered running to make position, and none of them would have attempted, let alone executed, such a brilliant attacking pass that split the defence. I'm not saying he doesn't make mistakes, or hesitate, or turn it over. But he does do some really good things too, which I'm sure the coaching staff would notice. He gets no credit on here for the good things he does.

Yeah, fair enough. I reckon "tough guy shtick" is neither here nor there, it doesn't make any difference either way. If any oppo player is stupid enough to get taken in by it, they're begging to be targeted. The point is that every team has a few - for us, Bernie & Bugg are strangely effective at getting under the skin of opponents. And as you say, most of the good nigglers can back it up with good hard play (which excludes Norf for a start), but Melksham seems OK with this, he laid a couple of good hard-but-not-dangerous bumps. I'm just wondering why, out of all the nigglers in the AFL, you pick out Melksham. I agree that he's not the complete player (I'm concerned about him in one-on-ones, for example) and his game was just OK, but he's just not nearly as bad as you make out because he makes a couple of mistakes. I repeat: all players make mistakes. It's the amount of good things they do that keeps them in the team.

At some time in the coming weeks, every player in the AFL will drop a mark or fumble a ground ball. It's not only confined to the players you don't like.

So Bernie was shet, O-Mac was shet, and Melksham was shet. And here's me thinking that kicking 16 goals to 7 (only 5 until "junk-time") after quarter time (while one man down in rotations) was a fantastic all-over team effort, to which these 3 made solid contributions. Thanks for helping me see the error of my ways.

Clarry's give to Jones for the left-foot goal was way too fast for the commentators. They described it as "Jones has found some space", seemingly unaware that Clarry had got it out to him in a fraction of a second.

When Jones got the ball in congestion around half-back, you could almost see him consciously suppress his instinct to just bomb it, then lower his eyes and hit a target. When he does that, he's much more dangerous. Got the impression during the game that this happened 2 or 3 times, will have to check the replay.

A definite keeper (if you needed any further convincing).

Lewis incredible. We've got lots of "promising" mids, but none of them are yet capable of getting 20 disposals in a half of footy.

Need to keep this up. 6 goals in half a quarter - please don't lose momentum.