Dr. Gonzo

On one hand I'd love it. On the other hand it will never happen.

Mental fatigue due to not capitalising on our earlier dominance and hitting the scoreboard. It takes its toll when you've dominated a team but only lead by a few kicks and then they get belief, get on a roll (especially with crowd behind them) and it's hard to stifle that momentum. Scoreboard pressure is still the best form of pressure there is.

I don't get it - using those options forces the oppo defense to pay attention as well meaning they can't just double team Brown/Fritsch. Use those options and the forward line opens up.

May-Elliot Petty-Mihocek Lever-Johnson

May

Would rather JVR than Smith. Give the kid a go, he may surprise us.

Melksham was obviously playing a defensive role on Moore and it didn't work. Moore was far too big/good for him and when Melksham had a couple of opportunities he didn't make them pay. I'm coming round to one of Spargo or ANB having to go back to Casey. I love what they bring when they are on but if they're not defending/pressuring inside our forward 50 or hitting the scoreboard they're not offering enough. Kozzie can't be dropped because he is a potential matchwinner, ANB and Spargo are not.

It was a good game. I'm filthy. We should've belted them. Only a win against them in September will cleanse the palate.

Yep the only one I was filthy on was the Jordon one, no prior and ball spilled free. Cameron was paid a mark which looked like it hit the ground. The rest of the frees were there problem was we didn't get them paid our way 😡

Yes but our defense starts with forward 50 pressure which was missing. No pressure up the ground makes an impossible task for our defenders.

They have strength in numbers though, Richmond and Essendon are similar. They feed off each other and reinforce their own ignorance. And it ends up impacting the umpiring and the energy of their players. I wish we had that.

Last year we built our game on our defensive structure and forward half pressure. Where has the forward half pressure gone?

I was AFL members as well and it felt like it was me and about 10 other Melbourne supporters in a sea of scum and villainy. Which level were you guys sitting? Ground level felt like a sea of black and white It is demoralising as a supporter seeing us so heavily outnumbered at our own home ground I can't imagine how the players feel.

You are kidding yourself

Sparrow nailed one though

The reason is because we are not halving the contests in our forward line. We either get outmarked (Moore and Howe last night) or the ball cones to ground and the oppo small defenders are rebounding it out. Our plan is to create forward 50 stoppages and it's not happening. Quick transition from our forward line makes it harder to zone further upfield and our defenders get caught one-on-one and made accountable. Both our F50 entries and our small forwards/mids are letting us down.

Forward 50

And Pendlebury

What else is new? If people were scared off by the rain, it was perfect conditions, didn't rain once throughout the game.

10 minutes to go in the final quarter, crowd at a fever pitch, less than a goal in it and this slob of a nuffie sitting near us decides to have a go at my brother for taking the Lord's name in vain! My sister said she felt like we were in a zoo and I said yep let's get out of here so watched the last 10 minutes in standing room up the back.

Our fault for selling a home game.

After halftime we came out and had the ball in our forward line for 8 minutes with zero reward. They take it down and get a goal. They then got the next centre clearance and I knew we'd be pushing [censored] uphill for the rest of the game. If we took advantage of our opportunities maybe it would've been a completely different game but we didn't create enough solid opportunities from the time in our forward half either. I'm furious with this loss, absolutely gutted.

The problem is we've made a habit of losing to them. Tonight was the one we had to get back and we didn't, we [censored] the bed again. You can't just say, "we'll get them next time" - they have our measure and their gameplan counters ours extremely well.

Spargo was on his own 30m out directly in front at least twice and just ignored completely. Kicked to a contest instead. I don't get it.

Missing the set shot I can handle - it's a skill error albeit one he should NOT be making Trying to kick goals out of your [censored] like you're a bloody small crumbing forward is bush league stuff. Far more selfish than anything Fritsch was accused of. I'm bloody ropeable about those because he should know better and it's not the first time it's happened.