bing181

What, like last time he played at Casey: "Defender Oscar McDonald did his chances of a recall to the senior side no harm with a strong showing for the Demons in their one-point loss to Richmond at Casey Fields. McDonald picked up a team-high 22 disposals ..."

Spargo is fine. Has earned his place, certainly in relation to the other small forwards down there. Not to mention, not sure who he's keeping out ... Bedford? Team looks solid, just missing Melksham and Jetta for mine, Vandenberg would be handy as well.

Absolutely. Though not alone unfortunately. There are parallels with what happened to Goodes and what has happened in European football to black players like Raheem Sterling and Moise Keane.

“It was a massive weight on my shoulders,” he said. “It was a lot of pressure which I didn’t really enjoy too much. It affected me quite hard mentally and affected my footy as well."

Stating as a fact what is nothing but speculation.

Oscar was always going to keep his place while May wasn't available and Petty isn't ready. Interesting to see that Oscar wasn't named for Casey either. Perhaps just admin, though perhaps he's been carrying something (he had that injury at the end of the GWS game for example).

Agree with that. Out of those pairings, think they'll go for Garlett and Stretch. In spite of his weaknesses, Garlett is at least hitting the scoreboard, and Stretch hasn't been that bad, though what position would be play? Main interest for me is where Fritsch plays, hopefully he can now be moved further up the field (wing/forward).

Lever, May, Hore, Salem all named. JKH and Oscar out. Preuss, ANB on extended I/C, final team announced Saturday.

Oh for god's sake.

Same arguments re Lever.

Welcome to Demonland, a place where all ideas are mutually exclusive, where there is no context, no nuance, and where affirming A automatically denies the possibility of B ... even if you didn't mention B in the first place.

Firstly, we don't know what's going on behind closed doors, and secondly, it's worth noting that almost no AFL clubs employ specialist kicking coaches. Certainly none of the leading clubs do (from what I can see).

Because there's a difference between acquiring/consolidating skills and being able to execute those skills regardless of the circumstances. And not just in sport either. It's not an anti-training position, just a recognition that training-track training has its limits.

If he's hardly even been running, difficult to see that Lever will get up, not for AFL anyway. Fingers crosse for Hore at least.

Sure the TMac situation is disappointing - but he's not the only one. And therein lies the rub. When you have so many in the team underdone, then it becomes a downward spiral that sucks everyone into it. If TMac had come into the season underdone, but was part of a functioning and efficient forward line, at the front end of a functioning and efficient midfield delivering the ball to them as it should be, then I doubt we'd be having this discussion. In Tom's position, he might only get a dozen or so chances in a game to really have an impact, and with so few opportunities, it can be very hard to turn things around if you're underperforming, which then impacts self-confidence, decision-making etc.

No, just no. You can never make up for a lack of pre-season loading while you're playing games each week. Nor can you make up for the lack of time spent training *together*. There's a reason teams start pre-season early November.

Of course you don't.

Except that: - that's pretty well all he did - he offers next to nothing around the ground (11 disposals, 4 marks 2 weeks back; 9 disposals, 3 marks last week) - he offers next to nothing up forward (total score for the last 2 VFL matches is 1 point. Also, see above) - we have a ruckman - he would be given the runaround/run off his feet in the firsts against AFL-standard rucks - North Melbourne didn't get rid of him for nothing

Suspect at least one of those will miss. Maybe Hore won't overcome the calf - though he was taken to Darwin, so must have been touch and go there, presumably right this week. And Lever has been basically off legs for a week, so that can't have helped his return either. Fingers crossed, though imagine that at the very least, both May and Salem will be straight in.

If anything, you're just proving the opposite of your point - given how many great players there are, that's a tiny list. In reality, very very few great players go on to be great coaches.

Oscar will be fine. He was 12th in the B&F last year, is only 23 (young for a big bloke), and is playing in a team that's out of sorts, so as last line of defence, he's always going to be where the buck stops. Though if you want to see what a season looks like when you don't start full training till mid-January, look no further than Oscar. Having said that, we didn't draft Steven May for nothing. https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/tr-melbourne-demons?year=2019&rt=TA&st=1P

I know this is not the way it's done on Demonland, but you can both point out a player's shortcomings AND appreciate their strengths. I like Sam a lot and what he brings - especially the fact that he's a tall who turns into a small once the ball hits the ground, it's almost like having an extra player in the backline. Would be surprised if he's top 6 in the B&F, but would be great to see, all power to Sam.

TACKLE Using physical contact to prevent an opponent in possession of the ball from getting an effective disposal. https://www.afl.com.au/news/2017-12-28/stats-glossary-every-stat-explained

This is what confirmation bias looks like.

A "below average" effort? Here are the forward tackles for Sunday: Garlett: 3 Spargo, Weideman, Smith, Petracca: 2 Hunt, Hannan: 1 So, total tackles by those 7 forwards is 13, which means that the average tackles per player is 1.86. Spargo with 2 is actually above average. Also, *both* Hunt and Hannan laid fewer tackles than Spargo, while only one player laid more.