bing181

Did well in the second half. Still a work in progress, going to be some misses along the way, but the upside is enormous.

Was out all morning (I'm OS), no wifi, no news. Couldn't believe the result. Fabulous. Don't have the time to hack my way through xx pages of the Gameday thread, but wondering, did anyone promise to leave Demonland if we won? Just checking.

Not sure. He is being set up as a KPD, so not sure how having him as a lead-up forward or ruck works.

Weep.

One of the benefits of having had to sit out an entire season. God knows we would have loved to have had him around last season, but Jesse and the club have obviously put the time to good use. Hopefully Petracca can come out of his year off older and wiser as well.

Decent loss ... Melbourne aren't the only ones bearing the consequence of all our injuries/outs.

The 51% doesn't mean what you think it means ... it works in the athlete's favour, not against them. In the case cited, the ITF/WADA appeal was dismissed because Gasquet was able to show, to this minimal standard (51% probable), that the cocaine he'd tested positive for came from kissing someone called Pamela. WADA still have to meet "comfortable satisfaction". As they always did.

Can you?

It's clear that sports medicine isn't one of your strong points, but numeracy? We have 3 Hamstring injuries (Kent, Salem, VDB ... oh look, all young players ...) Hogan doesn't have a hamstring injury, he has hamstring tightness. By pulling him out, Misson is doing his job, by, you know, helping to PREVENT injuries (hamstring or other ...) BTW, lucky you don't follow Fremantle .... currently with 5 Hamstrings. Or Adelaide with 3 bung ankles. Or maybe you'd prefer the Lions with 5 Knees, same number as Geelong, though the Cats are doing better/worse with 4 foot injuries as well, unlike the Swans who seem to be able to limit their injuries primarily to Knees (4, which are 67% of their total) ... etc. etc.

Gonna be what it's gonna be. I don't get all the doom and gloom. Looking forward to the odd cameo, and hopefully, some more signs of progress from the future. It's about winning the battle in the longer term, not getting too hung up on the odd skirmish.

Well, Joel won't play anyway, so no need for concern on that front. Fitzy has had some injury issue(s) the last couple of weeks, so perhaps that's a factor.

No point dissecting every word and doing in-depth analyses of off-the-cuff remarks. I just take it as he meant that it wasn't something that you dwell on. It's clear that it has and will form a major part of the review of the match. But as always, another match rolls round in a week, you learn from it, you move on.

Another informed contribution.

Pretty well our first-choice HB line. Not sure how much any of these are preventable. Note that the hamstrings etc. are all across the younger players. Short of not playing or training, not sure what more could/should be done, it just takes time for bodies to build up to the load of AFL. Does seem to be a league-wide problem though, there are more than a few teams with injury lists that are as long/longer than ours.

Good chances for a few of the younger guys, but anyone who thinks that this isn't having an impact on our season is kidding themselves. It's not just who is out, it's just the constant changes and instability in the team. More than anything else, they need to be playing together on a regular basis. Not helping.

Which we've already done this season. 3 wins. Progress. From reading this Board, you'd think we were at the bottom of the ladder without a win to our name.

Well, I hope that comes about OD, not often we see the word "happy" in one of your posts.

Good analysis/breakdown of what went on. But you've omitted (IMHO) the key Melbourne player in that passage of play - Viney. He was right amongst it, and in some ways, central to both Stevens and Montagna getting away. Not blaming, just observing. But also, it was only one play on a day where there were quite a few that we messed up. Turnovers are killing us and undoing a lot of good work.

No-one's trying to defend a loss, we clearly didn't play well enough to win. End of. St Kilda aren't as bad as what you're making out, far from it. They still have some solid/important players from the team that got them into the GF in 2010, that in itself is enough to make a difference, especially in a close game. But that's not in itself the point. We were in this game, as well as the previous weeks' up until the end, and in both games, we fought our way back from being 5+ goals down to be in front - something we could never do in the past. Just look at the Collingwood game - we managed 3 goals in 2014, but 13 last week. And you can't see the improvement? Thompson remarked in the commentary on Sunday about the progress at Geelong when he was building: at first, you try and get it to work for a quarter, and then a half, then 3 quarters, and eventually for a whole match. Our problem is not that we're not a good team, or can't play well, it's that we can't always do that for 120 minutes. Both against Collingwood and St Kilda, there were longish passages in the game when we were clearly on top, with some exhilarating play from the whole team. That never/rarely happened over the past few years, yet we're starting to see it more and more. Not sure how old you are, I'm getting on myself. But as I get older, the more I realise that sometimes, things just take time, and that at the end of the day, it's what happens in the long term that counts, not what's going on over a few weeks or even a year or two. Enjoy the ride OD, bumpy as it may be. If you can see past what's not working, there's a lot to like and to be positive about. Seriously.

Jones and Bail. Going to be very useful players for someone, especially at this level. If only they could bring half of that to the seniors on a regular basis ...

Because it was for the on field leaders to make the call, and because all players make mistakes. I imagine that with 40 seconds to go, in the heat of the moment, a) no-one (i.e. one of the leaders) thought of it and b) if they did think of it they thought that there was so little time it wasn't necessary. In reality, they needed to be setting up from the moment of Howe's shot at goal. But they were almost certainly focused on a setup to defend the kick-in if there was a point (most likely outcome given the angle and Howe's unreliable kicking ...). Then, instead of instantly switching to get forwards back, they were too busy running round back-slapping and high-fiving. A lot of it comes down to Nate Jones. With so many inexperienced players around him, it was his call. Look at him after the match - he knew. Not blaming anyone either, it's not often we're in this situation. In fact, when was the last time? A good lesson in the school of hard knocks.

Surprised by some of the comments here. It's obvious the players knew how much time was left but stuffed up, and that Roos (and Vince) is protecting them. They thought that with only 40 second to go, they had it won. Too busy celebrating after Howe's goal, instead of putting it to one side and focusing on the job at hand. Reminds me of the scenario in the third quarter, where Tom MacD lost a mark/gave away a free. While Tommy was remonstrating with the umpire, his opponent simply took off unhindered towards goal, with predictable results. I don't actually blame the players, they've had such a rough time, and wins have been hard to come by. But it's the difference between a team like a Hawthorn and a team like ours. We need to harden up mentally.

A small edit if I may ... And if anyone believes Vince's "we didn't know how much time was left", get in touch, I have a bridge for sale.

In public, he's doing what he's supposed to, protecting his players. Smart man. Says what he needs to say. As a consequence, I'll bet that not a single player will be asked by a journalist why they didn't flood back after the Howe goal.

Corrected.