Webber

Great Thread. 1. A fit list. Statistically the biggest market of success, also breeds player inter-familiarity. 2. Tom McDonald is the new Nick Riewoldt. But then so is Jesse Hogan. 2 Nick Riewoldts! 3. The best ruckman in the league, playing in his best form. 4. Oliver and Viney two of the top 5 (or so) ball hunters in the league. 5. Jones, Lewis, Vince, 3 exceptional older heads playing like their future depends on it. 6. Jake Lever and Michael Hibberd playing to their All-Australian form. 7. Oscar McDonald playing himself into the next 10 years of a career. Never in doubt. 8. The return to form of Angus Brayshaw, who is now (post Sam Mitchell), the most double-sided midfielder in the league. 9. Jake Melksham, currently the best one-on-one player in the league, by a long way apparently. 10. Younger players finally coming into their peak period of age and experience ..... Salem, Harmes, Nibbler. 11. The intangibles.....confidence, belief, motivation (last year's shame).

In 2016, was second only to Sam Mitchell for dominant/non-dominant kicking ratio. Mitchell was 51/49 if I recall, Gus 62/38, and the next best was in the mid 70's. If anything, he's evened that up this year. It's a brilliant skill, and the kid is simply a gun. Many, maybe most of us here knew it, and the wider football world are beginning to get the idea.

As a physiotherapist, I should be able to say it's good management, but the simple truth is that with the uniformity of elite standards in sports medical management now, it is mostly plain luck. For proof, a team may have the same staff, fitness programmes and injury management principles across several years, but whilst one year will be a clean sheet (think Richmond last year), the very next will be an injury riddled disaster. Collective consciousness? Morphic resonance? Who knows. I do know however that it can all go south very quickly, or all come together over a succession of weeks. All other things being equal, keeping your fingers crossed is about as much good as anything.

Imagine if he'd been judged as per the early assessments on Demonland? Wouldn't have got past his 5th game. Considering his age, this kid is an outright gun. Makes me smile every time he goes near it.

Hannan doesn't get the pill enough. Simples.

Yep. It's almost comical how fundamentally dumb this is, but it just keeps happening, again and again and again.

We are playing head-shakingly dumb football, and seem incapable (coaching?) of doing things differently when it hasn't worked the previous 6 times. This makes us predictable, and horribly horribly horribly easy to play against. Add to this that half the team seems to have had their confidence shot, with a sudden disappearance of the apparent depth and competition for spots that was being touted pre-season, and we've regressed 3 years. There's something badly wrong in and around this team, because they give off no sense of wanting to dig in. Very worrying, and finals are absolutely out of the question, unless Jack Viney and Tom McDonald inspire some kind of revolution.

Maybe cos he had leather poisoning in the last quarter.

What you say is true Drunkn, and I'm usually loathe get antsy about the side picked, but to say that coaches/selectors are immune to having questions asked about what (in this case) was head-scratching stuff for most observant Melbourne supporters, is the same as saying that those coaches/selectors can't/don't sometimes make mistakes. Of course they do, even if it can never be claimed that any selection is objectively wrong. But round 1's selection certainly begged the question.

Summed it up beelzebub. Like you, I'm not writing the season off by any means, just voicing what seem to be obvious concerns. I reckon Goodwin and fellow coaches will have to be adaptable and change creative in order to meet expectations, because those concerns were very apparent. And old. But they might be able to iron them out. We'll see. And for those who think they would have been any less apparent had Max kicked straight, not the case, just that they would have been shaded by the post-win veil of temporary happiness.

The role of small forwards and maximising the ground ball after a marking contest is indisputable, and we did very poorly at that on Sunday, but nobody in their right mind prefers not to mark the ball in a contest. First priority = Mark (We are in the bottom four). Next priority = shark the spilled ball. (We were average to good at this last year). Unless we improve the first priority, we will struggle, no matter how good our roving forwards are. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!

No team in the history of football has 'preferred' to bring the ball to ground in a marking contest. They want to mark it, being as it's elementary to maintaining possession. The chipping around difference is one thing, but Geelong held a 13-7 contested marking ascendancy. Any game plan that is built on anything 'frenetic' cannot hold up. It's too hard to maintain, and full of risk.

Having digested Sunday's game over a couple of days, sadly I reckon this year's version of the Demons might have some significant problems. Inevitably we compare to last year to see signs of evolution, but such a comparison so far is worrying. Maybe the biggest flaw in our overall game last year was that we were consistently outmarked. Ends up that in 2017, we were 15th ranked for marks. Sunday gave me no reason to think this has been in any way corrected. Teams who can control the tempo of possession are going to expose us in the air in attack, and frustrate our marking efforts in the front half. Having no Tom McDonald, one of, if not our best marking target, doesn't help. Our best football last year relied on a fierce ascendancy at stoppages. Thus by controlling the ball at stoppages and by sheer weight of attack we were able to find a way to goals. However, we lack efficiency when the ball is ours, and are prone to turnovers. Being consistently dominant at clearances is much harder way to win games of footy than being better organised and better users of the ball. Psychologically it also requires key figures who can lead a team dynamic. Teams know that we are inevitably prone to lapses, and that we are more vulnerable without Jack Viney's lead from the front influence. Defensively we are too brittle, for periods that last too long. The second quarter was a reminder that teams can open us up when we lose defensive accountability. This is in part of function of the above, and that we struggle to regain possession when our high demand pressure game drops off. Selection. It doesn't matter how much Simon Goodwin says he picked Sunday's team on preseason form, any of us who have followed pre-season know that these are 'alternative facts'. How either Dom Tyson, Angus Bradshaw, arguably Billy Stretch and even Tom Bugg were not preferred to Corey Maynard and Josh Wagner (no slight on their efforts) rightfully had most of us baffled. The concern is that this is driven by a mysterious agenda, or at worst that there are personality or political issues at the club. I know barring a shoelace's influence, Max would've kicked that goal on Sunday, but that would have done nothing to alter my thoughts as above. It's hard to see us beating a hometown Brisbane this week, who showed last year that they can match it with us. On the other hand, we had at least half a dozen players on Sunday who were well below their best, and will hopefully wake up. Based on one telling game though, I'd say we're going to need some luck to make the eight, and some inspiration, and top four is at this stage fantasy land. Too soon?

Going to be some soul-searching and hand-wringing after this game for the Dees, because this is the emotional start to an underrated Brisbane's season, and after last season's effort at the 'G, they'll know they can knock us off, and they will.

I'm tipping it wasn't subject to max requirements, being cricket, and the three week rule is all about relative risk, which also relates to speed, acceleration, and fatigue. Footy is a different story from cricket....at most levels.

Not that I really care, but if Dangerfield has a hamstring tear, he WILL NOT play. Unless Geelong is stupid, or lying. We physios have a mantra, which is decades old, yet current: there is no such thing as a 2 week hamstring. If the human hammie had inexplicably evolved, or there were some new healing magic, it wouldn’t still be a rule. Danger is unlikely even for round 2.

There's only one reason to offload weightbearing for that period of time, and that's bone pathology. Best case is he had a hotspot in his foot (the lead up to a stress fracture), in which case they've taken a very conservative, long term approach, worst case is a frank stress fracture, which spells a lot more trouble. Fingers crossed. The club is being oddly elusive about it.

The Injectodome

This is a new low in the history of this club. There is not a single defence against any accusations that we are a weak club, and it's going to take a lot to live it down. Currently, and until 2018 proves otherwise, which is hard to imagine, the Melbourne Football Club has achieved nothing in changing how we are perceived by the football community. I hope it's representatives feel embarrassed, because that's what they deserve.

We haven't won a premiership in 53 years. Richmond are the All Blacks compared to us.

Yep. And we still should've caned them.

I feel you.

Exactly.

Hard to argue. And what did we do round 23 last year in the same situation? That was a sign of things to come it seems.

Don't forget they had 8 out of their best 22.