Mad_Melbourne

All looks good, pretty keen I reckon leave the players set up! Scoring is good! If we increase spoils to 3 I still think draws are highly unlikely because there are often category draws anyway!

i thought this thread was going to be about his lack of speed, his inability to compete for four quarters, the fact that he really only has an influence in 6-8 contests a game and his long term viability in our side... i guess i am just used to all the other threads that get started.

I understand the goal to achieve 100% but it is highly unlikely that a player will get that and statistically his set shot was nearly elite last year I think and that's why it is one of those issues that gets blown out of proportion. I want him to improve but I see no major issue of his last four steps are straight, his ball drop is the main thing that is annoys me. Regardless, Hogans kicking is not the issue people make it out to be

Because the stutter does not effect his result, clearly seen last year. If they want to fix his technique to straighten the movement of his kicking leg and his ball drop then so be it. I remember when he had his first season at Casey, they worked hard to change his run up and it made his kicking worse for a patch of 3-4 games and then he reverted back to this style. A lot of the time it's about what is natural, suckling has a horrid kicking style around his body swinging his leg in an odd fashion but the result works. Same with Hogan, his field kicking and goal kicking are solid yet if he misses people blame his run up and technique but if he kicks above 60% like he did last year then I don't see the point in changing it.

His last 4 steps are all that matters, and they are straight and pretty fluid so I couldn't give two rats about doing the stutter. His kicking technique in general for field kicking is pretty average, but it is effective but it is why his range is around 45m and will not consistently kick 50m. It is the biggest mountain out of a molehill, let him stutter and do what is comfortable as it has clearly been working. If I recall correctly his kicking at juniors was sub par but his set shot last year was well above average. Let it be

The interesting thing about the bulldogs is all the hype about them losing coach and captain last year leading to a poor year made the year stand out even more, but they had stripped back and started the process with McCartney 3 years back. Have even heard from McCartney himself that he was gutted that his time was up at the Bulldogs as he knew they were about to rise, he did say after the comment that he expects Melbourne to rise and that they are going to be something "pretty special" over the next 5 years. I think we will steadily improve again this year, teams who rise rapidly often fall back on expectations the next year (e.g. Port the year before), if we can get 10-12 wins it puts us in a position to play finals the year after. Would really like to see us beat a top 4 side this year and thump a couple of teams by 50 + points.

Such click bait, reading the article says more about him wanting to stay at Melbourne. Typical whirlwind in a tea cup when it comes to everyone's favourite whipping boy

I equate this thread to posting a thread like: "Jesse Hogans field kicking is a liability" after NAB 1 where his field kicking was very poor and really his field kicking is solid but not a strength and due to his kicking technique is prone to making one or two errors. "Max Gawn needs to concentrate during games more" after NAB 2 where his positioning in marking contests especially against the wind was pretty poor. Forget about the good things a player does, but really focus on their deficiencies in order to push improvement. His pure kicking errors let him down and his decision making at times is poor, but these are negligible due to his impact defesnively and offensively in a game. Everyone wants each player to improve and his kicking has steadily improved, as has his decision making, but with a more attacking game style on the cards Tom McDonald will be continually encouraged to take the game on. What posters are suggesting is that he plays safe options, taking the easy spot up 15m to the side, which effectively defeats the purpose of taking the intercept mark and allows for opposition to set up and find Melbourne players. He needs to be encouraged to try and capitalise on these forced turnovers and create offensive chains out of our back half.

Not even slightly worried about Tom McDonald, this is not to say that I think his disposal is great, but he is probably top 5 in our most important players for the next 7-8 years and is nearly the best key defender under 25 in the comp. He makes mistakes, heaps of our list make mistakes, all AFL players make mistakes, granted Tom McDonald mistakes are often punished more often due to him making the mistake in our back half, but his positives far outweigh his negatives in my opinion.

But when did I say that? All I stated was his benefit is those pressure acts. Admittedly I think Pedo is vastly over rated by most on here, but I said the forward structure needs three talls Hogan, Frost, Pedo whilst Dawes is injured is the way to go? Edit: you have not even refuted the observations which I was making describing a zone set further up the field and attempts to cause the earlier turn over and thus I see more value in frost playing up there.

I honestly think he is much better than he is given credit for, but more so just finding his feet. Happy to have him, pedo, hogan in the forward line. His skills will improve, have not had a very large sample to look at. If they zone off him, he will be able to find space in much easier areas to kick goals. I personally think the experiment is worth while, especially whilst Max King is not yet up to it, give him 7-10 rounds to actually see if he shows something before completely removing it as an option in my opinion (and even that is probably a bit short). Very worst, we have a key defender who we can slot back there as Dunn retires.

So the only way to create pressure is to have a tackle? Watch the highlight of Ben Kennedys goal to understand my point, Frost indirectly causes the turnover by pushing up to create pressure on Robbie Grey with the direct result being a goal. Does he lay a tackle, no, but Robbie Grey had no space and handballed it back to Impey who was immediately under pressure then tackled resulting in a turn over and a goal. Did you watch the game, or do you just go onto the stat column to create your own opinion of football?

I am not the biggest fan of Pedo, but his second half form was very handy. In terms of why go with Frost, I think you can have both but in terms of long term possibilities Frost has the higher ceiling. Me may not have lay a tackle but the pressure he puts on stands and the speed he can provide around the ground and up forward is much more significant than Pedo. Admittedly I think there is room for both frost, hogan and pedo/Dawes, especially with Watts playing higher up the ground. But who knows. I just don't see the idea of not giving Frost a crack at the position and giving him a chance to develop

I personally think the Frost will continue with the forward role and it will be in order to encourage a new aspect to the game plan. It was clear from Saturday that we set the zone much further up the ground, whilst this could just be a practice thing, i think it will be indicative of the way we play this year. Whilst it led us to be more open to a quick kick out of congestion over the defenders, as witnessed in the first quarter, with increased pressure from our forward half it will result in turnovers further up the ground, thus leading to a more attacking game style. It is not attack at all costs, but more apply significant pressure on ball carrier and runners in order to force a rushed kick and therefore a turnover. Gartlett, Kent and Kennedy will be major pieces to this puzzle with pressure but Frost and Watts are also two very quick talls that can help apply this pressure. The amount of times both Watts and Frost chased hard out of defensive 50 highlighted this and thus i think Frost will stay in the forward half.

Why I eliminated most of the dual positions is that when looking down the list they would spend more time in the forward line than pinch hitting in the ruck and that if the number 1 ruckman on a list got injured, it would be more likely that the second string ruckman would be brought in. If Gawn got injured, Spencer would play number 1 ruck, if Goldstein got injured Daw would likely play number 1 ruck ahead of Ben Brown or Drew Petrie. This is not the case for all teams obviously and thus i kept players like Mckernan and Sinclair in who would probably assume the number 1 mantle if injury was to happen. In regards to Lowden, he is on Adelaides list and why would I include Ryder who can not play a game this year? In regards to a ruck/fwd yes we are clearly lacking this, I personally do not mind the option of Frost who can develop into the role and worst case Pederson, who proved again in the last quarter that his ruckwork is competitive. Anywho, all i was highlighting that in terms of an emergency ruckman Spencer is not that bad, never argued that he is a ruck/fwd.

Yeh I guess what you are saying is that he shouldnt do it, unless he is in a situation where he should do it? Salem breaks his lines with kicking, T-Mac will break them with running. We should be playing best option football and alot of the time T-Mac taking a run is the best option at the time, but he then runs himself into trouble, as per.

Melbourne supporters singing the Melbourne song before the siren is my pet peeve, opposition supporters i couldnt give a rats razoo about because at the end of the day they will continue to talk down about us until we have sustained form and they can no longer talk down about us. Melbourne supporters cannot afford to be cocky and there is nothing worse than when it is encouraged to sing the song before the final siren, I never want to see us lose, but just once when supporters start signing the song I would like to see us squander a lead so it never happened again.

I was just creating a distinction between first option and best option more than anything, too often for the last 5-6 years Melbourne players will panic and handball to the first option which is often someone immediately under pressure. To me this is Clayton Olivers greatest asset, that he can pick out the best option and has great awareness in congestion.

Not entirely disagreeing with your post, as I agree we lack creativity out of our backline and Salem is a pivotal part to working through this especially this year, but to suggest that Tom Mcdonald should not continue on one of his strengths in his game is borderline ridiculous. Whilst sometimes he bites off more than he can chew and his disposal is not of the ilk that Salems is, his ability to break the lines is far superior to most that we have in the side and will no doubt be continually encouraged by coaches to continue on with this. With a more attacking game plan, I believe it makes much more sense that he will be encouraged to take the game on, use his speed and running capacity to break the lines whilst being encouraged to take the best option. In terms of the article, no real quotes or anything of substance, they just picked an important player and made something related to Jesse Hogan. Typical journalism

100% this will be encouraged by the coaches, his ability to handball through congestion or to moving targets in space is not necessarily picking his first option but the best option. His hand balling is creative and it is tough to find someone who has the time in a stoppage to be creative. Fyfe does this by drawing in two opponents creating space to allow him to give it over the top to a team mate, whereas Oliver does it through his ability to see what is happening and how it could pan out and picking the option in the best position.

Melbourne earnt free kicks by being first at the football. Tyson got several holding the balls against as he was unable to release it in the stoppage, but I thought he was very stiff as half the time he got the ball and was trying to break free to get it away from the congestion. Looked like we were easily opened up too easily early on, but that was usually off a turnover. We eliminated the turnovers and broke the game open in the second half with good ball movement. We used a hell of a lot more substitutions, due to it being our first game, obviously next game will be looking at roughly a hundred subs. Pederson played well in the last quarter and a half, but we really lacked an option up the ground. Oscar McDonald looked rattled and stayed rattled all game. Winning is important and so is getting game time into players which the nab focuses on. A practically full strength port Adelaide midfield got decimated by our midfield all game even if we didn't get the results in the first half, highlights the importance of Gawn Jack Watts high half forward is the role that makes the most sense. Played well, proved his worth. Hopefully, can bring this form with him to the regular season

Not actually that bad, defensively we have been pretty poor, but expect come game day next year we would clog the ground up a lot more. Posters want a more open and attacking game style and the result of this will be more goals against when it doesn't work. Looks like we are often standing in front of our opponents and therefore we are losing ground to opponents and they are getting out behind us. Gawn looks to be dominating the ruck watts has looked good oliver very promising both McDonald's look lost dont think Hunt has had any of the footy but competing well in one v ones Pederson < Dawes in providing an option up the field for team mates

Trengove, purely for the story. Would be one of the greatest comebacks from injury, nearly on par with Daniel Menzel

I think Spencers ruckwork at VFL level is above what you would suggest, I recall reading somewhee that he had the 12th best hitout to advantage in the VFL for the top 50 hitout players, whilst it is not exceptional it indicates that it is clearly much improved. Adel: Sam Jacobs, Luke Lowden Bris: Stefan Martin, Trent West Carl: Kreuzer, Wood, Gorringe, Phillips Coll: Grundy, Witts Essendon: Leuenberger, Mckernan, Jamar Freo: Sandilands, Griffiths, Clarke, Geel: Smith, Blicavs, Stanley GC: Nicholls, Currie, Brooksby GWS: Mumford, Simpson, Lobb, Downie Haw: Ceglar, McEvoy, Melb: Gawn, Spencer NM: Goldstein, Daw Port: Lobbe, Howard Rich: Maric, Hampson STK: Longer, Hickey, Pierce Syd: Derickx, Nankervis, Sinclair, WC: Naitanui, Lycett, Giles Dogs: Minson, Roguhhead, Campbell When you actually look at the ruck division of all teams, I would almost argue that as purely a ruck (which i eliminated most fwd/rucks) that Spencer would nearly be the pick of the bunch. Highlighted are most of the second rucks and they are all players I would not have on the list ahead of Spencer. Of course this is a personal opinion, but it stands to reason that whilst he is not a world beater as a number one ruckman, for depth purely he will suffice until Mitch King has had 4-5 years in the system and is looking to compete for the number 1 spot.

In the interview he said more along the lines of "due to leaders being injured (Jones, Vince) and he did a full pre season he felt more in a leadership role this pre-season and he enjoyed it." also said "felt a little uncomfortable trying to lead at all last year" Definitely media playing up his quotes, but he has had his first full pre season in 7 years and will have our number 1 ruck spot locked down for 4-5 years barring injury.