binman

Kozzie was great, chin worked hard and that love that he took his chances. But he needs to play close to goals (which i expect he will once spargs comes back in), not high half forward. Why? Because with kozzie up around the ball or at half forward, we don't apply enough pressure inside our 50. If we had lost that game It would have been because our pressure inside our 50 was appalling. I think it was 13 tackles inside 50, to our paltry one. It was 10-1 at half time I think. That's not good enough. They won in it back in their front half, and we let them waltz it out of ours.

Weather will clear nicely by game time. Expect a perfect Melbourne winter's day, blue skys and hardly a breath of wind. Only a mll od rain has faen so ground might be a touch slippery, but not sodden.

Betting odds are interesting. Two weeks ago we were fourth favourite, behind the pies, Port and lions. We are now outright second favourite @ 5.50, behind the pies @ 2.75.

Hate to see that. He is star. So good, and his loss is huge on terms of the lions chances of winning the flag because apart from being a gun, his leg speed is critical.

From the article, in regard to our yo yo form in the last 8 weeks: 'That’s not the record of a serious premiership threat, particularly when compared to the Magpies' Dies Pierek's memory not go back two seasons? Given his cycling analogy, you might think he might have pointed to our 2021 season, and 2022 for that matter, and pondered whether our efforts to peak at exactly the right time is a feature not a bug. At least ponder if trying to peak at the right time is goody's modus operandi? After a dominant first half of the 2021 the season, we had the almost identical run of yo yo wins and losses in the same block of games and we were more than a 'premiership threat'. We won the flag in 2021 on the back of winning our last four home and away games and then playing what many called the most dominant finals ever. The pattern was almost exactly the same last year - the difference being how tough our last few games were in terms of the opponents we faced and the intense, finals like pressure of those game because of the stakes. When it came time for the final summit, we were gassed. The flag was won by a team copying our approach, who were able to win games in the middle part of the season (aided by their massive home ground advantage). And maybe pierek might have looked a bit further back for a historical guide to test his hypothesis that a dominant home and away season equals being a serious premiership threat. The last time a team was as dominant as the pies are this year in terms of the win loss ratio was the tigers in 2018. The 2018 tigers were even more dominant than the the pies this year, as evidenced by their much higher percentage. They entered the 2018 finals series at a prohibitive 1.70 to win the flag. And didn't even make the grand final, let alone win it, getting bundled out in the prelim against, you guessed it Jon - the pies. In the wash up of that season, hardwick pondered if they had been up too long. That would have been something pirek might have at least touched on in his article. Stretching the cycling analogy, winning the Giro d'talia (the McClelland Trophy) is nice. But the goal is to win the Tour de France (the flag). History suggests winning both is possible (dees say hi), but very rarely happens.

The pies are a fantastic team . We beat them and were clearly the better team on the day. The lions flogged them. We just beat the lions. Port are a fantastic team. They beat us in very similar wet, tough conditions at Adelaide oval. But it was the mirror image of that game last night - like Port we lost a game by the slimmest of margins that we should have won, and would have if we kicked accurately. If you rate the pies and Port, on OBJECTIVE form, it is logically inconsistent not to also rate the dees. Great game last night. But I saw nothing that changed my view the pies have vulnerabilities and that we are very well placed to exploit them. And nothing to dint my confidence that we will win the flag.

Yep. Project get Reid. We would have some forward line in five years, with JVR, who will he be a best by then, Jefferson hitting his straps and Reid on the rise. The Eagles need to inject mutiple first round picks to jump start their development. And even if the talk about Reid telling the Eagles he doesn't want to play there is bollocks there's always the risk of a country boy wanting to come back home to Victoria.

Except he sounded more grumpy than laconic. Reads laconic, didn't sound it.

I'm glad we didn't. What help is that sort of game for development and/or plsyers pushing their case for senior selection

Sharing forward duties with brodie for 2 or 3 games wont do much harm to the airplane's progress.

You'd have to think that of the players on the extended bench melk rivers and jj are locks. And surely chandler comes in for spargs. Smith as sub Hibbo and brodie cool their jets at cold Coburg.

That's not true. He played the dees at least twice when he played for the roos.

It's funny you should say that. I was just thinking today I might have to rethink that. Like Grumpy goody.

PETTY'S BACK

That could be an animation of goody in today's presser. He said brodie would be playing VFL. I might go watch him as Coburg is not as far as old Casey town

Go redlegs

Petty (injured) and spargo (ommited) out .

That's the right perspective. It really shouldn't bother me the lack of respect we received. After all I should be inured to it having posted on dl for so long. But if i was honest, it really does bother. I spent my entire adolescence, and much of my adult life passionately supporting a team that, forget respected, has been openly ridiculed. And i'm jack of it. I have a theory. Footy media is dominated by ex footballers who played in the 80s and 90s. Lyon, Russell, Dunstall, Brereton, ling, Taylor, King, Montagna etc etc. A common thread is the teams they played for did not respect the dees (with the obvious exception of Lyon- who I maintain has spent way more time running us down than he ever has pumping us up). I watched a clip of the last two mins of the game ad called by the mmm team. I'll find it and put here. It is shot of inside their box. The next box over is the sen box. Derwayne Russell is in the box, I assume calling the game. He looks like he is at a funeral foe the whole 2 mins. And doesn't appear to register an emotion hen jakey body marked and then goaled. No doubt I'm reading too much into it, but for me it summed up the antipathy the footy media has towards us.

All you need to know about the state of football journalism #2 So i decided to listen to the SEN Sanderson strategy slot on catch up. First topic for discussion - Brodie Grundy. Whateley played goodies answer to the the first question of the presser, which is about Grundy. Goody notes the hysteria (his word) in the media and that Brodie will be back. Chief hysteric, Whateley, doesn't bother defending the completely reasonable charge of hysteria. And Sanderson basically disregards what he has just heard from the lips of Goody and says Grundy unlikely to return to the ones this season. I mean the senior coach had just said he will be back for pete's sake. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say at least something like, well Goody was adamant he would be back, but i have my doubts? 5 more mins wasted on rubbish - remembering this is a segment supposedly about strategy. They eventually get to the game and it is all about the Lions. Sanderson's take is they got on top becuase they beat us in the contest and clearances. That's it. That's where the analysis largely ends. And then goes on to say how good he thinks the Lions are and that they a real 'smokey' to win the flag (some smokey - they are third fav) No respect for the dees effort to come back from 5 goals to win - the lions went too defensive apparently. No talk about what we did to wrest momentum back - other than we won contested ball. Fair dinkum, this is supposed to pass as analysis?

Not sure. I do know the revolution won't be. (Note: jokes aside, all vfl games streamed on afl.com)

That presser says all you need to know about the state of football journalism A nine minute presser. Five minutes of which involved questions about Grundy. That despite Goody being crytal clear about the situation in answering the very first question. And despite Goody addressing some of the stupid media talking points, they continued to ask stupid question (the very first question, which was about Grundy, was a good question - the rest were a joke as Goody had already answered them). Goody was finally asked a football question - about the lions second and third quarters. A vague question got a vague response. What i would have loved to hear being asked was what what actually happened - what did the Lions do differently, what did the dees do not so well.

That's a good question and really interesting observation - one i hadn't considered. Well not in terms of us having more of the ball decreasing our chances of accruing pressure points. I don't know for certain, but ,my assumption is pressure points can only be accrued by the team without the ball in hand and/or when the ball is in dispute ie neither team has the ball in hand. So logic suggests you are onto something ie if one team dominates possession the other team has more opportunities to accrue pressure points. Somewhat surprisingly, in the final quarter possession % differential was only 5% (42 - 37, with i presume the ball in dispute 21% of the time) - the diff in pressure was aprox 10% in the last (174-192). By the by the numbers for the last 10 minutes of the game are fascinating - 24% for the dees and only 13% for the lioins. Show our domination in that period. But i assume it also means the ball was in dispute for 63% of the time. That is a lot of contests and contested footy - which is exactly what we love; the dees DNA. As goody loves to say we got the game looking like a Melbourne game - get it forward and back the players in to win the next contest. But it also shows the Lions kept scrapping and running hard, otherwise the numbers would have looked more like the tola game time in possession stats.

A very good point. Their passing in that period was surgical. And i'd add that some of their kicking for goal in that period was also brilliant. They go 50 50 for accuracy in that period and they don't look nearly as dominant. The same is true for the first 20 minutes of the game with our crazy good accuracy, and to a lesser extent in the last with Melk's two beautiful shots at goal - particularly the one from the boundary which is easily forgotten given his match winner. On the boundary, on his non preferred leg and around the body from 40 metres. That was pure skill. The game was such a good example of the difference accuracy makes and how important it is to take chances. There was some brilliant kicking for goal from both teams: Tracc's bomb from outside 50 Bailey's set shot from an angle from the 50 metre arc BB's set shot from outside 50 Woey and Ashcroft's goals from almost the same spot in the pocket at the Punt road end Fletcher's beautiful goal on the run after outpointing Hunter in the air Daniher's set shot goal from near the boundary at the end of the first q Kozzie's set shot from a similar spot at the opposite end of the ground in the first Gawn' clutch set shot from 40 Tracc's clutch bannana (after a brilliant handball from kickett) soon after Viney's clutch snap under immense pressure on his non dominant foot And of course Melk's two match winners. Firsts class football. It's worth noting in that context that we had one more scoring in the Pies game than we did Friday night - and scored 34 points less because of our inaccuracy.

Damn - we only needed 747 more steps to make it a nice round 20, 000 step podcast. I blame myself - i forgot to highlight Whatley's ridiculous call as the siren went when he said with great fervor - "Melbourne rescue their season'. Sheesh. And what about the 'how did the Lions lose that game" narrative the media are pushing. Coz the dees didn't have anything to do with it did they! If it was the Pies reeling in 5 goal deficit it would have all been Daicos this, Pies that, never count them out this, have my baby Nick that blah blah blah.

Calm down? A bit of poetic licence from me. Chill bro Mono. For what it's worth I expect him to be picked this week and to play.