binman

Some good points. But your argument loses a bit of credibility, given the following two facts. Tim Smith did not play against the hawks. He was a late withdrawal and replaced by keilty. Hard then for him to keep us in the match. Perhaps you meant the tigers game, in which Smith was good (not great) in so far as he took a couple of contested marks. Not sure he kept us in the match though. Oscar can't win a contest? If you mean aerial contests as I pointed out in another thread omac had 13 one percenters (and 10 against the hawks incidentally), which measure defensive efforts (but basically spoils) against the suns, which is elite. 7 more than any other player. As a result his (very tall) opponent could only manage one goal - and that was from a pass Oscar couldn't stop. So whilst he is certainly slow and has other weaknesses you could have highlighted, not winning aerial contests is not an issue. Sure he doesn't win every contest and last week against the hawks he lost a couple of critical contests (none last game) but show me a defender who doesn't lose some contests. I would agree he perhaps doesn't win enough contested ground ball but his job as a tall defender is to stop his opponents marking it and he has done his job in that regard in the last two weeks. Two weeks that we have been defensively very strong and won both games. Would be a strange time to drop him then.

No question he has struggled physically this season.

Fair enough. My bad then. In my defence a confusing turn of phrase and I'm a bit over the bagging omac cops on this site.

So, he meant: To be fair to the discussions about the goal, omac was never going to catch him because he omac is slow and uncompetitive. Am I missing something? He (or anyone else for thst matter) was never unfair to Holman or the discussion about the Holman goal so why a need to use the qualifier 'to be fair'. He was unfair to omac who was injured and unable to chase. So it seems to me that a much more reasonable comment would have been: To be fair to omac I didn't realise he was injured in that tackle and that might explain why he didn't chase. Because he couldn't. The all access video should have noted that....

Huh? What is the Holman discussion? The only comment I can see about Holman from ATBOG is that he kicked a goal because omac didn't go with him.

Fair on Holman? Sheesh. You do know he plays for an opposition team. And that Omac plays for the MFC With fans like some on demonland who needs enemies.

Right on both counts od. On the second point if he were as bad as some think he wouldn't get a game with Casey let alone an AFL team. But Collins, jeez he's a gun.

Could barely walk after the game. But hey let's find another reason to find fault with omac.

Who arguably cost them the game against the dees. in a game where we scored 8 goals Collins direct opponent, who has been in woeful form, kicked 3. And at the end Collins sagged off tmac gifting him a completely free mark. Which he dropped, yet Collins could still not stop him kicking the ball of the ground for the matching winning point. Great defence. Not. Imagine if that were omac, posters would be all over him. Meanwhile omac blanketed his opponent. But sure Collins is who we need.

Why?

A positive for Omac is that he had 13 once percenters, which essentially measure spoils. The next best on the ground was Collins and Frost who both had 6. His opponent kicked one goal and that came from a pin point pass that Omac couldn't do anything about. Did nothing thereafter (Sam Collins opponent kicked 3 by way of comparison. Keeps tmac to less and they win) We kept the Hawks and Suns to under 70 points so the defence seems to be working in the last two weeks. I could well be wrong but i would think Goody reckons Omac is doing his job and on the back of that i expect him to be selected again An interesting stat is that Omac was on field 99% of the game. And frost was on field 100% of the game.

Drinks pots not pints

Dew studied st the school.of roos did he not. Employing exactly the defence first, minimise the damage, man behind the ball model goody employed in just first 2 years at the dees

Right, move the forward who kicked 40% of our goals. Makes sense.

Indeed. And what i simply don't get is why people don't get this is the key reason why we are playing the way we are playing. It's one things footy fans drinking the Kool Aid and ignoring the impact of having a quarter of your best players unavailable (not to mention also having a fair wack of your best 22 not fully fit), quite another when media types who are paid to have an opinion also ignore it. I mean, der.

[censored] off

Not the only one Nasher. I have only just finished watching the game. For family reasons could not watch the game live and thanks to the well designed Kayo platform watched 'as live'. We were horrible. All our woeful kicking skills that i (and it must be said you) have pointed out for the last few years were on full technicolor display. But we got the 4 points. And that is all that matters. At least for now. The Pies, the best team in the AFL by a country mile, almost got beaten by the worst team in the AFL today. Hibberd is huge blow but if we get Hannan, May, Lever and JKH (his running will be super important for us) back in the next few weeks then we won't be far away. The AFL is becoming like the NBA. The regular season is a war of attrition. The play offs/finals is a totally new season. Even the best teams can struggle if come finals team they get key injuries. Sure the pies and the cats look good ATM. But is very long season these days. A few key injuries and the cats are among the magpies, so to speak.

Can not stand this sort of comment. Sure, don't rate a player. But to hope a player who goes and out and gives everything they have for their team (my team - and i assume yours Martin) is injured and is not up for selection for the next game is pathetic. I hate it. With a passion. I have always hated demons fans who bag our own. And i have called out many at games over the last four decades. Demonland is like a virtual outer. And like the outer if you are are true fan there are lines you don't cross. And the number one line you don't cross is satisfaction when one of ours is hurt. And you crossed it. I have had no issue with your posts Martin. And in my nearly 10 years on Demonland i have ignored a very small number of posters. But in the immortal words of L7 you have just made my [censored] list

We won't need 13 wins. 12, perhaps even 11 will earn a top 8 spot this season. The latter is a real chance if the pies, gws and cats clear away and win most of their games. Outside those teams clubs are incredibly even down ro suns, swans and blues. But let's say 12 gets a team in. We win today and we need 9 from 14. Sure that is no small feat and everything has to go right (best players back, no more major injuries etc) but it is doable. Afher this game we have a tough run into the bye and after the bye four very winnable games after.

Well ignored form is a bit of an overstatement. The bookies have the away team as favorites in 7 of the 9 games (which is a quirky statistical anomaly). The only away teams not favorite are the lions and tigers and both are around 2.30 so rated a pretty good chance to win.

Good Lord if stuie dew settles on the ground he squash half our team!

Really happy the dees have dodged the wet weather in Melbourne this weekend. Wet weather exposes our skill issues ( I could not believe it last week when it started to rain right before the game started and again at the start of the second half). Gold Coast is 24 and sunny tommorow (though weirdly the BOM still says 10% of rain) and hopefully the game concludes before any dew settles. Of course I'd take any win, but to get some momentum, not to mention some much needed percentage, we need a big win that features slick ball movement and transition, kicks to targets and some forward 50 marks. Bring it Dec and tmac.

Yep, that's my read.

Note to self: desist from predicting players won't be dropped.

Could explain the explosion in the use by commentators (hello gary) of the dreaded phrase 'ground ball'. It annoys me that so much ofvchampion data's data is unavailable to Joe public.