binman

see below

That was my read too. Could barely get some words out. Shattered. Which is why no doubt he has not said anything yet. For me that gave me a modicum of closure. A modicum. A [censored] modicum

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/video/2017-09-05/missed-opportunity-simon-goodwin?camefrom=EMCL_1829220_73153980

Interesting comments from bmjnr. I have no doubt we had many players playing injured. Gawn is an obvious one. Watts wasn't right. Viney obviouly. Hogan of course. Even jones. All struggled to come up from serious injuries. And it would make sense also that injuries played a role in the mid field pressure dropping off, which was the key reason our season fell away. I have always maintained injuries are the biggest determinant of a teams success. And the culture in footy is still strong not to blame injuries. Gives another soldier a chance and all that palaver. Its not just the games lost it is players struggling to get back to their optimal level. Often they simply don't until the following season. A key factor in the tigers this year has been their run with injury. And obviously a big factor in gws struggles is their shocking run. Amazing they are top 4. The zone comment is interesting. Im pretty sure they were full zone against port. My sense is that tmac was largely man on man when he went back which disrupted the set up. I wasn't against dropping frost at the time but they also dropped salem. And then tmac went back. And he was actually pretty poor down back. Particularly against the pies but also the lions. Robbed us of a really good forward and hurt our backline. In hindsight goody made a big error.

Really? Hardly earth shattering info and not in any way health related. Would be a bit rich for him/her to be worried about a rabid dees fan sharing the info if she/he was ok with sharing the info in the first place. But as the learned hemmingway suggests always a good idea to protect your sources.

Give him a b&f? I assume they vote after every game not at the end of the sason. And given he won having only played 14 games im guessing they use a variation on 3,2,1 model as opposed to ourw where every player gets a score betweem 0 and 10 by 3 match committe reps. So, hard to rig

Just after iirc. Said tmac was not a natural forward and would have to go back.

Well if we get lever that blows pd's theory we cant have macs x 2, frost and lever at the club.

I wish posters would take their hate and ignorance to the DL dark web - or the comments section of almost any Hun article - and stay off the main board. And please do not take this an invite to spew comments like 'oh the nasty PC police are shutting down the majority voice again. Us white middle class men are the real victims here'

Good post Farmer. The bottom line this season is we did not score enough. To put our defence into the proper perspective we only had 100 or more points scored on us 5 times for the season. Five. In one of those games we won . Two were early on when all teams were scoring high (with the cats swamping us after we lost gawn at half time) and the last one was the rampant crows when we ran out of legs. No question Tmacs younger brother was better when Tmac went back. I think he will end up being the better player full stop. I have watched him closely all season and he is better kick and decision maker who makes very few errors. As evidence of this i i have little doubt he will poll well in the bluey. I have been told that the club is very confident about him eventually being the better player than Tmac. This was a big factor in why, much to one posters immense frustration, they let Dunn and did not see the need to replace him with a stop gap whilst they were wating for Lever to compliment him down back. A star? I think he has the ability but has long way to go. But what gives me enormous confidence is he is a kid. Only 21 and since making his debut in 2016 has barely missed a game such is the confidence the club has in him. He is tracking fantastically and well ahead of his brother at the same age - indeed ahead of many players of his size at comparable stages. He will fill out and put on 5-10kg more muscle and be a beast in years to come. A star is a big call but i'll tell you something for free. If it comes to pass you will have earned a great deal more credit in the talent spotting stakes than predicting a top draft pick will become one. Lever for example.

What makes you deduce bandicoot can't see real talent from the comment of his you quoted?

Sorry, i'm a bit confused. Did i miss something? Who on 'here' is saying 'his stats aren't good enough???'

Yep 100% agree. Really only Oliver is an A grader ATM. Plus we have focused so much on contested ball winners we really lack outside skill. As you say any side with really good midfields hurt us, even if they are otherwise not that strong. Brisbane, North and the pies come to mind. But the situation was made worse by Gawn's dramatic drop off in form and influence. He must have been carrying injuries as he first half of the Port game was the only time post his hammy he was anywhere near his best. And then he got injured again. And Ports midfield dragged them back into the game.

You're funny Steve. Surely to goodness you realised i was having a joke and this quote is an attempt at irony. My bias? Surely you are jesting? Your Lever bias is more than a little concerning. But if you didn't get my joke i'll spell it out Lever is a terrific player. No question. I have never said any different. I hope we get him. But it doesn't a take a football talent savant to have worked out Lever is a really good player. Few if any people overrate him. With perhaps one exception. You. The way you rave about him $850 would be a steal.

Shhh. Lever is going to be the greatest defender of his generation. Better than Rance (so much more advanced at the same age i can hear the acolytes whisper). And so young. So much potential. Will be the best recruit the dees have ever had.

I think a more accurate comment would be lever is (more than) a tad over rated by some on this site. Well one on this site.

Im steve. And so's my wife

I disagree. Howe plays the intercept marking role pretty well. It is a real pity he didnt show that form more consistently at the dees. Makes mw wonder what went down

The other realted problem is our poor kicking. Most of our poor kickers have - not coincedentally - terrible techniques. Think hunt, t mac and tyson. Like all sports poor technique gets exposed under pressure. Pressure applied by the opposition (or in golf the difficulty of the course and/or conditions) and/or the pressure of crunch matches or momwnts within a match (eg a kick to win agame). Ours was exposed by both on saturday.

Yes

I suspect we have lever. Which is great. But as deespencer notes we are likely to only bw ablw to land one gun player. So whilst we desperately need q good quality outside mid with elite kicking skills we wont get one through trading this year. What we dont want is b-c grader outside with average kicking skills. Time for taylor to shine again in the draft

Some really good points.i agree wirh your comments about our defenders sometimes pushing up too high, though i wonder if sometimes a factor is the mids and forwards not working hard enough defensively. I also think we missed frostys speed in being able to get back. I suspect that a big factor in the slow ball movement stat is that our game plan involves crossing back and forth across the ground until we can create some space and free players and then going quick. The tigers do the same so id be curious where rhey are with that stat

Good lord. I had blocked that out. I was also there. A baby faced 18 year old. Numb. Adults all around me in tears and shock. Nothing could ever compare to that loss. Not sure what i was thinking. But i wasn't angry. This time i was furious.

Look i'm over it Jnr. I couldn't really care less anymore. But honestly i don't understand how you can see things so black and white, no pun intended. Yes the pies took 7 marks in their forward 50 and yes Cox and Grundy smashed us. But honestly, i don't mean to be rude but it just way to simplistic to simply blame the defenders for this. They were poor as it turns out. Only jetta of the back six got close to a pass mark. The rest were average particularly Hibberd, Tmac and Hunt. Ironically enough despite this we still kept them to under 100 points (just) and once again couldn't muster a winning score. But for god's sake the midfield pressure was appalling in the first quarter, when all the damage was done. Woeful. We were down 10 contested possessions at quarter time. Ten!. We were at least that many tackles down. We didn't lay our first tackle until the 20 minute mark of the fist quarter. 20 minutes of AFL football without a single tackle! We only laid 3 for the whole first quarter. Unforgivable. Grundy smashed us? No wonder given Gawn barely could stay with him all day. Gawn's defensive pressure was appalling. His job is to ensure the opposition ruckman don't swan in their forward line and get easy marks. Martin also toweled him up. I just hope injury is to blame. There is lot of love for lever on this site and i'm also keen to get him. But their defence gave up 100 points against a low scoring side and were dominated in the first half. Was that because they their defence as poor? No of course not. It was because as we could all see, like us against the pies, the crows simply did not apply anywhere near enough pressure all over the ground, but particularly through the mid field. Lever won't help a jot if we play like we did last Saturday. And if we don't bring the required pressure every game we also won't fully benefit from his real skill which is his intercept marking. Like Rance he is at his most dangerous when the opposition are forced to kick under pressure into their 50 like we were by Brisbane and the Pies. Such kicks rarely hit targets or go to a forwards advantage and are easy picking for players like Lever, Rance and dare i say it Howe. Sides putting more pressure on than us than we do on them mean that it is not just down back we get out marked. We got out marked all over the bloody ground for the last 9 games of thew season. But sure Jnr blame the defenders, in particular the talls. And let yourself believe that lever will fix our problems. Knock yourself out. For me i'd rather take a more nuanced, dare i say it modern approach to analysing what the problem is and therefore what the solution might be. As Goody will be no doubt. I think a really good question is the one BB alludes to above. Is our zone system the right one? And the corollary does our game plan measure up? Our game plan completely depends on manic pressure. As we have seen since the dogs game any drop off in that pressure exposes our zone defence, in part because as BB notes it allows teams to move the ball quickly through the corridor. Lever will help no doubt as he will cut off some attacks but we saw in the crows wc game it still won't be enough if we don't apply sufficient all team pressure. The other problem with our game plan and aggressive zoning is that poor disposal and turnovers exposes us on the rebound, much more so than say the pies or teams with less aggressive zones. Buckley has been often been criticized for not being tactically savy or up with modern approaches. An example is he plays a much more traditional man on man defence. But the advantage of that approach is that it offers protection against quick ball movement and turnovers as defenders are better placed to avoid getting caught in no man's land. We saw this on Saturday when they were able to stymie us and not allow forward space even when we moved the ball quickly. Dunn thrives on this approach and played really well on Saturday. I really wonder if Goody's game plan is the right one. It is very taxing and depends on having players who do not tun the ball over a lot. But i also wonder if our wretched run with injuries should be factored in when assessing its effectiveness as should the fact that it is far from bedded down and is work in progress. I hate to say it but Richmond are playing exactly the game we aspire too. Manic pressure all over the ground. Pressure that means sides dump kick into their forward half and often into the tigers hands. Intense forward pressure that traps the ball there. Aggressive zone defence. Unusual forward leading patterns. Cross the ball and hold it until there is an opening and then move the ball super fast and run in waves. Hard gut running, particularly defensive running. But they have a great run with injury and have by in large better users of the a ball. Still they are the template for us. And i expect we will look to use that template. But i'm out. I'm not going to comment any more on this topic. Let's agree to disagree and move on to trade rumours and who to draft.

Which really doesnt make sense. As a dees supporter he would be all too aware of how crap we are