Pates

2 hours ago, Nelo said:

The actual gameday experience was also a disappointment. Trying to talk to my kids and the breaks was near impossible because of the music and the expletives going all day was disgusting. I told one person to stop saying the F bomb and was looked at and told what's the problem. My 12 year old actually said after the game he doesn't want to go back again. That's how horrified he was of the behavior.  

It might be time for the AFL and the MCG to create team areas that you can book so Melbourne fans sit with Melbourne fans and Pies fans sit with Pies fans. We had a real nuffy jerk right in front of us who was trying to bait myself and another Melbourne fan behind me. Made the experience really unpleasant and frustrating, I don’t mind us losing and I don’t mind an oppo fan having banter, but being a [censored] about it is unnecessary and pathetic. 

Sorry to hear your son had such a bad experience, I hope he gives it another go. 

4 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Yes.

Nibbler isn't the only one. The likes of Sparrow who's killing our momentum surge by just coughing up the ball so easily.

If they're willing to drop guys like Tom McDonald and Trent Rivers, then Sparrow and ANB form also cannot be ignored.

Yep I’ve been thinking for a while that Sparrow needs a run at Casey. There has been this belief amongst the coaching staff and selection committee that it will just come good. It hasn’t, there are players out of form that need to be dropped. 

Does anyone else feel that Nibbler in particular has been given time to find his form based off his form last season? The match selection committee has really shown a lack of bite to cut players who are down on form. The fact we have been “getting the job done” for the first 10 weeks has masked more than a few players who have been coasting for the most part. 

Out: M Brown, ANB, Turner

In: Weid, Chandler/Bedford, May

Alternatively keep Turner in and push Petty forward. Love Petty as a defender but there needs to be a shake up of the forward line so throwing him forward could provide something. 

The small forwards and our lack of pressure/conversion from inside 50s has become a massive issue for us. The coaches have persisted with the group that got us to a premiership, fair enough, but when things aren’t working you can’t keep doing the same thing with the same personal.

I really admire ANB for the way he forced his way back into the team and became an important part of our premiership team, but he has really been off for the first half of the season. I have been putting in Bedford for ANB for a few weeks now to shake up that group, I now think is HAS to happen. He can’t keep riding on the coat tails of his premiership year, new year clean slate and for me he’s been mostly average or poor. 

Spargo has been off as well, he used to make things happen with his kicks inside 50. I remember one of the coaches saying start of 2021 that he was the one they wanted to have the ball when entering the 50. There’s two things I would say about that for this year, firstly it’s not happening as often as it did last year and secondly he hasn’t been anywhere near as efficient or damaging as he was last year. I don’t think you can change the mix so strongly as to drop both Spargo and ANB but Charlie is also on thin ice. 

I’m a footy nuffie so I have very little to go off from an experience point of view, but I feel like there needs to be a shake up of the whole line which could include throwing different players in there. This could look like a number of things including giving Petracca, Oliver, and Viney more time in the forward line, or doing something radical like throwing Petty forward or giving JvR some game time. Hell give Majak Daw a crack at some matches and rotate him, Max, and Jacko through there. 

There’s no spark, we have the bye to find it. 

3 hours ago, dee-tox said:

Owning the corridor used to be our thing! Now we have trouble defending it and when we do get a chance to go through there, we play safe. This is also contributing to the lack of forward 50 marks and what Goody refers to all the time: connection.

Go wide and you let opposition teams get numbers back and makes scoring more difficult.

We’ve definitely lost our dare, the players have regressed to being afraid to make a mistake. I’m all for playing intelligent football in looking for the short out player, but the difference is last year we would then have Petracca, Oliver, Viney, and others look for that inside corridor option that opens the play up. It’s now very stagnant, slow, and predictable. 

4 minutes ago, loges said:

Whats the difference.

Weid's young and at least has a chance of improving. M Brown is done, he's a VFL player, leave him at Casey.

I wouldn't be against the idea of throwing Daw into the mix, especially if Max is hurt. B Brown was at least a target today and had patches of being decent but he had no support. Fritta is nowhere to be seen right now. 

To think we started the year lauding our depth to cover positions, our depth was MASSIVELY overrated.

We were good, even blistering in patches. Showed some of what we’re capable of, but does anyone else thinking we are making the job hard on ourselves? Running straight into traffic rather than trying to evade and look for the out. Fumbling at key moments, dropping marks we’d usually take, missing handballs. It’s all really scrappy, and frankly reminds me of 2019/20. It’s like we’re “almost there” but then making critical errors that hurt. 

One thing that definitely reminds me of 2019, kicking it down the throat of the opposition spare defender. We had so many inside 50s that were gladly snatched up by the Pies talls, and the most frustrating thing was it gave them confidence. 

I’m not at panic stations yet, but things need to change. We have a tough second half to the year and in no way are we playing anywhere near good enough to be top 4 let alone competing for the premiership. 

1 hour ago, IRW said:

Because" team think" means everyone has to run everywhere all the time.

BBB would be more likely to thrive if he wasn't expected   to show up in the back 50 so often.

Tweaking the forward line might be a plan instead of just shuffling the options in and out.

Oh and someone give Trac goal kicking lessons...he's no Chris Judd

There’s a few that need goal kicking practice, Nibbler’s kicking for goal has been shocking and only recently costly. 

I would be up for BBB being asked to play more of the TMac, up the ground role and give Fritta some time one out in the forward 50. M Brown just needs to provide a genuine second target, someone that the Pies have to be accountable for. 

7 minutes ago, Pirlo said:

Very disappointed that Nathan Jones decided to add his two cents. The story was just beginning to die out thanks to Bailey Smith. 

Sadly it’s his job now, and as someone who experienced so much garbage at the club and then only just missed out on a premiership I think he’s entitled to an opinion. 

Really hope this is a preview of Monday, beating the Pies twice in a weekend is a great weekend!

1 minute ago, Ben said:

If you haven't already, I'd recommend not reserving and instead going general admission for tomorrow. Looking at the seats available to be reserved, the best you can get is Q55 row AA (top level Olympic stand, 26th row back). A considerably better seat will be available in GA. Q1-Q6 are all available for walk up in the Shane Warne/Great Southern Stand. It's top level, but the whole of the bays are available so if you get there early enough (close to the 12:30 gates opening) you will be able to get a seat in the first few rows of the top level, which is a far closer view than the Q55 row AA option. There's no Melbourne area as such given it is an away game (apart from the Demon Army in M3), but at least if you go Q1-6 you'll be directly above the cheer squad, and there'll be far more Melbourne representation at the Punt Road end. The Pies own the City end (Ponsford stand).

Cheers for this advice, I’m coming straight from work so reserving a GA seat would be tricky. We’ve decided to go for the reserved seats, I like being on that wing near the MCC as well. Hopefully there won’t be too many insane pies fans around us! 😬

13 hours ago, leave it to deever said:

I hope Mitch Brown goes OK. BBB just has too. If Weid really wants a job at Mfc he needs to tear it apart at Casey. It's now or never for him I reckon.

I thought we were stacked with fwds last year and it would be a problem picking them.

Gee we were lucky with injuries last year.

Perhaps when may is back we could try Petty up fwd.

Or maybe Tomlinson but he seems to have lost a lot of form.

Who really knows...you can't beat bad luck not including May you goose.

I feel like the low confidence in the talks is almost endemic. It’s like it’s spreading amongst all of them and they don’t know how it’s going to break. We just need one of our tall defenders and one of our tall forwards to stand up, and I genuinely think the others will follow. BBB needs to get involved on Monday, even in his worst form last season he still had a presence and managed to snag a goal or two. The last month he has been MIA. 

I realise this is a thread about Disco so I’m just going to say good luck to the bloke and it’s great seeing guys like this being given an opportunity. 

3 hours ago, Supermercado said:

For the first time ever my kid has expressed an interest in going, so I use my membership barcode to log into Ticketmaster, choose 'member guest ticket 6-14 years' and pay $3.50 extra booking fee only for her to be assigned a spot in what seems to be a completely different part of the ground to the one I've been assigned on my digital membership.

I can't confirm this, because that's got me sitting in section 'GA42' which I don't think exists, and while an entry gate would give me some clue about which stand I'm supposed to go to, the bit where it says 'see below' for details doesn't have any details

It's an ambitious game to take a guest to but JFC what a farcical process. Given that I've been assigned a seat in a fictional area I'll just take up the spot next to the guest ticket, wait for the actual ticketholder to turn up and try to negotiate.

Do you have an 11 game membership? If so and you’re wanting both of you to have a reserved seat then you have to select a seat for you both. The digital membership only gets you General Admission, there’s no seat attached to it. 

My dad and I are trying to book tickets together on separate memberships at the reduced price, does anyone know how to do this? When I put my code in I can get my single allocated reduced ticket but I can only get the one, how do I get them both at the reduced $8 price? 

Also anyone know if this is going to put us automatically into a Melbourne area?

7 minutes ago, old dee said:

Usually with something like this fiasco I get less annoyed with the passing of time however with this one I am getting more annoyed. I will be really annoyed if we lose by a small margin on Monday. 

I wouldn’t say I’m getting more annoyed but it hasn’t passed like it has before. This was such an avoidable situation and for May as a leader to stuff up like this is so embarrassing and potentially costly for our season. 

44 minutes ago, dees189227 said:

Gee the goal umpires would have been a bit bored in the final term. Cannot believe a goal wasn't scored in the final term

6 behinds scored in the final quarter by two teams is embarrassing for the AFL; Sevens ratings must’ve plummeted and their sponsors would’ve been [censored]!

2 hours ago, DemonWA said:

True. Also Fritsch had a set shot which I was ready to bank in Q4 - he didn't register a score which is unlike him in recent years. Gawn too with the close range checkside. I think that's why the Sydney game burned for so many fans, we were down but probably still could have won. 

 

Fritta’s miss was massively demoralising, it was such an awful shank from a usually dead eye. That was the moment for me, even Max’s checkside miss wasn’t as heartbreaking as that. 

6 minutes ago, old dee said:

Agree Macca I seldom watch other games. It is not as good to watch. Most of my friends are older like me. They seldom go to night games in winter. I have keen tiger fans who did not go last night. Just too cold and the don't like catching trains at night after a game.

Thursday night footy is seen as a success for the league as the broadcasters love it, but for the viewing public it’s an awful time to go for I would say most of the public. I understand the benefits the league gets from TV rights but there has to be a balance to ensure the fans are being looked after as well. 

2 minutes ago, Demon17 said:

I suspect your'e right on this aspect for Monday.

Regarding the Herald Sun,  I didn't hear of any investigation into the rumoured alledged punch-up by two of its senior  journalists a while ago over who got a promotion and who didn't?  Where was their outrage then?

Mark Robinson said on AFL 360 this week that he understood the reaction of Melksham to throw one, qualifying it by noting to Whately that he wouldn't condone such a comment, violence is never the answer, etc,  etc..... Spare me the faux outrage from the Murdoch media.

And Gil ..... your shamefully watched the great Adam Goodes hounded out of football and did NOTHING. Go and sit in the corner as well and contemplate that as your legacy.

The Club has handled this as best they could  IMO.  The players involved will wear the aprobrium for many years to come.

Very separate issues but it’s a fair point. There are people that operate within the AFL that act as the moral police but have allowed so many worse indiscretions to continue or fade into oblivion. 

These “revelations” regarding May potentially going onto another venue afterwards, without sounding like I’m defending May I’m wondering what difference does it make? The issue stemmed from the argument and subsequent alteration with Melksham, is it a bad look that he could’ve gone on afterwards? Yes. Does it mean he should be given a further sanction? For what?

I think at some stage it would be good to hear from Melksham, it can be during the bye once the dust has settled. I think what we need to see on Monday is a side that’s banding together, not breaking apart. 

8 minutes ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

You'd think there would have been a little ceremony at training dropped on the club website if Daniel Turner was going to debut this week. Unless it's too early with our game being on the Monday. 

They’re waiting to see how Petty comes up I’d imagine, giving him probably until the last moment possible. 

Just now, Sir Why You Little said:

Good point. The Media should be real proud of themselves 

Good causes and good news stories don’t sell papers, it’s all about negative stories with clubs in turmoil. 

2 minutes ago, roy11 said:

What can the AFL do here, is it just a fine or a ban likely? Would hate to lose him for the Brisbane game

That’s the thing though, I feel like we’ve acted very appropriately towards May so I can only imagine that the lack of sanction towards Melksham is the only part that could genuinely be questioned. Beyond that I can’t see what it else we could’ve done. 

12 minutes ago, Demonland said:

 

Of course it’s the way that this is all phrased which is what matters. I imagine just about every incident that results in a player being suspended is actually investigated by the AFL Integrity unit, but saying “Breaking: AFL launching their own investigation” sounds so much more dramatic and can of course fill more pages of the newspaper. What really grinds me is that this week and match should be focused on MND and the Big Freeze, but the actions of May and Melksham have ruined it and placed the club in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. 

Even though I back Melky for sticking up for his teammates, it did make me wonder about him getting out of this with no sanction. 

8 minutes ago, Clintosaurus said:

Derwayne was pushing AFL intervention on his SEN show too today. Clown.

If we’re looking at it purely from a breaching codes of conduct side of things, aside from making a clown of himself and clearly making poor choices what has he actually done that would require AFL intervention? If anything perhaps there could be an argument for the AFL enforcing a ban on Melksham for violent conduct, however he’s injured anyway. 

Commentators and media pundits push these stories as far as they go because they know it gets more viewers, readers, listeners, and followers. It’s not because they think it’s right, it’s because they smell blood.