Pates

Has Hunt got a Rising Star nomination yet? 29 disposals, 8 inside 50s, and showed great run off Half Back.

It's true what many are saying that it's impossible to determine how much of an impact playing in Darwin has on the abilities the following week because fact is we have been worse than rubbish for so long. We broke another hoodoo this year and I pointed it out to my dad, he just said well it's hard to call teams and locations hoodoos when we lost just about every week anyway. All our "hoodoos" and stats of "we haven't done X in Y years" is more of a reflection on how bad we were and how we need to break those walls down. Kind of gone off topic there....

I agree that we should look at getting games into younger guys coming through but I think we also need to make sure there is still a mix of young and experienced. We've made that mistake of throwing a young team together and expecting them to just work, it blew up in our faces. Also identify games where we won't be throwing them to the wolves as much. Suns and Carlton are teams we can look at giving someone a go. I'd like to see Weiderman and Hulett a run at some stage through the year, and of course get some of the young guns for the future like Clarry and Gus in there at the same time. Still got to keep a balance though.

Difference is Tasmania doesn't sap the life out of you like Darwin does, players talk about how much weight they loose when they play up there and there is no doubt the effect if can have. I agree it should be an "anytime anywhere" mantra, but playing at home provides an advantage, playing in Darwin and Alice Springs creates a neutral venue. Just on that as well, the Hawks have managed to make Tasmania successful because they have really worked hard at winning the local community over and in return the locals have embraced them as their team. I notice that the crowd sounded like it was 60-65% Freo supporters, if this is a direction we're going down then we need to work harder at winning them over as fans. Rather than it being a neutral ground make it out second home.

He's having a very good year, certainly showing more of what he's capable but like you Demon Jack I think he's got higher levels he can go to. He sounds very committed to Melbourne and the improvement of the team. 20+ goals at this stage of the year is a very good return from him when you think about how difficult it's been for us to have goal scorers in previous years.

I don't see him in the long term future at the club but he's ok depth as long as he plays a role when he comes in. He's just an average player in my opinion so we should have guys knocking him out of the team long term.

I was concerned at quarter time, glad he went onwards and upwards after that. Surely going to notch his century up next week.

I get the feeling they will look into possibly resting players after the Darwin trip, they were out on their feet at the end. Omac seems to be the only forced out though, Vince played out the game so I suspect it was just a knock and lighter duties through the week will see him to Sunday's game.

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2016-07-09/melbourne-extends-nt-partnership 1 game in Darwin and 1 in Alice, same as we've had.

100% with you on that.

But surely they have a responsibility to the duty of care to the players if they have the means to assist recovery and prevent injuries. The AFL also wants games up there, obviously we are the conduit to make it happen, I don't think it's a ridiculous thing to ask for given that it's not just our team the suffers but the team they are fixturing up there with us.

I was one that voiced my concern at his output for that quarter and he'd want to show more to have a chance of playing again next week. Interestingly I think he would have been the only player on the ground that seemed to get better as the game went on. Well done to him.

Great first quarter, should've put them more away in the second quarter, just played the rest of the game out. Good games from Watts, Hogan, Tyson, TMac, and Gawn (although his taps were a bit misdirected in the second half). Rest and recovery now.

Please, please, please can we make sure one of the games in PRIOR to the bye. Give the players from both teams a chance to recover. Not exactly stoked about this decision, but money in the bank.

I get the feeling now the game is done the players are going into a little bit of self preservation considering the conditions.

Why is Hunt taking our kick ins? We don't have a lot of good users but surely others better and more comfortable with the responsibility.

Sounds like both teams are butchering it now with the slippery ball and tired legs.

Get it back Melbourne.

Big goal from Hogan, we needed that one.

Well I'm never going to be happy when we dominate play for most of the game but don't put a team away, call me funny that way. I get what you're saying but we started to showboat a bit midway through that quarter instead of doing the team things that got us to where we are. I watched the last 5min of the Port game in Darwin we won in Darwin by 1pt, we let them back in with that one, hoping we don't repeat history.

I know we're a young team but we had absolute domination for 3 and a half quarters but haven't buried them. We need to learn to destroy a teams confidence and make sure the game is buried when we can.

FFS Melbourne, foot to the throat. End this bloody game.

Boundary umpire just royally screwed us!

Poor execution from us down our end and too easy transition from the Dockers.

That work from Petracca and Viney really should have resulted in something.