deejammin'

Pathetic, the result would be a shock but we do this so often it’s just so predictable. I would’ve taken flat track bullying our way to finals, but we can’t even do that! St Kilda are complete shite, they have beaten Brisbane and Gold Coast (who they were down by 5 goals against!). They didn’t even play that well today we just kept giving them easy looks, turnovers and inept defence. I can’t believe Goodwin. Viney, tagging against a team with one good mid when we’re winning the hit outs! Wtf!! TMac on a wing when our backs are getting monstered. Hogan on a HFF for the first three quarters against a team he usually monsters. Selection: Petty, not ready. Left one out at full back regularly.no crumbers, no speed, no big quick backmen. Game day: keeps an extremely high press for three quarters when the saints continually get out the back of us. No anchor backman within cooee of their forwardline when we have the ball. OUR FORWARDLINE: How do you have last week happen and still not change the strategy. Why does he think bombing to talk forwards in packs with no crumbers will work?! The umpiring was shocking, a few of our players had just awful games, a few shouldn’t be playing at AFL level. But ultimately, this game was lost at selection and by the coaching panel. That we got within two points inspite of complete ineptitude just drives this point home. Our group desperately needs to make finals and learn to play in big games. It’s hard to see us doing it now. Goodwin does some things well but when things arent working he is far too stubborn and his match day credentials are very weak. Worrying.

Contrary to the media noise I think the next three games are the biggest for the club and will define our season. Its dissappointing that we didn’t beat quality teams and put ourselves in the box seat in the last fortnight, but it’s also not unexpected for a young talented team with limited big game experience. the real test is to make finals. Win the next three and we’re well on our way. Lose any of the next three and it may be 2017 all over again. we need to flat track bully our way to contention, we’ll only truly see how far our group can go in finals, all the rest is just noise. Plenty o premiership teams have had bad losses during the season, none have come from outside the 8, that’s all that matters. out: Tyson, Hannan, Smith (McDonald if injured) in: frost, Garlett, Weideman

I think it has become one of the great myths that Geelong just magically flicked a switch and created a dynasty in 2007. In 2004 and 2005 that group played finals and won two finals across the two years. The group had a shocker in 2006 and 2007 was a rebound from that but a lot of that group had finals experience and the club had been through a sustained period of making, playing in and winning finals. For all the hype about the talent on our list and how good we look when we play our best our club hadn’t made finals in 12 years, only one player on our list has played in finals in the past 5 years and none of our young group has had regular experience in pressure cooker games. Things like Queens birthday will happen, our main concern should be winning enough to make finals so our young group can build their experience. From there who knows we could pull off a Bulldogs or a Richmond? But Geelong in 2007 was built on the back of years of grind not a magical switch flick. From here, lose to Port and we’re back with the pack, beat Port and we’re four wins from finals with games against St Kilda, Freo, Gold Coast and the Bulldogs in the second half of our year. It’s not all doom and gloom, we could’ve set our season up against the pies and it was bitterly dissappointing but unless we lose to St Kilda in 3 weeks time we’re on track to improve on last year and make finals.

I don’t have the hit out to advantage stat. But I would be stunned if it wasn’t up over the last 4 weeks over earlier in the season. Max has been awesome all season but it really looks like they’ve got a real system going with him and our mids now.

A lot of good points in here, great thread. I would add better connection between Maxy and the mids. Early in the year he was getting plenty of taps but they were either going to no one or the opposition as much as to our advantage. Now we have such great connection we convert to much cleaner clearances and dominate our opponents around the Ball.

Exactly, losing tight tussles against fellow top 4 contenders won’t hurt badly if we win against those outside the 8 and below us. We don’t need to beat our fellow contenders until it matters. Richmond and the Bulldogs weren’t perfect against the ladder leaders in their premiership, didn’t matter in the end. I just want us to get to the finals before we talk about winning premierships.

I understand that we may not have seen how our team will truly play against the best yet, but ultimately I don’t think this will matter until finals. As it stands we’ve beaten 2 teams in the 8 and lost to 1, that’s pretty good. I think making finals this season will come down to who can be the most consistent against lesser sides. It’s an incredibly even year and Brisbane, Gold Coast, St Kilda, Bulldogs, Essendon, GWS will all upset teams at some stage. We’ve done well to beat most of the potential bottom six teams to this point and to beat them well. Smash the bullies this week and we will be perfectly placed. I know I’ve said this before but we missed finals last year through losing to teams we should beat (North x 2, Freo, Collingwood, Hawthorn) we performed ok against teams inside the 8 beating Adelaide (x1), Port, Essendon and West Coast. We were also super competitive against Richmond and Geelong. This week is our true big test. Smash the bullies and put ourselves ahead of the pack. It’s great watching us play at the moment and I’m loving it, almost enough to trust us (years of MFCSS are still nagging). Get the win and then we can prove our finals credentials against the flith and power.

Our game is very difficult to adjudicate with many interpretations and shades of grey. Which makes it all the more unintelligible when they take a simple situation like this and make it more complicated. Intentionally touch an umpire, get a week. Simple. This just allows players to touch umpires and argue their way out of it. Stupid and bad for lower levels.

Yes, but the difference between us making the 8 and missing last year was losing to sides outside the 8 when we should win (North x2, Freo, Hawthorn, Collingwood). The first step for our club is simply to make the finals. Anything could happen from there. If we smash Carlton this week and continue beating teams outside the 8 we will have improved. FWIW if we beat all the teams in the bottom 4 it will be the first time in the Roos/Goodwin rebuild we have done so...

They might be being extra cautious with him as he has a history of longer term hammies?

Good that seems the smart move. My head says play him with controlled minutes in the VFL to make sure he’s cherry ripe for his return. My heart says geez it would be nice to see him rip up Gold Coast...... let’s hope we smash them without him.

I truly wish they would do the list chronologically by soonest to return. It’s so much more readable that way: Melbourne injury list: round eight Jack Viney (foot) – test Christian Salem (thumb) – test Harley Balic (platar fascia) – test Mitch King (elbow) – 2-3 weeks Dean Kent (hamstring) – 4 weeks Aaron vandenBerg (ankle) – 6-8 weeks Corey Maynard (hip) – indefinite Pat McKenna (hamstring) – indefinite

I was happy with today. I wanted a comfortable win and we got it. It was frustrating not to keep our 51pt margin but as long as we beat Gold Coast I’m thinking/hoping our first annihilation under Goodwin of another team comes against Carlton. The good: Hogan, Gawn, Brayshaw, Jones, Mcdonald bros, Lever, Hibberd, Jetta, Lewis, Clayton, Spargo. ok but below their best: Petracca, Weideman, Fritsch, Harmes, Vince, Tyson, Melksham. under pressure: ANB, Hannan, Hunt. also great to win all four quarters. It’s a small thing and yes the Saints could’ve kicked straighter but we are clearly working on our inconsistency within games. Keep on this trajectory and good times are ahead.

I think Salem is unlikely to get up and with Lewis putting in one of his best and Vince playing ok if Salem is still sore another week could be ok (I’m not convinced in playing all three of them off halfback/wing, it makes us look slow). I’d worry that if we bring Salem in for Hunt GC’s quicker players may tear us apart. For me it’s: ANB out for Viney Hannan out for Garlett (on this week’s form/ for fresh legs. if we give Hannan the benefit of the doubt because of his excellent game against Essendon I wouldn’t be upset).

If only Demetriou had called Bomber to let him know the cops were onto him... he could’ve destroyed the evidence and relied on being a hard done-by good bloke to get the lowest possible penalty....

It’s always dangerous to look past next week for us Demons supporters but I feel we are about to head into a crucial 3 weeks for the club and knowing where we are at. (St Kilda, Gold Coast, Carlton) There has been a sense of déjà vu about our first 6 weeks, a good hoodoo breaking win, a couple of flawed wins where we didn’t crush our opposition as we could have but got the 4 points, an honourable loss and a couple of deplorable losses where serious questions about our ability to stop opposition run ons and our forward line synergy have been raised. All very 2017. While most of us who were hoping for a genuinely good side this year would agree 3-3 is disappointing the reality is we are still right amongst it in a highly competitive season. With three games against sides we need to beat to make a serious push at finals ahead we have a genuine chance to set up our season and with a few important inclusions starting to come back we could be a serious threat in the second half of the year. I see it like this: 3 comfortable wins with at least one big margin: sets us up for a free hit at Adelaide with a healthy percentage well on track for a serious tilt at finals with a (hopefully) full list. Also should put both St Kilda and the Suns well back in the race for finals and hopefully out of our way. 3 close wins; sees us in a good position to push for finals but needing to put together some big wins in a harder second half of the year to seriously push for finals. 2 wins: not dead and buried, but in a similar position to 2017 needing a good win against a top 4 team team (Adelaide last year) and a few results going our way to scrape into the 8. 1 or 0 wins: in huge trouble, the media blowtorch will be applied to Goodwin in a way he is yet to experience. Unlikely to make finals and likely to hand over a decent first round pick to Adelaide. The club could still respond as we have a talented young list but it would be the first time in the Jackson tenure that there will be serious questions asked. Im hoping for 3 big wins but MFCSS has me suspecting 2 and 1, what do you reckon? Are these three as big as I think they are?

A win is a win. Lots of great things in the third, good kicking for goal, good structure in the forwardline, our mids giving the dons a spanking and our defenders all playing well. However, our first half was insipid, we lost a qtr and drew a qtr against a pathetic opponent. We still worked far too hard for too little and looked too easy to to get free in their forwardline against. Wwre back to parity and our season is still alive, must win the next 3 and improve our play significantly to make finals, let alone contend. We are still yet to play 4 quarters, we did finally play one excellent quarter, so little victories. I do wish Goodwin would try to bury a team rather than take valuable players off and tinker, our percentage is not good.

I am starting to accept that we are not a contender, we are not even good, we are an ordinary team with a stubborn coach who clearly has lost connection with his players. So sad. I’d like to see them prove me wrong but this is dumb, boring football played badly.

I took another look and I see what you’re talking about but I would still argue it wasn’t sufficient contact to be impeding Goldstein, it’s an ultra soft free if the arm is the issue. I’d like to believe I’d be arguing the same if it was the other way round. But I really hate north so I would probably be happy they were annoyed. happy to agree to disagree, go dees, I hope we don’t have a “free kick Hawthorn” game this week.

I have now watched that replay multiple times, freeze framed several shots and I see nothing that consitutes front on contact from Lever, his arm is out across Goldstein, but isn’t touching him, you are allowed to do this, it’s called framing, Defenders are coached to do it, it doesn’t constitute contact unless they hit them with the arm or hold them. The only part of Lever that contacts Goldstein is his head and shoulders when Goldstein pushes his elbow into them, that does not constitute front on contact and would likely be deemed insufficient contact in Basketball let alone footy. Goldstein also drives his knee into Lever, but again it is minimal and the contact is initiated by Goldstein, after he has elbowed Lever in the head. The major contact is Goldstein’s elbow to the head, that’s it. For it to have been a block Lever would’ve needed to actually have his arm, chest, side, leg etc actually bump into Goldstein. It’s a high free kick or play on. That’s it. Also the front on contact rule would only apply if Lever hit Goldstein’s front, Lever’s head/shoulders hit Goldstein’s side, his arm, that is not front on contact.

No it hasn’t, if you take your eyes off the ball, and THEN make body contact blocking an opponent from the marking contest then it’s a free for blocking. The only part of Lever’s body to make contact with his opponent is his head, with his opponents elbow. It has to be a high free to Lever, high contact is not allowed in marking contests, if the umpire missed the contact between Lever’s head and Goldstein’s elbow then it is play on as there is no other contact to constitute blocking. The only option it can’t be is free kick North, which of course the pathetic excuse for an umpire payed. You are implying you can’t look at your opponent in a marking contest, that is totally wrong, you can look at them as long as you then go for the ball. If you look at your opponent and then mark the ball, or punch the ball away it’s totally fine, if you look at your opponent and then both miss the ball and don’t make contact with each other, play on. The only way it’s a free is if you take your eyes off the ball then impede your opponents ability to contest the mark.

So happy to finally beat North, I had forgotten how much I hate them and how great it feels to beat them. On the other hand we still haven’t put 4 quarters together. I worry about our forward set-up and the way we are passing into it, as well as being very predictable to defend. Also our backline still has holes and we get cut up far too easily by quick players on transition. I hope we can rectify these things moving forward. How great is it to beat North!!!

I hope so, Geelong aren’t looking that good either atm.

Marshall got the second defender because of Watts, he’s definitely a talent and Watts is definitely playing a role in the form side of the competition.

See the post right above yours.