deejammin'

If Hawthorn had kicked straight it would have been at least 2 quarters that were pear shaped, also the last quarter is starting to look a little pear shaped too. Anyway, in many ways I think this is worse than 2008, we had a worse list, had less expectation and really weren't capable of winning or getting near the Hawks, today I expected better....

Bloody hell the dees are hard to support sometimes, love em, never give up on em, never wouldn't buy my membership, but this second half is one of the worst performances I've seen! Its hard to come up with a solution to whats gone wrong as everything seems to have gone wrong!!

So dissapointing, i expected a rally from Hawthorn but I certainly didn't think we would simply roll over and give them so many goals... Inside 50s and scoring shots a disgrace, lets face it had Hawthorn been kicking straighter this would be similar to last year!

Remind anyone else of the pre-season game? I guess they may not mean nothing after all....

If being 'killed' by an injury means you make the top four at the end of the home and away season, find enough form to make the GF when your star comes back then draw it I will be hoping Scully's injury "kills" us this year....

I love the draw, I think it adds an element to our game that not many other sports have, having winners and losers all the time simply isn't appropriate for some contests, leave it as it is...

I actually thought the Richmond - St Kilda Game was awful in terms of holding the ball decisions. It prompted me to write this topic. First of all I have no preference between the two teams and simply wanted to see a good game. So I think that the Tigers were given some holding the ball decisions that were totally ridiculous. There was one involving Sam Fisher where he took possession of the ball and had his right arm held and was pinned to the ground, it looked as though his arm was being held before he even got the ball, and he took posession via a handball, not diving on it, yet was penalised when there was a) no prior opportunity, if anything he was held, B) no conceivable way to get rid of it or to make a valid attempt as he had his arm held and was taken to ground preventing a kick, c) was in heavy congestion and had no other option but to catch his teammates handpass... In my opinion the only thing he could have done to avoid being called holding the ball was to not catch the pass, which could have resulted in a goal and may have been automatic. The decision against Maric last week was similar to this... If the only option is to not gain the ball from a bounce or a pass to prevent holding the ball I believe there is no way it should be holding the ball. I understand the diving on the ball rule, but I think this rule could be far better adjudicated.

The Holding the Ball rule has long been one of my absolute favourites in our great game as it rewards teams for good defence in a tangible way no other sports do. I love that if a team with the ball doesn't watch out that, given prior opportunity, they will be pinged if they get caught. However, what I have witnessed in the first two rounds of this season and last season to a lesser extent, is an increasing punishment of players for simply taking hold of the ball. Either by picking it up in congestion, or being hit with a handball and being tackled immediately then being pinged. I find this worrying as if takes the fairness out of the rule and also seems to have led to confusion amongst players as to when they have had prior, and not, and when they have been caught in a way that makes an attempt impossible, without prior, what they are supposed to do to avoid being pinged. I for one would prefer ball ups in the more iffy decisions in an attempt to give the benefit of the doubt to the player who has fought to gain the ball. Though I like the defensive team being rewarded for great pressure and tackling I believe there needs in be fairness in how this is applied. Also I believe players need to be rewarded for taking possesion of the ball in congestion rather than punished. Obviously several newer interpretations have come along recently to 'avoid conjestion' in games, however I would prefer congestion and fairness to iffy decisions that decide games.. Also it seems interesting we have a new sub rule to 'slow the game down to prevent injuries' yet slowing the game down the old fashioned way, with ball ups, is frowned upon. Whilst I love this rule I think its application is becoming far too harsh on players who take possesion and if it continues to become harsher it seems that players might as well avoid picking up the pill whenever someone else is around and simply waiting to tackle.. Thoughts???

I think this is a huge concern for all who play contact sports, I am glad the AFL have moved so quickly on it! I hope we are doing enough as I would hate to see this become more serious for Belly, or any other sportsman for that matter. Loved how Belly played, still remember a huge smother he laid in the goal square.. its a real shame that this may negatively impact his private life and his playing career. Good luck Belly!

Despite the swans connection to South Melbourne they are an interstate team and over 30k against an interstater is a good result. Will be more against Hawthorn despite the slot as they have so many members as do we...

Trengrove Moloney Bennell Jamar Martin Grimes Was hard to put Grimes there with some of those kicks, but he took some great, very important marks. Trenners was class all day. Hard to believe its only his 2nd year!

Overall, I'm not unhappy with the result. Half way through the 3rd quarter we could have been 7 goals down looking at a shellacking but we fought back to 14 points behind at the last change and then managed to almost win the thing. Not bad for a team that butchered the ball out of defence and made stupid errors for 2.5 quarters. Jamar never should have missed that one in the last though, my nan could kick that... and she's dead! Positives: 1. We ran out the game well. Did well in the clearances and had a better no. of inside 50s than usual. 2. Tapscott - Loved it! 3. Petterd, started where he left off last season 4. We didn't give up, there were several games last year where we looked like we were coming back and then fell off, this team wouldn't say die. Negatives: 1. Kicking out of Defence/Clangers in Defence/Stupid free kicks in Defence 2. Umpires, the holding the ball decision against Maric in the 1st quarter was a sign of the apocalypse 3. Goalkicking (yes both teams were shizen, but I like to think Sydney missed due to my frenetic "Chewy on your boot" so Melbourne had no excuse) 4. Kicking through the zone at kick ins, or at least maintaining possesion enough to not turn it over in or on the defensive 50 All in all we're still undefeated for 2011, there's some solace in that, now lets [censored] those Hawks! Edit/ spelling

Probably waited on the sub in case of injury, would be awful to sub then play a man down.. Good game, Jamar missed a sitter tho Go Dees, good result really

Aww damn! So close to me saying that we had come through the pre-season relatively well, at least in terms of no long term injuries then this happens! Jordie out for 6! Bugger! Scully is also a worry as the mid-field is not yet a strength.... we'd want all our guns on the park if we could have em... oh well... another year where we start the season proper with too many key players out... Frawley, Scully, Mckensie, Morton... Damn!

Its always difficult and frustrating to know what to make of the pre-season comp, however it may not be as meaningless as some on here assert. Since the infamous Carlton performance in the NAB cup in 2007, (going on to gain the spoon was most likely more the result of their late season tanking rather than them truly being the worst in the comp however) at least one or more of the finalists in the NAB cup have gone deep into the regular season finals to prelims and grand finals. Many including myself would believe that this will happen again this year with Collingwood. So although some match results can seem meaningless, certainly Essendon in a final seems laughable, I'm not so sure its as irrelevant as people think, as the great clubs tend to have great depth and desire to win the NAB cup, and seem to be putting some focus on winning pre-season games.. or at least put a few decent performances together. That being said .. I am not panicking at this stage, I think Melbourne seems to have shown a bit this preseason and should continue to improve on last year. However, it is a little worrying that we still exihibit some of our key negatives from last year, not winning enough clearances, not entering the forward 50 enough, giving up too many goals attempting to get the ball out of defence... I'm not in the business of chastisizing young players for their pre-season performance, however based on the aforementioned I would think a lot would have to improve for us to be challenging top sides this year. So bring on the season, bring on improvement and lets see what happens...

This game is still up for grabs, we have played one bad stretch, grab a couple in a row and we're a chance. Would be more encouraging to have the dees winning some clearances tho...

Great topic, lots of fun... Premiers for '11: Hawthorn Wooden Spoon: Essendon (God I hope so) Most Goals for Demons: Jurrah - 60 Leading Goalkicker in AFL: Buddy Franklin 72 Brownlow: Luke Hodge Final Ladder position: 8th Wins: 13 Most tackles: Jordie McKenzie Most marks: Jamar Most handballs: Brent Moloney Most kicks: Aaron Davey (here's hoping) Most 1%'s: Rivers Best first year player: Tapscott Bluey: Jamar Biggest crowd: 92,000 - Elimination Final Vs Carlton Worst Journo: Mike Sheahan Best Journo: Flanagan Biggest news story: Eddie MacGuire traded to GWS (Malthouse : "&*%$ing Statutory Rapist!" (to Nixon)) Quote of the season: "Who would leave Melbourne now?" Tom Scully

For those who are playing down the significance of this loss I totally agree that in general NAB cup means nothing and we did play some players out of position. However I think our club and the players actually really wanted to win that one and thought they would going in... very dissapointing to be outplayed in that situation, if we had no intent to win it would still not be a great performance. Overall I hope future games make me forget about this one very quickly

1. Becoming the team of the Decade won't be all smooth sailing 2. Young players still make mistakes even when you expect them to instantaneously be perfect 3. Jurrah is &^%$ing Wicked!!!!!!!

Probably have a few people reconsidering whether some of those kids are worth Sheedy stealing? Hardingham tore us up for a while last night.

Dissappointing.... thats all it is really. I don't think the sky is falling and I hope it functions as a little wake up call to the things we can do better. However as a fan who really would have liked to see us advance further in the NAB cup (if only to drum up a little bit of positive press in the midst of the Scully thing) it was a very dissappointing effort, particularly as it is against a team that no one rates who played their kids. oh well... bring on the real thing

Reading through an inordinate amount of Age and HUN articles in order to get my footy fix I came accross these lines in the "Greater Western Sydney Steals: Sheedy's Giant Hit List" article: "James Hird claims Sheedy has given his word not to take any Bombers" If this is true this seems extremely unfair, regardless of what happens at the Demons or any club, for Essendon not to face a poaching risk due to Sheedy's loyalty seems to fly in the face of the whole reason GWS is given these advantages. Surely if any Essendon players would be good for GWS and hence 'good for football' in the same sense any other team losing players is, Sheedy making these promises is extremely inappropriate. Makes me wish Neale Daniher or any other former Melbourne Coach was taking the reins at GWS so we could get these advantages..... Although that would be equally unfair. Maybe Essendon is lucky their playing list isn't worth it and it is easy for Sheedy to maintain this 'loyalty'.