Scipio

Don't think we will make finals and from what I have seen so far we definitely do not deserve to. Put it down as another development year.

It really seems like we play struggling teams back into form.

I've already put in a job application for the gig. First recommendation is that for the purposes of cost cutting, we will accomodate eight players per room on interstate trips and to meet that requirement, all ruckmen and KPP's will have to stay at home starting this weekend when nobody over 178cm will be selected to travel to Darwin.

As far as I know you will be competing against a homeless guy I met in Melbourne who thought they had just won the flag.. good luck.

Good find! Wonder how many applicants they will get.

I've always thought his kicking action was technically unsound. Seems very jerky and tries to kick it too hard when the best kicking actions flow and look almost effortless.

It's a concern if a mid-sized forward can't kick a goal from 45 -50m out, no matter good a mark they are.

How about that kid McKenzie from GC? Can take marks up to 55 metres out and know he's still a good chance to hoof it through. Who has a weapon like that at Melbourne?

Tappy - would like to see him play half forward for a few though his kicking is obviously pretty important coming out of the back 50.

Correct. But the key is 'not' the ball. Trengove only briefly looks at Higgins. That happens all the time. He mainly focuses on the ball. That is allowable.

He is also allowed to put his hand out. IMO he wasn't so much blocking as he was looking for contact. That, too, happens all the time.

The thing umpires are looking for is when a player's dominant motivation is to stop another player from marking the ball, not marking the ball themselves. To me, Trengove was trying to contest the mark himself. So it shouldn't have been a free kick.

Clearly it's a matter of opinion re Trenners' intent and interpretation of the rules in this situation so we should agree to disagree.

Correct. But the key is 'not' the ball. Trengove only briefly looks at Higgins. That happens all the time. He mainly focuses on the ball. That is allowable.

He is also allowed to put his hand out. IMO he wasn't so much blocking as he was looking for contact. That, too, happens all the time.

The thing umpires are looking for is when a player's dominant motivation is to stop another player from marking the ball, not marking the ball themselves. To me, Trengove was trying to contest the mark himself. So it shouldn't have been a free kick.

Clearly it's a matter of opinion re Trenners' intent and interpretation of the rules in this situation so we should agree to disagree.

Dunn got 2 weeks for almost hurting a kangaroos player this year....the same player openly punches newton in the face and got off?

Not following.. who was that??

What a load of carp. So now there's a free for looking at the other player, is there?

Trengove stands his ground, and looks fleetingly behind him to see where Higgins is. He doesn't block him. He makes an attempt to mark, but Higgins flies over him. That is not a shepherd. Not even close.

The Rivers decision baffled me too. Was a clear push in the back, was definitely not holding the ball, and the abuse 50 seemed to come very, very quickly.

Also incase you had not noticed, yeah they do hand out frees these days when a player in a contest is focussing on the other player and not the ball.

What a load of carp. So now there's a free for looking at the other player, is there?

Trengove stands his ground, and looks fleetingly behind him to see where Higgins is. He doesn't block him. He makes an attempt to mark, but Higgins flies over him. That is not a shepherd. Not even close.

The Rivers decision baffled me too. Was a clear push in the back, was definitely not holding the ball, and the abuse 50 seemed to come very, very quickly.

Trengove never made an attempt to mark, he put his arm out in a clear block.

They should have belted the crap out of Picken.

Amen. That was one of the worst things I saw tonight - Scully constantly getting pushed off the ball, and with no support from his team mates at all to break the tag. I think once I saw Moloney knock Picken away. I'd say this performance wouldn't say much to Tom about the culture of the playing group.

After watching tonight this is what i have decided

Watts will be a gun

Melbourne must trade Morton, Scully (hes gone anyway), Bennell, Warnock, Petterd for draft picks

I will not follow the dees should we not trade these players. THEY offer nothing (bar Scully)

Don't think you will be following the Dees for much longer then. To suggest we would trade Scully is just ridiculous and Petterd was almost our best tonight, do not know what you are thinking..

To be fair the Trengove free was probably there. On the reply his eyes were back watching the bulldogs player and he put his arm/shoulder in the way with intent to block, but there were plenty of other decisions which were rubbish.

Also:

Bad

Jamar not playing enough in the ruck and Martin + midfield being taught a lesson by Hudson

Amazing

Petterd's mark

The Good

Petterd

Watts

McKenzie

Blease as sub

Great game for neutrals

The Bad

The senior brigade

Jurrah

Garland

Simple skills

The Ugly

Melbourne vs the Umpires AGAIN

The rollercoaster returning

Ugly

A pathetic last quarter after a sniff at the end of the third.

Whilst not yet a focus of the forward line, he is becoming one of the most dangerous Demons for opponents.

Disagree with this, think he is absolutely a focus point now, after his performances of the last six weeks. Especially with Jurrah's drop in form and lack of any other tall target.

Great to see him in after some significant setbacks. Hope he tears it up.

I musn't have seen it then

Actually 2009 or 08 or whenever his decent year was he did play up half forward more, but I never saw anything like that again as I always saw him playing deep and just playing rubbish.

He mostly played up the ground for us...

I musn't have seen it then

No, not that excited. Just wanted to make sure you understood that you have NFI...

I haven't 'written off' Spencer. I just find it ludicrous that anyone could think Spencer is in front of Gawn at the moment, based on how Gawn played when he was in the side.

Don't get lulled into VFL form. PJ always had that, and never made it. Dunn and Bate periodically play well for Casey, and we know how that works.

But Gawn played well at AFL level. That's a huge difference.

Definitely. Now that they have seen Gawn's upside which considerably better on the big stage than Spencer they should work more on his development, which means playing him ahead of Spence. Don't think Spencer has ever played as convincingly as Gawn did in the one's.

Aside from this I think Spencer could make it at the top level one day but Gawn is now ahead of him.

Thought his game was excellent on the weekend. Aside from one, maybe two quiet games has been outstanding the whole year.

When the Toiges were hitting back in the third and fourth quarters Beemer absolutely willed himself to contests and laid some brutal tackles. There was no way he was going to let us lose this game. While the team tackles were amazing it was Moloney and Petterd for me that made big statements.

Could well finish up there in the Brownlow.

Should poll pretty well. From what I can remember he had a few if not more clear BOG (and hopefully 3 vote) performances early on in the season.

PJ was horrendous that night.

A couple of goal-umpire decisions went against us too. Green's scissor kick and then Lake allegedly touching Bate's (IIRC) long bomb. Also IIRC, one was definitely a goal and one was a behind, so we got dudded there.

Seem to remember Danny Hughes doing his job pretty well and kicked one or two. Considering it was his first game and he only played a couple I was surprised he got delisted last year.

You are far too worried about perceptions.

Our judgemental nature or our ease of congratulations for players coming to the bench.

Who gives a crap?

I guess I just don't like stereotypes in any form, but ah well the fact that I have been putting off writing an essay most of the day is probably making my posts a bit wayward.

Doesn't matter if they've taken a mark or kicked goals .

They've been running their guts out while on the field .

Give 'em some encouragement .

It's their job to run their guts out whilst on the field. I just think it is needless to be clapping every interchange, especially considering how many rotations there are these days. I'll leave it at that.

He took a mark and kicked a goal.

What do you want the MCC members to do?

Stand up and tell him to eff off back to Brighton?

Sometimes I hate Melbourne supporters...

Oh, wait, that's self-loathing?!

God dammit.

If you read further above you can see I was talking more about the Fremantle game than Watts at the Richmond game, as I was not even there. The earlier post that brought this up reminded me of the Freo game, and I stated that I agreed with it in part, I'm all for cheering a player on when they do something outstanding, as I'm sure I would have had I been there and seen Watts' goal and mark or whatever it was.