Scipio

Huge opportunity to make a resounding statement tonight. Super pumped!

I can't see us dropping Jackson as he offers so much as a second ruck. True that he's not exactly an imposing forward target yet but thanks to his insane movement, he is still dangerous when the ball hits the ground and kicks most of his goals out the back. Brown has to come in and I think Melksham for Pickett this week. Brown stays deep, McDonald roams around half forward where he does his best work and Melksham adds some more polished delivery inside 50, which we are sorely lacking.

Something Nathan Jones said a few years ago still resonates with me. He was talking about how many of the younger players at the club still didn't understand momentum shifts during games and how to go about combating or capitalising those. The likes of Vince and Lewis were a breath of fresh air with their experience and obviously coming from more successful and professional clubs. We've come a long way in dealing with momentum shifts during games. Now however, we're having to deal with momentum shifts in the season as a whole. We haven't been in a position like this and therefore, the players and probably coaching staff have to work out the best way to wrestle back some momentum going into the pointy end of the season. We're definitely not pretenders in terms of list quality and coaching nous, but we absolutely need to get this right or we will fizzle out. Mark Williams is going to be instrumental IMO.

Today I’m not as disappointed with the loss, but fuming at the way we played. Dropping back to second or even third over the next couple of weeks is better IMO, takes the heat off a playing group that is renowned for its mental fragility. However, I am worried that we don’t have the experience or knowledge to allow us to peak at the right time, ie the eve of finals.

We're very lucky that our backline is so, so good.

Pathetic really.

I love Oliver but his brain fades have been horrific today, turnovers galore.

Have I somehow time travelled back to 2019? What is this trash?

Trent Rivers is paying 51/1... huge odds. He's flying so far under the radar it's not funny.

Yeah our trading has been quite good, was just focusing on the drafting there.

It's truly amazing how far we've come with our drafting. We all know about the nightmares of the 2000's but the early 2010's weren't any better. For example, 2011 we drafted 7 players across the national and rookie draft and those 7 players combined for a total of... 47 senior games. Amazing. The upswing really began in 2013 when we picked up Salem, Hunt and Harmes in the same draft, though even 2015 is iffy, with Oliver the only one excelling. Jury still well and truly out on Weideman obviously. 2016 was a fail with none of the players we drafted still listed while from 2017, as you've noted, we started really nailing our picks. Good resource re our drafting history here: https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/td-melbourne-demons?year=2017

The 2019 class plus Jordon in 2018 is the kind of drafting we can build a dynasty on. These kids are unreal!

I have more faith in us winning the flag than England winning the Euros!

I watched the Geelong final with Russell in 2018 in a pub in London, total random encounter. Great bloke! Didn't join me on the beers at 10am though from memory... think he had some business to attend to after the game.

So now the Jones non-goal has been nominated for GOTY! What a farce.

Very happy to not be reliant on the proceeds of gambling. Fingers crossed there is something big in the pipeline re home base.

100%, I noticed that too. The mental strength of our youngsters is so impressive.

They sook about the umpiring but they got at least two goals from trash/non calls - the Harry Jones one which was clearly over the line and the one that Peter Wright snapped, which was thrown to him off the ground, clear as daylight.

Many have a rest before Spargo! Kozzie might be the one, even if it's just a breather for a week or two to make sure he's fresh for finals. Though they have just had the bye.

When Dogga tried to dribble that one through from about 15m out… drop punt son!!

A much celebrated comment from Bombers Bigfooty: Stinger was eyeballing ump 14 at the end of the game then What's he gonna do? Cheat on his missus with him?

We've lost all the polish we had earlier in the year and that was a tough game to watch. The good thing is that tough games to watch used to be 10 goal losses! Need to have our down period now and kick back into gear before finals. Essendon supporters are the biggest bunch of whinging [censored], what an embarrassment.

The poor mans Richmond supporter.

If our forwards are dollar shop they picked theirs up from the tip!

Don't worry, it'll be 15% capacity but they'll be sure to pack everyone in together!