Jaded No More

Bruce was OK on Hodge. His kicking wasn't the issue for me today, but rather his reluctance to put his body in at the contest. Too many times he tried to soccer the ball or stand a step away from a pack, instead of diving in. Pretty disappointing from a vice captain in a must-win game.

You genuinely believe that bombing long to a 15-man forwardline is better than moving the ball with speed and precision by hand or with short kicks? Hawthorn play a rolling zone and their press hard defensively when they don't have possession. The worst thing you can do against them, especially when conditions are poor, is to bomb the ball long, because they will always have numbers at the contest to hurt you on the rebound.

They think they are much better than they actually are. Their backline is average at best, and yes they have good mids, but they are hardly bursting at the seams with depth, and they lack pace. Their forwardline is predictable and one dimensional when Rioli isn't there, especially when Roughead plays like a spud. There is a reason why they haven't given a yelp since winning a flag. It's because they are not hard to figure out and shut down. A young team missing some of its most important players, managed to stay even with them for 3.5 quarters just by applying a lot of pressure and burning them with speed. They are not nearly as scary or good as Geelong, St Kilda or Collingwood. They are a team with plenty of champions, but they definitely don't play the sort of consistent, damaging footy that champion teams do.

We were smashed in the clearances, and that was the number one reason we lost. We could not get our hands on the ball, which put enormous pressure on the backline. I was also disappointed with some of the coaching today. In the pouring wet, we suddenly decided to stop handling and start bombing the ball long. WTF? It reeked of panic and immaturity, and so hopefully it was just our players losing the plot, and not a directive from Bailey. Because we had no chance in hell of ever scoring like that. Of course the relatively poor output we had from Green and Dunn didn't help, and made our forwardline redundant once more, and some of the kicking from the backline, especially that of Bartram, made me want to burn my eyeballs. Seriously, Bartram has to handball AT ALL COST! On the plus side, we played average with an undersized midfield, and a man short for 3 quarters, and we still stayed in touch until the last 10 minutes of the match. The backline was gallant as usual, and I was particularly happy for Rivers, who seems to have found his touch again. Frawley again was very good. Beat Franklin for pace, beat him at ground level, and of course had the misfortune of being on the end of some of the most pathetic and soft frees in history. Lance 'fat gut' Franklin, was KOTD today by 4 umpires. Trust us to cop it from all angles when our season is on the line In round 1, we were 10 goals time at the main break. You have to appreciate the great inroads we've made. We can definitely walk away proud today.

Look I may have swore profusely at those green bastards and at Buddy, but fancy those Hawks supporters getting on their moral high ground. They are the first to whinge whenever the umpiring goes against them, and the first to eat their own (with their president being the number one offender). Arrrrgggggh, I HATE HATE HATE Hawthorn. The next victory we have against them will be second only in sweetness to the next victory we have against the scumbags from Carlton. P.S.- the umpire who paid the two deliberates should be shot, and the umpire who paid the free to Franklin should be tortured and then shot

So we're out of the finals race, which is neither shocking nor consequential to our bright future. With 2 games to go, should we go down the development path or the win at all costs path? Do you rest Jamar if he's sore? Frawley? Do we rule Moloney, Davey and Grimes out for the season? Does Maric, Cheney and Strauss come into the side at the expense of the likes of Trengove and Scully, so we can see if they are worth persisting with? Does Jack Watts go back to Casey to work on his game, and Miller gets rewarded for recent good form? Or do we play the rest of the year with our best available team, to try and win the next 2 games and give us some momentum going into next season?

48,000 or so, definitely as many if not more Demons there. God I hate Hawthorn and their supporters. What a bunch of arrogant, self-righteous [censored]. Can't wait to smash them, and especially the crying princess Franklin and his beer gut. Looking forward to watching them get ripped to shreds come finals.

6- Sylvia 5- McKenzie 4- Jamar 3- Rivers 2- Bail 1- Frawley -6 points to the fat [censored] sitting in front of me who had a whinge that Melbourne supporters were getting upset about the clearly rigged umpiring. As I said to you then, stay home on your couch if you can't handle the noise you [censored]

We had nothing left in the tank being a man down for 3 quarters. Oh and the umpiring was such a disgrace that they ruined crucial attempts at goal for us. We can hold our heads high. Everything was against us today and to lose by less than 4 goals is a good effort. We've come such a long way!

Very unlucky to lose Davey and find ourselves playing against Hawthorn and four pricks pretending to be umpires. What a disgrace this competition has become. Poor Frawley, who the hell wants to be a defender these days! Good effort from us to stay in touch. At least we gave them a hard time of it.

Any word on Davey for those listening to the radio? Can't see how we can win this with a man down, especially when the man is Davey. Umpires can go and get....

If the rumours circling are true about Chip being out, then we are royally screwed and I can't see us winning. Finals or no finals though, it's about time we stop letting Hawthorn smash us. A good hard contest is the minimum required today.

What a joke. Poor kid spends 6 weeks on the sidelines then pulls is again straight away. This news both sucks and blows.

[censored] news about Grimesy

No idea what the deal with Tapscott is, but.... JACK GRIMES!

I'm not. Source or GTFO indeed. That's a horrible rumour to spread about one of our players, if it's not true, because as much as I don't think our future is going to be damaged by his departure, I'd be pretty [censored] if any of our players basically "walked-out" mid season. It would bethe highest form of disloyalty.

To continue from my previous failed predictions... Hawthorn to smash Melbourne, Buddy to kick 9 goals on Frawley and then Garland.

That was my favourite piece of play too, and I'll enjoy watching him repeat those movements when he doesn't get dropped this week!

I'd give the job to Bruce too. Especially since we won't lose much in terms of goals or run if Bruce needs to play a purely defensive role. If we give Dunn the job on Hodge, we risk robbing ourselves of the 3 goals a game that he's been contributing to the side lately.

So Gawn and Jetta done for the season. Do we know if Jetta needs a shoulder reco? Or are they just giving him the rest of the year off to recover? And what is going on with Gysberts? Anyone? Great news about Grimes though. Hope he can play this week, be it for us or at Casey. If by some miracle we make finals, he has to be there!

To me they are highly amusing, but then I was far enough away from them not to hear what they were saying. But footy is about emotion, and getting angry, and getting stuck into the opposition and showing passion. The atmosphere and noise yesterday was amazing, and it is a part of what makes wins special. Watching the cheer squad give them heaps at the end of the game was very pleasant indeed. Also, I gotta give props to the cutest little kid who sat in front of me with his family and was loving it sick. Hands down the cutest kid I've seen at the footy (kids at the footy usually kick my seat and prevent me from swearing, and hence I hate them). He almost made me want to have little Melbourne supporters

The conundrum here is, do we put Bruce or Junior on Hodge, knowing they'll probably do a decent job, or do we go for the development angle and put Bartram on him, in the biggest challenge of his career? Perhaps McKenzie? Or does Joel McDonald get the job if Hodge plays predominantly out of the back half? Sucks that Grimsey has missed so much footy with the dreaded Etihad Stadium hammy, because Grimes on Hodge at half-back would have been a beautiful match up, and a great learning experience for Hodge... I mean Grimes

Bloody brilliant summation of this topic. Morton is a very very good footballer, and is a big part of our future, so much so that I've heard our area coaches argue over where he should play because they all want him in their area of the ground. But he has deficiencies, just as any other kid has. He has to get better defensively, and he has to get stronger in contests. He also needs to be locked at McDonalds and be made to eat his way out. Regardless, I have no issue with him playing some games down at Casey to work on his defensive side, remembering that he has already chalked up a lot of senior games for his age. We are still about development, and Bailey has proven over and over again that he is capable of turning players around and getting the best out of them. Just look at the remarkable turn around in guys like Sylvia, Dunn, Jamar, Bartram and the list goes on. I doubt Bailey would bother teaching Morton new tricks, if he didn't think he was worth it. Only the very talented are played in multiple positions over their career.

Their forward entires looked poor mainly because Chip was all over Reiwoldt like a fat kid on a waffle. Their delivery managed to catch Garland and Rivers at times, but they just went to Reiwoldt too often, even when it became clear he was being beaten. I think they were travelling at about 90% of their maximum capacity at this point in their development, whereas up until the last quarter we were at about 60%, probably less in terms of disposal. But when we had the ball, it was clear that we were far superior in our class and ability to transition the ball from half back to half forward. Had Jurrah and Green not missed fairly gettable shots on goal, we would have won by 8 goals.

Or a 50m penalty given by Buddy for a push on Chip after a mark. Chip then goes back and slots one through from 55m. Taking his tally for the game to 26 disposals, 15 marks and 1 goal, and Buddy's tally to 3 disposals, 1 mark and 0 goals. I'd probably die and go to heaven.