Demon Dynasty

Do we put him into the middle to shadow Merret? Leave Harnes in there also. Tracc to HF. Viney relieves Tracc at HF and plays a bit of time in the middle on occasions ...Kozzie goes forward again when he does

TOTALLY PF. Why you would not want to offer a genuine tall forward target who can kick more goals than he misses from set shots and stretch the opposition down back? As well as provide some chaff for the smalls to crumb off. Silly stuff and may cost us the match tonight along with a shot at the top two.

Does anyone still think we shouldn't be playing BB in / around and out of the goal square? Kozzie at the drop front and square.

If Goody is serious about teaching he needs to be dragged and told. That's NOT THE MELBIURNE WAY!

Drag Clarry and tell him not to play like a DH pls. 2 piecez of Dumbass play in a row has probably cost us a goal

Keep Harmes in the middle FCS!

Putrid stuff. What a mess this team is in forward of center. Need to sort it both today and going forward. Possibly the line coach?

Our forwards continue to fail with set shot kicking. Continues to haunt and harm. Need to get it to Harmes, Tmac and Fritsch to be any chance.

Too much room in the zone down back. When the game's on early we should be placing max pressure on them in our 50. Instead we're allowing them to pick their way out from the goals at will with ease. It rarely works against teams who base their game around skills/run off HB and i don't expect it will work tonight either. Another loss looming if Goody & Co stick with that strat in this 2nd quarter. They'll be up by 5 or 6 goals at half time if we do.

Viney looks off the pace tonight. Would have Harmes in the middle (running pretty hot of late) and Viney up forward when not benched. Only minor time in the middle pls in his first game or two back.

Also why does Spargo take a shot at goal from 40 plus out knowing he can barely kick 35 most of the time? Sit it up just outside the square if you can't xfind a target. Players need to accept their limits and play to them.

Who did Spargo kick to there? Always to the forward pocket. Useless strategy. Put it to the spots where you place your opponents under the most pressure if you can't find a free target

Goody luck on Simon's 100th! Not sure how Jones isn't in ahead of Sparrow for this one.

W if BB is in need of more fitness after supposedly putting in a pre-season type block of late then i doubt he will ever be ready from a fitness perspective. Form for someone of his experience can be found at VFL for sure but you never find genuine AFL form until you've played a few or more games at AFL level and hit some form. The Weid is a great example of someone looking cherry ripe and hitting form, at VFL level, then failing to find it after pushing up to the big league. If his fitness is up to par (as judged by Burgess/FD KPIs etc) then surely the only genuine trial / test of form is the form BB might find at senior level.

He will need to be super fit to get in. Has the extra pre-season acheived the desired objective i wonder? The MFC hasn't had a big tall (genuine quality super tall) leading forward in a fair while from what i can recall? Would take weeks of training at full tilt with BB at top fitness. Including specific drills in those training sessions with those doing the regular delivery inside to hit him up / leading patterns / timing / soft stab kicks out in front or to his favoured side (fat side also where possible) before everything starts to click / work and the effort (on the track) starts to pay off on game day IMV. I'm not sure anything other than a pre-season period allows for this luxury and with BB injured in the 2021 pre season well... I also doubt there's enough quality at VFL level (in terms of delivery) to see him busting the door down to the point he can't be ignored any longer. 3 to 5 goals max might be about as good as he (and his team mates at VFL level) might be capable of at that level. Hoping otherwise and could be way off the mark but it may not happen this season. 2022 seems more likely. Personally I'd love to see him get a run at it for a block of three to four matches before the season is out if the opp arises. I still think the chicken (top fitness/full on training drills + success on the track between BB & the rest of team mates in those drills) would need to lay the egg first before we see a chic hatch on game day (FD sees chicken lay egg and puts BB in for a block of three to four games).

Jones ahead of Sparrow & Chandler at this point. Sparrow was out of his depth last week against a bottom 4 team. Both he and Chandler need more time to develop their game downstairs. Jones is the real deal and comes with years of experience that can't be produced in a few rookie matches in the big games. While he is nowhere near his form of two to three seasons ago and borderline 22, he is still a few notches ahead of these two in his last season.

This is a good point. Need to exploit their weaknesses. Might place pressure on them to swing Hooker back if BB got off the leash a little?

If they get enough supply inside 50 Tippa could tear us another new one. They won't need many to win as we generally aren't a big scoring side. Would rather win the clearances and the outside stoppage clearances this week vs the usual reliance on defence winning the day. Their extra (forward) pushing up at stoppages needs to be covered off most if the time IMHO.

Wouldn't be surprised to see Declase vying for the other wing with Gus from here. The bloke is a lip smacking prospect to play this possie at some stage IMV. Handy back up also?

Yes this is part of what I'm referring to JC. We struggle to score from set shots and many are limited with their accuracy to 30 to 40 meters. As you have highlighted nicely, outside of that we struggle to kick set shots from further out. I'm not sure how BB sits here but might be the key to changing this up if he comes back fit and can find his best form or close to it. P.S. have seen Weid kick them quite comfortably from around 50. But only at VFL level. Doesn't seem to have brought this asset to the big league very often so far.

Possibly DR. Provided he is within range of kicking reasonably accurately. This also makes up the aggregate though. Goal kicking accuracy obviously tends to become more difficult the further out you are from your natural kicking distance limits. Part of our issue here is that we have a number of forwards and mid/forwards whose limit starts from about 30 meters (Spargo) out to around 40ish (Kozzie & Viney) before their set shot accuracy would appear to fall away quite badly. All of this would be fine if we had a few more who were quite accurate from 40+ out but aside from T-Mac I'm not sure we do. Fritsh might be the other from around 40 to 45. Not sure how he fairs with set shots beyond that. Would love to see the numbers here.

Yes i didn't put Nibbler in as i don't count him as a small forward or genuine mid RMD. Hardly unfair as i don't see or expect him to be taking as many shots and would see him as a Medium Forward when spending time inside 50. Yes he is quite good of late but often doesn't get as many set shot chances as some of the others named as he's often playing high up the field on an opponent or creating a link option on the outside somewhere. He get's involved in plenty of scores which is a great asset also. Some of the background stats... He is running Equal 9th for set shot averages with Clarry & Lingers this season at 1.5 a match. Goal Accuracy (overall not set shot) is 45% which is not too shabby.

Mr Leg... at the age of 23, 196cm, into his 6th season and weighing 95Kg i really think he is well past the boyhood phase. He should be coming in to the prime of his career about now or be well under way already. Just saying!

Not unless we improve our general goal kicking accuracy. Our mids and small forwards are mostly putrid especially with set shots for goal. At the moment, aside from T-Mac, Fritschkrieg, BBB and Lingers (on the odd occasion he gets a shot) most can't hit the broadside of a barn. The mids and defence have been clicking super well in most matches so far this season yet we have struggled to put away most teams, including the cellar dwellers, and have lost to two bottom four clubs so far. We simply don't convert enough of the opportunities we make into goals. It's our biggest weakness by a country mile and most opps are aware of it hence they play their guts out against us every match as they believe they're in with a chance as we rarely post big scores.

I think Benny will play and be given a decent bock of games after the buy. The major issue is when will he finally be ready to go assuming there is in fact a pre-season under way? If and it's a.big if, we can get BB up and firing this could be the difference that takes us to a PF. But there's also the issue of him finding form and everyone clicking with him in the team and visa versa. BB is no slouch when he is in form and is exactly the extra tall / foil needed to play deep out of the goal square in conjunction with Tommy playing CHF. BB has a great scoring record and is right up there in terms of goal kicking averages and accuracy (career wise). Good players don't lose this ability overnight and if he gets AFL fit we'll put many lessor teams to the sword in this second part of the season and wallop some of the cellar dwellers. Subject to.... Others improving their goal kicking accuracy also including.... Viney (40%), Clarry (30%), Kozzie (39%), Spargo (33%) & Tracc (39%). BB is a must in once fully fit. Our 3rd best goal kicking forward and 4th most accurate forward so far (on season averages). Designated Forwards Goal averages... 1. Fritschkrieg 2.3 2. T-Mac 1.8 3. Ben Brown 1.7 4. Kozzie 1.5 5. Melk 0.5 Goal Accuracy 1. Dogga 63.6% 1. Fritschkrieg 63.6% 3. T-Mac 60.5% 4. Ben Brown 55.6% 5. ANB 45% If we can get Dogga taking some more marks that would also give us a super boost, with or without a BB firing on all cylinders. Get both of these two up and about and the scoreboard / winning margins might explode.