Demon Dynasty

Part of.the reason we are winning is we are one of the best pressure teams going around. We.may still win going tall but personally if you do you risk losing a fair chunk of this asset IMV. BB & Weid already bring very little of this at ground level. Experimenting too much might tip us over the edge in coming weeks and the Doggies loom large the week after travelling. As they say..."When you're on a good thing"... Don't flirt with form

Weighted Average Scores up to & including Rnd 9 , 2021 vs 2019 Ed the big mover at the top end this week, leapfrogging Tracc into 4th spot for the season so far. Hunt, Jordan, T-Mac and Rivers also on the move! Clarry still a fair way out in front with Salem & May holding the next two places, both having been there for a few weeks now. Maxy losing a little bit of touch with the top five, dropping three places since reaching his highest No.3 ranking in round six. Of course there are no hit outs to advantage included in his score so one could argue he might be sitting at approx No.3 (and may have been around 2nd/3rd at the end of round 6 also). Interesting to see Chunk & Spargo both on exactly the same average score. Crazy stuff. Player 2021 Score 2021 Rank 2019 Score % Change vs 2019 2019 Rank Change in Rank vs 2019 Clayton Oliver 5.267 1 4.643 13.44 1 0 C Salem 4.386 2 3.658 19.90 3 1 Steven May 4.069 3 2.446 66.35 14 11 Ed Langdon 3.892 4 C Petracca 3.817 5 2.616 45.91 10 5 Max Gawn # 3.586 6 3.256 10.14 4 -2 Jake Lever 3.553 7 2.313 53.61 17 10 James Harmes 3.550 8 3.850 -7.79 2 -6 Jack Viney 3.450 9 3.068 12.45 5 -4 Jayden Hunt 3.041 10 1.958 55.31 22 12 James Jordan 3.011 11 A Brayshaw 2.939 12 2.894 1.55 6 -6 T McDonald # 2.828 13 2.150 31.53 19 6 K Pickett 2.811 14 M Hibberd 2.695 15 2.124 26.88 20 5 Trent Rivers 2.506 16 Luke Jackson # 2.500 17 M Brown* 2.475 18 A Tomlinson 2.475 18 Bayley Fritsch 2.388 20 2.641 -9.58 9 -11 Oskar Baker* 2.325 21 1.714 35.65 29 8 Alex N-Bullen 2.311 22 1.984 16.48 21 -1 Charlie Spargo 2.214 23 1.375 61.02 35 12 Nathan Jones 2.214 23 2.711 -18.33 7 -16 J Melksham 2.170 25 1.931 12.38 23 -2 Tom Sparrow 2.087 26 1.075 94.14 37 11 H Petty 2.017 27 1.905 5.88 24 -3 Neville Jetta 1.888 28 2.264 -16.61 18 -10 Ben Brown # 1.575 29 Sam Weideman*# 0.950 30 1.818 -47.74 27 -3 Kade Chandler* 0.250 31 Average Team Score - Top 22 69.88 59.62 17.19 # Hit outs to advantage not captured * Only played one match not an average score Stats courtesy of footywire.com

Rnd 9, 2021 MCG - Demons vs Blues Player Score Rank Clayton Oliver 5.275 1 Ed Langdon 4.225 2 Tom McDonald # 4.175 3 Steven May 4.125 4 James Jordon 4.100 5 Christian Salem 3.875 6 Trent Rivers 3.650 7 James Harmes 3.550 8 Christian Petracca 3.500 9 Jake Lever 3.300 10 Angus Brayshaw 3.125 11 Alex N-Bullen 3.075 12 Max Gawn # 3.000 13 Jayden Hunt 2.850 14 Bayley Fritsch 2.725 15 Michael Hibberd 2.525 16 Kysaiah Pickett 2.250 17 Charlie Spargo 2.050 18 Harrison Petty 1.975 19 Ben Brown # 1.475 20 Sam Weideman # 0.950 21 Kade Chandler 0.250 22 Team Score 66.03 Top 6 25.78 Bottom 6 8.95 # Hit outs to advantage not captured Stats courtesy of footywire.com

Ditto on both counts. Will take himself and us to another level if he could finish more often coming inside 50 and shooting at goal. Also would like to see him avoid the blind over head handball backwards pls. Somewhere near a red and blue flashy thing running around forward of the contest would be nice

I don't think that's what i was suggesting at all but never mind

Yep it seems that way bin. Sometimes the distance / angle / pressure of the entry doesn't allow a player the luxury of picking and choosing so they're probably going here as their set option but.... Can i take you back to the kick from just on or outside the arc by Harmea last week on the northern flank kicking to the Punt Road end? That kick to me was the ideal placement. About 12 meters out from the boundary pocket but enough space for the big boys to run on to it and hit the contest with Tmac taking a classic pack mark and the angle not so bad . Result....goal. All I'm saying is....surely we can find a better balance when the situation presents? Where we give ourselves the above opportunity or similar (front and square roving off the spillage from such a pack if no one marks) while still having a fair chance of locking it in IF none of the above happens. Let's at least improve our chances of scoring when getting it in there when we can vs hitting that same pocket so often as a default, allowing them to get numbers inside 50 which makes our chances of scoring (especially a.goal) very slim anyway.

My bad....that's just how it pasted ?

One interesting post in their post-game thread.. Mate that is exactly what I said to my daughter on the way home from the game. My observations (was seated behind the goals level 1 behind the Carlton Cheer squad): - Melb mids seemed to track the ball and hunt in packs of 4 or 5 putting pressure on us. They would spread hard when they won it. - Their ball movement from Def to Fwd was very slick, ours was scruffy and inefficient. We have to work so hard for our goals, they seemed to do something creative nearly every time they went fwd. - The value of a gun ruckman was on display today. - Crippa just tries to do too much, gets caught too often and turns it over too often. I think he needs to get back to basics. - I saw 6 defenders at their end who looked structured and made our fwds lives hard. Ours were bit all over the shop. Ol mate Plow was bit ordinary at times with his effort and disposal. I'm note sure what to take out of it other than I can see why Melb are 9-0 and we are 3-6. I predicted a 4-5 goal loss and that's what happened.

Never looked like losing that one. Gritty team effort and we answered all they threw at us. Had it not been for Saad, Cripps & McKay and being a tad top heavy up forward on a wet day (IMHO) i think we probably win that by plenty. What a special first half that was from Tom! However, i reckon the Blues were in the main, better at us with their delivery inside 50 today as well as making space for their forwards to run in to. I feel there's lot's of room for improvement both from a line up / balance point of view, player methods / execution (Clarry & Tracc) and also pressure in terms of recognising when to retain shape in the zone across HB and when to attack the ball carrier coming through the middle (Tracc on at least two occasions which hurt us on the scoreboard both times i think). We also could have pulled the trigger a few times in defence, kicking out from the Punt Road end to a one on one with Ed & Hunt on the Southern wing when well ahead on the scoreboard with plenty of time on the clock. Instead we ignored and played it too safe a little too often, kicking long to a congested well covered Northern wing/boundary or too short to a player hemmed in deep in our 50 on the boundary/back flank northern side. Coming inside 50 we need to clean up delivery and hit the hot zone / higher conversion areas vs the pocket. Looking at Clarry here a bit. Put the opp under more pressure and allow the talls to contest, bring the ball to ground and the smalls to do their work. Instead we far too often hit that pocket and released the pressure valve on the opp's defence IMHO allowing the cavalry to arrive. I know we are looking to lock the ball in our 50 and have repeat entries but with such a tall line up i would hope to give them some more chances to impact by hitting these zones a little more often. Weid & Chandler should be better for the run but from a trust POV a fit Viney (or even Chunk/Melk) & LJ in for Chandler and one of either BB or Weid seems to be a big upgrade. And i'm not convinced with playing both BB & Weid together even on a dry day, but especially in the wet. Onwards to the the City of Churches to take on Tex Dubbo & his mates for a shot at 10 in a row. Go you Mighty Demons!

Yep...two rookie errors there. He'll learn but wouldn't want to make too many more this match

Doesn't Robbo do this at half time as well?

Fantastic option for upcycling furniture vs other options such as Chalk & Mineral. Mind you a good quality mineral is.pretty hard to top but.... Leave the Haymes for at least 24 hours to cure, 48 even better, a light sand in between coats and bob's your uncle

A long way to go ...plenty can happen. Fingers & toes crossed every week from here. Luck plays a fair role also.

I doubt most are happy as such Cards. Melk is a fringe 22 player so he needs to up the ante' to maintain his place. There's always going to be a bottom 6 or so in a similar position who are fighting to do so. Opportunities sometimes then occasionally arise for fringe players waiting their turn at VFL level to step up and see what they can do, provided they've earned it of.course. Provided There's quality depth coming from underneath i would think this is a healthy thing all round. Player in waiting gets a chance to perform and some experience at the highest level. Coaches get to see whether he can play the role being asked and where he's at. I see this as a very healthy situation. Compare this to the alternative of a bottom 6 or less, say 2, 3 or more under-performing and/or few injuries and no one coming through to take their place. I know which position i'd rather be in as a club/FD/coach.

My bad...on the turps. Read that as TMac

If that is the case Mitch & Maj played a full game today. Do players ever back up from the VFL the next day in the seniors? Normally Mitch would be an auto in here if he didn't play today surely.

Nice to know SG is reading this forum... Rusty Nails 6,830 Posted Monday at 04:33 PM Would rather see Chandler get a run at it for Melk vs Weid ...mostly for team balance up forward and see how he goes in general, especially with pressure inside 50.

That was as tight a match defensively and in a pressure sense in general as i've witnessed this season by a very well drilled, well coached, confident team with 5 solid wins under their belt with a pretty decent mid field. The Blues are in some ways the antithesis of this, aside from their capability of hitting their tall targets inside 50 (Namely McKay) if given enough time and space to execute. Much of that delivery from the in form Walsh. Both of those will be well covered (my best amature guess) with May to McKay and Harmes to Walsh. They won't be given the time or space to execute on Sunday for the bulk of this match. We don't do shoot outs a la the Dogs. Their defence is simply not as well organised or disciplined as the Swans. Subject to the weather not being atrocious, expecting a solid Demon win by a fair margin with a reasonably close.game up to half time. If it's a big ordinary night then they might get within 5 goals or so.

The mighty Reds put the Gerry & The Pacemakers song to bed decades ago and it's their's to walk alone. Done and dusted. If there was ever a song for the mighty Demons a la that gawd awful rubbish from Port pre-Match then Hells Bells is it. I pushed for this years ago but on reflection this should only be dragged out and celebrated when we win a Premiership Cup as part of the post match celebrations. And only by the real Acca Dacca if they're still going at that point....or a band with Angus in it at the very least! After that maybe as a pre-match thingy but there's NO need to sing the entire song as mooted by the OP... All that's needed is a chant at the start similar to the crowd here at River Plate...then joining in with the "Hells Bells" at each chorus. Easy-peasy fellow minions. The Demons and Hell's Bells are meant for each other (but not till we win the bloody cup!)...

I think you mean 10 or something Sue...he didn't kick 14 in two matches from my recollection.

Hopefully it isn't the 440k India strain which seems to be a step up from all other strains. Albeit early days and still more time/data/study needed before the science community can give a definitive idea. Worry over the 440k strain was probably the main catalyst for the Fed Govt bringing in their controversial ban / fine / jail time on travellers coming in from India before it got howled down.

You can say that again.

I hope so as i seem to recall in past games (when Tmac & Weid have played together) they often tended to get in each other's way and spoil each other in the air. Their goal scoring averages were also very low from memory. Much has changed since then though so fingers crossed.