Demon Dynasty

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.

There is absolutely no way Clarry is not No.1 so far this season. Other than his last match and the odd BOG coin flip from a few others on occasions, by the length of the Flemington straight. Bar a few very good games and maybe a BOG Max just hasn't been consistent enough to take the No.1 mantle. Not sure what the OP has been watching but this review fails at the first hurdle.

Their whole management or lack thereof since the get go has been amateur hour to say the least. They hit the panic button at the mere mention of more than two or three infections while NSW continue with "covid normal" with no lockdowns and just a few precautionary ad ons. They will drive this state's small business sector in to a very deep ditch with their next over reaction if they haven't already.

Fabulous and how about the shinana! Should have been 50 against the Cats and a certain goal regardless. Getting their usual armchair ride at the Cattery

I would be getting a genuine great (forward) of the game, preferably a recently retired one, down to the club pronto and teaching the likes of Clarry, Spargo & Kozzie how to kick set shots from various angles and distances. As well as shots on the run under various amounts of pressure and angles. The ideal for mine would be Gary Ablett Jnr. I would also have him running some training drills with the forwards in order to connect more often, attempting to place the ball into space for them to run onto more often. We just don't do enough of this when coming inside. Tracc & Clarry could both do with this sort of drill in particular. Many of our kicks coming inside 50 lack finesse and touch. Most of them either mung balls or just blindly kicked in without any thought or use of the eyes. Would also be helpful for the likes of Viney, Harmes and Hunt. This break is an ideal opportunity for something like this to take place and could be the difference between making a PF or not and potentially making the big dance. Might also help to put lessor light teams away earlier or see us having a few big percentage wins. Even against some of the higher rated clubs.

Very rare for Clarry to have an off day Buck that's for sure and as you say with all three off their best. Had Clarry been able to muster his usual standard game i suggest we would have gotten much closer and maybe over the line if he flew at his best. My issue here is that in the last few weeks i've started to see a bit of selfishness creep in in patches with less sharing of goals/blocks/shepherds etc and that's a worrying sign. I think the system works on the larger grounds like the G, not so sure it's a smart way to play on a squashed up ground like the SCG. Personally i thought we gave them way too much rope off HB and up to half way/just over with the zone and enabled them to launch attack after attack far too often from damaging launching places. To me the SCG (or similar sized grounds) demands a much more in your face style of defence, in order to pressure the opponents in to turning the ball over more often behind of and not much further than center. Guarding grass and taking space on the SCG for me....not a great idea. And the Pies gained confidence the longer the match went on and the longer we continued to do so. Our contested ground ball, loose ground ball gets and pressure inside our 50 was deplorable as well IMV which didn't help matters and saw their backs either marking uncontested or running off at will from resulting spills far too often. Spargo (in particular) and Kozzie both had a poor day in a crumbing/pressuring sense and just in general really. Too many times our tall forwards either didn't make the contest or did not impact when they did and played from behind far too often. The other issue is you are sometimes going to see your best having an off day as you say and to me this is when some of the remaining lessor lights need to take some responsibility and say "not on my watch" and step up to the plate. To have the bulk of the team, bar a few of the regulars with a few rookies sprinkled in, also having some pretty ordinary efforts was the clincher. Yes leaders need to step up also and yes many were off as you say like Maxy. But just once in a while the others need to do their bit and take the responsibility to lift, especially the more mature players and to a lessor degree some of the rookies also. Jordan and LJ were two that stood out as doing so but unfortunately not enough went with them. One area i thought was consistently badly played was the constant tap/knock forward of center by Maxy in the center square ruck contests where the Pies were reading this and running to in numbers. Then spreading out the back, linking around and then direct inside 50 on multiple forays. We (Maxy) did not appear to arrest this flaw at any stage until we finally relieved Big M of his ruck duties for LJ in the third (or maybe late into the 2nd), with Maxy then resting more up forward. For one of the rare times ever, i actually thought Max was a liability in the center square ruck contests in this particular match and thought it was no coincidence that we started to turn things around once LJ took over. Max has had a few games this season where i thought he has really put us behind the eight ball with some decisions / tapping of late...including the match against the Crows. One question i would love to ask the line coach here is ..."Was this pointed out to Maxy at any stage when he was resting on the bench?". If he wasn't resting and instead resting forward then surely you take him off at some point and get the message through. And /or if you are allowing max to continue with this strat, then highlight to the rest of the followers what the hell is happening and fix up their starting positions/structure to make sure they are getting to this drop zone more often and compete like Demons to wrestle the game back off them!! The other very poor call for mine (in game) was the late call to place Harmes on a rampaging DeGoey, mostly in the second. Could be wrong but it was my impression they left Sparrow on him for almost the entire first half (possibly switched Harmes onto him in the last 5 to 8 minutes or so of the second...possibly even later) but by that stage the momentum / damage was done IMHO. We were well beaten on and off the park yesterday. Cudos to Bucks and his crew but a little worrying for us if we are ever going back to similar sized grounds this season.

At some stage in a winning team you have to start clicking and performing consistently BA. How long do you want to give to see if he's in form and slotting in fine? Surely if he is he hits on at least one or two of those chances.