Their cheap jibes
Melbourne have been genuinely pathetic any time the heat has been put on them and thats exactly whats going to happen come finals, isn't really a side to fear provided we play our best footy.
If Bulldog's beat Port Friday night, and we're backing our selected 22 to get the job done against Melbourne (whoever that is).
Melb is a more talented version of StkILDA.
Just want to see whole team improvement and focus each game from here on in. And to give Melbourne some mental demons heading into September.
Their compliments
Melbourne are the big threat in finals this year with a full strength team.
Gawn/Jackson vs Stanley/Blicavs is a definitie win to Melbourne. Gawn will have 45 hit outs, 20 disposals and 6 clearances on the weekend.
The Dees have some genuine guns that worry me - Petracca, Gawn, Oliver can all dominate.
Dees are primed to take the silverware. Few injuries and seem to have got their junk together.
Their arrogance
We'll trounce the Dees.
We lost to Melbourne at the G by 25 points with no Danger and no Cameron. They don't fill me with any sort of fear. Overrated imo.
Player match-ups
The key to this game is making sure that Leever is accountable. May will play close attention to Hawk so whoever plays on Leever needs to draw him away from Hawkins and if Leever doesn't follow, then his opponent needs to be utilised.
Must not put O'Connor on Oliver. If you see that at the start of the game just ring Sportsbet and put everything on Melbourne.
Stanley is playing well at the minute, Smashed Marshall and he plays well against Gawn.
I'm sure they will have a tagging job for O'Connor, most likely Oliver or Petracca.
Although Oliver gets a lot of the ball, his passing and goal kicking won't hurt you on the score board, I'd tag Petracca instead.
Looking forward to seeing May and Hawkins battle it out.
I have to say Stanley is playing the best I have ever seen him play. He won't dominate Gawn in the hit-outs, but his other work around the ground is going to test big Maxy to the core.
I think Petty will get the job as he's very agile and should be able to hang with Cameron.
Everything else
Could Fort be our Clark Keating? Dees look pretty top heavy to me.
On paper it looks like we are chasing the win.
Last time we played Melb in round 23: Us:24.11.155, Deez:6.8.44 Differences from the last time we played the Dees: In: Parfitt Cameron Rohan Dangerfield Simpson Out: Clark Duncan Z.Guthrie Narkle Stewart. Compared to Melbourne's changes.... In: Smith Petty Harmes Brown Bowey Out: Hunt Jetta Jones Jordon Melksham.
Cameron is our forward line basically. I mean potentially we could have the best forward line especially with the last two Coleman medallists , but at the minute it’s not dynamic. Close & Dahl are not goal scorers, Sav is a joke, Hawkins is glued to the boundary line. Higgins doesn’t score much. We are 7th of the top 8 teams for scoring and in 7 games we haven’t scored more than 70 points.
Hawkins has not exactly starred in finals in recent years; Rohan has a poor finals record; Dalhousie is not a goal kicker; so a lot - too much in fact - depends on Cameron.
I wouldn’t mind Hawkins being rested this week simply so that he avoids suspension ahead of finals. He’s been getting a little frustrated over the past few weeks, and I can just see if he gets poor delivery this week, Dees defenders will rib him, and he’ll lash out with a dumb elbow or poor tackle or something. We must have him for finals.
Might as well rest him until the grand final (if the Cats make it) just to be safe.
My fear for Geelong is that a team will get a hold of is in the midfield for a quarter or half and expose our backline.
Geelong’s forward line is a stagnant mess. Cameron is the exception.
Melbourne is very susceptible to pressure which is why they've lost to some average, low skilled teams. We pressure them, we win.
Melbourne is a super talented team but how can they lose to teams like Adelaide, Collingwood and Hawthorn? Pressure.
Letting Salem distibute the ball from the back unchecked would be a mistake.
Salem's been off the boil for the past month or two because teams are clamping down on him.
Lever will try and intercept everything just as Taylor did for GWS the other week.
One whole post
It doesn't look likely that we will play them rd.1 in the finals now, but this will be an important test for both sides.
I think Melbourne will certainly go in very strong favourites. We simply don't have the midfield they do and although we seem to find ways to win, without key defenders Touhy and Stewart we will struggle to get that run off the backline. Hopefully Atkins and Rohan will be back to put the heat on the Dees a little and release O'Connor to play more defensive in the middle and Rohan to force a defender to chase him all over the field.
I simply don't think the defensive side of our midfield will hold up unless we get the balance right. Their backline has improved and that's a threat. Jake "Pull My" Lever and Steven "Holding the Man" May are both playing well and deserve respect. If we bomb it blindfolded into the forward line like we did vs GWS and like our 1st quarter vs Saints they will star with Ed "Not Karl" Langdon just running it out at will.
Their forward line is still whacky though. Bayley "Needs a Proper Haircut" Fritsch is having a purple patch and would have been a good matchup for Stewart. Not sure who runs with him now. Ben Brown is still a bit of a decoy player so he doesn't worry me much. The rest of them are pretty good. Not sure about jake Milkshake or Charlie Cargo though.
Max "The Personality" Gawn is still a legend, despite his umpire's pet reputation. Clayton "Kicks Like Cam Guthrie" Oliver is scary prolific. Christian "One Console at a Time" Petracca and co. are way better at their best than our guys.
I think they have answers to any question we put to them. Big test. I'd say they win by 25 pts.