rufus

I am praying we run someone on Caleb Daniel's hip on Sat. You cannot let handball recieve players cut you up in a GF...must give it to him physically.

Have never been able to reconcile why I seem to take the attitude towards/perception of the MFC so personally. It perplexes my wife too. The Range Rover and snow stuff has always riled me up. Even if it all goes south on Saturday this last month has been enjoyable in seeing that there are so many other people who have similar feelings about all this. I like to think if we get it done on Saturday the boys will do it with humility and class and our supporters will afford more respect to our opponents and other supporters than what seems to be the norm for winners in Aussie rules football. The club do seem to have taken a decent step forward this year with cutting out the ill conceived arrogance and focusing on the work.

Yeah I like to think it will restore my faith and mean I can enjoy going to the football again. I hope it will mean the kids aren't embarrassed to mention they might be aligned to the Demons anymore (they are with he Bulldogs at the moment but I want to get them back!). I had pretty much given up on the club a few years back. Unfortunately I could never get it out of my system completely, but I had given up hope that we would ever achieve anything meaningful. The big thing for me was that I felt there was just no pride at any level of the club. I had previously had the usual footy fan arguments with mates about why this MFC player was actually a good player, and that Melbourne player would achieve this and that, and at some point I just couldn't be bothered anymore. I pretty much started to laugh along at the club like everyone outside did. It wasn't 186 or 148 that had broken me. It was the period where James Frawley had given up on the club and took the liberty to completely check out while still taking the field in our jumper. And it wasn't even him that got me the most...it was the fact that it didn't seem like anyone at the club was going to pull him up and demand he show some pride for the club in general. I know there was stuff at play around holding his trade/FA value, but I didn't care. I thought he should have been told to nick off then and there. If we don't win next week, we are going to need to see some years of consistently competitive top 4 finishes over the coming years to entrench a changed culture. Winning the big one can drive this change in an instant.

He's the best player I've seen at Melbourne in my time. He (and Petracca and Gawn) has an opportunity to cement himself as a great of the game if he can get this club to the ultimate. The best of the best across all sports have almost all won with the team they were drafted to...it just means more when a player achieves that. It proves that not only are they great individually...but they also have the capability to help pull an entire team along with them.

If we continue to get the elevated intensity we've gotten from Fritsch, Langdon, Brayshaw and McDonald next weekend it will be a huge help in dragging us to the line. Have really noticed all 4 in the first 2 finals showing really good pressure and contests and i think it's going to take a whole of team pressure game to win it. If we manage to climb the mountain then I'm betting these guys will have played a huge role on the day. McDonald and Brown will be key in their performance in terms of bringing the ball to ground. Don't expect a lot of F50 marks next week...but it is key that we don't concede D50 marks.

I was feeling pretty concerned after watching the Dogs on Saturday. Thought they were magnificent and their depth was really going to stretch us. But I think you are right...if we bring an immense amount of pressure to them then we can take away exactly what they do so well...which is release to the front of the contest. When they do that, they can use their strategies of mixing up their numbers and alignment in the next space forward to make it hard for our defence. The pressure can make it hard for them to get to the front like that. Also, as I heard on the radio today, they love to defend via the scoreboard. I.e. get a lead and use the scoreboard situation to make teams start doung things they wouldn't normally do. Massive pressure from the start and don't let them get an early lead.

Do you know if there is anywhere we can see those pressure ratings published for this years matches?

Agree wholeheartedly. And on the Nathan Jones noise, I am hearing a lot of complaints this week about how Premiership medals only go to those who play on the day. While i agree that its wrong, i don't think its something we can change right now and the noise feels a little 'Port Adelaide' in a 'cart before the horse' sense. If the guys can dig deep enough and deliver what we are all hoping for, I have no doubt the club will find a way to honour Jones and the others who have contributed appropriately. But there is still a mountain in front of us right now and its going to take everything the club has got to climb over it.

David King mentioned Champion do some kind of 'probable score' analysis of every game based on the AFL average conversion from the spot where every shot is taken. Said the analysis of that game returned a draw (73 each or something). They got a few from frees that night too. However, they were also without some quality mids if i recall correctly (maybe Dunkley and Treloar). Midfield depth is where we are going to be most stretched and need to make it hard for them to get it out of the clinches cleanly so they can't burn us in front of the contest.

We got the better of it last Friday...although it wouldn't have made any difference. Don't want to see Stevic out there as he is no good, and he also was one who umpired the 2016 GF which was a performance appalling enough that none of those umpires should do another GF. As you have stated, hope they choose 3 who just don't want to be noticed. The umps on Friday let the game go a lot, especially early, which I personally would prefer 100% as a player or a spectator. If you're not 100% sure there was an infringement then let it go. Time to let the players decide who gets to bring the cup home.

Can we go hard tag on both? Use someone from outside the square like Brayshaw to follow Bont? I think we are going to have to do something a little different to the norm to handle these guys...so many damaging players in the middle.

I reckon that if both teams apply the kind of pressure they did this weekend, the tall forwards/tall defenders won't be that much of a deciding factor (with the exception of Naughton who's ability to win marking contests from non-advantage kicks if spectacular). It's going to come down to goals kicked by mids and how well the medium/small defenders from both teams can stop those scrappy goals materialising. Dogs defensive strength is their medium/smaller guys so we need to make them feel a contest all night long.

They are a brilliantly coached side and they will have plans to take away our strengths. Beveridge is not too stubborn and will put multiple players in negative roles to take away any of our advantages. I hope we are not too stubborn and are prepared to look at multiple shut down roles. They are going to hack, knock and scrap the ball forward in every contest to get it in there before we have had time to setup. If they get it in quickly we are going to get pulverised as we can't match them at ground level in their forward half. The game will be decided by one thing: The amount of pressure we apply to them at the absolute inside of the contest. If we can restrict their ability even hack it forward, we will have a decent chance. Our mids are going to need to be better than they have been all year (and they have been great) and in fairness that is what it should take to win a flag. I firmly believe to win we will need to keep the Dogs to <65 points. With the level of pressure they applied last night it is going to be hard for us to score more than 9 or 10 goals. We are going to need to make it an arm wrestle and hopefully be the ones who bob up at the right minute.

I'm the same. Doesn't help that my 2 sons, wife and her entire extended family are Bulldogs. Was hoping they would just fade into the night and we'd have Port or Bris in the GF to avoid the complications. Now if we lose i am going to be reminded of it every day for the rest of my life with Weg posters and all the other memorabilia! And if we win my sons are going to be gutted! And by the way they were magnificent tonight. It's going to take the best we have and given how deep the Dogs bat, we aren't going to be able to carry anyone. They will apply pressure to us from minute 1 to minute 120 and we are going to need to scrap like we never have before.

Has anyone seen that 'Pressure Rating' stat they sometimes show on the broadcast for last night's game? Would be interested to see what those numbers were and how they stack up with other games this year. Would guess Geeling might have had a pretty low rating.

Couldn't sleep much last night. Having watched the replay its difficult to tell how much was us being outstanding and how much was Geelong having a complete shocker. No doubt our pressure was first rate. It was one of those nights where everything broke our way...the bounce of the ball, the fumbles tended to roll in the direction of one of our players, the snaps at goal and probably the umpiring a bit too. What i can't work out is how Geelong ended up with 40+ inside 50's. There must have been a lot of very shallow ones. We barely got to see how hampered (or not) May was because he was just hardly ever required to engage in a contest.

Good summary. I probably would have left Bowey out of the team tonight...and I would have been dead wrong. Great composure and execution under pressure. Ultimately we won this game on the back of immense pressure applied by 22 players...we'll need it in 2 weeks and if we bring it again we're in with a decent show.

Just that he is proud to be part of a club that is continually competing and fighting to be there at the pointy end...despite being outclassed tonight. Dislike Geelong but fair play to them for sustained competitiveness over the last 30 years. Simply beaten by a better team tonight.

Gee wizz didn't see that coming. Well done football department. I want one more but this is a night to have some pride in this football club! Credit to Joel Selwoods comments in the rooms too. To be fair Geelong have been an amazingly consistent team for 15 years and their ability to put themselves in a position to compete every year is something I'd love us to emulate.

Interesting article and it scares me a fair bit the talk I've been hearing about Melbourne being 'the best team in football' and having 'one hand on the cup' this week. Seems a bit disingenuous to me. Whether we like it or not our recent history has seen things get very ugly when it's not on our terms. This years team looks different but Geelong are going to hit every one of them hard tomorrow night...this could be the making of us but there is a lot of history to overcome (186, 148, Essendon VFL side, 2018 prelim for example). There's been lots said by lots of people over the last few weeks but ultimately its going to come down to who can absorb and apply the most pressure over the 120 mins tomorrow night. Not much between these sides if pressure/intensity is taken out of the equation.

I think this is 100% the right call and personally would have done this anyway regardless of the injury. Bowey will be a good player and has done well so far...so it's no knock on him but Hunt is more experienced and a bit bigger and stronger...i think we have to do it given the stakes. Also think Hibberd is just a better defender than Smith and gives us a real 'known quantity'.

I agree with you. And whether people like to admit it or not, the Geelong Football Club has a recent history of knowing how to win...and quite frankly the Melbourne Football Club has had a history of producing results that are worse than they should have been with great regularity. I hope the tide is turning for our club but for me to truly believe will probably take a flag or multiple years of consistently competing right at the pointy end.

I said last week that i think this year is part of a bigger journey for the MFC in trying to change the underlying culture of the club. If we don't win the flag this year, i am ok with it it as long as we have taken effort/intensity out of the equation. If we have a red hot crack and are beaten by a better team on the day, or get stooged by the umpires, or kick poorly for goal or cop injuries in game then so be it. This can happen in a sport where finals are 'best of 1'. Believe it or not, i still go into every game hoping we will 1) kick a goal and not become the first goalless team for the last however many years and 2) stay close enough to not push past our record 190 losing margin and break the 200 barrier. Talk about MFCSS! Either way we should expect to see this group come back better next season based on the age profile. That would be a huge step forward from what we've been served up by players after decent seasons over the last 30 years. If this group maintains the competitiveness, selflessness and intensity that they've shown for most of this season then we will keep presenting in and around the top 4 and eventually we will break through. To me this is how you win flags. And ultimately we will have a club we can trust and be truly proud to be associated with.

Nice. Intro music to the starting lineups for the 1990's Chicago Bulls by the sound of it?

Another AFL final won last night by the team that applied the most pressure and played the the highest intensity. When I really think about it, we haven't actually been playing all that great for 4 quarters recently...even with a little string of wins. It's going to take 12 consistently good quarters from us to get to where we want to go. I still think this year is part of a bigger journey for MFC. We need a block of years where we are perenially competitive and ensure a culture shift among the playing group gets cemented. The more times we put ourselves in the kind of spots we are in now, the more likely we will eventually snag one. Hopefully either way they make us proud tonight.