deelusions from afar

Wow didn't think he was capable of that. Given its late in the game and they had been at him all night, I reckon other teams will find this useful that you can get to him.

Laurie is going to make it - needs a clear run at it (no injuries and covid interruptions) and then with our senior side success will need to bang down the door. I actually rate Chandler highly - he's quick (not as quick as Bedford) and small but has very good disposal and is a tackling machine. I think he was unlucky not to get more of a chance last year.

Love seeing the name Woewodin in our lineups once again!

Over the last few years, when I get the chance I have had a look at opposition team's threads in the lead up to the game. Partly as you get an insight into tactics (where they think they have the edge), selection but probably mostly to temper my own expectations when relying on the echo chamber of demonland / dees fb pages. Often things I think are delusional from an opposition supporter are very similar to what we would write about our own players / team. Having said that, as everyone watched us dismantle the Dogs in the GF in minutes, we now have an aura among opposition supporters. In terms of this week's game, some of the things the Port fans have written are about their club and coach are about as dire as I've seen (and they've made preliminary finals the last few years!) e.g.: My head says lose. It's for the greater good of the club, to get this regime out. But my heart says win. It goes against everything I was brought up to believe in, it goes against everything I value and love about the club. I feel ashamed of myself to be doing it, but I want us to lose, to get these awful current custodians out. Least that's what I hope will happen, because hopes the only thing I got left. It’s a sad state of affairs when I’ll be more disappointed with a win. That's how I'm feeling.this morning. A sense of dread if we win. The only thing I can compare for us would be the end of Mark Neeld's tenure... but we hadn't made finals in years at that point. Having said that, I remember in 2020 when we started to find some form and came up against Port and got smashed. Despite being the top of the table, their supporters were equally pessimistic about their coach and team and expected us to smash them.

I remember Daniher saying when he coached us that Yze and Farmer had a "licence" to break team rules (or something equivalent) - i.e. they could have shots from the boundary or 50m out as they had the skills to pull it off. In today's footy, if you miss doing that (and even if you don't) the media will highlight you all week as a selfish player burning team mates up the field. While I get this in terms of playing the percentages and building team culture, it means players will rarely have a shot when there are players in front of them and you often see players doing the "team thing" and kick to a contest when they are actually within range. Shots from outside 50 on the run are also a good way of breaking down strong team defence / flood / zoning but we rarely see it from our team. I wonder what Yze makes of this - does Melbourne currently give out "licences" to any players in this way?

Is a hyphenated surname a criteria for our NGA?

I'd love to see this too. And just think of the headaches it will cause the opposition with matchups when we've got the ball. Their ruckman goes to Max and a midfielder goes to Jackson.

Each to their own... but I'm fairly sure that once Lever and Petty are back, Smith will still be in the team (unless he gets injured). Though you might not be a fan, clearly the coaches are. If not for his injury in the finals he would have stayed in the side for the grand final ahead of Hibbo. His form has been better so far this year. So it might be something you have to get your head around. As others have said, every player makes mistakes... the defender's ones are often more memorable as they are close to the opposition goals.

We have two of the best creative contested ball players in Trac and Clarry, the best ruck duo in the game in Gawn and Jackson plus a host of talented centre square mids eg Viney, Harmes, Sparrow. Why / How do we lose so many centre clearances? Is this down to the opposition researching what we do? Or is this not a problem provided we can put enough pressure on the opposition as they're leaving the clearance.

In fairness to him, we still don't have our first choice backline around him. I'm sure he (and others) would look better with the likes of Salem and Lever around them. He's still capable and probably will get better over the year (he's still coming back from a serious injury) but I think Petty has got him on almost every measure (except maybe endurance?) and Smith would be ahead due to the flexibility he offers (can play tall or small, has speed, strength etc)

Will be interesting to see how we go with selections. I'd love to see Weid get a decent run at it. But at the same time, I feel like he plays the BBB role of full forward whereas Mitch Brown is more the replacement for TMac. Would be interesting to see if its possible to play Weid and BBB in the same side - I feel like they won't want to do that until at least one of Lever / Petty are back which could be this week. I think Tomlinson is not inside our best 22 so will be the one to lose his spot for Lever. When Petty is ready it will probably be Hunt that loses his spot and Smith will be the 4th tall with Hibbo nipping at his heels if his form drops. If Smith continues to grow he will become undroppable because he offers flexibility to play tall / small and has the strength to go with the dangerous mids that go forward. If we keep winning there's going to be a number of unlucky players - I thought Hunt was very disciplined and careful with his disposal on Friday night. But unfortunately for him, unless Bowey's form drops / Salem doesn't make it back, he's outside best 22 as well.

I think it's more about lack of midfield pressure and lack of players coming back to fill Wright's leading areas. May had him if it wasn't on the lead. If Petty was in the side we would have been worth a shot with his extra height.

Fair call on TMac - forgot he'd already been through that. Well it comes down to whether they want team success or not. May and to a lesser extent Lever have had their big payday and now also have a premiership. You pay overs when you attract talent from other clubs (in the same way that Jackson will be offered more from other clubs than us). But when you have 3 players in the top 5-10 in the comp in your team and you're not one of them, then you can't expect the same big bucks. I'm sure they'll be well compensated... but there is a salary cap and unless some take a haircut, you lose an Oliver or a Jackson or a host of role players that you can't replace.

You're right... it will be interesting to see how we go against these sorts of players. Even an unfit Stringer this week - he caused us headaches last year. If he gets on a role this year will they bring harmes in?

You'd hope that the likes of Lever and May would take less money in their follow up contract despite now being All Australians and Premiership players. It's going to take cuts from them, Gawn, Harmes, Brayshaw, Tmac etc to keep our up and coming stars.

I think Viney's role often is to curb the influence of the opposition's most effective centre square players. He is the most defensive of our centre square mids which allows the others to be more attacking and get off the chain. I think he is the preference as a stoppage tagger / cooler as bringing harmes in sends one of our first choice away from the action. Interestingly following the grand final, Goody mentioned that Clarry took it upon himself to shut out the influence of the Bont in the second half. I've tried to look for this when watching the replay and other than a couple of plays it doesn't seem particularly obvious - but I guess it could have been about when Bont drifted forward, Clarry went with him to ensure he didn't get any marks inside 50 like in the first half. Certainly in that interview (pretty sure it was Goody) they said it was instrumental to our dominance. And of course bont was off when the first of our 3rd quarter barrage began. I think if our (potentially) best ever pure midfielder is prepared to sacrifice part of his game to curb the influence of the opposition's best player, it shows exactly what the team was preaching in terms of selflessness / sacrifice.

It's interesting, the way they play, the way our gameplan works and the way the umpires tend to notice the midfielders, if they stay injury free and at the top of their game, they're both likely to poll 30 votes. We should win 15+ games again. That gets them to 21 votes each (if they're the best on) and this not taking into account 2 and 1 votes or losses. I can't see too many other players stealing votes off them in the team. I think Gawn and Jackson will share the load more which means one will have to play a blinder to get a look in. Defenders don't get votes (maybe Lever / Salem) and forwards have to kick 6+ or have a stack of possessions to have a chance. Doesn't happen much in our team. I can't see many of the other midfielders getting more recognition from the umpires than Trac and Clarry. I would love to see them both win it - imagine if it happened in the same year! Melbourne's 2021 Brownlow Medal Final Leaderboard 3rd Clayton Oliver – 31 votes = 9th Christian Petracca – 23 votes = 17th Max Gawn – 16 votes = 40th Tom McDonald – 8 votes = 68th Jake Lever – 5 votes = 98th Bayley Fritsch – 3 votes = 98th Luke Jackson – 3 votes = 98th Jack Viney – 3 votes = 132nd Kysaiah Pickett – 2 votes = 160th Steven May – 1 vote = 160th Christian Salem - 1 vote

I think Essendon are forced to play a few kids this week which could be why Howes may be under consideration. But I'd say it would be incredibly unlikely. 1st year players would have to knock down the door to break into the side. I've heard positive things about all our draftees from last year but nothing to suggest any of them will get a look in for the first half of the season (unless we have significant injuries).

Agree with all that's being said here. in addition I think he speaks incredibly well as seen by his interview / press conference in the last few days. While you don't have to be a solid media performer to be a good player, it helps to have a few good communicators in the side. Was very impressive I thought.

Thanks for this. It's an interesting stat and one that dees supporters are very aware of as we smashed the record last year. But I don't remember hearing people talk about it much prior to last year? I hope the bombers stay at that percentage this week and we kick straight!

Schwarz has been quoted in the hun saying he's a million a year player. While that is probably true it doesn't help the media speculation and can only drive his price up further. Schwarz bleeds red and blue so definitely not questioning his loyalty... but has done enough media work to know how it works - why add fuel to the fire? Ironically, Jackson is quickly becoming the sort of player that we thought Schwarz might become (obviously with the added ability of playing in the ruck). I still remember Schwarz taking hold of sides in late '94 and thought we missed a once in a generation player with his injuries. Amazingly Schwarz was 22 in 1994. Scary to think where Jacko will be when he gets to 22 at the rate he is going!

LH I don't think we can really say it's from the Melbourne playbook can we? Most teams would do it if they had the fitness and talent. Teams like Geelong and West Coast have been the outliers in recent years in having relative success with a chip / keepings off style. I do remember early last season seeing Geelong go all out attack in a couple of games - they looked scarily good when they moved the ball quickly (I'll wash my mouth out now!). I wondered why they didn't do it more often - esp when you have Hawkins, Cameron and Danger as targets. I figured with their finals record Scott didn't want to burnout his "experienced" team but would look to flick the switch in finals. But he never flicked the switch! Surely they couldn't sustain this style all year?

But does it look any better if he said they saw it coming but were unable to do anything about it? I think it's more about how they perform this week - if they don't get a bounce it will be a bit of a concern. Although they did go 0-2 last year and something like 2-6 in their first 8 games last year and made finals so who knows. I found the change in the cats style interesting. I've always thought they looked dangerous when they moved the ball fast in previous years but they only did that when they were behind and in striking distance. I thought that's because Scott thinks they don't have the cattle to run out games for a full season playing this way. I hope this is the case - would love to see them fail in finals after getting their supporters hopes up in the H&A again!

I would have thought Hunt

Definitely will be interesting going forward. And realistically we are not going to have everyone injury free so the adaptability and flexibility they've all shown is really positive. There are 7 positions in defence (6 plus 1 on interchange). This is how I think we would select: 1. Full back / lock down - May (if injured next choice Tomlinson / Petty) 2. Interceptor - Lever. (If injured, next choice Petty - May and Hibbo and Tmac? can also play this role) 3. Third Tall - Petty (if injured Smith next choice then Tomlinson and Hibbo at a stretch) 4. 4th tall / capable of playing small - Smith (if injured Hibbo and if both injured then Tomlinson could come in and May / Lever play on a smaller player) 5. High half-back / distributor - Salem (if injured Rivers, Bowey, Hunt and Brayshaw) 6. Small defender - Rivers (if injured Bowey / Hunt) 7. Interchange - one of Bowey or Hunt. It's obviously going to depend on matchups as well eg sometimes Lever plays on a smaller player and sometimes on a tall - not sure if this is dictated by who else is in the backline or if the player they want him on dictates who's selected.