The heart beats true

This will make you feel better. It’s from tonight’s On The Couch: Matches vs Top 8 teams since Round 12: Melbourne - 7 Freo - 5 Carlton - 5 Richmond - 4 Brisbane - 4 Sydney - 3 Geelong - 3 Collingwood - 3 We also played the Dogs in that time. We’ve had a hard run and come through it. Also, Jeremy’s Cameron’s done his hammy, and Essendon are a shambles. Lift the veil and look around. We are going ok.

I liked that Ralph said Melbourne have already told him he is required to the end of the year regardless of what he’s doing next year. It seems like a mature, well rounded way to handle it. He’s done a lot of work and he deserves to see it through.

The man who said the LGBT flag was ‘divisive’? It’s colours Neil. I’m sure you’ll cope.

This is a great video. The ABC commentary is the best because they called the action, not the emotion of one set of supporters. Was also nice to see that Blues supporter lose her mind 4 times in a row. I actually feel for her - we’ve all been that fan as Dees supporters.

Lever knew exactly what he was doing. There’s no way that our strongest player and our quickest player are at centre half forward out numbering their opponent 3-1. We NEVER set up like that. That, I believe, was what they trained for after last week. Don’t bang it long from the wing, go corridor and deep from there.

Essendon’s board have all the emotional resilience of a Demonland Gameday thread.

Source?

Totally agree. Long down the line to Max is killing me! I feel like our game plan asks a hell of a lot of 4-5 players, and if they are down by 5% collectively it makes it very hard for us to win. In that way I feel very similarly about the last half of this year as I did during the frustration of 17-18, when we won all the stats and put in so much effort and got diminishing returns.

Max said after the game they trained for what they learnt the week before. I’m not sure if they sent Goodwin home for that part of training, but I imagine he may have had some part in it.

His aim is to keep us in games for as long as possible. He DEFINITELY changed things up in the last 2 minutes. Lever gets the ball on the wing and hacks it to the centre of the ground where 3 Melbourne players are against 1 Carlton player. The entire team knew what to do, and did it. Im frustrated by our in game plan sometimes, but the last minute on Saturday was heavily adapted and Goodwin orchestrated it.

He got dragged to the ground 3 times off the ball in the last quarter way off the play. They really went after him.

Watched the last 2 minutes again. The standard of commentary is absolute and utter garbage. Koz kicks one of the most clutch goals of the season, and all McLachlan can do is waffle on about the team being beaten and how disappointing it is for them. What about celebrating the skill and effort on display to do what looked impossible?

What is so bizarre about this behaviour is that literally ALL the AFL clubs have strong indigenous histories, the game is based on an indigenous sport, and when the white fellas came they built their cricket ovals (subsequently footy ovals) on locations with long histories as indigenous meeting places. Its like loving pizza, but hating anything Italian.

Where does ‘cheer squad noise’ and ‘supporter pessimism’ rate in these metrics?

I hope someone new comes into the footy market in the next broadcast contract. Kayo is the worst app I’ve ever used. A big international player will surely wipe the floor with the garbage tech we have to put up with. From what I’ve read everyone is pushing for their own commentary on all games. That at least gives us an option to avoid BT.

Any idea why Chandler and Bedford didn’t play?

I reckon he’s playing at about 80%. His hand is still impeding him a bit. He’s such a good player to watch as a supporter. He just gives absolutely everything.

Pathetic isn’t it.

I actually think it’s quite realistic to say we aren’t even playing at 60% of our capability. We all know how good our best is. 👍 I just get tired of people saying ‘that was terrible’ when it excludes the reality of the competition. Carlton were literally playing for their first finals spot in 9 seasons. That meant everything to them, and often the opposition’s effort doesn’t get given enough credit by some. Carlton poured everything into that game, and I think would have beaten 14 or 15 of the 18 teams in the comp with the effort they put in last night.

Carlton Supporters - Simpsons Villagers

Yeah, this rule needs an overhaul. Perhaps we should just do away with it, and instead have a system where clubs are granted extra interchanges for losing players to injury (dependent on when in the game it occurs). Keeps the available players fresher, and can’t be tampered with so obviously. You can’t have fresh players available to come into a game late. It’s asking to be corrupted.

I thought last night at the G that as a supporter group we don’t have an easy run. That’s the second home game in a row where we are outnumbered at our home ground. Geelong, Eagles, Freo, Crows, Power, Brisbane, Sydney, Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, Richmond and often even the Hawks don’t have to contend with that. Then, because we have smaller supporter numbers, commentators openly barrack for the opposition on TV - because that’s what the majority of viewers want. It sucks being a Melbourne supporter.

I’m not sold on pessimism as a form of support. I understand it’s psychological benefit to the pessimist, but see no value of it to the side, or other supporters. Realism shouldn’t exclude hope, nor the ability to understand how difficult the competition is. I agree there’s room for a myriad of emotions, but it often feels like the same people having the same emotion on repeat.

This can’t be understated enough. You have to find a lot of different ways to win, and it only gets harder once you’ve climbed the mountain -because everyone follows the same path up again.

You inferred we had no luck last year, which is untrue. I’m not saying we are in top form right now, but I think it’s important to remember that in 2021 we had a lot of things go right (which all Premiers need). The nostalgia for 2021 focuses heavily on the football we played in the last half of the Grand Final. The draw to Hawthorn and the loss to Adelaide doesn’t come up much.