Juk3b0x

Is it just me or is Bailey Laurie’s disposal terrible. Watching this game and he misses targets and with time to consider still bombs long to nothing, with no advantage to Casey and the ball easily rebounds.

Pickett @joeboy?

Making my way down from QLD for my first live final, and will be camped in with the Carlton supporting family members… Hella excited and unbelievably nervous - as much about having to walk home copping it if we go down. #carnthedees

Has had in spoiling 2-3 F50 marking opportunities…

Harmes?

This was what I heard too, so I went into the replay later on focused on what BBB offered and couldn’t disagree at all. Keep making leads, was our exit target outside 50 (successfully and unsuccessfully) on a number of occasions, kept impacting the ball in the air and bringing to ground, and forward of centre was minded by two opponents in his own and what I assume was a float spare (i.e the Lever type role) without being beaten in the air - but not having the support there to stop the turnover once it hit the ground. Was a bit surprised by the DL opinion on his game - I’m hoping he keeps getting a game and gets some more reward like his start to the 2023 season.

Just rewatched the game after only being able to catch some on the radio and reading through some of the Demonland reviews. Have to say it feels like poor BBB really does not get the reward for effort he puts in, or the recognition of that from DL. He lead at everything he should have including high up the ground as our exit so many times, and he competed up our F50 end perpetually with two opponents and STILL managed to bring it to ground every time, which would unfortunately be collected by that spare Crows player. The commentators on both the radio and replay all recognised the unrewarded, stat free work he was doing playing a role. We’ve looked better and straighter with him in the team no matter what he’s adding to the scoreboard or the stats sheet. I’m hoping we persist and BBB and DL get the reward we saw in his first three games of 2023 before injury.

Didn’t make our yearly pilgrimage down from Central Queensland because it was “sold out.” Bit disappointing to see those numbers, as good as they were for King Birthday and the Big Freeze, because it’s obviously not sell out numbers.

Fox footy are on the mark with us. Out of form, out of confidence. Forward connection is terrible, don’t kick to space or advantage, bomb it in. Selfish plays either not taking the best option, or not hearing it or expecting them to be there Good players missing easy targets. Dropped marks. Gawn seems either underdone or disinterested - there’s no fire there, no angry Max.

Agree with a number of points from OP, but the biggest being that our structure starts from the back. We were at our most threatening with 3 tall's and Lever playing as the third. We still have all the same players on the list, why the hell would be move them around from where they played their best, and where we looked our best. It also had such a flow on effect to our small defenders, excepting the addition of McVee who I've been impressed with, who remain our same premiership winning line-up of Hibberd, Bowey, Rivers. Gawn also played a bigger defensive role from the ruck, being a consistent marking thread staying a kick behind the ball when the team pushed forward, and I don't see this from Gawn/Grundy as often this year. Our midfield setup just confuses me, and has for some time. In our premiership year we often played from behind, less man on man at stoppages, running forward and it worked well, but as a number of opposition analyses show, it's not that hard to counter and seems to have been - Gawn likes to hit forward left/right of the centre bounce and stoppage, so when he rucks play their mid's the same way as ours and start from behind but hold back slightly from bursting through and we'll likely force feed them first use of the football. At the same time their ruck aims to hit forward of the centre bounce should they win the tap and task the 3rd mid running forward of the centre as our midfielders seem coached to run through assuming we'll win majority of the taps. So as expected we consistently win hit out's, but lose clearances and when we do lose its usually from opposition just walking the ball out uncontested, handballing wide, or winning an uncontested possession forward of the centre bounce when they do win the tap. I honestly don't know what to say of our forwards... I don't watch them well enough. But no one in the league would look at our team sheet and think we have any Key Forward that is particularly threatening or hard to stop (i.e. Cameron, Curnow etc) except maybe Fritsch who shouldn't have to shoulder that as a medium forward. Our current tactic gives me PTSD flashbacks - long, high bombs to a pack of forwards who have posed zero big pack crushing/marking threats in 2 years. JVR is too green, McDonald has the speed, turning circle and intensity of fully laden flat bed truck, BBB hasn't even been given the chance, and Petty just doesn't seem like to the guy for the job. Our F50 small forward brigade, who were a thing to be feared in 2021 for their defensive pressure and crumbing ability don't seem to have hit any kind of consistent form this year. Do we even know how to lead in our forward 50? I'm not convinced its something anyone except Fritsch and maybe our resting midfielder in Petracca know how do to. We've got most of the same cattle we had in 2021, all capable of playing the same roles where we looked our best. We've lost Jackson but added a genuine talent in Grundy, have some fresh exciting players in the likes of McVee and Chandler. Even in 2021 our forward setup seemed to rely on goals from our midfield and medium/small forwards, and not our necessarily on our tall's - how have we lost our edge so quickly?!

This… so much this. For the life of me I don’t get our forward set up, the ball can burst out of the centre or backline and somehow we STILL have 2-3 tall forwards all in the spot contesting for the same ball, with rarely a small still there to crumb. I’m regularly screaming at the TV asking how week after week we don’t address this. Worst of all opposition with an otherwise organised defence don’t send all defenders up at once so our forwards spoil each other and they have the numbers when the ball inevitably spills out the footy rebounds with ease. Don’t get me started on the F50 entries either. Long, high bombs of the horror years are back in vogue for the Dees and it’s just awful football to watch happen again and again and again…

Encourage anyone that was curious about this topic to replay the game and watch a lot of the taps. The point above is painfully accurate and part of the reason we got monstered in this stat. There's 2 perfect example centre bounce taps that Gawn wins without any real opposition but he puts the ball forward in front of the contest... except we don't have anyone forward of the contest and there were no players running through, so Port win it and run away virtually uncontested for a F50 entry. I understand that this has worked for us at times and its looked good when we have, but this isn't 2021 where teams let it rampage through to win the ball forward of the contest... the times I had to watch us tap down the oppositions throat on Friday was infuriating!

JVR needs a spell. Ran under every footy repeatedly, reckless and stupid free kicks given away. Costly! Gawn no impact, small forwards unseen in what should have suited them more than the talls. Petracca obviously being managed forward with ankle in first half, tries to carry team home in the 3rd. Viney, 33% D/E and another brainfade sliding in taking legs late… making that mistake at that point in the game was dumb. Tom McDonald is just dumb at times. Isn’t a game he doesn’t try and take on a tackle, ignores first option, gives away HtB and moans about it while the teammates he burnt just have to stand fuming. Frustrating watching.

The bad Melbourne turned up… it’s always clear in the first quarter which version showed up, and this feels like the one where I stop watching about half time…

Wish that was always the case but of the 3 ACL ruptures I had playing footy I didn’t hear a thing for 2 of them and only had mild discomfort and a feeling that something wasn’t right. First one was also a similar action to Max with a player crashing in. I’m so nervous for Max!! Fingers crossed.