Lucifers Hero

Cheers, What do you think happened to Salem's game week to week?

Re the AFLCA votes, I'm intrigued by the 3 votes to (J) Kolodjashni. He didn't stand out on tv, stats not too flash and didn't feature in the 'Best' player lists that I saw. So I reckon they were from Scott for doing the job assigned to him. And, the job was? Earlier in this thread I asked what happened to Salem this week? No theories were forthcoming and I don't think his game falls away that badly in a week or 'was found out'. I reckon Scott noticed he was our play maker last week and made him #1 target to work on/over (while everyone thought it would be Max). So, he had JK tag Salem? If my hunch is correct, it worked brilliantly and JK got the 3 votes as a reward. Scott is incredibly shrewd - doesn't worry too much about the big names, he identifies the key play maker at the time and works to take him out of the game. For us it was Salem and whatever Scott did to take him out of the game, it worked and that tactic has gone under the radar. Anyone notice JK during the game?

AFLCA votes: 10 Patrick Dangerfield (GEEL) 8 Tim Kelly (GEEL) 4 Clayton Oliver (MELB) 3 Jake Kolodjashnij (GEEL) 2 Luke Dahlhaus (GEEL) 2 Tom Stewart (GEEL) 1 Mitch Duncan (GEEL) Well done to Clayton and very well deserved. I'm guessing Goodwin: 3 and Scott: 1.

Great that he caught the eye of the coaches, scoring 4 votes: 10 Patrick Dangerfield (GEEL) 8 Tim Kelly (GEEL) 4 Clayton Oliver (MELB) 3 Jake Kolodjashnij (GEEL) 2 Luke Dahlhaus (GEEL) 2 Tom Stewart (GEEL) 1 Mitch Duncan (GEEL) From the other votes I'm guessing Goodwin: 3 and Scott: 1. The other 3 votes went to Kolodjashni who didn't stand out to me on the telecast so I reckon they were from Scott for doing the job assigned to him.

Not yet od. If we go 2-3 after round 5 bottom of the 8 is doable. Otherwise, I reckon 9-11. Need to get AVB, Hannan and Lever back but they are unlikely for a few months. Season may be over by the time they are all back. If so, then it is tanking time??and yeah, think bottom 4!!? but Goodwin won't let that happen?.

Someone has ?. WJ knew what was going to happen this year and got in early!!

Therefore, you are saying we will make finals after a 0-5 start or not making finals is acceptable to you. If the former tell me how given our fixture. If the latter, well I just don't know what to say. Anyway, I can't see too much pessimism, panic or losing the plot, except at Tullamarine ?

0-5, really? That means we lost to Ess and the Saints! Look at the fixture for the footy left to play. 0-5 means we need 13 wins of the then 17 games left to make finals; a tall order given 9 are vs 2018 top 8 teams. Even if they go 50/50 (and assume we win the other 8), a 0-5 start means we miss finals, or sweating on a 2017 round 23! The other remaining games: Lions, Crows, Suns, Roos, Blues, Saints, Bulldogs, Dockers. A few wins there and certainly some losses. If we go backwards this year because we are not good enough to beat the best teams so be it. But to go backwards so far that we miss finals because we can't beat last year's bottom half of the ladder teams is beyond the pale. So, Ess and Saints are must win games! I think we will improve considerably but we can't afford to go 0-5 and think we make the finals, which surely is the minimum pass mark this year and absolutely essential to keep our hard earned new members, prime tv slots and sponsors.

Great posts. Re Melksham. He is the only effective forward because he is the only one with real experience as a forward at AFL level so has learnt his 'craft': Our other fwds on Saturday: Tom Mc (194cm) has played about 20 games as a forward @ AFL level ANB (182cm) isn't a forward; is there for defensive acts Sparrow (183 cm) who has good goal sense but is a defensive forward like ANB Petracca (186) is being played as a 'hybrid' on-baller/forward Weideman (195 cm) has played a handful of games. It is a hotch-potch forward group with little experience in 'forward craft' (notwithstanding they play good games occasionally). And it is all too 'vanilla' in height, size, skills, experience. To my mind 4 of the 6 need to be specialist forwards who are there to kick goals, are of differing height and skill sets to play together for whole games and develop understanding of each other's game and positioning to help our midfielders find them for the i50's coming in. The 4 also need to defend. The other 2 forward positions can be for a resting ruckman/midfielder and a defensive forward. But it seems our coaching panel prefer flexible/hybrid players to specialists. It takes time to develop 'forward craft' at AFL and cohesion among the group. Then we may see the best of Petracca. Sadly, until then CP5 will be the whipping boy on DL for the all ills in our forward line. Edit: Just saw this article where Nick Riewoldt says Petracca needs to learn forward 'craft' and how to get separation from defenders. Petracca has work to do which we all agree with but it also applies to all our forward line and the coaching/selection panel.

We don't have the 6-6-6 worked out at all: Disorganised Demons "James Harmes positioned himself just inside the defensive 50 at one stage in the opening term, only to realise Melbourne was one player short in the centre before the bounce. His mad dash into the square salvaged the situation. There was confusion again at the very next centre bounce, with Oliver then Jayden Hunt noticing the Dees were one down in their defensive 50. Hunt raced into the backline, but not before they received a warning, as per the new 6-6-6 starting positions and the 45-second limit to be in your designated area. That warning became a Geelong free kick in the third term, when co-captain Jack Viney inexplicably started between the centre square and his forward 50". I despair when I read stuff like this. What are our leaders who play in the middle (Gawn, Viney, Jones) doing if they aren't organising the set-ups at center bounces! Surely, surely that is their job. Our on field leadership is more of a shambles than I thought it was. And, Fox just showed video clips of Jones saying Preuss couldn't be selected because he an adductor strain then Gawn saying Preuss played a good practice game. Does Jones have any idea what is going on at our club? And, why aren't they singing from the same song book? I would laugh if it wasn't so scary.

A bit ominous for Viney? "...icepack on his troublesome right foot during the post-game interview, but he said the treatment was only precautionary after he underwent ankle surgery at the end of 2018." https://www.afl.com.au/news/2019-03-31/demons-ready-to-bite-in-battle-of-hungry-teams Viney's 27 possessions at 74.4% eff'y, 8 tackles and 8 inside 50's are a super effort for only 3/4 of the game while still not fully fit. We needed him to step up this week; such a shame the team couldn't capitalise on his work. Not suggesting he won't play next week but his ground time is still being managed: a little over 2.5 qtrs last week and 3 qtrs this week? Hope that in our desperation we don't push it too far.

Anyone know what happened to Salem this week? Last week an efficiency of 83.4% with 14 rebound 50's. This week efficiency down to 54.4% and zero rebound 50's. Did they tag him or is their some mystery illness. Just seems very odd. Apologies for formats - can't seem to remove the 'bold'.

Given that 11 of his 16 possessions last night were contested, I guess he won 11 possessions when it was 2:1 or 3:1? Not a bad effort then seeing off 2 or 3 opponents rather than just 1, don't you think?

Swans want AFL to take action on Eddie. In that article is vision of the toss. Its the first time I've seen it. The toss looked fine so I don't know what he was on about in the first place. Until seeing that I thought Eddie was just being stupid and disrespecting to all ball-tossers but now I think he was using the toss as a foil to belittle someone who is different.

Thanks. At the 5.30 mark Ben Guthrie makes some statement/questions to which Goodwin replies something like: ...yes, there are few things we will look at, Ben... Could anyone make out what Ben said? It would be good to know what those things are. As an aside, when are broadcasters going to put microphones near the press we can hear the commentary?

Sure we had numerous i50 and lost by 13 goals but that isn't the major worry for me. What is most frightening is we had 100 tackles but lost by 13 goals. Let that sink in... Its not often a team has 100 tackles and loses, let alone be thrashed. Especially when you also easily win the hitouts, clearances and be not far behind on contested possessions. Those things are the very essence of 'our brand'. What is frightening is that we executed 'our brand' very well and we won on nearly every one of its criteria yet we lose by 13 goals. If 'our brand', the 'Melbourne Way' is failing that badly, i just don't know where we go. Its hard to see how 100 tackles can be improved upon. After last year's Hawthorn game PJ said the players trashed our brand. Last night they didn't; they executed it quite well. It wasn't lack of effort, nor 'drinking bathwater'. Something deeper and much more insidious is at play. It must be really demoralising for the players to know they did pretty much what the coaches ask of them re 'our brand' and have that result. The coaches have some serious thinking to do.

I'm going out on a limb and say his game was good not terrible. Squibbing the mark in 4th qtr was awful but then Max squibbed a contest with Ryder last week. Pertacca dropped an easy mark but so did Jones last week. Sh-t happens. I know stats aren't everything but they warrant consideration: 16 possessions (@ 81.3% efficiency) of which 11 were contested, 3 clearances, 7 tackles (4th highest) and 7 inside 50 (also 4th highest). That describes someone who was aggressive, worked hard and was relatively clean with the ball. Folks notice the 3 clangers but they don't undo his good work. He played on the ball where he did a serviceable job as his statistics show. He played deep in a forward line that hasn't a clue what it is doing and the ball rarely got far enough in fwd 50 so he didn't score. The club needs to decide if he is an on-baller or a forward. This 'hybrid' role isn't working for him or the team. He won't be nor should he be dropped.

Oops! Blues hit the front late in the 3rd. Not bad given Charlie Curnow hasn't played since the first quarter. Its hard to understand what happened to us last week ?

If it was a someone like Robbo we could say he doesn't know any better. But as a club President, Eddie knows it is a special honour to toss the coin. It doesn't matter who it was, ridicule of the coin toss is totally inappropriate. So his comments should be condemned for what they were not because of who the person was. An extra layer of condemnation because it was said of a very admirable person. Add another layer for his lack of contrition last night that led him to make another apology today. He may live in Toorak but will always be a Broady bogan.

Interesting start to the Port vs Carlt game. Port 4.2.26 to Carlton 5.2.32 just before Qtr time. Will be rather shattered if Carlton win or run Port to the line in a close loss.

When they did the fixture, this afternoon was left free for the AFLW Grand Final. The idea was to give it some media space and exposure without competition from the men's game. A lot of people would have watched the GF today, especially in Victoria given the weather. It was a meritorious idea but what do they do - they schedule the GF tomorrow afternoon up against a heap of AFL games. Only the AFL can shoot itself in the foot. Everyone loses: The Grand Finalists, their sponsors, the AFLW comp and fans in general.

Jumped or Pushed? Eddie steps down from calling tonight's game Today's apology of "I am deeply sorry..." is far more sincere than the long winded "I unreservedly apologise if it was communicated the wrong way..." He now realises it is what he said rather than how "it was communicated" that was ignorant and offensive. Better late than never I guess.

Unless the injury gods cast a dark spell over us... as they say, careful what we wish for.

Eddie puts foot in mouth again. Eddie's gaffe He ridiculed Cynthia Banham’s coin toss who was trying to balance herself with a walking stick as she had both her legs amputated after an airline crash. Cynthia is an incredibly accomplished and courageous person and the Swans No 1 ticket holder. To my mind this isn't about being pc it is about feeling empathy and showing respect. If he could see the coin toss, Eddie could see her struggle. Rightly, he has unreservedly apologised but this goes down as one of his most insensitive comments of all time. Somehow, an apology over the airways doesn't seem enough.

A waffle piece if I ever saw one... They miss a key point - we must use a first round 2019 draft pick as we have traded out the last 3 years for Lever/May. Not sure if we can trade our 2020 pick. I doubt we would as it means 1 pick of top end talent over a 5 year period. Sure we are recruiting well with our picks around the #30+/- mark, getting in some good B players and some 'journeymen' but at some stage we need picks at the top end otherwise we won't have the next gen top talent coming thru. All that aside its a bit early for trade/draft talk. Lets just win some games.