Diamond_Jim

perhaps we've turned and are going the wrong way.

no genuine mids though... Hannan ? Bugg? Kent? neither are midfielders Balic ... hasn't really kicked on AVB not ready

sad but almost true. Makes you wonder though in that roughly 12 players in the modern game are mid-fielders. Where did they go in our VFL team? Simplistic but you would think we would at least have 4-6 to pick from.

Looking at the frame posted by Dee Z I cannot see any alternative for Petracca other than going deep. It's a classic zone defence by Geelong. Not man to man but within striking distance of all the alternatives. Probably the only alternate play was for the MFC player at the centre circle to run into the vacant space on the HFF. A risky shot at that stage

MFC really never benefitted from an historic home support base a la Collingwood and for that matter every one of the VFL teams. If we had one I suppose it was along the train line to Caulfield, ie South Yarra, Prahran etc. Simplistic but they were never your traditional hotbed of passionate supporters. The league of supporters posted I think by yourself LDC a few weeks back shows how badly we fare in the sheer number of supporters. Not sure the Irish catholic anecdote quite holds up as I think that table showed Essendon at or near the top. Not sure of the traditional demographics of the Essendon area but it never struck me as being Catholic, Irish or otherwise

sorry... I have to laugh.... there are so may ways to inform players of the remaining time.... just by positioning an item on the bench differently for each of the last five minutes immediately springs to mind and there are so many others ways one could do it.

Sydney won't drop that far and if they do you have assumed they beat us but lose the rest.... strange permutations .. but then again... who knows

As I posted last night we need to think tactically with Hogan. We have Tom Mac, Hogan and Weideman. All three are unlikely to play together. At the beginning of the year I thought Hogan at CHF was what might take us all the way. Still possible but his consistency at CHF is not there. Two top ten draft picks in this years draft (Freo would pay it) with the added bonus that we free up salary cap for another player such as Gaff. It's a gamble I know but we need to break out of this mould of mediocrity that seems to surround the MFC.

Time to do some serious cost benefit analysis on Hoges... If a club offered two first rounders in the top 10 you'd have to think about it.

yep... I think many of us have come to realise that he is not much chop and that his inadequacy is being masked somewhat by the strength of the list. If we go anywhere it will be in spite of him not because of him. His match day skills are almost non existent.

bye to the season

yep.... it's the game plan

Lions v Crows shaping up as a season decider for the Crows. Not sure who I want to win between Port and GWS. Probably depends on how we go tonight.

Pies showing how it should be done so far. A big win today will really get the Magpie army on the move.

Listening last night to 3AW pregame show. They were discussing what the commentators generally agreed was the basket case known as the Gold Coast Suns. Not sure which of the commentators said that a number of their high draft picks would be leaving this year after failing to cut it at the senior level. It prompted the group of commentators to say that GCS had no structure for bringing in the young players and it was a death wish or similar to be drafted into such a club. So much was the same at MFC... no structure , no leadership etc etc. Would the various players have made it.. who knows but they had little chance in our system.

how do you determine who makes the conference. When determined is it immutable like the NFL? I can just imagine our conference... MFC, Dogs North and the Saints Conference B: Pies, Tigers, Bombers and Carlton

could never understand how people had us at the same ranking as the Saints given that Riewoldt and Montagna were such fantastic contributors week in week out. Mind you we did lose to them so perhaps the pundits were onto something.

Realistically we said goodbye to the top 4 when we lost to Port and confirmed our absence with the loss to the Saints. If we win three of the next six we will have done well. Assuming we do have the three wins the best we can hope for is that the cards fall our way and we do not have to travel in week one of the finals. We would be unlucky if we ended up in Adelaide playing Port or the Crows. It would be even nicer if the next few finals fell our way at the MCG, assuming we overcome our present absence of form on that ground.

I'd accept the 17-5 concept if the remaining five were random. Not sure if you could run the five over 3 plus years to remove the randomness (is that a word?) . Admittedly there is still a luck element as to whether you play a team on the way up or down but that is there at the moment because of injuries and form to at least some extent.

I don't think people pay enough attention to the draw in the sense that it ensures that the less powerful clubs such as ourselves remain with little exposure. Sure we have our blockbusters but really they promote Collingwood and Richmond as much as ourselves. We are in a position of constant catch up. Our double games this year were against Dogs, Saints, Crows , Cats and Suns so we cannot complain really about who we doubled up against. On the other hand it shouldn't be a lottery. (or perhaps it should be and the draw should genuinely come out of a hat.)

Makes you wonder if it is about time to revisit the draw. If the so called blockbusters keep growing the draw will become almost immutable. BTW is the rule that the top 6? of 2018 play each other twice in 2019 etc still applicable or is it merely an aspirational goal.

jarred knee according to the report that came along with the team selection on the club website

Not sold on J Smith but there does not appear to be much of an option. Does anyone have the Geelong side?

The AFL have released some key dates and concepts for the 2019 fixture and have asked clubs to provide their wish list by early August. One thing is that there will probably be more Thursday night games and according to the writer less night games for Carlton. "Carlton also looks set to be phased out of Friday night games after surprisingly playing four of the prime-time fixtures this season, with AFL general manager of clubs Travis Auld confirming the League would again look to reward on-field performance when completing the 2019 schedule." https://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-07-19/afl-reveals-likely-key-dates-for-2019-fixture

we talked a little about this last year. The general idea as I understand it is that the zone is set 60-70 metres around the ball carrier. You would need to be a very powerful kick to break the zone but if you can run 15 and then kick 50 ...perhaps. Far easier with two quick precision kicks to achieve the same result. Remember the chaos ball of 2016 that the Dogs perfected. Not sure if it is still in vogue. A genuine and reliable goal kicker from 55 metre on the run would be a powerful weapon. Imagine if the defensive outriders had such a player amongst them.