chookrat

That seems a bit complicated. Between having to swap trains and it being dark outside I can see why crowds were low. In seriousness I reckon we have a large cohort of older supporters along with young families with not many supporters in the 15 - 30 year old age bracket given we haven't been an attractive club to attracted new supporters over this period. We seem to have alot of 5 - 15 year old supporters who over the next 10 - 15 will attend more night matches with along with the parents with young kids.

I don't think what he said was too bad re bagging umpires but more so from a culture perspective re making excuses. Instead of focussing on not being 'awarded' a free for an action that created no real disadvantage but might technically be a free, he would have been better off saying we gave up a 5 goal lead in the 4th quarter and will focus on what we did wrong to lose from the position we were in. I wonder how many journos will write that Collingwood have gone from Premiers to zero set finals?

Who cares what a parent supposedly said at a local footy match. Petty, Langdon, Turner, Windor and Koltyn all signed contract extensions over the past couple of months which says alot more about the state of the club than such heresay.

Hunter has played some good games for us since coming across from the Doggies. Has had a pretty rough run with soft tissue injuries but if he's fit would be a good week to play his 200'th against his old side. He may have more to give if our physios can get his body right and if not will be remembered for bringing tunnel ball to our game style.

For me this bodes well for us as it shows an even contribution across the board from a very young team. I don't have any issues with the coaches votes as shown above.

It was dark outside

Will be interesting to observe when Trac joina the rehab group. Monday will mark 7 weeks from the injury and the literature suggests 8 weeks from injury to return to play, with rest for the first 6 weeks. He won't be doing any form of training, not even jogging at this stage. Once he's in the rehab group it should then be a matter of regaining fitness and conditioning. It will be interesting to see if we look to make finals and playing our best footy whether Trac will press his case for finals or whether the club puts him on ice for 2025.

What nonsense, if we are going to cause any damage in September we cannot rely on Gawn at every stoppage and need Petty providing a contest. I've seen plenty of evidence over the past 5 years of our coaching group adapting and finding form when we are struggling to put us in the best place to play and win finals. I also accept that this year we have made changes to how we move the ball and have also injected alot of youth into our side both planned and through necessity that make it harder to win games now but should pay dividends over the next few years.

Have you considered the possibility that Grundy agreed to join us on a commitment to playing 2 rucks and that when this plan didn't work the right thing to do was to help facilitate a trade. The feeling I have is that our Footy Department act on good faith and this approach has served us well in retaining our talent and also in attracting the players that we target at fair value.

The best response to Tom Morris is to not even acknowledge what he reports. As a supporter I love seeing Oliver celebrate with his teammates and get around each other for support or to celebrate the good times. It is clear that the club have prioritised his wellbeing while Oliver has prioritised being the best teammate. One thing I've noticed this year is how Oliver seems to be intercepting the ball a kick outside of the contest, and I suspect he has been adding a defensive structure element to his game (similar to what Brayshaw used to provide) allowing our younger players such as Rivers and Kozzie to hunt the ball. He is a superstar playing some really solid footy and isn't far from his best.

Winner = Melbourne Why = Not loading

Back in the Neeld era we could lose by 6 - 8 goals and gain percentage.

If the Bombers keep a Doggies or GCS out of the 8 then it softens the draw for whoever plays Bombers in an Elimination Final as their outside running and uncontested marking game won't hold up in finals.

The more chaos the better and we either play the sides above us or they play each other. All we need to do is take it one game at a time and if we play well and continue to build form then the ladder will sort itself out.

I din't give a [censored] how tall they are and realistically it doesn't make a difference re who will win.

I'd absolutely play Melksham in the starting 22. He is the most effective 'tall' forward we have with his leading and aerial contest work and his kicking in our forward half is sublime. He is also pretty hand at shutting down a rebound defender. I reckon we will bring in Fullarton to shoulder the majority of ruck work. We probably don't want Roo spending too much time in there considering how well he is playing forward. Gawn was pretty bullish about how hard he has worked since coming into the club with winning alot of internal awards but his hamstring injury had set him back a bit.

Well said Deestar. My take is that if we play how we did vs Brisbane, which I rate as our best game of the season against a very good side, then we give ourselves a good chance of beating any side.

I watched his post match press conference after our match and he showed alot of class. AFL coaches are pretty impressive individuals and I always find it interesting to listen to what they have to say and Adam Simpson is no exception.

I see what Max gives us in two parts: 1. His tap work allows our midfield to control where the ball goes. Whether our mids or the opposition win the clearance and whether we get a clear exit or turn the ball over is less certain. 2. His contested marking around the ground, in particular behind the ball makes it really difficult for the opposition to kick long and if our contest and pressure is at a high level they are forced into turning the ball over in the middle of the ground. The reason Grundy didn't work out was that if Grundy was in the ruck, Max would play forward and therefore wouldn't be able to setup behind the ball. Max fills the ruck position but his biggest asset to our team is his ability to prevent the opposition from kicking down the line.

Let the mind games begin.

Monbon, thanks for sharing. This approach might work as a penalty for players scrapping off the ball but not sure it would get past the AFLPA, not unless the AFL does something radical such as increasing the % of gambling revenue that goes into the next TPP agreement.

I liken the AFL trying to sanction a player for staging during an off the ball scrap to a parent punishing only one of their kids when they are both niggling each other.

Surely Long wasn't fined for that 😮

Redleg I reckon it's relevant that Maynard played for a free kick during off the ball push and shove while May was tackled fairly and played for a free kick. I've got no problem with the May staging fine, noting that the umpire should have called for a ball up as soon as it became clear May's arms were pinned, and reckon it would open up a can of worms if the AFL started to issue fines for staging during off the ball pushing and shoving.

I thought we matched Brisbane from a workrate perspective across all 4 quarters and fitness wasn't the difference. Both sides looked pretty gassed in what was a relentless 4th quarter and while the held momentum we had our chances and didn't convert. Similarly they missed in what was a brutal finals like game. Re impact during the loading phase it won't so much affect the ability to run out games as overall the players are stronger aerobically but players lose some explosiveness due to the cumulative muscle fatigue caused by the increased training load. At the end of the loading phase the players would have around a week of tapering, or reduced training load, which is short enough to keep the aerobic fitness gains they have made while freshening up and regaining their explosiveness. This is the same approach taken by endurance athletes where they load up 2 - 3 months before an event and finish with a 7 - 10 day taper for the event. Looking at how we played vs Brisbane our pressure was relentless and we would stick tackles which in previous weeks we would look slow or lack the explosiveness to bring the player to ground. My take is that we are absolutely in the hunt this year but don't have much wriggle room to lose games like we did vs Brisbane. While it's only 1 week I'm optimistic that the Melbourne contested pressure brand of footy is returning.