Deecisive

If we have a couple of players who need a rest to freshen up for the Geelong game now is the time to rest them. Bowey coming in did not weaken us, another one or two should not make a huge difference. I expect our players to come out firing after getting beaten by Adelaide last time. This will be in Melbourne away from the Adelaide/Umpire/crowd, so it should be a very different game. We could have injuries during the finals so nice to try a couple of other players to see how well our reserves slot in.

what a pitiful effort in that last quarter , must have thought they had it won and didnt have to turn up

our chance to go to the top of the ladder again and with a couple more wins, especially against Geelong, stay there. Players need to pull their finger out and get moving.

the second quarter was pretty poor. our players are too slow at moving the ball on. May needs to look for open players rather than kicking down the line all the time. we need to lift and lift badly. The umpiring has not been great, but what do you expect in eagle land. Too many of our players are not chasing and putting pressure on the eagles defense or midfield.

This on paper should be an easy win for the Dees. but the way we have played this year take nothing as a given. we have lost against sides that we shouldnt have. need to stay focused and try to kick straight and well and truly beat them.

Hey, this is Viney, remember the first person they absolutely flogged for a dangerous tackle, what was that 6 weeks. Now people are getting off with a fine. Now the AFL wants to make another statement Viney will likely be made the scapegoat and get 4-6. They will spin bull about protecting the head, while they let anyone belt gawny in the head each time he goes for a mark.

Time to lawyer up and put pressure on the AFL for the obvious discriminatory practices. As i recall we lost out this year as well as they took part of the NT zone off us and gave it to another team (goldcoast?). this is not an even competition if and others keep getting screwed over while they dance around the rules and change them to suit other clubs.

the dogs running and overlap game is killing our standard fence them in along the boundary line. our players are not chasing, this is no different from what collingwood and hawthorn did to us. we are fine while we control the narrative but when they run the ball out of defense especially after a point we have no players there. there is no manning up any more we let them take the easy kick out and then overlap to run it down the ground. I dont see much future with this team if they cannot adapt to this style of play.

wow talk about putting a target on fritters back. How many umpires and opposition supporters will read this and then look at fritters actions in a different way putting more pressure on the umpires to call frees and report him. this is a disgusting use of the media platform. if dermie wants to shout about players doing nasty things then why not talk about the number of times that Gawny goes for a mark and is deliberately hit in the head by opposition players, mumford does this regularly. I think the commentators call it pressure. no one gets reported for that, open season on wacking someone in a marking contest, which Fritter is probably well aware of as he is more often than not the one whacked, cruched, pushed into other players and buried in the ground when he goes for a mark.

I wish i could agree, the main issue with losing to the Hawks was that we probably only won 1 quarter the first. That means even when our leads were being eroded our players did not stand up and turn it around.

gawn just did not seem to be on the same page as his midfield, a few of times he hit it to the side with 2-3 hawks while melbourne players were on the other side. Do they actually discuss where each midfielder should go each time or is it just hit and miss. he at least tried his heart out. When their midfielders got the ball we just did not seem to put them under enough pressure. we may go at the man with the ball but leave other unmarked to receive and run with it. Viney tries to do to much, tries to bullock his way through but gets caught too often. Brayshaw does seem to have a problem kicking, a few games this years he has kicked the ball out of bounds multiple times when not under pressure. maybe they need to check out his technique. quite frankly brayshaw shooting for goal does worry me. we have some of the best forwards in the business then why are they not leading out in different directions instead of staying in one pack making it easier for opposition to corral them. Too often all of our forwards fly and leave the opposition to clean up without too much pressure. our small forwards needs to exert more pressure when the ball goes to ground. and preferably kick straight for a change.

from what i saw some of our players do not chase often enough or hard enough. players half heartedly change expecting the opposition to just get rid of the ball but when they run with it as some of those bottom sides do it throws us off our game. Collingwood, adelaide and hawthorn all ran with the ball and broke our lines. The created overlap with running players that we did not cover, our players especially in the collingwood game failed to man up allowing them to deliver to unmarked men in the forward line. All of our players need to tackle more and better. we had far less tackles than Hawthorn yet gave away a considerable number more frees in doing so. yes some of the umpiring was crap, uneven and possible even farcical but being on top of the ladder we still should have been able to win with that extra weight. The fact that we scraped a draw out such a crap performance is probably the only worthwhile stat from the game. Some of our players just do not kick well under pressure, which does not bode well if we have close finals. i had hoped that after the adelaide defeat the players learned not to take the opposition for granted. i hoped after the Collingwood defeat that the players learned not to take the opposition for granted. now after this i can see we are really not very good at learning from our mistakes. i still hope they can pull themselves up and win the flag, but its performances like this that sends a shudder through me as we watch perhaps the best chance in a long long time get wasted.

no change, I dont see anyone breaking down the door to play, until they do, keep the side the same

how was that not holding the ball by Powell-pepper took on two tackles and dropped the ball

i like Ben Brown being in the side he is not getting a lot of the ball but is sucking up a lot of attention, that gives our other forwards a chance to get into the game.

they have had a couple of shots at goals from their forwards and backs blatantly pushing our players in the back, when are they going to pay those frees?

good first half need to keep the pressure on and run over the top of this lot. we cannot become complacent we have the opposition, the crowd and the umpires against us. so we need to keep working harder. we play so much better when we share the ball around and play on.

Kozzie needs to pass the ball off more often especially when having set shots from an angle or a long way out.

demons getting ahead of themselves picking a small forward line. Fritch has done well and so has mcDonald but they have always had another tall taking the oppositions big men as well. The next half will show what sort of team we are , are we fighters and worthy of being on top of the ladder or are we back to failing against weak opposition as we did against adelaide and collingwood.

should have played one of the browns, that way it would have taken some of the pressure of fritch having one of the best backs on him our forwards need to defend more when essendon has the ball and running out of our defense

poor effort 70% time in our forward line and we did nothing with it. poor kicking, poor marking. they are getting their running game going with a free man on the overlap and we are not covering. Need to all lift their game.

No change. team needs to focus. collingwood has lost their coach so that may spark the player up, we need to beat them and beat them soundly. Now is not to time to relax or go in thinking we have this won.

we started well, but lost the 2nd quarter, hopefully the coach will use that to spur them on a bit more. We know they are going to switch need to be better prepared for it. our picking up of players on the switch resulted in them scoring. We are ahead we just need to keep working hard, and hopefully some of our forwards will start to put in a bit more, even if that is just leading out so as to not crowd the forward line we we take the ball in. all in all a great performance so far, but the job is only half done.

well our winning streak had to come to an end in typical melbourne style against a bottom side. i think our team sometimes get ahead of themselves and take bottom sides to lightly, as they usually the ones that roll us first. Missed Salem, jetta while i love the guy and what he has given the club he is a close down players and not a distributor like salem, probably not the best choice for tonight. But it is what it is, umpiring was not great, but the crows should not have been anywhere near as close to us. our kicking for goal is still poor at times. it cost again tonight. some of the selflessness that we have seen in previous weeks was not as evident this week. Hopefully this will bring the best out of the players in the next few weeks.

a good win, if we could only improve on our kicking efficiency, we would be so better. i hope there boys are hungry enough to want to stay on top of the ladder and come out again week after week with that hunger. Demons sides of old often got complacent especially when playing some of the lower sides.