Preview Changes: Round 3 v Essendon

[djpaulydemon]

Send TMac to CHB and we have a roughly B grade key defender who frees Lever up to do his best work. Keep him forward and we have a deadset spud tall forward who plays undersized when the ball is in the air and oversized when it hits the ground.

I still had hopes Tmac could get back close to 2018 form, but he looked as agile as a brick wall out there.

If he is plodding in the forward line he might be a liability down back. Hopefully its just a confidnce thing and maybe giving him a lockdown role will give him some confidence.

It felt like most of our players 27 or over looked out of touch. I'm all of a sudden worried about all our senior players simultaneously falling off the cliff after last weekend... Hopefully its just iso rust and they get their dad strength back.

 

[schmuttt]

He's entitled to go for the mark, Joel Smith's man got goal side of him with far too much ease to crumb and goal. Don't really wanna teach the backline to never go for a mark because none of their teammates can defend a ground ball.

Also don't want five guys in the backline always going for the mark and letting the ground ball go uncontested.

 

[Gysberts2Bate]

I still had hopes Tmac could get back close to 2018 form, but he looked as agile as a brick wall out there.

If he is plodding in the forward line he might be a liability down back. Hopefully its just a confidnce thing and maybe giving him a lockdown role will give him some confidence.

It felt like most of our players 27 or over looked out of touch. I'm all of a sudden worried about all our senior players simultaneously falling off the cliff after last weekend... Hopefully its just iso rust and they get their dad strength back.

As I’ve said a few times this is one of the many reasons we are a long way off contending. Our list profile is shot - at no stage for about 15 years have we had a solid group of players aged 27 and above who are comfortably best 22 and can provide decent leadership. Even now we just have Gawn who is elite, Jetta who is beginning to fade a little bit but still v solid, Melksham who is elite in his role at his best but hasn’t shown it in a while and then nothing when TMac, Jones and Hibberd are looking shot. It’s a predictable consequence of shit retention and development between the 2006-2012 drafts. Other older blokes are May, Bennell, vandenBerg and Tomlinson who have shown issues with consistency and fitness. That’s the age group where you’re expecting blokes to turn up week in week out and put in and drive standards but we get very little from them even. We need to keep trading it in, esp as a strategy for allowing other younger players to play their best position and not stall in their development. An older general defender or forward to step up for Hibberd/Jones/Melksham should be something we look at in the off-season.

 

[Gysberts2Bate]

Also don't want five guys in the backline always going for the mark and letting the ground ball go uncontested.

That’s one thing I thought Lockhart did really well R1, mopping up when the ball came off the contest.

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

He's entitled to go for the mark, Joel Smith's man got goal side of him with far too much ease to crumb and goal. Don't really wanna teach the backline to never go for a mark because none of their teammates can defend a ground ball.

I'm not saying he's wrong, just there are better ways to go about than abusing someone for a mistake they are well aware of. Just needs to tone it down. All he's doing atm would be rubbing his teammates the wrong way.

 

[Topkent]

Is this legit? His job is to stop goals. He's entitled to go for the mark provided he bloody takes it. He should have knocked it 10 rows back and made sure they didn't get a cheap one out the back.

That's revisitionist, either he made the wrong decision or not. Execution is different but it's not his fault that no one protected the ground ball.

If you never want a backline player to mark so be it but your backline is more dominant when it marks it. So long as it's only one of them at a time

 

[Topkent]

Also don't want five guys in the backline always going for the mark and letting the ground ball go uncontested.

Lack of direction and system. Nothing wrong with one bloke going the mark so long as the others pay attention to who's on the ground

 

[Topkent]

I'm not saying he's wrong, just there are better ways to go about than abusing someone for a mistake they are well aware of. Just needs to tone it down. All he's doing atm would be rubbing his teammates the wrong way.

Tbf I wasn't that tuned into the game. Didn't see if May was being a dick

 

[Matty411]

Quick question if I may... I understand Hibberd isn't the future and you've got good young small/medium backs coming through but was surprised to see him dropped. Could he be a direct in for Smith in R3?

21 disposals at 62% DE and 9 x i50s with 9 marks showed he was at least involved. He had the second-highest metres gained, too with 676. Now with no tackles or contested marks and just 2 x conteste possessions, I get he's flaky but that'd kind of his role.

What am I missing?

#comeinpeace

 

[dazzledavey36]

Quick question if I may... I understand Hibberd isn't the future and you've got good young small/medium backs coming through but was surprised to see him dropped. Could he be a direct in for Smith in R3?

21 disposals at 62% DE and 9 x i50s with 9 marks showed he was at least involved. He had the second-highest metres gained, too with 676. Now with no tackles or contested marks and just 2 x conteste possessions, I get he's flaky but that'd kind of his role.

What am I missing?

#comeinpeace

I was surprised.

While stats may look good, you need to actually watch the game and see his decision making an constantly bombing floaters down the throats of Barrass and McGovern in round 1 was unacceptable.

Also i was told due to his brothers death, he probably didn't come back in the best of nick (club fully understand and really supportive) hence why Rivers who got the gig as he turned up in super condition which forced the coaching staff to pick him.

And what an inspired pick that was.

 

[Matty411]

I was surprised.

While stats may look good, you need to actually watch the game and see his decision making an constantly bombing floaters down the throats of Barrass and McGovern in round 1 was unacceptable.

Also i was told due to his brothers death, he probably didn't come back in the best of nick (club fully understand and really supportive) hence why Rivers who got the gig as he turned up in super condition which forced the coaching staff to pick him.

And what an inspired pick that was.

Makes sense. Rivers looks a beauty. Inspired indeed.

 

[saj_21]

Lack of direction and system. Nothing wrong with one bloke going the mark so long as the others pay attention to who's on the ground

we didn’t give up 2 first rounders and hogan for recruit to “punching defenders”

we need ours backs to mark the ball, its one of our biggest weakness

May entitled to go for the mark but made the critical mistake of dropping the mark.

Iguarantee if he punches the ball into row Z and Carlton score a goal from the resulting stoppage people would still complain he shouldn’t of punched it

 

[Gysberts2Bate]

I think we can all agree that if we mark more balls we’ll win more games.

 

[Topkent]

we didn’t give up 2 first rounders and hogan for recruit to “punching defenders”

we need ours backs to mark the ball, its one of our biggest weakness

May entitled to go for the mark but made the critical mistake of dropping the mark.

Iguarantee if he punches the ball into row Z and Carlton score a goal from the resulting stoppage people would still complain he shouldn’t of punched it

Exactly. We need blokes to mark it because that's what causes rebound goals. Spoiling it is what the opposition want

 

[stEdy]

Especially lol when we play 3 marking defenders and they all fly for the same ball and leave numerous carlton players to mop up the ground ball for easy goals

Surely one of the most Melbourne sights of all time

 

[schmuttt]

Especially lol when we play 3 marking defenders and they all fly for the same ball and leave numerous carlton players to mop up the ground ball for easy goals

Surely one of the most Melbourne sights of all time

This. I have no issue with defenders going for marks but ffs we have 3-4 blokes going for them every time.

 

[Dory_77]

This. I have no issue with defenders going for marks but ffs we have 3-4 blokes going for them every time.

This. Need better communication and organisation to avoid this, or bizarre matchups like Jetta v McKay, Rivers v McGovern etc. That happened too often.

 

[Blackas87]

The Bombers are shite. Lock this in for a win.

 

[Gysberts2Bate]

The Bombers are shite. Lock this in for a win.

Carlton were shite too but we didn't bea...oh wait.

 

[CWaffles]

Tmac can go to CHB, he and Tomlinson can be used as the tall targets for kick ins.

Bring Weid in for Smith to play forward with Jackson or Gawn resting forward.

Kozzi in for ANB

 

[Bluelegs]

What's going on with Hannan? Haven't heard much about him.

 

[space_cowboy]

80% chance of rain this Sunday. Should be scrappy. At least, we're not short on players who will put their head over the ball.

 

[Topkent]

What's going on with Hannan? Haven't heard much about him.

Goody said he's fit for this weekend

 

[saj_21]

Exactly. We need blokes to mark it because that's what causes rebound goals. Spoiling it is what the opposition want

I miss the days were Colin Garland use to spoil everything including his own team mates, oh wait we have Joel Smith

 

[space_cowboy]

What's going on with Hannan? Haven't heard much about him.

He played in the 14 v 14 practise match on the weekend. First game back after injury.

The reserves practice match | All 17 players reviewed

Get up to date with all the details from Saturday’s hit-out

www.melbournefc.com.au

Also, completely off topic, I noticed that the MFC website spelled it 'practice' instead of 'practise'. I would have thought that it was spelt with an 's'... because they were practising. But I may have it wrong.

Yeah... I'm bored and distracted. This working-from-home crap needs to end soon.