Preview Essendon vs Melbourne

[SirJimi05]

Grimes
Garland
Jamar
Davey
Scully
Tapscott
Wonneaemirri

Not the game for us to playing the injury card in.

 

[pazza]

Worth noting the man on the bottom of the list isn't actually injured, but, on personal leave up in the Tiwi Islands.

 

[eth-dog]

If you'd read the post thoroughly you'd realise that the rucks, while winning the hitouts, failed to capitalise on the situation by winning them to advantage. Hitouts as a generic term mean stuff all, it's the ones to advantage that give you first use of the ball and, if the structures are right, give you greater time and space to deliver the ball cleanly into the forward line instead of bombing it up high and leaving Paddy Ryder to wrestle with Full Backs.

It's not simply stating that 'our disposal efficiency was off so we lost the game', you need to look at why your efficiency is off and what you need to do to rectify these issues and whether you have the players to fix that issue.

Of course, it wasn't just the hitouts to adv that were an issue. When the ball was bombed into the forward line, it made it easier for their defenders to peel off their own men in order to outnumber the big target, in our case, Paddy. This brought the ball to ground which allowed the defenders who had peeled off their men, like Batchelor and Newman and in some cases Deledio, to run off half back, or switch it to the other flank where they would either penetrate through our zone through the middle (see ant555's comment of our structures breaking down through the corridor) or go long down the line and draw a throw in.

We won in hitouts to advantage as well. Great work

We missed simple targets, and blazed away a lot. We needed to lower our eyes a lot more than we did. And I think that players will realize this IMO and start looking for short targets

So basically our crumbers were crap. Our h/o to adv were far higher than Richmond's.

 

[Darealrath]

Grimes
Garland
Jamar
Davey
Scully
Tapscott
Wonneaemirri

Not the game for us to playing the injury card in.

Not making excuses, just noting that our injury list is just as significant as theirs.

I get the impression some people are thinking it'll be easy vs them because of who they have out, but in doing so they are underestimating our outs. If we start like we did vs richmond we could be in big trouble.

 

[Macca18]

Melbourne by 54.

They've got it all to play for... and we, sitting in 5th and a game outside the top 4, have nothing at all. The media have put the heat on the Demons this week so there is absolutely no question they will romp home in this one. Should we even rock up? Let's just forfeit now and save the time/energy/finances of staging the match and attending.

 

[bing181]

Grimes
Garland
Jamar
Davey
Scully
Tapscott
Wonneaemirri

Just in the interests of accuracy, add Bail and Bartram to that from our "normal" first 22, plus Newton who while questionable, would probably have played this week.

 

[hank31]

If we are a good team, injuries or not, we should still win this game by 40+ points.. Even if they are fired up.....

 

[Howard Moon]

havent been reading the thread..sorry if its been mentioned...

i know it sounds far fetched but any chance Carlton has purposley insulted melbournes toughness knowing we are facing them next?

we are breathing down those scumbags necks, they may be trying to give themselves a little edge by getting us beat this week... melbourne will obviosuly come out breathing fire now and we bare the brunt of it.

 

[banta]

havent been reading the thread..sorry if its been mentioned...

i know it sounds far fetched but any chance Carlton has purposley insulted melbournes toughness knowing we are facing them next?

we are breathing down those scumbags necks, they may be trying to give themselves a little edge by getting us beat this week... melbourne will obviosuly come out breathing fire now and we bare the brunt of it.

good call for mine. wouldnt surprise me

 

[BomberTime]

Without doing any research at all, how tall us jurrah? Could hardy go with him in defense? Fletcher to dunn i like. I'm also hoping to see more of big Dave myers in the midfield, I think we can afford to this week.
Even though he is a great athlete, it's a huge risk to play scully considering he has played 60% game time in over 14 weeks of footy. We have to exploit this.

 

[Slattery_20]

Jurrah's 188cm. I think Hardie would be a pretty good match-up for him.

 

[hank31]

Jurrah's 188cm. I think Hardie would be a pretty good match-up for him.

Yeah I completely agree, will probably work well the other way Vs Jurrah and run off, try to make him accountable... That way Fletch can run riot off Dunn and Hooker can nullify Watts.

Who is going to match up on Ryder, Hille/Bellcambers when forward, Crameri and even Zaka might make a difficult match up..

Even without Jobe and Hocking, i think our midfield can handle theirs without a decent ruck.

 

[beev]

Jurrah's 188cm. I think Hardie would be a pretty good match-up for him.

Yes.

 

[cAsEy_18]

Seriously, have we found anyone that Hardy isn't a good match for yet? I mean, he's a very good size, brilliant in the air, but quick as well so he can take the small guys too. He'd be close to our most important defender in my books. I'd say Franklin might possibly be a poor match up for him, but really, I don't see too many defenders shutting down Franklin.

 

[andon]

I dont care who plays as long as we dont fall in a hole like we did against Richmond, just beat Melbourne pleeeeeeeessssssssssseeeeeeeeee

 

[eth-dog]

Seriously, have we found anyone that Hardy isn't a good match for yet? I mean, he's a very good size, brilliant in the air, but quick as well so he can take the small guys too. He'd be close to our most important defender in my books. I'd say Franklin might possibly be a poor match up for him, but really, I don't see too many defenders shutting down Franklin.

I don't think he'd be suited to a Brown, Cloke ie. Muscle forwards

 

[cAsEy_18]

I don't honk he'd be suited to a Brown, Cloke ie. Muscle forwards

Mm true, I guess when I said Franklin I also meant "Franklin type players" as well. But my point was he is clearly our most versatile defender in terms of the range of players that he can play on. Fletcher very close, but Hardingham's touch extra pace gives him the edge for mine.

Regardless, our backline has been severely underrated this year. Our forward line I don't think has performed overally well, with the exception of Crameri, and Zaharakis at times, our midfield whilst receiving a lot more praise than previous years I don't think has improved that much. We were always a good clearance/contested possession midfield but we just didn't use the ball that well, and I still think we don't, but our backline has been phenominal. Hooker's season thus far has been hugely underrated, the job that he's done with Pears out and Hurley forward a fair portion of the time has been terrific.

 

[Burgers45]

havent been reading the thread..sorry if its been mentioned...

i know it sounds far fetched but any chance Carlton has purposley insulted melbournes toughness knowing we are facing them next?

we are breathing down those scumbags necks, they may be trying to give themselves a little edge by getting us beat this week... melbourne will obviosuly come out breathing fire now and we bare the brunt of it.

We wouldn't do that, your'e one of our fiercest rivals, we love you guys, we wouldn't think about doing that? If it's any consolation, remember your a top 4/6 side, if your good enough, and I think you are, you should have a comfortable win?

 

[CaptainDavey]

I think you guys should take confidence in the fact that at this point in time you're playing superior football to us at the moment. It wouldn't surprise me if it's one of those old 'Melbourne come out of the blocks early in the first quarter, Essendon pegs it back to make it an even contest in the second quarter, third quarter remains somewhat neck and neck, increased excitement before...5 goal Essendon win in the last quarter'

If you guys are going to improve even further, we're the kind of teams you should beat, not necessarily convincingly through a smashing or anything like that (I hope) but you can't afford to drop games against teams like us, Richmond, North etc etc.

That being said, hopefully it's a cracker of a game and I'm glad it's being played at the G. Best of luck

 

[eth-dog]

I think you guys should take confidence in the fact that at this point in time you're playing superior football to us at the moment. It wouldn't surprise me if it's one of those old 'Melbourne come out of the blocks early in the first quarter, Essendon pegs it back to make it an even contest in the second quarter, third quarter remains somewhat neck and neck, increased excitement before...5 goal Essendon win in the last quarter'

If you guys are going to improve even further, we're the kind of teams you should beat, not necessarily convincingly through a smashing or anything like that (I hope) but you can't afford to drop games against teams like us, Richmond, North etc etc.

That being said, hopefully it's a cracker of a game and I'm glad it's being played at the G. Best of luck

You too, and no offense but we should win by 10+ goals.

 

[Red Black and Blue]

This game will be a challenge, I expect it to be decided by under 3-4 goals.

Moloney, Jones, Trengove, Gysberts, McKenzie, Syvlia and Scully has enough big bodies and contested ball winning skills to cause some real trouble without Watson and Hocking. Going to need Hille and Bellchambers to be on top of their games.
If Moloney, Jones and Sylvia get going early it could be very similar to the Sydney game, were going to need to counter punch really well as we have the advantage at either end of the ground.

Big games needed from a lot of blokes; Zaha, Jetta, Stanton, Colyer, Melksham, pushing up into space on the wings, Hille, Ryder, Crameri, contesting all day, Howlett, Mcveigh and Lonergan winning contested ball against some bigger bodies, all being key to this game.

 

[nicko99]

Dermie raised the point on SEN this morning that Melbourne has changed their entire forward 6 for this game. (3 being dropped, 2 on the bench & 1 out injured). Interesting...

They also have a debutante in the ruck, I'm not sure if the other ruck man is playing. T-bell, hille and Ryder should dominate!!

 

[Geddy Lee]

Melbourne will win tonight.

We always win in these circumstances.

Then we'll get belted by Collingwood.

I'm 100% on Melbourne tips this year and have tipped us tonight.

 

[hank31]

Nah, Melbourne will lose..

Hopefully its a good game though

 

[melbournemartin]

Can I please get some matchups for these forwards:

Green
Jurrah
Bennell
Resting ruckman (Gawn/Martin)
Howe
Sylvia
Watts
Resting midfielder

I have listed more than 6 forwards so you can double up on defenders if needed. For those who don't know, Howe is a 208 cm ruckman so yeah...he's tall. He's also quite mobile and skillful for a man so big. Apparently he used to be a tall midfielder but got a massive growth spurt later in life. Howe is a jumping jack mid-sized forward (190cm, 83kg) who was a mature-age (20 lol) recruit from Tassie. He already has a stack of YouTube videos of hangers taken in the Tassie league. At Casey he was working very hard pushing up the ground and then pushing back forward quickly when needed.

Here are my predicted matchups:

Crameri - Frawley
Monfries - Macdonald
Zaharakis - Strauss
Bellchambers/Hille/Ryder - Rivers/Martin/Watts

I'm really not sure where Watts will play and if Martin will play as a resting forward or defender when Gawn is rucking. I'm also not entirely sure of which players you will have as permanent forwards. Team lineups mean very little these days.