VelvetSledge
Moderator
- May 24, 2007
- 17,477
- 35,252
- AFL Club
- Essendon
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- Liverpool FC, Melbourne Storm
- Moderator
- #1
ESSENDON BOMBERS
ESSENDON 9.11 65 def. by ST KILDA 10.16 76
FFS how embarrassing
BEST: Stringer, Saad, Francis, Hurley, Me again for somehow sitting through the whole ordeal
GOALS: Heppell 2, Baguley, Bellchambers, Myers, Brown, Smith, Stringer, McKernan
INJURIES: Probably would have given us an excuse
REPORTS: Nil
You know when I said last week that we couldn’t play worse than we did the week before?
Well. I was half correct.
We played one quarter of decent footy, which is more than can be said for the Giants game.
I’m not going to focus on this anymore because it makes me mad.
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MELBOURNE DEMONS
GEELONG CATS 20.6 126 def. MELBOURNE DEMONS 6.10 46
BEST: Oliver, Brayshaw, Viney, Harmes
GOALS: Melksham 2, Weideman, Lockhart, Viney, Brayshaw
INJURIES: May (Groin)
REPORTS: Nil
I’d argue this was a better performance than ours, purely because Geelong are in rip-snorting form and we lost to St Kilda.
They were properly smashed. Demolished. Obliterated.
Weirdly, the Demons won the Inside 50 count 56-41, and still lost by 80 points. 80 points.
That’s a big enough margin to push them down to the bottom while we’re 17th! PROGRESS.
Oliver was bloody good. He is bloody good. It’s just that his squadron was full dud-mode.
ESSENDON EMERGENCIES
Kyle Langford, Jordan Ridley, Mitch Brown, Sam Draper
MELBOURNE EMERGENCIES
Billy Stretch, Braydon Preuss, Tom Sparrow, Harrison Petty
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ESSENDON INS: Kobe Mutch, Zac Clarke
ESSENDON OUTS: Kyle Langford, Mitch Brown (both omit)
MELBOURNE INS: Corey Wagner, Josh Wagner
MELBOURNE OUTS: Steven May (Groin), Tom Sparrow (omit)
MILESTONE:
JAYDEN HUNT
MELBOURNE
50 GAMES
CLUB DEBUT:
ZAC CLARKE
ESSENDON
50 GAMES
Recruited from Subiaco (WA)
Former AFL club: Fremantle
203cm, 96kg
It was Zach Package who summed it up the best, when he said "My goat has escaped".
Kyle Langford, while nowhere near our best this season so far, has been the sacrificial lamb this week in a feeble attempt to satisfy the bloodthirsty masses. While he hasn't been great, he has in no way been our worst. How players like Mark Baguley and Matt Guelfi continue to get games this year astounds many, and I feel as though Kyle, while his well-documented decision making last week was gobshite, has been unlucky to find himself in the VFL/emergency list. We have also dropped Mitch Brown, as a skinny key forward up against a physical side like Melbourne doesn't make much sense. Coming into the side is youngster Kobe Mutch, who showed plenty last year before injury relegated him for the rest of the year. A fleet-footed midfielder, Mutch has been one of our bests in the VFL over the past few years and is clearly a class above; we should see him with plenty of game time throughout the rest of the year. So you know we won't.
Joining him is the giant Zac Clarke, a mobile ruckman who has been brought in to curtail the influence of the dominant Max Gawn; a freak athlete who feasts on our gizzards constantly. Big Zac and Bellchambers will double team Gawn throughout the game, and with the huge frame of both, you'd imagine that they would want to make some serious impact early in the contest to try and put him off his usual gameplan.
How Ridley isn't back in this side escapes me. Team balance, **** off.
The Demons have lost big-name recruit Steven May to a fractured knob (or strained groin), and have dropped Tom Sparrow to the magoos, replacing them with the brothers Wagner. No May helps us, as otherwise he would have to man up our giant key forward, Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti, who we all know as a dominant aerialist with his towering 171cm frame. Egh.
ESSENDON BOMBERS - #25 - JAKE STRINGER
People knock Jake for disappearing from time to time, and for not being consistent enough with his performances. Okay, yeah, fair enough. He’s never 100% fully into the game, but he isn’t that type of player. The type of player that he is, however, is an impact player. In spurts, he will burst out of centre packs and smash the ball inside 50 (which isn’t totally effective when your only key forward is Walla, who is approximately two foot shorter than any other player). With that said, along with Adam Saad, he is one of our only in form players. He’s a power athlete, in the best shape of his life, and he’s being let down by his team mates. He nailed a brilliant goal against the Saints, weaving in and out of multiple opponents, and NO-ONE got around him. Bullshit.
I love Jake, he’s one of my favourites. We need him to pump everyone else in the team up. It’s rough asking that of a player who’s only been with us for a year and a half... But it is what it is.
ESSENDON BOMBERS - #10 - AARON FRANCIS
This bloke is just immense. Makes all the right decisions, reads the play so well, and, while he’s prone to a few mistakes here and there, he’s played less than 15 games. That composure will come. After a rough Round 1 performance, the Round 2 effort was significantly better, and he looked like he truly belonged again. He is now a regular walk up start into the lineup. We need to lock him down into a contract soon, otherwise the SA teams will come knocking again. I don’t think my heart could take that.
MELBOURNE DEMONS - #13 - CLAYTON OLIVER
Not much to write here. Sure, he might look like Alfred E. Neuman, have the second most punchable head in the league after James Sicily, and just be a general annoyance because of his insane ball-winning ability, but god damn. What a player.
He almost single-handedly swung the momentum for Melbourne last week against Geelong, and with no high-possession ball winners for Essendon (or at least none in any sort of form), he is a very real risk of running completely rampant against a midfield entirely devoid of confidence. We are going to struggle here. There isn’t much we can do to stop him.
MELBOURNE DEMONS - #18 - JAKE MELKSHAM
Remember when we had J Melksham on our list, and he kept getting games even though he showed absolutely no game awareness, no skill, no smarts, nothing at all? We were just so frustrated with him, every single week. He never looked like he was going to make it, but kept getting picked.
And then, he hit a little vein of form. Nothing ground-breaking, but he looked good. Looked like a proper player. And then, we let him go. Most of us would say that we didn’t care all that much. Sure, he showed a little bit, but he was far too inconsistent.
Look at him now. A fleet-footed half forward, slotting goals at will, being played in a position that works for him.
Who would have thought?
A new addition this year; The Golden Kipfler celebrates the spuddiest player on the opposing side.
The Demons pulled off a ripper deal with they secured the former Gold Coast captain May in last year’s trade period. He’s an absolute jet defender, albeit a little loose with the elbows to the back of the head. His endeavour when at Gold Coast was incredible for a bloke who has lost a majority of his games that he’s played. He never looked like he didn’t want to be there. Until he didn’t want to be there. And so, he moved to the Demons. And subsequently got suspended in the JLT. And as such, no-one was really fussed. The Dees were supposed to enter this year as a flag fancy, and that lasted approximately 2 hours. After his suspension ended after one game, he went ahead and debuted for the Demons last week, before his groin decided to spud it up hardcore. This is a choice for the poor, long-suffering Demons fans and their cheese boards. This week’s golden kipfler nominee, the spud of the week, is Steven May’s groin.
I'm not going to Google Image search a picture of that.
Round 1 Nominee: Dylan Buckley, GWS
Round 2 Nominee: Dan Hannebery, St Kilda
Round 3 Nominee: Steven May's Groin, Melbourne
Ah bloody hell. Last week I full on cracked the absolute shits after a listless, lifeless, limpdicked performance against the AFL’s baby, GWS. All we asked for was effort. To actually look like we’re trying, making an effort to actually effect to contest and smash into some opposition. Did we get that? Maybe, for 25 minutes. It’s nowhere near good enough, and for an AFL side to have been outplayed as easily as that by a team which is a legitimate bottom two contender, speaks of higher problems within the organization.
But **** me, where do we even begin?
We call came in this year fully expecting us to be finals contenders. Expecting our best players to come back in ripping shape and form, with a dominant gameplan that would have benefited from the new 6-6-6 formation rule within the league. Instead, we’ve been exposed. Badly. We have no idea where the issue is stemming from, though there’s a festering heap of conjecture surrounding our mate Woosha. Dear old Woosha.
Sure, he’s the most experienced AFL coach around. In 2006, when he coached the Eagles to a flag, he was a hard-nosed tactician, who fully embodied how his side played. He was uncompromising, tough; he forced his own way of playing onto his Eagles players, and they played for him with pride and passion. Since coming to Essendon, it seems as though Woosh just doesn’t have the same edge, and it’s at the point now where it’s fully effecting how our club is playing. After the most simple, basic, dumbarsed dimwit ****-off mistakes, we didn’t see Woosha get mad. We didn’t see him seething, charging down to the field to point out individual players and torch them. If I made stupid mistakes and errors like that in my job, I would have been fired, or at least taken out the back and hit with a barbed-wire wrapped baseball bat. At the very least, the boss would have been mad. Furious. Where was the anger, the drive? He just sits there, with a somewhat nonchalant, bemused look on his face. Where is the passion in the coaching box?
The fish rots at the head, and I have no withdrawals in saying that we need more from the coaches. The assistants, the fitness staff, and the senior coach himself. Woosha, mate. This is a big club with a lot of fans and members. There needs to be leadership, and there needs to be anger. Drive. Passion. None of this “We know what we did wrong, we know where to improve, we won’t make many more changes”. Mate. No. You have the power, so you had better ****ing use it.
Aside from Woosh, though. Look at the dumb decisions from our players. Guelfi and Langford just running off the field at once, when the ball was still there? Dicking around with the ball off half-back? Not picking our targets at all running out of defence? Still letting Conor McKenna take kick outs? BOOTING IT TO WALLA WHEN HE IS A FOOT SHORTER THAN ANYONE ELSE, AS OUR ONLY KEY FORWARD?!
We are absolutely bereft of confidence.
Is there really a way to fix a lack of confidence? You can tell the boys to run harder, chase more, tackle ferociously, but if they lack the conficence to do so, how can you fix it? You can’t teach it, you can’t train it during the week, it just comes with game time. Maybe the boys will have learned this week that their lack of confidence in the past two weeks has caused our embarassing losses. Maybe they’ll come out, all guns blazing, and dominate completely against a Demons side which is also short on the stuff.
All is said and done now, but realistically, we aren’t going to know how the boys are feeling until about 10 minutes into the first quarter.
Please, just f**king win.
A big thank you to this week's self-nominated ranter, the wonderful Pweter .
Melbourne. ******* Melbourne. If there ever was a team that was once great and is now bound by the straight jacket of mediocrity, Melbourne are it.
Let’s think about it. When were Melbourne last a side to be respected and maybe even feared a little? Let me tell you. Kids could still get a pie and a can of coke for 2 bobs and still have change left over for lollies. Yes, 2 bobs. Imperial currency was still a thing and would be for another half a decade. Norm Smith was the greatest coach of all time and Ron Barassi was yet to turncoat to **** Carlton. It was 1964.
Since then they have played in 2 grand finals and been flogged each time. Their most significant achievement in this time is being the only club in the land to be found guilty of tanking (some achievement when 4 times in 5 years Carlton finished bottom 2). Mediocre could be generous, s**t is probably more likely, but I’m in a generous man so will go with mediocre.
Still, in the footy world they’re long entrenched in the pity stage of thinking. People pity them, they are inoffensive and people don’t care if they pop their head up every now and again to pretend they’re building something. Everyone knows it’s a false dawn and they’ll go back down soon enough.
It has to be asked, what do Melbourne stand for?
Now on the flip side we have this ******* club. Essendon ******* Football Club. Most successful VFL/AFL club in the land. A club built on hard work and embodied by pride with a touch of arrogance.
At least that’s what I remember from the days of yore.
Now when I see my club it appears like a rudderless ship. Our finances are going great guns, our membership numbers are at an all time high, but that’s where it ends. It seems “The Essendon Way” of recent years is failing. Drafting kids to play them out of position seems to be failing. Our attempts at turning flankers and outside mids into inside grunts is failing. Our attempts at turning depth players into best 22 is failing. Our ability to keep kids in the magoos at the expense of out of form seniors, surprisingly, is working beautifully. Our game plan, that is if there is a game plan, is failing.
But it’s ok. We finished 2018 strongly, we had puff pieces galore over the summer, we were only s**t during the JLT because it was only JLT. Unfortunately that s**t has well and truly flowed like a raging torrent of diarrhoea into the home and away season.
But it’s still ok, Woosha will back the guys in. Yes, we have put on the straight jacket of mediocrity because doing the same thing over and again, yet expecting different results, is the definition of insanity. The straight jacket is deserved.
The big issue with this is I see Melbourne being so ******* far ahead of us that we have assumed the mantle of mediocrity from them. They at least got off their arse, shed the Boys Club mentality, and brought about significant change both on and off field. Off the back of this they have played in a prelim final as recently as 2018. We haven’t one any final since 2004. 15 ******* years.
This makes me both angry and sad.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I needed that little vent.
Melbourne by at least 40 points.
Go Dons.
**** Carlton.
Warm Regards,
Pweter
ROUND 6, 2018
Marvel Stadium
29/4/18
ESSENDON BOMBERS 10.12 72
def. by
MELBOURNE DEMONS 16.12 108
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ESSENDON BEST: Merrett, Zaharakis, Hurley, Smith, McGrath
ESSENDON GOALS: Stringer 3, Smith, McDonald-Tipungwuti 2, Zaharakis, Stewart, Laverde, Goddard
DEMONS BEST: Gawn, Jones, Hibberd, Harmes
DEMONS GOALS: Hannan, Fritsch 3, Melksham, Gawn, T. McDonald, Hogan, Spargo 2
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CHANGES SINCE THEN:
ESSENDON OUTS: Goddard, Laverde, Hooker, Leuenberger, McNiece, Stewart, Daniher, J. Merrett
ESSENDON INS: Shiel, McKernan, Z. Clarke, Fantasia, Francis, McKenna, Bellchambers, Myers
DEMONS OUTS: Lewis, Tyson, Spargo, Hannan, Vince, Lever, Hogan
DEMONS INS: Lockhart, J. Wagner, C. Wagner, Frost, Kolololololkodasnddjashnij, Petracca, Viney
MELBOURNE:
TV: Channel 7 (LIVE at 7.30pm AEDST), FOX Footy (LIVE at 7.30pm AEDST), FOXTEL Now (LIVE at 7.30pm AEDST)
RADIO: Triple M, 3AW, ABC, SEN
MOBILE: AFL Live Official App with LIVE Pass (Unmetered on Telstra Mobile Network)
SYDNEY:
TV: 7Mate (LIVE at 7.30pm AEDST), FOX Footy (LIVE at 7.30pm AEDST), FOXTEL Now (LIVE at 7.30pm AEDST)
RADIO: Macquarie Sports Radio, ABC
MOBILE: AFL Live Official App with LIVE Pass (Unmetered on Telstra Mobile Network)
ADELAIDE:
TV: Channel 7 (LIVE at 7.00pm ACDST), FOX Footy (LIVE at 7.00pm ACDST), FOXTEL Now (LIVE at 7.00pm ACDST)
RADIO: Triple M, ABC, 5AA
MOBILE: AFL Live Official App with LIVE Pass (Unmetered on Telstra Mobile Network)
PERTH:
TV: 7Mate (LIVE at 4.30pm AWDST), FOX Footy (LIVE at 4.30pm AEDST), FOXTEL Now (LIVE at 4.30pm AEDST)
RADIO: ABC, 6PR
MOBILE: AFL Live Official App with LIVE Pass (Unmetered on Telstra Mobile Network)
BRISBANE:
TV: 7Mate (LIVE at 6.30pm QLDT), FOX Footy (LIVE at 6.30pm QLDT), FOXTEL Now (LIVE at 6.30pm QLDT)
RADIO: NIRS, Macquarie Sports Radio, ABC
MOBILE: AFL Live Official App with LIVE Pass (Unmetered on Telstra Mobile Network)
TASMANIA:
TV: Channel 7 (LIVE at 7.30pm AEDST), FOX Footy (LIVE at 7.30pm AEDST), FOXTEL Now (LIVE at 7.30pm AEDST)
RADIO: Triple M, AFL Nation, ABC
MOBILE: AFL Live Official App with LIVE Pass (Unmetered on Telstra Mobile Network)
DARWIN:
TV: Channel 7 (LIVE at 6.00pm NTT), FOX Footy (LIVE at 6.00pm NTT), FOXTEL Now (LIVE at 6.00pm NTT)
RADIO: NIRS, AFL Nation, ABC
MOBILE: AFL Live Official App with LIVE Pass (Unmetered on Telstra Mobile Network)
I honestly don’t even know at this point. Usually I’d back us in to fight back after a dodgy couple of performances, but the Demons are a legitimately good side which is in a bad patch of form. We just don’t look like we’re trying.
Maybe we’ll start now. Maybe this will be the catalyst for our season. Or maybe, this will be yet another disappointment.
We just don’t know at this point, and I have no reason to tip this way.
Bombers by 3.
