WB Game Day V Melbourne R1 2023 - Saturday March 18, 7:25PM, MCG

[SonofScray]

Our supporters are disappointing also.... 48k Rd1 nice weather at the G seriously? You could barely hear us after we kicked a goal tonight.

There is no joy in our footy.

The lack of emotion is because deep down, we know. We know that when it gets down to business, they’ll wilt.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

It should be 4 weeks minimum the AFL have a group action against them over concussion and if they go light on for this it doesn't send a good message that they are doing what they can to protect players.

On the game would it have been worthwhile to put Baker on the defensive side of the middle as he wasn't doing much on the wing.
He has a bit of speed and is supposed to be a good tackler even if it was just to get the game back on our terms.

I thought Macrae was ordinary got his 30 odd disposals but from what I saw a lot of it was long bombs and all of Keath, JUH, Lobb, JJ, Hannan, Darcy, McLean and Jones (Not his fault as he got injured) had less than 10 disposals.

Also I would think about dropping Daniel because his game last night was poor by his standards may be he gets a reprieve on history but he needs to pick his game up.

He chose to bump.
He left the ground to do it.
He was running full tilt.
He aimed his shoulder for Bailey's jaw and head at maximum force.

In all seriousness its a criminal act. He had no other intention but to maximise damage to Smith. In my opinion it should be 6 weeks considering the lawsuit against the afl. That act and decision has no place in football. It was utterly disgraceful.

[bornadog]

At 3/4 time set shots were something like 2 goals 7 for us, 5 goals 2 for them.
We played terribly but still should have been in front.

Add some easy turnovers and we basically handed them the game

I was surprised that Melbourne's skills at time were pretty bad. How many times did they pass the ball direct to our players, however, we weren't good enough to take advantage.

[Happy Days]

So I wasn’t gonna get to see this game because I was at a buddy’s birthday, but it actually ended early enough for me to be lucky enough to see the last quarter after a couple too many beers.

Anyway long story short I’m out a robot vacuum.

I obviously don’t have anything too analytical to add but we simply have to bin this one for our prospects and summarily execute the Saints next week.

[GVGjr]

So I wasn’t gonna get to see this game because I was at a buddy’s birthday, but it actually ended early enough for me to be lucky enough to see the last quarter after a couple too many beers.

Anyway long story short I’m out a robot vacuum.

I obviously don’t have anything too analytical to add but we simply have to bin this one for our prospects and summarily execute the Saints next week.

You seriously crack me up. This is the reason why you should have been at the game, the price of the beers and the time it takes to get them probably means you don't get drunk and the added bonus is there is no robot vacuums.

[soupman]

That was as demoralising a start to the season as we could have feared.

All the same bullshit issues we have had for years being exposed:
-Terrible forward entries
-No ability to stop the opposition transition
-Goals out the back
-Basic skill errors from us always get punished, always
-Basic skill errors from the opposition never get punished
-Midfield dominates us, particularly from Centre Bounces
-No ability to adjust and stop the rot
-If we are losing in the third quarter we are guaranteed to lose the game, probably by a large margin
-Astonishingly quickly go from being in a good position with momentum to basically game over within an incomprehensively short timeframe
-Opposition guns always fire against us, we seem powerless to stop them
-No ability to kill the contest defensively
-No ability to not hit up their intercept guys constantly
-Low percentage passes
-Caleb Daniel embarrassing himself by foot enough times to completely negate the benefits his adventurous disposal offers
-Bont being dominant then seemingly vanishing
-Naughton getting frustrated up against multiple opponents and getting sucked into trying to bend the rules, and then missing half his chances when he gets them anyway
-We look stupid slow
-Opponent does something nasty, we retaliate then immediately fold over like a wet lettuce leaf with hinges
-We fail to make the opposition pay for their mistakes
-We give away careless free's off the ball that hurt us
-Anytime something doesn't go our way (a bounce, a free, a fumble) we completely crumble and while we bemoan how we got screwed by that incident/umpire/fringe player our sides inability to do anything to stop the inevitable opposition goal is consistent as always

On top of that none of our recruits were good, or really even close to ok (Jones was doing so so pre injury), all the focus areas of the our pre-season were shit (defending out the back, hitting up targets in the forwardline, low sharp kicks to advantage across the field), and Melbourne will never be weaker (I mean they killed us without May or Fritsch who always kill us).

The most optimistic I can be would be that maybe the forwardline needs more time than an intraclub and a game against North to figure their shit out, plus can't wholly be blamed for our midfield forfeiting (still not without blame), and I guess Josh Bruce wasn't the disaster I expected???

I am just so flat. I'm obviously going to be up and about by Wednesday but atm the fool is me for expecting anything different from us, we are so unenjoyable to watch because at any point even when everything is going great you are terrified any and all of the above issues are just going to pop up and we will seem baffled about how they happened and about ow anyone could possibly overcome them.

Such a positive pre season and such a pathetic round one performance.

-We hope that is an anomaly. We hope it doesn't happen again.

Lol.

Anomaly: "something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected."
I couldn't think of a performance than was more standard, normal and expected if you took the Dogs rose coloured glasses off. It was almost a carbon copy of the Grand Final.

[Go_Dogs]

Couple of quick thoughts:

Melbourne were able to execute a switch, spread our zone and then hit a 45 kick into the corridor. Shouldn’t be allowing that to happen. Maybe it’s the G, maybe something else, but we broke down way too easily.

Our skills are collectively a long way off. Sometimes we look great, but too often we burned the ball and/or lacked the nous to create movement ahead to give our players something better to kick at.

Melbourne are a great contested ball side but also have wheels, and also have players who back their man to win the contested ball and are already 10-15m clear in transition while our blokes have been plodding around the contest or ball watching.

I suppose the upshot is, we can’t play worse??!!

[bornadog]

Couple of quick thoughts:

Melbourne were able to execute a switch, spread our zone and then hit a 45 kick into the corridor. Shouldn’t be allowing that to happen. Maybe it’s the G, maybe something else, but we broke down way too easily.

Our skills are collectively a long way off. Sometimes we look great, but too often we burned the ball and/or lacked the nous to create movement ahead to give our players something better to kick at.

Melbourne are a great contested ball side but also have wheels, and also have players who back their man to win the contested ball and are already 10-15m clear in transition while our blokes have been plodding around the contest or ball watching.

I suppose the upshot is, we can’t play worse??!!

We handed them the game with 76 clangers to 55 - skills were shocking.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

That was as demoralising a start to the season as we could have feared.

All the same bullshit issues we have had for years being exposed:
-Terrible forward entries
-No ability to stop the opposition transition
-Goals out the back
-Basic skill errors from us always get punished, always
-Basic skill errors from the opposition never get punished
-Midfield dominates us, particularly from Centre Bounces
-No ability to adjust and stop the rot
-If we are losing in the third quarter we are guaranteed to lose the game, probably by a large margin
-Astonishingly quickly go from being in a good position with momentum to basically game over within an incomprehensively short timeframe
-Opposition guns always fire against us, we seem powerless to stop them
-No ability to kill the contest defensively
-No ability to not hit up their intercept guys constantly
-Low percentage passes
-Caleb Daniel embarrassing himself by foot enough times to completely negate the benefits his adventurous disposal offers
-Bont being dominant then seemingly vanishing
-Naughton getting frustrated up against multiple opponents and getting sucked into trying to bend the rules, and then missing half his chances when he gets them anyway
-We look stupid slow
-Opponent does something nasty, we retaliate then immediately fold over like a wet lettuce leaf with hinges
-We fail to make the opposition pay for their mistakes
-We give away careless free's off the ball that hurt us
-Anytime something doesn't go our way (a bounce, a free, a fumble) we completely crumble and while we bemoan how we got screwed by that incident/umpire/fringe player our sides inability to do anything to stop the inevitable opposition goal is consistent as always

On top of that none of our recruits were good, or really even close to ok (Jones was doing so so pre injury), all the focus areas of the our pre-season were shit (defending out the back, hitting up targets in the forwardline, low sharp kicks to advantage across the field), and Melbourne will never be weaker (I mean they killed us without May or Fritsch who always kill us).

The most optimistic I can be would be that maybe the forwardline needs more time than an intraclub and a game against North to figure their shit out, plus can't wholly be blamed for our midfield forfeiting (still not without blame), and I guess Josh Bruce wasn't the disaster I expected???

I am just so flat. I'm obviously going to be up and about by Wednesday but atm the fool is me for expecting anything different from us, we are so unenjoyable to watch because at any point even when everything is going great you are terrified any and all of the above issues are just going to pop up and we will seem baffled about how they happened and about ow anyone could possibly overcome them.

Such a positive pre season and such a pathetic round one performance.




Lol.

Anomaly: "something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected."
I couldn't think of a performance than was more standard, normal and expected if you took the Dogs rose coloured glasses off. It was almost a carbon copy of the Grand Final.

Nailed it.

Could not have summarised it better.

[bornadog]

Good thing is there are 22 games to go

[GVGjr]

Good thing is there are 22 games to go

So no finals?

[bornadog]

So no finals?

After last night, maybe not.

[soupman]

Can't wait for us to beat up enough of the shit sides and somehow find a good patch of form for 5 weeks to scrape into the finals, be ok for a half then lose by 80 points and watch Bevo talk about how "it was a complete anomaly....no similarities at all to 2019, 2020 or 2022".

[GVGjr]

I think we were light on for supporters last night, I wonder how many of us in Melbourne avoided this away game?
It ended up for me being a quiet trip home on the train and we Bulldog supporters were outnumbered by 4 to 1 where I was sitting and I get heading east isn't in the right direction for a lot of our supporter base.

[GVGjr]

I'm going to watch a replay of the game tonight. I'm a glutton for punishment.