Our record at the MCG

[Lord Travis 10,161]

In 2017 we've now lost 4/5 at the MCG. All of them were easily winnable, and the one win we had against Carlton was not convincing. We've won nearly every match away from the MCG, so what has happened to us at our home ground? These games at the G should be as simple as us rocking up with the right amount of effort and we bank an easy 4 points each time. Teams should always make the most of their home ground advantage. 

What is causing us to fail there?
Is it all mental? Do the players feel expectation when playing there and then wilt under the pressure?
Is it our gameplan? Does the bigger space spread out high zone too thin so we get cut up by teams on the rebound?

If we can't win at the MCG, we can't win finals, and most importantly we can't win the Grand Final. We need to get back on top at our own home ground. Thoughts everyone?

[Sir Why You Little 34,430]

Defensive Zone still needs a lot of work on wide grounds...

[praha 10,270]

We're still battling with the concept of two-way running. Works better on smaller grounds because there's less space to cover. Watching yesterday's game, North seemed to always have 2-3 more players in their forward line because their mids and flankers just appeared to be everywhere. Despite playing all of their games better at Etihad, they ran harder and utilised space superbly compared to Melbourne, who plays half of their games on the MCG.

IMO it's as much a reflection of experience (or lack thereof) is you'll find. Sometimes the players just seem run out on their feet. Maybe it's for the best in the long run. Or maybe we're still behind the 8-ball when it comes to training practices.

I'll tell you something, leaving the MCG and having North supporters laugh us out of our home ground, jeering "10 YEARS!" is something that almost pushed me over the edge.

Edited May 22, 2017 by praha

[Wadda We Sing 10,685]

Move the Grand Final to the Adelaide oval...

[Scipio 5,868]

2 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Defensive Zone still needs a lot of work on wide grounds...

I don't think this is a valid reason. We've struggled to break out of our back fifty in most of our games there, particularly yesterday against North. If it's the width of the ground, hypothetically that should also make it easier for us to break out of other teams zones. 

I think it's mental and it has snowballed since our first loss there this year.

[praha 10,270]

3 minutes ago, Luther said:

I don't think this is a valid reason. We've struggled to break out of our back fifty in most of our games there, particularly yesterday against North. If it's the width of the ground, hypothetically that should also make it easier for us to break out of other teams zones. 

I think it's mental and it has snowballed since our first loss there this year.

IMO it's actually a struggle to utilise the space. Not sure that playing in NT this week helps. We need consecutive games there and haven't since the Freo-Richmond double. More than ever, we needed this upcoming week's game to be at the MCG. We have two consecutive strings there, one two weeks in a row, and three to end the year.

[poita 3,573]

The complacency of being at home against weaker opposition. The idea of just rocking up and banking 4 points, rather than actually making it happen.

In other games we have gone in knowing we are going to have to bust our guts and play well to win. And have performed accordingly.

99% of our problems are in our own heads. If Goodwin can fix these he is a genius.

[whatwhat say what 18,897]

MCG suits sides with height and particularly dominant ruckman.

At the moment we have neither.

[Chris 2,892]

10 minutes ago, Luther said:

I don't think this is a valid reason. We've struggled to break out of our back fifty in most of our games there, particularly yesterday against North. If it's the width of the ground, hypothetically that should also make it easier for us to break out of other teams zones. 

I think it's mental and it has snowballed since our first loss there this year.

I think it is our zone. it seems to push too high and be easy to get around on the wider ground, and if we close the room wide enough teams go down the middle. We can't get out of defense because of two things, we can never take a make on the back flanks (unless Gawn is there) and other teams have a zone that works on a wider ground and run harder to the right spots to make it work. 

This is the one area I think we have gone backwards under Goodwin. Under Roos our zone worked pretty well and we were good defensively on the big grounds but got found out on the smaller grounds, Goodwin seems to have shifted the balance the other way while being more aggressive offensively. 

DemonAndrew just made my last point, one of the things we are missing is height. When we are on we spoil marks on our forward flank and take marks on our back flank. We struggle to do either at the minute and that is due to height, we simply have too many big men out at the minute. On a smaller or narrower ground this doesn't seem to be as big an issue I think due to more people being around the contest to spoil the ball. 

[mo64 5,209]

2 minutes ago, poita said:

The complacency of being at home against weaker opposition. The idea of just rocking up and banking 4 points, rather than actually making it happen.

In other games we have gone in knowing we are going to have to bust our guts and play well to win. And have performed accordingly.

99% of our problems are in our own heads. If Goodwin can fix these he is a genius.

Nailed it. We've either had diabolical 1st quarters (Hawks, Roos) or been well on top (Dockers, Tigers). In each case the game has been winnable in the last quarter, but we don't have the mental capacity or belief to finish the job. 

I'm no psychologist, but it seems that the players get over excited when we score, and get down when we concede goals.

Goodwin's got a tough job because Roos left him with a talented list that wasn't used to winning. As a start, I hope he never trots out the line, "We're a young team, blah, blah, blah." Psychologically it could be a crutch for the players to excuse failure.

[danielE288 591]

I'd be interested to see the stat of opposion scores resulted in our turnovers. Our entry into our 50 is terrible at times and when we give the ball to the opposition they run harder the other way and use the open spaces to their advantage getting good entry to their forwards. It's a worrying trend that needs to be addressed.

[Wiseblood 24,636]

We've lost games we should have won.  Simple.  We aren't going to dominate there every year.

[danielE288 591]

Or any year. Can only recall a handful of good wins there recently, Mostly against bad opponents.

[jnrmac 18,947]

Our defence is not up to it. We are playing a man down in the tall, strong dept.

Oscar was repeatedly isoloated against Brown yesterday and ge whiz what a surprise Brown has a day out.

Thanks the Lord we picked up Hibberd. He has been tremendous. Nev has bene great as well but we still leak goals and too much is left to too few.

 

[Sir Why You Little 34,430]

2 hours ago, Luther said:

I don't think this is a valid reason. We've struggled to break out of our back fifty in most of our games there, particularly yesterday against North. If it's the width of the ground, hypothetically that should also make it easier for us to break out of other teams zones. 

I think it's mental and it has snowballed since our first loss there this year.

Not if we don't run hard enough. 

Our players have raw talent right now. 

The still DO NOT realize the amount of sacrifice that is needed to become a Top 2 side yet. 

It is what still lacks and it's why our Captains struggle. They don't know what it is either. 

I am sure Lewis is speaking about daily

Training can improve, even on days off i am sure mental and physical fitness can be improved. 

1% matters

The MFC has never got to the required level in the modern era

Geelong realized the "group effort" in 2007. The change in their output in 2-3 days was f$&@ing staggering. But the all "got it"

[TeamPlayedFine39 8,154]

It's a concern that our gameplan seems to match Etihad, better than our home ground.  We are yet to play anywhere near our best football at the 'G but the sample of matches is still probably too small for us to say there is a definite correlation.

The fact of the matter is, we have been in a winnable position for all of these matches this year.  We are yet to win an ugly, close fought match; I'm not convinced the location is what's losing it for us.

 

[bandicoot 1,395]

3 hours ago, Lord Travis said:

In 2017 we've now lost 4/5 at the MCG. All of them were easily winnable, and the one win we had against Carlton was not convincing. We've won nearly every match away from the MCG, so what has happened to us at our home ground? These games at the G should be as simple as us rocking up with the right amount of effort and we bank an easy 4 points each time. Teams should always make the most of their home ground advantage. 

What is causing us to fail there?
Is it all mental? Do the players feel expectation when playing there and then wilt under the pressure?
Is it our gameplan? Does the bigger space spread out high zone too thin so we get cut up by teams on the rebound?

If we can't win at the MCG, we can't win finals, and most importantly we can't win the Grand Final. We need to get back on top at our own home ground. Thoughts everyone?

The G is a ground that needs big men. 

We would have beaten Freo if hogan played. 

We would have beaten Richmond if spencer didn't go off at qtr time.

we would have beaten hawthorn if we had a ruckman.

we would have beaten north with a ruckman.

Having either gawn or spencer makes us a 2-3 goal better side.

hogan also makes us a 2 goal better side.

not sure when the last time a team played the G without a ruck and won? 

[deebug 1,754]

3 hours ago, praha said:

We're still battling with the concept of two-way running. Works better on smaller grounds because there's less space to cover. Watching yesterday's game, North seemed to always have 2-3 more players in their forward line because their mids and flankers just appeared to be everywhere. Despite playing all of their games better at Etihad, they ran harder and utilised space superbly compared to Melbourne, who plays half of their games on the MCG.

IMO it's as much a reflection of experience (or lack thereof) is you'll find. Sometimes the players just seem run out on their feet. Maybe it's for the best in the long run. Or maybe we're still behind the 8-ball when it comes to training practices.

I'll tell you something, leaving the MCG and having North supporters laugh us out of our home ground, jeering "10 YEARS!" is something that almost pushed me over the edge.

I feel your pain. It's like we have two different teams one can beat the crows and the other can lose to this rabble in nuff Melbourne.

[Lord Travis 10,161]

48 minutes ago, bandicoot said:

The G is a ground that needs big men. 

We would have beaten Freo if hogan played. 

We would have beaten Richmond if spencer didn't go off at qtr time.

we would have beaten hawthorn if we had a ruckman.

we would have beaten north with a ruckman.

Having either gawn or spencer makes us a 2-3 goal better side.

hogan also makes us a 2 goal better side.

not sure when the last time a team played the G without a ruck and won? 

These are excuses to try and rationalise our failure. Until we as a club stop falling back on excuses we will never achieve success. We have lost 4/5 at the MCG, yet we have won 3 out of 4 elsewhere, with the same players missing and no proper ruckman. We are failing at the MCG. Fact. Why are we failing and how do we fix it? The answer cannot be "get player x back and get player y back". The team is bigger than 1 or 2 players. Yes they are important, but the team has to be able to function without them or we fail. 

Personally I think our zone pushes up to high when we play at the G and we then struggle to close up the space we've created when the opposition is on the rebound (often after we fail to put on enough pressure in our forward line to lock the ball down our end). 

[Redleg 37,556]

4 hours ago, Lord Travis said:

In 2017 we've now lost 4/5 at the MCG. All of them were easily winnable, and the one win we had against Carlton was not convincing. We've won nearly every match away from the MCG, so what has happened to us at our home ground? These games at the G should be as simple as us rocking up with the right amount of effort and we bank an easy 4 points each time. Teams should always make the most of their home ground advantage. 

What is causing us to fail there?
Is it all mental? Do the players feel expectation when playing there and then wilt under the pressure?
Is it our gameplan? Does the bigger space spread out high zone too thin so we get cut up by teams on the rebound?

If we can't win at the MCG, we can't win finals, and most importantly we can't win the Grand Final. We need to get back on top at our own home ground. Thoughts everyone?

The answer is we think we are the Eagles when we play at the G.

Edited May 22, 2017 by Redleg

[monoccular 16,042]

4 hours ago, Lord Travis said:

In 2017 we've now lost 4/5 at the MCG. All of them were easily winnable, and the one win we had against Carlton was not convincing. We've won nearly every match away from the MCG, so what has happened to us at our home ground? *These games at the G should be as simple as us rocking up with the right amount of effort and we bank an easy 4 points each time. Teams should always make the most of their home ground advantage. 

What is causing us to fail there?
Is it all mental? Do the players feel expectation when playing there and then wilt under the pressure?
Is it our gameplan? Does the bigger space spread out high zone too thin so we get cut up by teams on the rebound?

If we can't win at the MCG, we can't win finals, and most importantly we can't win the Grand Final. We need to get back on top at our own home ground. Thoughts everyone?

* I think you have caught the MFC mindset

Surely much if not most of it is mental.    We have shown that we can play sensational footy, at times, but lack the mental application / mindset / maturity both individually and as a group to do it consistently.

Very disappointing, but if you go back a couple of years most of those narrow losses, plus probably the Saints and the Carltank games would have become routs, as well as the Crown games. We have come a fair way though we do need to learn to win.

[Chris 2,892]

2 minutes ago, monoccular said:

* I think you have caught the MFC mindset

Surely much if not most of it is mental.    We have shown that we can play sensational footy, at times, but lack the mental application / mindset / maturity both individually and as a group to do it consistently.

Very disappointing, but if you go back a couple of years most of those narrow losses, plus probably the Saints and the Carltank games would have become routs, as well as the Crown games. We have come a fair way though we do need to learn to win.

That may well be the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place. Knowing how to win is certainly a skill and one we don't possess, with the exception of Lewis. That is probably the biggest skill he can bring but it is an incredibly hard thing to teach as it is so intangible. 

[MrBurns 36]

You guys have got it all wrong.  It's the 'It's Time To Raise Hell' song before every bloody bounce.  Embarrassing.  Keep the Hells Bells, ditch the cheesy ditty!

[Soidee 1,496]

It's all a bit tiresome going to the G at this time to watch our club.  I'm not enjoying the football we dish up there, and frankly the club seems to still be irrelevant in the media and elsewhere.

[dpositive 1,547]

7 hours ago, Lord Travis said:

These are excuses to try and rationalise our failure. Until we as a club stop falling back on excuses we will never achieve success. We have lost 4/5 at the MCG, yet we have won 3 out of 4 elsewhere, with the same players missing and no proper ruckman. We are failing at the MCG. Fact. Why are we failing and how do we fix it? The answer cannot be "get player x back and get player y back". The team is bigger than 1 or 2 players. Yes they are important, but the team has to be able to function without them or we fail. 

Personally I think our zone pushes up to high when we play at the G and we then struggle to close up the space we've created when the opposition is on the rebound (often after we fail to put on enough pressure in our forward line to lock the ball down our end). 

Certainly an apt observation from the last two games.

Crows forwards were further up the ground and we seemed to hallways have someone behind them to stop the rebound or take the kick forward . North seemed to always carry the ball a bit deeper or had a tall target that we had difficulty matching. In the second quarter we double teamed Brown and North just roamed around for a mis match.

Very interesting contrast. We could have won but for a few more lapses that we did not exploit. Got a bit cute when we should have taken first option and we had a bit of difficulty with the inconsistency of umpiring decisions favouring North.