I've been trying to stay reasonably positive this season, but this effort today is disgraceful. We are inept in so many areas, and although we have players injured, when many of your senior players are worse than your less experienced ones, your are in some serious trouble.

Just thought i would list a few things that we flat out suck in.

- Our skills. Nothing more to say here, they're on display for evryone to see.

- Our clearance work is nothing short of pathetic. We always seem to be chasing opposing players around the packs, while they are running forward, trying to get the ball. Is anyone on our team actually trying to win the ball, or are we just trying to stop them getting it?

- Our inability to kill the ball in contested situations, is once again abysmal. We will have passages where we will be applying great pressure, but other teams always seem to be able to keep the ball alive and get it moving forward, or kick a goal. Conversely, we always seem to get the ball locked up, or our skills will eventuially turn it over under pressure.

- Our run and linkage out of our defensive half is poor. I am undecided as to whether it is our slow ball use, lack of options or once again our overall skill which lets us down, but we seem unable to move the ball quickly from on end to the other in a rebound situation like other teams. I feel like we have too many defenders without the skill to help us here. We only need one of Warnock and Martin, and that extra defensive positon can be used for some who can provide better run out defense with precision kicking.

- We are unable to convert any extended periods of dominance in a quarter into scoreboard pressure. Many times this year we have had stages where we have won alot of ball, but our inability to convert this to scoreboard pressure is frustrating.

There are still many more, but those are glaring to me at the moment. It's all well and good to talk about draft picks and who will care about this result in 6 months time, but unless we start setting some standards of play now, it won't matter how many draft picks we get, because they will be sucked in to this sub standard football playing culture that we provide ath the MFC.

The skills are the main problem. Thats where it all begins and ends.

Accountability, Skills, playing at AAMI, working hard for our teammates

Definately missing players like Petterd, CJ, Davey and ?Maric. Skillful players.

Onfield leadership as well

Playing football...

Someone had to say it

Definately missing players like Petterd, CJ, Davey and ?Maric. Skillful players.

Oh god, if missing CJ is one of our problems we are in deep [censored] indeed.

Playing football...

Beat me to it.

Can someone please explain to me the benefit of chipping the ball sideways and backwards?

Yes you still have the ball, but the ball is usually in a shitty position.

Definately missing players like Petterd, CJ, Davey and ?Maric. Skillful players.

everyone remember who we are missing before we start to beat ourselves up

Spelling.

Everything. The only thing we are good at is playing interstate teams at the G.

Beat me to it.

Can someone please explain to me the benefit of chipping the ball sideways and backwards?

Yes you still have the ball, but the ball is usually in a shitty position.

woeful in the last qrtr

Spelling.

???

The clearance problem can be solved quite easy. All we need is some more logical thinking regarding the players we put in there.

We cant have Jones, McDonald & Dunn in there. Its just to defensive and with no skill.

A combo like Bruce, McDonald & Wheatley would work far better. You have the defensive player (McDonald), The collector and main tap target (Bruce) & The sweeper to run past for the handball then kick long (Wheatley).

Things will also be better in this aspect when Davey, Moloney and Brock return.

???

Things we are terible at.

Things we are terible at.

That was a terible mistake

Just thought i would list a few things that we flat out suck in.......

Wouldn't it be quicker to just list anything we may be good at, and then assume we suck at the rest ?!!!

We're pretty abhorrent at kicking the ball in and have been for years. Surely, there is some tactic we should be able to employ?

We're pretty abhorrent at kicking the ball in and have been for years. Surely, there is some tactic we should be able to employ?

What? You don't like a latest tactic of getting Wheats to thump it as long as possible to a contest where we have no numbers around at the fall of the ball? It's an improvement from kicking it directly to the other team.

Our tank driving skills are much improved on last year, hats off to the boys for a job well done.

....................... Can someone please explain to me the benefit of chipping the ball sideways and backwards?

Yes you still have the ball, but the ball is usually in a shitty position.

.............. and then you turn it over anyway!

Very, very frustrating.

Wouldn't it be quicker to just list anything we may be good at, and then assume we suck at the rest ?!!!

it would be very short thread

.............. and then you turn it over anyway!

Very, very frustrating.

Only they turn it over in a worse position.

The skills are the main problem. Thats where it all begins and ends.

I disagree, I think it's the work rate that makes or breaks a team. A team that runs hard to get to the contest to outnumber the opposition generally wins, Geelong does this well. Players makes mistakes when they're under pressure.

Can someone please explain to me the benefit of chipping the ball sideways and backwards?

Yes you still have the ball, but the ball is usually in a shitty position.

I completely agree. This comes a close second to our skills as the thing that is worst about Melbourne.