Move over Richmond, Dees in the firing line.

[barpen 0]

Welcome to Melbourne

Mike Sheehan turns the blowtorch on Melbourne FC.

Interesting read.

You can tell he wants the Dees to start showing more. Another frustrated supporter.

[45HG 1,539]

What a difference a bad loss makes.

What really irks me is that it's written on a weekend that we don't play - essentially sinking the boot in without us having the right of reply.

The blowtorch bloody well should have been on that club - 1 finals series in 16 years, 0 in 9 and now they want a youth policy!

[dreamin' man 0]

I reckon Sheahan's right. We've been enjoying having no pressure because we're all about the future but Monday was a real downer. We need a good performance v. Essendon -- please, a win! -- just to avoid sliding right off the radar -- & the awful consequences the AFL could visit on us.

[Rogue 585]

What a difference a bad loss makes.

Indeed.

In the big picture, it's largely irrelevant.

At least there was this:

"The crowd of 60,000-plus was healthy, probably bordering on excellent, given the conditions"

[Bring-Back-Powell 14,829]

He's 100% right, and the stats don't lie.

We've been a utter disgrace since round 1 2008.

I think a bit of negative press (on field not off) couldn't hurt the team. I think the media we're overly complimentary to us after the Geelong, Bulldogs and Hawthorn losses.

[Sydney Pennski 296]

The reality is that although we're showing some signs of improvement we continue to disappoint in the big games. Whenever we play a game on the big stage we look terrible and appear to give up without a whimper e.g QB & Friday night games.

Our rate of progress is also painfully slow!

[Jerry Lundergard 420]

The point he neglected to mention when comparing us to Richmond, is that they are 5 years into their rebuild, this is only our 2nd.

[Guest Rojik of the Arctic]

"The point he neglected to mention when comparing us to Richmond, is that they are 5 years into their rebuild, this is only our 2nd."

The point he neglected to mention when comparing us to Richmond, is that they are Richmond. I've seen some things at Melbourne over the years that have made me wince but Richmond makes us look like a fortune 500 company.

[Rhino Richards 1,467]

Slow news week and the Sheahan turns the blowtorch on MFC. Wow.

He has probably only seen us play on QBW this year and was trolling through Champion Data to fill his 400 word thesis.

Its not a matter of toleration of losses but the realisation and understanding that it will take time to blood and develop the younger players to step up in an environment where there is a lack of on field leadership and support.

[deanox 9,921]

Slow news week and the Sheahan turns the blowtorch on MFC. Wow.

He has probably only seen us play on QBW this year and was trolling through Champion Data to fill his 400 word thesis.

Its not a matter of toleration of losses but the realisation and understanding that it will take time to blood and develop the younger players to step up in an environment where there is a lack of on field leadership and support.

isn't sheahan a mfc supporter? you would think he makes the efforts to see some games? and in his position as football journalist, you would have hope that he is watching at least 4-5 games a week. he should be able to see 5 live most weeks, either on tv or at the game, and would only need to watch replay of 3...

[Carn dees 108]

The point he neglected to mention when comparing us to Richmond, is that they are 5 years into their rebuild, this is only our 2nd.

At the start of the year i thought they were ready to take that next step to play finals and so did terry wallace, is this there 5th year of rebuilding stage or do they have to start again, i spose probly not completely but they did finished 9th few times, and imo in order for them to go forward they need to spend a couple of years toward the bottom but with the gc coming in, there in heaps of trouble wich is why we must get that PP we cant afford to bottom out anymoreas of next year, i reasonable achivement would be avoiding bottom four next year.

[beelzebub 23,376]

well..you can make of that what you want ( the article ) Essentially truths but not necessarily in context of what the club ( ne Bailey ) is attempting to do this year..that is fly under the radar, get a bit of game time in some new legs..dont show "too" much but enough to get an idea of who is coming along; pick up the best two picks in the draft and a few others..and get serious come seasons end.. What on earth is achieved by cowtowling to the scripted panderings of the press etc. Nothing !!

We had a younger team if you counted in gametime in relevance to age etc. Yes Hawthorn HAVE gone the right way.. and thats where we will be in '10.

[mo64 5,874]

The reality is that although we're showing some signs of improvement we continue to disappoint in the big games. Whenever we play a game on the big stage we look terrible and appear to give up without a whimper e.g QB & Friday night games.

Our rate of progress is also painfully slow!

100% agree. When the games been on the line, we've shown very few signs of improvement.

And many on this site take solace from Richmond's plight because it deflects attention from the realty of where we are as a club. The media has been easy on us, but when a journo rightfully questions us, supporters have a whinge.

I'm hoping that more journo's apply the blowtorch to us, because it may awaken us from our slumber.

[Pipefitter 2,159]

isn't sheahan a mfc supporter? you would think he makes the efforts to see some games? and in his position as football journalist, you would have hope that he is watching at least 4-5 games a week. he should be able to see 5 live most weeks, either on tv or at the game, and would only need to watch replay of 3...

Its a common misconception that sheehan is a dees supporter. I know his nephew. Hes actually a neutral observer funnilly enough, with a soft spot for the doggies.

[paddo 0]

The whole age thing has been overhyped. Some of our older players will move on at the end of the year i.e. McDonald, Whelan, Wheatley and possibly Bruce and they are all expendible IMO.

When you consider that the best is still to come from Bate, Bennell, Blease, Buckley, Cheney, Frawley, Garland, Grimes, Jetta, Jones, Jurrah, Maric, Martin, Morton, Strauss, Watts and Wonaeamirri + Scully + Butcher - ALL highly touted players under 22 - it doesn't look so bad.

That's almost a full team right there.

I accept Sheahan's POV that not all promising young players will make it, but I think his article goes overboard considering the stage of development we are in.

[beelzebub 23,376]

The whole age thing has been overhyped. Some of our older players will move on at the end of the year i.e. McDonald, Whelan, Wheatley and possibly Bruce and they are all expendible IMO.

When you consider that the best is still to come from Bate, Bennell, Blease, Buckley, Cheney, Frawley, Garland, Grimes, Jetta, Jones, Jurrah, Maric, Martin, Morton, Strauss, Watts and Wonaeamirri + Scully + Butcher - ALL highly touted players under 22 - it doesn't look so bad.

That's almost a full team right there.

I accept Sheahan's POV that not all promising young players will make it, but I think his article goes overboard considering the stage of development we are in.

A very valid point re these players. Still a whole lot more to come. Sadly I think Bate and Jonesy may have peaked. Hopefully Nathan can learn better decision making..but even so there is a hell of a lot of potential still to be realised.

I would agree with Sheahan that Melbourne has snuk through without too much spotlight but most likely cause is that Richmond has brought much on itself.

The Dees have been reinventing iteself both on and off the field and I think we are genuinely progressing along the right sort of paths.

Richmond after all its time ought to have accomplished much more by now in consideration of its position on the merry go round. We are really having only just got back on it ( merrygo round ) and starting out ( again, but this time thoroughly and properly ) and so expectations ought to be in line with that.

If in 3 years time we are still floundering then all the criticisms leveled would probably not being doing us its deserved justice.

Maybe we are just a hell of a lot smarter than the Toiges

[iv'a worn smith 1,979]

Sheahan, Buckley and Shaw talking about the same topic on 3AW just now.

Some more interesting stats. Collingwood fielded a younger side than we did on Monday. 11 of our players, played in our last semi-final loss to Fremantle.

As Buckley said-and I reckon he would know just a little bit about the caper - if you keep putting down dismal losses to youth, then in the end all you do is give your young blokes excuses for losing. The very fabric of our club is where the problem is and it needs addressing quickly. Sheahan was right to pose the questions he did in his article and the stats demand answers.

I am sick to death of hearing about what might be, with 2 more top drafts, in 2010. I just want to see some steel in the MFC and I don't think as a supporter, that is too much to ask.

BTW, Mike Sheahan has a MFC Membership.

[dreamin' man 0]

Sheahan is a Melbourne supporter but doesn't have much passion, I guess for professional reasons.

The only time I remember him admitting this in writing was a pre-season feature asking various people about their football dream. His was Garry Lyon kicking the winning goal in a GF (shows how long ago it was).

[mo64 5,874]

The whole age thing has been overhyped. Some of our older players will move on at the end of the year i.e. McDonald, Whelan, Wheatley and possibly Bruce and they are all expendible IMO.

The whole youth thing is overhyped. There are no guarantees that the young players that you've mentioned will reach the heights of the players that retired last season, and those that you consider expendible. And it p#sses me off no end when posters factor Scully and Butcher into their equations. They are not on our list.

The notion that we're a young side is merely a crutch that is used by supporters to justify our poor performances in the past 18 months.

BTW, I've never heard anyone on our coach panel use youth as an excuse.

[titan_uranus 25,020]

At least there was this:

"The crowd of 60,000-plus was healthy, probably bordering on excellent, given the conditions"

But he then went on to imply that if we don't start putting in decent efforts on the big stages, they'll be taken away from us. Which is not a particularly fair thing to say. Sure, we did crap on QB. But if the big stages were only given to the high-quality teams, then there'd only be 8-10 teams each year on Friday nights and blockbusters would be reserved for Geelong, St Kilda, Hawthorn and the Bulldogs.

So long as we continue to draw crowds to QB we should continue to be a part of it.

Its not a matter of toleration of losses but the realisation and understanding that it will take time to blood and develop the younger players to step up in an environment where there is a lack of on field leadership and support.

Despite this, he was more than entitled to present statistics showing our deficiencies. I mean, we are 16th with 1 win from 11 games for a reason.

isn't sheahan a mfc supporter? you would think he makes the efforts to see some games? and in his position as football journalist, you would have hope that he is watching at least 4-5 games a week. he should be able to see 5 live most weeks, either on tv or at the game, and would only need to watch replay of 3...

Agree. He named Petterd in a list of players who 'sustain hope for the faithful'. If Sheahan had seen enough Melbourne games he'd know that Petterd has been dropped for not giving enough to the team, and at this stage is not someone supporters are looking to to drag us out of the doldrums.

[1858 285]

I have no problem with Sheehan having a crack, it was bound to happen at some stage but the biggest loss this year so far is what it took for him to take notice - perhaps we were going well enough throughout the season for him to umm and ahh.

I am intrigued as to what exactly the "youth excuse" actually is. We have many developing young players as well as youngsters yet to play for us and I don't think this has been used as a crutch at all. The reality is that our youth have performed reasonably well given the circumstances. Our defence is predominantly young that started its rise last year when Garland was instrumental. What (IMO) the majority of supporters understand is that we have a personnel issue and this is more than exemplified in the middle and up forward. How on earth can we blame youth when our next generation forward (Watts) has played 1 game and others like Jurrah are a little bit off and we are perhaps looking at drafting another forward (Butcher) if possible? A lot of the youth supporters are anticipating to perform haven't even been on the park.

I think Sheehan sums it up best with "Champion Data stats show the Demons are more effective defensively this year, yet it's much the same old sorry tale in other areas." Maybe he should go one step further to think about why. NEWSFLASH Mike, most of our kids down back are the reason why our defence has improved and the majority of Melbourne supporters know this! Up forward we have players in their twilight or perhaps being moved on at years end and in the middle we have no depth or elite performers - since when has this been a "youth" cop out or even argued as such?

Any relevance of our youth is simpy a reminder that we have a team in transition and being one of the younger sides we will only improve. Youth is part of the solution and I think Sheehan is wrong if he thinks that youth has been bandied about as part of the problem or an excuse. Given the circumstances, our younger players have been reasonably good, especially those that were thrown into it just this year. Prior to Bailey turning up we had a plethora of neither here nor there players and purely because we have had to delist mostly older players there are still a fair few on the list who don't serve a purpose - we need to fine tune. Since Bailey has been at the club we have recruited with purpose and the youngsters added to our list in the last 2 years show genuine promise - how this can be construed in any other way than a positive is beyond me.

[mo64 5,874]

Since Bailey has been at the club we have recruited with purpose and the youngsters added to our list in the last 2 years show genuine promise - how this can be construed in any other way than a positive is beyond me.

No difference to the promise that McLean, Bate and Jones showed in their early years under Daniher. And every club has a bunch of youngsters that show promise, and in some cases, are having a direct impact on the result of the game. And those clubs would also believe that they have improvement in them. The difference being that they are developing youth whilst continuing to remain competitive.

And you correctly mention that we don't have any elite midfielders. Well Daniher had the same issue during his reign when we regularly made the finals. The difference being that bar 2007, Daniher had us playing a gameplan that suited our personnel. I said before the start of last season that our midfield wouldn't be suited to Bailey's gameplan, and nothing's changed.

Most posters on here like the idea that Bailey is coaching for tomorrow, not today. I don't, because you can do both.

[1858 285]

No difference to the promise that McLean, Bate and Jones showed in their early years under Daniher. And every club has a bunch of youngsters that show promise, and in some cases, are having a direct impact on the result of the game. And those clubs would also believe that they have improvement in them. The difference being that they are developing youth whilst continuing to remain competitive.

McLean, Bate and Jones are all reasonably slow movers and the game has gone up a notch but lets extend the analysis to our team at large which is the heart of my point. Forget other teams for one moment Moe. Dunn, Bell, Bartram, Meesen and Newton are good examples of the players who the club obtained not too long before Bailey came onto the scene. It is quite simply slim pickings. Since Bailey has arrived, we have recruited with much more purpose throughout the entire range of the previous 2 drafts, especially last year and this is why I made my point about promise. It wasn't a generic "happy happy joy joy lets all stick our heads in the sand and wish and hope" point of view but one based on the type of players we recruited who are more suited to the modern game.

And you correctly mention that we don't have any elite midfielders. Well Daniher had the same issue during his reign when we regularly made the finals. The difference being that bar 2007, Daniher had us playing a gameplan that suited our personnel. I said before the start of last season that our midfield wouldn't be suited to Bailey's gameplan, and nothing's changed.

Daniher came close to playing 18 utilities every week and his emphasis was not on individual development. Daniher made the best of what he had but did not seek to improve it or get rid of the players who were not good enough. The other thing about our midfield is that not only don't we have elite mids but we don't even have fast mids. Geelong are elite, Essendon are fast with the possibly of becoming elite one day - we are neither. With the wealth of experience Daniher had horded in our team and the way they played, it was pretty much a no brainer that they would be there abouts - the thing is though they were never ever going to be better than what they were. This team subsequently died in the ass 3/4 of the way through season 2006 and Bailey inherited it at rock bottom at the end of 2007. Now Bailey has to rebuild a young team from scratch with hardly any top quality senior players to assist him on the field - the youngsters are not doing too bad but our personnel all over the ground is a problem that won't be fixed by next week.

Most posters on here like the idea that Bailey is coaching for tomorrow, not today. I don't, because you can do both.

Coaching for tomorrow is essential when you are in the situation we are in and I may say is almost unavoidable. We still don't have our future blueprint even on the field. Having said that if Bailey wasn't coaching for today to some level then why has our defensive set up improved since last year where we have our most settled group of players? I know what you are saying Moe, planning for the future is no excuse for bad football now and to an extent I agree but you need to look at all the factors behind why we are bad other than the fact that Bailey is looking to kids of the future - many of the current players Bailey is trying to extract decent football out of now are just not up to it. To make things worse, many kids may drop off later this year due to the load in their first year. I definitely agree that we need to lift our game with manning up and our zoning (forming and breaking) as well as other areas but as far as being an attacking unit is concerned we have a fair few limitations atm.

[deanox 9,921]

interesting that our midfield is one of (probably our major) poblem, and the biggest issue is lack of pace and finishing. brock, beamer and jones can all get the ball but are all slow, and none of them have elite disposal. we have added a couple of young mids ie morton, blease, strauss to our list who are quick with good disposal to supplement this core. morton is getting lots of game time, and has been doing well - lots of possies - however the others are too young to come on just yet. when these players start to come through, our midfield will hopefully produce better results. the players out will be the bruces, the mcdonalds, etc who should be the experienced guys carrying the load, but at the moment are players who just go.

when we are challenging, brock, beamer, jones, davey, will be the older experienced players instead of bruce mcdonald and robbo.

[jabberwocky 2,301]

Most posters on here like the idea that Bailey is coaching for tomorrow, not today. I don't, because you can do both.

Not when you are the MFC of 2007 you can't. It was apparent to all those who know something about footy that the team needed to be rebuilt.

Maybe with our plodders in the side we could have sneaked in a couple more wins but even then my feeling is that we probably wouldnt have.

The side needed to be rebuilt, the game plan re-written. That is what is being attempted. No-one knows if it will work yet. I suggest that those in the know knew it was the only option to give ourselves any chance at a flag.

The plan that you advocate would have us perpetually reaching for the dizzying heights of mediocrity.

And I will say it again you coach your players up to the game-plan, you don't bring your game-plan down to the skill level of your players.