we've lost a lot, the last two weeks. And it hurts, we all feel it. Every Monday morning. What you read about our footy club in the papers. The disparaging remarks on the Footy Show last night.

I was starting to hold my head up, despite following passionately the bottom side. Queen's Birthday ruined all that (doesn't help, all the Collingwood supporters at work).

Here's a summary of what I wrote after last Friday's game, it's still relevant and it's still hurting.

We disgraced ourselves Queen's Birthday, in front of a big national audience. It's horrible being a supporter after that miserable 'effort', you just want the next game to hurry along to redeem us all - players, coaches, supporters alike.

Well, here it was. So, how was it?

Overall very poor. Third quarter was pathetic. Again in front of a national audience. It's still too raw, but here are a few major gripes.

1. Overall, no pressure. Where is the intensity? Too many players hanging back, soft.

2. Poor coaching, what were the setups? The plan? How were goals to be scored, other than simply by pot luck? It looked awful. If it wan't poor coaching, then the players deserve a rocket for not executing whatever was meant to be happening.

3. Skills overall are woeful. Kicking was bad, decision-making just doesn't improve.

This from the Age on the missing game plan is typical. Sad thing is, we deserve this criticism.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/rfnews/insip...5522784150.html

The question is whether Melbourne was actually playing to this game plan in recent weeks, or if, because of the shocking skill level displayed, it is fair to even presume the Demons know what their game plan is.

Coach Dean Bailey and the Demons should be condemned for the insipid third quarter on Friday night when players were dispatched behind the ball to no avail. If this was an instruction, then it was a poor one. If it wasn't, then why were they there and who was leading on the field?

There are positives and I'll stay alive dreaming on them. But hopefully coaches and players appreciate the importance for us all, and the team culture especially, of earning some respect from this season.

What's important from here is how the players respond. Up until the Collingwood game I thought our intensity levels were high and it was skill errors and stupid decision making that killed us.

At times during the last 2 games we were just insepid. We want to be competitive but at the moment there is so much daylight between us and the rest of the competition.

Leigh Matthews said last Friday night that it was hard to see when Melbourne will even begin their climb up the ladder. That is so depressing to hear that. Say what you want about Matthews but he is an astute football commentator and is one of the all time great coaches. You have to respect what he says.

I hate losing, hate the lack of respect we have and hate the fact that we are the laughing stock of the AFL.

We have some games coming up that we have the opportunity to win but still not hurt our draft pick position. We need to win a couple of those games and win them well and show everyone that there is hope and we are on the right course.

Apart from a brief stint when Northey was coach, Melbourne hasn't had any respect for the last 40 odd years. Any ounce of respect we may have had also evaporated with the soft tag during Danihers reign.

Read the "Red Fox" again-that will get your blood pumping hot again...

Apart from a brief stint when Northey was coach, Melbourne hasn't had any respect for the last 40 odd years. Any ounce of respect we may have had also evaporated with the soft tag during Danihers reign.

Since the day Norm got the sack, we lost our Mojo & respect.

I hope Jim Stynes is the man to re discover it.

we lost our Mojo & respect.

and most of our supporters

and most of our supporters

No i believe we still have a lot of "quiet" supporters out there, but we shall only see them with sustained success.

Humans like Winners & our fall from grace over the past 50 years is quite unique sadly. We will return

Since the day Norm got the sack, we lost our Mojo & respect.

We had it in spades during the '87 finals series, right up until the final siren at Waverley. It disappeared with Robbie.

Did you see how angry connoly was on the Footy show when the dees were the Butt of all jokes?

Did you see how angry connoly was on the Footy show when the dees were the Butt of all jokes?

nope. explain please........

nope. explain please........

He was all smiles talking about the legends game, when gary asked sam for his tip on the dees vs lions he laughed as if there was any other tip but brisbane. Cuddles was fuming. Good to see some genuine hurt.

Sam's just a clown. His knowledge of modern football is two dimensional.

Chris Connolly is fantastic, love his passion and he speaks authoritatively about football and MFC. He'll be hurting as much as we all are.

And yeah, I remember the nightmare of that '88 GF. Only good thing is we lost the record we didn't want when Geelong beat Port by 119 in 2007.

We didn't earn any by tonight's effort, either.

Herald-Sun:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl...6-19742,00.html

Lions obliterate Demons

AN AFL draftee put in a standout performance tonight - unfortunately for Demon fans it wasn't No.1 pick Jack Watts.

I'm thoroughly sick of the scorn being put on MFC & us supporters.