The Problem

[MO FINE 171]

Can he play in the ruck?

[dee-luded 2,959]

Does anyone remember a young raw Jamar..?

Yes. He's now the player I wanted him to become all those years back down at sandy.

And still improving, even if not yet in top form.

[dee-luded 2,959]

A player such as Fevola (or Bradshaw who Melbourne could have got for free) would bring Melbourne's chances of a Premiership forward. They would help other players develop, and develop more quickly and effectively as they would be developing in a stronger team and not losing every week. Sure, they may not be there if Melbourne did make a Grand Final but they should help them get there.

You lot can have your five year plans.

Your wrong re Fevola, he would have cost us too dearly.

But re Bradshaw in the pre season Draft, your right IMO, except for one thing, the player must want too play for you.

Remember we were making noises about grabbing Bradshaw.

I think you'd find that he'd done a deal to move to Sydney anyway to live. Makes it hard if we use a pick for someone who cant get to training.

And keep the players association happy?

[dee-luded 2,959]

I was staggered by the game of Miller. Does this bloke have incriminating pictures of senior people at the club or do the people just love looking at his wife at club functions. Why Robbo, our leading goal kicker, was not retained over this guy blows me away. Please Gold Coast, take him off our hands.

Bate was probably under done but he was soundly beaten by a novice in Suckling for Hawthorn. Please Lift.

In fairness to Strauss on debut, he is very inexperienced as given his injury he had limited time playing against men at Casey last year. However it was interesting to see the form of Luke Shuey (pick 18 between Blease and Strauss) do so well in Brisbane for the Eagles last night.

Which is the real worry. Is our club just incapable of developing our players to get better and reach their potential. Maybe Frawley, Warnock and Grimes have improved under Dean Bailey. I have real concerns over his ability to coach and win games.

Hawthorn clearly run a good program???. Look at what they did with Carl Peterson. Nowhere at Richmond gets into the Hawthorn System and he plays brilliantly on debut.

Hawthorn had senior guns in Croad and Crawford in their premiership team, great 2001 draft with Hodge, Mitchell, Ladson and Brown great 2004 drafts with Buddy, Roughy and Lewis and then filled in the side as required 2004- 2007.

God I hope our recent drafts can bare the same fruit.

{"HAWTHORN'S much-travelled elevated rookie Carl Peterson almost upstaged Melbourne's No.1 and No.2 draft selections at the MCG. On an occasion appropriately billed as "Youth Day" by the Demons, last year's top draft picks, Tom Scully and Jack Trengove made impressive debuts, sharing a total of 43 touches in what was otherwise a disappointing first-up game for the club.

But it was the performance of 22-year-old Peterson, originally from Kunanurra in the WA Kimberleys, and who was drafted by Richmond four years ago, that stood out as one of the feel-good stories of this one-sided encounter."}

http://www.heraldsun...f-1225846383861

This guys had 4 years of physical & football developement and is 22 & Speedy. You'd hope he'd play well on elevation. Its a long year ahead for all sorts of fortunes to take shape or go like the Pear.

Edited March 29, 2010 by dee-luded

[Axis of Bob 11,836]

Robbie, you're right, you don't have to answer my question. That's why I gave you added incentive by making you feel like you'd lose credibility if you didn't, otherwise you'd just continue to ignore the question.

Your response was still emotive and rash, and you have shown little ability to comprehend the consequences of your actions.

I'm hoping that other people will read that little string of posts and realise that punishing players for skill errors is completely counter productive and is just a rash reponse to an individual's own frustration. You can 'punish' players for errors that involve a choice they made which was selfish and go against the team, such as dropping your head, breaking team rules and not applying defensive pressure. These are actions that can be consciously corrected by a player and need to be reinforced by the coach. A player committing a skill error cannot be affected by a 'punishment' since the player is consciously attempting to perform the skill properly.

What message could you give the player? "Try to do the right thing again .... errr .... harder"?!?!?

[TheVoice 33]

For gods sake Brad run through someone! Moloney use those tree trunk arms of yours and grab Sam mitchell and Jordan Lewis by their throats and suck

some energy out of them! Chip Frawley you are a man, in a mans body now, make sure Roughead remembers he played a game of footy on the weekend!

Russian, when and if you kick a goal, get a tap out or come within coowee of the ball make sure you let the nearest backman / midfielder know you

are there with a nice introduction to your 100+kg body. In short Senior players, show SHOW SOME PASSION!! Protect and show our young players that

it is not ok to go down without a whimper. Play the ball by all means but make sure the opposition have you in mind when it comes their turn to get

it. If we are to endure more losses, show us that you want to be out there and playing for oneanother and the jumper. And please! please! dont dish

out what you did last Saturday ever again.

[Dee Fan 3,247]

Robbie, you're right, you don't have to answer my question. That's why I gave you added incentive by making you feel like you'd lose credibility if you didn't, otherwise you'd just continue to ignore the question.

Your response was still emotive and rash, and you have shown little ability to comprehend the consequences of your actions.

I'm hoping that other people will read that little string of posts and realise that punishing players for skill errors is completely counter productive and is just a rash reponse to an individual's own frustration. You can 'punish' players for errors that involve a choice they made which was selfish and go against the team, such as dropping your head, breaking team rules and not applying defensive pressure. These are actions that can be consciously corrected by a player and need to be reinforced by the coach. A player committing a skill error cannot be affected by a 'punishment' since the player is consciously attempting to perform the skill properly.

What message could you give the player? "Try to do the right thing again .... errr .... harder"?!?!?

Would you like one or two slices of “pompous” to go with that post?

Let me give you a tip Bob, you may crave the credibility that goes with posting on a Footy Board but I don’t. What I post on here may be right or it may be wrong but either way it is my view and having some self righteous poster berate me because I have a differing opinion says more about him than me.

You may, but I don’t believe in all this psychobabble that you should let a player continue on after he has made such a bad error because it’s good for his self esteem. He should be made aware that such fundamental errors will are not acceptable and in fact the whole team should be told that. We need to toughen up and being soft on the players just so we don’t upset them is part of the reason we are where we are today.

Now I’ve got nothing further to add to this mindless argument.

[stevethemanjordan 6,952]

I'm hoping that other people will read that little string of posts and realise that punishing players for skill errors is completely counter productive and is just a rash reponse to an individual's own frustration.

What the hell?

Every player in the AFL should in theory have sublime skills.

People have every right to be questioning why we are not hitting targets?

Especially when there is no pressure applied.

Did you watch any of the nab cup Axis of Bob?

Myself and everyone else on this forum should demand an improvement of executing skills such as

kicking and handballing. This is what AFL players are paid to do FFS. This is what they have been trying

to improve on since the start of pre - season last year.

[Nasher 33,616]

You may, but I don’t believe in all this psychobabble that you should let a player continue on after he has made such a bad error because it’s good for his self esteem. He should be made aware that such fundamental errors will are not acceptable and in fact the whole team should be told that. We need to toughen up and being soft on the players just so we don’t upset them is part of the reason we are where we are today.

I just don't understand what you think players would get out of being berated for a mistake that was clearly unintentional. Rather than looking at what the negative aspects of dragging someone for dropping a mark are, perhaps you could explain what you think the positive aspects of doing it are?

I'm just trying to understand your point of view.

My view is that a) they already know that dropping a mark in the goalsquare is a massive faux pas that is not acceptable to make, and don't need to be told and B) dragging them is not going to have any effect on what happens next time they're in the same situation. It was an issue of confidence, NOT an issue of attitude (which I'd definitely drag a player for) and that's where the line is in my opinion.

[stevethemanjordan 6,952]

I just don't understand what you think players would get out of being berated for a mistake that was clearly unintentional. Rather than looking at what the negative aspects of dragging someone for dropping a mark are, perhaps you could explain what you think the positive aspects of doing it are?

I'm just trying to understand your point of view.

My view is that a) they already know that dropping a mark in the goalsquare is a massive faux pas that is not acceptable to make, and don't need to be told and B) dragging them is not going to have any effect on what happens next time they're in the same situation. It was an issue of confidence, NOT an issue of attitude (which I'd definitely drag a player for) and that's where the line is in my opinion.

And what if a player who is not concentrating drops a mark...?

That surely comes down to being switched on which reflects concentration and attitude.

It can work both ways.

[Dee Fan 3,247]

I just don't understand what you think players would get out of being berated for a mistake that was clearly unintentional. Rather than looking at what the negative aspects of dragging someone for dropping a mark are, perhaps you could explain what you think the positive aspects of doing it are?

I'm just trying to understand your point of view.

My view is that a) they already know that dropping a mark in the goalsquare is a massive faux pas that is not acceptable to make, and don't need to be told and B) dragging them is not going to have any effect on what happens next time they're in the same situation. It was an issue of confidence, NOT an issue of attitude (which I'd definitely drag a player for) and that's where the line is in my opinion.

Ah! I see OK let’s rally round.

Well let me begin asking you where did I say we should berate him?

I reckon I’ve covered this and can’t see any point in going over it again. Suffice to say I believe that there is a lack of discipline at Melbourne and allowing players to make fundamental errors without the coach at least taking the player off the field and having a word to him is part of the problem.

I’ll ask you a question do you think that a Matthews, Voss, Malthouse or Roos would accept a player stuffing up that badly and not even trying to minimise the damage by forcing a point? Do you know why teams coached by them are so well disciplined and we are not?

[Demondeb 8]

The Bradshaw one had me interested during trade time. It didn't fit with our policy at the time... but jeez... it's Bradshaw. The guy is a gun, and would have made a HUGE difference for us.

Bradshaw has always killed us when we played Brissie... would be nice to think he is working for us but the powers to be decided not. Let's hope they're right.

I think for now we need to keep Greeny down in the forward 50. At least he is a target to aim to and pretty reliable in return on goal. He is probably at the moment the ONLY one I would want to kick for goal to save my life or indeed to make the difference between winning and losing ie: kick winning goal.

That might straighten us up a bit and give the players a target to get to that they can be fairly confident will take advantage of a good pass. Until JW is ready thats all we really have at the moment. Jurrah will be gone for a while yet and even when he does come back, will probably take a few games to get into gear... or maybe not but thats some time away. We need some forwards NOW!!! Just no Michael Newton.. he isn't a forwards bootlace I am afraid.

[Demon_Tingles 211]

I have been thinking about our continual insipid performances and it struck me .. You always hear of clubs using video replays to teach players what they were doing right and what went wrong. Now I have never heard of Melbourne doing this which could explain why we continually never ever learn from our mistakes. Either that or Dean Bailey drafted a bunch of absolute retards.

[Redleg 40,951]

You always hear of clubs using video replays to teach players what they were doing right and what went wrong. Now I have never heard of Melbourne doing this which could explain why we continually never ever learn from our mistakes. Either that or Dean Bailey drafted a bunch of absolute retards.

You are not serious are you? Every AFL club uses video of games to show players.

[Keyser Söze 0]

I have been thinking about our continual insipid performances and it struck me .. You always hear of clubs using video replays to teach players what they were doing right and what went wrong. Now I have never heard of Melbourne doing this which could explain why we continually never ever learn from our mistakes. Either that or Dean Bailey drafted a bunch of absolute retards.

You know what... it just struck me that Dean Bailey has never once mentioned wearing underwear... does that mean he is freeballing every time we play a game! - No wonder we keep losing!

[Keyser Söze 0]

Ah! I see OK let’s rally round.

Well let me begin asking you where did I say we should berate him?

I reckon I’ve covered this and can’t see any point in going over it again. Suffice to say I believe that there is a lack of discipline at Melbourne and allowing players to make fundamental errors without the coach at least taking the player off the field and having a word to him is part of the problem.

I’ll ask you a question do you think that a Matthews, Voss, Malthouse or Roos would accept a player stuffing up that badly and not even trying to minimise the damage by forcing a point? Do you know why teams coached by them are so well disciplined and we are not?

Yes. Undoubtedly.

Because they are smart enough to realise Nasher is 100% correct.

[stueyspencer no12 73]

Now is not the time to be drafting forwards in the twilight of their career.

We are in the completely wrong time in our cycle to even contemplate that.

Lets get a team together which is mildly competent and then look at filling gaps with established players. At the moment nobody in their right mind would choose to end their career with us, nor will they help us achieve our long term goals.

Well I disagree that anything is served by getting a bunch of kids playing together against stronger bodies and likely to be thrashed by good opponents.For a strong body on the forward line I'd indeed settle for someone who can give us a season or 2

I have 2 question marks about recent recruiting decisions. Why could not 1 key position player have been chosen in the first 4 choices instead of 4 on-ballers?

And most puzzling of all--why pick Joel McDonald?How does he tick any of the boxes?He may be a competent player but he won't be any better than that. And we have players who can play on a HBF.

[Redleg 40,951]

Last week against the Hawks many would have given us a chance and the disappointment of supporters was clear. This week we probably are given no chance so the result and reaction should be interesting.