The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - 2011 Season Wrap Edition

[Guest Gareth Keenan]

Negative 2, Robbie.

Negative 2 out of 10 is idiotic.

The season didn't go to plan, but it was hardly that bad.

I honestly can't be bothered going into it any further, because your attitude just annoys me and it won't achieve anything.

It won't entertain me, it won't enlighten anyone... It'll just be boring.

So so so sick of some of the posters on this forum.

Thank god the season is over.

It was bad, but they make it infinitely worse with their woe-betide-me pessimism, impatience, ignorance and lack of foresight.

[Hellaintabadplacetobe 4,294]

UGLY

We all know about our average losing margin of 56 points, but the one which blows me away is `quarters won`...30

FFS GC won 22 and PA 27.

This is a damning statistic!

[bing181 9,246]

So so so sick of some of the posters on this forum.

Thank god the season is over.

It was bad, but they make it infinitely worse with their woe-betide-me pessimism, impatience, ignorance and lack of foresight.

Yep, with you all the way.

I'm constantly reminded of John Cage's wonderful phrase: "I have nothing to say, and I am saying it".

[McQueen 17,865]

Hey GARTH yes Garth opinions are a right and Morton has been less than rubbish. Stating that [censored] throw at Morton is vitriol reveals more about you and your 17 a day posting habit.

I thought it was 17 an hour.

[P-man 13,366]

Negative 2, Robbie.

Negative 2 out of 10 is idiotic.

The season didn't go to plan, but it was hardly that bad.

I honestly can't be bothered going into it any further, because your attitude just annoys me and it won't achieve anything.

It won't entertain me, it won't enlighten anyone... It'll just be boring.

So so so sick of some of the posters on this forum.

Thank god the season is over.

It was bad, but they make it infinitely worse with their woe-betide-me pessimism, impatience, ignorance and lack of foresight.

So this is Artie the smartie yes? The unwarranted and undeserved smugness is very Artie-like.

The minus 2 was tongue in cheek, genius. Honestly I'd give the season a 3 or 4 but it's merely a number.

[Nasher 33,616]

God almighty i'm sick of excuses, we are crap just accept it and we can move on.

Some like to analyse what's going wrong. It's not an excuse, it's a reason. You can't fix the problem unless you establish the reason why it is so. "We can't win at Etihad" is not an excuse for a poor season, it's a reason and a problem that needs to be solved. "Our leaders are all rubbish" isn't an excuse, it's a reason and a problem that needs to be solved.

Clearly you're less interested in the analysis and more interested in the whinging about it - fine, that's your perogative. But it does get very tiresome.

[Flying Cloud 152]

Just noted that we only won 30 quarters out of 88 for the season.

Is the worst after Gold Coast and Port.

In 2008 we won 23 quarters but every other year since 2006 we have done better than 30. No wonder it felt like a crap year.

In fact it is incredible that we won 8.5 games based on those 30 quarters.

[old dee 23,801]

Negative 2, Robbie.

Negative 2 out of 10 is idiotic.

The season didn't go to plan, but it was hardly that bad.

I honestly can't be bothered going into it any further, because your attitude just annoys me and it won't achieve anything.

It won't entertain me, it won't enlighten anyone... It'll just be boring.

So so so sick of some of the posters on this forum.

Thank god the season is over.

It was bad, but they make it infinitely worse with their woe-betide-me pessimism, impatience, ignorance and lack of foresight.

"The season did not go to plan"

Hell I am glad of that!

For a large part of 2011 I was struggling to see a plan.

The simple facts are

we have a large number of players that IMO will only ever be average players.

We have very few "good" senior players

WE have a few Good "medium" age players

and a large number of kids, a few of which have shown the potential to be "good" players.

And we have no one who is what I would call a "game breaker".

IMO our list is average overall.

It is the stuff of the bottom half of the ladder.

[old dee 23,801]

Just noted that we only won 30 quarters out of 88 for the season.

Is the worst after Gold Coast and Port.

In 2008 we won 23 quarters but every other year since 2006 we have done better than 30. No wonder it felt like a crap year.

In fact it is incredible that we won 8.5 games based on those 30 quarters.

There were a lot af games that we did not win one quarter.

So we had to get a win occasionly.

As you suggests most of were against the equally handicapped as ourselves

[Demonic Ascent 0]

The vitriol towards Morton is unwarranted and ignorant.

Rubbish. I don't know how many times this year his weak "efforts" have led to me yelling "Cale Morton get [censored]" but it's been a regular occurrence. I don't care that he's wafer thin but until he finds a heart I don't want to know about him.

[old dee 23,801]

he looks tortured lining up the goals, like he is carrying the weight of the world.

Agree bd I am glad I do not feel as bad as Green looks.

He looks like he would rather be anywhere but kicking for goal.

For his sake I am glad the season is over.

He has been a good servant of the MFC over the years.

I find it the most depressing part of 2011 to see the way he has fallen to his current position.

[Bring-Back-Powell 14,862]

I can't fathom how anyone could give the season more than a 3/10.

Dermi on SEN tonight gave us a 5/10. What a joke. We were an epic fail this year, almost as Port.

2/10 for me.

[Pennant St Dee 13,241]

Get it through your head, we don't have any leaders. None the older players are just a bunch of triers with little or no leadership quality.

Which of the older players would you consider a leader?

We have a team of individual players that go out there every week and perform their task (or not) but none of them are leaders. Which one would you want to get us over the line in a tight game or final?

Who do we have that will grab the game by the scruff of the neck and drag us back in to the contest? There is no one, as has been shown time and time again this year and the year before etc etc.

North have a better midfield than us and they didn't bottom out did they? Their kids in the middle are superior to ours and we had picks before them on every occasion.

GOG is right Robbie you need to take a breath, look I am as disapointed as we all are but the kids have had to take a fair amount of responsibility this year and we will see the benefits of that in the coming years. Your comparing us with North who never bottom out North will never be anything other than honest they will always be around the mark because they will only ever be average. Take Petrie out of heir side and throw him in our forward line this season and you would see a big difference straight away. If you can't see improvement in a lot of our younger guys this year than I do not know what you have been watching. The injury curse we copped around the time of the Adelaide win has had a big affect on our side. Jones has stepped up as a leader and Maloney but unfortunatley Green just seems a shadow of the player he was 12 months ago, I am willing to cut him slack as he has points in the bank.

I have said in many posts this year the tide is turning the young guys are starting to take on a leadership roll but they are still only kids give them another season or two and then you will see a decent side for many years to come. Unlike North who will never be anything other than a team being 6-12th

[Hiram Cowfreak 78]

I went to all the games at the G this season, watched the rest on the telly..my feelings about the season are:

- we have future premiership players in Trengove, Tapscott, Blease,Strauss and Watts

- Jetta will be our Byron Pickett

- Jamar, Spencer, Gawn, Fitzpatrick and Campbell should all get another 2 years

- I think Matthew Bate was playing his last game against Port

- I want to keep Cale Morton

- We will struggle to delist 3 players for the national draft... Warnock, Dunn..thats all I can find so Bate goes too

- I am not disappointed with the change of coach but acknowledge Bails helped us rebuild our club

- I don't want us to recruit any hacks/ recycled players from clubs for "experience"

[rpfc 28,540]

I can't fathom how anyone could give the season more than a 3/10.

Dermi on SEN tonight gave us a 5/10. What a joke. We were an epic fail this year, almost as Port.

2/10 for me.

Yeah, I would give a three.

But a solid three.

Like we knew what we were trying to do but we didn't write enough and it was off topic.

Grammar was good.

[Freak 100]

Look, you may be right. If he stays, bulks and has a great year next year, I'll happily eat my words. Right now though, he's an absolute liability and I cringe every time he touches the thing - and even when he doesn't if he's one-on-one.

completely agree.

[monoccular 17,432]

Correct. If he is not at Melbourne next year it will be for a very good offer or he has walked. A full preseason, more kilos and the confidence of a new coach and many will be eating their words.

I really wish that I could share you optimism, that a new coach can get him to "put in" when the going gets tough when he hasn't for what, 3 or is it 4 years?

If you think a coach can make that sort of fundamental change in a player, I would love to know just who is that coach??

[monoccular 17,432]

Correct. If he is not at Melbourne next year it will be for a very good offer or he has walked. A full preseason, more kilos and the confidence of a new coach and many will be eating their words.

I really wish that I could share you optimism, that a new coach can get him to "put in" when the going gets tough when he hasn't for what, 3 or is it 4 years?

If you think a coach can make that sort of fundamental change in a player, I would love to know just who is that coach??

[The Big Ticket 94]

Just noted that we only won 30 quarters out of 88 for the season.

Is the worst after Gold Coast and Port.

In 2008 we won 23 quarters but every other year since 2006 we have done better than 30. No wonder it felt like a crap year.

In fact it is incredible that we won 8.5 games based on those 30 quarters.

Important KPI this one. Clearly shows our good was good and our bad was terrible.

[Dee Fan 3,247]

Just noted that we only won 30 quarters out of 88 for the season.

Is the worst after Gold Coast and Port.

In 2008 we won 23 quarters but every other year since 2006 we have done better than 30. No wonder it felt like a crap year.

In fact it is incredible that we won 8.5 games based on those 30 quarters.

One of the major issues with measuring quarters is it doesn't show what happened in the quarters that you lost. We got absolutely smashed in a few quarters this year so much so that we had one game, Hawthorn, where they had more scoring shots in the third quarter than we did for the match (19 to 17). West Coast kicked 34 points in the last quarter and we kicked 52 for the match. Carlton kicked 33 points in the last quarter we kicked 46 for the match. Collingwood kicked 8 goals 5 in the last quarter and we kicked 6 goals 5 for the match. Of course we have Geelong 8 Goals 12 Goals 8 Goals 9 Goals, we kicked 7 for the match so our total number of goals didn't match one quarter of Geelong's rampage.

Just raw data on quarters won and lost is not going to show the full picture, it is how we lost these quarters and what led to the huge one quarter deficits that is the cause for concern. We let a side get on a role and are unable to stem the tide.

[nutbean 8,838]

I would rate the year a 3 out of 10.

Five is a pass mark and we certainly didnt pass this year.

Par with last year is a fail - stagnation - and that would rate a 4/10.

We had a poorer year than last year therefore I rate us a 3/10.

I gotta stop thinking about this stuff.

Edited September 5, 2011 by nutbean

[drdrake 3,178]

I'm starting to think peoples expectations where to high for this season. I agree the way we lost was very bad but this had more to do with our game plan and structure we just couldn't stop teams scoring against us which means we had an offernsive game plan with no defensive structure. Our players are great at running forward and really bad at running into defense.

I have posted this a couple of times we have to much reliance on players that have played under 50 games. Our senior players are front runners that play well against weaker opposition. Dermie was right we have 2 big bodied mid-fielders in Jones and Moloney and Jones rarely contested the centre bounce and was usually found on the outside of stoppages. Our midfield comprised of Trengove, McKenzie, Gysberts, Scully, Morton with Moloney and Jones with Sylvia coming in on a part time basis. Our forward line is made up of Jurrah, Petterd, Howe, Watts with Green and Sylvia Martin and Jamar rested and we also had Gawn up there. None of our small forwards had any impact and this is one area at the start of the season I thought we had strength. Our backline has a bit more seniors in it with Rivers, MacDonald, Bartram, Frawley and Garland but we still has Blease, Strauss, Grimes, Nicholson, Tapscott and we did struggle to stop the mid size to small forwards kicking goals against us Ebert highlighted this on Sunday.

When you have over half your team every week that has played less than 50 games and you really only have 5 half decent senior players playing well but inconsistant in Jones, Moloney, Sylvia, Rivers and Frawley your team is going to be up and down.

What we saw is Trengove, Watts will be stars, Gysberts, McKenzie, Blease, Howe, Tapscott, Martin, Jurrah, Scully are going to be good players. We once again were teased by the match winning abilities of Col Sylvia hopefully the new coach can get this out of him on a regular basis. We have a star Full Back in Frawley.

Some of our performances were very very bad, but I'm still confident with more games and the right coach we will have a very good 2012.

[Rhino Richards 1,467]

I'm starting to think peoples expectations where to high for this season.

...

Some of our performances were very very bad, but I'm still confident with more games and the right coach we will have a very good 2012.

This was always going to be a tough year.

The list was younger than it had been for the past 2 years.

We still needed to blood and develop Tapscott, Blease, Gysberts, Gawn and others.

Green and Jamar had great years in 2010. Was it possible they could play better this season?

It was always going to be a hard year. I predicted we would have 8 to 9 wins and finish 13th at the start of the year.

There have been some positives and negatives this year no doubt.

I still have alot of faith in the young players we have coming through. They have had a terrible introduction to AFL with little or no support from senior players.

But with all hand wringing going on here, you would think we are back in 2007.

There needs to be some sensible decisions in the off season re coaching and drafting.

But both Essendon and WCE have shown that things can turn around quickly if you get all the pieces in place.

[Lil_red_fire_engine 11,215]

Rhino and Dr Drake shame on you for bringing some logical thought to these boards. Shame on you.

[tarzan16 40]

Correct. If he is not at Melbourne next year it will be for a very good offer or he has walked. A full preseason, more kilos and the confidence of a new coach and many will be eating their words.

more kilos?? how many more preseasons will we be saying that, he still hasn't got any heavier!!!!