Why wouldn't the media accuse us of tanking this year?

One of our compensatory picks is determined by our ladder position. It's not too dissimilar to the priority pick.

Experimenting with player positioning; numerous, unexpected "outs" in Thursday's team sheet; long-term injuries announced on Monday.

And the big one: how does a team, almost identical to the one last year, go from winning 8.5 games (10 or 11 if circumstances were a little different) to 4 at best?

All I want is consistency on this. If 2009 is being treated as suspicious then this year's performances must be brought into question as well.

No?

Then [censored] THE [censored] OFF.

How about our club come out and say something. We shouldn't apologize from experimenting like every other club

does when they are out of the finals race. If Mclardy doesn't say something soon then they obviously have no

backbone (which it seems everyone at the club doesn't)

How about our club come out and say something. We shouldn't apologize from experimenting like every other club

does when they are out of the finals race. If Mclardy doesn't say something soon then they obviously have no

backbone (which it seems everyone at the club doesn't)

It looked brief and hollow, but I thought McLardy's statement was quite strongly opinionated.

Put it this way: if someone was alleging that you had been involved in a murder, and you had committed the crime and there was empirical evidence to prove it, would you be willing to publicly declare your support for a trial?

the depressing thing about cmparing 2009 and 2012 is that both years we have been garbage, and both years we have pinned our future on the upcoming draft.

2nd time lucky?

How about our club come out and say something. We shouldn't apologize from experimenting like every other club

does when they are out of the finals race. If Mclardy doesn't say something soon then they obviously have no

backbone (which it seems everyone at the club doesn't)

Wait 'til those that matter accuse us of something. Then we'll see what McLardy is made of.

So far this is an investigation of Brock McLean. Not Melbourne.

Yeah but the fact is every club will make decisions based on their position.

If you are down the bottom you will send players off for early surgeries and experiment

with younger players. Doesn't mean you don't want to win it's just the logical thing to do.

If you are in contention then you keep players going longer which could mean they

start the next season later due to body stress.

Someone from Melbourne should come out and say yes we rested players and experimented

but at no point did we want to lose.

We were worse in 2009 imo

Wait 'til those that matter accuse us of something. Then we'll see what McLardy is made of.

McLardy is a gung-ho man, a raging fire. You could tell by his impromptu appearance on OTC, which I didn't think was measured at all.

It's probably why you don't hear much from him. But behind the scenes he is probably the most dedicated man to his job.

We were worse in 2009 imo

Scores struggle to agree with you DEELIRIOUS

2009 for 22 rounds we scored 1706 points vs 2285 against a percentage of 74.6 ( 4 Wins ) average loosing margin 5 goals 2

2012 18 rounds we have scored 1185 points vs 1858 " " ' 63.8 ( 2 wins ) " " " 8 goals 3

If I am generous and say we will win 2 more ( GWS and GCS ) then we have 4 wins like 2009

Add in the other two teams we play are St Kilda and Freo at home, both will be multi goal losses then it is hard to see us getting our percentage to 74.6 or bridging the losing margin gap.

IMO Score board suggests we are worse this year.

Scores struggle to agree with you DEELIRIOUS

2009 for 22 rounds we scored 1706 points vs 2285 against a percentage of 74.6 ( 4 Wins ) average loosing margin 5 goals 2

2012 18 rounds we have scored 1185 points vs 1858 " " ' 63.8 ( 2 wins ) " " " 8 goals 3

If I am generous and say we will win 2 more ( GWS and GCS ) then we have 4 wins like 2009

Add in the other two teams we play are St Kilda and Freo at home, both will be multi goal losses then it is hard to see us getting our percentage to 74.6 or bridging the losing margin gap.

IMO Score board suggests we are worse this year.

Our win against GWS has flattered our percentage substantially. Anyone who thinks we were worse in 09 needs is having memory problems.

Scores struggle to agree with you DEELIRIOUS

2009 for 22 rounds we scored 1706 points vs 2285 against a percentage of 74.6 ( 4 Wins ) average loosing margin 5 goals 2

2012 18 rounds we have scored 1185 points vs 1858 " " ' 63.8 ( 2 wins ) " " " 8 goals 3

If I am generous and say we will win 2 more ( GWS and GCS ) then we have 4 wins like 2009

Add in the other two teams we play are St Kilda and Freo at home, both will be multi goal losses then it is hard to see us getting our percentage to 74.6 or bridging the losing margin gap.

IMO Score board suggests we are worse this year.

Christ don't bring up facts like that life is too bloody hard being a melbourne supporter as it is.

Can't believe all the time thats been wasted.

Anyone notice Neeld is sarting to sound like Bailey with his games experience.

Why wouldn't the media accuse us of tanking this year?

One of our compensatory picks is determined by our ladder position. It's not too dissimilar to the priority pick.

Experimenting with player positioning; numerous, unexpected "outs" in Thursday's team sheet; long-term injuries announced on Monday.

And the big one: how does a team, almost identical to the one last year, go from winning 8.5 games (10 or 11 if circumstances were a little different) to 4 at best?

All I want is consistency on this. If 2009 is being treated as suspicious then this year's performances must be brought into question as well.

No?

Then [censored] THE [censored] OFF.

I've been thinking exactly the same thing. I keep wanting to ring in to the talkback shows and raise this point, but generally I'm driving at the time. Right now we are in almost exactly the same boat. We have one unexpected win over a strong side and look like only beating GWS and maybe GC for the rest of the year for four wins. We once again have a huge injury list (a factor nobody ever seems to mention when talking about out losses in '09) and are playing backs as forwards. If they are willing to accept that all this is being caused by a massive injury list and a fairly poor team, why can't they accept that for the '09 season when all the same factors were in play?

It looked brief and hollow, but I thought McLardy's statement was quite strongly opinionated.

Put it this way: if someone was alleging that you had been involved in a murder, and you had committed the crime and there was empirical evidence to prove it, would you be willing to publicly declare your support for a trial?

Difference is - this "court" will actually decide the inevitable penalty purely on the whim of Vlad, who has a massive conflict of interest in promoting his bloody franchise teams.

the depressing thing about cmparing 2009 and 2012 is that both years we have been garbage, and both years we have pinned our future on the upcoming draft.

2nd time lucky?

This is my fear, that we will stuff up this draft and that we are stuck in a cycle of a little ray of sunshine and then brutally crushed hopes when we realized we picked duds.

However this is just a recurring nightmare, I am confident we have some talent to build on and that Prendergast-free we can nail at least a couple of the top picks.