Melbourne is the laziest team in the AFL. Can't argue with anything Roos says in this article.

No defensive pressure at all. We don't get high numbers of tackles because we are NOWHERE near our opposition players, OMG its so freaking obvious.

Everything that we see and complain about week in week out. Lazy lazy lazy players. He breaks it all down with damning stats. They don't lie, and while I blame the players, the fact that we have five coaches that have coached at senior level ands they can't get effort out of the players is incredibly damning on the coaching staff.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/lazy-demons-back-to-square-one-says-paul-roos/story-e6frfkp9-1226619240205

"The reason Melbourne's tackle numbers are so low is that they simply don't get close enough to their opponents to tackle them. The reason that Melbourne has allowed their opposition to generate an inside-50 from 39 per cent of chains starting in the defensive 50 is because they are too lazy to pick anyone up. Melbourne has averaged 136 fewer disposals per game than its opposition in the first two rounds this season. Not only are the Melbourne players too lazy to run defensively but that extends to the offensive area as well. How do the Melbourne coaches and players expect to win a game if they have no intention of picking up an opponent and when they win it they refuse to work for their teammate to move the ball up the field?"

Edited April 13, 201312 yr by Demonland

Pass mark - more tackles than WCE at the final siren.

Good if we actually managed to win a few clearances too.

Surely a trait inherited from the Bailey era....................I always said we were a dishonest team under Bailey, great doing the fun things in footy, but zero emphasis on the tough part of the game.

Watching the Bombers v Freo game last nigh, we are light years behind those two teams, and the intensity and effort they bring to a game.

Melbourne is the laziest team in the AFL. Can't argue with anything Roos says in this article.

No defensive pressure at all. We don't get high numbers of tackles because we are NOWHERE near our opposition players, OMG its so freaking obvious.

Everything that we see and complain about week in week out. Lazy lazy lazy players. He breaks it all down with damning stats. They don't lie, and while I blame the players, the fact that we have five coaches that have coached at senior level ands they can't get effort out of the players is incredibly damning on the coaching staff.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/lazy-demons-back-to-square-one-says-paul-roos/story-e6frfkp9-1226619240205

"The reason Melbourne's tackle numbers are so low is that they simply don't get close enough to their opponents to tackle them. The reason that Melbourne has allowed their opposition to generate an inside-50 from 39 per cent of chains starting in the defensive 50 is because they are too lazy to pick anyone up. Melbourne has averaged 136 fewer disposals per game than its opposition in the first two rounds this season. Not only are the Melbourne players too lazy to run defensively but that extends to the offensive area as well. How do the Melbourne coaches and players expect to win a game if they have no intention of picking up an opponent and when they win it they refuse to work for their teammate to move the ball up the field?"

excellent piece Jnr

Surely a trait inherited from the Bailey era....................I always said we were a dishonest team under Bailey, great doing the fun things in footy, but zero emphasis on the tough part of the game.

Watching the Bombers v Freo game last nigh, we are light years behind those two teams, and the intensity and effort they bring to a game.

Disagree with the Bailey Trait theory. Melbourne played some good football under Bailey. In the early days Bailey was under significant pressure from the Board to underperform in certain games as well.

If Bailey stayed we'd be better off now.

After watching the replay of the Ess game (I know I know) its so blindingly obvious that we stand metres away from our opponents and don't chase them. Watching Ess v Freo last night it was scary how much work we have to do in this area,.

I for one want to know WTF we did for 7 months in the off season. Because we weren't ready for rd 1 or 2. In fact we haven't been since 2005 because we haven't won in rd 1 or 2 since 2005.

Our team played together for the first time in rd 1. No wonder that had no idea what their teamates were doing. No wonder we had no momentum.

We would all be so much happier if we started like a house on fire and faded by rd 10. This crap about 'its a marathon season' is meaningless for us because our season is over by rd 2 every year.

Get the team together in the off season and train together in match simulations. FFS it aint that hard. its football.

Another pizz poor effort today and we won't get a crowd of 5000 for the rest of the season.

What I want to see today?? Man to man football. wear them like a glove. I don't care if it is 4 goals to 3 goals. I want to see a slogfest of effort. If we cna't do that I would rather watch our all our young players and f off the old batards who can't be bothered.

It's very clear that our work-rate is poor, question is why?

Melbourne is the laziest team in the AFL. Can't argue with anything Roos says in this article.

No defensive pressure at all. We don't get high numbers of tackles because we are NOWHERE near our opposition players, OMG its so freaking obvious.

Everything that we see and complain about week in week out. Lazy lazy lazy players. He breaks it all down with damning stats. They don't lie, and while I blame the players, the fact that we have five coaches that have coached at senior level ands they can't get effort out of the players is incredibly damning on the coaching staff.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/lazy-demons-back-to-square-one-says-paul-roos/story-e6frfkp9-1226619240205

we have been since Norm Smith left JnrMac... its the influences from the MCC, & the socialising over in the Northern stand... I'll keepon saying it till I turn into a Blue, like my dear old dad wanted.

imo,, everyone thinks I'm wrong & I've been harping on about it for years, & get written off everytime, & probably on Ignore from any.

.... But I'll keep saying it til it becomes so obvious it hurts or I finally give up.

When we build a SocialBase & training facility on Olympic Boulevard,,, then we will start to develop, as a club, & our players will revel in it, & finally realise their potential.

.

What I don't get about the debacle is this;

After 24 games of ineptitude, Mark Neeld has apparently taken the boys away to tell them to forget the game plan and just play hard, tough footy and to beat their man.

This should have been his foundation from day 1. His first off season should've been purely fitness and contest training. Lay the foundation of hard, aggressive footy and then, once you're happy with the competitiveness of the team (to be the hardest to play against rah rah) implement the stages of the game plan.

Our players are following instructions and zoning, when the zone if broken then they are all looking around to see where there opposition player is. All through the Essendon game I saw Melbourne players near the player with the ball, but the melbourne player was focused on trying to pick his man instead of going at the guy with the ball. The man with the ball is the one that counts. We need to tackle and to do that we need to be near our opposition players. zoning is in part responsible for the problems we have, though not sure if its total laziness or the fact that everyone is trying to just look after their own man that makes us look so bad. either way the game plan is stuffed. Man up and stay manned up through out the game. then we have one on one contests, bounce of the ball, body position that will help decide each contest instead of allowing hundreds of uncontested possessions.

We played man on man for the first half. The maggots tried to kill us. BUt we were competitive.

The third quarter we went zone Why? I would like to know. We were crucified by the maggots but we didn't help ourselves and stopped running.

We have dumb lazy footballers.

Pass mark - more tackles than WCE at the final siren.

Good if we actually managed to win a few clearances too.

This was one of the major factors in our second half capitulation. Our tackling was horrendous. If you look at Selwood's tackle in the last quarter and compare it with the majority of attempted MFC tackles, they're worlds apart. Laziness is a big part of it. No finer example of this was watching Matt Jones get no higher than a jog at one stage on the wing, while Jack Viney tore around after two Eagles players on his own.

We made mistakes via poor decision making and skill execution in the first half, but at least there was intensity and effort. The second half today was worse than Essendon defeat. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

Edited April 13, 201312 yr by AdamFarr

Surely a trait inherited from the Bailey era....................I always said we were a dishonest team under Bailey, great doing the fun things in footy, but zero emphasis on the tough part of the game.

Watching the Bombers v Freo game last nigh, we are light years behind those two teams, and the intensity and effort they bring to a game.

It goes back further than that. Guys like Yze, White, Johnstone, Robertson were exactly the same under Daniher.

I've said this in another post, but I think it bears repeating: The MFC are worse than the stats indicate. Last year teams took it easy on us after they'd blasted us out of the park in the 1st and 2nd quarters. After all, why try your guts out when you've got the other team beaten? The MFC coaching staff would then hang their hats on the one or 2 quarters where we "matched" the opposition. And its happening again this year. Port tried all day and we couldn't get near them. Essendon (who are better than Port) an even bigger ditto. West Coast tried for a quarter and half - we got smashed. How on earth we beat Essendon last year completely staggers me. But we won't come near any of the established teams this year and might even consign ourselves to oblivion against GWS and GC.

Mark Neeld cannot coach; Brian Royal cannot coach; Jade Rawlings cannot coach; and who knows what Leigh Brown can do...? Finally, Neil Craig gets paid a lot of money....

Edited April 13, 201312 yr by Buffalo

I've said this in another post, but I think it bears repeating: The MFC are worse than the stats indicate. Last year teams took it easy on us after they'd blasted us out of the park in the 1st and 2nd quarters. After all, why try your guts out when you've got the other team beaten? The MFC coaching staff would then hang their hats on the one or 2 quarters where we "matched" the opposition. And its happening again this year. Port tried all day and we couldn't get near them. Essendon (who are better than Port) an even bigger ditto. West Coast tried for a quarter and half - we got smashed. How on earth we beat Essendon last year completely staggers me. But we won't come near any of the established teams this year and might even consign ourselves to oblivion against GWS and GC.

Mark Neeld cannot coach; Brian Royal cannot coach; Jade Rawlings cannot coach; and who knows what Leigh Brown can do...? Finally, Neil Craig gets paid a lot of money....

Neeld cops most of the blame but as you point out, what about the rest of the coaches. Our back line is getting worse but no one questions Rawlings, there is certainly no improvement in the forward line, but Brown gets a free ride, we have the worst midfield in the comp.

Who's our ruck coach; Jamar's gone backwards. Craig is supposed to make it all happen;well he's not.

I had such high hopes with the hand picked team, and so many of them, but after seeing how they have failed and seeing the poor recruiting I'm really starting to question Neeld's judgement.