MELBOURNE'S GRAND FINAL ... or the last game of the season for a good number of players? by George on the Outer

What a simply pathetic display, yet again, by the group of players that turned out against Collingwood on the QB holiday?

And it was a good holiday for a lot of them, as (yet again) they failed to put in any serious effort, and (yet again ) disgraced the history and pride of both the Club and its long suffering supporters.

The Collingwood coach paternalistically alluded to the game being "Melbourne's Grand Final"; probably because there is little likelihood of seeing another one for most of our supporters, especially the older ones. But also we have become so irrelevant in the competition, that a single game is now seen as the pinnacle achievable for the club.

How pathetic is that? How demoralizing?

The only real connection is since the GF is the last game of the season, hopefully we have seen the last game for the season for the usual group of lazy culprits!

When Col Garland busts his guts out (yet again) playing on Cloke, giving away height and weight and has to watch the half-hearted efforts of those up the field, it was no surprise that he finally lost it with them. It would have been good to be a fly on the wall in the rooms afterwards to hear the tongue lashing that some rightly deserved.

Good to see Tommy Mac back and capably assisting him, but the shocker put in by Lynden Dunn with eight turnovers by foot alone, undid all the hard work of the backline.

Not that the mids were any better, save for Terlich and Jones x2 (yet again). Sylvia returned to his usual form (yet again), picking up the easy outside kicks and not running and chasing. Jordie McKenzie has turned into a liability by refusing to kick the ball under any circumstances (yet again).

And the coach must take some heat for putting Jeremy Howe in the middle. A plodding Magner would at least get his hand on the leather at some time, if he would only get the opportunity. But Jeremy, the forward who can mark, playing in the mid-field ... please spare me!

Jack Watts is playing with the same level of interest as Buddy Franklin at Hawthorn. Unless someone kicks it down his throat, he simply will not go anywhere near the ball (yet again), or his opponent until they are 10 metres down the field and running away (yet again).

Another 15 goal, or thereabouts loss (yet again) and the supporters can only look forward to the bye, because the team won't lose by 15 goals next week. One goal (yet again) in a half of football is simply disgraceful by any standards. This IS without any shadow of a doubt the worst team that has played for the MFC. At least in the terrible 80s we could go to see Robbie Flower show his wares, but even if the rest of the team were no good as footballers, they would try.

Today the team's score was kicked by 3 players, none of who actually play in the forward line!

If the MFC site puts up "5 things we have learnt" again this week (yet again) there should be a prosecution made by the ACCC for false advertising because it is patently clear that since Round 1 the players have learned absolutely and completely NOTHING.

If the Club and the AFL are concerned about attendances at MFC games, they should now be terrified. There is no possibility that any self-respecting supporter can continue or even think about turning up to watch the gutless performances put on by this group (yet again).

Grand Final game for Melbourne? Tell em you're dreaming ... it wasn't a game of a standard fit for suburban footy (yet again).

Melbourne 1.5.11 1.7.13 3.9.27 5.9.39

Collingwood 1.6.12 7.11.53 12.15.87 17.20.122

Goals

Melbourne Davey Trengove 2 Blease

Collingwood Cloke Kennedy Martin 3 J Thomas 2 Didak Lynch Macaffer Pendlebury O'Brien Swan

Best

Melbourne Garland McDonald M Jones Terlich N Jones

Collingwood Swan Ball Shaw Pendlebury J Thomas O'Brien

Changes

Melbourne Nil.

Collingwood Elliott replaced by Oxley

Injuries

Melbourne Dawes (ankle) McKenzie (mouth)

Collingwood Nil.

Reports

Melbourne Nil.

Collingwood Nil.

Umpires McBurney Margetts Kamolins

Official crowd 50,835 at the MCG

Bye next week, that's got to be a positive.

Garland

Tom McDonald back. Garland played well. Trenners is getting better. Flash is back. Col was good in parts. Matt Jones, Terlich and Kent are great pickups. Watts more physical.

1st Quarter.

We don't lead and we don't move at the stoppages, continually handball to blokes who don't move because no one moves.

My Record is in shreds.

Get PJ to ask the AFL for the rest of the year off

Neeld remains the worst coach i have ever seen

The last quarter and a half we ran completely out of steam.

As a result our skills dropped off and our run dried up. Their midfield was too big and too fit and gradually gained total dominance.

We also lacked a bail out kick once Dawes went off so we struggled to get the ball forward.

I thought the effort was there, though.

Was impressed with Matt Jones once again, moves really well and has a red hot crack.

I think Dunn stamped his papers today, I don't know if I've seen a more pathetic performance than Dunn today.

Off ya go Dunn, you won't be missed you spud.

Other than that, we had a lot of improved performances from certain players, Trenners, Watts, Toumpas and Garland and Flash continue to be solid.

Sylvia worked hard, had a lot of tackles, which was good to see.

I've certainly seen us play much much worse than today.

We don't move, we don't mark. We hand ball to some one two metres away standing between two opposition players. We kick backwards or sideways and lose the ball at 50m and instead giving them six points we give them seven points or more. We have no basic skills. Someone has removed their footy brains for the time being.

Losing Dawes hurt us, just destroyed what little forward structure we have.

Pedersen played his best game for us: 23 disposals, 8 marks. Garland battled well on Cloke, especially given the way the ball was coming in.

But ... poor skills, poor decisions, poor execution = turnovers, and it just comes back to punish us big time, especially as so many of the turnovers happen when we're on the attack and out of position defensively.

How is the reality bus going for you

A huge proportion of their goals when the game was there to be won were from burning ball going inside 50. We took the game on and looked really good, then turned it over in the corridor so that everybody (usually Garland) got caned on the way back. Once they cut those skill errors out we'll be right in games for much longer.

Was just about to give N Jones a cook until I realised he got 30 touches

Garland done extremely well, damn I hope Frawley stays.

If Frawley leaves, its F'd up.

It is good seeing Blease, Kent, M Jones, Evans, Fitzy, Terlich etc... getting a run and showing effort

Syvlia and Trenners are getting into it.

Some great tackling.

Garland deserves a medal - great game on Cloke.

Our kicking into forward 50 is the big weakness, alongside turnovers. Is it experience or coaching that will improve this? Watching this part of our game is like eating live spiders. My stomach is in a constant churn. You can see the turnovers coming from 3 possessions before they happen. Can't believe how bad this skill is across the midfield.

Dunn - unbelievable game. Absolute shocker.

Our players take possession when stationary. Midfield needs to learn to move around a stoppage.

The positive is that for the first time for many year I didn't go to the QB game.

Positive: Jamar took a few marks around the ground and did things. Also the last couple of weeks he has not always been tapping the ball to hsi feet.

Was just about to give N Jones a cook until I realised he got 30 touches

Geeze you'd be brave giving him a "cook" after the way he has busted his guts this year.

Next game is against St Kilda in 12 days time. Hope we can get something out of the bye week.

Apparently, they are thinking of rebooting Major League for AFL football and are currently looking for someone to fill Randy Quaid's role. I thought the 'Land might be the first place to start looking:

Percentage now less than 50%. Half way through the season, gotta be some sort of record......another one...lol

They were bigger, stronger and more experienced but we had a crack. Unfortunately, what worked in the first quarter failed after that. The loss of Dawes affected our forward structure and we simply lapsed into a frenzy of self-inflicted errors of which Collingwood took maximum advantage.

Once we eliminate the errors, these games will be 6 to 8 goal losses. Get a few of those injured blokes back and we won't be far away from winning games against our fellow cellar dwellers.

Positives:

Kent, Fitzpatrick, Blease, Toumpas, Terlich, and Jones all showed plenty. Our youth look like they can develop into the core of a really good side given time and games.

Nate Jones continues to fight against the odds.

Sylvia and Davey are showing some of the best form we've seen from them in years, in Sylvia's case ever.

Jamar got involved and beat Jolly both in the ruck and around the ground.

Watts had a real dip although he lost enthusiasm as the game wore on. Still did some very good things and should have had two goals.

Garland fought a great battle against Cloke. Always undersized, he nevertheless took it right up to the big guy and can be proud of the way he went about it.

Negatives:

Silly turnovers in the middle of the ground.

Twice kicking across goal to a small target when Harry O was lurking.

Consistently poor delivery to our forwards.

Letting Tommy Mc Kick the ball.

Getting sucked in to having two tacklers, allowing the opposition the extra man to run free on the overlap.

Not looking for, or finding, the open man on the wing all game.

Poor co-ordination between players leading to slapstick-style errors and turnovers.