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

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

At least we are consistent, we played the same as our last 2 actual Grand Finals in 2000 and '89.

At least we are consistent, we played the same as our last 2 actual Grand Finals in 2000 and '89.[/c

olor]

At least get the years right

We are improving from two years ago when we lost by more than 83 points on the Queens Birthday Grand Final.

Neeld must answer for this.

If regime change is not enacted before the saints game, I give up.

I would declare this club officially brain dead.

Let's face it, come 2014, all the coaches will be replaced, the captains replaced, most of the board will be replaced, and the players will have 1 last year under a REAL coach, to prove themselves. You can't blame the workforce if the management is a joke.

I received this email today from a work colleague. I think he is onto something.

G'day Hood

What a match yesterday! Great effort by the Dees to match it with the mighty Pies, I thought. I was on the edge of my seat in a real nail biter, however the Pies got there in the end. This surprised me at the end because I don’t worry about the score line anymore that’s not important it’s the KPI’s, the 1 percenters I’m looking at.

I’m starting to understand where the coaching staff are coming from, that we need to dig a bit deeper into the statistics to get a picture of what is happening and put events in their context over a relevant time based data set.

I’m analysing things better now that I have started benchmarking our performances against the Geelong 186 disaster of 2011 and I’m seeing real improvements consistently against the Hawks (95) and now the Pies (83). See the trend is down!

I believe my stats tell the real story:

-our hard ball fumbles were up,

- reverse inside 50’s up,

- loose ball misses, we met our season average;

- broken tackles up markedly

- delivery efficiency to the opposition running at 80%,

- the handballs to no one count was at elite levels.

The telling numbers for me though were in the contested/uncontested ball counts. Our number of contested balls observed from a discrete distance count was through the roof as was the number uncontested ball observations from afar.

The knockers can bang on all they want but my benchmarking data telling me we are getting somewhere!

(just not sure where that is)

Regards

Dr Pangloss

This email and any attachments may contain information that is personal, confidential, subject to legal or professional privilege and/or copyright. No part of it should be reproduced, adapted or communicated without the prior written consent of the copyright owner. It is the responsibility of the recipient to check for and remove viruses. Any personal information in this email must be handled in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender by return email, delete it from your system and destroy any copies. You are not authorised to use, communicate or rely

Please consider the environment before printing this email