Composure is the key word, as I said in the other thread "I feel like Melbourne are just one brain fade away from calamity".

I think I was right.

Calamity? Nonsense. What short memories some of us have. Last yeat this would have been a 150 point thrashing. Most even last week feared an Eagles type thrashing. Give credit where credit is due. It is not to say we accept defeat -Roos clearly doesn't, but at least enjoy the ride, it is going to be a beauty. We will win many more than we lose for the next ten years.

I was amazed we were so good. Can't wait for the Pies plus Dawes.

Calamity? Nonsense. What short memories some of us have. Last yeat this would have been a 150 point thrashing. Most even last week feared an Eagles type thrashing. Give credit where credit is due. It is not to say we accept defeat -Roos clearly doesn't, but at least enjoy the ride, it is going to be a beauty. We will win many more than we lose for the next ten years.

I was amazed we were so good. Can't wait for the Pies plus Dawes.

those words are 5 pearlers! Whatever lies ahead this is going to be one hell of a journey. Savour the little wins along the way.

Just a latent after thought, but why did we choose to kick against the wind in the first quarter after winning the toss (ie against a wind that appeared to be more than favourable in the first but had apparently dropped to no more than a light zephyr by the third)? Was that a significant decision? Port seemed to be kicking at goal from some distance with ease in the first quarter.

Just a latent after thought, but why did we choose to kick against the wind in the first quarter after winning the toss (ie against a wind that appeared to be more than favourable in the first but had apparently dropped to no more than a light zephyr by the third)? Was that a significant decision? Port seemed to be kicking at goal from some distance with ease in the first quarter.

yeah I wondered that also... Jetta took the toss but you would imagine he had orders from Jonesy?

Jetta would have been instructed which way to kick, presumably to give us a 4th quarter advantage. Didn't work out that way obviously.

Maybe it's a prevailing breeze (went the same win the Geelong nab challenge game) that usually picks up later in the day but didn't.

Or maybe because we often start slowly they wanted benefit in the second and last.

Only down one goal at half time and ahead in the 3rd quarter so no excuse.

Just watched the post match interviews with Roos, Vince and Frawley. All were seriously [censored] off. Obviously they thought they SHOULD have won. A great sign of self belief. We will get better at finishing off games, and when we do we will be 7-3 (and well in the eight) rather than 3-7. The future is looking good.

It's not just Roos though it's the team he's brought with him - George Stone in particular is one who has been talked up a lot by people who would know even though most people would have never heard of him before.

Agree up to a point Doctor but we had plenty of experienced assistants under Neeld but whatever went wrong it all came back to Neeld, who paid the price. It was obvious our guys didn't know what to do, where to go, how to respond under Neeld. Although I will never understand why that happened!

With Roos within several months, a rabble is suddenly working as a cohesive unit, still learning, still making errors but improving as a group, step by step. A group working together is like the tide, it raises all boats or in our case all our borderline players. Everyone is now playing their role and they understand that role. It seems simple but few can make it happen. Roos is the genius behind the change but yes he needs his own trusted people like George Stone to implement his strategy.

Just watched the post match interviews with Roos, Vince and Frawley. All were seriously [censored] off. Obviously they thought they SHOULD have won. A great sign of self belief. We will get better at finishing off games, and when we do we will be 7-3 (and well in the eight) rather than 3-7. The future is looking good.

Remember last year when Watts induced a cringe in everyone when he said 'we just need to turn around a bit of mindset' (or something like that)?

I genuinely believe that, if nothing else, our mindset has changed so much for the better. Much more confidence, much more positivity, football is now enjoyable again for some of these guys, and that is helping us turn our form around as much as anything.

Just a latent after thought, but why did we choose to kick against the wind in the first quarter after winning the toss (ie against a wind that appeared to be more than favourable in the first but had apparently dropped to no more than a light zephyr by the third)? Was that a significant decision? Port seemed to be kicking at goal from some distance with ease in the first quarter.

It was a strange decision. I would have thought use it while it's there.

I was at the ground and in the first half it was probably a 3-4 goal wind, but it died right down at the main break and what was left shifted more towards half forward in the second half.

Agree up to a point Doctor but we had plenty of experienced assistants under Neeld but whatever went wrong it all came back to Neeld, who paid the price. It was obvious our guys didn't know what to do, where to go, how to respond under Neeld. Although I will never understand why that happened!

Except for Rawlings, all the assistant coaches got the boot or left. Roos brought a coaching team with him, thats for sure

It's absolutely baffling how quickly Roosy has changed the culture of the club, suddenly we have a never say die, team first attitude and a genuine deep belief that we should and can win every single week regardless of location, opposition, who's in who's out whatever,

we are fast becoming a fair dinkum AFL club again.

just watched the last qtr again.. gee we were stiff to lose that.. 4 behinds at the start of the term, couple of bad errors, couple of lucky things went port's way, couple of bad calls, few of ours went missing.. absolutely everything went against us in the last 8:40 of game time

Convert one or two of those behinds and we win, IMO, C&B. We simply shot ourselves in the foot at the start of the last.

Yeah after Schulz got one early I thought "what are they doing, get McDonald or preferably Garland on to him" but Dunn mopped the floor with him for the rest of the day. It's going to be hard to split "most improved" this year but at the moment Pedersen and Dunn are battling it out, Pedersen on top.

I watched the game last night my time, as it was on delay here in NY, could not goto bed even though it was 3am by the time i finished (have been so much more interested in watching this year but wife is a bit over me dancing around the telly so it's the early hours for me) and:

1, How do you split Dunn and Pedersen? It was like Pedersen has seen what Dawes brings and chose to do it himself, (with some great cameo runs from Frawley as well), but then Dunn... Well i think I liked this game of his more than any other, Scarlett would happily have claimed that game from Dunn, Schulz has been on fire, premier fwd in the comp > Cloke, Reiwoldt, perhaps par with Tippet, way more consistent than Buddy, and Dunn had his number yesterday. If they keep this up they will have literally doubled their value in a season, whether we are talking supercoach or real dollars, cannot split them.

2, We lost because we were tired, not lazy, it was like we played rope-a-dope, but had spent everything in the effort, and when Port was cherry ripe to be blown away in the fourth quarter, couldn't find the punch. So sad and frustrating because it had became our game to lose but you could see they just couldn't put it away. No wonder they were dark on themselves. But make no mistake, we stopped playing reactive footy, we played our game, a huge thing to be able to say when 15 plays 1.

3, Was the first game where I'd really seen how well Port can run, it's like they went and got 3 Riolis or Jettas into their team (Impey/White etc) and on a paddock that is a running teams dream, we dealt with that!!! I really can't keep a lid on how excited I am about the future.

4, Jamar has found the love of the game, he is not far off AA form for a ruck. Who was meant to be on Boak in 2nd half?

5, We are in a better place than Essendon, Carlton, St Kilda, and Richmond supporters, lets knock off the Pies and we can do Hawthorn in 2015 and life will be very sweet.

,To quote one of your pionts " Injeneniothingy

" We lost because we were tired, not lazy, it was like we played rope-a-dope, but had spent everything in the effort, and when Port was cherry ripe to be blown away in the fourth quarter, couldn't find the punch. So sad and frustrating because it had became our game to lose but you could see they just couldn't put it away. No wonder they were dark on themselves. But make no mistake, we stopped playing reactive footy, we played our game, a huge thing to be able to say when 15 plays 1."

Fence comment, Critically,the inability of Tom Mc Donald to get body on body with Westoff was telling in the last quarter ( two goals) and whilst not looking to apportion blame for this in the washup this was telling. I have pointed out this deficiency of Tom Mc Donald previously! I trust the coaching staff will work on this!

Just a few observations upon seeing the replay:

Melbourne were asleep for the first ten minutes? Didn't sound like that on radio, and seeing it, we were in there working hard, but Port are a good team and the chances went their way at critical moments.

Garlo is a solid, professional defender with a strong attacking side to his game. Great to have him back, and our defence are a very solid unit.

Wingard is an extraordinarily dangerous player who was completely blanketed until Schulz took him out of the game.

Chains of two or three handballs in a pack ending with a pass to a player by himself on the outside - I'm used to seeing that done to us, but yesterday we were doing it. This coming together as a team has happened unbelievably quickly.

Salem has a pure football brain. Perhaps I'm overexcited, but I think he'll be one of the champions of the game.

We weren't asleep, it just seemed as though they underestimated how hard a running team Port is, and how effective they are in transition. We controlled the play but the Power capitalised.

,To quote one of your pionts " Injeneniothingy

" We lost because we were tired, not lazy, it was like we played rope-a-dope, but had spent everything in the effort, and when Port was cherry ripe to be blown away in the fourth quarter, couldn't find the punch. So sad and frustrating because it had became our game to lose but you could see they just couldn't put it away. No wonder they were dark on themselves. But make no mistake, we stopped playing reactive footy, we played our game, a huge thing to be able to say when 15 plays 1."

Fence comment, Critically,the inability of Tom Mc Donald to get body on body with Westoff was telling in the last quarter ( two goals) and whilst not looking to apportion blame for this in the washup this was telling. I have pointed out this deficiency of Tom Mc Donald previously! I trust the coaching staff will work on this!

Gee! I have pointed out before that some of the Fence's posts border on the ridiculous, hopefully he will go away and have a long hard look at himmself and rectify this

We weren't asleep, it just seemed as though they underestimated how hard a running team Port is, and how effective they are in transition. We controlled the play but the Power capitalised.

underestimating Ports run and spread I would say is the same as being asleep. Everybody knows that is their strength. No excuse for not being aware of it.

underestimating Ports run and spread I would say is the same as being asleep. Everybody knows that is their strength. No excuse for not being aware of it.

We were well aware of it, but we had spent all the petrol tickets getting our noses in front, coach disappointed, players disappointed, supporters disappointed...all yes, but difference from last year, immeasurable

We were well aware of it, but we had spent all the petrol tickets getting our noses in front, coach disappointed, players disappointed, supporters disappointed...all yes, but difference from last year, immeasurable

What I said was not a criticism of their effort. Really proud of the boys. Our poor starts though have been an issue for a long time and really hurt us.

I've noticed a few comments about people being sick of selling games and questioning why we play in the NT. If every person who says they support Melbourne actually did support them by putting their hand in their pocket to buy a membership we'd have a healthy bank balance which would eliminate the need to sell games interstate and we'd have a very strong voice within the AFL.

We were well aware of it, but we had spent all the petrol tickets getting our noses in front, coach disappointed, players disappointed, supporters disappointed...all yes, but difference from last year, immeasurable

What do you mean there is an immeasurable distance from last year? THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG LAST YEAR!!!!

I've noticed a few comments about people being sick of selling games and questioning why we play in the NT. If every person who says they support Melbourne actually did support them by putting their hand in their pocket to buy a membership we'd have a healthy bank balance which would eliminate the need to sell games interstate and we'd have a very strong voice within the AFL.

I put my hand in my pocket for membership, but I know exactly how deep I have to reach. I think your implication that supporters who don't take out memberships don't actually support the club is patronising and ignores the economic reality of a hell of a lot of Australians. Hope you don't mind the shirt-front, H&S

And our connection with NT is a very positive aspect of MFC.

@fence

my point was that we lost the game when we didn't score a goal at the start of the fourth quarter, Westhoff kicking goals was how we lost, not why, when as you comment, McDonald didn't put the body on. We'd already done all the defending we had needed to do, it was the counter punch we didn't take. If it hadn't been Westhoff then someone else might/would have bobbed up.

I just saw the press conference where Hinkley conceded that Port had been playing Melbourne's game, i.e. it had become ours to lose when we didn't take our chances. That is not us bringing someone down to our level, that is us imposing a plan, which is why I'm not inconsolable about the loss.