What i learnt from today's game:

-Tim Watson is having a family lunch tomorrow for his birthday.

-Jobe didn't get a present and left it to his sisters.

-Apparently Tim's wife is a great cook.

-Tom Harley's kid is named after Jimmy Bartel.

-Maybe the umpire was sorry for Melbourne after a free kick.

-Tom Harley's guns are still pretty big.

The worst commentary EVER!!!

And his son is 14 months old, not 18 as he said - his wife tweeted that.....

a few years back that would have been a 150 point loss. Halfway through the 2nd quarter if someone said you would only lose by 66 Id gladly have taken that.

My concern is that once Roos goes we will slip back to letting the shite of the first quarter anod a half continue for 4 quarters again. When will the players of this club resolve that they will bring the required effort from start to finish every week? Surely by now they have seen that with and only with the required levels of effort they can compete. People can say its not the effort that is the problem but it is the problem. We have too many players who are not desperate to compete for the jumper. They won't even compete for themselves. Many of those guys are capablr of being decent league footballers. The Geelong players were genuinely making fun of them early today with their dinky kicks into the corridor yet our blokes just failed to compete hard enough to bring them unstuck. That's all it was early on today. A failure to compete hard enough.

My concern is that once Roos goes we will slip back to letting the shite of the first quarter anod a half continue for 4 quarters again. When will the players of this club resolve that they will bring the required effort from start to finish every week? Surely by now they have seen that with and only with the required levels of effort they can compete. People can say its not the effort that is the problem but it is the problem. We have too many players who are not desperate to compete for the jumper. They won't even compete for themselves. Many of those guys are capablr of being decent league footballers. The Geelong players were genuinely making fun of them early today with their dinky kicks into the corridor yet our blokes just failed to compete hard enough to bring them unstuck. That's all it was early on today. A failure to compete hard enough.

That's why the most important decision to be done once the season is over is the selection of Roos' successor. If we get that wrong...

James Frawley should probably go now. I'm not sure if he's the dumbest footballer in the league but, off the top, I'm struggling to come up with another unfortunately.

Watts was also pretty rank today, the wet took away his clean first touch and without that he's not as good as he can or should be.

How was that incident, Dawes gave a little knock-on it was nice, and Wattsy pooped himself and fumbled it instead of just running into goal, and then tackled somebody blatently around the neck and gave away a free. FMD. I am one of the worst footballers ever to take the field but I tell you I would have done better in that situation. He got a 0/10 for that play. He's a tough man to love is Watts.

Finishing 17th is well on the cards, could we get a priority pick?

1,3 and 4 would be alright

McCartin

Petracca

Durdin

I would just about cry with embarassment

Look at Melbourne scooping up picks again, all in futility

God help us

Watching the third quarter replay. The camera crosses to Chris Scott in the coaches box. He is gazing away in the distance. Not even looking at the ground or saying anything. Looks so frigging bored.

I would just about cry with embarassment

Look at Melbourne scooping up picks again, all in futility

God help us

For some supporters the thought of MORE picks and potentially MORE young kids with 'talent' is all that gets them through the season.

Blease probably deserves a run now

a few years back that would have been a 150 point loss. Halfway through the 2nd quarter if someone said you would only lose by 66 Id gladly have taken that.

it seems like straw-clutching, but you are right, it IS something that we can play out a second half instead of capitulating

Garland did a great defensive job on Bartel keeping him really quiet

He had one kick and seven handballs. It's just nowhere near good enough no matter what position you play or who you're on.

Watts is always an easy target from fans when we lose. Yes it wasnt his best but he had friends that were also in the same category

What does 'having friends' have to do with anything? I don't excuse anybody for being rubbish because their teammate was also rubbish, I have never understood this attitude.

Frawley proved today no club will pay him 700-800 grand

Well let's hope that he is still worth a first round compo pick and that the AFL doesn't screw us again somehow

Also we just couldnt stick our tackles where as geelong did

We managed to tackle like an AFL side for 4-5 weeks earlier in the year. Apart from that we haven't done it since Daniher left (and even then it wasn't our strong suit)

That's why the most important decision to be done once the season is over is the selection of Roos' successor. If we get that wrong...

Yeah if we get it wrong we're cooked. Mainly because we have created this environment where we will excuse the players and blame something else in pretty much every instance. Whilst I believe a coach is the most important person at an AFL club, the strongest clubs also have a non negotiable buy in from their players. You often see them have bad periods during quarters but they then step up their intensity and fight to get some ascendancy back. I can hardly recall a time where one of our many shocking quarters have ever been arrested by the players themselves through sheer will power. It seems like Roos has managed to turn the wheel a little during quarter breaks which has been a god send. I am just ranting now but I cannot believe that some of these blokes don't feel embarrassed when their opponents toy with them the way they do. It makes my blood boil in the stands yet there seems to be no response to it on the ground.

So do the players.

Oh, so do the players?? How would YOU know this ?

Terrible game today. We're a shadow of the side we were a month ago.

I'm sure part of that is due to players tiring and our draw getting harder. But there are a fair amount of other things that are going wrong, getting worse, or not improving that are really hampering us right now.

Dunn was the Dunn of old today. Instead of that cool head we've had all year, we had the staging, whinging, finger pointing 2012-2013 edition. He shouldn't have been played forward, granted, but he was really poor when he was back too.

Watts was also pretty rank today, the wet took away his clean first touch and without that he's not as good as he can or should be.

Jamar's ruckwork was OK but he was totally dominated around the ground. All told gave us nothing other than some hit outs.

Tyson may be tired, but he's not delivering to the standard he was at a month or two back. N Jones gets the ball but similarly to Tyson isn't impacting games like he was. Same deal Pedersen.

Disposal across the board is still woeful, just nowhere near good enough. Our run and spread is also pathetic; the differential in uncontested possessions and uncontested marks were appalling.

Viney was fantastic, and I thought Riley had his best game for us so far. Also though Matt Jones at least gave us some run, if anything. Dawes played a lot better today as well I thought.

Not sure how it ended up, but I noticed at one stage in the last quarter we were leading the contested possessions. Geelong hit the front later on in the last quarter, but it shows you how much of the damage was done from uncontested play, which is the Geelong way.

Oh and Jamar gave us pretty much nothing in the ruck, IMO. I remember one great tap from him, but the rest of the day he tapped it down the throats of the opposition, as is his trademark.

Finishing 17th is well on the cards, could we get a priority pick?

1,3 and 4 would be alright

McCartin

Petracca

Durdin

If we got those picks, you'd have to look at trading one of the picks.

Just got back. Bail and Grimes do my head in. During the 1st Grimes has a easy kick to dawes on the lead and butchers it, Bail snaps on goal and misses everything, Grimes handballs to a team mate under pressure in most of is contests. Grimes should have been subbed for Terlich. The comedy of errors plus the very little effort made for a boring ugly game.

I thought Grimes made less stupid decisions today, but he's still shouldn't be best 22.

Hard watching the dogs suns game, a couple of seriously good young teams getting real value from their high picks

Don't watch it then, Mike.

Adam

Jack watts and Jack grimes come to mind

I agree with Grimes. Watts frustrates me no end, but his good is brilliant and he's shown he can put together entire matches of 'good'. He's also done it this season. Grimes hasn't and he offers the team very little (and that's being kind).

For some supporters the thought of MORE picks and potentially MORE young kids with 'talent' is all that gets them through the season.

It's all that got me through 2007. The novelty has well and truly worn off in the 7 years ensuing, underscored heavily by the fact that by and large all those picks have done jack squat for the position of this football club.

it all depends on whether having coffee with a player makes you as good as him

haven't seen a star at Melbourne this century and then some

Can we get him to have a drink with Todd Viney?

Does actually seem like picks 2 and 3 may be on the way.

Wary of hope, but I will back the coaches to develop them.

Petracca and Durdin would be the two I'd want.

Can we get him to have a drink with Todd Viney?

He might drown the odd ale with his old man

Probably not allowed to do that though if youre an AFL player these days

For the wrist slashers, Macrae, the guy taken two picks after Toumpas, is up to 38 possessions and a goal against the Suns.

Oh what a vanilla team to watch play a sort of brand of Aussie rules!!

Very vanilla this team

For the wrist slashers, Macrae, the guy taken two picks after Toumpas, is up to 38 possessions and a goal against the Suns.

Can someone with a tad of football nous explain to me why the MFC gets it so wrong time and time again

* The players looked tired, but jeez, they looked ordinary in every facet.

* Kent's pace stood out, because he's the only one who's got any sort of toe at all - despite Watts' draft result over 20m.

* Week in, week out, we lack line breakers. Geelong's two or three line breakers cut us apart numerous times today. We have far too many guys that are simply one-paced.

* Our disposal efficiency in the first quarter was not surprisingly below 50%.

* I thought Pederson and Riley were clearly our best, although Viney worked his arse off and did a couple of good things too. Slim pickings though. I couldn't name many more half decent players, which says it all.

* Our ball movement remained snail-like and continues to kill us every week.

* I cannot recall Frawley ever being outmuscled and/or beaten one-on-one so many times, in one game of football.

* How many mongrel kicks were there from MFC players today? Far too many.

* Was anyone else bored? It was never a contest. It was ugly without being close. The worst sort of AFL game.

Agree with all of this AF. I was bored senseless and freezing at the same time.

Things I learnt -

Our drop in intensity has to be linked to our fitness. We look tired!

Riley can play

Frawley has clocked out and lost interest

Dunn must be played down back

Tysons lack of preseason is now evident after a ripper first half of the season

Tapscott blew his chance today. For someone playing for his life he showed very little.

We are light years away from finals footy.

For the wrist slashers, Macrae, the guy taken two picks after Toumpas, is up to 38 possessions and a goal against the Suns.

So depressing

That's my point WYL, Roos will decide that, not the experts on here banging on for 5 or 6 pages, I have the feeling that some on here expected finals as soon as Roos put pen to paper, was never going to happen in a year...can't wait for the delisting thread this week to start up and another 30 odd pages of expert opinion...

If you look at today's performance you would say we maybe had 5 or 6 players capable of playing AFL footy to a high standard...yet a month or so ago when we beat Adelaide you would have said 22, that's the problem Roos has.....

The last couple of weeks have dropped, it is nearly the same players, Roos has to figure out why

It is a discussion forum. Discussion. That's discussion. A discussion forum.

I was bored within 10 minutes.

This brand that Roos is instilling, whilst in its early stages of development, is absolutely dire in terms of entertainment.

See, I couldn't give a toss how it looks if we're winning or pushing the top sides, but if we're being beaten by over 10 goals, well, I could have been playing futsal today, instead of sitting in the cold at the 'G.

Bye James, it was nice thinking you may have stayed half way through the season but after the past couple of proforments I don't blame you for leaving.

Blease probably deserves a run now

If they're giving Tapscott a go, then yes.