That article is awful, robbo is a shocking writer and has had nothing but horrible articles for a little while now

Its bull dust- the players have never been told to lose a game.

Any player that is scarred by what happened in 2009 needs to be sacked for being a mental pygmy and a p-ussy.

Roos brought it up, it's still an issue at the club. Those responsible at the top have a lot to answer for.

That article is awful, robbo is a shocking writer and has had nothing but horrible articles for a little while now

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/dean-robinson-lists-17-subpoenas-in-fight-against-bombers-afl-20140804-100csk.html

Going to be very interesting when he hits the witness stand young Robbo...

Ok I must be the only one who didn't find anything wrong with her article..

Totally agree. The scars of losing still exist. Roos is being paid big $$$ to fix it.

The article was spot on.

Come on we all know it's WYL in his/her day job

From the man who doesn't like to get personal...

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/dean-robinson-lists-17-subpoenas-in-fight-against-bombers-afl-20140804-100csk.html

Going to be very interesting when he hits the witness stand young Robbo...

Lets just hope he turns up sober

I can't believe anyone (let alone Paul Roos) is using "tanking" as an excuse and I find it to be a cop out to be honest.

Recruiting is the crux of Melbourne's problems.

EDIT: Ironically, it was Paul Roos who told McVeigh not to kick a goal in a NAB Cup game.

Its bull dust- the players have never been told to lose a game.

Any player that is scarred by what happened in 2009 needs to be sacked for being a mental pygmy and a p-ussy.

I believe many of the players are scarred but not from "not tanking" 2009, remember we were on track in 2010 with 8 and a half wins and some close losses to the top sides. The rot started in 2011 with 186 and the real scarring has occurred in 2012 and 2013 floggings when we were the laughing stock of the AFL and we probably still are. There are a multitude of reasons for why we are here but "not tanking" in 2009 is not one of them in my opinion.

Holy crap on a stick!
I just read Robbo's article on Fox Sports! I sometimes make typos when I post on here but this bloke gets paid to write!!!

There were definite articles missing, unnecessary repetitions, omission of subjects and incorrect use of commas among the mistakes I found. This bloke just needs to scan the original that was written in crayon, convert it to PDF or HTML and then slap it up on whatever News Ltd. website he deems fit.

It's like they coaxed him out of the pub with a bottle of Bowler's Run cab sav, threw a suit on him and told him to write an article.

Now, let's address the logical disconnect. I would suggest he look at Matthew Lloyd's article on the massive improvements in point differential and possession differential to see if there has been improvement this year. He dwells on one statistic to say that the entire year has been a bust.
I tend to agree that Roosy does not want to divorce himself too much from the playing group in the effort put forth but as PR pointed out, you aren't going to move the ball if you can't hit a target from 5 meters out with a handball. You can have a game plan forged by God himself and it won't work. That criticism is warranted. Let's not forget that Roosy also lashed the Swans on occasion. I remember that in 2006 he said they were clearly incapable of winning the premiership.

The well known football gossip columnist Caroline Wilson has yet again pursued her obsession with the MFC tanking issue in a piece in the Fairfax press Real Footy today.

The article; Roos and Demons still coming to grips with sins of the past, attributes Melbourne's current woes to the alleged tanking incident. Will she ever let go? While a certain amount of doggedness is an admirable trait in a journalist, continually dragging up the same old mantra becomes tedious. If the issue was unresolved and of some real importance such as Watergate or the Dreyfus Affair - fair enough but the AFL is no Dreyfus who suffered terribly at the hands of the French military and government because of his religion and Caro is certainly no Emile Zola a talented writer crusading to right an injustice. By comparison Caro is a hack journalist attempting to rack up a very small issue that has now been resolved.

The matter itself was arguable, and even if it could be shown that any team tanked it could only have benefited because of some idiotic rules that the AFL introduced the spotlight was exclusively on Melbourne while the actions of other clubs were ignored.

And the article does not stand any rigorous scrutiny, for any number of reasons

• Few players are still playing from the time when the transgressions are supposed to have occurred and some of those Dunn, Frawley and of course Nathan Jones are among our best players
• While Caro makes a passing reference to Carlton as a further of the futility of tanking she ignores the other more successful clubs who may have been involved but of course are conveniently ignored
• Most importantly there are any number of factors that have led to Melbourne's present situation, shocking success rate in terms of winning games over along period, bad administration, pathetic coaching, awful list management, incompetent draft selection, inept player development, paltry financial management and a small supporter base come to mind. At best the tanking issue is a small subset of these rather larger factors

In fact you might argue that if it were not for the tanking issue we would not have obtained the services of Jackson or Roos. They are the key to our future.

While I have some sympathy for someone who having largely broke the tanking saga wanting keep it going as a nice little earner Caro draws a long bow by linking it to the quite reasonable comments made by Roos after the game.

Caro, the goose has laid its last golden egg, the matter has now been done and dusted and the caravan moves on. Try to do the same!

Spot on Mydee - the silly woman (meet me at the pub or for a coffee and I will call her what I really think) - she cannot help herself - she is incapable of any understanding of the GAME ON THE FIELD - so it has to be all the Club political stuff that she writes about - and even that is mostly garbage - Caro's Arrow last night - "forget the players and the sun in their eyes - let the fans enjoy the sun" - was greeted with disbelief by her co panellists - Matty Lloyd said he couldn't see the ball in the sun at the southern end (looking into the northern arvo sun) - that is how dumb she is - SO PREDICTABLE.

lol..I can't get through an entire article of his. He is SUCH a bad writer.

I seriously can't believe he gets paid to write that shite.

"Joked that they tanked on Saturday..."

"Yep, bad word tanking."

I would've failed year 7 English if I tried to hand in grammatically incorrect rubbish like that.

Anyone ever thought that perhaps the horrible things journos say about our football club, which we complain about so much, may actually be true and quite justifiable?
We are an absolute disgrace, and still are. We are changing yes, but still a long way off. Suck it up, we deserve most of what we get and deserve no protection from anyone including the media.

anyone that can say we are playing rubbish primarily because we tanked in 2009 is full of it. there are 3 players (and zero coaches) from that year playing and they are 3 of our best players - even on the weekend. Roos has been saying that we lack belief as we havent been successful for years which makes sense - we dont know how to win. But to align that with tanking is rubbish from Caro who continually harps on about her 3-4 favourite topics. Tanking hasn't seemed to have affected WC or the Pies too badly has it?

We weren't the only ones who tanked (Hawks, Tigers, Eagles and Blues etc), but we were damn well the only club that went back for more, again and again, in the arrogant, f-ed up belief that we could build a dominant side from it. Instead, because our culture at board level was so poor, the recruitment went horribly wrong and we're left with the current mess.

However, a new era is starting and it's going to take time, but until we have a club that plays good hard, contested footy with a solid administration behind it, these stories will continue to be written.

We weren't the only ones who tanked (Hawks, Tigers, Eagles and Blues etc), but we were damn well the only club that went back for more, again and again, in the arrogant, f-ed up belief that we could build a dominant side from it. Instead, because

true, they all did it much more cleverly than us though.

Hang on, we can't criticize Caro - jumbo returns says it's misogynistic!

Couple of comments:

1. Caro's article is right. It's not nice but it's right as she is most times. She's been knocking us for years. We've been shocking for years.

2. Schwab, Connolly and Stynes are to blame for where we are now. They employed and maintained an understaffed and skilled FD whilst Schwabby was buying desks and building management mega-structures. Jackson cut $1.8 million from the salary budget this year and didn't impact the FD salary budget, it all came from admin. The mind boggles. And while he was doing this we employed a bloke with no experience to head recruiting when we had low picks in the most critical time of our rebuild.

3. For all I think Robbo is awful and he can't write he's right to question the Roos outburst on Sunday as is Thomas. Our skills were awful but so were Roos public comments. They were just extraordinarily awful.

4. Robbo is right. We've kicked a lower score this year on average than we did last year. FM, concentrate on defence by all means but for all the improvements this is a monumental issue.

5. The myth that it's the expansion clubs that stopped us rebuilding is dumb. There were two years of expansion drafts and we had pick 12 in each. In our two PP drafts the expansion clubs didn't get a pick.

6. The greatest failure of this club was to pick the right players. Put in all the equalization measures you like, the club that has the best recruiting department will beat the others.

7. The over reaction to Sunday is mind boggling. We led Brisbane into the last quarter. We should have beaten PA in our match before that. We, as a supporter group, are disappointed about not winning this year - that alone is a massive improvement.

The media hysteria this week is because Roos FU his post match media conference. The match was awful, the skills were awful but it was not typical of the year to date. After PA he praised the players. After Brisbane he likened them to the worst he'd ever seen. The players don't change, their performance on the day did as did Roos'.

I like Roos but he's not above criticism. He should be taking plenty for the heat he's bought on what he knows is a playing group still struggling with the past. He achieved nothing with his performance on Sunday.

When he puts his head on the pillow at night he knows he FU very badly.

true, they all did it much more cleverly than us though.

That's what I'm saying, Song, most of those clubs took one dip and were smart about their selection, we tried about 3 times and f-ed it up!

Re this point, didn't GWS and GC get dibbs on the best 17yo - they were effectively removed from the draft? So I don't think it is accurate to say it didn't affect us..

5. The myth that it's the expansion clubs that stopped us rebuilding is dumb. There were two years of expansion drafts and we had pick 12 in each. In our two PP drafts the expansion clubs didn't get a pick.

Funny that our culture was so destroyed by tanking that we won 17.5 games between R1 2010 and 186 with almost the exact same list that was up to their neck in the tanking. If we'd sacked Schwab at the same time as Bailey for a total clean sweep and not botched our coaching choice for 2012 nobody would be talking about 2009 now. This article is simplistic bollocks.

From the man who doesn't like to get personal...

And there I was thinking you would take it as a compliment, both paid up members of the "Cam Schwab ran over my cat, and I will never forget" club, personal means childish puerile name calling, something you can find in abundance on this forum

Anyone ever noticed the shocking resemblance between Caro and Smaug the terrible?

sat there watching the hobbit thinking what the hell is caro doing in this.

Couple of comments:

1. Caro's article is right. It's not nice but it's right as she is most times. She's been knocking us for years. We've been shocking for years.

2. Schwab, Connolly and Stynes are to blame for where we are now. They employed and maintained an understaffed and skilled FD whilst Schwabby was buying desks and building management mega-structures. Jackson cut $1.8 million from the salary budget this year and didn't impact the FD salary budget, it all came from admin. The mind boggles. And while he was doing this we employed a bloke with no experience to head recruiting when we had low picks in the most critical time of our rebuild.

3. For all I think Robbo is awful and he can't write he's right to question the Roos outburst on Sunday as is Thomas. Our skills were awful but so were Roos public comments. They were just extraordinarily awful.

4. Robbo is right. We've kicked a lower score this year on average than we did last year. FM, concentrate on defence by all means but for all the improvements this is a monumental issue.

5. The myth that it's the expansion clubs that stopped us rebuilding is dumb. There were two years of expansion drafts and we had pick 12 in each. In our two PP drafts the expansion clubs didn't get a pick.

6. The greatest failure of this club was to pick the right players. Put in all the equalization measures you like, the club that has the best recruiting department will beat the others.

7. The over reaction to Sunday is mind boggling. We led Brisbane into the last quarter. We should have beaten PA in our match before that. We, as a supporter group, are disappointed about not winning this year - that alone is a massive improvement.

The media hysteria this week is because Roos FU his post match media conference. The match was awful, the skills were awful but it was not typical of the year to date. After PA he praised the players. After Brisbane he likened them to the worst he'd ever seen. The players don't change, their performance on the day did as did Roos'.

I like Roos but he's not above criticism. He should be taking plenty for the heat he's bought on what he knows is a playing group still struggling with the past. He achieved nothing with his performance on Sunday.

When he puts his head on the pillow at night he knows he FU very badly.

Bob, I think it is interesting that Roos speaks about agreeing with tanking but now seeing it as an error. I also think that he makes mistakes with his press conferences. My guess is that he is able to be folksy and effectively guarded when calm, but, it is harder when his emotions are 'up' - and after a game is one of those times. I think Neil Craig did that bit well last year.

We stank on the w/e. We just stank. And I think everyone is sick of being inept. Of looking inept. God knows I am. And yet add two classy mids, one effective rebounding halfback and just one effective forward to this team and we could well be playing finals. And we don't kick low scores either.

My one hope is that recruiting is actually better funded and has superior people in it with superior methods. Without that change, we are genuinely stuffed.

Smaug is a boss man....Caro isn't...no resemblance to me. Soz mate!