So let us NEVER EVER AGAIN go into another match against a fast team with too many talls.

With our slow midfield, we can't afford to go into a match against a fast side with more than two tall forwards (we had Hogan, Watts, Dawes & Frost) and more than three tall-plus-mid-sized defenders (we had McDonald, Dunn, Howe & Garland). Or we'll get smashed for speed.

I got ridiculed for stating this before the game.

We can't have Howe and Garland both playing back. We got caught out last week by GC when they went small, but GC didn't convert their chances.

And we can't have Dawes and Frost in the side if Frost's role is as a 2nd ruckman/forward.

I'm sick of hearing the argument about not having talent. We've had the best access to talent of any team outside GWS for 5 years and for 3 of them we recruited duds.

Just look at the Bulldogs. It only took them to nail 3 picks and they're looking seriously good when everyone predicted the spoon. We could've had at least 2 of the 3 key players in their resurrection, but we chose a different path.

I'm sick of hearing the argument about not having talent. We've had the best access to talent of any team outside GWS for 5 years and for 3 of them we recruited duds.

Just look at the Bulldogs. It only took them to nail 3 picks and they're looking seriously good when everyone predicted the spoon. We could've had at least 2 of the 3 key players in their resurrection, but we chose a different path.[/quote

So you agree we haven't drafted or recruited in enough talent? That is what you are saying I think!

There use to be a disease in our backline where a player would go to ground and taked 4 or 5 seconds to get up with the ball 5 meters away. I saw one of those same players do it today.

I've watched all other teams and not one player does it in those teams. That is not talent. It's not even effort. It's something this team has been trying to slowly implant, desire. A coach can only do so much for some people.

So you agree we haven't drafted or recruited in enough talent? That is what you are saying I think!

Since Roos we've gotten both right. Before Roos we got both catastrophically wrong.

We could've assembled the best modern team of all time with the last 7 years of bottom 4 draft picks, but... we didn't.

The thing is that once a team works out how they can outrun us, there's very little we can do, unless we can bring Speedy Gonzales and the Road Runner off the bench. Once we get exposed for speed, Roos can change the positions on the field all he likes, it's not going to make a jot of difference, we'll be chasing tail the rest of the match.

And we have to pick our side with regard to who the opponent is. In hindsight, Mummy pantsing Jamar was a clear & present danger, so we may have been better to go in with Gawn (who has been rubbish so far this year) or Spencer instead of Frost (I was expecting they'd stuck with Frost because they had a plan for him to try to run Mummy off his feet, but ... no plan!) We're not yet a complete enough team to ignore the main risks of who we're playing against. We may have selected our "best team" for this match, but in hindsight (again!) we played right into their hands.

Jones is ridiculously important to this side. If he stops performing we grind to a halt. A lot of taggers from every club would have loved seeing what GWS did to him today.

Garland is a disgrace. He was great last week but quickly returned to his 2014 form, which consists of getting towelled up by his man and generally not giving a stuff. This is his 9th season FCS, there is no excuse for such inconsistency and generally weak effort.

Dawes has just about lost me for good. He played pretty much as bad a game as he could possibly have played today. Keep your feet you imbecile.

Roos is allegedly here to change the culture. Well, he was in charge today of about 17 blokes who flat out did not turn up for the game of football.

You're joking right? You pumped up Chris Dawes big time during the week in the Round 2 changes thread. You said Dawes absolutely has to come in and he would be an improvement on our round 1 forward line and that he was our best forward (your words). WTF? Now you are dumping on him? It is clear we were top heavy in the forward line, some gallantly pointed this out during the week, big kudos to them. Someone (can't remember who) even suggested we rotate tall forwards through the interchange to lessen this. Yet you suggested JKH and even Brayshaw should've made way for Dawes!

Got to hand it to you Curry, repeatedly putting your nuts out there only to have them smacked on a weekly basis. Lol!

How disappointing is that?

Well we are out of the 8 the dream is over

I am surprised because I'm usually right all the time but I may have got Coniglio wrong.

It's clear that when Hawthorn's domination ends GWS will take over they have amazing midfield depth and pace.

Unfortunately I can see Scully playing as the sub in their premiership team in 3 to 4 years time.

Where did they get this Wilson from? Never heard of him, he looks like a gun.

Teams must stop tagging Griffen and go to Sheil he is a star.

If you want to know why ruckman are so important watch this game. Jamar gave Mummy a hiding in the first quarter and then Mummy embarrassed Jamar for the rest of the game, he turned the game around.

What was evident is our lack of class through the midfield. Toumpas lovers might not like this but he is killing us. If we had a class player like Wines or Macrae who would both arguably be our best midfielder we would look like a different side. Toumpas has put us at least 2 years behind most of the competition.

THE GOOD

MCDONALD - The only player that had a go for 4 quarters. He had an amazing 1st half and easily BOG at that time, he just got swamped in the last half.

SALEM - A real solid game, he really looks the goods.

HOGAN - Believe the hype! Unfortunately we just couldn't get it to him.

THE BAD

The leadership group.

JONES - I hope he is injured so he can use that as an excuse because he embarrassed himself today. Something I thought I would never say about Jones but he didn't look like he tried today. Undoubtedly his worst game ever.

DUNN - When Tomlinson went off what was he doing all day? Was he used as a loose man? Who was he on? He had absolutely no impact. They should have let McDonald off the leash when things were getting bad, he was the only one who looked like he knew what he was doing.

LUMUMBA - He fumbled, dropped marks, got caught all the time. He was terrible.

DAWES - Undisciplined, dropped marks, slow, mobility of a rock, woeful user of the ball. He is just a very ordinary footballer. How we are paying 500K for this bloke is a joke.

HOWE - He should be drug tested after that game. I don't know where his head was at but it wasn't at the game. Maybe he was thinking that he could be at GWS.

CHANGES FOR RND 3

IN: JKH

OUT: DAWES

We had too many bad players to single out a few so give them a chance to redeem themselves, but make a stand on the pathetic leadership group like they did with Grimes and drop Dawes. Leadership heads must roll after that pathetic performance hopefully they don't take it out on the kids.

You're joking right? You pumped up Chris Dawes big time during the week in the Round 2 changes thread. You said Dawes absolutely has to come in and he would be an improvement on our round 1 forward line and that he was our best forward (your words). WTF? Now you are dumping on him? It is clear we were top heavy in the forward line, some gallantly pointed this out during the week, big kudos to them. Someone (can't remember who) even suggested we rotate tall forwards through the interchange to lessen this. Yet you suggested JKH and even Brayshaw should've made way for Dawes!

Got to hand it to you Curry, repeatedly putting your nuts out there only to have them smacked on a weekly basis. Lol!

oh that's funny to you is it. Is that what gets you off in you are sad life. no I'm not joking you smarmy, snide pathetic loser. I along with 99% of people agreed that Dawes was an obvious in. Paul Roos agreed too. I thought that was the definition of being proven right in your weird little game. He then came in and played a stinker. In what way have I somehow lost some sort of battle because of that? So every time someone reckons someone should come in and that player doesn't perform, the poster who said he should come in is a mug is he. Get a LIFE mate, you are a LOSER

I'm sick of hearing the argument about not having talent. We've had the best access to talent of any team outside GWS for 5 years and for 3 of them we recruited duds.

Just look at the Bulldogs. It only took them to nail 3 picks and they're looking seriously good when everyone predicted the spoon. We could've had at least 2 of the 3 key players in their resurrection, but we chose a different path.

I wouldn't jump on the Bulldogs yet. They played Richmond who weren't great against Carlton who are terrible and West Coast aren't great either. I expect both teams won't make the 8. If they can compete against Hawthorn then I will start to believe.

Oh but Dawes was supposed to brutalise the opposition, and they would be sh#t scared!!!!

What a moronic comment.

You are a dead [censored] [censored] wit mate. Look forward to seeing any other decent posts you put up here, if any; none.

oh that's funny to you is it. Is that what gets you off in you are* sad life. no I'm not joking you smarmy, snide pathetic loser. I along with 99% of people agreed that Dawes was an obvious in. Paul Roos agreed too. I thought that was the definition of being proven right in your weird little game. He then came in and played a stinker. In what way have I somehow lost some sort of battle because of that? So every time someone reckons someone should come in and that player doesn't perform, the poster who said he should come in is a mug is he. Get a LIFE mate, you are a LOSER

*your

WTF HAPPENED ??? just stop ? weird

I look at the free run the Giants had at the draft, the 17 year olds, the NSW players, the extended list, the salary cap allowance ... and shudder.

There was never a worse time to be looking to rebuild through the draft than what existed over the years we so desperately needed it. All of the cream was taken off the top, as was obvious in what we saw running around against us today.

Against that, the drafting we've done over the last couple of seasons has been potentially great, with hardly a foot wrong. But, as with the Giants, it will take 3 or 4 years.

Plus we were denied the Priority Picks that we were entitled, virtue of winning 4, 2 and 4 games respectively during those years!

oh that's funny to you is it. Is that what gets you off in you are sad life. no I'm not joking you smarmy, snide pathetic loser. I along with 99% of people agreed that Dawes was an obvious in. Paul Roos agreed too. I thought that was the definition of being proven right in your weird little game. He then came in and played a stinker. In what way have I somehow lost some sort of battle because of that? So every time someone reckons someone should come in and that player doesn't perform, the poster who said he should come in is a mug is he. Get a LIFE mate, you are a LOSER

Why can't you keep it on football?

Why do you continually use personal abuse to get your point?

We are all Melbourne supporters here agree\disagree, no need to get personal unless it's extremely funny which yours ain't. I don't know how you get away with it.

People only thought Dawes was an obvious in because Roos loves him, it's definitely not based on form. I said Toumpas has been poor 3 out of the last 4 weeks, well Dawes has been just as bad if not worse. We have dropped Grimes, Toumpas and JKH who have been arguably in better form than Dawes. How long will Roos's love affair with him last? We shouldn't hold on to out of form players, that should be left in the past.

Im really heartened to read Akum and others understanding why we were blown away:

We lacked midfield speed, spread and chase.

We needed the likes of JKH cycling through the midfield and maybe Toumpas as the supersub.

vince was underdone and dawes had a shocker.

should have been no changes for mine.

when kent is outrunning midfielders to their opponents you have a problem.

This is our big vulnerability. So far this season this is the third time we've been run off our feet by young fast teams. This game was very similar to the Dogs game in preseason, where as soon as they worked out they could outrun us easily, we were stuffed.

So against a fast side we should NEVER go into the game top-heavy, it's just asking for trouble.

I thought they must have realised this when they swapped Dawes for JKH and kept Frost in, so they were going to use the bench intelligently, and play Hogan at CHF and Dawes deep. WRONG! They weren't even aware of the risk in the first place! There was NO PLAN to counter the fact that we were top heavy.

Lacking foot speed also means that as soon as the other team works out how to play, there's very little we can do.

But in all our bad years, we've never made fools of ourselves because we haven't had enough talls. We've been smashed physically a few times, but never lost a match because we've been out marked.

In fact, on the contrary, a lot of our good performances in 2010 were because we had only Jamar in the ruck (supported by the likes of Dunn & Sylvia & Joel McDonald!!) and picked an extra runner and ran teams off their feet.

So let us NEVER EVER AGAIN go into another match against a fast team with too many talls.

With our slow midfield, we can't afford to go into a match against a fast side with more than two tall forwards (we had Hogan, Watts, Dawes & Frost) and more than three tall-plus-mid-sized defenders (we had McDonald, Dunn, Howe & Garland). Or we'll get smashed for speed.

best post of the year.

Garland is a disgrace. He was great last week but quickly returned to his 2014 form, which consists of getting towelled up by his man and generally not giving a stuff. This is his 9th season FCS, there is no excuse for such inconsistency and generally weak effort.

I don't Garland can play on talls any more.

McCarthy gave him a hiding, he really could have embarrassed if he held his marks early. I don't know why Dunn wasn't put on to him actually I don't know what Dunn was doing all day can someone please explain?

How can you think we lost due to "lack of midfield speed" when we were so clearly dominated in clearances, tackling and contested possession. In the 1st half we were positive in thes categories (except tackles) and as a result of playing tough, inside football our so called lack of speed was not exposed.

Additionally last week we beat gold coast not through leg speed but the speed at which we moved the ball. This should be our focus along with gaining first possession, as we look to improve our consistency.

Werridee - i think trenners probably more than toumpas.

Thought McDonald was immense. Whole team was rubbish in second half, hard to know whether our problems there can be fixed with a swap/cull of players. I'd keep vanders. Be good to have the Toump and JKH in the side. Maybe Gawn in and Frost out too... tricky one. Was at the game. Got that depressed feeling I'm so used to but decided to move on quickly. Showed real promise for 6 out of 8 quarters this year so far. Enough to go on with.

...

DUNN - When Tomlinson went off what was he doing all day? Was he used as a loose man? Who was he on? He had absolutely no impact. They should have let McDonald off the leash when things were getting bad, he was the only one who looked like he knew what he was doing.

...

THAT'S IT!!!

This is a good post, and sorry for cutting out all the rest of it and just quoting this bit, but I wanted to highlight this bit.

When Tomlinson went off, they were forced to play small, and from then on, they killed us. You'd think that losing their main tall forward & second ruck that early in the game would kill them, but it killed us instead. It forced them to play even more small, to run the ball and to kick low into the forward line instead of bombing it.

And it left Dunn, Howe & Garland sharing one sorta-tall (McCarthy) and two smalls.

And the game changed completely.

Why can't you keep it on football?

Why do you continually use personal abuse to get your point?

We are all Melbourne supporters here agree\disagree, no need to get personal unless it's extremely funny which yours ain't. I don't know how you get away with it.

People only thought Dawes was an obvious in because Roos loves him, it's definitely not based on form. I said Toumpas has been poor 3 out of the last 4 weeks, well Dawes has been just as bad if not worse. We have dropped Grimes, Toumpas and JKH who have been arguably in better form than Dawes. How long will Roos's love affair with him last? We shouldn't hold on to out of form players, that should be left in the past.

I reckon Roos picked Dawes because he believes he was best 22 for this particular game (as of last Thursday night) I also believe that "best 22" is a changeable dynamic. For instance, Roos may or may not believe Dawes is best 22 next week. He might also have that opinion with up to a dozen different players currently in our 22 (let's face it, there's not too many consistent top performers there)

The problem we've had and we've got is our 2nd ruck - at the moment it's Frost but Frost is probably more suited to the backline than as a forward. But 2nd rucks normally play forward which creates an issue for Dawes because Watts and Hogan are already being used in the forward line. 4 talls and 2 smaller forwards as opposed to 3/3 or even 2/4.

I didn't have Dawes in my side for this week purely because I didn't think we needed another tall forward (not because I can't see Dawes' value) Sometimes you just have to sit out.

I reckon Roos went in trying to exploit our advantage in height - it didn't work. GWS in fact exploited the lack of depth we had with our mids. We rolled the dice and lost out.

The game might not have been won or lost at selection, but Roos insistence to add two players that didn't fight their way into the ones (as he's bleated on about for over a year) most definitely didn't help our cause today.

Can't begin to imagine what JKH would be feeling right now.

How can you think we lost due to "lack of midfield speed" when we were so clearly dominated in clearances, tackling and contested possession. In the 1st half we were positive in thes categories (except tackles) and as a result of playing tough, inside football our so called lack of speed was not exposed.

Additionally last week we beat gold coast not through leg speed but the speed at which we moved the ball. This should be our focus along with gaining first possession, as we look to improve our consistency.

you are right about fast ball movement but in the third term today their mids lost their opponents with ease and Shiel, Wilson and Sculldog just blew their opponent away time and time again. Half the time Kent was running after Shiel or others faster than their opponent.

i didnt see the contested possession stat u quoted but to me it looked like a total inside lack of midfield pressure and then an unopposed spreading/running mid time after time in the third term.

You cant tackle someone if your ten metres behind and slowing...