My lovely wife asked me how Melbourne did ...

And I told her.

Her response? "That's sort of innovative. They find ways of being bad that nobody's ever thought of!"

(the sound of grinding teeth - again!)

I'm done. I hate this club.

See you flogs later. Have mercy on me.

I didn't think I could get more angry with this loss, turns out I can. After hearing that Vimce thought there was more time ...

And you believe him?

The players always know how much time is left, at least to the nearest minute or so.

Grain of salt. Very big one.

I'm done. I hate this club.

Then you never cared enough in the first place.

Bring on next week.

Woke up this morning hoping it was just a bad dream,oh well I'm off to work to forget about it.

I didn't think I could get more angry with this loss, turns out I can. After hearing that Vimce thought there was more time I am now absolutely fuming.

1: there had only been one, count it one, goal scored for the quarter. A player of his experience should able to work out the rough time.

2: the coaches have a timeclock available to them, how are there not updates ever 2-3min after the 10min mark in a close game?

3: you have a runner that should be relaying this info.

4: we had a set shot with 40sec left, as I said earlier he should have been going to every player telling them how long left.

5: there are that many rotations surely someone should have some rough info on it.

This has been one of the biggest, dumbest, most pathetically amature stuff ups we have ever done. Not only off the pace in players but off the field as well, fan-bloody-tastic. Not going to be sleeping any time soon.

Agree.

I've come to the view that the players did not know how long was left. There is simply no doubt that if they did, they would have flooded back. No AFL player can be so daft as to not know to get behind the ball when leading by under a kick with 40 seconds left.

This means that it was a failure by the coaching staff to alert the players. It just defies belief that a message was not communicated to the players when there were at least 2-3 minutes left.

I remember playing junior footy and the runner would come out and say '2 minutes' or '30 seconds' near the end of every quarter. How can a professional AFL team, with a multi-million dollar coaching staff, with computers and tv's in the box and coaches and runners on the bench, not ensure that their players know how much time is left in a tight game? It is just absolutely baffling.

Level against the Pies late in the 3rd and we play the primary school game of tunnel ball to gift them the lead and momentum. Ahead against the Saints with 40 seconds left and we let them run into an open goal in the goal square. If it wasn't so infuriating it would be one of the great comedy acts of all time.

One other thing which has been overlooked due to that farcical final play was the shot on goal by Membrey at the end of the third quarter. There was a stoppage outside defensive 50 with 15 seconds left, Melbourne up by a point. It was so obvious that we needed to drop a player behind the ball to ensure that we saw out the quarter without conceding. What happened? We did nothing, Weller won the clearance and banged it forward and Membrey marked it out in front. No one in the hole. Defender behind his man. Not for the first time this year we conceded another shot after the siren through dumb play.

And wasn't that failure to deal with the last play of a quarter a nice little entree to what we served up at the end of the game.

couldn't agree less.

That's okay - that's the point of a forum.

last play was toumpas fault left his man to try recieve at the contest he will learn from that . Runner should have been out on theground when howe was shooting for goal , telling everyone ( xcept Jeffy )to get back if he kicks it mids to go one on one at bounce . We have work to do and need to be alot cleaner for longer

This one still hurts.. Losing to a souless [censored] ant club that only has one flag to its name..

Didnt sleep well last night. Kept thinking of that last play and what should have been. Read the Vince article this morning and was filthy. Roos seems to have an inability to act quickly on game day. You can put it on the players but this loss was a communication error. Very poor

Got home from the game and drank half a bottle of red to try and forget about it. Woke up at 4:15am still spewing!

Slowly getting over it now, but it still hurts!

We were poor bar the final 5min of the 2nd term, i put this as our worst performance of the year after the Hawthorn game and that actually helps.

If we can play that badly with 9 of our 22 out, loosing Pedersen and having both Hogan and Brayshaw on one leg and be in a position where we should have been able to close out a win against a team that only has 3 on the injury list. Well, then i guess we must be on the right track!

Last night still really sucked though! I've been with my st kilda supporting wife now since 2008, and am still yet to notch a win over her.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, when Howe was lining up for that goal, runners from everywhere should have gone out to the group and told them there was less than a minute to go, and if he kicks it, everyone must flood back.

How that didn't happen, and how our players didn't know there was 40 seconds left, is a mistake so huge it blows my mind.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, when Howe was lining up for that goal, runners from everywhere should have gone out to the group and told them there was less than a minute to go, and if he kicks it, everyone must flood back.

How that didn't happen, and how our players didn't know there was 40 seconds left, is a mistake so huge it blows my mind.

This ^^ Everyone I was with at the footy was saying the exact same thing.. On SEN this morning they were saying Roosy didn't have enough time to get the message out to the players..Rubbish.. When Howe took that mark, Roosy should have been on the phone, message out and the runner out to every single player to spread the word like the plague to flood back and the time left if he had of kicked the goal.

I am furious

You know you're a Melbourne supporter when instead of celebrating kicking what should be a match-winning goal with 40 seconds left, you are panicking inside as you know only Melbourne could lose the game from there.

But even with this pessimism that is ingrained in every true Melbourne fan, I still could not in my wildest dreams believe what was about to happen.

MFC: Inventing new ways to lose games since 1858.

Bernie's comments on time left and Roos saying the coaches 'couldn't get it done' were to keep the media wolves at bay.

Last week was terrible to hear the media go on and on about 'the players didn't listen'.

This week it should die down quickly, I hope.

Nonetheless, I would like a week where the news isn't about the dumb things we did/didn't do to lose the game.

More lessons learnt this week. As long as they aren't repeated I can, reluctantly live with them.

Educational psychologists talk a lot about a quality called subconscious competence - this is where as the result of good instruction, role modelling and repetition, repetition, repetition students instinctively make good decisions and take effective action.

This is where our poor development in the past is now biting us in the arse. our older players default position is one of subconscious INcompetence and in the heat of battle all goes pear shaped.

So Paul Roos is right that some of our older players probably are victims of our past and are now incapable of change.

The good news is, our current development program is top class and the younger players will be fine, but it all takes time.

McCartney, Goodwin and Plapp have only been in place since the beginning of the year and more time is needed to bring about change but the signs are good that our future will be much better than our past and that this is a side in transition.

You referencing something that's not actually occurring is the biggest mistake you're making. But as you say, we are our thoughts.

BTW, no credit for Jack Watts' game today Ben?

Your ears must be painted on.

As for Watts ? Firstly, let me say that I'm flattered by how regularly you seek my counsel and secondly, yes, Watts' game, for him, was as good as one could hope for these days.

I am putting this on Roos. Where was the rubber telling them to get back. There should have been one Melbourne player forward of the centre. Hogan

Can't agree leoncelli. It was on the players.

Jones should have been in the midfield marshalling the troops. ALL the leaders (& I use that term loosely) should have been saying once Howe kicked the goal, flood back but unfortunately nothing happened.

We deserve to get what we got.

This ^^ Everyone I was with at the footy was saying the exact same thing.. On SEN this morning they were saying Roosy didn't have enough time to get the message out to the players..Rubbish.. When Howe took that mark, Roosy should have been on the phone, message out and the runner out to every single player to spread the word like the plague to flood back and the time left if he had of kicked the goal.

I am furious

Players train for this.

Roos realised at the centre bounce that the players had goofed their set-ups.

He screamed down the phone to get back.

But alas the runner was already on the field.

This is a perfect example of why Roos criticised the 'one runner at a time rule' change last year.

It penalises an inexperienced team.

If I recall he said he could do with 2 or 3 runners sometimes.

Roos' hands were tied.

The leadership team deserves to be hauled over the coals, privately!

You can blame the last 40 seconds, but it felt like the saints had about 20 more inside 50s in that last quarter. Therein lies the problem. We just couldn't work out their press. We were very lucky to snatch the lead.

Same thing almost happened after the Essendrug win last year- Salem kicked the winner, all the boys celebrate and didn't get back, and Zaha almost kicks the winner after the last ball up in the final stages.

Celebrate after the jobs done idiots

Same thing almost happened after the Essendrug win last year- Salem kicked the winner, all the boys celebrate and didn't get back, and Zaha almost kicks the winner after the last ball up in the final stages.

Celebrate after the jobs done idiots

YUP...and Jones is one of the biggest culprits in this regard.

What the hell are we going nutz about regular time goals for? Unless its a first gamer kicking his first it should be recognition of a good job only or a recognition of the player who delivered.

Get around em but dont celebrate till after the siren.

Knuckleheads

Everybody knows that the security guards come out and circle the boundary with five minutes to go. For the players and / or coaches to say that they didn't how much time was remaining is bullsiht, or a sad indictment on their collective lack of awareness.

How we manage to so comprehensively lose the centre clearance when a 208cm ruckman is opposed to a 196cm forward is beyond me. Even if Gawn grabbed the ball out of the ruck and laid on top of it, we would have taken a decent amount of time off the clock. Instead he taps into open space, nowhere near our players.

We are the most boring, predictable, defensive side in the competition; yet the one time we need to throw players into defence and force stoppages, our players are nowhere to be seen.

Every time you start to think the club might be starting to turn things around and that there is a brighter future ahead, they manage to kick you in the nuts with a loss such as that.

Still feel gutted today....this loss really shook to the bone.