FIFTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS by George on The Outer

During the week the MFC marked the 50^th anniversary of the ignominious sacking of Norm Smith by the MCC committee. Fifty years in the wilderness for the Club. No premierships since 1964 and the curse of Norm continues to haunt the club.

And what an almighty curse it must be, because the Israelites were banished to the wilderness for only 40 years, for their indiscretions.

We have seen various prophets come and go, all promising to take us to the Promised Land, but after the performance against the Saints, we are no closer to reaching that target than we have ever been.

The false dawn of improvement we saw against Geelong, was crushed by a totally insipid demonstration of ineptitude by numerous Melbourne players.

It started in the first quarter when Dawes couldn’t kick straight while running into an open goal to set the tone, and followed that with a series of failed marking attempts and turnovers gifted to the Saints.

He wasn’t alone as Grimes, Watts and Jetta fed plenty of their possession directly the opposition. Instead of relieving the pressure by taking control of the situation and booting it down the field, they sought to handball to others under pressure. It is better to see the ball 50 metres away from the opponent’s goal, than giving it up to them.

The usual apologists will point to the number of possessions this trio had, but fail to look at their combined efforts of 16 clangers! Sixteen straight turnovers to the opposition, and that doesn’t count the ones where they give it to someone who had no chance of disposing of it properly and is themselves the cause of the clanger.

What would the score board look like with 16 less direct turnovers?

There were some players who could hold their heads high. Jack Viney 20 contested possessions with 31 disposals. Max Gawn 32 hit outs. But beyond those two there weren’t many others who could say they beat their opponent on the day, or provided anything positive toward the team.

This was against a bottom of the ladder type side. They are no Hawthorn or West Coast. This was against a side that had won the same number of games as we had. The result should have been a close contest, but never was.

Where was the improvement we have been promised? How can the fans be expected to watch the absolute and utter cr@p that is being served up to them at the moment? Seven goals is all they have seen from their side in the last 7 quarters of football. A solitary goal for each quarter played!

We were at the bottom of the ladder when Richmond were last there. We were at the bottom of the ladder when the Bulldogs and GWS were there. We were there when Port and Gold Coast were there.

And when St. Kilda were the cellar dwellers.

Now each of those sides has gone past us and left us still languishing at the bottom. We have reverted to the game style from 2 years ago! 195 handballs in a game where we only had 178 kicks. The result is we go around in circles until it is coughed up.

And to top it off we have ridiculous player placement. McDonald up forward isn’t working, with no score to his name again this week. Meanwhile the player he has taken apart in the past, Riewoldt, on one leg, manages 3 goals and 13 marks!

So how long will it be before Jesse Hogan, Angus Brayshaw and Jack Viney give up? It won’t be long because the Melbourne fans are giving up themselves.

We have spent 50 years supporting the club in the Wilderness, these talented kids only a couple of years. If we have had enough, then they will stop trying and go elsewhere to get some satisfaction playing the game. They will leave to play with others who care, who are prepared to put in when needed, who want to do the hard work.

At the moment all they see is further wilderness before them.

Melbourne 1.2.8 3.6.24 5.9.39 6.10.46

St. Kilda 4.4.28 4.7.31 10.8.68 12.11.83

Goals

Melbourne Dawes Garlett Gawn Hogan N Jones Tyson

St. Kilda Riewoldt 3 Dunstan 2 Bruce Lonie McCartin Newnes Savage Sinclair Weller

Best

Melbourne Viney Gawn Grimes, Cross, Vince, Watts

St. Kilda Riewoldt, Roberton, Gilbert, Geary, Dempster, Fisher, Montagna

Changes

Melbourne Nil

St. Kilda Nil

Injuries

Melbourne T McDonald (left eye)

St. Kilda Armitage (shin), Webster (ribs), Riewoldt (corked calf)

Substitutions

Melbourne Viv Michie replaced Aaron vandenBerg in the third quarter

St. Kilda Eli Templeton replaced Hugh Goddard at three-quarter time

Reports

Melbourne Nil

St. Kilda Nil

Umpires Rosebury, Mollison, Wallace

Official crowd 22,945 at the MCG

5.10 is just pathetic and has been the story all month.

Need to target a genuine forward - a guy like riewoldt would totally change our ball structure.

Out Dawes

In Riewoldt type

Hate to say this but Tyson has been a massive bust

Petracca better be a once in a generation player.

As much as we have done some good recruiting, we've still missed a number of good players that the Saints got. Bruce, Savage, Weller have all been good. We could really use one of those guys.

Hate to say this but Tyson has been a massive bust

He wouldn't be getting a game at GWS.

Besides Gawn, Hogan and Brayshaw, there's absolutely nothing that gives me hope for this team.

Lumumba is a waste of space and money.

Watts has restored order and drifted back into insignificance.

Tyson hasn't fired a shot this year.

Surely Jones starts to get disheartened now.

Garland needs a change of scenery.

Dawes - see Lumumba.

Roos, thank you but don't worry about the 3rd season mate.

He wouldn't be getting a game at GWS.

Like a lot of the blokes we recruit, he has no point of difference. And slow.

We were pathetic today, but the umpiring was infuriating. Especially from Brad Wallace... I wonder if his old man had a hand in him getting the job?

So much for owing st Kilda one. How about worrying about getting our team going rather then talking smack about the opposition to the media during the week

Fuckin’ embarrasing.

You said it.

Two weeks later and nothing’s changed.

Whole football dept need a complete shake up from top down. Completely unacceptable/disgraceful performance. Starting to question some of this 'slow player' drafting. Recruits need to be quick, big, fearless and nasty and if you find them all at Sandringham good luck to you.

Melbourne played exactly as they did last week.

Poor skills, poor coaching and on top of that poor umpiring didn't help.

We dont belong in the AFL

I'm just sad.

This club has killed my love for the game.

Done for the year most likely. Certainly won't be watching next week. Pies should slaughter us.

You can count on one hand the players who are both good enough and care enough, and the game plan is dysfunctional and disgusting to watch.

The lot of them can get stuffed. They won't be getting another cent out of me while they play like this.

Nothing has changed.

We are still a bunch of weak pea-hearted no hopers.

I can count 3 players who put in every week. Maybe 4 now that Brayshaw is here.

The rest of the team picks and chooses when to play. Our skills are deplorable, our intensity is questionable at best and we have no consistency in effort. None.

The only thing worse than our effort today was the [censored] woeful umpiring.

Other than the Vineys, Cross and Jones I wonder if any of the staff or players cares a jot in comparison to the supporters.

Roos for one shakes his head and acts like there is always next week.

I'm just sad.

This club has killed my love for the game.

This club has just about killed my love for this club.

Honestly contemplating giving up on this club. Not only are we shocking, but we're really boring to watch. Just a waste of my time really.

In earlier games such as against Port, even though we lost, we showed that when we get a bit of space we can move the ball well, look good and can score.

Since Geelong, the other clubs have worked us out.

Keep it scrappy, ugly, tight, give us no room to move, and we can't cope. we spray it (by hand and foot), give up widow-maker passes, and score behinds with freedom and inhibition.

After the presser tonight, I don't want to hear a word out of the club all week. I want to live in the delusion that they are too focussed on winning the next game to talk it up and spin some shite to get us interested enough to go along to the game.

WIN for f's sake, THEN we'll be happy.

Apparently we owe St Kilda. What, a comfortable 4 points to make up for the nasty scare we gave them a few weeks back?

Just did not play to the conditions.

We may have been turning it over a heap and coping a bad run with the umps today, but I feel this one is on the coaches.....We are close to the worst coached team on gameday.

Our only plan is to swap our backs and forwards around randomly. It has an impact occasionally but really we have way to many players playing out of position.

How many more times does Riewoldt need to destroy us before we will learn. Do we research the opposition at all?

He is critical to them winning games. So why does it take until the 4th to put our best defender on him? He inspires the rest of the team when he is dominating which gives us nearly no chance. Its a huge task to stop him but we didn't ever look like putting time into him.

Sadly we were never going to win today......