Post Match Discussion - Round 21

[old dee 23,668]

I simply refuse to allow this current generation of inept, overpaid and mentally weak mfc players, the uninspiring on field leaders and the seemingly endlessly pathetic mfc player performances & results to make me want to give up on this club and the dream of one day seeing my footy team win a flag.

I am 33 years old and so I can't profess to have suffered through the clubs woes during the late 60s, 70s and early 80, but looking back to the days when I first really started supporting this club as a12 yr old watching the ox (pre knee recos) tear up and G against the blues in the 94 finals series, it seems like a lifetime ago, but even then I could sense we were bitterly close to an elusive flag, and just the same in 98 and 2000 for many of the same reasons, hard luck , up there but just not good enough to go all the way. The ups and downs of the daniher era were annoying but you always knew we could turn things around and be competitive. I could never have imagined what lie in wake for us these past 8 years, but one thing I do know is that in this game the wheel keeps spinning, dynasties don't last forever and nor does languishing at the bottom of the ladder, yeah sure some clubs have a far better record than us of rebounding and turning things around , but no matter how far back you go through the history of the game , each club has it's day and it's moments, and it's glories, and we have been walking in the wilderness for a long time and waiting and dreaming (even if delusionally) for our time to come

Someone earlier on this thread referred to supporting Melbourne, paying your membership and enduring all of this sh$t over the past 10 years as an "obligation" I would agree and part of it also gives me a sense of calm when watching typical performances like this today, whilst frustrating, I feel more connected to this club (not the players or the administration) but it's history and supporters and the journey and the obligation not to give up on it and the desire to one day see it be a powerhouse again. I wish it would come quicker, but it won't, but I know one day it will

I wonder how you will feel in another 33 Dm82?

But let's not wait that long let's see if you are still so committed in 2020.

[Beetle 4,577]

I simply refuse to allow this current generation of inept, overpaid and mentally weak mfc players, the uninspiring on field leaders and the seemingly endlessly pathetic mfc player performances & results to make me want to give up on this club and the dream of one day seeing my footy team win a flag.

I am 33 years old and so I can't profess to have suffered through the clubs woes during the late 60s, 70s and early 80, but looking back to the days when I first really started supporting this club as a12 yr old watching the ox (pre knee recos) tear up and G against the blues in the 94 finals series, it seems like a lifetime ago, but even then I could sense we were bitterly close to an elusive flag, and just the same in 98 and 2000 for many of the same reasons, hard luck , up there but just not good enough to go all the way. The ups and downs of the daniher era were annoying but you always knew we could turn things around and be competitive. I could never have imagined what lie in wake for us these past 8 years, but one thing I do know is that in this game the wheel keeps spinning, dynasties don't last forever and nor does languishing at the bottom of the ladder, yeah sure some clubs have a far better record than us of rebounding and turning things around , but no matter how far back you go through the history of the game , each club has it's day and it's moments, and it's glories, and we have been walking in the wilderness for a long time and waiting and dreaming (even if delusionally) for our time to come

Someone earlier on this thread referred to supporting Melbourne, paying your membership and enduring all of this sh$t over the past 10 years as an "obligation" I would agree and part of it also gives me a sense of calm when watching typical performances like this today, whilst frustrating, I feel more connected to this club (not the players or the administration) but it's history and supporters and the journey and the obligation not to give up on it and the desire to one day see it be a powerhouse again. I wish it would come quicker, but it won't, but I know one day it will

I'm 39 years old and a borderline alcoholic during winter thanks to this club!

[Curry & Beer 5,444]

how was it today in the first qtr, we badly needed a goal and OF COURSE a completely soft free went against us in the goal square costing Hogan the chance to kick an easy one after winning a contest - he absolutely heard the whistle and knew it would be 50-metre-penalty but he slammed it through anyway out of sheer frustration. It was a bad look IMO, he put his own emotion before the team, but also it spoke volumes about how he is currently feeling about being part of such an inept side. Not good.

[leucopogon 1,518]

I have bad news for you Dunn Garland and watts are going nowhere.

literally and figuratively. Still, I'll bide my time, can't wait until they are off the list.

[Palace Dees 2,255]

You used to bring me flower…...

Dear MFC,

It is with a heavy heart that I write this. Since I was a boy I have loved you. Back then you rewarded my adoration with respect and actions. My love and confidence did not wain as I reached my teens even though you did not look as good as you used to. I continued to give you all of me and was so proud when we made the ultimate commitment in 1981. I have had your picture in my wallet ever since. Five children were raised to show the same love to you that I have – and this they did. Year after year you were given unequivocal adoration and support. There were so many times you were down and out, but we stood by you. You promised so much and at times showed glimpses of what we wanted but could never give.

One by one the children have disowned you. Hurt by years of betrayal and lies. One son remains loyal, although you would say a fondness rather than love. Living interstate and not witnessing your deceit first hand has worked in your favour. His children are too young to see it as it is, but that time is soon approaching.

I have your name on my licence plate and half my wardrobe. Any time any one sees me they ask of you. They can see it in my eyes when you treat me badly. They know you for what you are but out of respect for me try desperately to find positives in you behaviour and character. Things might get better they say, knowing full well they won't. You constantly change your make-up and style but it doesn't alter who you are. You have been unfaithful for over 50 years whilst I have stayed monogamous.

My love, I can't take it any more. Just two weeks ago I renewed our commitment for 2016 as a gesture of my love and how do you repay me? - by selling yourself in Lygon Street. The law states we must be separated for 12 months before we divorce. I can give no more, so if we are to continue it will be up to you to show me if you have changed. If not, I will commence divorce proceedings in September 2016. I give you my promise not give myself to another in that time.

My eyes and mood will ensure I remain red and blue and if it transpires that this is the end….then at least we have '87

Yours in hope

Palace Dees

[leucopogon 1,518]

I didn't watch today, but I did flick it on to see the score before half time. ANB had just gotten subbed on. Considering he'd only gotten subbed on before half time, he had reasonable stats the young kid, and scored plus 65 in supercoach. He is going to be a player, I am pretty excited about ANB.

I hope you're right, but my god is he slow. Just another plodder me thinks.

[CBDees 3,167]

I look forward to the off season with interest. I can't wait to see the back of Howe

They weren't our worst!, Grimes, Dunn, Garland and Watts.

I have bad news for you Dunn Garland and watts are going nowhere.

Regrettably they weren't our worst!

[Demonsone 2,029]

Dare i say it :

Hogan is over rated for where he is.

He might become something else...

Results speak.

id like to keep him but a better mid is worth the trade

Your kidding... Hogan over rated...1 st yr player kick 40 goals & raking about the most contested possesions in the comp u want to trade him....

Did you work @ the MFC as a recruiter during 07-13???

Edited August 23, 2015 by Hogan2014

[JV7 2,350]

JRS, You were going well until you got to this.

Newton is a nice looking left-foot kick and seems to be able to rove packs better than some of our guys, but to suggest he provides outside run is laughable.

Today he became the first player in AFL history to be chased down by Watson (members wing), despite the fact that he had a 10m start on him.

If he could find a few extra yards toe, he'd be an AFL player each week.

If we could find a sprints coach of repute, then we'd be a chance to make some ground up quickly.

But neither is going to happen while Missen is in charge.

Were you at the game ? Because if you were you would have seen that Newton had absolutely nothing to kick to. No players leading up at him, he held onto the ball as long as he could but yet typical of Melbourne, no'one wanted to bust their gut to help him out. Yes he isn't gifted with speed but in this case it wasn't his fault..

[DeeZee 7,361]

With Tyson and Vandenberg out injured and Jones and Vincent both having stinkers,we had our worse half of the year.

It wasn't untill we put Newton and Michie in the middle and Jones forward and Vincent down back that we started to play good footy and win the second half by five goals,but by then it was too late of course.

[poita 3,889]

A typically pissweak, soft and gutless performance by a bunch of individuals who are an embarrassment to themselves, the club and the competition as a whole. Yet again they pick if and when they will come to play. And sure enough the club will come to us in two months time looking for money to pay the salaries of these pea-hearted bludgers.

Grimes and McDonald were the only two who tried for the entire game. Stretch was okay in parts, and Michie did some okay things.

The rest were poor or worse. Special mentions to Garlett and Dawes who would have contributed more by staying in bed for the entire game. Lumumba had 1 touch in 29% game time, but his second half was close to his best of the season. Cross combined his usual poor disposal with butter fingers and directly caused about 5 goals. Garland was abysmal, the only time I saw him was when he was conceding goals. Gawn has been flogged for three consecutive weeks since signing his new contract. N.Jones is in the worst form of his career. Vince and Viney did nothing of note - why Viney was not tagging Murphy is beyond me. Harmes gets caught holding the ball more than any player I have ever seen, and has poor skills. Brayshaw should have been rested after the WCE game - his form has gotten worse ever since. Hogan at least tried, but was well beaten.

We have roughly a zillion dollars worth of coaches on payroll, what do they all do? There is zero sign of a game plan, zero indication that any consideration is given to player matchups or match day tactics. The players have no skills, no decision making, no game sense, no confidence, no intensity, no workrate. We don't even do the basics well - tackle, chase, shepherd. Roos doesn't play, but he has contributed to this malaise by refusing to drop serial offenders such as Lumumba. He is happy to drop the likes of Toumpas and JKH after two quiet weeks, but tolerates continued mediocrity from senior players.

Plenty of people will tell you have improved this year. We have won more games because we have brought in players such as Hogan, Brayshaw and Vandenberg who are better than the guys they have replaced. Big frigging deal. We are still miles off being relevant in this competition, and our worst football is every bit as bad as it was under Neeld with a much weaker playing list.

[Gator 17,261]

SNIP

Well articulated.

It's hard to argue with much of that, although I believe we're not as far away as yesterday's efforts and recent results show.

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

We have roughly a zillion dollars worth of coaches on payroll, what do they all do? There is zero sign of a game plan, zero indication that any consideration is given to player matchups or match day tactics. The players have no skills, no decision making, no game sense, no confidence, no intensity, no workrate. We don't even do the basics well - tackle, chase, shepherd.

I implore everyone to watch this video, ignore the Murphy injury and just watch what Vince does (or doesn't do) after he handballs back to Harmes.

Perfectly sums Melbourne up.

Edited August 23, 2015 by Clint Bizkit

[ILLDieADemon 804]

We are seeing the real damage done by the tanking era.

What did Buckley say to Pendlebury? Paraphrasing, "We don't pick and and choose when we put in. We put in unconditionally."

A team coached or encouraged not to win, un-learns how to win.

Not even the great Mark Neeld could eradicate the cancer. Poor bugger was set up. Who knows what he could have done with a team that puts in.

This is the reason PJ had to get an experienced couch in for three years to rebuild this club again so us supporters would give him time.

An Unexpected couch would have been sacked by now by the hands of the supporters.

I think there need to be another big list change this preseason.

[dazzledavey36 54,038]

I implore everyone to watch this video, ignore the Murphy injury and just watch what Vince does (or doesn't do) after he handballs back to Harmes.

Perfectly sums Melbourne up.

Reminds me of the pathetic Frawley chase last year against WC.. and these are senior players FFS.

Watch our younger players pick up these bad habits.

[Coup Cooper 610]

I'm 39 years old and a borderline alcoholic during winter thanks to this club!

Borderline? Beetle plz.. If anything you've toned it down.. Or just stopped texting when your drunk!

[jnrmac 20,040]

We are seeing the real damage done by the tanking era.

What did Buckley say to Pendlebury? Paraphrasing, "We don't pick and and choose when we put in. We put in unconditionally."

A team coached or encouraged not to win, un-learns how to win.

Not even the great Mark Neeld could eradicate the cancer. Poor bugger was set up. Who knows what he could have done with a team that puts in.

Thats a [censored] copout. You are starting to sound like Roos. There are 8 players left from 2009's list of 48 players:

Grimes

Jones

Bail

Jetta

Jamar

Garland

Dunn

Watts

Oooh they are mentally scarred. FMD we are the ones mentally scarred from this bunch of hacks.

[Jaded No More 68,831]

Thats a [censored] copout. You are starting to sound like Roos. There are 8 players left from 2009's list of 48 players:

Grimes

Jones

Bail

Jetta

Jamar

Garland

Dunn

Watts

Oooh they are mentally scarred. FMD we are the ones mentally scarred from this bunch of hacks.

Agreed- it's total garbage and a cop out

Of the above list;

Bail, Jetta, Jamar did not play and Grimes and Watts were among our better players

[frankie_d 1,471]

I implore everyone to watch this video, ignore the Murphy injury and just watch what Vince does (or doesn't do) after he handballs back to Harmes.

Perfectly sums Melbourne up.

I was going to post something similar from Frawley last year - went jogging behind an oppo player. When confronted with the video, I think he said something like "I thought I was sprinting - but I wasn't, can't explain it"

Why the hell would an AA midfielder not shepherd?

[rpfc 28,208]

They're not scarred - but our best players didn't want a bar of it yesterday.

Jones, again, was tagged well - boohoo Nathan. Vince and Jones have got into the bad habit of getting cheap kicks by demanding the footy off of 'lesser' players without working hard to get into a 'better' position.

Hogan was alarmingly petulant (whingeing to umps, having a go at teammates kicks) in that first half and worked hard to get out of his malaise only for Gawn to illustrate what a bad forward can do to a forward line; he routinely smashed into packs that Dawes and Hogan were battling in, and took two or three goals away from Hogan by attempting marks that Hogan was about to cleanly take. Gawn was truly abysmal in that forward line yesterday.

Michie was lively and Newton ran hard but our best players are done for the year apparently, and the coach can't get them focussed. I can understand why, Roos has never had to do this before, his Sydney teams always had 'something to play for' and he never had to convince them to wake up.

I don't want us to make a rash decision and install Goodwin for 2016 but I would appreciate a concerted effort by the club to 'wake up' before heading to WA this week where a lesson about footy will be handed out by a, hopefully, Fyfe-less Fremantle.

[rpfc 28,208]

I was going to post something similar from Frawley last year - went jogging behind an oppo player. When confronted with the video, I think he said something like "I thought I was sprinting - but I wasn't, can't explain it"

Why the hell would an AA midfielder not shepherd?

Doesn't think he needs to I would say. I don't like how Vince and, to a greater extent, Jones demand more from teammates than they ask of themselves. they need to give it to the 'right' player not the 'best', and they should block for the bloke in space don't demand the footy running ahead of the footy, and not demand the footy 15m away along the boundary line just because you are Nathan Jones or Bernie Vince...

These are the bad habits of good players and getting them out of it will not improve them, it will improve our team.

Edited August 24, 2015 by rpfc

[rpfc 28,208]

Topsy turvy world when I admire Jack Watts' focus to finish off the season and am fed up with Nathan Jones...

[jumbo returns 6,737]

The sun came up today and I thought about some AFL players we have injured in the sheds and thought.....we'll be okay next year.

[Dr. Mubutu 817]

All our players get to pick and choose when and how they want to play.

Doesn't matter to them, the paycheck still clears every week regardless.

Perhaps make every contract from this point performance-based. Not sure how that would work with the salary cap, but surely it'd just be a fine from the AFL? Won't change our spending, could change the culture.

[mrtwister 652]

All our players get to pick and choose when and how they want to play.

Doesn't matter to them, the paycheck still clears every week regardless.

Perhaps make every contract from this point performance-based. Not sure how that would work with the salary cap, but surely it'd just be a fine from the AFL? Won't change our spending, could change the culture.

If performance based salaries resulted in us paying MORE money, I'd be surprised yet happy