Funnily enough, for all the doom and gloom we are still 9th and none of the teams below us have a realistic chance of jumping us (including Hawthorn).

28 minutes ago, mauriesy said:

The arrogance of the team in thinking they didn't have to work hard to beat the Bombers was matched by the arrogance of many on here who talked about how much we'd win by and how many Hogan would kick.

Getting ahead of ourselves. Underestimated a Bomber outfit that was by no means a 'Dads Army' and provided more pressure, more run and more skill.

The Bombers are better than most people give them credit for. Yes, 12 players on their current list were suspended, but not all of those 12 were in their best 22.

We lack strong leaders who can hold teamates to account 

1 hour ago, Redleg said:

Its not just Roos, its the whole lot of them. Couldn't they see the two loose men on the wings the whole game? What were they bloody looking at?

We all saw it in the first few minutes.

...

But we've lost games before by Roos refusing to man up on loose men. Woosha - like every other coach - knew that Roos wouldn't man up on them.

 

28 minutes ago, SaberFang said:

The same posters who heckled down others for even suggesting we could lose to their VFL top-ups, even after last year's NAB cup loss. The laughable arrogance of expecting to win before the match even started, for a team that simply does not deserve to have any arrogance. Today was the result.

newsflash buddy, what gets written on demonland doesn't affect the result

48 minutes ago, Bombay Airconditioning said:

Again, all things considered arguably the worst loss in the games history. 

We are a mess.

A fan of hyperbole, I see.

15 minutes ago, Rusty Nails said:

Not so sure he is saying it behind closed doors Adam. Bit too "matter of fact" for my liking.

That was a rare opportunity for the club to really get some momentum happening and they (the FD & playing group) blew it. Losing comes too easily for the MFC (Roos & HIS playing group) for my liking. Not the sort of culture that's going to make any club successful (either on or off the field). There is something drastically NQR at this club. I thought Roos was going to change that significantly but after today's effort on the field and his response in that presser i'm not so sure anymore. I realise alot of coaches are made to look good by great leaders/players and team efforts on the field but it's a 2 way thing and it starts from the top.

I appreciate what Roos has achieved so far but also hoping we see a different attitude brought to the table once Goody officially takes over the reigns. Not suggesting Barassi type sprays (via media) either but Roos is just too laid back and IMO it shows on the field. We just don't bring a "killer/hunter" attitude to any game for long enough to really put any team to the sword convincingly.

None of us really know as we don't have access behind those doors, but I would be staggered if Roos didn't dish it out behind closed doors. He's a politician. Did you ever watch him sit ON THE COUCH and calmly effectively deny he was coming to Melbourne for weeks on end? He's a cool customer in the public domain, but I've heard he's a hard man privately. He definitely bruised some egos when he came into the club and rightfully so.

My uninformed guess is that Goodwin isn't a bruiser and that he's the good cop and Roos is the bad cop. The potential problem could be when Goodwin eventually takes over this group, can he separate 'mates' from his 'players'? Maybe I'm not giving Goodwin enough credit, but too many people on here seem not to offer that same courtesy to Roos.

I certainly don't disagree that we blew it today though.

5 minutes ago, Undeeterred said:

Funnily enough, for all the doom and gloom we are still 9th and none of the teams below us have a realistic chance of jumping us (including Hawthorn).

Too bad they will all jump us next week.

53 minutes ago, Bombay Airconditioning said:

Roos has built the list, changed the culture although today disproves that, raised the bar with regards to training and preparation and given the place a professional feel but....

the last two years was all about defence, does he have the tactical nous?

How many coaches in the league have coached a Grand Final-winning team? You don't do that if you are a crappy coach.

4 minutes ago, Petraccattack said:

Too bad they will all jump us next week.

Even all teams that are currently 0-2?

1 hour ago, bing181 said:

They've already put their hands up re selection, but equally, from what i can see, most here were more than happy with the selection, and understood the reasoning behind it. Brayshaw was still underdone, though he did seem to get into it a bit more in the last quarter.

Much of it still revolves around what's going on in the players' heads, and while we have plenty of talent, we don't have a lot of maturity and experience, and even less AAA-grade leadership. While I thought Jones and Vince were good, neither are the kinds of Big Game players who can turn a game or lead the way in the way Dangerfield did with Geelong last weekend. I felt Goddard played more of a captain's game today than anyone for the Dees. 

But the players today who most disappointed me were Viney and Gawn. When players like VDB and Hogan have an off-day, I can almost live with it, they're still only second year players. But Viney and Gawn are both further along in their careers and are in the leadership group. They needed to do more, and needed to step up and provide more leadership. To a lesser extent, same could be said for Jack Watts. But the game was lost in the midfield today - they were just left do what they wanted on the outside, and the ball spent much of the time in the Don's half of the field.

So, big disappointment, I thought that these kinds of performances were behind us. But while so much of our success is riding on the back of comparatively inexperienced second and third year players, without a lot of real top end talent or leadership, I'm afraid that for a season or two, these kinds of results will continue to haunt us.

But it was glaringly obvious that they'd put heaps of planning into stopping Viney and Gawn. It was easy to see that they were their big targets, plus Hogan of course.

As Praha keeps saying, the fact that our three big guns were nullified, we refused to cover their two loose men the whole game, we were comprehensively out coached and we were in front with 15 minutes to go actually says a lot for the players' efforts.

I cannot understand how we can still after so many seasons still look slow. I want to know what is going on in our fitness department. Why do we still look so slow in our run and carry. 

14 minutes ago, zeldacat said:

I cannot understand how we can still after so many seasons still look slow. I want to know what is going on in our fitness department. Why do we still look so slow in our run and carry. 

The way teams move the ball in the modern footy can make their opponents look incredibly slow. Case in point, we made GWS look slow in the last quarter last week. I don't think many people would call GWS a slow team, but they were made to look it. Some of it is the speed with which you spread, the other element is how you use possession by hand and foot. Geelong in their prime were a great example of this. They weren't particularly quick, but their use of hands and accurate kicking allowed them to appear quick. I'm not saying we're quick, I'm saying we don't necessarily need to be and that wasn't the reason for our loss today.

Further, it's got nothing to do with our fitness. We're clearly managing the loads of our younger players pretty well. We certainly did with Oliver last week anyway. Brayshaw shouldn't have played, but given he got half a game into him this week, I'd expect him to play again next week.

With regards to fitness, we also used ten less rotations last week than our opposition. So it's really got nothing to do with a lack of fitness. Today was all above the shoulders, as many of us have now pointed out.

Edited April 2, 20169 yr by AdamFarr

6 minutes ago, zeldacat said:

I cannot understand how we can still after so many seasons still look slow. I want to know what is going on in our fitness department. Why do we still look so slow in our run and carry. 

While i have lauded our recent drafting in the last couple of years the one i have felt we lacked was drafting speed as well. Its fine to draft a team full of competitors but when Tomas Bugg is playing as a wingman (he is a plodder who lacks pace) then you know you are just simply going to be killed on the outside which we have the last 2 weeks.

 

It seems that our plan of playing our strongest 22 during the NAB challenge backfired on us. Half the team is cooked and its only Rd 2. I can definitely see Roos walking away from this and I've repeatedly been on the record saying that Goodwin should have taken over last year, what's the point of having a caretaker coach?

6 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

While i have lauded our recent drafting in the last couple of years the one i have felt we lacked was drafting speed as well. Its fine to draft a team full of competitors but when Tomas Bugg is playing as a wingman (he is a plodder who lacks pace) then you know you are just simply going to be killed on the outside which we have the last 2 weeks.

I think you address the important issues first. We're not vying for the flag this year. We're looking to make finals, but will probably just fall short. We had far more pressing concerns at the draft and trade tables than outside speed. We've addressed our need for a second KPF with the Weed and added to our midfield with Kennedy and Oliver. The jury is yet to decide on Bugg, though I suspect he'll be a fringer. We did go after Bennell and he would have been perfect, but at the moment we're clearly taking the route that we will build the main building blocks first, become competitive enough that we can attract opposition talent. This is when we'll add that second ruckman and outside pace through free agency and trading in the coming two to three years.

32 minutes ago, Maple Demon said:

The Bombers are better than most people give them credit for. Yes, 12 players on their current list were suspended, but not all of those 12 were in their best 22.

Correct. And they've got some good players.

Many hours later and  great Restaurent experience with old mates, two of which have played at AFL level some very interesting comments were made

they were

1 Watts has HUGE Q?

2 Mc Donald HAS BIGGER Q MARKS!

3 Suggested that Nathan Jones needs to grab a few players by the scruff of the neck and demand consistency Eg Jesse Hogan

Our bits and pieces NQR are being shown up in the pressure cooker of AFL!

More tommorrow but a lot of discussion re Dees

 The discussion lamented with the way our one week up one week down culture is killing  the club and everyone involved with it and in it!

9 minutes ago, Diamond said:

Correct. And they've got some good players.

Jesus Christ.

You must be joking surely?

 

We were beaten by a mob of complete nobodies. As usual, we played a kid with 1 game under his belt, into a rising star nomination, when he should have been run through at the first bounce he lined up for.

 

The sight of a poofy looking geek like Parish mouthing off at our players, without so much as a whimper in retaliation, made me want to spew. So typically Melbourne.

Look on the bright side

at least we will have the priority draft to look forward to.

 

 

4 hours ago, J.L. said:

My observation today was that we looked confused; trapped between two opposing playing styles.

Exactly. it was the same last week too, but we got lucky. The players are confused now.

 

It is getting so hard to keep going back to the well of a new fresh hope, all the preseason goodwill looked lost by the second quarter last week and it was a 10 minute effort in last quarter to fall over the line and they took the same lazy pathetic attitude into todays game against half and AFL side.  I dont think I can keep doing it or subject my kids to it...  So much the case I put a seperation clip together

https://youtu.be/ocGl3KB6T-Q

I will always have love and affection for the club but I think the passion will be focused elsewhere

 

2 hours ago, Maple Demon said:

The Bombers are better than most people give them credit for. Yes, 12 players on their current list were suspended, but not all of those 12 were in their best 22.

Bang on. The VFL side stuff is a myth. Zaharakis, merrett, daniher et al are good players. Kelly, cooney, Crowley are better than a lot of our blokes. Parish is good already. 

I think they will struggle with depth but at the moment they have their best 22 for 2016

2 hours ago, Undeeterred said:

Funnily enough, for all the doom and gloom we are still 9th and none of the teams below us have a realistic chance of jumping us (including Hawthorn).

It's round 2. Who cares about ladder position?! Changes nothing about what happened this round for us.

I tried to say a few times over preseason that too many posters talk average players in to superstars over pre season. Too many posters ignored out horrible finish to 2015. Too many distort reality to feel optimistic. Adding Oliver, Bugg and Kennedy doesn't change the fact we were shite last season.

some call me negative but what sort of discusson can be had when reality is distorted just to feel better.

we will get better but stop jerking yourselves in to a lather everytime we fall over the line in a nab cup game. We aren't even close yet. When we are ill be first to say so. 

Edited April 2, 20169 yr by Munga