Post match Discussion "Fire away"

[picket fence 18,130]

3 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Jack Viney was just interviewd on Sunday footy show with Mitch Cleary and he just mentioned that maybe some players did go into the game thinking it will be a stroll in the park....

Well Dazzle if he said that it would be interesting for him to name these guys and then drop them till they get their heads out of the clouds and back on the ground playing hard nosed footy. Hawthorn have been doing it for years! We win one game and think its popcorn and soda time!!

Same old problems reaccuring again and again. We do have a culture problem!

[Demonsone 2,056]

GWS beat the Cats.....

Its all about attitude & this is the craziness of our team that they can beat quality. & then roll over to poor sides FFS!

[Akum 2,660]

55 minutes ago, AdamFarr said:

8 minutes ago, AdamFarr said:

Aside from Murphy at the Bulldogs I don't think they have a slew of elite ball users either. They just work harder to give their team mates options and they also look to move the ball on as quickly as possible. You knew pretty early yesterday that we weren't looking to move the ball quickly. It was as if we thought we'd have mismatches that would allow us to kick to contests and we'd still come out on top. We've seen now that our game plan falls down sharply when we don't move the ball quickly.

...

The one thing that was a constant of the great Geelong sides were a knowledge of where their team mates would be and a belief that their team mates would win the footy. Occasionally they got hurt on the counter, but their belief in the game plan working was so strong that they would play bold attacking footy at all costs. This is what we need to do. We've got a strong defensive mind-set now established by Roos. Now we need to take this discipline and combine it with bold, running play.

I'm not saying we're at Geelong's level, but I think there's an apt comparison in there somewhere. Where we have to get to is consistently exhibiting solid team structures and a willingness to take the game on at all costs. When we get to this step, with good coaching, the next steps will naturally follow. My concern is though that we are struggling to believe at the moment and this is resulting in a lack of work rate that is being hindered by perhaps poor communication from the coaching group.

These are good points, and agree with the little that I know about the Roos & Goodwin dynamic.

It's not that the players "like" Goodwin and "don't like" Roos. They have enormous respect for Roos, and appreciation for the much improved defensive aspects of his game plan that he has brought. But there is some frustration that when things aren't going well and changes are needed, Roos won't change it up. 

Those who say there's not much difference between Roos's & Goodwin's game plans are right, in a way. The game plan is basically Roos's, and Goodwin has only made a couple of tweaks to it. But those tweaks are absolutely crucial.

I do know that the going forward by low firm passes that we saw in the NAB Challenge is pure Goodwin, and bombing high to Hogan isn't. I don't know whether going forward in that way is also Roos's intention - it may be that by bombing it to Hogan, the players were actually disobeying Roos's orders to do it Goodwin's way. But the fact that they did it for the whole match, although it was obviously not working because Woosha had Hogan well & truly covered, makes me think that it was actually Roos's orders to "get it in to Hogan as quickly as you can" (as well as the clear resemblance to the Swans c.2005-2009)

And I think - but I don't know - that the other Goodwin "tweak" is the forward press, only because it has been very apparent in games where Goodwin has had control (NAB Challenge) and has not been apparent in games where Roos has been in control. Happy to admit I may be wrong, but what makes me think it's Goodwin and not Roos is that to play the forward press, we have to accept that we're going to leak some goals when the other team gets out the back, but that overall it has more benefits than costs. And to me it just doesn't seem Roos to accept a strategy that involves us leaking some pretty bad goals.

So AF, I agree with you totally about the Geelong comparison - a critical part of an essentially defensive game plan is to be able to hurt them on the rebound. If you don't have an effective attacking strategy, in 2016 you can be as good defensively as you possibly can be, but you're going to be eventually overcome, because good sides will realise that you can't hurt them on the rebound, so they'll exploit that and just wait for you to bomb it down the line to a contest (sound familiar?) and kill you on the turnover.

Goodwin isn't going to throw Roos's game plan away - in fact, Goodwin's game plan is probably at least 2/3 Roos's game plan (remember Allan Jeans' thing about footy being pretty simple - either we've got the ball, they've got the ball or it's in dispute?). But his tweaks are absolutely vital, and make it more effective defensively as well as offensively. And for that matter, it's possible that Goodwin by himself couldn't have put together as good a defensive game plan as Roos has - he owes a huge amount to Roos.

Yesterday, the Essendon brains trust had a plan to tie us up in knots - they sat on Viney, our new prime mover; they had loose men in dangerous positions and banked on Roos not covering them, which he didn't; they knew we had no physical match-up for Daniher, unless we were prepared to sacrifice TMac's attacking game to stand him, which they knew Roos wouldn't do; they knew Gawn would win loads of taps but worked out how to nullify them, and banked on Roos not changing the stoppage strategy, which he didn't; and they anticipated the vast majority of our i50 entries being bombs to Hogan and double-teamed him, banking on Roos not changing it and he didn't. WE ARE ALWAYS VULNERABLE TO THIS AND NEED TO PLAN FOR WHAT TO CHANGE WHEN THIS HAPPENS, and this ALWAYS happens when we are "The Hunted" and not "The Hunter".

It's like a fish being caught in a net - the harder the fish struggles and makes an effort, the tighter the net becomes. The players find that the harder they try to do the same thing, the harder it becomes. This is when something needs to change. But in the games where he's had control, it seems that Roos doesn't do changing things in the middle of a game - he seems to prefer to set a strategy at the beginning of a game that he thinks is going to prevail, and expects it to prevail no matter what the other coaches do. And it's this refusal to change when the other coach has us "in the net" that leads to frustration - by which I mean not angry, but feeling that there's a way to fix the problem that's not being used.

Now I'm a huge admirer of Roos & what he's done for MFC - his skills in being able (with PJ) to unite a fractured organisation, his leadership, his inspiration, his club-building and team-building, his recruiting strategy (of senior coaching staff as well as of players) have been absolutely fantastic and exactly what we needed. But he is not as outstanding at match-day coaching as all these other things (his background in coaching is actually quite shallow), and he has everything to gain & nothing to lose by letting Goodwin (and Craig Jennings, who I've heard is a great pick up) have more match-day responsibility. Roos is like the best editor in the business who wants to have the front page article as well - we need him to be a great editor, there's someone else who can be the great journo.

Sorry for the rant. But I have fears that this situation may set us back a few times this year.

[Bang Bang Bang 5,875]

FFS, I can't believe elite level footballers on hundreds of thousands of dollars a year can go into a game expecting a stroll in the park. And these same players are tired at Round 2? It's hard to defend a performance like that but I really hope Viney and Roos were talking drivel and not the truth.

[picket fence 18,130]

Roos and Match Selection Comittee just as culpable as the players for yesterdays debacle!

[bing181 9,447]

As Jack Viney said, we got ahead of ourselves, and didn't turn up to play. Essendon did.

End of, and nothing else matters (except round the edges).

[titan_uranus 25,230]

13 minutes ago, 45HG said:

Would struggle to recall a more lazy performance than that of the MFC yesterday.

Did I read correctly that we had over 120 fewer uncontested possessions yet still also managed fewer tackles.

We just expected it to happen - even after hitting the front twice. They ran harder for longer, looked to run into space and wanted it more all day long.

We lost uncontested possessions 313-179 (i.e. -134). We also lost uncontested marks 124-57 (i.e. -67) and tackles 66-50 (i.e. -160).

We broke even (enough) in contested possessions (131-127, i.e. -4) and clearances (27-32, i.e. +5).

These clearly indicate we were horrendously outworked on the spread and transition.

[Bring-Back-Powell 15,486]

Anyone reckon the Dons would've beaten any other sides yesterday?

 

[Bang Bang Bang 5,875]

4 minutes ago, bing181 said:

As Jack Viney said, we got ahead of ourselves, and didn't turn up to play. Essendon did.

End of, and nothing else matters (except round the edges).

If this is the case then we're [censored]. They literally only have to turn up for two hours every week and they couldn't even do that. Clearly we've learnt nothing from the debacles of 2015 (Essendon, Carlton). BenKen must be wondering what the [censored] is wrong with some of his teammates.

 

[Redleg 42,112]

1 hour ago, dieter said:

Disposal, as I see it, is one of our biggest issues. Watch the Bulldog St Kilda game: both sides were cleaner and much more precise that our boys. The obvious offenders are T.Mac and Tyson, but in the end, none of them have elite disposal skills, apart from Salem and he doesn't get the pill often enough.

You left out the world champion Lumumba and he has a mate who can be guaranteed to cost a few goals and that is Matt Jones.

[P-man 13,367]

17 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Anyone reckon the Dons would've beaten any other sides yesterday?

 

Yes. It wasn't just us playing poorly. They played wel.

[WhyAlwaysMe 237]

19 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Anyone reckon the Dons would've beaten any other sides yesterday?

 

NO we will be the only team they beat

[WhyAlwaysMe 237]

4 minutes ago, Redleg said:

You left out the world champion Lumumba and he has a mate who can be guaranteed to cost a few goals and that is Matt Jones.

Matt Jones was ok yesterday

[It'll Come 3]

It was a game that was really hard to watch. 

The bombers ran over us and we were left with no answers. Strange we were not beaten by more.  

I hope in future we can muster up an answer to situations like that. We are a better team but by how much, only the players can answer that. 

Credit to the bombers

Next weeks game will be interesting now we are the underdogs with a lot to prove 

[Deecisive 1,709]

47 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

We lost uncontested possessions 313-179 (i.e. -134). We also lost uncontested marks 124-57 (i.e. -67) and tackles 66-50 (i.e. -160).

We broke even (enough) in contested possessions (131-127, i.e. -4) and clearances (27-32, i.e. +5).

These clearly indicate we were horrendously outworked on the spread and transition.

Agree titan it was lost on the field

- 9 of our players had less 70% disposal efficiency to their 1

- 6 of their players had 5 or more tackles we only had one player reach 5. I lost count of how many tackles were brushed aside.

- 10 of their players had as many or more marks than our best at 7.

- 8 of our players had 10 or less disposals while they only had 1 player with 10 or less disposals.

This forum has been full of fans making excuses for poor players and poor attitudes.

- The selection committee did not loose this game.

- The coaching group did not loose this game, roose should go, Goodwin will save us....

- the umpires did not cost us the game.

- essendon's emotional line in the sand was too strong... too many fans cheering for them.... no.

- Leaving only one player on Daniher cost us the game. he missed a lot of shots that others may have gotten, so I don't see that lost us the game.

- Not covering men on the wing cost us the game, these players would not have been as damaging if we did not turn it over to them all the time for the rebound goals they delivered.

The reality is our players lost this game. 

Viney is supposed to have said that some of the players may have coming into this game taking it easy, maybe so, but once it became obvious that Essendon came to play our players still did not step up and match their intensity, why. again this is something for each and every player to answer. As our history shows we loose extremely frequently when we go in as favourites.

[frankie_d 1,471]

Jack Viney's take on social media

 

[chook fowler 19,757]

7 minutes ago, frankie_d said:

Jack Viney's take on social media

 

That is a good response from Jack. Shows he is a good leader. Hope the others have the same attitude

[John Crow Batty 8,890]

27 minutes ago, chook fowler said:

That is a good response from Jack. Shows he is a good leader. Hope the others have the same attitude

Same bull we have been hearing for years.  Anything but 100% gut busting effort will expose the shallowness of his words. I hope the team is true to his words.

[DemonOX 8,849]

Seems most team who won last week lost this week.

Thats a bit weird!!

[DemonOX 8,849]

Seems most team who won last week lost this week.

Thats a bit weird!!

[junk 342]

In all fairness we should have got a fill in for Marksham,that's fair ….. yeah

[Adam The God 30,696]

1 hour ago, frankie_d said:

Jack Viney's take on social media

 

Well done, Jack. But you better make sure you back that social media stuff up. This is exactly the problem at the moment. If you're gonna take to medias, ensure you walk the talk.

[Cheap Seats 3,310]

Im happy to see that response from Viney. No point falling in a heap after 1 disappointing loss.

Im not sure if it's been mentioned earlier in the thread but I think this year we will have a lot more Ups and Downs like 2015. Our kids are our future and they are all still young.

Hogan, viney, Brayshaw, Petracca, Oliver, Salem who I see will be solid contributors in our future, there is only 1 there with more then 2 seasons experience

Kent, Kennedy, Tyson, Stretch, Forst, ANB etc are all young as well.

Point being I know we are all impatient for success but these blokes are still young and learning the Trade

I am not excusing Saturday it was bloody disappointing but being 1-1 is probably where we are at. Hopefully by round 10 we can be 4-6 if not better and end up with 8 - 10 for the year,...

 

[rpfc 28,998]

2 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

We lost uncontested possessions 313-179 (i.e. -134). We also lost uncontested marks 124-57 (i.e. -67) and tackles 66-50 (i.e. -160).

We broke even (enough) in contested possessions (131-127, i.e. -4) and clearances (27-32, i.e. +5).

These clearly indicate we were horrendously outworked on the spread and transition.

We didn't want to work and Ess did. Considering the stats - it's amazing we didn't lose by more. We didn't get out of first gear. 

Everyone was so confident before this game because we are a better team than Essendon and we are, but this team haven't earned that confidence. They need to be the hunter in every game. This team has down two-fifths of nothing. No idea why they would get ahead of themselves.

[Demon Dynasty 17,150]

4 hours ago, Macca said:

 

We can get to 8-10 wins but that's not much of an ambition - somehow, I feel the players and club would be somewhat satisfied with 8-10 wins too - and there lies the problem.  8-10 wins is a mediocre year in my eyes no matter where we've come from or how other clubs are faring.

The first minute of yesterday's game told us what we were going to get for the rest of the afternoon - forget the mistakes, we just did not come to play - in round 2.  Unacceptable.

It's above the shoulders with this playing group and with the club in general.  They all need to stop talking and start getting the job done.  I just wonder about our capabilities in that area though - they can all kick and mark to a certain extent but as for the rest of it, I'm not so sure.

 

 

I think our capabilities have improved above where we were around 2 years ago or so Macca but that was from such a horrible low we still aren't at a level that you would say is acceptable at AFL level. But in the end it is as you say, very much above the head for this club as a whole. It is incapable (for some unknown reason) to raise it's intensity/effort to a level required to meet and often beat it's challengers. Some are rated at or around a similar level to us, at least on paper anyway and in the case of Essendrug y'day, they were not expected to beat anyone all year (according to most). There is no consistency of output on the field over consecutive weeks. We occasionally win, then drop our bundle the very next week if coming up against what is considered an opponent we are capable of beating and in some cases 'should' beat (based on recent form). How often do you hear the comment on here "yet again we have played a horribly out of form team ...into form!".

The team we are sometimes expected to beat (the week after a win) generally raise their level of intensity/attack and execution, and for some reason we are (in most cases) apparently unable to raise ours to match them (and beat them) and seem content to just play out the match and take the loss.

When you keep losing and are incapable of stringing any consistency or your game together for more than the occasional win it has to be moral sapping and a big dent to some individual's belief and confidence in their own game (including their skills....no matter how much you train them!!) and that of some of the players around them on game day (and vice versa). This has to impact on their belief system eventually (even if it's one chink at a time) as well as their belief in the Coach/Game plan and club as a whole if left to fester for too long.

I've been saying this for years so apologies if you've heard this before (probably under diff coaches) but unless or until Roos (with the support of the FD/Club) or Goodwin when he takes over, addresses this fundamental issue within the club, we will continue to dead cat bounce for years and maybe decades to come.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves (including Roos and all officials at the Club) and will only lead to more heartbreak and disappointment as each heartbreaking let down unfolds. As soon as we start to think we look like there's a positive on the horizon (after the odd win).  As soon as we are challenged (by pretty much any team outside of the absolute worst). We will almost always crumble and fold like a pack of cards the very next week IF this issue isn't addressed and eradicated. And that process of eradication has to begin this week!

If the coach/FD & club decide yesterday was just an aberration and it's steady as she goes then i'm afraid we are doomed as a club to be forever irrelevant. My worry from Roosy's presser yesterday is that he appears (on the surface) to be willing to do just that,

Unfortunately many still believe there's going to be some sort of saviour that's going to somehow lift this club from the mire and into a new golden era given enough time (which varies depending on who you ask). Personally i don't think anything is going to change for us until we address the reasons behind why we continue to have the most brittle underbelly of any team in the AFL over the last decade (some will no doubt argue longer given our lack of success since 64').

Roos (and PJ) now have some big decisions ahead of them. Do they keep sticking their fingers in the dyke and ignore the elephant in our club rooms and just hand the problem over to Goody who will run up against exactly the same problem in his tenure? Or do they take this most important issue head on and commit themselves to getting to the bottom of it before Roos moves on? Do they even see/realise that the problem is inherent within the club and needs fixing. I sure hope one of them does! Otherwise it won't matter who they put in the coaches box.