We all agree that the club is in better hands, and is incrementally improving on and off field.  Yesterday at that ground west of the city this club was again embarrassed and again beaten by a team that physically and mentally bullies us into submission.  For me personally this was our worst defeat and performance barring the debacle against Essendon.

Our shortcomings are crystal year, we still get bullied by the same teams over the past ten years, even with a different list we still have a soft underbelly and get beaten up.  

As a team we repeat the same mistakes every week, overuse the ball, handball skills are shocking and we almost regularly handball to a player who gets caught.  This brings me to the third point.

The team other than Hunt, moves like treacle.  We get touched up on leg speed and cannot match speed of other teams.  This list is better but our shortcomings are still serious and won't take us into September unless they are fixed.

My family have vowed never to watch the MFC at Etihad again, it is just not acceptable anymore for supporters to turn up but the team does not turn up.

Our leg speed, foot skills and decision making are still very poor for AFL level.  The club still lets itself down against sides it should beat.

The worst part for me is Roos hasn't improved us enough. The improvement that has happened has done so on the back of Taylor's excellent recruiting work, so we've gotten slightly better because the list is better, not because we are a better team due to the coaching.

Roos has steadied the ship, but after 3 years I would have expected that ship to at least have left port. Hasn't happened.

 

2 minutes ago, stuie said:

The worst part for me is Roos hasn't improved us enough. The improvement that has happened has done so on the back of Taylor's excellent recruiting work, so we've gotten slightly better because the list is better, not because we are a better team due to the coaching.

Roos has steadied the ship, but after 3 years I would have expected that ship to at least have left port. Hasn't happened.

 

You are kidding right

Agree that leg speed through the middle is a major weakness.

Just now, Demons11 said:

You are kidding right

See the game yesterday mate? How about the Bombers game?

Nah, you're right, how dare anyone question Roos. We're young and experience and next year and blah blah blah....

3 years it's been. 3 years. We've not improved enough this year.

If we can't beat GC and Carlton, then I'd say no improvement.

That being said, I think it's worth reserving our judgement until the conclusion of the season when we can take a breath and assess the year. 

It will be fascinating to see how the transition to Goodwin will translate on the field - I'm hoping ala McCartney - Beveridge. 

We've improved out of sight, but the OP is correct, we're still a few snags short of a barbeque. I don't think we'll play finals next year, unless we can recruit a ready to go KPD that can marshall the defense properly. Even then, we've still got far too many players getting regular games that haven't even played 20 games yet. Might be another year of frustration 2017.

First quarter excluded, compare the Saints' dynamic ball movement to players always on the move to our programmed stop-start movement. The Saints' ability to go from a contest to an attacking move puts us to shame.

17 minutes ago, stuie said:

See the game yesterday mate? How about the Bombers game?

Nah, you're right, how dare anyone question Roos. We're young and experience and next year and blah blah blah....

3 years it's been. 3 years. We've not improved enough this year.

Stu, we are coming from a long, long way back. We are still making up an staggering amount of ground.

Improvement has been marginal and IMO unacceptable.  From hopeless to mediocre is our current lot. I agree the list has improved but we are still a poor team. This season, so called improvement has been masked by several other poor teams. GC and Brisbane getting worse and teams that have declined like Collingwood, Richmond and Essendon. I believe the chances are good one or more of those sides will overtake us next season. A future rebuild is not out of the question unless Goodwin turns out to be another Luke Beveridge.

35 minutes ago, Demons11 said:

You are kidding right

I don't think he is. Even PJ was targeting finals this year. We have improved but it is marginal and incremental. I have never bought into the "it takes 5 years to change a game plan" garbage.

Our defence is a trainwreck. Our mids go missing regularly. Our players make dumb mistakes time and time again. 

Worst of all is our leadership disappears and we have little other than Viney, Jones and Vince to stand up and stop teams kicking 7 or 8 in a row against us.

16 minutes ago, Tony Tea said:

Stu, we are coming from a long, long way back. We are still making up an staggering amount of ground.

I get that, and Roos has done a good job of "steadying" as I said. But honestly, I don't think we've improved enough this year.

32 minutes ago, Deemented Are Go! said:

If we can't beat GC and Carlton, then I'd say no improvement.

That being said, I think it's worth reserving our judgement until the conclusion of the season when we can take a breath and assess the year. 

It will be fascinating to see how the transition to Goodwin will translate on the field - I'm hoping ala McCartney - Beveridge. 

How much more evidence do you need? The last 10 seasons not enough for you?

After 3 seasons, Roos hasn't turned a perennial bottom-dweller and merger-candidate into a Grand Final contender.

Indefensible. Sack him.

Just now, stuie said:

I get that, and Roos has done a good job of "steadying" as I said. But honestly, I don't think we've improved enough this year.

I'm inclined to agree. I'd like to know what is the current coaching philosophy. It seems we are still to resolve the balance between attack and defence.

Sorry to be repetitive, but as a team we have only 2 "tricks" - (1) stoppages (thanks largely to Gawn), and (2) fast attacks through the corridor. We do have potentially dangerous forwards, but if (1) & (2) don't work, it makes it impossible for our forwards.

If any team counters our only two "tricks", we will ALWAYS lose, even to lousy teams like Essendon & St Kilda.

So what I'd like to see is for us to beat a team - any team, don't care who they are - that successfully counters our two "tricks".

If this doesn't change, the best we can hope for is 10th for the next few years.

I'd like to think that balance is a combination of age and coaching and that we are still to develop either. But I worry that, in particular, our game strategy is lacking.

2 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

How much more evidence do you need? The last 10 seasons not enough for you?

I'm talking about Roos era - perhaps I should've been more specific. No question the improvement isn't as strong as planned/imagined. But I bet everyone here will be more circumspect *IF* we can get to 10 wins, look to the pre-season and gear up for, let's say, 12-13 wins next year. 

2 minutes ago, Deemented Are Go! said:

I'm talking about Roos era - perhaps I should've been more specific. No question the improvement isn't as strong as planned/imagined. But I bet everyone here will be more circumspect *IF* we can get to 10 wins, look to the pre-season and gear up for, let's say, 12-13 wins next year. 

It s a very big "IF" and a bad bet. 

Just now, america de cali said:

It s a very big "IF" and a bad bet. 

Indeed - all hypothetical, mate

Roos has done a fantastic job with this football club. He's changed a club who would start Daniel Nicholson and Jordie Mckenzie in the centre square with the likes of Brayshaw and Vince. Unfortunately, I can't help but feel that there's something clearly lacking on game day. As previously alluded to, Roos lacks a plan B or a 'break glass in case of emergency' button in his coaches box that he can use to turn the tide of the game. At times, I feel like the players are trying to do something to stem the flow themselves but are unsure on how to do it as they have not been properly directed.

24 minutes ago, america de cali said:

Improvement has been marginal and IMO unacceptable.  From hopeless to mediocre is our current lot. I agree the list has improved but we are still a poor team. This season, so called improvement has been masked by several other poor teams. GC and Brisbane getting worse and teams that have declined like Collingwood, Richmond and Essendon. I believe the chances are good one or more of those sides will overtake us next season. A future rebuild is not out of the question unless Goodwin turns out to be another Luke Beveridge.

Lot of truth in that but I'm not sure I can take another rebuild.

I despair of how we are ever going to get out of the mess caused by 10 odd years of not developing players. The fact that we have so few senior players (25-28) that give a good game week in week out means that we lack the fundamental building blocks. Most of the other teams bar Brisbane have one or two if not more. Perhaps Watts and Tyson can become those players. I just do not know.

Sure we have a half dozen good young players but without a strong base we run the risk of burning them out as well. Like supporters players like to win. The modern player will not put with losing 70% if not more of their games. They get one crack at it.

The talk of finals by some on this forum has disguised what has been a mediocre year... again

1 minute ago, Demon Jack said:

Roos has done a fantastic job with this football club. He's changed a club who would start Daniel Nicholson and Jordie Mckenzie in the centre square with the likes of Brayshaw and Vince. Unfortunately, I can't help but feel that there's something clearly lacking on game day. As previously alluded to, Roos lacks a plan B or a 'break glass in case of emergency' button in his coaches box that he can use to turn the tide of the game. At times, I feel like the players are trying to do something to stem the flow themselves but are unsure on how to do it as they have done been properly directed.

Agree, especially the bolded part. When our game plan is successfully tied up, the players do try harder, but trying harder has no effect, and can even make it worse. They get perplexed & indecisive, which, if the other coach senses it (and this would be what they're looking for), they apply even more pressure and move in for the kill.

When you're tied up, it's no use struggling against the ropes. You've got to figure out another way out.

 

All the teams that beat us at Etihad beat us by doing one thing... run and spread + switching across the ground from half back.

If you look at the amount of times the ball for example was in our forward line about 30 m out towards the pocket and the Saints won possession...they got on their bikes and switched the play to the opposite side of the ground as they knew their leg speed would beat us every time. The Doggies did it time after time last year when we lost by 100+

So whilst we go chasing the players across the ground one or two Saints ran back towards the goal, one peeled off at their half forward line as the link man and one kept floating towards goal...usually we ended up as a one on two and we were caught in the middle.

Oh and another thing...

It didn't help that our corridor centric mentality made us centre the ball with a risky 30m kick rather than kick down the line to a contest. How many times have we witnessed it over the years?

For the love of God MFC coaching staff...direct your players NOT TO KICK INTO THE CORRIDOR AT ETIHAD PAST HALF BACK - GO DOWN THE LINE!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you compare our side in 2013 and how we played to the 2016 side and how we play then it's clear we have improved.  If you can't see it then you are blind.

Our culture, training habits, ability to teach and educate the players... it's night and day to what it has been.  We have some very good players coming through and the future is bright.

Obviously, there are some things that still need to be worked on.  Our ability to have a Plan B, play at Etihad and learn to win games that we SHOULD is all part of that.  We are better at beating those teams below us (Essendon aside) and our gameplan, mostly, works against all sides.

If we had a time machine that took us back a few years to see what we were like then, we would all be down on our hands and knees kissing the feet of Paul Roos and Peter Jackson.  As the players get more games into them we should see them eradicate some of those things mentioned above.