Melbourne could be as good as anyone, but first and foremost it has to get over itself.

Melbourne fails to know how to get the foot to the throat and press down hard. The Demons release the pressure too soon and play like millionaires. This needs to stop.

Malthouse makes the leap that every other simple-minded shouty sports fan reaches for when a talented team performs below expectations, discounting maturity-levels, experience, etc: it must be arrogance. From every thing that I've ever read about or heard said from Goodwin, he continually imparts the need for humility. I think there is no other cliche than the bathwater one that gets my back up nowadays.

That said, and moving past the 'millionaire's' swipe, Malthouse is correct that we've had an issue with putting the foot down in the past. There was the 'failure to crush' teams thread on here the year before last - and in that year, when we played Port after the bye, it was reported that their players were super-confident at the break despite us having completely smothered them in the first half. It shows that there's an issue, at least of perception.

We made some in-roads last year against the weaker teams. But still, while my recollection remains that we completely destroyed Geelong and Hawthorn in each of our finals, two of the highlights from the season were us closing them out after tense moments late in both matches. They were both given a sniff despite our dominance. That will need to change, and is the important next step for the coming season.

It's an issue of maturity. And we rely on intensity - rather than playing like millionaires, we get out in front and then don't know what to do when the intensity drops, playing less direct and dinking it around until the inevitable turn-over leads to easy goals out the back and the pressure comes back on. We need to learn more tricks in scoring from structured play, and how to control the tempo without losing our intent. That also comes with maturity.

 

This is Mick covering himself all ways. If Melbourne make the top four he will look astute. If they play ruthlessly it will look as though his criticism spurred them into doing so. If they actually win the Premiership he will look like a great predictor. A win all round for himself. Me, I'm just looking forward to the first game!

Malthouse has never been much of a fan favorite and his time as a coach in the modern world of AFL are clearly past him evidenced by his Carlton days.  But I fully respect his record as a 3 time premiership coach and always admired the way West Coast just diligently got on with the job, consistently finishing top 4/top 2, the flags they won in that time and wanted the MFC to clinically go about winning in a similar fashion.

He's hardly gone out on a limb suggesting that the 2019 Premier will come from one of the teams that finished in the top 4 the previous year. While that hasn't happened in the last few years, I would have thought it was pretty much the norm. I'm not a fan of Malthouse, but I'm actually quite surprised that he's playing it so safe. I would have expected him to choose at least one team from left field.  

Surprised he didn't pick himself to win the Norm Smith

On 3/17/2019 at 10:10 AM, ProDee said:

His comments are in keeping with previous comments. 

He hasn't predicted we'll make the eight, because we drink our own bath water, but recognises the quality of the list. 

And I reckon he might be right on the money!