Aaargh ...

Yeah look, that was a particularly bad last quarter.

Looking back, all signs were pointing to us being underdone for Round 1.

Our JLT performances, our injuries, our interrupted pre-season to most of our stars...

I'm willing to let this ONE slide.

... just THIS one though.

Well, that didn't go to plan.  Or maybe it did, when you consider our off season as a whole.  We started later than most, had more off season surgeries than any other team and have had to bring players back late into the run of practice games.  We were shown up brutally today after the first 15 minutes.  The fact that we couldn't score in the last term is evidence of that.  We just didn't have it in us, but disappointingly, I don't think we pushed ourselves hard enough either.

We didn't have the legs to work hard enough and, when we got a sniff, we couldn't stop them from kicking a few or we mucked something up.  You could almost smell the rust coming off the players.  Not to mention that Gawn and Oliver were pretty quiet and they took us right out of the contest.

Outside of a few, like Salem and Melksham, pretty much everyone was down on their normal output and it cost us the game.  I don't think it's a matter of leg speed or even the gameplan.  We just didn't have the willingness to run hard enough around the ground, while Port had the youth and the fitness to run us off our feet time and time again.

We'll be better for the run.  Some players, like Viney (who put in his worst performance in a Melbourne jumper), will have a game under their belt, while we will at the very least get Steven May back next weekend.

There is plenty to work on, but is the season over?  Of course not.  We lost in Round 1 last year as well.  Yep, the performance today was worse than that one last year, but my point still stands.

I also think Sparrow and Corey Wagner did okay today as well.

scoreless last quarter... does anymore need to be said

What a waste of time. I won't be making the same mistake next week.

Whoever said poor JLT form means nothing were right. We were worse than poor.

Edited March 23, 20196 yr by america de cali

Way off the pace, soooo much work to be done!

I spent $600 to come and watch this [censored]. 

Paging @stevethemanjordan... 

The bitter disappointment that is the MFC

Right then.

With Viney so off the pace, we were effectively one down around the ball all day, and it went downhill from there. We look so rusty, at this rate it could take us the first 1/3 of the season just to get going.

We looked slow, were beaten in close by youngsters, killed on the spread, didn't have a plan B for Gawn. Today was a bad day. On the upside, we have May coming back in and Lever also at some point. It's hard to really say what we need. Salem was an absolute standout today and I thought Spargo tried hard with his constant pressure.

Que the "it's ok,  it's only RD1"  demonland brigade.

Good to see we maintained our prelim form.

We are under done. The preseason looked ordinary and we had more surgeries than any other side.

It’s not about week 1, it’s about a season. We didn’t have the legs today. You simply can’t win a game of professional sport if you don’t have the aerobic capacity to compete for more then 80% of the game. 

I don’t mind what happened today in the context of where we are at as a side. It’s a wake up to all that it’s a very competitive competition.

Keep the faith.

I know some of our boys were underdone, the injuries, lack of game time etc, but geez we were bad, and we got worse as the game went on. Jones was terrible, Maxxy was worked out, some of the boys were not even sighted, and we were outcoached. The icing is NO SCORE in the last qtr which is unforgivable.

We're only 1 game in, and it's a long season, but we have some serious questions to answer.

Jones to the twos

Calling it now the 6-6-6 rule hurts us more than anyone if we don’t win the clearance we are cooked, every side will now play quick players we are no good on the outside, I never got the media beat up about it being suited to us, impossible to win every clearance, prove me wrong Melbourne but I’m tipping a long year unfortunately, goody will need to come up with something 

No leadership, no run, and the agression was missing too..

They got the selection of Viney terribly wrong . Looked so unfit.

2 minutes ago, bing181 said:

Right then.

With Viney so off the pace, we were effectively one down around the ball all day, and it went downhill from there. We look so rusty, at this rate it could take us the first 1/3 of the season just to get going.

Is that something we simply have to accept?  I always felt it would take us a little bit of time to get going with the amount of injuries and so forth we had over the summer.  Today was proof of that.

I'm not worried, just accepting of the fact it might take us a few rounds to get the ball rolling.

Port Adelaide, VERY impressive. Completely out-played us, and deserves the win.

Good luck for the season ahead.

Honestly that was soooooo poor

Out worked, out pressured, and when we did have the ball our disposal was awful... What happened to the team that sliced open Geelong and Hawthorn in the Finals??

Torched on the outside as usual. Until we rebalance our midfield this will not change and we will not progress.

MFCSS is valid until proven otherwise.

One needs to question our fitness people & coach wtf are we playing players that are clearly underdone? Let’s hope this isn’t another season of failure! As a long mfc member could be history repeating its self!

One co-captain hardly gets a touch. The other one can't even catch it.

Really Simon?