Bad day at the Office that is for sure. After watching multiple training sessions since January it was problematic to see our training ball movement go missing after the first quarter. I don’t remember one ball switch after the first quarter to the other side, to set up a play. Port did it relentlessly and caught us out every time. 

The point kick outs were so predictable and defensive, no new strategy at all. Kick deep to the flank where Max is lurking, don’t remember Max taking a mark off the kick ins. 

Our game plan last year depended primarily on winning the centre clearances and contested possessions around the ground. If we get done in possessions and contested ball it falls apart. Gawn, Clarrie, Viney, Jones all down on the day means we are going to get smashed. 

 

Let’s face It Today a underdone Viney, Jones and Melksham did help what so ever, Nor did May being suspended. Ok every team has injuries, Richmond are only beginning to get them after a dream 2 year run.

But we haven’t got a hell of a lot to choose from atm With Lewis, Vandenberg, J.Smith,  Pruess, Lever, Garlett, Kolodjashnij and Hannan all unavailable, We no doubt are wounded, hopefully we gradually get them back and kick into gear 

 

Melksham was probably among our best.

1 minute ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Like everyone else we had 6 months to adjust to the 6/6/6 and not having players at the back of the square.  Richmond almost never played 6/6/6 but have adjusted ok.  So have other teams.  But we need more time.  Please.

True, we've had time, but have we had the players on the park over the summer to learn it as much as we'd like?  It's one thing to look at it on a whiteboard.  It's another thing to actually put it in practice.  Many of our most important players have spent time on the sidelines and we haven't had the continuity we would like.

It's not the only reason we struggled today.  I get that just as much as the next person.  But I think, with the side we've built and the game plan we had, coupled with the rubbish pre-season, means that we might take more time to settle into the year than we would like.

2 minutes ago, praha said:

Melksham was probably among our best.

I agree he passed a few shots off didn’t want to go for a long kick, looked propy 

1 hour ago, ding said:

I have never witnessed first-hand a more face-palmy amount of poor decision making by an MFC team. It was just unfathomable how dumb we were.

Mate how long have you been supporting our club for lol There was more poor decision making in 1 minute of any Bailey-era coached team than there was in the whole game today.

Now that I’ve had a bit of time to reflect - it’s still [censored].

14 minutes ago, McQueen said:

Beers yes but held off for a pie at the ground mate. 

Did you find a good pre game venue for a drink? Im still looking for one. Hope you get back to Perth ok. I would be [censored] to, if i crossed the country to go and watch that.

28 minutes ago, Dockett 32 said:

Thought on nearly all one on ones today Petracca beat his opponent. Sparrow above expectations. Rest of forward line shitzen

Petracca is so damn slow. Are there dieticians working at the club or what? If so we need to employ new ones

Sack Misson before it gets worse

UNDERDONE AND OVERPOWERED by George on the Outer

If there was ever a prime example of a team of players not ready for the new football season it was Melbourne in the opening round of 2019.  

Throughout the field there was just too much evidence of players who haven’t had sufficient pre-season or players who ordinarily wouldn’t have even graced the field at this early stage.  

The Demons also got a lesson on selection with Port Adelaide showing that two ruckmen on the field is an essential for this season.  It was a lesson that should have been obvious to the Melbourne coaching panel were they to have reviewed the Preliminary Final disaster, not to work out what went wrong, but rather what West Coast did right.  Then in the Grand Final a week later, two ruckmen overpowered a solitary Heath Grundy.  

With Scott Lycett and Patrick Ryder playing on the ground and tag-teaming Max Gawn it was not surprising that they simply overpowered him and the Melbourne side.  The critical factor was not the ruck contests, but rather what they did when not rucking.  Resting Ryder or Lycett in the forward line instead of the bench meant the Demons had to commit Sam Frost or Oscar McDonald to them.  That left Westhoff free to take uncontested mark after mark. Five goals for the game resulted.  That was the score difference at the final bell!

And if further proof is needed for the two talls, check out what Hawthorn are doing with Ceglar and McEvoy on the ground, and they had only one week less break than us over the summer!

Meanwhile when Gawn was resting on the bench, the big forwards of Tom McDonald or Sam Weidemann had to double with ruck duties.  No small surprise that a single big man in front of the sticks resulted in very little scoring, including not a solitary point in the final quarter.

The other selection failures were simply too many small players without the necessary experience at AFL level.  Could we really expect a team including ANB, Hore, Sparrow, Spargo, Wagner, Fritsch, and Hunt to compete with taller opponents?  And should we really have selected Sparrow (although he acquitted himself reasonably well) to replace a 300 game general of the backline.  There may have not been many more experienced available, but a tall would have helped.

Sadly, apart from these failures, too many players were simply underdone.  Jack Viney with 10 possessions. Petracca with only 2 touches to half-time.  Jones putting in an absolute “mare” with kick and marking failures.  Even Clayton Oliver with (for him) only 10 handballs.  What do they all have in common ... interrupted pre-seasons, with Jones and Viney only returning to running in the past 4-6 weeks ... it showed!

Christian Salem held the defence admirably, and with 32 touches off half-back he excelled at every turn.  The pity is that a HBF shouldn’t be the major possession getter in the side. Angus Brayshaw held together the mids because he, at least, could get his hands on the ball, while Harmes helped out, but they were on their own.  

They performed OK in the middle, and in fact Melbourne won the centre square clearances easily.  But around the ground without any assistance, Port simply cut the Demons to pieces.  Rockliff with 44 touches but only 4 clearances from the middle, showed where the Power were gaining the advantage.

Port also used their footy smarts.  Kicking the ball long, especially with the fluky wind, almost guaranteed chaos entries into their forward line.  In contrast Melbourne tried to chip and seek out the better option all the time, and it failed.  With the wind playing havoc, the ball often came out the back to find Port players who stayed down in the contest.  Not so Melbourne who continued to fly in packs to no effect.  

Will it get any better next week?  Not if we continue doing the same thing at selection table.  The addition of Steven May will help in a big way down back, but we need to give Max a cut-out during the game.  1 ruck is not enough in 2019.

We can’t do much about the lack of fitness in too many players, that’s just the nature of post season surgery, but if they are not ready and primed, then they shouldn’t be selected.  

Facing Geelong so early in the season will be a problem, because all their old stagers will be reasonably fit at this time of the year.  Come year end (as we saw in last year’s Elimination Final) they just drop by the wayside.  

What will happen? Will we see a half-baked team again next week?  If we do, all the pre-season aspirations will be cooked ...

Melbourne 4.3.27 6.5.41 9.7.61 9.7.61             

Port Adelaide 2.4.16 6.8.44 10.9.69 12.15.87        

Goals

Melbourne Melksham 2 Brayshaw Fritsch Jones T.McDonald Petracca Sparrow Weideman  

Port Adelaide Westhoff 5 Butters 2 Boak Duursma Ebert Gray Marshall

Best

Melbourne Salem, Harmes, Melksham, Hibberd, Brayshaw, Oliver

Port Adelaide Westhoff, Rockliff, Gray, Boak, Burton, Ebert

Injuries

Melbourne Lewis (hamstring) replaced in selected side by Sparrow

Port Adelaide Marshall (concussion)

Reports Nil

Umpires Rosebury, Stephens, Hosking

Official crowd 38,866 at the MCG

38 minutes ago, Dockett 32 said:

 

Traded away some very useful draft picks to get them. How did they go today?

Who cares

23 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Like everyone else we had 6 months to adjust to the 6/6/6 and not having players at the back of the square.  Richmond almost never played 6/6/6 but have adjusted ok.  So have other teams.  But we need more time.  Please. 

We pretty much abandoned the 2 off the back of the square tactic for the last 6-8 weeks of last year anyway. It's a rubbish excuse.

3 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Who does he come in for? Port killed us with run and spread, having another lumbering big man wouldn't have helped that.

Gawn got slaughtered bruised and maimed. Weidemann proved yet again he is a hopeless ruck fill in. I say no more...

 

3 hours ago, Earl Hood said:

I don’t remember Max ever saying that Dieter. Didn’t the German soldier guy say that on Laugh In? But you maybe right although with Pruess in we would have been even slower. 

I was never an avid watcher of US comedies, though I plead guilty to F Troop. ( When you watch them today you would surely cringe but let's not get political because the censors will swoop.) 

Slower the Preusster may have been, surely though he would have given as good as Gawn copped all day...

 

I'll be interested to see how W C go against Brisbane and GWS fare against TWSNBN'

All should fall into place then...... The" Ides of March" not "Remember September"

2 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

It's not about having a month less pre-season because of finals.

It's about players requiring surgery either at the start of pre-season or during it, and/or being injured and not being able to do a full pre-season.

If some of those were so NQR was it a wise move to play them then Titan?

Apart from the first 20 minutes we were nowhere. We looked short of a gallop, it felt like I was watching a practice match.  It was a weird game of footy, in the end playing Jones & Viney off the back of one VFL practice match wasn't the right call, having said that Melksham was good so take the good with the bad I guess.

What had me worried was when the side was announced Thursday the fact the likes of Hore & Wagner were named with Hunt & Spargo whos JLT form was only meh, we suddenly didn't look great on paper. Add it Jones & Viney underdone we've got 6 players with a big question mark.

The usual consistent lot of Gawn, Oliver & Brayshaw were off... We just looked like the season had come to soon, I don't think we are a good enough side yet to be able to get away with not playing our best & scrapping a win. It's frustrating because a loss to a mid range interstate side at home should be 4 points. Big 3 weeks ahead,  we have to go 2-2.

9 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

We pretty much abandoned the 2 off the back of the square tactic for the last 6-8 weeks of last year anyway. It's a rubbish excuse.

So what is the excuse? If the game plan hasn't changed much, why are we struggling? We made minimal changes player wise so it's not as if we had massive turnover there. 

I don't buy the lack of pace train of thought either, as it wasn't a massive issue for most of 2018.

So what was it? Fitness? A totally off day? A little bit of arrogance? Or all of the above? 

While I acknowledge there is lots at play here, I do thing the 6-6-6 rule has had a small, negative impact on the side as a whole. But of course, it's only a small part. 

41 minutes ago, Wadda We Sing said:

Did you end up finding a pre game beer and chicken wings?

Great chicken at a Korean place opposite the Gabba if you're in town for that one.

 

2 hours ago, loges said:

Must say was really disappointed with both  Max and the team's response to him being roughed up off the ball, return the aggression please.

Is this referring to two or three players roughing up Clarrie in the last quarter on the members side?   If so i totally agree.  No-one, I repeat no-one went in to remonstrate with the Port players.  Max just casually jogged past.  No-one went to help Clarrie get up.  Such little care for a young teammate by all players in the vicinity was really disturbing.

But by that time I wasn't surprised as there had been little backing up, running or playing for each other.  Teamwork was virtually non existent today.   Something just didn't seem right with the team. 

Edited March 23, 20196 yr by Lucifer's Hero

27 minutes ago, chook fowler said:

Now that I’ve had a bit of time to reflect - it’s still [censored].

What's your brew CF?  Might need a change up

Would the Hawks have kept Jones and cleared Kent?

Watch out for the apologists for not being ready though.

We did the same thing against Geelong last year and should have learnt.

 

I thought we look meek.

We were brutal in our finals against Geelong and Hawthorn, and without too much outside run we simply have to win it in this area but we’re shown up by Boak and Rockliff and the harassment of Gawn.

Im still perplexed at Vineys performance, fair enough he was short of a gallop, but his intensity was really poor.

1 minute ago, Wiseblood said:

So what is the excuse? If the game plan hasn't changed much, why are we struggling? We made minimal changes player wise so it's not as if we had massive turnover there. 

I don't buy the lack of pace train of thought either, as it wasn't a massive issue for most of 2018.

So what was it? Fitness? A totally off day? A little bit of arrogance? Or all of the above? 

While I acknowledge there is lots at play here, I do thing the 6-6-6 rule has had a small, negative impact on the side as a whole. But of course, it's only a small part. 

In what way do you think it's impacting? We stopped playing the +2 off half back late last season. Our issue today was more around workrate and intelligent play. I don't know if this was due to being underdone or just an off day. Our decision making and ball use was horrid. Long kicks down the line to contests where the opposition easily out played us to regain possession. 3 or 4 players all fighting each other for the footy while the Port guys sat off the pack and took away easy clean disposals.

I hope it was just an off day because if it was due to a poor preseason it doesn't bode well for the year. I kind of thought we may have a bit of a down year before challenging next year due to the number of players having interrupted preseasons and the fact we've had steady linear improvement since 2013. Not many teams keep improving year on year on year. We've also got a tougher draw this year.

I'm not throwing the season away it's only round 1 after all. We've seen a number of interesting results already and plenty of teams having poor touch. I'll give them a chance to redeem themselves over the next month and see where we are at then. I still think we're on the right track I have faith in Goodwin and the list. We just don't seem finely tuned at the moment.