3 minutes ago, Fork 'em said:

Yet we still bomb it into the forward line like morons.

Exactly, when was the last time you can remember a Melbourne player hitting a clean pin point pass to a player on the lead inside 50?

3 minutes ago, Fork 'em said:

Yet we still bomb it into the forward line like morons.

Yep. Haven’t learnt one thing over summer. 

But all the opposition know how to smash us up in pieces now....

When does the season proper start? 

In another couple rounds when we get ourselves sorted apparently.

 

7 minutes ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

When does the season proper start? 

Relax ET it's only JLT04... We only need 13 wins to make finals. 

6 minutes ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

When does the season proper start? 

 

4 minutes ago, Fork 'em said:

In another couple rounds when we get ourselves sorted apparently.

 

Yeah, exactly.

We have concentrated on getting contested beasts, to the complete detriment of team balance. We now have no outside run and no small forwards. 

We have misread our list and our gameplan exacerbates the problem.

Bombing it into the forward 50 will now get us beaten most games. 

2 minutes ago, Redleg said:

We have concentrated on getting contested beasts, to the complete detriment of team balance. We now have no outside run and no small forwards. 

We have misread our list and our gameplan exacerbates the problem.

Bombing it into the forward 50 will now get us beaten most games. 

Mentioned this earlier on. We have overrated our list. 

We have given up 3 first round drafts picks for Lever and May. Watching the likes of Jordan Clark tonight and Zac Butters last week showing dash and pace on the outside is just making my head shake.

They are exactly the kind of players we need in our side developing right about now.

Funny you know, i thought they collectively showed more than last week. Even though the scoreboard showed differently. Which brings me to the point of post. They to me have been, dare i say it, purposely underdone and are gradually switching on. I'm game to say it. If i'm wrong it's  going to be a long learning curve for this young group.

Where to start, where to stop!

We are blessed with the best quarter back in the game (Christian Salem). Tonight we chose not to use him in that role. It was back to being an ineffective team. We have too much ineffective runners in Hibberd and Hunt (who wasn't too bad). The fact that May came in meant less ball in the hands of a real user (Salem). I think we play in a year where the ball needs to be in the hands of a real user of the ball, and set up from the backline. Really disheartening tonight, not a lot to like, no real structure. The boys tried hard, many did well, but they are running around chasing kicks without no real disciplined game play or structure. Reminds me of when I played under 11's.

4 minutes ago, willmoy said:

Funny you know, i thought they collectively showed more than last week. Even though the scoreboard showed differently. Which brings me to the point of post. They to me have been, dare i say it, purposely underdone and are gradually switching on. I'm game to say it. If i'm wrong it's  going to be a long learning curve for this young group.

Totally agree

a post earlier mentioned that the FD did elective surgeries as this isn’t our premiership year, which I agree with too

we will come good, by rounds 7-9 we will be on all cylinders.  

Just need to hope that not too much damage is done before then

 

Meanwhile in maggot world, the buzzwords of the weekend were "arms around a player being unfairly kept from the contest " must be paid as free kick except if your wearing Red and Blue, kicking in danger paid unless by Danger, Ablett/God, all tackles against MFC players legitimate... ie do what you like. .....and i hope everyone in yellow on that ground tonight gets the flu.

1 minute ago, willmoy said:

Meanwhile in maggot world, the buzzwords of the weekend were "arms around a player being unfairly kept from the contest " must be paid as free kick except if your wearing Red and Blue, kicking in danger paid unless by Danger, Ablett/God, all tackles against MFC players legitimate... ie do what you like. .....and i hope everyone in yellow on that ground tonight gets the flu.

Ha. I said I hope they get pneumonia at the ground. They were woeful again (toward both sides). 

32 minutes ago, Beetle said:

Exactly, when was the last time you can remember a Melbourne player hitting a clean pin point pass to a player on the lead inside 50?

When was the last time you saw a Melbourne player lead and have space on his opponent?

And when was the last time you saw a MFC midfielder with time to be able to make a pass with ‘composure’?

unfortunately it’s not our game style

2 hours ago, reynolds46 said:

Sadly the club thinks playing a couple of good finals last year was a great achievement but too quickly overlooked the dismal showing in the preliminary final. Too many short comings in the team that haven’t been addressed 

This ☝?

if we’re being honest, Petracca’s stagnation is going to hurt going forward. Individual brilliance matters. Forget about taking a game by the scruff of the neck. He barely looks capable of taking a game by the hand and asking it out for a coffee.

Another false dawn  ffs this club continues to break hearts 55 yrs strong 

4 hours ago, pitmaster said:

Really, it's time you stopped playing this record. Between 1987 and 2006 we were regular finalists, played two GFs and usually won at least one final, so give it a break.

Zero flags in 55 years.. we hold the longest drought .. that’s a real fact.. don’t know about you but most are fed up of the club finding a way to fall in a heap continuously after showing signs of success.

it is just mindblowing to have 25 more inside 50's and lose by 80.   We had the same problem last season too.

Thats what we should have worked on more than anything over the summer and it looks like we did nothing about it.

Trust Melbourne to have a Preliminary Final hangover.

Seriously though, these are all the same issues we've seen before.

Bombing forward. Extreme defensive leakage. Forward inefficiency. Can't take a contested mark to save ourselves.

And we've overcome them all before with limited tweaking.

We have a difficult game-style to execute. High contested intensity, fast ball-movement, a forward defense.

We believe that that level of difficulty will deliver a premiership edge when we get it down as second nature.

I've said all along that the game-plan is a roll of the dice, designed to break open such a tight comp.

But it needs to click before we can judge. 17 blokes under the knife during the off-season isn't ideal in this respect.

Despite the score, we showed some signs of heading in the right direction today.

 

8 hours ago, Dame Gaga said:

Who is the media going to whip the most this week? Melbourne or Essenbomb?

That's an easy pick. Melbourne, and it won't be pretty (much like our footy )

3 hours ago, Petraccattack said:

it is just mindblowing to have 25 more inside 50's and lose by 80.   We had the same problem last season too.

Thats what we should have worked on more than anything over the summer and it looks like we did nothing about it.

You've just described 'inept'

That's us... totally inept

I wonder how many of you had the same reactions after the Hawks beat us by a similar margin in Round 4 last year? We already had a couple of wins on the board by then too, so that result was even less expected. 

Things are never as bad as they seem. We had roughly 55 inside 50s in that Hawks game for just six goals, yet we quickly righted the ship and the rest was history. 

We might have some injuries and fitness issues to deal with at the minute, but we have the talent and the competitiveness to turn things around. 

2 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

I wonder how many of you had the same reactions after the Hawks beat us by a similar margin in Round 4 last year? We already had a couple of wins on the board by then too, so that result was even less expected. 

Things are never as bad as they seem. We had roughly 55 inside 50s in that Hawks game for just six goals, yet we quickly righted the ship and the rest was history. 

We might have some injuries and fitness issues to deal with at the minute, but we have the talent and the competitiveness to turn things around. 

Back then we had a little bit of momentum...then a reality check.

Here...no momentum...no wins.

Just losses...and margins increasing.

I'm not sure whether we're a train wreck or if it's just the wheels falling off !!

Quite frankly we're a basketcase of a team.

No discernible game plan ( that works towards achieving a victory ) and a FD not keen on assuming ( acknowledging ) responsibility.

This is very different to last year. Then we looked like we might be getting somewhere.

We're going backwards currently, at a million miles an hour.

Yep...all good... nothing to see here... move along

9 hours ago, Whispering_Jack said:

I don’t think that’s ever happened before. 

Teams usually win by 80 points when they have a 73 - 48 advantage in inside 50s.

We just couldn't buy a goal and they kicked one every time they went forward. We actually dominated the game from midway through the 2nd until midway through the 3rd but only kicked one goal. We had something like 20 inside 50s in a row! They then take it down and kick 4 goals from 4 inside 50s and the games done.

The result is disappointing but it's not the end of the world. We get a chance to reset against the Bombers on Friday who have enough problems of their own. People need to have some faith, far too many just want to get stuck in and jump off the minute things look too hard.