Welcome Back to the Bottom of the Ladder

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

15 minutes ago, Nasher said:

Just a fleeting visit. We’re not here to stay.

The lofty heights of 16th is in our sights.

[Nasher 33,617]

1 hour ago, Clint Bizkit said:

The lofty heights of 16th is in our sights.

We will finish in the 9-12 range.

[buck_nekkid 6,046]

Should be “welcome back to the bottom”...  FFS, this is MFC after all.....

[faultydet 7,619]

Look at the Demonland banner, and wonder how it is possible.

There is something wrong inside the club right now. Confidence is shot, and the coaches seem to be clueless on game day.

McDonald can't get a touch, the great white hope Weideman is suddenly scared of contested marking, and Petracca hasn't improved one bit over the past 2 years.

It's something that few clubs in the league are capable of doing. Taking a top 4, and even flag chance, and find a way to turn it into a wooden spoon contender.

 

[DemonOX 8,800]

2 hours ago, Matsuo Basho said:

Goodwin says “easiest team to play against”. He needs to add “easiest team to coach against” too.

He and his assistants have been worked out, exposed and now systematically eviscerated.

Players may be rubbish but the buck stops with him. 

 

That’s really similar to when Needle said we want to be the hardest team to play against!!!!

YUK makes me want to vomit. 

[praha 11,240]

12 minutes ago, Nasher said:

We will finish in the 9-12 range.

Kidding yourself. First 6 rounds aren't an outlier. It's a theme. We saw this a few times last year vs Hawthorn, Richmond, St Kilda, Collingwood, and then the Eagles in finals. The faster we realise we need to do a mini rebuild and reboot, the faster we will rise. This whole "we're better than this" narrative is arrogant af. You're not better than this. You may be some weeks but overall you're not. We need to accept this.

[Nasher 33,617]

4 minutes ago, praha said:

Kidding yourself. First 6 rounds aren't an outlier. It's a theme. We saw this a few times last year vs Hawthorn, Richmond, St Kilda, Collingwood, and then the Eagles in finals. The faster we realise we need to do a mini rebuild and reboot, the faster we will rise. This whole "we're better than this" narrative is arrogant af. You're not better than this. You may be some weeks but overall you're not. We need to accept this.

Righto then mate. Stone motherless last. No scope for improvement in this side whatsoever. ?

[sisso 2,580]

Being 18th with the players we have at any stage of the season is a disgrace, hard to believe how bad we are traveling this year..30 percent below Carlton cmon

[dazzledavey36 55,319]

9 minutes ago, praha said:

Kidding yourself. First 6 rounds aren't an outlier. It's a theme. We saw this a few times last year vs Hawthorn, Richmond, St Kilda, Collingwood, and then the Eagles in finals. The faster we realise we need to do a mini rebuild and reboot, the faster we will rise. This whole "we're better than this" narrative is arrogant af. You're not better than this. You may be some weeks but overall you're not. We need to accept this.

We? Who all of a sudden gave you the right to speak on behalf of everyone else?

I'm sorry but the positive inside me is with @Nasher and agree with him in that i too think we will finish around that 12-9 mark.

[Ethan Tremblay 30,966]

Perennial losers. 

[Dr.D 1,771]

I think our fans need a wake up call too. we scraped into finals last season and played 2 great finals before 1 horrendous final. Pre-season came and all of our players were sitting on the side lines. it was at this point that I thought the coaches are kidding themselves thinking we can send 17 for off season surgery and not stagger them and still be competitive. 

Also, when I noticed that petraccas kicking hadnt improved it confirmed that the coaches aren't focusing on what we need to improve. It's also taken Goodwin 5 weeks (arguably a season and 5 games) to realise OMac cant football.

Edited April 28, 2019 by Dr.D

[ding 5,126]

9-12 would certainly be an improvement on our current position. No doubt.

We finished last year 4th. The club are supposed to improve on THAT result. 9-12 is not the kind of "improvement" we need.

It will still be a gigantic failure with our list. 

[Cards13 9,117]

The % is such a concern, can’t kick goals and sooooooo easy to rebound and score against. 

I hope it is the best 10 days of Goodys coaching career between games. 

[Jaded No More 68,974]

49 minutes ago, Nasher said:

We will finish in the 9-12 range.

I hope not. 

What a waste finishing 9th would be. No finals and no good draft picks. 

 

[Matsuo Basho 1,053]

Go get a key forward and two outside mids, get Lever and May fit and firing, retire Jones Lewis and Jetta, tweak the game plan ... we can bounce back into the top eight  next season and contend for the flag. Believe it. 

This season however ... shot to ribbons. We will finish bottom four. Play the kids.

[Nasher 33,617]

2 minutes ago, Jaded said:

I hope not. 

What a waste finishing 9th would be. No finals and no good draft picks. 

 

Pick 10 is high enough to get a very good player. The days of hoping we play worse so we advance a couple of spots in the draft are behind me, personally. I won’t do that and would prefer 9th over 10th, 10th over 11th, 11th over 12th and 17th over 18th.

[Deemania since 56 6,716]

2 hours ago, Adzman said:

On the bright side, at least this time we have bottomed out without expansion clubs coming in pillaging the draft 

I'm actually hoping the club takes a good hard look at the mid season draft and unearths a player who will contribute next year and beyond. 

We enter this intention every year but selections seldom give us longevity related to great skills and pace.

[dl4e 5,851]

It is down right embarrasing but I can see why. Our players did not prepare properly over summer and we now have an extended injury list. Players taking the field are playing no where near their potential and some must be carrying injuries. Now at round 6 the loss of confidence is there for all to see. This year is a waste so we must now prepare for 2020. We need some new support staff for Goodwin.

[Dee Dee 1,117]

8 minutes ago, Matsuo Basho said:

Go get a key forward and two outside mids, get Lever and May fit and firing, retire Jones Lewis and Jetta, tweak the game plan ... we can bounce back into the top eight  next season and contend for the flag. Believe it. 

This season however ... shot to ribbons. We will finish bottom four. Play the kids.

“Go get a key forward and two outside mids” good idea but how, they don’t just grow on trees!

Why would you get rid of Jetta? He’s injured, once mended he means a hell of a lot to this club!

And let’s see what young Sparrow and Petty have to offer.

 

[At the break of Gawn 4,460]

Max Gawn penned a good article today in the Herald Sun. Pretty sure it’s behind a pay wall though.

He basically said that being unfit is a myth and a lot of the players hit PBs in pre-season time trials.

The team knew there were no guarantees about playing finals again and knew they had to go again (so it’s not a bath water thing)

Basically said we haven’t improved our defence as a team while other teams have over the off season.

[junk 342]

Is Mark Neeld back at Melbourne? How else can you got backwards at a rapid rate of knots.

 

[Matsuo Basho 1,053]

The list has also been overrated. Depth non-existent. Guys like Oscar, ANB, Frost, the Wagners, Kennedy-Harris etc are not AFL standard. High draft picks Petracca and Weideman are looking like busts, ageing warhorses Lewis, Jones and Jetta have fallen off the cliff. 

Cracks were papered over last season with the finals wins. This is a necessary bushfire to clear out the dead wood.

[Willmoy1947 4,140]

I will give many reasons why we are on the bottom, and why player confidence, ie(in the head play), has been shot to bits.  We have best AFL players in critical positions around the ground in Gawn, Clarrie, Petracca and Lever. That by itself should be enough to have us in the middle of the ladder. The are all being maneuvered out of the game, continually, Lever aside. You could tell with Max's popularity as early as last year that noses in the AFL and Media were out of joint being bereft of control, with his natural affinity for entertainment. Claryton was there for all to see but as well too natural to manipulate. The Media don't want Melbourne who represent the MCG. The Maggots don't like or want Melbourne because they do what they are told from the MRP and Old Boys Club, who are deeply entrenched in all aspects AFL, as well we have two good players leave TWSNBN to look after their futures and their families, and also we don't suck up to the umpires. In a compromised system we just don't count.

[Thehardtackler 785]

Look at the teams in the bottom 10 right now. There are several who are there who maybe should not be either. Footy can change from season to season. We will probably be top 8 again next year and it could be our year in 2020.

Edited April 28, 2019 by Thehardtackler

[TeamPlayedFine39 8,510]

Seems as good a place as any to post some of Max’s article from the HS:

"The truth is, we knew there were no guarantees.

We knew that just because we made a preliminary final last year didn’t mean we were going to cruise through this season.

We knew that we couldn’t automatically pick up where we left off.

We knew that every year that teams improve.

But what we didn’t know was that we would be 1-5. This isn’t the start anyone wants.

Losing hurts. It hurts even after you’ve won 21 in a row.

I was drafted in 2009 in perhaps the most unsuccessful era in Demons history. Yet somewhere, somehow, I fell in love with the red and blue. I am an avid Demon supporter. I hurt when you hurt, I celebrate when you celebrate and I will listen to your feedback when things aren’t on track.

What hurts the most is the fact we are just not playing the way we know we can.

We have somehow gone away from playing a brand of footy that we started building since 2015.

The players are hurting, the coaches are hurting, the staff and volunteers are hurting, friends and family are hurting and most of all you guys, the Demon faithful, are hurting. But we aren’t quitting; there is no way that we will quit.

This theory about us not being fit enough is a myth. Along with most teams across the competition, we had the majority of our group, including myself, post PB’s in our pre season time trial.

Yes, we had some key personnel out after surgery, but so does every team. It’s on those guys to get back to the fitness required, which they did.

--------------------------------

Edited April 28, 2019 by Grapeviney
Please don't paste full articles - copyright issues