Funny thing is we just got beaten by the top side.

Billy Slater as tackling coach has made a clear difference to the Saints and I’d say Ratten has had a big influence as well.

We also gave them one of our best outside mids in Kent, when we don’t have many if any.

I still believe we will get better but it will be too late.

It would be nice to support a team that can identify obvious tactical issues that occur - the Same ones against the saints for  years - and do something about it!

  On 20/04/2019 at 09:52, ProDee said:

Yep.

I love Goody, but they've learnt nothing over summer.

At least he won't be telling us that we want to be a humble football club, which I've heard ad nauseum.  I wish we had something to be humble about.

We're all used to this feeling.  It's not like it's anything new for a Melbourne supporter.  You'll all survive.  2019 is over.  Alas, I'm still bullish about the future.    

Unless Goodwin has a complete cleanout of his Gameplans, he won’t survive for long. 

He is standing at the fork in the road right now. 

A positive is that we come out of the match with no injuries - Dees! 

It's one or both of fitness and effort. We are [censored] if it is effort.

I posted this after the Bombers game

we are playing a game style suited to 2018- problem is its 2019 and the rest of the AFL teams have moved on.

 

 

 

  On 20/04/2019 at 09:29, watchtheeyes said:

Nice to read some proper, level headed analysis!

Couldn’t agree more. The whole ‘win the ball at source’ philosophy is fine, but you better dominate in there.

A territory game can also be fine, but you better have the players, and in our case we went in with 3 talls.

And the game awareness/structure in the D50 is shocking, which fees like Chaplin. Or they relied on May and when he went down we weren’t prepared.

Lewis, Jones are clearly now liabilities.. so what the hell were they doing on the wings against such a fast team?

Why the hell didn’t we send TMac back? Petracca to the ball? Fritsch forward? Anything at all?

I hate the rubbish about ‘not trying’, ‘no heart’, in my view this is never the reason. In this case it was coaching, all over the place. Just. Dreadful.

 

Maybe the Footy Dept watched the 2018 preLim final... over and over again along with the saints loss of 2018... Maybe they waited on Goody's contract until they witnessed how the team was going before they signed off on his mew contract.

 

Imagine what Odds someone would have gotten for Melbourne to finish bottom 5 or 6_ in 2019....  but an insider would need a great solicitor to place the bet... on behalf of said Footy Ddept.

 

What IF... the FD could see the writing on the wall end of last season... knowing what  '666'_   would bring with it.

We need at least Two top running centreline players at end of 2019... to do anything in 2020.

 

We have the inside players but we're NOT dominant,  in there.   But we are terrible around the wings, centreline runners.   

 

Tracca is as good as  'Jabba the Hutt',  when we're defending.

  On 20/04/2019 at 09:46, Clintosaurus said:

At least 5 clear frees not paid within 20 metres of 

You can't say we should of got five free kicks, twenty metres out, because if the first free kick is paid, then the future takes on a different path from that point onwards.

 

Edited April 20, 20196 yr by one_demon

  On 20/04/2019 at 09:39, Deecisive said:

we had the same number of scoring shots as they had!  we just played a pathetic band of football and were lucky to not lose by more.

We had our chances but our disposal was woeful, kicking and hand passing to the opposition when under pressure, occasionally when not under pressure. they were first at the ball in defence and in attack, so where were our players. Every team we have played this year has burnt us big on the overlap run out of defence and still we have no solution...... It is not a new problem, happens every game so why are we not prepared for it.

I hate the zone defence. it seems to me that you are essentially trying to take advantage of the miss kick and pick up cheap interceptions. problem is when the opposition does not miss kick then they have an easy run all the way down the field. 

Zone defence only works if you have enough players with decent closing speed and endurance who firstly don't allow their opponent to make too much space on them and secondly, are capable of closing that space down very quickly on their own oppponent or potentially somone elses if the overlaps in play.

To close down on somone else's opponent you need confidence that the other players around you in the zone are also capable of doing same to cover yours.  Otherwise you are going to be burned too often.  Then you go back to just protecting space more often rather than risking an intercept or spoiling play.  If that catches on you all start slowly becoming witches hat's for a quick reasonably skilled Opp.

Edited April 20, 20196 yr by Rusty Nails

  On 20/04/2019 at 09:09, Petraccattack said:

Diabolical coaching. 

Succinct and accurate.

  On 20/04/2019 at 09:59, Sargent Shultz said:

I posted this after the Bombers game

we are playing a game style suited to 2018- problem is its 2019 and the rest of the AFL teams have moved on.

 

 

 

Yep. Last years F1 cars are sold to the small teams who run at the back of the field

happens every year without fail

  On 20/04/2019 at 10:00, one_demon said:

If the first of those free kicks is paid, then the future takes a different path.  So you can't say we should of got five free kicks, twenty metres out.

If it was then the rest of the game pans out differently. If Melk was paid the obvious one against the Bummers we would have been 20 up and probably win. The ones not paid have a greater impact on the result and we are not being paid them.  

  On 20/04/2019 at 09:47, titan_uranus said:

@Scoop Junior‘s post is excellent but, I think, lets the players off the hook too much. 

In the third quarter we were significantly outworked around the ground. At a time when we should have been making a stand we eased off in CPs and didn’t transition defensively anywhere near at an AFL level. 

But the structures aren’t working either. There is just no feasible way that Jones and Lewis work as our wings. Fritsch isn’t working as a defender. We’ve got three marking forwards who are all out of form and made almost no changes to try to spark them into form. And we still haven’t worked out how to defend the MCG. 

Worst of all though, Goodwin did classic 2018 Goodwin and tried dropping a loose man into defence once we were 5 goals down. Why? Why do that at all, given our flaws, and why do it when it’s too late? Pathetic from Goodwin IMO. 

We’re also carrying the Wagners and Spargo who just aren’t good enough, plus Lewis and Jones who are past it. Too many passengers. 

I’d like to see some new faces but more importantly I want to see a changed approach to team defence.

100 % agree need 2 make these changes 

I agree it's system based and almost all about our coaching. Our forwards don't lead up at the ball and we don't lower our eyes enough entering forward 50. Collingwood are showing the way a dominant midfield (which we possess too) can play control football and wipe sides off the park. 

I find it staggering that we still haven't worked out how to play the G or against control footy. Our aggressive press is still just as ridiculous as it was last year and must go.

I love Hibbo but he's done. I don't think we've got a dumber footballer on our list. He can't win 1v1s anymore and he literally has one game: bomb it high and long. Lewis and Jones were both done last year too.

The missing ingredient to this side, as has been discussed ad nauseum, is pace. We need pace off our back flanks, on our wings and in our forward half.

I think we might need some fresh ideas in the coaching ranks too.

Hold onto your first bloody draft pick this time because it'll be another top 5 pick. We're not getting off the foot of the ladder this year.

Edited April 20, 20196 yr by A F

  On 20/04/2019 at 09:26, R.I.P. Troy said:

Come on all the 'it will be ok ers'.

Educate me on how it's all ok.

I'm all ears.

Another bump in road to glory?

We'll learn and bounce back on track next week? 

Stay positive, good things will happen?

???

 

EXACTLY! Why would goody get 4 more if things were not tracking on track 

  On 20/04/2019 at 10:06, Superunknown said:

EXACTLY! Why would goody get 4 more if things were not tracking on track 

We blinked

  On 20/04/2019 at 09:31, ICU2 Jerry Jerry said:

The problem with the club is that there is no club. We're nomads. We have no spiritual home to walk the halls of after training. No tangible history to embrace, forget the G . . . It's just where we play.  We're like a start up club trying to create something out of nothing. The 12 flags count for nought. We have no soul. The players, staff, coaches can all change but in the end we don't stand for anything and we aren't anywhere.  

That's reality

How do you take you're kid down to "the club"? There is no club

Every other club in the league has a club, their club not a temporary share arrangement with 2 other teams

[censored]

 

This

plus, complacency and apathy 

  On 20/04/2019 at 10:08, beelzebub said:

We blinked

I didn’t phrase it proper like

things are in track

it is just a bump on the road

  On 20/04/2019 at 09:44, ProDee said:

It's clearly system based.  We're poorly organised.  

Players and coaches out of form.

Still think our pace is fine?

I said we were the slowest team in the AFL and now most of the commentators agree.

Agree with your comment that we are poorly organised. Players have no idea what they are doing  or are supposed to be doing. That is why we continually hesitate and are caught with the ball.

I’d pay Weideman 700k a year.

Doesnt mark or kick goals, but his second efforts are good.

  On 20/04/2019 at 09:57, Sir Why You Little said:

Unless Goodwin has a complete cleanout of his Gameplans, he won’t survive for long. 

He is standing at the fork in the road right now. 

Goody's smart and will work it out.  But 2019 won't deliver what we crave.

I get you disagree about Goody, so no need to respond.  I don't want a table tennis match.

OK, so what exactly is wrong with the coolaid our coaches are serving? 

They want to play a high defence where our whole team pressures in the forward half. 

Why is this bad?  Because it means there are 36 players in our forward line when we are in attack.  This makes it virtually impossible to get a player in the clear for a mark or an unpressured shot on goal.  It also means that there are no players in the opposition's fifty, meaning that when they bring the ball out of our forward zone they have miles of open space to work in, meaning that it is very easy for them to get in space to take a mark or have an unpressured shot on goal. 

They want our forward 50 entries to be in the supposedly high percentage area 20-30m our directly in front of the goals. 

Why is this bad?  Firstly because it makes us horribly predictable, meaning that oppositions defensive units can set up around this area with players waiting for the spillage and runners ready for the handball receive allowing them to easily run the ball back out of our attacking 50 if we don't take a contested mark.  Secondly, because we don't have any forwards capable of taking big contested marks.  Thirdly, because our forwards lack cohesion and teamwork, and so often go for the same ball and spoil each other, saving their opponents the trouble. 

They want everyone to win the contested ball. 

Why is this bad?  Because unlike when you're eight years old, in the grownup game you can't have a mob of players charging around following the ball wherever it goes.  We repeatedly see our mids all diving in to try to win the ball, get in each others' way and cause fumbles.  Meanwhile, the opposition have two or three in the scrum against our entire midfield who often don't even try to win the ball but just knock it around and try to punch it to the outside where we have nobody and they can get an easy takeaway.  The absolute lack of anything resembling team acts by anyone in our side makes this problem worse.  If our players were working for each other rather than all trying to win the ball themselves, we could use those extra numbers to create space for one or two people to get the ball.  I don't remember the last time I saw a Melbourne player shepherding for a teammate, but it must have been before Goodwin took over. 

Yes we have some skill errors.  Yes, the umpiring hurt us today.  But make no mistake, it's the coaching that is causing these problems. 

I can't believe how bad we have become. It is just staggering. 

  On 20/04/2019 at 10:11, Redleg said:

Still think our pace is fine?

I said we were the slowest team in the AFL and now most of the commentators agree.

Agree with your comment that we are poorly organised. Players have no idea what they are doing  or are supposed to be doing. That is why we continually hesitate and are caught with the ball.

We have far more issues than pace.  Teams always look slow when they're confused and don't know when to run or where to run.

  On 20/04/2019 at 10:14, ProDee said:

Goody's smart and will work it out.  But 2019 won't deliver what we crave.

I get you disagree about Goody, so no need to respond.  I don't want a table tennis match.

He has had 6 months already. 

Clearly has backed his Gameplan against pace since last year, which has failed dismally since last September