Post Game: Rd 5 v St. Kilda

[david_neitz_is_my_dad 4,083]

Sound like the club needs to get Mr Roos down for a coffee

[Beetle 4,660]

What hope have we got with players like the two Wagners in the side? Trouble is we barely have anyone else to replace them with! The list itself and depth is ridiculously overrated.

I know Jason Taylor hasn’t had a lot to play with the past few years, but aside from successful early round picks what exactly has he brought to the club depth wise? The talent is as thin as buggery.

[DemonOX 8,791]

SPEED SPEED SPEED

It was an issue last season and it seems nothing has been done in the offseason to rectify it. 

The coaches and recruiting staff have let the let the club down and the fans down. 

Blind bloody Freddie could see SPEED was a f.....g issue and now we are paying for it. 

Every opposition team will just outrun us, hit targets, kick straight and will beat us. 

Another lost season. 

Well done MFC you continue to give back to your long and suffering supporters. 

My kids were excited for the first time in a very long time about season 2019 and now it’s back to the usual MFC feeling. 

There are only so many times you can convince your kids things will change. 

Time is running out. 

Edited April 20, 2019 by DemonOX

[Skuit 10,031]

Probably not the time to bring this up just yet, but . . .

We're undoubtedly playing [censored] football right now and our structural issues aren't anything new. Still, even accounting for some slide, the difference in our performance between our early finals' appearances and now is so stark as to be completely perplexing.

Meanwhile, it's not remotely far-fetched that by the end of this round the top three teams will read:

1. St Kilda
2. Gold Coast
3. Fremantle

Are the personnel of these teams and respective coaches now world-beaters and masterminds - as opposed to ours being hacks and newly out of their depth - or has something fundamentally changed in the game to have thrown it so suddenly upside down? Are almost the entire commentariat and massive body of football spectators who invariably had these three teams in their bottom six for 2019 also just clueless?

Sure, it's still early and even and I expect these teams to drop down (although the top three at the end of the last three even crap years were all in at least the top five at the finish of round five) - but its undeniable that there has been some form of disruption to date.

Has the AFL's rule tinkering - which in being fundamentally two-fold and structural is probably more than just tinkering - had a greater impact than what can easily be determined by the eye? Is the MFC, which has developed a game-plan of such small margin of error and recruited accordingly, copping the impact of these changes more than most?

 

 

[Satyriconhome 10,878]

Ah a loss

Disappointing result with team defence found wanting again

Skill errors aplenty

And Demonland overflowing with over emotive twaddle again

We are missing Hannan's sparkle up forward and AVB''s grunt in the middle, nobody has effectively replaced them  yet

I'vee listened to the coaches at training, they are not coached to play like that

Our game plan which worked 99%of the time last year requires the game to be played in the forward half, with the defence pressing up

One skill error or turnover and we are scored against easily

Get back,  if we can what we were doing last year, which we did against Sydney, and we may start winning

If we don't expect a few repeats of today

 

[Bring-Back-Powell 14,845]

St Kilda are bloody impressive and will likely finish 6th-8th.

We were a disgrace yesterday.

[Satyriconhome 10,878]

18 minutes ago, DemonOX said:

SPEED SPEED SPEED

It was an issue last season and it seems nothing has been done in the offseason to rectify it. 

The coaches and recruiting staff have let the let the club down and the fans down. 

Blind bloody Freddie could see SPEED was a f.....g issue and now we are paying for it. 

Every opposition team will just outrun us, hit targets, kick straight and will beat us. 

Another lost season. 

Well done MFC you continue to give back to your long and suffering supporters. 

My kids were excited for the first time in a very long time about season 2019 and now it’s back to the usual MFC feeling. 

There are only so many times you can convince your kids things will change. 

Time is running out. 

It's not speed, didn't see a St Kilda player sprint past, it is clean ball use and workrate to get on the end of the kick, we lacked the workrate and the pressure to stop the clean disposal

[dave 183]

5 hours ago, Nasher said:

How can you possibly pinpoint which coach is directly responsible for this problem from the outside?

Ridiculous to try to blame Chaplin, the backline is improving from the first couple of rounds, it’s the forward line that’s non existent, we need Hannan, Vandenburg, Garlett back in, 2 Wagners are not up to it! Why the [censored] Billy Stretch was given one game and these guys get 5, it’s the bloody selection, injuries and the dysfunction in the forward line! 

[Hellish Inferno 992]

11 minutes ago, Satyriconhome said:

Ah a loss

Disappointing result with team defence found wanting again

Skill errors aplenty

And Demonland overflowing with over emotive twaddle again

We are missing Hannan's sparkle up forward and AVB''s grunt in the middle, nobody has effectively replaced them  yet

I'vee listened to the coaches at training, they are not coached to play like that

Our game plan which worked 99%of the time last year requires the game to be played in the forward half, with the defence pressing up

One skill error or turnover and we are scored against easily

Get back,  if we can what we were doing last year, which we did against Sydney, and we may start winning

If we don't expect a few repeats of today

 

Yes it's partly about making skill errors or turnovers that break down our structure

But more glaringly, it's mostly about the opposition working out how to get control of the ball in our forward 50 then break through our high press with clever positioning, teamwork and skill. With easy entries into their forward 50 leading to easy goals.

If we don't take a mark inside 50 (particularly contested marks, which is one of the hardest things to do inside forward 50, usually only a handful per match) then we also can't clean up the crumbs at ground level. We're often outnumbered at the contest. Where are our forwards?? Sitting just outside 50 aiming to lock the ball in??

[Adam The God 30,261]

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

I've seen people in here having a crack at Gawn. He might be down on form, but I reckon having a go at Gawn is pissweak and as embarrassing as our current performances are.

Got me thinking about our leadership again though. Our 100+ game players are Lewis, Jones, Garlett, Melksham, TMac, Jetta, Hibberd, May, Gawn and Viney. Two of them aren't playing. Of the other 8, none of them are playing as well as they can and only Gawn is playing at a reasonable level consistently (Viney has been OK). Jones can't stop himself from the up-and-under long kicks and is making more skill errors by the week. TMac and Melksham are a big part of our current problem - they're not taking marks inside 50, they're not bringing the ball to ground in a way which helps us, and they're not providing enough defensive pressure. Hibberd is playing so poorly he should be dropped, while Lewis and Jetta have had no impact on our season so far due to injury.

We can't stop opposition sides from getting a run on and there's only so much Goodwin can do without a runner to get messages out there (not saying there's nothing wrong with our coaching). It doesn't help that we have no senior players to turn to when we need some leadership.

Did you watch the game today, mate, or check the stats at the end again? Gawn was ordinary, I'd say he was close to terrible. He constantly dropped marks, was run off his feet at ground level (I recall one really good chase down tackle from him, otherwise zilch) and his tap work was so-so given who he was up against. 

The reason I will take a ping is because Gawn was out in the media flapping his tongue all off season, talking a big game, and that's all well and good if you back it up, but he hasn't. That's the bloody embarrassing part. As was being outmarked by a 192cm KPF in Membrey on the goal line.

No excuses. He's a leader now and he's not bloody showing it. People are well within their right to question his leadership and output.

Edited April 20, 2019 by A F

[Beetle 4,660]

19 minutes ago, Satyriconhome said:

Ah a loss

Disappointing result with team defence found wanting again

Skill errors aplenty

And Demonland overflowing with over emotive twaddle again

We are missing Hannan's sparkle up forward and AVB''s grunt in the middle, nobody has effectively replaced them  yet

I'vee listened to the coaches at training, they are not coached to play like that

Our game plan which worked 99%of the time last year requires the game to be played in the forward half, with the defence pressing up

One skill error or turnover and we are scored against easily

Get back,  if we can what we were doing last year, which we did against Sydney, and we may start winning

If we don't expect a few repeats of today

 

Worst rationale I’ve ever heard.

IF we had the players...IF we played like we did last year..IF we played like the coaches instructed us to..IF we didn’t have skill errors...blah blah blah..

The fact is we don’t have those players, we aren’t playing like we were, we aren’t playing like the coaches are (apparently) instruct us to and we are constantly producing skill errors!

What part of that are you trying to justify? Any team can use these excuses! What a load of horse [censored]! Fair dinkum!

Edited April 20, 2019 by Beetle

[John Demonic 5,800]

My post match analysis is that there should be an entertaining month of NBA playoffs ahead. However every time a team gets a fast break from a shitty offensive pass, ill be reminded of Dean Kent and our gameplan ?

Edited April 20, 2019 by John Demonic

[Garbo 1,537]

Jetta looks so far off atm, for a player who has been such a rock down back over the last 4 years or so it is disappointing. He looks slow and as such either giving away the free or just burned for pace, we basically playing a man down as a result. I know he isn't the only one down on form but we looked much better down back when he didn't play last week

[Demon Dynasty 17,109]

1 hour ago, DemonOX said:

SPEED SPEED SPEED

It was an issue last season and it seems nothing has been done in the offseason to rectify it. 

The coaches and recruiting staff have let the let the club down and the fans down. 

Blind bloody Freddie could see SPEED was a f.....g issue and now we are paying for it. 

Every opposition team will just outrun us, hit targets, kick straight and will beat us. 

Another lost season. 

Well done MFC you continue to give back your supporters. 

May kids were excited for the first time in a very long time about season 2019 and now it’s back to the usual MFC feeling. 

There are only so many times you can convince your kids things will change. 

Time is running out. 

About the only team we might be able to compete with on the G is the Swans Ox but yes.  Can't argue we would win vs many others there at this point.

We learned nothing from Rnd 15 last season against this same team and have now gone backwards and yes, lack of speed is playing a massive part.

We have been smashed on the fast break rebound at the G now for years (not just by the Aints) and are constantly found out with so many joe the goose goals end to end. 

We have a massive speed defficiency, we lack instinctive players to score regularly (outside of Jeffy), we lack fast twitch/reaction players with the agility to side step / baulk and create the overlap and run into space bringing others into the game, we lack class/finish issues (coming inside 50 and in front of goal with the exception of Jeffy) and we lack a genuine KPF.

We also lack some zip around the drop of the ball up forward and down back.  Opp coaches just put one or two zippy players skirting the outside of the drop (at our hot spot roughly 20 meters out or stoppages) and as soon as the ball escapes they're off to the races leaving most of our blokes in their wake linking up down the field at will or running into the square to kick an easy goal.

Goody also played right into the hands of the speedy Aints starting our two slowest players in Chunk & Lewis off of both wings and leaving them there far too long.  Someone also said we started with Hibb on Membury??  And his answer to one change off a wing after the horse had bolted was CWags for Chunk who went into the middle to give us what exactly?  Think i also saw Clarry, Harmes (who i don't mind there) and Gus out on a wing at one point in the 2nd half.

We have serious list management issues and now a serious coaching question mark.  If we were better coached today i think we would have gone very close to winning had our positional set ups and structures been more proffessionally attended to.  Certainly not the reverse where we magnified our weakness and opened ourselves up to them dominating us on the slingshot fast break and/or with their speed / spread on the switch out wide.

I think our intensity was there from the get go but Goody stuffed too many set ups as well as too many player's unable to hit targets coming i50.  This included poor forward work by key forwards running into each other's lanes (T-Mac & Weids), working back into other's lane's dragging their opponent with them also for another extra body to get in the road and/or spoil the player leading from the goal square (T-Mac) and going up together for the contested mark (T-Mac & Weids) and lastly missing relatively easy shots in front of goal or not making the distance.

About the only decent thing we have going now is our inside engine room but even that is slowly starting to come undone with no outside options and too many plodding insiders who don't run with the ball but instead mostly handball to a player (often a loopy hospital one) a few feet away, inviting more pressure/tackles and yet another turnover.

Some of these issues can be corrected somewhat in the short term if we were to put some decent runners to the outside and make them play that role, both on the wings and around stoppages and also instruct the insiders to not go in with so many numbers, forwards to lead out on different lanes etc etc.

A clever coach and staff could make this happen as early as Anzac eve.  If we corrected the set ups and other issues like too many talls up for the mark, no crumbers front and square etc (Jeffy in for CWag or Spargo pls!), this could even result in us having a surprise lazarus win.

However,  Goody seems too stubborn to see much, if any, of this and instead prefers to play slow plodders out wide much of the time.   Have to assume he wants extra numbers at the contest, extra numbers at the hotspot attempting to mark and extra numbers contesting on the ground at the drop as it just keeps happening week after week?

Fritschkreig, Salem, Harmes, Hunt and Melksham should be our go to outsiders with the possibly of a bit of Tracc thrown in around the stoppages for some short stints as a change up with a big body running through a pack for the receive from Maxy/Pruess and working out to others on the outside or up forward.  Certainly not the likes of Chunk, Lewis and Cwag who have Zero running or burst ability that will see the ball cleared from stoppages more often.

We are leaking like a sieve at the moment, especially in the Coaches box.

Edited April 20, 2019 by Rusty Nails

[bing181 9,242]

4 hours ago, Thehardtackler said:

Paul Roos said tonight that the players were not following Goodwin’s game plan properly and that was why Melbourne were not performing well. I guess that he should know.

Surprise surprise.

[RalphiusMaximus 6,054]

6 hours ago, Rusty Nails said:

Is this seriously what Goody & Co. want though?

If so then this needs to be added to a book of "How not to coach Australian Rules Football" and each of them forced to read it.  Then made to pass an optional choice test to see if they've learned anything before allowing them to continue.

We've watched them do it for over a year now.  If it's not what they want the team to do then there is a serious breakdown in communication going on. 

[RalphiusMaximus 6,054]

2 hours ago, Satyriconhome said:

Ah a loss

Disappointing result with team defence found wanting again

Skill errors aplenty

And Demonland overflowing with over emotive twaddle again

We are missing Hannan's sparkle up forward and AVB''s grunt in the middle, nobody has effectively replaced them  yet

I'vee listened to the coaches at training, they are not coached to play like that

Our game plan which worked 99%of the time last year requires the game to be played in the forward half, with the defence pressing up

One skill error or turnover and we are scored against easily

Get back,  if we can what we were doing last year, which we did against Sydney, and we may start winning

If we don't expect a few repeats of today

 

But that's exactly the problem.  Combine the forward press gameplan with [censored] poor ball movement and no real forward structure and you get a massively congested forward line.  Once we have that, it's easy for opposition sides to run around us and get players out in the open spaces behind our defence.  Haven't you noticed how every other forwardline in the game has room to move while ours is like the Monash at peak hour?  Goodwin needs to abandon his forward defence and protect our goals.  Not only will that make it harder for teams to score those easy goals, it will create space for our forwards to work in. 

[praha 11,240]

I called it. It was astonishing we were favourites. St Kilda was always going to smoke us on the transition. Not only that, but their pressure utterly embarrassed us. Their delivery and ball use put us to shame. They did the exact same thing last year but to far greater efficiency.

That was a football lesson.

[Wadda We Sing 10,685]

2 hours ago, Skuit said:

Probably not the time to bring this up just yet, but . . .

We're undoubtedly playing [censored] football right now and our structural issues aren't anything new. Still, even accounting for some slide, the difference in our performance between our early finals' appearances and now is so stark as to be completely perplexing.

Meanwhile, it's not remotely far-fetched that by the end of this round the top three teams will read:

1. St Kilda
2. Gold Coast
3. Fremantle

Are the personnel of these teams and respective coaches now world-beaters and masterminds - as opposed to ours being hacks and newly out of their depth - or has something fundamentally changed in the game to have thrown it so suddenly upside down? Are almost the entire commentariat and massive body of football spectators who invariably had these three teams in their bottom six for 2019 also just clueless?

Sure, it's still early and even and I expect these teams to drop down (although the top three at the end of the last three even crap years were all in at least the top five at the finish of round five) - but its undeniable that there has been some form of disruption to date.

Has the AFL's rule tinkering - which in being fundamentally two-fold and structural is probably more than just tinkering - had a greater impact than what can easily be determined by the eye? Is the MFC, which has developed a game-plan of such small margin of error and recruited accordingly, copping the impact of these changes more than most?

 

 

Very good Skuit. Go to the top of the class. Its the perfect storm isnt it? Who would have thought those 3 teams would be ruling the roost after 4 rounds (more or less). We spend the best part of 5 years working to a system that would bring success. A chaos style in a conservative stoic game. Brilliant. It did work because we had a defensive cohesive unit that was backing it up. We built to a crescendo with a young team that believed in a plan.

Did these teams who all had terrible seasons and were staring down the barrel, look at the preseason and go ok, these rule changes are really something thats gonna change a few things. Maybe its worth our while to study this hard and see what our loser teams can come up with. Some of the most significant changes in long time.

Meanwhile, back in 7th heaven. Maybe all we have to do is recruit a few big guns that can deal with power forwards who kick our [censored] every second week. The rule changes look pretty straight forward, and we will work a strategy as we go. We did so well in 2018, better than anyone would have thought. That gives us a mantra to do what WE think is best.

The late start was going to work for us right, cause we really just need to get to those few extra games late in the year. The players will catch up after the operations so many had to have, after going above and beyond what they were meant to do. The big crowds had those guys playing though pain with sheer adrenalin and hope. We are not used to being in this space. This happened more than once through the Daniher years.

Maybe we need to just look at it as another building year, another long preseason where the long term needs can be addressed, the injuries recovered, the gaps of the players left or who can no longer play at the level required are replaced again and again.

Stop being a bunch of armchair sissys think about what you can identify and help solve, then get behind the club. Its dark now, but its been a lot darker.

Go Dees.

[Sorry kids 635]

I know how good Gawn has been, and Oliver and Brayshaw too but we only had one Rolls Royce-Hogan and we replaced him with a lumberjack in May. Word is the young blokes at Gold Coast are super fit and happy to not have some of the older blokes around. How can a Club recruit a player who has no fitness base so has never played the game as a professional athlete in the modern sense. Only time with tell if Mays body and mind can cope with the professional demands of the game. On ya bike recruiting dept.

I believe the players will never have a long term commitment to achievement until we have a real home base with all that goes with that resource. Our answer to that is to spend money and waste resources on a proposal over rail yards that is doomed to failure with strong local community objection and no state government support. On ya bike Mr Pert.

It is continually referenced that players are not doing what they are coached to do. Now that is either player defiance, inability to execute skills through lack of ability or poor coaching. I suspect a bit of each.  

Quote

 

 

[Leoncelli_36 2,264]

Simon Goodwin has NFI. Why he played Jones and Lewis on the Wings for the entire 3rd quarter is beyond me. They are simply too slow for that role. Wingman are a big part of the game again and these two are well past it. Lewis was pathetic tonight. Also, why is Spargo constantly used as a lead up forward? He is 5 foot nothing. He wouldn’t out mark a garden gnome. Yet, we consistently go to him as the ? on a lead 

[Big_Dee 18]

3 hours ago, RalphiusMaximus said:

But that's exactly the problem.  Combine the forward press gameplan with [censored] poor ball movement and no real forward structure and you get a massively congested forward line.  Once we have that, it's easy for opposition sides to run around us and get players out in the open spaces behind our defence.  Haven't you noticed how every other forwardline in the game has room to move while ours is like the Monash at peak hour?  Goodwin needs to abandon his forward defence and protect our goals.  Not only will that make it harder for teams to score those easy goals, it will create space for our forwards to work in. 

Well said and it’s so easy to see. We are playing such high pressure from the backline that everything congests moving forward. It’s a terrible plan. No wonder our forwards can’t get the ball. Tmac can’t raise his arms which is a issue, weid not yet. No proper small forwards. It’s plan to see 

[Ron Burgundy 8,584]

6 hours ago, david_neitz_is_my_dad said:

Sound like the club needs to get Mr Roos down for a coffee

Defence

I agree. We seem to have moved a long, long way from the hard edged defensive mindset Roos instilled during his time here. Our backline is all over the shop, and our defensive pressure generally is super poor.

Fitness

We look terribly slow and unfit. I had thought Misson was an elite fitness guy, but we seem to have heaps of injuries, many of which are not impact injuries - they seem to be soft tissue and running related. Anyone have the inside scoop here? Why are we so off the pace all of a sudden?

Skills

We simply cannot hit a target anymore. Who’s in charge of skills at the moment?

Forward line

I should know this but who’s our forward line coach? So many inside 50s, yet (Melksham aside) we never look like scoring. It’s super frustrating to watch.

[Brownie 5,981]

6 hours ago, Garbo said:

Jetta looks so far off atm, for a player who has been such a rock down back over the last 4 years or so it is disappointing. He looks slow and as such either giving away the free or just burned for pace, we basically playing a man down as a result. I know he isn't the only one down on form but we looked much better down back when he didn't play last week

The same was said of the likes of Frawley, Dunn and Garland over the years.

When the ball keeps bouncing out of our forward line like a slingshot, any defender is going to struggle.

Our game plan is rooted

[Dr. Gonzo 24,223]

10 hours ago, Earl Hood said:

Not so sure he failed, he was injury prone usually just as he got some form. I did qualify my praise by saying he could be good in a dominating side. He always had some defensive deficiencies. But gee we have some small forward deficiencies at present, no crumming, no forward pressure. Forward set up is a mess and Goodwin seemingly won’t pick Jeffy because he doesn’t meet our contested ball at all costs mantra. 

We didn't move Kent on, we offered him a contract but due to his injury history it was only a 1 year contract I think. Saints offered 3 so he went with job security and you can't begrudge him. The club did the right thing it's just unfortunate.