Gains amid the wreckage

[stevethemanjordan 6,952]

5 hours ago, praha said:

While I am indifferent to OMac, I'm uneasy about dumping a young KPP that has room to grow. ANB is clearly not up to it but if Tmac and Jetta are any indication, then I think we can develop OMac into a solid player. He also showed in patches last year that he can be a very good player. At times he was even being lauded as a potential AA backman. The club has also indicated that they're developing him to build his strength. He's unlikely to go imo. At the end of the day he's a key defensive player with finals experience, that managed a few scalps towards the end of last year. He has always been a scapegoat for our troubles but any poor performance from him is typically a symptom of rather than a catalyst of our issues.

 

How much time do you suggest a club needs to give a player room to grow in such a competitive environment? An environment where list change and realignment is so vital, it can sometimes be the difference between a team making the finals, winning a flag or dropping off the pack completely.

Let's have some reasonable and realistic discussion about this. Harrison Petty has shown more potential than Oscar McDonald and is 19 years of age. Marty Hore has come in and after half an AFL pre-season offers more than Oscar.

Tom McDonald and Jetta both displayed high quality attributes before they settled into new positions which is part of why the were given more time. I would argue that Oscar has been given more time than desirable due to our list severely lacking in key position depth for several years. He was playing at AFL level when he shouldn't have been and as a result, the expectations and subsequent appraisal were completely out of whack. Compliments began to come for on field acts that would normally be judged as a pass level for a key backman given the circumstance. It was bizarre.

The obsession that posters have with 'allowing time' for a player to develop without providing adequate reason perplexes me. And to suggest that Oscar has the potential to be an AA defender is lunacy given his output to date. Only binman and a handful of others who refuse to stop feeling sorry for him would say such thing. None of that is to say that I would "dump" him but would certainly entertain a trade.

I agree with Lord Nev and Bring-back-powell as far as assessing this year goes. The fact that Jay Lockhart has shown up many of his teammates after working as a plumber for most of the pre-season is of course impressive but also (and more importantly), alarming.

What does it tell you about the psyche of some of our other, more privileged young 'stars'?

What does it tell Goodwin and co about his selection and list management over the off-season? What does it tell us about how much value he places on true, smart and skilled opportunistic small forwards for example?  There are many questions, too many.

But like others, I agree that this year's positive will be the titanic and inescapable magnifying glass that will hover over the coaches and players. I don't for one-second buy the idea that injuries are the sole reason we're going to finish bottom three at season's end. It runs deeper and change will ensue. That's the silver-lining, if any.

Edited July 16, 2019 by stevethemanjordan

[Bring-Back-Powell 14,833]

3 minutes ago, stevethemanjordan said:

What does it tell you about the psyche of some of our other, more privileged young 'stars'?

 

That sentence reeks of Angus Brayshaw.

[stevethemanjordan 6,952]

7 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

That sentence reeks of Angus Brayshaw.

Absolutely, and a lot of our core. Harmes.

It goes without saying that these guys are young and still developing in all areas of life. 

It's a complex issue. Social media plays a huge part, we have an abundance of young players who have for the first time experienced serious positive media attention for what they did last year. It's hard not to block that out and keep your head down and bum up.

But these are the lessons.

Wait and see time if they learn and grow.

 

Edited July 16, 2019 by stevethemanjordan

[bazza226 74]

You can add Petracca to that list.

[jnrmac 20,065]

On 7/15/2019 at 2:11 PM, DeeSpencer said:

Petty took a barely contested mark and drew a couple of free kicks. I’ve always been a fan but pump the breaks. He doesn’t have an athletic advantage as a forward - fitness is ok, speed is below par, agility is good but not great. I still think his future is as a CHB.

Lockhart and Hore are both useful. Preuss probably has use as a back up.

2 of the baby draft picks have missed most of the year, the other 3 have had decent development seasons. Bradtke doing enough I guess, this year was about getting him used to footy.

Fritsch tick, Baker probably a tick given no preseason, Spargo an awful year.

In terms of young talent time it’s not great but not a disaster. 

Fritsch is the only guy who looks like a top 10 in the side player any time soon, but if the rest of these guys are 18-28 on the list it’s not too bad. 

Theres a bias to the new toys but overall they’ve had a better year than the likes of Oscar, ANB, Stretch, the Wagner’s, JKH none of which seem salvageable. 

On a 1 game sample? FMD.

At least he can kick. Plenty of our fwds can't do that.

[jnrmac 20,065]

6 hours ago, praha said:

While I am indifferent to OMac, I'm uneasy about dumping a young KPP that has room to grow. ANB is clearly not up to it but if Tmac and Jetta are any indication, then I think we can develop OMac into a solid player. He also showed in patches last year that he can be a very good player. At times he was even being lauded as a potential AA backman. The club has also indicated that they're developing him to build his strength. He's unlikely to go imo. At the end of the day he's a key defensive player with finals experience, that managed a few scalps towards the end of last year. He has always been a scapegoat for our troubles but any poor performance from him is typically a symptom of rather than a catalyst of our issues.

Good grief.

[DeeSpencer 25,711]

3 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

On a 1 game sample? FMD.

At least he can kick. Plenty of our fwds can't do that.

No, on everything he's done so far in his career he looks like a key defender and one decent game up forward where he was in the right place at the right time doesn't convince me he's a forward. Nice that he made 3 regulation shots on goal, probably helped that he wasn't being relied on as a regular forward so didn't feel the pressure the rest of our forward line probably feels week to week.

 

[Dr.D 1,771]

positive is that joel smith will be back next year. I rate him very highly and his management was totally inept. 

petty is good but needs to improve his speed. he is very very slow.

I'm looking forward to Goodwin having a good hard look at his game plan and actually coming up with a game plan that doesn't expose our lack of outside run or put our worst kicks for goals deep inside 50m. 

[dazzledavey36 54,944]

18 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Good grief.

I watched the whole VFL game. Twice in the game Oscar got outmarked easily by a 185cm no name.. at that level with 71 games of AFL experience he should be eating up those VFL forwards. 

Personally in my opinion i dont think he has shown much improvement over the years. Its quite obvious why the club went and chased Lever and May. 

With Lever, May, Frost and Hore all up and running where does Oscar fit in all this?

Edited July 16, 2019 by dazzledavey36

[Beetle 4,660]

Edit: wrong threads oops

Edited July 16, 2019 by Beetle

[Ouch! 2,263]

54 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

On a 1 game sample? FMD.

At least he can kick. Plenty of our fwds can't do that.

Just quietly DeeSpencer said CHB, not CHF. Might have misread that ?

[Bitter but optimistic 22,241]

I suppose there have been some gains. As mentioned above, some players have shown a bit.

Overall, however, I can't get over the profound disappointment of a year that promised so much but just delivered [censored].

As a Melbourne supporter I should be used to it.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Bitter but optimistic
typo

[Engorged Onion 10,215]

Public Enemy used to sing @Bitter but optimistic

[Bitter but optimistic 22,241]

13 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

Public Enemy used to sing @Bitter but optimistic

FMD Onion! Your taste in music is worse than @picket fence!

[jnrmac 20,065]

51 minutes ago, Ouch! said:

Just quietly DeeSpencer said CHB, not CHF. Might have misread that ?

Exactly my point. Didn't misread.

He's saying that from that 1 game he is not suited to the fwd line (or better suited to the backline). he is 19yo and played 1 game in the fwd line where he kicked 3 goals.

[TGR 1,367]

On 7/15/2019 at 8:53 AM, pitmaster said:

The season is now officially shot. We cannot even technically make finals. Everything is about planning for next year. At least we have found that Petty can take a strong contested mark and is only 19. His performance yesterday was revelatory. He could develop into anything.

Also we have found Hore who has become a key part of our remade back half.

Then there is Baker who has some serious pace and dash as he showed in the twos yesterday where he was a class above. And that's without counting Lockhart who is developing nicely.

There have been some gains amid the injury carnage. The rest of this year has to be viewed as an extended preseason for 2020. Look at it through that lens rather than what might have been if the footy gods had been kinder.

Footy gods?  The locus-of-control is never ours when we fail.  A consistent cultural DNA feature in the outfits that have consistently failed. 

Yet we have taken the unprecedented step of making massive changes mid-season, and Mahoney flagged changing quite a bit of our training services staff and approach if I interpreted him correctly.

 

Every side has some gains in most years, but I agree that Baker and Lockhart look the goods.

 

I agree, that it is all about next year and the year after.  I am not interested in one or two wins now.  I am interested in real bone-fide development.  We know that May is good defender.  I think we need to see him play 2 weeks in a row as the key forward target with opposition planning for him.  I want to see Preuss play ruck time more.  I want to see if Gawn is a liability as a KPP.  I want to see if ANB can handle responsibility of being in the fab 4.  I want to see if Oliver can play as a Leigh Matthews forward.

The 'we know whats going on" and 'we know we are alright' has been trotted out before at the MFC.  This version has a used by date of 30 June 2020.

 

We laud the club when it succeeds.  When it fails, I don't look at the footy gods.  The club clearly got a few things very wrong, and should be accountable.  Take a mulligan, maybe, but be careful blaming footy gods, and smugly thinking the club will be back on track in 2020.

Bartlett and Goodwin are in for some pressure in 2020.  I hope they have a bit of Kane Williamson about them.

 

 

[Engorged Onion 10,215]

17 minutes ago, Bitter but optimistic said:

FMD Onion! Your taste in music is worse than @picket fence!

mmm, Im more of a gamelan kind of guy  - (but I remembered u2 (who i was in to) sampled this back in 1992...)

[Bring-Back-Powell 14,833]

7 minutes ago, TGR said:

I want to see if Oliver can play as a Leigh Matthews forward.

On the small sample space that he's rested up forward, the answer would be no.

[Engorged Onion 10,215]

Just now, Bring-Back-Powell said:

On the small sample space that he's rested up forward, the answer would be no.

Yes, agreed @Bring-Back-Powell I am surprisingly disappointed so far.. he can take some great outstretched marks up the field, and happy to take a hit, it hasn't quite materialised yet in the f50...

[Little Goffy 14,546]

3 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

That sentence reeks of Angus Brayshaw.

 

2 hours ago, stevethemanjordan said:

Absolutely, and a lot of our core. Harmes.

 

2 hours ago, bazza226 said:

You can add Petracca to that list.

Does anyone else get the feeling like we've been playing a kind of inside-out 'whack-a-mole' with our midfield's form this season?

For any given game, one or two might be up and a few others down, but very rarely do we see the whole midfield group performing effectively together.

Which I find particularly interesting because the midfield is where we've had the least injury damage and seen (statistically) the least drop-away this season.

Definitely applies to all the young mids, even Oliver has had some lesser games though they are harder to pick out in hindsight because his raw numbers kept churning over. Meanwhile the co-captains have been the most inconsistent of the lot. Funnily enough, Petracca has progressed from one of our least reliable to one of our most reliable.

Of course, compounding all of that is the weak form of the 'second layer' like Nibbler, Stretch and Lewis, who might normally at least keep the machine churning over with work rate or a wise head, but just aren't.

Umm... I was supposed to imagine the gains... ummm...

Our forward line has been outright eliminated by injury, our defence has been shredded and chewed by injury and is only now being spat back out onto the field, and our midfield has struggled to all find form at the same time. So... uh...

It is easy to see how much better things could be next year? ?

[picket fence 17,169]

4 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

I watched the whole VFL game. Twice in the game Oscar got outmarked easily by a 185cm no name.. at that level with 71 games of AFL experience he should be eating up those VFL forwards. 

Personally in my opinion i dont think he has shown much improvement over the years. Its quite obvious why the club went and chased Lever and May. 

With Lever, May, Frost and Hore all up and running where does Oscar fit in all this?

Answer.. He is now Depth only !!

Trade or Delist FFS Lets call a spade a shovel.

Ruthless Business AFL Footy even more Ruthless DEMONLAND

Sorry Oscar, but it is what it is! At least you can say you played the game at the highest level which is more than I can say!

But after 55 years Premierships are the name of the game!

Edited July 16, 2019 by picket fence

[Rodney (Balls) Grinter 10,826]

In my view, Patracca's solid and consistent run of form amongst the carnage has been a big positive.  Yes, he desperately needs to fix his mid range goal kicking, buy asides from that, I think he has been very workman like in his approach to keep presenting and bulldozing his way out of packs to often create forward movement for the team where the ball would otherwise have gone nowhere.  Once the team gets it's act together around him, I can genuinely envisage thay he will start splitting games open at times.  It's hard for him to have the same impact at the moment, when his performances and potential contributions are being dragged down by the team performance around him.

Similarly, I really think Hunt has been very good particularly when measured by his consistency across the season and I also think his set shot goal kicking has improved the longer the season has gone on.

[Rodney (Balls) Grinter 10,826]

From the small sample size I've seen thus far, since he has got himself right, I've been very impressed with Steven May and I think in the context, we can put that down as a little victory.  With T Mac gone, too many other forwards either injured or out of form and such poor connection between our onballers and forwards, I don't have high expectations of us consistently being able to kick a wining score for the rest of the season.  However, now that we have a pretty solid back six together,  my hope is that at least those guys can get some good cohesion between themselves over what remains of the year.  It may (pardon the pun) not provide too much cheer this year, but if we can achieve getting our backline bedded down and purring, then I think that would provide a pretty solid basis to start moving forward again next season.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Rodney (Balls) Grinter

[Rodney (Balls) Grinter 10,826]

Although his season has been puntuated by injury and patches of poor form, I think I've also seen overall progress from Weid and the more games we have got into him at senior level I feel he is starting to rise to the challenge of being the second key target.  Although he did miss that crucial goal against the Crows, I felt that he really did stand up, create a presence and make a difference in the last half of that game that nearly helped us hold onto that game.

[Cam Schwab's Whiteboard 209]

Unfortunately most of the gains from this year are improvements to individual players that are still on the fringe of best 22 when everyone is up and going. It's been good to see Lockhart, Hore, and Baker have an impact, but that's not where the real improvement comes from imo. Outside of this, Gawn remains stellar, and Salem and Petracca are building their fine careers, but not many others in the established team have done much this season (apologies to Frost, who has been excellent).

Big improvements don't come from finding some decent role players, but positive changes to the way the team structures itself, approaches the game, and plays the game. All we've seen here is stagnation or slightly worse performance in the things that the club says wins games of football (contested ball, inside 50s, tackles), and total incompetence offensively. Sure, some individuals have had good moments against the tide, but that's not enough when the gameplan, style of play, and approach doesn't go anywhere.

What's most worrying for me is: What if it's not a failure of players to carry out the gameplan (explaining the lack of improvement from so many players)? What if, instead, it's the plan that is stifling the development of the players so that they have no chance to get better? If the vast majority of 'positive signs' are from those who weren't really exposed to it all previously, perhaps that suggests that the environment is not conducive to better play.