17 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

Brand, brand. Doesn't really mean anything. Yeah we had a brand under Roos - it was defending by flooding numbers back and keeping games low scoring on the hope we'd fluke a win.

Roos did nothing about the escalating Misson problem, put it in the too hard basket. Didn't do much about developing the next wave of small forwards and outside runners, they weren't his priority. Where was the foresight that Jones, Garlett, Hibberd would all slow down at the same time and why was the focus then on adding Lewis to that mix? What about coaches, did he have the right assistants in place to support Goodwin?

Brand, brand, brand. Load of junk.

Buzz word, nothing more and twice as meaningless. If I could imagine a 'brand' for the MFC, it would be: 'LOSING'.

11 hours ago, ProperDee said:

Nobody left to pick on Super. Bolton, Richo and Scott all done and dusted. These media people have to justify their salaries.

I will say though that we should have perhaps been under the media spotlight a lot sooner.  Goodwin has been damned lucky that his incompetence/inflexibility/tunnel vision hasn't been highlighted earlier.

Agreed in large part. Football success is about keeping a team (head) above the waterline. It does not have to be a premiership - that would be nice - it is more about being recognised as competitive, reliably so, and being difficult to beat. Three things should occur simultaneously:  a ) recruiting players who can develop;  b)  providing a lattice upon which training and whole team development are sustained and diversified, and  c)  maintaining a consistent, elite team with interim / longer-term replacements at the ready. 

45 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

There's problems in fitness, there's problems in list management, there's problems in coaching and everywhere else. The idea that we could fix it all by attempting to play with a particular brand of football ignores all the actual problems. 

That's not what was said.

5 hours ago, demonstone said:

186?   Pffft, that's nothing.  I was there for 190 in 1979 vs Fitzroy at Waverley.

Yes but...we beat Essendon the next week post-190...

17 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

That's not what was said.

Roos implied that we could be winning more games and having a better year if we played to a defensive brand of football.

Quote

There’s no recognisable brand. That’s the disappointing thing from my point of view.

“I always say ‘contested footy, defence’, because we know in this particular year — for whatever reason — most teams are turning the footy over.

“We talked about Richmond before, if they turn the ball over, they’re safe behind the ball. If Melbourne turn the ball over, they just get scored against — and we’ve seen that for the last two years. That fixed it up at the end of last year, that’s what I want to see.

“Players don’t mean to kick it out of bounds on the full, players don’t mean to miss a target — it’s frustrating. But get your defence set up, be hard to score against and we know that’s the panacea for success.”

There's a side that consistently sets up well behind the ball and does a lot of defensive things well - the Sydney Swans. They've won 1 more game than we have.

Richmond defend well because their forward pressure and midfield work rate is excellent and that allows them to keep their backline deep and in position.

We don't have the speedy hunting forwards. We don't have hard running outside mids. We haven't had Lever and May in place for most of the year. So trying to copy Richmond would end in disaster. 

We currently barely have a forward line at all so playing without any flair or attack would almost guarantee losses. 

Everyone at the club has a lot to improve on but going back to Roos style football isn't the answer.

The best thing we can do in the last month is keep going with the general game style that Goodwin believes in and has worked quite a bit the last two years. That's the best way to train our players up for next year. And of course within that the focus should be on the absolute fundamentals - tackles, skills, hard two way running, 1% and team acts. 

6 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

Roos implied that we could be winning more games and having a better year if we played to a defensive brand of football.

Yes, he implied one area which would improve us. He did not say it's our only problem and fixing that would fix absolutely everything.

I think our brand is Black and Gold

or maybe Home Brand

42 minutes ago, DubDee said:

I think our brand is Black and Gold

or maybe Home Brand

m8 we are below that. We're Franklins NQR brand atm.

26 minutes ago, praha said:

m8 we are below that. We're Franklins NQR brand atm.

There's nothing wrong with the recipe, we just had staff shortages at the manufacturing plant this year!

11 hours ago, Rusty Nails said:

Don't under estimate the FFF (Forwardline Flop Factor) in this year's demise Praha.  It's been immense IMO and we would be knocking on the door of the final eight had we fired a shot here.

One of Goody's (with assistance from Macca) greatest fails was to see Hogan walk without a 'genuine' KF coming in to replace (a la Lynch) while placing way too much emphasis on the ability of Weid to fill the void.

Jeffy hasn't quite been up to his 2018 standards in terms of overall ability to impact up forward (yes still hitting the scoreboard and putting tackles on inside 50 which is great but outside of that) hasn't helped either.  Partially due to the shoulder issue?

No other quality smalls to assist Jeffy other than a medium small in Hunt popping up at times.

Melk, our best ball user coming inside 50 and probably  most mobile impact forward.  One of our most accurate goal kickers also (not many of those either) has barely been on the park.

The biggest fall IMO T-Mac.  Firing on all cylinders once in 17 attempts!

Then we have three keys mids who havent been anywhere near their 2018 form in Jones, Gus and Viney except on rare occasions and usually not together.

Hibb's massive dropp off from his 2018 form.

Apart from the Clarry, Big m, Harmes, Salem, the improvement of the Frostmeister and a bit of May brutality & attack on the ball it's been another season from hell really.

Agreed, which is why blaming Goodwin is ridiculous. Maybe he will be a failed coach but we don't know based on this year given all of the above.

11 hours ago, Wrecker45 said:

I blame Daniher. Up and down every year for injury factors set us up for this.

The same demonland posters back then would have been complaining about the coaching rather than acknowledging the injuries we had to key players on our list.

it’s funny how we bounced back every second year with the same coach when we got our good players on the park.

Nah mate didn't you know? Every poor coaching performance is now Neeld MkII. The supporters are scarred and project their suffering onto the players and coaches who weren't even born when they started their descent into footballing misery.

3 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

We won 4 games in year 1 of Roos: against Carlton, Adelaide, Ess and Richmond. And the last 3 there kicked awfully at goal. Ess and Richmond made finals but lost. The entire game plan was long down the line, stack the backline and hope the other team misses chances.

In 2015 up until the final round we'd won 6 games: Against Bris, Rich, GC, Geel, Bulldogs. Dogs and Richmond both lost elimination finals. In round 23 that year we played a dead rubber against a Giants side at Etihad and it featured a far different game plan. Dunn was moved forward, Mitch White came in to the side and the team played with a zone defence for the first time, and won at Etihad for the first time.

2016 was Roos as head coach and figurehead whilst we implemented Goodwin's game plan. We were aggressive with the zone defensive system that all the top teams were using. We finally started getting some forward pressure. We moved the ball quickly and started scoring. We beat Hawthorn for the first time in forever. We added some nice away performances. But there were still heaps of negatives including losing to Carlton in round 22 after giving a Port team in contention for finals a nice touch up. 

2016 was Goodwin's ideas with Roos' guidance. Then 2017 - more wins and 2018 - more wins again was Goodwin in charge. Yes, there's times he's overdone the attacking strategy but he's also never had a reliable backline out on the park and rarely had a fully fit midfield or hard working forwards. The midfield got younger as it got better, moving Vince, Cross and then Jones to peripheral roles for the young guys to take over. 

My point is there was no Roos sustainable excellent game plan implemented. Roos set about a simple plan of defending hard and having a crack. I don't even think at any stage this year we've lost our strong attack on the ball and outside the first 5 weeks there's actually been a lot of really hard running and defensive work. It certainly looks like we've lost a lot of the hard working culture that Roos preached but the fitness is bad, the motivation is low, the leadership is poor and the talent is awful right now. 

Ahh Roos was a premiership COACH!!

Nuff Said!

10 hours ago, daisycutter said:

i wonder how much of this [censored] goes back to the pre-season camp the players vetoed

always did raise a red flag for me

whether you blame coach or players for this fiasco camp, did it create a dis-connect between players and footy dept that remained unresolved?

can't help but think that there is something deeper going on here that's not being vocalised

Yet they somehow went on to make a Prelim the year after it was apparently an issue? Maybe it is but it would be weird considering they had the best year the club has had in over a decade following it

Perhaps it's Occam's razor? We've had injuries and the coach is learning and needs to rejig his gameplan

4 hours ago, jnrmac said:

All the players have skills - some clearly better than others. The issue is they are confused and don't know what to do. It's like they get the ball and say to themselves 'don't mess this up', 'hit the target, 'give the ball off to the nearest team member', 'kick the ball to an outside runner', 'handball backwards to a team mate running forward', ''switch the play but FFS don' t kick to the corridor',  'play on quickly but don't turn it over, or kick to a dangerous spot, or a one-on-one',..

.. all in the split second before than are tackled to the ground.

So then they rush their decision or are frozen by fear hence the shocking turnovers. This adds to the pressure and players trust in their team mates. Also the players distrust of the coaches. Once that breaks down, people don't run to position, do the 1%ers for their opponents and they start playing for themselves.. Its cancerous.

And when there is little on field leadership it all goes downhill,

Compare this to an Al Clarkson coached side. They have a well drilled game plan and know where to kick to, where to run and when to switch. Fagan has borrowed it and because he has Hodge on field coaching it has come together very quickly.

Goodwin is stubborn and insists on playing 'the melbourne way' whatever that is, regardless of how the game is being played, the weather conditions, the opposition, our personnel or the scoreboard. You see that from his ridiculous team selections at times.

The only times I have really seen him vary this approach significantly is against WCE 2 weeks ago when we should have won,  and against WCE in rd 22 last year.

We supporters know how the team plays and can almost write the script. Watch Houli get 30 damaging touches this weekend , Jack kick 6. and Dylan Grimes look like a superstar. 

So when the Hawks win it's because Al Clarkson has a plan and sticks to it but when the Demons lose its because Goodwin is too stubborn to change?

57 minutes ago, picket fence said:

Ahh Roos was a premiership COACH!!

Nuff Said!

Definitely Nuff

12 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

So when the Hawks win it's because Al Clarkson has a plan and sticks to it but when the Demons lose its because Goodwin is too stubborn to change?

There is something in that!!

Roos is apart of the problem... his decisions are now what is holding us back. He recruited slow inside mids.

Saying a team has "no recognisable brand" is the sort of biz speak flannel you say when you have nothing pointed or incisive to say and because you are on television feel you have to say something, anything.

Winning teams have a Brand

Losers don’t. 

Simple really

1 hour ago, Ugottobekidding said:

Roos is apart of the problem... his decisions are now what is holding us back. He recruited slow inside mids.

Disagree.
The talk was rebuilding the list from the inside out, not have the entire list on the inside. The Club has had 3 years to rectify this and hasn't.
 

3 hours ago, Cam Schwab's Whiteboard said:

Disagree.
The talk was rebuilding the list from the inside out, not have the entire list on the inside. The Club has had 3 years to rectify this and hasn't.
 

yeaaaah reakon??

5 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Winning teams have a Brand

Losers don’t. 

Simple really

Ok. How about producing a list of winning teams with their brand. I’ll be surprised if most entries are not rather fatuous but happy to be proved wrong. 

35 minutes ago, sue said:

Ok. How about producing a list of winning teams with their brand. I’ll be surprised if most entries are not rather fatuous but happy to be proved wrong. 

Winning teams keep Sponsors

Losing teams get thrown what’s left

 

 How many of our loses have we been in front at some point in the last qtr,  I count at least 5 times, the side has never recovered from the poor preseason and the  constant injury list that's numbered at least 12 plus all year. Yes I know what people will say that other teams have had injuries and are winning like the pies, but how many games have they won in the last 6 weeks when their injury list has been at it's highest, in the first 10 weeks they  had  very few injuries, now there missing a few and have  struggled to win. And some will say the eagles had 12 off season surgeries, but they have had hardly any injuries though out the season.

On 7/30/2019 at 8:14 AM, praha said:

We knew what we were getting when we financed the car: a three year lease. It is grossly unfair to blame Roos AT ALL for this. He made it crystal clear what his goal was and how long he was committed for. His and PJ's roles were to right the ship and set the foundations. We cannot pass accountability away from the current administration and coaching team.

Have to disagree with you there Praha. One of the biggest calls Jackson and Roos made was the anointing of Goodwin as the next senior coach. That most definitely falls under the job description of 'setting the foundations'. It's looking increasingly like a colossal error of judgment that will set us back for some time, thereby undoing much of the good work they did. Roosy's broadsides are a bit rich from where I sit.