POSTGAME: Rd 01 vs West Coast

[waynewussell 4,081]

I was in normal "angry" mode while watching the game, but even before I read Max's words about the psychological effects of flying across the country and back in these dangerous times, I decided to cut the whole group some slack!

[roy11 2,911]

3 minutes ago, waynewussell said:

I was in normal "angry" mode while watching the game, but even before I read Max's words about the psychological effects of flying across the country and back in these dangerous times, I decided to cut the whole group some slack!

Exactly, 

Melbourne Victory (A-League) traveled to New Zealand and played on the 15th. I know they're having a bad season but news broke out before kick off that they'd need to self isolate for 14 days when they returned to Australia and they put it a very ordinary performance. Need to remember that sportsmen are people too. I'm sure there are lots of us who've put in a below par day of work due to mental health/psychological effects/stress etc. 

[Mel Bourne 3,594]

48 minutes ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

where is Goodwins presser ???

What on earth could you hope to glean from that dullard? Get rid of his toxic presence at our club. 

[dee-tox 4,769]

The disappointing thing is we worked reasonably hard with improved fitness only to bomb long asking Fritsch to take mark of the year against two three of the best tall backs in the comp. (McGovern and Barass). To make things worse Brown and TMac, our tall timber had lead up the ground, unable to contest the ball.

The first half we spent our petrol tickets scrappily getting the ball inside only for the Eagles to put a chain of 10 uncontested marks together and eventually marking 30 or 40 metres out.

I honestly thought this would be one of the first things Richardson would have identified. That it's still happening makes me very frustrated.

Edited March 22, 2020 by dee-tox

[Dee Zephyr 17,296]

From a football perspective one of the best parts is anticipating a response from the team the week after a loss. We now have to wait 10 weeks that’s if everything returns to normal. Each to their own, I would have preferred a few more samples before judging them too harshly.

[Leoncelli_36 2,264]

Whist punished myself and watched the first quarter again, as it’s currently on fOx Footy. We dominated the first 13 minutes. With 3 minutes left in the first quarter, the score was 4 behinds to 1.1.7. T Mac gives away a dumb 50 and the momentum swings. Max allows Nic Nat to take one out of the ruck and they score an easy out the back goal. We go inside fifty after a run of 3 Eagles goals and Fritsch offers a lead wide and Petracca misses the hit up, ball turned over from throw in and it’s up the other end. He should have kicked the goal and Fritsch should learn to lead to the middle, where we had crumbers and numbers. They kick a fluke goal and it’s suddenly 31 to to 4. The eventual losing margin. We matched them for the remaining 3 quarters, but our errant kicking and failure to execute passes inside 50 remain our biggest issue. 

[DemonOX 8,529]

The best thing about yesterday is that we get to talk about the insipid performance for TEN weeks or there abouts. 
 

I was really looking forward to the season again after a horrendous 2019 and it took the MFC one quarter to screw me and my kids over again. 
 

FMD melb get ur [censored] together. 

[DemonOX 8,529]

Article from SEN

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2020/03/22/same-old-melbourne-the-2019-trap-the-demons-fell-straight-back-into/

Nothing we don’t already know, well most of us anyway. 

Edited March 23, 2020 by DemonOX

[Young Blood 1,971]

I'll start by saying while Max's postgame interview was nothing special but I just thought it was so refreshing to have a captain who articulates himself well, shows maturity, honesty and some genuineness. You can see how much he cares and how much it all means to him. He really backs everyone at the club and his level of support and understanding is obvious.

My takes from the game:

- WC were very very clean and efficient with their ball use. Their game plan and structure were sound and so hard to combat.

- We were fumbly with the ball and second guessed often. I thought we did a better job in the second half with composure at times.

- I felt the effort and general play wasn't the main factor. Structurally we were not put in a position to win this game.

- Definitely some positives with solid performances from Viney, Langdon, Pickett, Lockhart and May.

- Was really disappointing with Brown. His lack of intensity was evident. I would have much preferred Weid.

Edited March 23, 2020 by Yung Blood

[Young Blood 1,971]

Also jesus christ how about Kozzy's ability to cover ground with pace! I cannot wait to eventually watch him sprinting around the MCG. The kid is going to be something special.

Edited March 23, 2020 by Yung Blood

[hank 23]

11 hours ago, WERRIDEE said:

Petty is a better forward. The side I hope to have one day would be this.

B: LOCKHART, MAY, LEVER

HB: SALEM, T.MCDONALD, RIVERS

C : LANGDON, PETRACCA, TOMLINSON

HF: PICKETT, PETTY, BEDFORD

F: FRITSCH, WEIDEMAN, MELKSHAM

FOLL: GAWN, OLIVER, VINEY

IC: HARMES, BRAYSHAW, SPARROW, JACKSON

 

Best side I have seen posted

[Neil Crompton 4,672]

Quote from Fox:

“The Dees certainly never lacked for forward entries last year. Against the Eagles, they had 45 of them - 10 more than their opponents. But they still lost by almost five goals. For some reason, Melbourne thought kicking it high and long into West Coast’s vacuum-like intercept defenders time after time would work. Weirdly, it never did, to absolutely no-one’s surprise. It’s fair enough to be frustrated with a team when it doesn’t have enough talent; but when it does, yet keeps doing the same silly things, that’s a different kettle of fish”.

So either the players are following orders in continuously bombing it in long - which is an indictment on the coach; or

the players are not listening to the coach and doing what they want - which is an indictment on the coach.

 

[3183 Dee 2,602]

1 hour ago, Mickey said:

The OMac haters are really standing out today. He did a very good job on Darling, and for the most part looked more confident and proactive.

But according to some, he should never play another game and was as good as useless.

Also, his distribution was v good.

[Leoncelli_36 2,264]

11 minutes ago, Neil Crompton said:

Quote from Fox:

“The Dees certainly never lacked for forward entries last year. Against the Eagles, they had 45 of them - 10 more than their opponents. But they still lost by almost five goals. For some reason, Melbourne thought kicking it high and long into West Coast’s vacuum-like intercept defenders time after time would work. Weirdly, it never did, to absolutely no-one’s surprise. It’s fair enough to be frustrated with a team when it doesn’t have enough talent; but when it does, yet keeps doing the same silly things, that’s a different kettle of fish”.

So either the players are following orders in continuously bombing it in long - which is an indictment on the coach; or

the players are not listening to the coach and doing what they want - which is an indictment on the coach.

 

watching the replay, there was a whiteboard held up at 1/4 time. It talked about forward entries. It had an arrow to a pocket saying 'WIDE ?". As a football coach, that means one of two things: either look for a wide option first, or why were we going wide. A second arrow read 'WHIRPOOL'' and pointed to the centre. This means that either plan B is to go to a hotspot and swarm numbers. Whirlpool is a common term for what is known as 'washing machine' in modern football lingo. It is essentially chaos ball. Neither worked yesterday, due to the fact that when we had numbers central we looked to go wide and had Fritsch covered by 2 and when we went central, we had options out wide. We need Weed or Jackson as a tall for either option to work. 

Edited March 23, 2020 by Leoncelli_36

[Young Blood 1,971]

I watched our forward entries really closely yesterday. Very rarely were short options available. Westcoast do an incredible job of running back defensively and their midfield fill the space just inside 50. This is where they also spring their attack and movement from half back.

It wouldn't be the players defying orders at all. It was obvious we went with a smaller side with the aim of trying to bring the ball to ground for guys like Spargo, Kozzy, Bedford and ANB.

I'm sure I'm probably giving to much benifit of the doubt here but I felt like the (ineffective) plan was to bomb it in but try to take advantage of 2 on 1 situations by bringing the ball to ground for smalls. A clear and rare example was when the spare back came across to help on one occasion leaving Kozzy wide open for the drop of the ball and easy goal. 

[binman 37,724]

21 minutes ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

 our errant kicking and failure to execute passes inside 50 remain our biggest issue. 

Nailed it. 

And so many of those missed targets were easy kicks under little pressure, with some only 20 metres kicks - May, Lever Spargo, Trac, Viney, Langdon, Tomlinson etc etc.

As WJ or redleg noted at some point in modern footy if you can't execute your kick you lose. Simple. And missing targets by foot renders any game plan or structure dysfunctional. And yesterday we doubled down by also missing any number of handballs (Jettss what were you doing?)

We are a terrible kicking side and Salem and Jones not in that side hurt our massively as they are two of of our three most reliable kicks

[Mazer Rackham 14,968]

West Coast played in front. We didn't.

West Coast can kick the ball to their teammates. We can't.

West Coast can kick the ball between the big posts. We can't.

Football basics at any level.

It seems Goodwin still believes in chaos ball and being hard at the contest. Which is why guys like Spargo and Hibberd are getting a game. The latter's last remaining AFL-quality attribute is being hard at the contest. (Similar for Nev, sadly.) The former, have to wonder whether he has any AFL-quality attributes at all.

Goodwin's reaction in the past has been along the lines of "obviously we weren't hard ENOUGH at it!" and doubles down. Money for jam for opposition coaches  & strategists. None of them stay up at night wondering how they're going to counter the Demons' one-dimensional game plan.

Our next game, whenever it is, will tell what our coaches and strategists took out of this game.

[binman 37,724]

5 minutes ago, Yung Blood said:

I'm sure I'm probably giving to much benifit of the doubt here but I felt like the (ineffective) plan was to bomb it in but try to take advantage of 2 on 1 situations by bringing the ball to ground for smalls. A clear and rare example was when the spare back came across to help on one occasion leaving Kozzy wide open for the drop of the ball and easy goal. 

That may well be true but Hibberd's inside 50 kicks were ridiculous. Not only were the never to our advantage he helicopters the ball (unlike say may) and so they come in slow and high and make it dead easy to cover. 

You add his complete inability to kick on his right (which cost us a goal in the first q because when he should have switched, couldn't, had to turn back to the boundary and kick a floater down the line that of course got intercepted) and I'm sorry but Hibbo has lost me. 

[Leoncelli_36 2,264]

5 minutes ago, binman said:

That may well be true but Hibberd's inside 50 kicks were ridiculous. Not only were the never to our advantage he helicopters the ball (unlike say may) and so they come in slow and high and make it dead easy to cover. 

You add his complete inability to kick on his right (which cost us a goal in the first q because when he should have switched, couldn't, had to turn back to the boundary and kick a floater down the line that of course got intercepted) and I'm sorry but Hibbo has lost me. 

he was also out in space most of the time and had plenty of time to survey what was ahead of him. That is what shocked me the most. He and Spargo easily the worst offenders. Spargo missed a 20 metre pass from a station position by 5 metres. He is a joke. I honestly hope he doesn't get a game for whatever matches are played this year. 

[buck_nekkid 5,457]

May had a really good game.  So good when he has ball in hand, some of his passes were excellent.  Holding nuffy mcbeardo to 4 touches all day (and no impact) is a win for him.

[Diamond_Jim 11,670]

51 minutes ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

watching the replay, there was a whiteboard held up at 1/4 time. It talked about forward entries. It had an arrow to a pocket saying 'WIDE ?". As a football coach, that means one of two things: either look for a wide option first, or why were we going wide. A second arrow read 'WHIRPOOL'' and pointed to the centre. This means that either plan B is to go to a hotspot and swarm numbers. Whirlpool is a common term for what is known as 'washing machine' in modern football lingo. It is essentially chaos ball. Neither worked yesterday, due to the fact that when we had numbers central we looked to go wide and had Fritsch covered by 2 and when we went central, we had options out wide. We need Weed or Jackson as a tall for either option to work. 

Good post... I have always thought our gameplan based on Richmond and to a lesser extent the Dogs requires skilful disposal and quick ball movement. With that comes pressure on the ball carrier. If we don't have the players to execute the plan perhaps its time for a new plan.

The plan also leads to a crowded forward line and the easy transition by the opposition to their goal.

It will almost certainly fail against the better teams.

On reflection it's amazing that Goodwin went in with same tired old gameplan. He really does not appear to have it from a tactical sense.

Edited March 23, 2020 by Diamond_Jim

[ding 5,126]

2 hours ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

where is Goodwins presser ???

https://www.melbournefc.com.au/video/580223/rd-1-post-match-conference?videoId=580223&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1584874972001

 

Goodwin is such an empty vessel after a loss. He says nothing that inspires any confidence that we can improve.

Been saying it for 2 years. The bloke is a fraud.

 

[YesitwasaWin4theAges 5,786]

All i know is that Goody has 12 weeks or what ever the period the AFL is shut down for, to some how find a formula that our players will grasp to win games of Football. 

An impossible task i know considering the isolation of players from the club and training, but we can't put up with it any longer.

 

[YesitwasaWin4theAges 5,786]

37 minutes ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

he was also out in space most of the time and had plenty of time to survey what was ahead of him. That is what shocked me the most. He and Spargo easily the worst offenders. Spargo missed a 20 metre pass from a station position by 5 metres. He is a joke. I honestly hope he doesn't get a game for whatever matches are played this year. 

Spargo, Hibbo, Langers shocking by decision makers and by foot.

[Jaded No More 57,583]

I want to be angry and annoyed about this game, but in the grand scheme of things it’s so insignificant. 
I have nothing left in the tank to allocate the MFC right now. In many ways I’m happy this season is on hold.