POSTGAME: Opening Round vs Sydney

[Maldonboy38 5,857]

My wife had the computer all night, this is my first opportunity for input. Glad, to be honest. I may have chucked the laptop through the new smart tv. So:

• few positional winners
• annihilated around the stoppages and ball drop
• our small forwards were as poor as they have ever been
• horrendous field kicking
• and a whole lot of poor, poor football.
• Some of our great players were less than average.
• Our brilliant back 6 were soundly beaten by their own errors, decision making & field kicking
• Laurie, Schache & Billings looked sub par. Billings not the answer.

I know it was greasy & slippery, but our ball handling looked like Tallygaroopna v Manangatang reserves in mid winter.

[Dr. Gonzo 22,415]

2 minutes ago, DaveyJones'sLocker said:

Thought our defence was poor too

Defence held up well considering. If it wasn't for May and Lever Jesus christ

[Graeme Yeats' Mullet 6,281]

First visit to SCG, won't be rushing back

[censored] ground, [censored] town

Chalk that up to a pre-season hit out, big guns got plenty of pill, bring on round 1

 

Edited March 7 by Graeme Yeats' Mullet

[picket fence 15,133]

2 minutes ago, Lord Travis said:

Clarry completely gassed by the end. Not his best game tonight but still pretty serviceable. 29 disposals and 6 clearances off bugger all preseason and other issues to overcome is a strong effort from a champion. Chin up Clarry!

On ZERO preparation Great effort Clarry

[YesitwasaWin4theAges 5,795]

You can't protect what happened out their tonight.

The last two years we have started like a house on fire i hope and wish this is a change in tact.

That's all I'm hanging onto.

We go 0-2 and you watch the wolves come out and rip us to shreads!

Edited March 7 by YesitwasaWin4theAges

[Deeoldfart 7,720]

Some old and bad habits return.  Grrr! 
Bottom line is we were beaten at what we do best, especially in the last quarter!  
However, I have every confidence that we can and will improve enormously on that effort.

[Fanatique Demon 2,392]

Fumbles galore.
Would have lost by 10 goals without Viney, Fritter and May. 

[Red But Mostly Blue 3,673]

Learnings 🤦‍♂️

[Pates 9,536]

The good: Judd McVee is a gun, Windsor showing he’s ready made, Howes solid

The bad: way too many passengers to name

The ugly: our skills and ball handling was atrocious (I get that it’s “opening round” and it’s dewy but do the basics right)

EDIT: forgot to add Howes to my youngster praise

Edited March 7 by Pates

[dees189227 10,764]

Oh well. Still a long way to go. 

But it goes to show how important it is to nail those goals early on. 

A lot if fumbles and mistakes tonight 

[Bring-Back-Powell 13,151]

Outstanding use of the sub by Goodwin yet again.

Billings came across to Melbourne to seek a fresh start and regain some much needed confidence. So nothing surer than our master mind coach starting Billings as sub and denting whatever confidence he gained in the practice matches. 

We looked unfit and unskilled. The large rehab group throughout pre season was reflective tonight.

We badly missed Kozzie’s spark while Sydney didn’t appear to miss their three mids at all.

[Binmans PA 26,049]

I'll wait and see the next month or so unfold, but that was as bad as that Essendon game last year, which was probably our worst game since that Port game in 2020. It's hard to say we're in strife after one game, but if we have any more games like that any time soon, we are. Really insipid. It started with poor goal kicking, then fumbles, and then getting bashed up around the contest. So that's losing at our 1 wood.

Laurie, Sparrow, Chandler, Rivers all horrible tonight. Schache, well, we know what we're getting there. 

Ball movement and forward craft completely absent. That has to be forward and senior coaching. You can't kick 25m out to the hot spot and think that's going to work, when we've had that precise strategy not work for us for 3-4 years now. We don't have a gifted pack marker like Curnow, JVR is okay, but he's better 1v1.

I thought Max's second half was dreadful though and when he has a tactic work against him, he's so slow to react. Grundy gave him a bath, even McLean beat him up when he went in there.

No idea what to take from this. Not much good, that's for sure.

Edited March 7 by Binmans PA

[praha 10,270]

Interesting stat I saw on Twitter. 

Since we lost to Port by 50+ in 2020 we've only lost one other match by 30 or more points (Freo at the MCG in 2022). 

We've also only lost 24 games out of the past like 96. 

It is an outstanding record but it does have me wonder what it's all for.

Feeling we are in for a tough, long season. I just can't see us pulling a Geelong or Hawthorn and suddenly coming good. I don't think Goodwin has the coaching prowess and I feel we are a bit too raw still.

The confidence is there but I think this mob needs a revolutionary leader. Someone to really inject some fresh ideas. We've got another season of this to look forward to and to be quite frank it's not appealing and not good for the fans. 

Tonight was ugly and we simply aren't ready. I hope for Goodwin's sake that this doesn't snowball into another 2019 because he won't survive.

 

[Deecisive 1,651]

What was disappointing from max is that he did not adjust to the swans ruck tactics he just kept doing what he normally does and they kept pushing in front of him and winning the ball. They kept pushing him off the ball and marking in front of him. Every other team in the league will have seen that and will adjust their game style on Max in that way.

Very few players played well, well done Viney, probably the best Melbourne players out there. So much fumbling kicking it straight to the opposition. i dont understand the zone process where we let them kick it to players alone all night long, let them switch and fail to cover them. and our forwards, both big and small apart from fritter were no where to be seen. I really worry about Van Roen, he just does not have a presence on the ground. sad to say on this performance i dont see us playing finals.

[Nascent 7,242]

Was good to see Windsor and Howes. Not sure I can compliment much else except for May's performance for 3 and 1/2 quarters.

Hope Boweys injury isn't serious.

Still baffles me that such a strong contest/defence team can be so poor in "wet weather" conditions.

[Demonsone 1,596]

Can you believe Schache was a sub over Grundy in the final v Carlton .. how the hell is this guy getting a game 

[picket fence 15,133]

What does it say about our Coaching AND list management that GRUNDY WAS BOG

ROFFEY can go

RICHARDSON can go 

BADLOSS can go

[pitmaster 3,063]

Another AFL genius balls up. Send us up to play in sub-tropical conditions in the height of summer heat.

This is no time to panic. The fixture set us up. We were spent from midway through the third quarter.

Let's see next round. If we mishandle the ball the same way then I'll panic.

[bluey 890]

Van Rooyen is a liability, ive seen enough.

[Garbo 1,329]

Can’t believe so many ppl put stock is last weeks performance. We aren’t playing finals this year. Our window for a flag is over 

[Gawndy the Great 7,336]

3 minutes ago, YesitwasaWin4theAges said:

You can't protect what happened out their tonight.

The last two years we have started like a house on fire i hope and wish this is a change in tact.

That's all I'm hanging onto.

We go 0-2 and you watch the wolves come out and rip us to shreads!

Just watch it happen. Doggies are up against it too. They’ll have fire in the belly. 

[Fromgotowoewodin 723]

I thought we’d get better as the game went on, and we did for a bit in the 3rd but then it really fell apart.

5 marks i50 is equal to our worst all last year. Nowhere near where it needs to be. Worse than that we actually got flogged in i50s overall - last year our worst differential was -13 in losses against Essendon and Port, tonight we were -14 so it wasn’t poor conversion that cost us we just got flat out beat. 

Kozzie and McAdam to come in but it’s gonna take more than that to fix. Mids were sub-par and too many extra-smalls. 

[dees189227 10,764]

Just now, Demonsone said:

Can you believe Schache was a sub over Grundy in the final v Carlton .. how the hell is this guy getting a game 

Looking back on that now you can't believe it

[DeeZee 6,731]

It’s just Groundhog Day every time with this team.

It really doesn’t matter how many times you get the ball , you’ve got to be able to do something with it.

We still have the same forward line coach in Stafford, surprise surprise!

Horrible to watch, fumbly and wasteful and zero connection with the forwards.

If Schache gets another game next week I will not be there.

[layzie 28,721]

Oh no the media