Why we are where we are

[loges 6,767]

While we're on the topic of who is to blame, I thought this article was pretty relevant.

Mark Robinson makes some good points, both about the players and the coach.

Sadly, he is spot on when he writes that "over recent years they have been brilliant and collectively hardened for one week, at times for one month, maybe two. But as quick as we are to praise them, they let us and themselves down for being flaky, individual pushovers."

You can read the rest of the article here

This culture of flaky mediocraty has existed in MFC for years. For those who can remember 1990

Beat Essendon twice during the year

Beat the gun side of the late eighties Hawthorn twice in 2 weeks ( last home & away & 1st final) when no one gave us a chance.

Had to play the Eagles in the next final who we had beaten comfortably in Perth, just a few weeks before. Had the home state advantage VFL park. Went in solid favourites you guessed it went down like a sack of spuds.

We were as good as anyone that year & should have at least played off instead of Essendon.

Seethed for weeks waiting for a Melbourne official/coach/president to condemn what a wasted opportunity this had been. Not a murmur from the MFC. We accept too easily this mediocrity.

Nothing has changed

[Dees of 26 15]

Fans, Easily one of the best posts I have read on this site. Showed insight and maturity given the fallout potential from such a disappointing season.I hope the men and women charged with making hard decisions at the end of the year have the same capacity to put things in pespective as you do.If they have the right decisions will be made..Well done..

[mauriesy 7,297]

What do you think the game plan ought to be?

Finding a game plan is like looking for the holy grail. It's an often-asked question that has no real answer, and those who claim to have the One Infallible Game Plan are fooling themselves. For a start, any proponent who claims to have a better "game plan" than an experienced league coach is on fairly safe ground, because they can either mouth platitudes or be safe in the knowledge that their plan will never have to be tested in the real world. So they can make all sorts of outrageous claims about how good it is, claim it would work 100%, but never have to test its validity. In short, their head's not the one on the block.

To me, football's a bit like education ... everybody's involved, they've all got an opinion about what's best and right, but the easiest position to take is to stand on the sidelines yelling opinions and calling "off with his head!". I raised the quotes I did because some of the efforts are not wonderful revelations or the saviour of our season, they would be obvious to any coach in the Under 10s. I mean "small forwards crumbing" or "flankers running the ball out of the backline" ... your grandmother wouldn't find enough eggs to suck.

I really don't think it matters whether the game plan is based on "run and carry", "kick it long", "tough tackling", "using the corridor", "flooding", "man on man" or a host of combinations and permutations of all these. We know that all of these will work at least some of the time, that some teams use more of one than the other mainly due to the type of personnel they've got. We were a "corridor" team a couple of years ago when Neitz, Robertson and Yze provided plenty of forward line leading and marking power, and it worked until other teams worked out how to counter it with "flooding" and "man on man" to force us out wide. Last year we got somewhere with "tempo" and "tough tackling", this year we've lost some key inside personnel for that to work well. We've been trying to develop "run and carry", not because it's The Plan, but because it's a necessary weapon in any team's arsenal. But it requires confidence, skills and a high level of fitness and maybe its predominant use is impossible for our list.

The critical thing is that at the moment we don't seem to have the skill or players on the park (due to injury) to carry out whatever predominant plan we've been trying. We don't have the speed and confidence for "run and carry", the kicking accuracy or marking power for "kick it long", or the key position forwards for the "corridor".

Why? Injuries? List not as good as we thought? Weight loss? Softness? Leadership? Decline of some older players? Others still too inexperienced? I don't know. But I'd like to rationally discuss what's happening and the solutions, and I'm not going to pour scorn on the coach and players and call for heads from my position of lack of knowledge (particularly on the real effects of player injury and fitness), or suggest some simplistic game plan that would be an affront to any coach with more than a year or two of Little League experience.

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

...

You just completely missed the point.