9 hours ago, DEE fence said:

Thanks for the feedback, I have no argument against anything you say but curious for thoughts on our gameplan. All the players you mentioned are contested animals, our gameplan is not playing to our strengths. Also cannot argue that heads dropped, but the why they dropped is not just personal, and not typical of the last 4 years.

Impossible to answer other than everyone has a breaking point. 

Agree the game plan has changed radically, the FD determined it needed to after losing 4 straight finals & it's also true that we don't really have players suited to that gameplan. Frustration surrounding that, the need to fight back from slow starts several times, injuries, a stack of early season travel, poor form of and some questionable selections of blokes that had no form (or even no time) at Casey could all be factors to the final straw breaking the camels back.

To me the easiest, most immediate change is to get blokes back into their normal positions. ANB, Kozzy and others running through the middle has been trialled for 2 reasons i think;

1. to preserve Tracc, Clarrie and Viney for Septemeber and particularly with Clarrie and Viney nurse them through injury/gaining fitness 
2. get some speed on the ball 

But doing that has robbed us of forward pressure, defensive gut running, our best F50 entry kick and goal scoring. 

For Monday I'd suggest

• two of Tracc, Clarrie, Sparrow and Viney at every CBA,balanced with someone with speed at the defensive side, ANB, Kozzy, Langdon, Rivers, maybe even try Woewodin, Bowey, Windsor or McVee
• Petty to the backline (if not dropped) - Tomlinson may have to go 
• Salem to the backline
• Langdon (wing), Kozzy (forward) and ANB (High HF) back to their substative roles
• Pick a forward partner for JVR, Turner or Brown, not sure which will offer more it's a flip of the coin
• Reward the blokes at Casey with some form (anyone playing ok there is swimming upstream at the moment), AMW & Howes

Out

• Hunter, McAdam, Tomlinson

In

• JVR, AMW, Howes (sub)

12 hours ago, Dee Viney Intervention said:

Couldn’t agree any more. We may use the corridor a bit more but there is no fast ball movement. Why??? Because our forwards all push so high up the ground to help out the backline that when we do win the ball we have very few options ahead of the ball. So we wait while our forwards who amble back into position. There is no sense of urgency or spread. It’s chip, chip, chip and turnover the ball in dangerous positions exposing our backline. We don’t have the skill for overuse of the ball or precision slow ball movement down the ground. People used to bemoan JJ for slowing up play. JJ was not the problem. It’s our structures!!! 
 I know it’s the modern game but FFS Simon be a renegade. Have some stay at home forwards creating space up the ground for line breaking runs, run and carry and long direct kicks into an open forward line giving our players a chance one out in dangerous spots and higher percentage looks at goal.

All clubs push forwards up the ground, the difference is they are working harder to get back, but more importantly the team is able to control the footy for long enough to allow them to get back.

We win the footy, our players start running forward and we turn it over, they then have to work harder to get back to defend.  You are wasting so much energy and effort due to skill errors and eventually you can't work hard up and back. 

The other side our opposition know we are bad by foot sit back wait for the error and really hurt us, they are full of run as they waiting for our mistake

19 hours ago, greenwaves said:

And they're aren't true supporters either 

I am NOT putting any asterisk in front of the Premiership, at all. All Im saying is that given our list and the fact that we were expecting sustained success and multiple premierships this HAS NOT OCCURED. We haven't done what really successful teams do and either win several on the trot OR Every other year etc. This year we were expected to dominate the competition, in fact we have gone backwards, losing to West Coast was bog ordinary and last week an unmitigated disaster. Say what you like and yes 2021 was great BUT it was still one premiership out of a total of 57 years is as ordinary as it gets. Any club can have an extraordinary year and ours was 2021. But before then and since then little to be enthused about! Those who agree or disagree I couldn't care less!

Edited June 5, 2024Jun 5 by picket fence

28 minutes ago, picket fence said:

I am NOT putting any asterisk in front of the Premiership, at all. All Im saying is that given our list and the fact that we were expecting sustained success and multiple premierships this HAS NOT OCCURED. We haven't done what really successful teams do and either win several on the trot OR Every other year etc. This year we were expected to dominate the competition, in fact we have gone backwards, losing to West Coast was bog ordinary and last week an unmitigated disaster. Say what you like and yes 2021 was great BUT it was still one premiership out of a total of 57 years is as ordinary as it gets. Any club can have an extraordinary year and ours was 2021. But before then and since then little to be enthused about! Those who agree or disagree I couldn't care less!

I think even one more GF appearance would've been nice, instead not even a PF appearance after 2021.

We must be honest with ourselves and accepts that our finals performance has been subpar.

1 hour ago, picket fence said:

I am NOT putting any asterisk in front of the Premiership, at all. All Im saying is that given our list and the fact that we were expecting sustained success and multiple premierships this HAS NOT OCCURED. We haven't done what really successful teams do and either win several on the trot OR Every other year etc. This year we were expected to dominate the competition, in fact we have gone backwards, losing to West Coast was bog ordinary and last week an unmitigated disaster. Say what you like and yes 2021 was great BUT it was still one premiership out of a total of 57 years is as ordinary as it gets. Any club can have an extraordinary year and ours was 2021. But before then and since then little to be enthused about! Those who agree or disagree I couldn't care less!

Sadly you're right Picket. We should have found another flag or at least a GF appearance in 22 or 23. 

2022 we tried to replicate what we did in 23 with a shorter pre-season, suffered injuries to key players (that we didn't sustain in 21) and ran everyone into the ground by September 

2023 we tried to time our peak better and actually looked really good rounds 18-24 but lost Melksham and Petty at the wrong time.

Despite this, and ballsing up the Grundy situation we should have beaten Collingwood and made a prelim if not for ThugHead braining Angus and Fritsch & Pickett combining for 5 behinds. The coaching was pretty solid that night, in hindsight Laurie as sub was a miss. In those conditions and at that time Jordon or Harmes likely would have offered more in place of Angus.   

We also even more clearly should have beaten Carlton. We dominated, should have iced the game (+16 CP, +8 scoring shots) but choked in front of goal. Somehow the Blues got 8 goals from Walsh, DeKonig, Motlop and Acres (WTF!!). Schache as an unused sub and JV going for a short kick on his right with a minute to go are knives in the chest!

2024, although I was hopeful, was always going to be a bigger stretch than 23 as soon as Clarrie was disrupted and we were to be without Angus and Smith. 

Edited June 5, 2024Jun 5 by Dee*ceiving

2 hours ago, drdrake said:

All clubs push forwards up the ground, the difference is they are working harder to get back, but more importantly the team is able to control the footy for long enough to allow them to get back.

We win the footy, our players start running forward and we turn it over, they then have to work harder to get back to defend.  You are wasting so much energy and effort due to skill errors and eventually you can't work hard up and back. 

The other side our opposition know we are bad by foot sit back wait for the error and really hurt us, they are full of run as they waiting for our mistake

I understand that and absolutely agree with you and that is exactly my point. If we were to leave say for example JVR, Kossie and Fritta in our 50 there is no way an opposition is leaving them unchecked. That is 6 less players clogging up the field leaving space for Rivers, ANB, Bowie, Salem, McVee, Windsor etc etc to run and carry thru the space being created and being the quarterback of you like designated kick into an open manned forward 50. Fast attacking transition football with less overuse and margin for error. Hiding our weaknesses and playing to our strengths. 

11 minutes ago, Dee Viney Intervention said:

I understand that and absolutely agree with you and that is exactly my point. If we were to leave say for example JVR, Kossie and Fritta in our 50 there is no way an opposition is leaving them unchecked. That is 6 less players clogging up the field leaving space for Rivers, ANB, Bowie, Salem, McVee, Windsor etc etc to run and carry thru the space being created and being the quarterback of you like designated kick into an open manned forward 50. Fast attacking transition football with less overuse and margin for error. Hiding our weaknesses and playing to our strengths. 

Issue is simple, we can't hit targets no point having Wayne Carey forward of the ball if you can't kick it to him.  There will be an out number in our forward line teams make sure of that, if we can't kick the ball to our players advantage the outnumber will just eat it up.

We drafted contested bulls, suited the game at the time and won a flag, now the game has moved on and you need to control the footy.  We cover when May and Lever are intercepting a lot of footy but when that doesn't happen we struggle.

2 hours ago, picket fence said:

I am NOT putting any asterisk in front of the Premiership, at all. All Im saying is that given our list and the fact that we were expecting sustained success and multiple premierships this HAS NOT OCCURED. We haven't done what really successful teams do and either win several on the trot OR Every other year etc. This year we were expected to dominate the competition, in fact we have gone backwards, losing to West Coast was bog ordinary and last week an unmitigated disaster. Say what you like and yes 2021 was great BUT it was still one premiership out of a total of 57 years is as ordinary as it gets. Any club can have an extraordinary year and ours was 2021. But before then and since then little to be enthused about! Those who agree or disagree I couldn't care less!

Quite succinct. 

We are most definitely trending downwards. It's not pleasant to watch. 

This coming week is akin to shuffling deckchairs  aka robbing Peter to pay Paul . The unfortunate reality is we just don't have enough fit and or in form players to be a cohesive unit.  The 3 areas of play ALL have ongoing problems...ALL at the same time.  Very little is functioning as it ought to. And that's the real problem as I see it...there's no fall back position.

There's walking wounded out there without doubt.  I think some under value just how big an out Lever is. He is imho the most important of the currently sidelined. It's no mere coincidence that in his absence our defence looks like a sieve.  Thats  not to besmirch May or anyone...just to highlight how much better/effective we were before. We're struggling. May is very frustrated out there...he can only do so much.

Some seem much more excited about our list than I am.  Much potential spoken of some but little being realised.

I fervently hope Simon can find a rabbit to pull out. 

I also hope whatever it is that's casting a malaise over this group is resolved.

Something ain't quite right out there.

On 04/06/2024 at 10:31, ElDiablo14 said:

Filth supporters are the first ones to call our premiership the "CoVid premiership".

If you spend any time on Twitter/X, you’ll know that Collingwood supporters are the most insecure supporter group in the comp by a country mile. They can’t stand the idea of another club being better than them.

Considering the strong debate in the AFL on the equality of the competition at the moment, I’d argue we have the most deserved and equal playing field premiership this century. In a few years, the interstate clubs will point to our premiership and say this is how the Grand final should be run.

Very surprised Fritsch goes under the radar once again with his lacklustre display

He is a front runner who goes missing far too often in 24

32 minutes ago, SthSea22 said:

Very surprised Fritsch goes under the radar once again with his lacklustre display

He is a front runner who goes missing far too often in 24

Is it that he goes missing? Or maybe the surrounding cast of players around him are not providing him with space and matchups that he can exploit?

Maybe a bit of both.

On 04/06/2024 at 09:12, picket fence said:

So two straight finals exits and u want to sugar coat that everythings Dandy, who gives a fat rats clacker what happens in the Home and Away it is what you do in finals that defines you! and so the warnings of previous games are now just coming to fruition, so are you saying you can't "Fluke" a Flag?? Footscray did it in 2016! AND given our diabolical last two STRAIGHT SETS EXITS It may well be that we indeed FLUKED a premiership just saying! Your plan for moving forward is???, I have one suggestion, play the kids and see who can be part of 2025, Hunter, Mc Adams, Shache, Fullarton and probably BBB, T.Mac and possibly Billings should not be part of 2025. So what I am saying is play for 2025. 2024 is COOKED! You dont lose to West Coast and Freo, unless there is something mightily wrong in the club!!

 

On 04/06/2024 at 10:16, picket fence said:

1

: a stroke of luck

the discovery was a fluke

 

Her second championship shows that the first one was no mere fluke.

 

3 hours ago, picket fence said:

I am NOT putting any asterisk in front of the Premiership, at all. All Im saying is that given our list and the fact that we were expecting sustained success and multiple premierships this HAS NOT OCCURED. We haven't done what really successful teams do and either win several on the trot OR Every other year etc. This year we were expected to dominate the competition, in fact we have gone backwards, losing to West Coast was bog ordinary and last week an unmitigated disaster. Say what you like and yes 2021 was great BUT it was still one premiership out of a total of 57 years is as ordinary as it gets. Any club can have an extraordinary year and ours was 2021. But before then and since then little to be enthused about! Those who agree or disagree I couldn't care less!

Except that’s not ALL you’re saying. You said we fluked a flag (see above). Then you provided the dictionary meaning of fluke (again, see above) to further demonstrate your belief that we fluked our flag. 

Sometimes really bad losses can end up being a good thing because they lead to a lot of self reflection and soul searching and can also fire the team up.  

18 minutes ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

 

 

Except that’s not ALL you’re saying. You said we fluked a flag (see above). Then you provided the dictionary meaning of fluke (again, see above) to further demonstrate your belief that we fluked our flag. 

IF YOU DO 1 THING OUTSTANDINGLY RIGHT AND IT WORKS OUTSTANDINGLY WELL THEN IT CAN BE CONSIDERED A FLUKE. OUR SEASON IN 2021 WAS OUTSTANDINGLY BRILLIANT ! HENCE MY USE OF THE WORD IN CONTEXT!! WE HAVEN'T FOLLOWED UP!  WHAT DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE MEANING OF THE WORD????? AND I'M NOT SHOUTING!!!!! 🤯

And I gave clear extrapolation of this in later posts. 

Edited June 5, 2024Jun 5 by picket fence

32 minutes ago, ElDiablo14 said:

Is it that he goes missing? Or maybe the surrounding cast of players around him are not providing him with space and matchups that he can exploit?

Maybe a bit of both.

He was OK in the last quarter when moved to defence. He is an opportunist forward and needs consistent good ball supply to shine. Still our best forward and irreplaceable on our list.

7 minutes ago, greenwaves said:

Sometimes really bad losses can end up being a good thing because they lead to a lot of self reflection and soul searching and can also fire the team up.  

Thats right but it is a worry when we have had three of them already half way through the season. 

2 minutes ago, picket fence said:

IF YOU DO 1 THING OUTSTANDINGLY RIGHT AND IT WORKS OUTSTANDINGLY WELL THEN IT CAN BE CONSIDERED A FLUKE. OUR SEASON IN 2021 WAS OUTSTANDINGLY BRILLIANT ! HENCE MY USE OF THE WORD IN CONTEXT!! WHAT DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE MEANING OF THE WORD????? AND I'M NOT SHOUTING!!!!! 🤯

And I gave clear extrapolation of this in later posts. 

To fluke something implies luck and not just a little bit of luck (as we experienced in 2021 re injuries) but a lot of luck, oftentimes 100% luck. Fact: It is impossible to win a Premiership with just luck alone, ergo, our Flag is NOT a fluke.

And yes you are shouting. You shout to get your point across. It’s as though you’re trying to convince everyone that because you’re yelling you must be right. Problem is, because you do it so often, it’s become impotent and imo comical, and we’ll throw in irritating for good measure. 

7 minutes ago, John Crow Batty said:

Thats right but it is a worry when we have had three of them already half way through the season. 

True, but Sunday was on a plane of its own. More potential to be a catalyst. 

1 hour ago, SthSea22 said:

Very surprised Fritsch goes under the radar once again with his lacklustre display

He is a front runner who goes missing far too often in 24

His goal kicking amd ability to win some 1 v 1 comtests is great... when he chooses to go.

I don't think he brings the white line fever enough.

Then there's what happens when we lose possession at ground level and the pressure / tackling / contested side is needed.  Goes missing here far too often.  Obviously his game looks better when he does bring it.

You can't pick and choose nor fall back on your goal kicking skills and craft alone.  He needs to bring the rest more often and effectively.

Not our biggest problem at the moment but lots of improvent possible IF he wants it badly enough.

He's not alone.  The whole team, but in particular the forward line, needs a rocket and needs fixing.

I'm still not convinced Stafford is the man to bring that but SG is stubborn.  I'm not sure he's even considered this aspect.  If not he might need a tap on his shoulder to take a moment.

Edited June 5, 2024Jun 5 by Demon Dynasty

I had a listen to Daniel Hoyne on Sportsday. He was asked what positive things he could say about Melbourne, and he said it was pretty difficult to.

To summarise, he said:

"We're not getting sucked into one game and the loss to Freo. We look at the overall trend across the '24 season.

They have have lost what made them a good footy side of the last 3 years. They were 1, 1, 1 the last 3 years on contested possession. They are now 12th

1,1,2 territory team over the last 3 years, they are now 15th.

They have wanted to be different to their previous final campaign to open up their ball movement and get more of an offensive return. But the reality is they are the 6th worst ball movement team.

So their ball movement return hasn't been there. They've lost their DNA from a contest and territory perspective, and they're not getting anything from their turnover game - Only North and West Coast are scoring less and punishing less on turnover. Lastly, defensively, they're just mid table at defending the turn-over game.

It is the first time Melbourne has been negative on contest and territory for 9 years (!!)"

He also went on to say,

"Credit to them for trying something different, especially early on in the season where you have a bit more time up your sleeves. However,  also from an individual perspective

1) Harrison Petty is the lowest rated player across the competition. 

2) Steven May is having his worst season of his career (from a ratings perspective)

3) Oliver is having his worst season of his career

All the reliance goes to Max and Trac and a little bit of AnB.

He also then added

"It's going to take a lot for this to change for them to get into premiership contention"

Healey asked, "Can they do it in a space of 10 weeks?" and Hoyne's response was "I'd be very surprised if they could make such a big change"

 

1 hour ago, greenwaves said:

Sometimes really bad losses can end up being a good thing because they lead to a lot of self reflection and soul searching and can also fire the team up.  

They can but will it. At post game press conferences we keep hearing “learnings” and “all 3 phases of the game” yet in one of these phases we have been dysfunctional for years with no signs of improvement. Hope I am wrong but I have no faith that this current set up will turn that phase around. 

Edited June 5, 2024Jun 5 by Dee Viney Intervention

1 hour ago, John Crow Batty said:

He was OK in the last quarter when moved to defence. He is an opportunist forward and needs consistent good ball supply to shine. Still our best forward and irreplaceable on our list.

The good old days when Goodwin misused him in our back line 😅 (2018).

He'd have 50 more goals in his career had he started in the fwd line back then.

20 minutes ago, At the break of Gawn said:

I had a listen to Daniel Hoyne on Sportsday. He was asked what positive things he could say about Melbourne, and he said it was pretty difficult to.

To summarise, he said:

"We're not getting sucked into one game and the loss to Freo. We look at the overall trend across the '24 season.

They have have lost what made them a good footy side of the last 3 years. They were 1, 1, 1 the last 3 years on contested possession. They are now 12th

1,1,2 territory team over the last 3 years, they are now 15th.

They have wanted to be different to their previous final campaign to open up their ball movement and get more of an offensive return. But the reality is they are the 6th worst ball movement team.

So their ball movement return hasn't been there. They've lost their DNA from a contest and territory perspective, and they're not getting anything from their turnover game - Only North and West Coast are scoring less and punishing less on turnover. Lastly, defensively, they're just mid table at defending the turn-over game.

It is the first time Melbourne has been negative on contest and territory for 9 years (!!)"

He also went on to say,

"Credit to them for trying something different, especially early on in the season where you have a bit more time up your sleeves. However,  also from an individual perspective

1) Harrison Petty is the lowest rated player across the competition. 

2) Steven May is having his worst season of his career (from a ratings perspective)

3) Oliver is having his worst season of his career

All the reliance goes to Max and Trac and a little bit of AnB.

He also then added

"It's going to take a lot for this to change for them to get into premiership contention"

Healey asked, "Can they do it in a space of 10 weeks?" and Hoyne's response was "I'd be very surprised if they could make such a big change"

 

That's got to be a very damning statement for Petty, worst rated player in the whole of the AFL. What is that? Like 500 players in the whole league and you are in the 0.1 % percentile 🥶😓

12 minutes ago, ElDiablo14 said:

That's got to be a very damning statement for Petty, worst rated player in the whole of the AFL. What is that? Like 500 players in the whole league and you are in the 0.1 % percentile 🥶😓

If true he has to find form at Casey or go to backline. I have always found him to be one of those tall kids/ guys who could naturally take a good mark but not a fanatical footballer like others with less ability in that area. He is also a good spoiler so in defence he has 2 good strings to his bow. Strong marking and spoiling. In attack only marking and that is a more difficult in attack.