16 minutes ago, binman said:

None of which is to say it's disappointing we haven't won another flag thus far.

I'll go to my grave thinking we left one on the table in 2023.

But a key point is the era is not over.

We are in good shape to win another in the next few years.

The Cats, swans and lions have a model that rejects the idea of bottoming out and stocking up on pick ones, but rather staying in contention over a long period of time.

It is exactly that model that goody said he aimed to implement at the dees in his very first presser after being announced as senior coach.

And he has been good to his word.

100%

No notes

🤜🤛

We had a much better chance of winning the flag in 2022 rather than 2023

In 2023 we went into the finals with a D Grade forward line (with so many outs) and to expect to win 3 finals without any real fire-power up forward was totally unrealistic

But in 2022 there was no such reasoning attached.  But such was the euphoria of finally breaking through in 2021, we let the club off the hook.  That was the year that got away from us

Whilst the Cats were smart enough to rotate their better players, we just went with the same team and ran out of legs.  But with better management, we would have at least made the PF

In fact, as early as round 8 in 2022, it was obvious that we looked like a tired outfit.  Class got us through to the top 4 but no legs

The above is how I reckon many will see things in 5 or 10 years time unless ... we win another flag or 2 in the next 5 or 6 years

If that happens, we won't be looking back 

This is what our forward line could have looked like in 2023 but for various reasons, Petty, JVR, Melksham & Brown didn't play.  And Fritsch was banged up.  T-Mac was a liability

And after losing Gus, we couldn't use Petracca forward in the way we wanted to

HF  Fritsch (if fit)           Petty              Kozzie/Petracca 

F    Melksham/Chandler         JVR         Brown/T-Mac (if fit)

2022 - No excuses

2023 - Reasons

Edited September 26, 2024Sep 26 by Macca

I'm still on a high from the flag in 2021. All I wanted was to see us win one flag in my lifetime. Took 45 years but we got there

After all the suffering as a supporter and member of this club I have endured in my life, any flag between now and when I am dust is just gravy

1 hour ago, BLWNBA said:

Love the name and reference! 

 

Also, great post. The perennial victimisation of Melbourne supporters, by Melbourne supporters, is frankly laughable and one the reasons why we collectively have little credence amongst the wider AFL supporter community. As I've said previously, in the eyes of many Melbourne supporters, our failings are always attributable to some 'mitigating circumstance'. 

Victims? What are Melbourne supporters supposedly a victim of? 

2 minutes ago, Lexinator said:

Victims? What are Melbourne supporters supposedly a victim of? 

According to some, it's the AFL, the umpires, the media, other clubs and footy fans in general.

It all comes under the umbrella of MFCSS, for which there is apparently no cure.

3 minutes ago, Demonstone said:

According to some, it's the AFL, the umpires, the media, other clubs and footy fans in general.

It all comes under the umbrella of MFCSS, for which there is apparently no cure.

I'm at the point where I feel let down when there's no wordplay in your posts. 

8 minutes ago, Lexinator said:

Victims? What are Melbourne supporters supposedly a victim of? 

Well, according to some, if it wasn't for Maynard we would've won the flag. 

According to others there's a media vendetta against the club. 

A look into the majority of topics on here provide an endless amount of excuses as to why there were straight set exits the previous two years. 

You don't have to look far at all. 

2 minutes ago, BLWNBA said:

Well, according to some, if it wasn't for Maynard we would've won the flag. 

According to others there's a media vendetta against the club. 

A look into the majority of topics on here provide an endless amount of excuses as to why there were straight set exits the previous two years. 

You don't have to look far at all. 

To be honest, every time I go to this thread it's got 10+ pages of unread posts so my reply probably out of context now anyway.

Good points. It's more than likely learned behaviour anyway and trauma response to being such a bad team for long peroids of time of their lives. I have been the same but shaken it off years ago.

A realistic view on each season is 1 in 18 chance every time to be premiers, need good management of the club in every facet, healthy players physically, mentally and emotionally, good form and best form during finals, and a bit of luck and that still doesn't guarantee you a GF, let alone winning it. 

But victims? Sheesh, far out. It's a sport, a game and we can't control anything because we are just the fans.

Anyway, I realise this is a CP5 thread so I'll vanish like a fart in the wind into another thread. 

 

1 hour ago, binman said:

None of which is to say it's disappointing we haven't won another flag thus far.

I'll go to my grave thinking we left one on the table in 2023.

But a key point is the era is not over.

We are in good shape to win another in the next few years.

The Cats, swans and lions have a model that rejects the idea of bottoming out and stocking up on pick ones, but rather staying in contention over a long period of time.

It is exactly that model that goody said he aimed to implement at the dees in his very first presser after being announced as senior coach.

And he has been good to his word.

You have obviously conceded the Hawks with a three peat ending in 21015 were a cut above like the Tigers. Or you have just used a decade to back up your point. 

I like you don’t believe our time has closed. I posted on another topic that if we have a good injury run, Trac and Clarry can be at their best plus good trading and drafting of say 2, one a high quality outside mid and the other a fast outside finishing style (mid/ flanker/ forward ) Owies doesn’t quite fit the bill ) so a draftee could be the go. 

At  least another KPF or D is of need and Denison is a good start. Obviously our young under 22’s to improve is necessary and I believe with a serious effort Kossie Fritta Bowey Sparrow could all go up a level. 

Naturally a more aggressive game plan is necessary plus the mantra  of winning games not just saving games to win has got to be changed. 

One idea after watching Sydney and their 3 stars is that Windsor and Kossie both could be wonderful centre players Both at stoppages and in games. I think the Duke is a centre player waiting to happen and a tank would not be a problem as he runs all day at high speed and his disposal is one of our best even at his age. Their ability to link up with our forwards ( and score themselves ) seems a no brainer to assist our team. 

2025 could be like 2021 if we handle the season with the same attitude. 

15 hours ago, old55 said:

 

Only because so far no-one has been able to get organised enough to table a coherent offer.

He won't be in red and blue in 2026 - bookmark it.

I tend to believe you are going to be right.  With all the talk not refuted, it sounded like he'd already made up his mind that he wanted out.  The silence was deafening

And you cannot have a player dictating terms no matter how good a player they might be.  Do that and before you know it, factions & cliques start appearing and that can last for years

One caveat ... If we make it to a GF next year and/or win it, things might change

But also, the club may well entertain the thought of receiving some prized draft picks in order to keep our window open.  It takes 2 to tango

Great player but there's a bit of baggage

It's hard to see a trade happening this season but what if the Tigers come at us with a big offer?  They'll have the capital

22 minutes ago, Demonstone said:

According to some, it's the AFL, the umpires, the media, other clubs and footy fans in general.

It all comes under the umbrella of MFCSS, for which there is apparently no cure.

All I will say about MFCSS is attic we keep being negative and whinging and thinking the world is against us we will not help our team or Club. 

I am finding it very hard to understand the lack lustre reaction to our Feasibility Phase approval after so many  posters over the last few years pilloried the delays and other details of our base not happening. 

Most have countered with doubt, been caught off guard no doubt, and straight out came up with virtually any reason ( most minor and some naive ) that this project won’t go ahead or is likely in the next decade but not now. 

Yes there have been some disappointing events both on and off the field since 2021 but as in life things do not always run linear or smooth.

Its how you handle the blocks in the road that defines you and to be frank we need to show our mettle after 3 years of under achieving. 

That’s  why I am certain that our window is still open as stated earlier in this post. 

Go Dees in 2025. 

30 minutes ago, Demonstone said:

According to some, it's the AFL, the umpires, the media, other clubs and footy fans in general.

It all comes under the umbrella of MFCSS, for which there is apparently no cure.

The umpires are shocking for most teams, with a few exceptions of course. On the media, we probably don't have enough former players or supporters to influence the narrative. The Stengle story being buried within a day being a good example.

On 08/09/2024 at 16:20, The heart beats true said:

Why?

Theres a bit of a weird misogynistic tone about parts of this thread that I don’t really love.

I don’t believe that just because one doesn’t enjoy watching women play football it makes one misogynistic.   

13 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Rubbish, our list was easily good enough to win at least one more flag over recent years. We have underachieved by not taking advantage of our position and the relative weakness of the rest of the comp.

Being good enough to win one and actually doing it are 2 very different things. And that's the point I'm trying to make - having any sort of expectation of winning flags doesn't make sense to me. 

I have flopped in my view on Tracs red bull trip. Earlier I was of the view he was doing it to turn up in top top shape for pre season. I still think that is partially true.

However Gawny mentioned on on MMM in his usual spot that Trac was upset about the camps timing prior to his injury. 
 

I genuinely now wonder whether Trac is using the current situation to bend the will of the club to let him go on this camp.

Is this the only camp globally available to athletes? Could he have attended another camp and a BNF? Im starting to think where there is a will there is a way. I get the feeling that we are potentially creating new issues where we are treating our players based on their star factor.  

3 hours ago, binman said:

None of which is to say it's disappointing we haven't won another flag thus far.

I'll go to my grave thinking we left one on the table in 2023.

But a key point is the era is not over.

We are in good shape to win another in the next few years.

The Cats, swans and lions have a model that rejects the idea of bottoming out and stocking up on pick ones, but rather staying in contention over a long period of time.

It is exactly that model that goody said he aimed to implement at the dees in his very first presser after being announced as senior coach.

And he has been good to his word.

You're a glass half full man. We lost by a kick to Port, GWS, Blues and Brisbane.

Win those and the conversation would have been different.

We had a terrible year in my view but I can see how Goodwin would look at the above and say we weren't far off.

 

Edited September 26, 2024Sep 26 by jnrmac

1 hour ago, Smokey said:

Being good enough to win one and actually doing it are 2 very different things. And that's the point I'm trying to make - having any sort of expectation of winning flags doesn't make sense to me. 

Yes, give the club a dream run with injuries like what happened in 2021, then those expectations would be more realistic

A club should be able to cover for a modicum of injuries but 2023 saw us lose most of our starting forwards

2022?  Different story

We did not manage the list properly especially when we could have easily rested our stars against the lesser light teams that season

Geelong did so and won the flag

But were they the best team in 2022 or the best managed?  

As for this season, losing Brayshaw was a huge body blow as he was our most versatile player ... and then a handy utility in Smith was unavailable

Neither player could even be replaced in season

On top of that a huge out was Petracca missing half the season.  And Clarrie had an ordinary season by his own standards

Midfield which was our great strength, was decimated and bottom 4 or bottom 6 standard

So any sort of high expectations with those extra blows that happened was pie-in-the-sky stuff

I had us a possible top 4 chance way back in February but that was before Gus, Petracca & Smith were rendered innefectual with Clarrie never came good

In my view, to get unto contention again we will need to rebuild our midfield as nothing is a 'given'

Edited September 26, 2024Sep 26 by Macca

4 hours ago, rpfc said:

I agree, but both ideas can be right. We should have made prelims in 22 and 23 (that’s my measure - anything happens from there) and we didn’t, but we definitely should have cashed all chips to get a forward after 21. I love Ben Brown but he was never going to be what we needed.

From a very high level - we couldn’t convert our dominance and it in part led to our failure in those years.

I agree and I'm of the same opinion, making prelims is the pass mark as that gives you a shot to win the flag. Anything can happen in Prelims as we saw with the Cats on the weekend, GWS last year etc

It's the same stance I have for the NFL, you make the final 4 (AFC/NFC Championship Games) and that shows you are a good team. After that is when luck kicks in and the fittest/luckiest teams can go all the way.

I think we should have won another flag, but we definitely should have made the prelims to give us that chance.

1 hour ago, monoccular said:

I don’t believe that just because one doesn’t enjoy watching women play football it makes one misogynistic.   

If you read the comments on the day this was posted (3 weeks ago), and the subsequent comments I made, my comment had less to do with the particular comment I was referring too, and more to do with the tone of the thread during this time (which I noted in my original comment).

I talked about it with the poster who made the comment, apologised if I misinterpreted what they were saying, the poster was very gracious, and we all moved on very quickly. I do stand by my comment about not liking the tone of this thread during that period. There was a fair bit of unnecessary name calling going on, and I didn’t like it. Everyone here contributes a lot, but I had hoped that it could have been done with more empathy and less name calling (as I noted in subsequent comments).

Regardless, I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make, 18 days later, but I agree with you. Not liking women’s football doesn’t make anyone misogynistic.

1 hour ago, jnrmac said:

You're a glass half full man. We lost by a kick to Port, GWS, Blues and Brisbane.

Win those and the conversation would have been different.

We had a terrible year in my view but I can see how Goodwin would look at the above and say we weren't far off.

 

I'd like to think I'm generally a glass half full man myself - but just looking at the results of "we lost by less than a kick" misses the point that we were 6 goals down to the blues before we even scored a point, we were 35 to 8 in front of GWS at qtr time before completely losing momentum - and we only kicked 7 goals in the game vs Port, in what was a good pressure but pretty ugly game of footy. My view is we weren't where we needed to be in all of those games, rather than not far off.

The Brisbane game is the only one I'd say we could look at as a genuine 50/50 that we lost by less than a kick. 

7 hours ago, GM11 said:

Out of interest, who could we have got?

I can’t answer that counter factual only that it contributed to us not getting to prelims.

1 hour ago, In Harmes Way said:

I'd like to think I'm generally a glass half full man myself - but just looking at the results of "we lost by less than a kick" misses the point that we were 6 goals down to the blues before we even scored a point, we were 35 to 8 in front of GWS at qtr time before completely losing momentum - and we only kicked 7 goals in the game vs Port, in what was a good pressure but pretty ugly game of footy. My view is we weren't where we needed to be in all of those games, rather than not far off.

The Brisbane game is the only one I'd say we could look at as a genuine 50/50 that we lost by less than a kick. 

That Carlton game literally split this place down the middle. Some even suggesting that breaking even with them from midway through the 2nd to midway through the last was a positive instead of Carlton answering our challenges, steadying the ship and clearly being the better side on the night. 

8 hours ago, Macca said:

We had a much better chance of winning the flag in 2022 rather than 2023

In 2023 we went into the finals with a D Grade forward line (with so many outs) and to expect to win 3 finals without any real fire-power up forward was totally unrealistic

But in 2022 there was no such reasoning attached.  But such was the euphoria of finally breaking through in 2021, we let the club off the hook.  That was the year that got away from us

Whilst the Cats were smart enough to rotate their better players, we just went with the same team and ran out of legs.  But with better management, we would have at least made the PF

In fact, as early as round 8 in 2022, it was obvious that we looked like a tired outfit.  Class got us through to the top 4 but no legs

The above is how I reckon many will see things in 5 or 10 years time unless ... we win another flag or 2 in the next 5 or 6 years

If that happens, we won't be looking back 

This is what our forward line could have looked like in 2023 but for various reasons, Petty, JVR, Melksham & Brown didn't play.  And Fritsch was banged up.  T-Mac was a liability

And after losing Gus, we couldn't use Petracca forward in the way we wanted to

HF  Fritsch (if fit)           Petty              Kozzie/Petracca 

F    Melksham/Chandler         JVR         Brown/T-Mac (if fit)

2022 - No excuses

2023 - Reasons

2022 - Petracca played with a break in his leg and Max was hobbled........there's 2 very good excuses

2023 - Lost the QF even though on just about every metric we should of won regardless of who was playing. That would of put us into a Prelim.....that's the one that got away.

4 hours ago, Roost it far said:

2022 - Petracca played with a break in his leg and Max was hobbled........there's 2 very good excuses

2023 - Lost the QF even though on just about every metric we should of won regardless of who was playing. That would of put us into a Prelim.....that's the one that got away.

2022 we had a fit and healthy forward line ... not A grade but availability was fine

2023 our forward line was D Grade with so many forwards being unavailable (Melk, Petty, Brown, JVR, T-Mac (on one leg) Fritsch (banged up) Petracca (not available forward with Brayshaw taken out))

That's a lot of outs replaced with NQR's

So the 2022 Demons beats the 2023 Demons by 4 or 5 goals

So it's a B/B+ Grade forward line vs D Grade forward line (2022 vs 2023) with the make-up of the rest of the respective teams being quite similar

So we had no excuses in 2022 but in 2023, there were sound reasons on why we didn't advance in the finals

So on every metric, we didn't stand a chance to win 3 finals in 2023

But in my view, we completely blew our chances in 2022 ... that's the one that got away.  Won our first 10 games then lost 8 out of our next 14 games

In 5 of those 8 losses we were leading at half time and in the other 3 losses we were within a goal at half time

So teams kept coming over the top of us.  Energy levels an issue?  Yes

So, in 2022 we ran out of legs and that's on the coaching and the fitness staff. By contrast, the Cats were managed really well and went on to win the flag with ease

It should gave been our flag which would have made it back to back flags

2022 - The one that got away

As for 2024, we started the season off with an A grade midfield and finished with a C- Grade midfield (No Brayshaw, Petracca out for half a season, Gawn good but not great, Viney ok and Oliver well below his best)

You cannot win big with those sorts of talent levels. And that includes the close games

Edited September 26, 2024Sep 26 by Macca

8 hours ago, jnrmac said:

You're a glass half full man. We lost by a kick to Port, GWS, Blues and Brisbane.

Win those and the conversation would have been different.

We had a terrible year in my view but I can see how Goodwin would look at the above and say we weren't far off.

 

Agree we weren't far off.

But with our woeful preseason,  injuries, so many senior players clearly carrying injuries, and a third of the team kids running out of puff  even I doubt we had the wherewithal to do win a flag this year.

Hard not think it was a blessing in disguise missing finals - particularly if we land a gun at pick 5.

On injuries, the Swans have been blessed this season - very much like we were in 2021.

And anyone who doubts the impact of losing say tracc only need to see the influence of heeney in the finals.

The swans almost certainly lose week one if not for heeney. They lose that game and they are no monties to even make the GF (ironically they would have played the lions).