I'm struggling to find an update on JVR and live in hope that he will be OK for R1.

In his absence, I'd like to see TMac given a go at being 1-out in the square.  He's big and strong enough, and proven in the spot.  Can also back up in the ruck.

I don't see Chandler as a natural forward, he can do the hard running and pressure bits, and occasionally finish, but doesn't have natural goal sense or that ability to create. Still, who is in front of him?

Gutted for McAdam that he is injured as he would be a straight forward 'in' while Kozzie is out, providing some natural goal kicking and creation ability.

Fritsch, Disco, Sparrow and arguably Sharp round it out. 

Thoughts?

Congrats on waking from the coma that you were in during 2022 and 2023 

It's been clear for 3-4 seasons that the number one thing holding our list back is our ability to finish in front of goal.

On our shopping list should be x factor small forwards who can finish in front of goal with limited chances.

The way we generate inside 50s and win territory, we need guys that are dangerous at ground level and take their chances.

I'd be loading up on these guys. Hopefully Henderson gives us something. The spot is there for the taking. I hold out hope for K Brown too in this respect. He's a good crumber, is he a reliable finisher?

far more concern with our skills being so poor that we can have 35 scoring shots and ~25 of them are misses

some of them were lay down miseres too

opportunities were created but not converted

  On 04/03/2025 at 02:56, Adam The God said:

It's been clear for 3-4 seasons that the number one thing holding our list back is our ability to finish in front of goal.

On our shopping list should be x factor small forwards who can finish in front of goal with limited chances.

The way we generate inside 50s and win territory, we need guys that are dangerous at ground level and take their chances.

I'd be loading up on these guys. Hopefully Henderson gives us something. The spot is there for the taking. I hold out hope for K Brown too in this respect. He's a good crumber, is he a reliable finisher?

100% agree. JVR & Turner as KPFs with another as the ruck forward is fine for key positions.

We need elite small/mediums with good skills. Looks at the Lions - Cameron, Rayner, Bailey, Lohman, Ah Chee...

Our list is sort of Fritsch, Pickett, Chandler, Sparrow (maybe). We are miles off them for that position.

The one we do need back is Tholstrup, who I think can add to this.

If we merged all of the threads relating to our forward line issues and printed them out it would stretch as far as the planet Jupiter. 

My solution is to get the ball in the hands of Jack Billings from around the 35-40 metre mark.

 

Disruptive with JVR going out early.

The smalls are unreliable, using mids as half-forward is a bit, fill gap. We really need explosive smalls, get ball and go, stop quick exits and lock it in.

We need natural readers of the play.

Our clearances are much better when Tracc was on-ball.

Viney calls for it when he is out-matched, needs to have more cognizance. 

I think they have made a mistake with Windsor off the backline (a few tackled got away from him), he loves a goal.

Fritsch looks lost playing a high forward. 

We need the experience of Melky.

Mentha could get a look.

Chandler needs consistency, he can kick but just doesn't seem get to the right areas.

Billings needs to put his head over the ball, look at it, then kick through. He appears to try a "feel" with the ball, that did not work in Mandurah. Will the thing through the posts. 

Great that we are getting good looks within the 50 arc.

Edited March 4Mar 4 by kev martin

With all the points being scored it is definitely very frustrating.

Kicking 24 behinds in a game is just plain awful.

My personal opinion is that we need a dedicated goal kicking coach at the Melbourne Football Club.

Someone who will focus on getting the player's techniques correct and making sure they dedicate time to practicising their goal kicking at the beginning and end of each training session.

Against the Dockers, we kicked 11 goals 18 behinds, with 5 rushed and 1 touched. Part of the reason for poor kicking was the wind, but we really missed some easy shots. I know it was a repeat of a number of our losses in recent years, but hopefully it comes good in the real stuff. I am pretty optimistic that we will win 16+ games if our midfield averages 63-45 inside 50s per week. (Conceding 109 points from 45 entries was more concerning IMO.)

I think our forward line works best with Melksham in the side. He is clever in the way he blocks and makes sure that there is enough spacing between the forwards so that we get more one-on-one contests.

Fritsch is much better as a deep forward.

I am not convinced in Viney or Rivers as forwards. I think we would be better playing Rivers back and giving our other midfielders more time on ball. Oliver had an impact as a forward, but I think he is better as a midfielder.

Langford could be a weapon with his marking and long kicking, but this might be a 2026 story.

  On 04/03/2025 at 03:18, Bring-Back-Powell said:

My solution is to get the ball in the hands of Jack Billings from around the 35-40 metre mark.

 

Did you mean the 3.5-4.0 metre mark? Thankfully Billings still has  time to change.

  On 04/03/2025 at 03:48, Supreme_Demon said:

With all the points being scored it is definitely very frustrating.

Kicking 24 behinds in a game is just plain awful.

My personal opinion is that we need a dedicated goal kicking coach at the Melbourne Football Club.

Someone who will focus on getting the player's techniques correct and making sure they dedicate time to practicising their goal kicking at the beginning and end of each training session.

Are their techniques wrong? I mean have you actually seen players drop the ball wonkily onto their boot or lean too far back when boot meets ball? I dunno but wouldn't the best AFL clubs in the world already be filming and closely monitoring all this?

Fritsch kicked six goals in a grand final from the square. Time to settle him down and play JVR as a marking tall forward as the staring two in the foward line. Play the other four up the ground around HF. Imagine Kozzie bursting forward from HFF.

Match this with Langdon and Windsor permanently on the wings where they cover the whole length of the ground. Then mix and match the rest as they are interchangeable.

Can't hurt to try something new because the old way is not working.

I still get the feeling that McAdam would have been a  useful otherwise-insignificant cog helping gel the forward line. *sigh* what might have been.

Our forwards get [censored] ball service and have for a long time. I would not blame them. All of our key midfielders have been rated as elite players but no one can say that Petracca, Oliver, Viney, Gawn, Sparrow etc are anywhere near elite ball distributors. Our wingers are just average and the likes of Salem and Bowey are no where near as good as they once were. We are just going to have to live with these forward thrust faults in our game until a new generation crops up.

At training play a forward line of Fritsch, JVR, Turner, Brown, Mentha and Bowey and see what happens. I'm not sure the current set up is working but it's a small sample size.

  On 04/03/2025 at 02:56, Adam The God said:

It's been clear for 3-4 seasons that the number one thing holding our list back is our ability to finish in front of goal.

On our shopping list should be x factor small forwards who can finish in front of goal with limited chances.

The way we generate inside 50s and win territory, we need guys that are dangerous at ground level and take their chances.

I'd be loading up on these guys. Hopefully Henderson gives us something. The spot is there for the taking. I hold out hope for K Brown too in this respect. He's a good crumber, is he a reliable finisher?

Not for me, I maintain our issue is we prioritise volume of inside 50’s over quality. 

How many marks in the big scoring zones (inside 20 or inside the corridor within 40) do we get per game?

How many runs in to an open goal plays do we get?

We need half backs who kick to space and run, we need mids who find the footy in space and we need to use the corridor and diagonal plays using half forwards to get deeper entries.

We have to attack in a way the good sides do to trouble our backline. 

 

  On 04/03/2025 at 04:22, John Crow Batty said:

Our forwards get [censored] ball service and have for a long time. I would not blame them. All of our key midfielders have been rated as elite players but no one can say that Petracca, Oliver, Viney, Gawn, Sparrow etc are anywhere near elite ball distributors. Our wingers are just average and the likes of Salem and Bowey are no where near as good as they once were. We are just going to have to live with these forward thrust faults in our game until a new generation crops up.

It’s not a surprise that we’ve pushed Pickett, Riv and Langdon on ball, put Windsor to half back and drafted Lindsay.

Half forward class is probably the missing piece. A healthy Spargo, see what Kolt and Langford can do and, hopefully Jack Henderson offers something. But it seems wishful thinking.

It is exactly the same problem it was 3-4 years ago 

  On 04/03/2025 at 03:15, Rab D Nesbitt said:

If we merged all of the threads relating to our forward line issues and printed them out it would stretch as far as the planet Jupiter. 

By the start of the season I reckon it will extend to Uranus

People make out like our forward line has so many problems, it really only has one: It doesn't kick enough goals.

Fix that and watch the wins roll in. 

I heard Tim Membrey’s available for a packet of chicken twisties….oh wait a sec…

  On 04/03/2025 at 04:49, DeeSpencer said:

Not for me, I maintain our issue is we prioritise volume of inside 50’s over quality. 

How many marks in the big scoring zones (inside 20 or inside the corridor within 40) do we get per game?

How many runs in to an open goal plays do we get?

We need half backs who kick to space and run, we need mids who find the footy in space and we need to use the corridor and diagonal plays using half forwards to get deeper entries.

We have to attack in a way the good sides do to trouble our backline. 

It’s both, isn’t it?

There’s no doubt the quality of our entries has been too poor, generating too many low percentage shots from 40+ out on 45+ angles. I agree that comes from Goodwin/the FD believing that dominance of forward half territory was the way to go. 

But we lose enough games on expected score to tell us that we should be scoring more from the shots we do generate. We have unreliable kicks all over the field and, excluding Fritsch and Turner, that includes our forwards in set shots. 

Second post here so go easy. 

For one, I think think that our small to medium forwards are vanilla at best and share a common weakness.

Take Pickett and Fritsch out of the picture and we have the most vanilla forward line going around. Match that with a midfield who similarly share the same weak points, (kicking and decision making) and it is absolutely clear as day as to why our side is bombarded with criticism regarding entry, shots on goal and areas that we've kicked to. 

It's not one without the other. For instance, I'd bet my bottom dollar that our forwards would function a lot better if we had a more skilled  midfield. Players with better execution and decision making. 

However, I also think that our forward line is not nearly as dynamic and dangerous as those sides in and around us. As I said, take Kosi and Fritsch out and there's not a huge amount to get excited about. The pressure placed on Van Rooyen is ridiculous given he is a workhorse type who crashes packs. 

The key for us is for our current mids and half forwards to try their darnedest to find consistency in their execution and skill level under pressure. If not, we will continue to have quarters like the second quarter against Freo which will just end the game. 

Obviously we had a terrible day in front of goal. Especially with easy shots from players who are generally very reliable. But we've also seen that before. The more worrying sign for me is the consistent wasting of disposal going inside 50, blazing away at goal and also constant mishandballs or kicks in our forward-line and half leading to direct turnovers that result in end to end goals for the opposition. They are the things I'd love to see changed. Our skills were terrible at the weekend and we simply have to be better and more consistently good across a game of we want to compete with the best. 

So all in all. It's both. Forwardline and Midfield continue to give us grief if skill level and decision making is down from repeat offenders. No matter how much good we do off the ball and at contest. Which is what makes it so hard to watch. Viney and Langdon were big culprits of this against Freo. Basic skills and decision making just so bad. 

They either hold a standard for the year and we remain competitive, or we continue to have quarters like we did against Freo that put the game out of reach for us. 

Edited March 4Mar 4 by Redleg_Knowledge