We have senior players on every line.

Yes we missed Lever and May, but we have McDonald and Salem on like 400 combined games in the backline. The midfield has Gawn, Trac, Viney and Clarry, that's 800+ games of experience. Even our relatively young forwardline has Melksham and Fritta.

Gawn had some howlers in the last quarter with his tap outs, but there are a dozen experienced leaders who ALL needed to do something to fix a clearly turning tide.
To not take it upon themselves to SLOW THE GAME DOWN with 3 minutes remaining and bottle up the time left, and lock the ball in for repeat stoppages, was diabolically bad from a senior group.

And it's also on the coaches to not send out that directive, to let by far our most dynamic player in Kosi rot on the bench until there was less than 2 minute left in the game, and to not scream black and blue at that last centre bounce the second they noticed we weren't in a 6-6-6 formation.

Once the umpire signalled the penalty, the TV panned over to our bench where Mark Williams was head counting.

You can't make up this level of incompetence for a bunch of seriously experienced players and coaches.

Absolutely diabolically shambolic.

We broke a 120+ year old record by losing that game. It literally doesn't get more pathetic than that.

5 hours ago, 48 Year Now said:

Players need to be isolated for their errors.

Some i saw.

1. The player who gave the free that resulted in the fifty metre- drop him. That was the one where it completely unravelked

2. JVR not holding a mark 30 odd out

3. Oliver letting a perfect centre tap go through his outstretched arms.

4. The final debacle of not picking up the best player in comp.

5. Goodwin not recognising Saints and tgeir fans sniffed the breeze at 30 points down.

6. Nightmate thought. Lyon said at 3/4 these blokes are ready to crack, tgey are not fit

Item no. 1 above.

Rivers tackled him straight away, because he knew it was obviously touched in transit....directly in front of him, and an umpire. It should have been holding the ball.

Strong united clubs have strong leadership groups who react accordingly when momentum changes, we don’t have unity or strong leadership group! There are issues within that haven’t been fixed across the whole footy dept, no question Goodwin is cooked failed to fix ongoing problems since 22 but our assistant coaches are an issue! Never thought that cliff would come so quickly with such a young group of premiership players!

3 hours ago, D Rev said:

The lack of discipline and composure in the last 5 mins yesterday was telling

Surely more mental than physical. How can that be rectified ?

Here as well as anywhere...

Is it possible for AI to have too much source material?

Anyone care to check by asking 'it', 'Why is the Melbourne Football Club so bad'?

[hopes post is an appropriate balance of light and heavy heartedness...]

5 hours ago, roy11 said:

I think Max is a good leader in terms of personal relationships, but we definitely had a breakdown of strategy in the final quarter.

Nailed it.

8 minutes ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

Here as well as anywhere...

Is it possible for AI to have too much source material?

Anyone care to check by asking 'it', 'Why is the Melbourne Football Club so bad'?

[hopes post is an appropriate balance of light and heavy heartedness...]

here is your answer per ChatGPT

Snapshot: where Melbourne sit in 2025

Metric (to Rd 18)	Figure	League rank
Wins–losses	6 – 12	13th of 18 clubs
Points for / against	61 pts F – 101 pts A (-40 ppg)	17th (attack), 15th (defence)
Average inside-50 efficiency	38 %	Bottom 4

They started 0-5 for the first time since 2012 and have spent the year scrambling to recover. 

---

Why the Demons “look so bad”

1.  

A broken forward game

• Melbourne score just 61 points a game, second-worst in the AFL. They seldom attack through the corridor and convert only 38 % of inside-50s into scores. 

• Bayley Fritsch (foot) missed 10 matches; Jacob van Rooyen is only 21; Tom McDonald’s form has fallen away. Without a reliable key target the mids often bomb long and lose the ball in transition.

2.  

Injury pile-ups in key posts

Player	Issue	Games missed
Max Gawn	Fractured larynx & knee niggles	5
Jake Lever	Recurring ankle/foot irritation	7
Christian Salem	Quad & calf strains	6
Harrison Petty	Concussion	4

The club’s own injury report shows Lever, Sparrow and others still in rehab, hampering stability down back and at the contest. 

3.  

Tactical staleness

Opposition coaches now target Melbourne’s once-elite defensive web:

• Slow ball movement: sides slice through with overlap run (Essendon recorded 448 disposals, a seven-year high) 

• Out-numbering Steven May & Lever by forcing them to defend higher, then exploiting space behind.

• Predictable stoppage structure: when Clayton Oliver or Christian Petracca are contained, clearances drop sharply and the transition defence is exposed.

4.  

Off-field turbulence and confidence hit

• A public 0-5 start triggered an open letter from president Kate Roffey apologising for “not performing to the standard”. 

• A social-media threat towards coach Simon Goodwin (no action taken) underscored growing external heat. 

• Post-game friction—e.g. the Max Gawn-Steven May shove after the Collingwood loss—feeds the “fractured” narrative. 

Morale stories do not directly lose games, but they sap belief and amplify every on-field wobble.

5.  

List churn and ageing pillars

Since the 2021 flag Melbourne have lost Luke Jackson, James Harmes and key assistants (e.g. Adam Yze). Core leaders—Gawn (33), May (33 in Jan 26), Viney (31)–are entering the back-nine of their careers. The next wave (van Rooyen, Caleb Windsor) is talented but green, so performance yo-yoes week-to-week.

---

What can actually turn it around?

Lever	Immediate action	Reasoning
Refresh forward craft	Recruit a mature key forward (FA/trade) or repurpose Petty/Jefferson full-time inside 50; invest in specialist forward coach.
Game-style tweak	Empower mids to attack central corridor earlier; copy Brisbane’s fast hand-ball chains to shift defensive web.
High-performance review	Soft-tissue injuries have spiked—independent audit of training loads and medical protocols.
Cultural circuit-breaker	Off-site leadership retreat; rebuild agreed standards after the Gawn-May incident.
Gradual list hand-over	Increase minutes for Windsor, Howes, Laurie late-season to accelerate development without tanking competitiveness.

---

Bottom line

Melbourne aren’t “bad” in talent—they still field Petracca, Oliver, May, Gawn—but a cocktail of scoring dysfunction, strategic predictability, injuries and rising external noise has dragged them to the lower rungs of the ladder. Fix the forward connection and re-inject speed through the corridor, and the Demons can rebound as quickly as 2026. Until then, expect turbulence.

16 minutes ago, monoccular said:

Surely more mental than physical. How can that be rectified ?

Such a good question.

58 minutes ago, The Panglossian said:

Item no. 1 above.

Rivers tackled him straight away, because he knew it was obviously touched in transit....directly in front of him, and an umpire. It should have been holding the ball.

No. It was dumb . Umpy had made the call

4 hours ago, Howard_Grimes said:

What on earth makes you think our fitness such a pressing issue?

Is that demonland podcast?

This fitness issue is the most over-talked, nonsense I've ever heard. At this level of sport, differences between the fitness levels of teams is minute. It would only be a talking point if we had a significant run of injuries and were playing more than half a side of Casey players.

It is the biggest load of tripe I've heard. Our fitness is fine. It's skill execution, decision making, players levels of motivation, a mentally fatigued group and coaching that are THE reasons.

The 'we don't look fit enough' talk is due to the above. Nothing to do with actual player fitness.

Fitness is sn issue.

2 hours ago, Jaded No More said:

We have senior players on every line.

Yes we missed Lever and May, but we have McDonald and Salem on like 400 combined games in the backline. The midfield has Gawn, Trac, Viney and Clarry, that's 800+ games of experience. Even our relatively young forwardline has Melksham and Fritta.

Gawn had some howlers in the last quarter with his tap outs, but there are a dozen experienced leaders who ALL needed to do something to fix a clearly turning tide.
To not take it upon themselves to SLOW THE GAME DOWN with 3 minutes remaining and bottle up the time left, and lock the ball in for repeat stoppages, was diabolically bad from a senior group.

And it's also on the coaches to not send out that directive, to let by far our most dynamic player in Kosi rot on the bench until there was less than 2 minute left in the game, and to not scream black and blue at that last centre bounce the second they noticed we weren't in a 6-6-6 formation.

Once the umpire signalled the penalty, the TV panned over to our bench where Mark Williams was head counting.

You can't make up this level of incompetence for a bunch of seriously experienced players and coaches.

Absolutely diabolically shambolic.

We broke a 120+ year old record by losing that game. It literally doesn't get more pathetic than that.

Yes, Mark Williams on the bench looked like a mad professor whos experiment had gone wrong.

Long time ago but david parkin would make the brilliant but knock about Carlton players of the early 80s write essays on upcoming games and losses.

The beauty of it was he assessed them and as a result got individual thoughts on games.

It was harsh but got to tge truth of how players felt sbout themselves , teamsates and opponents in a footy sense.

Not this garbage collective ownership.

Thanks, @Age. Wow...

On balance:

a) As it can't 'know' what it's saying, it's not surprising it doesn't;

b) It needs a 'currency of information' algorithm; and, most relevantly,

c) It seems locked out of Demonland.

I was hoping for a neat synthesis of the myriad thoughts herein!

Oh well...

Thanks for trying.

1 hour ago, Age said:

here is your answer per ChatGPT

Snapshot: where Melbourne sit in 2025

Metric (to Rd 18)	Figure	League rank
Wins–losses	6 – 12	13th of 18 clubs
Points for / against	61 pts F – 101 pts A (-40 ppg)	17th (attack), 15th (defence)
Average inside-50 efficiency	38 %	Bottom 4

They started 0-5 for the first time since 2012 and have spent the year scrambling to recover. 

---

Why the Demons “look so bad”

1.  

A broken forward game

• Melbourne score just 61 points a game, second-worst in the AFL. They seldom attack through the corridor and convert only 38 % of inside-50s into scores. 

• Bayley Fritsch (foot) missed 10 matches; Jacob van Rooyen is only 21; Tom McDonald’s form has fallen away. Without a reliable key target the mids often bomb long and lose the ball in transition.

2.  

Injury pile-ups in key posts

Player	Issue	Games missed
Max Gawn	Fractured larynx & knee niggles	5
Jake Lever	Recurring ankle/foot irritation	7
Christian Salem	Quad & calf strains	6
Harrison Petty	Concussion	4

The club’s own injury report shows Lever, Sparrow and others still in rehab, hampering stability down back and at the contest. 

3.  

Tactical staleness

Opposition coaches now target Melbourne’s once-elite defensive web:

• Slow ball movement: sides slice through with overlap run (Essendon recorded 448 disposals, a seven-year high) 

• Out-numbering Steven May & Lever by forcing them to defend higher, then exploiting space behind.

• Predictable stoppage structure: when Clayton Oliver or Christian Petracca are contained, clearances drop sharply and the transition defence is exposed.

4.  

Off-field turbulence and confidence hit

• A public 0-5 start triggered an open letter from president Kate Roffey apologising for “not performing to the standard”. 

• A social-media threat towards coach Simon Goodwin (no action taken) underscored growing external heat. 

• Post-game friction—e.g. the Max Gawn-Steven May shove after the Collingwood loss—feeds the “fractured” narrative. 

Morale stories do not directly lose games, but they sap belief and amplify every on-field wobble.

5.  

List churn and ageing pillars

Since the 2021 flag Melbourne have lost Luke Jackson, James Harmes and key assistants (e.g. Adam Yze). Core leaders—Gawn (33), May (33 in Jan 26), Viney (31)–are entering the back-nine of their careers. The next wave (van Rooyen, Caleb Windsor) is talented but green, so performance yo-yoes week-to-week.

---

What can actually turn it around?

Lever	Immediate action	Reasoning
Refresh forward craft	Recruit a mature key forward (FA/trade) or repurpose Petty/Jefferson full-time inside 50; invest in specialist forward coach.
Game-style tweak	Empower mids to attack central corridor earlier; copy Brisbane’s fast hand-ball chains to shift defensive web.
High-performance review	Soft-tissue injuries have spiked—independent audit of training loads and medical protocols.
Cultural circuit-breaker	Off-site leadership retreat; rebuild agreed standards after the Gawn-May incident.
Gradual list hand-over	Increase minutes for Windsor, Howes, Laurie late-season to accelerate development without tanking competitiveness.

---

Bottom line

Melbourne aren’t “bad” in talent—they still field Petracca, Oliver, May, Gawn—but a cocktail of scoring dysfunction, strategic predictability, injuries and rising external noise has dragged them to the lower rungs of the ladder. Fix the forward connection and re-inject speed through the corridor, and the Demons can rebound as quickly as 2026. Until then, expect turbulence.

With respect can we stop with the AI slop

1 hour ago, Age said:

here is your answer per ChatGPT

Snapshot: where Melbourne sit in 2025

Metric (to Rd 18)	Figure	League rank
Wins–losses	6 – 12	13th of 18 clubs
Points for / against	61 pts F – 101 pts A (-40 ppg)	17th (attack), 15th (defence)
Average inside-50 efficiency	38 %	Bottom 4

They started 0-5 for the first time since 2012 and have spent the year scrambling to recover. 

---

Why the Demons “look so bad”

1.  

A broken forward game

• Melbourne score just 61 points a game, second-worst in the AFL. They seldom attack through the corridor and convert only 38 % of inside-50s into scores. 

• Bayley Fritsch (foot) missed 10 matches; Jacob van Rooyen is only 21; Tom McDonald’s form has fallen away. Without a reliable key target the mids often bomb long and lose the ball in transition.

2.  

Injury pile-ups in key posts

Player	Issue	Games missed
Max Gawn	Fractured larynx & knee niggles	5
Jake Lever	Recurring ankle/foot irritation	7
Christian Salem	Quad & calf strains	6
Harrison Petty	Concussion	4

The club’s own injury report shows Lever, Sparrow and others still in rehab, hampering stability down back and at the contest. 

3.  

Tactical staleness

Opposition coaches now target Melbourne’s once-elite defensive web:

• Slow ball movement: sides slice through with overlap run (Essendon recorded 448 disposals, a seven-year high) 

• Out-numbering Steven May & Lever by forcing them to defend higher, then exploiting space behind.

• Predictable stoppage structure: when Clayton Oliver or Christian Petracca are contained, clearances drop sharply and the transition defence is exposed.

4.  

Off-field turbulence and confidence hit

• A public 0-5 start triggered an open letter from president Kate Roffey apologising for “not performing to the standard”. 

• A social-media threat towards coach Simon Goodwin (no action taken) underscored growing external heat. 

• Post-game friction—e.g. the Max Gawn-Steven May shove after the Collingwood loss—feeds the “fractured” narrative. 

Morale stories do not directly lose games, but they sap belief and amplify every on-field wobble.

5.  

List churn and ageing pillars

Since the 2021 flag Melbourne have lost Luke Jackson, James Harmes and key assistants (e.g. Adam Yze). Core leaders—Gawn (33), May (33 in Jan 26), Viney (31)–are entering the back-nine of their careers. The next wave (van Rooyen, Caleb Windsor) is talented but green, so performance yo-yoes week-to-week.

---

What can actually turn it around?

Lever	Immediate action	Reasoning
Refresh forward craft	Recruit a mature key forward (FA/trade) or repurpose Petty/Jefferson full-time inside 50; invest in specialist forward coach.
Game-style tweak	Empower mids to attack central corridor earlier; copy Brisbane’s fast hand-ball chains to shift defensive web.
High-performance review	Soft-tissue injuries have spiked—independent audit of training loads and medical protocols.
Cultural circuit-breaker	Off-site leadership retreat; rebuild agreed standards after the Gawn-May incident.
Gradual list hand-over	Increase minutes for Windsor, Howes, Laurie late-season to accelerate development without tanking competitiveness.

---

Bottom line

Melbourne aren’t “bad” in talent—they still field Petracca, Oliver, May, Gawn—but a cocktail of scoring dysfunction, strategic predictability, injuries and rising external noise has dragged them to the lower rungs of the ladder. Fix the forward connection and re-inject speed through the corridor, and the Demons can rebound as quickly as 2026. Until then, expect turbulence.

Honestly we should employ AI to run the club, do a better job than these muppets.

1 minute ago, deegirl said:

With respect can we stop with the AI slop

@Age was responding to my somewhat lightheartedly hopeful request, dg, not offering it up.

I think it's now confirmed it's next to useless, and the slop should now finally be able to leave via the nearest drain! (though @danielE288's comparison suggests Club office bearers should stay away from said drain...)

Edited July 28Jul 28 by Timothy Reddan-A'Blew

2 hours ago, deegirl said:

With respect can we stop with the AI slop

Probably, though can it be worse than the current swill of human intelligence ru(i)nning our club?

We need another Cold Light of Day thread.

20 hours ago, 48 Year Now said:

No. It was dumb . Umpy had made the call

The umpire was the dumb one. The touch was blatant.

On 28/07/2025 at 12:16, Dockett 32 said:

Petracca to fulfill contract

If its true he wants to go to Hawks and the Hawks want him and we demand their pick 7, and we have to pay 200-300k of his contract for the next 5 years would you do it?

1 hour ago, YesitwasaWin4theAges said:

If its true he wants to go to Hawks and the Hawks want him and we demand their pick 7, and we have to pay 200-300k of his contract for the next 5 years would you do it?

Yep, on current attitude and output.

Swapping a pick 7 for his original pick 3 is fine and we got a flag in the cupboard.