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I think the biggest positive to come out of tonight's game was the fact that Mitch Clark got up and walked off the ground - I was seating fairly close to where it happened and when he landed, it looked pretty ordinary.

This is F#cking ridiculous. A game of errors and you call him out on that. Did you actually watch how hard Morton ran to space today? If the rest of our midfield (Bate and Jones aside) attempted to do that we would be playing 2012 football and might win some games. 21 touches, 8 contested, 6 clearances, 6 tackles and he gets singled out for criticism. What a f#cking joke. How about we mention Dunns refusal to play in front, Joel McDonald complete inability to hit stationary 20 m targets with no pressure. Lets talk about Brent "bleeds red and blue" Moloney inability to get to any ball that doesn't fall in his lap or how an inside mid plays in the centre square all day and doesn't lay a tackle. Mark Jamars 46 hit outs with 3 at best to advantage. Nope Cale Mortons fault today. Our intensity was better. Our attempts to spread were much improved. We missed the opportunity to put pressure on them in the first quarter with easy missed shots. We negated their ability around the stoppage but we still aren't clean enough through there ourselves. Not happy with the loss but there were some improved signs and hopefully today was the last we see of Dunn and Joel McDonald again.

More positives. For a player who has only been here for 4 games, Mitch Clark did our jumper and in particular that number proud.

If you are first to the footy generally you receive the free kicks or the first opportunity for a free kick to be called in your favour. Mitch Clark in his first 4 games for this club had done nothing but show absolute spirit, desperation, pride and leadership and today when he stood up after that sickening accident he well and truly did the number 11 guernsey he wore proud.

Stop!!!!!!!! This was our best performance for the year CLEARLY. Seriously, we played the game out and, you know what, Morton was ok. Some of you need to get a grip. It's as if you can't wait to bag the crap out of your own side.

Eh. You know what. We have a very young inexperienced list. Bulldogs have been shocking but I still rate them. We were all over them but lacked polish. I'm sure we all would have loved a win, but you know what? We had a crack. Finally. We needed Clark in that last quarter. Add Sylvia in the midfield. Jurrah up forward. We WILL look better. Ive been guilty of being pessimistic this year, but without sounding like bailey, lets get these kids to 100 games before we hang crap on them. I saw heart today. That's what we want.

500 fewer possessions than our opponents over the first four games of the year and people are worried about the 'game plan'. 500! It's about the cattle, folks. Nothing more, nothing less.

talk for yourself dee-luded (and the good doc) leave me and robbie out of your "we" thankyou in advance

To be announced at Presidents function at the MCG today. They are a German automobile company. Congrats to all involved, and remember, you heard it here first

Probably the dumbest post I have read all year. And that says something. Demonland's Tea Party element is starting to raise its stunningly enlightened head.

Hats off to Davey for his 2nd goal, kicking one from the boundary on your non-preferred foot is impressive to say the least.

It's not the posters on Demonland that have turned the young against supporting the club, IT'S THE 47 YEARS WITHOUT A FLAG. Do you understand that or are you really that stupid?

We were the most dishonest football team in the competition under Bailey....................today was one of our most honest games for a long time. The skills were infuriating at times, but I left that game today content that if nothing else, they had a genuine crack. Dishonest players clearly aren't being played at the moment, many of which were playing last year. We are on the right track, but there is going to be some pain!

My observations, for what they are worth. Finally, we saw Melbourne play out a game when it looked pretty hopeless (eg when 5 goals down in the last) Umpiring was absolutely awful. Flash got some confidence up and I think it would be madness not to have him running around the forward line for the season. His first goal, front and centre, was vintage and the perfect compliment to Clark. Cale Morton isn't as bad as everyone wants him to be. He did a few really good things and, despite a few clangers, is consistenty up near our top possession getters. Jamar will never dominate anybody like he did today. If we couldn't win today's clearances (which we didn't) we never will. How did Cooney run 20m without anybody being able to catch him, when he only has one leg? Jared Rivers is a cornerstone and so underrated. Watts did some great work, but he just doesn't attack hard enough. His ball use is too good to waste as a deep forward. He's heaps better running around the wings, taking strong contested marks through our midfield, and delivering precisely into our forward line. James Magner makes our midfield look 250% tougher. Moloney's sleeve doesn't. Unfortunately for Neeld's gameplan, we looked excellent when we were far enough behind that we were forced to take some risks through the corridor. Best footy we have played in ages. Having said that, our forward pressure was better than I can remember seeing. Bate looks much better in the midfield and makes the team better, which says more about the team than him. Rohan Bail takes a great mark for his size. We desperately need Gysberts and Sylvia back. That's enough for now.

If you think Bartram can stand tall you are misguided. Their small forwards mangled us. Bartram couldn't cope as he couldn't against Nahas last week. In the third quarter as we were pressing he got a free kick on the back flank at the 29 minute mark and starts waving to everyone he's going to slow the game down. We desperately needed a goal in the final minute so as usually not knowing where to kick sends it safely back twenty metres, because that's all he can do. He doesn't have the mind for this level of AFL. He is what I call a circular player handballs around but never gains yardage. While we stick with him we are settling on C grade plaers. Did you see the way Murphy played that's what good teams have, Shaw, Johncock types and swe have to put up with Bartram and his crazy fan club on this site. JOrdie McKenzie, plays on his knees all day long. He's another circular player, rarely gets it off to an outside target for an effective clearance. Of course its hard to remember him actually getting away an effective kickd himself, either this game or any other. This was one of Jonesy poorer games. The number of times he got caught was part of our problem. At least Rivers could stand tall. AARRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Cal;e made a considerable contribution. His attitude was considerably better, showed more confidence and self believe. Will not be dropped again this year and will end up in our top ten by end of year. A way to go but so much upside in him

Why? yes he made a couple mistakes, but who didn't. Cale was one of our more effective contributors. His long kicking is as good as any and creates opportunities. He showed considerable more confidence and self belief. The kid is back.

What's with the ruck? In every game Jamar and whoever else seem to almost always tap it down near their own feet. The result is that even if we get the ball it is congested and we get tackled. It happens so often it must be deliberate tactic, but why? What happened to hitting it into some space into which a player runs?

Bartel doesnt have pace. People become obsessed with writing someone off if they arent lightening quick. He's quick enough.

I was really proud of the absolute tenacious endeavour of our team today. They absolutely threw themselves in. That's how we managed to only lose by 20 -odd points despite being overwhelmed in possesssion of the footy. In fact, if we'd kicked straight early, and they'd been twice penalised in the forward line for failing to dispose legally,resulting in goals, we'd have beaten them. Somehow we stayed in touch despite them having the ball 100 more times. I think it reflects the way our guys gave their all. If our supporters didn't notice how hard and fearlessly our platyers went in, I reckon they weren't watching very closely. Also, I reckon the sombre pre-match function would not have helped our players to be in a positive state of mind. It had to be done, and was well done, but I felt it left us with a "flat" feeling.

I know we got destroyed in games last year. But I was actually sitting in the stands today wondering how in the hell did we beat the likes of Adelaide and Freo by 100 ponts last year? How did we actually string together possesion? Get it forward to kick goals? Gain momentum? I seriously can't remember, because I am seeing many of the same players out there, but they are not playing the game I love.

It's just disappointing we are loosing and not getting games into youngsters. All these draft picks are sitting on hospital beds and not on the ground. I could deal with loosing if we could get more than a handful of games into Straus, Gys, Gawn, Cook etc. Where do we go, play our 'best 22' or play the 'let's play the kids' game again?

I actually enjoyed watching my football team today, that is all that is important this year.

http://www.opel.com/vehicles-and-services/concept-cars/gallery/exterior-views.html Just like our midfield. Sleek, smooth and not quite in existence yet.

blaming long time loyal supporters is just rubbish dl winning more games will attract more 'grand-stander' type supporters but will not increase the 'quality' of supporters the problems with the mfc (and there has/is been many) need to be sorted out by the mfc and not the supporters in general it's a pointless argument that will lead you nowhere

You actually got it part right in another post; the supporters are partially to blame, especially in the past where we allowed the club to drift along with hardly a whimper coming from our side of the fence. We never complained when players, who were well past their use by date, were retained, or when coaches that clearly weren't up to the task were reappointed, we accepted the fact that we had no money and we were lucky to get anyone to coach us so what we had would do. We put up with a president who missed the first game of the season because he went on a trek in the mountains and we accepted him saying that there were more important thing than football; who else would want to be president of our club anyway? We were the op shop of football clubs; no money, second rate product and very few "shoppers". Well Jimmy changed that he made the supporters wake up and see that we were drifting in to oblivion and if we didn't act the club would close its doors. We raised a lot of money and decided to change the loser mentality of the club and part of that loser mentality was accepting whatever was thrown our way. We don't accept it anymore, well at least some of us don't, we want results and if those appointed can't get them then they go, simple as that. BP has had the opportunity to set the club up for the next decade but he has failed miserably and in fact we have now, arguably, the worst list in the competition. Between DP and BP they have set the club back probably 5 years and at a time when there are new entrants making it even harder to survive, so if you think that there is unhappiness with BP for no reason then you are wrong. Now you may be related to BP and you may feel aggrieved that we are not giving him the respect he deserves, well I can assure you he is. We can sit silent, as you propose, and not upset the sensitivities of the players and coaches, or we can demand they do their jobs or be replaced; well we've sat silent before but no more. BP was a spectacular failure and if he didn't leave he should have been replaced.

None of the media will say it, because they're all nuff nuffs... But Clake might end up one of the recruits of the year. No-one talked about it, but to kick five in a 100 point loss... in one of the lowest inside fifty games in recorded history... That's startling.

Morton was considerably better, good attitude. Showed self belief. One of the best long kicks in our team which creates opportunity down field.

Well said, tonight was atrocious. We apparently were at base camp 2 years ago and clearly have fallen off the mountain and into a river.

Don't look at the fixture, the future is grim. Tense up, we aint got shi t. But seriously, we are way too boundry line centric these days. Sick of seeing players in board free and ignored. It's like the centre corridor is seen as a bad thing these days. We were once callled the "transition kings" and that was from coast to coast flashy play. We aint the kings of anything anymore. Well kings of frustration comes to mind. I can not take sollace in the fact that we shown more fight this week. It means nothing! We were playing an equally sucky team as us and we had something to fight for. Make no mistake about it- Doggies won't make top 8 this year, if we played a final contender we would have been belted like the last few weeks. What a sad state of affairs. All we can hang our hats on now is sshowing a little fight. Can't even do that for 4 quarters. I don't know what hurts more- the fact we can't fight out a match for 100% of the game or the fact that we have so many spuds on our list with sub-par disposal we are a rabble. Probably the latter. It sucks to be us!!

Out Forever: McDonald, Dunn In: Grimes, Couch

Today sucked for me. I know some on here are sifting through the piles of crap and are attempting to find positives but please we are awful and have hit the reverse gear hard. Our team from 2 years ago would have smashed this bulldogs team today. I don't know what will take longer to build, the wheel at docklands or a good bloody melbourne list. I was one of the positives ones on here " Relax we've got this" Well I am not anymore. Yes we had a crack and for 15 minutes in the third it looked like Neeld had gone to get a beer and the players started to actually play for a while. Then we shut down and died in the ass. It's just not fun to go to the footy anymore my weekend was good until today. I still love the club and i will get over today but there is no enthusiasm for this year from me anymore I haven't got any left.

Why You Little, you are negative to the point of stupidity.

We were better this week than last week. As long as we can say that every week, then I'll be satisfied.

Poor form of the day goes to WYL. Trengove played his 41 st game today and referring to the Bulldogs as heroin dealers goes to show how the great game can bring down ppl. Very sad

The only people who think the MCC has an elitist culture are the sad people who want to be in it but aren't. There is no the remotest thing elitist about it. Its simply a good place to watch football and doesn't have mindless swearing or drunken violence because you lose your membership. And if you want to wait another 27 years they 'might' let you back in.

Joel's disposal was shocking today, as it has been all this season, and he needs to be dropped. We can't carry players whose disposal is so bad, especially with the other guys who are currently there. But, Sharma, show some respect for players who pull on the red and blue, will you? "Moron"? Really? How would you feel if Joel Mac walked into your work when you had an off day and called you are moron? Keep the comments to his play, not his person. For what it's worth, Joel's attack on the man and ball is second to none, and I wish his second efforts were replicated by the rest of team. I just wish that he didn't need so many second efforts due to his fumbles and poor disposals.

The state of our club is exemplified by the fact that Joel Macdonald keeps getting a game. The moron can't kick the ball to a stationary target 20 meters away in the heart of our backline. Disgrace.

Let's not kid ourselves. Yes, we only lost by 21 points, but Bulldogs are crap. We got demolished through the middle again, we couldn't hit targets, we couldn't kick a goal and we sure as hell didn't have the intestinal fortitude to stick it out when the game was there to be won. For a team to concede two [censored] easy goals two minutes into the last quarter is inexcusable. Jordie, Jonesy, Rivers and Bater can stand tall. The rest all had patches of absolute garbage and let us down badly. And FFS Morton stop being so lazy you can't be arsed hitting a target by hand 3meters away. ARRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

We just played the supposedly worst team in the AFL and couldn't win a SINGLE quarter - something is seriously wrong here...

One positive for this game, I came in to the final quarter without feeling completely dead on the inside.

Apologies for side-tracking, but have you contemplated changing your forum alias?

You're an idiot. Do you realise the irony/hypocrisy of criticising MCC members for being classist or elitist whilst you stereotype us and do the same thing back? You obviously haven't been around MCC members much, as you are completely wrong in your analysis. The fact that some MCC members are polite, and not boorish and rude, does not make them any less avid supporters of the MFC than you, or anyone else. There is no correct way to support a club. There are certain times when I cringe and some of the things MCC members say about our players (e.g. constantly imploring a player to 'KICK IT' when there's no one to kick it to), but that doesn't make them worse than those who sit in general admission and have 'loud mouths'.

This is a bizarre viewpoint. What do you want us all to do ... attend training sessions and scream at Cale Morton to HTFU from over the fence? We pay our dues, attend games and occasionally write letters, phone the club and rant and rave on supporter websites. What more can we do?? Also, let's not make the mistake of consigning ALL of the past 47 years into the same basket of crapola. Okay we didn't win a flag, but there were at least some exciting times for Melbourne fans during the Northey, Daniher and even Balme eras. The Bailey/Prendergast/Cameron 'era of ritual floggings' is another matter altogether ... and should be treated in isolation for the descent into hell that it was.

He's silenced the doubters thus far in my view. Hopefully he can sustain not just his form but more importantly his attitude, which has been first class.

Not sure what your point is, the supporters turn up to the games in small numbers, but the reason is the players don't perform as they are expected to. I can't understand why we would accept players that are just happy to make it to AFL standard I'm sure no other club would accept that and I'm sure the other club's supporters wouldn't. We can only attend matches and support as best we can we are, after all, the support act, the main players are the footballers, coaches and football department, if they aren't performing they should be replaced, it's a bit harder to replace the supporters.

Doctor Who ,Just write me out a prescription and spare me the lecture. Your homeopathy isn't doing the trick . Supporters knocking supporters wont change a thing .

We did. We gave those that weren't up to the gig the flick. The only belittling being done is your ridiculous assertion that the 'fans are to blame'. And we are attracting good football people precisely because of our present willingness to be bold, confront the errors of the Bailey era, and change. Mark Neeld, Neil Craig, Dave Misson, Todd Viney, Leigh Brown and Jade Rawlings all say hi. 'Adapt or die' you say? Newsflash for you Doc ... we did!

Can we just stop blaming loyal fans for the mess we are in? It's utter BS. We put up with you, DW, and I rarely (if ever) get personal but it is a frustrating and ridiculous notion that a fans lack of happy disposition or blind faith is what is holding the club back. I am a fairly optimistic person when it comes to the club but if a Demon wants to question or criticise - then they are encouraged to speak their minds. Especially when the answers are unknown, complicated, and subjective. The only objective fact is that those you are belittling are loyal Demons.

We would have 50k members, Gonzo... But rpfc is an MCC member and a MFC member (Member x 3 in 2012) and about half of the 23k MCC supporters are members so we are getting there. And the MCC pumps money in as they should, it's not a huge issue anymore.