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Yesterday was the worst game of the year - the most frustrating anyway. I was frustrated because we couldn't convert. Frustrated because I thought it was a game we should have won. Frustrated because deplorable skills meant that when we should have had a 6 goal lead we were looking shaky with a 14 point gap. Frustrated because for the 4th or 5th time this season we let a game drop we shouldn't have. Then it occurred to me - the simple fact I was frustrated meant we had improved immeasurably from this time last year. Roos has thus far managed to get us from a team that was not at AFL standard to a bottom 4 side that has been reasonably competitive against teams near them on the ladder. A team that beat two of last years finalists plus one that look like it will make it this year, and knocked off the crows in Adelaide - a team that still could feature in finals. We pushed Port twice (they sit 5th). 6 games lost by less than 20 points. If we had the forward line Roos thought he had to play with back in January (Hogan Dawes and Clarke) I think it's fair to say we would have just enjoyed win number 9 or 10 and looking at potentially an unlikely finals campaign. I know this sounds ridiculous but that's the reality of it. We would have beaten St Kilda round 1, the dogs twice, most likely port last round and Brisbane this round (I'm assuming we would have kicked something like 7.5 rather than 2.10 in the middle two quarters). Perhaps also giants and maybe port again in Alice springs. We wouldn't be having these discussions if Hogan hadn't hurt his back and Clarke hadn't retired. We do make far to many skill errors and there is are a lot who need to be culled at the end if the season - but a lot of our errors come from a lack of a target which means 1 handball too many, 1 kick to many, a reluctance to play on. It leads to poor decision making because your looking for a target that should be there but isn't so rather than follow instinct your second guessing. Another reason is youth. We have a lot of young players who are surrounded by not brilliant senior players. All young players make mistakes but at better clubs the senior players are able to cover these errors and with the players development the mistakes are weeded out - or the player is. This brings us to the next issue - player development and fitness. This has been sorely lacking and I put a fair wack of the blame at Mark Neelds feet. He identified this as an issue within days of being at the club. He stated several times during his first pre- season that the players were not even close to the minimum fitness required for AFL. Round 1 last season he stated after Port flogged us "no one saw that coming". A few days later it was revealed Frawley had said after watching him get burned off on tape "I was running faster than that... It felt like I was running faster...". 18 months after identifying our fitness was an issue nothing had been done about it. I'd argue the players were even more unfit but the issue here was that Neeld seemed to think they had improved. We have had no proper player development program in close to a decade. The culling of senior players by Bailey was a big mistake as it held up a lot of the on field development. The leadership and little bits of on field coaching disappeared at the same time we had a coaching attitude of "game plans will come - it's all about getting games into players". That's not player development. It got them to a certain point (2010) but when more was required it just wasn't there. Roos is bringing this to us now. He knows how to develop players, he knows what's required to have a healthy culture. This year I suspect it was all about stopping the bleeding - which he has done but over the next pre season I think we will see a far bigger concentration on skill and fitness. With this and a target up forward we will improve out of sight next year. With a forward line we would have shown a lot more improvement this year. It requires patience because we have been rooted sideways with a coke bottle for too long - but don't be surprised to see us nearing finals by the end of Roos contract.

I'd rather shoot myself in the head.

Plenty of time for Merrett to pirouette out of the way.

This was Demonland at its finest. I lol'd.

in fact if merrett had broken his wrist or finger hitting pedo's nose i'm sure pedo would have been up on a charge

The only opportunity we had of doing anything about this was out on the field on Sunday and SFA happened about it then too. Let it be a lesson for MFC players to fly the flag for their teammates. Ed: I can see how the MRP would dismiss this.

If I were a gambling man I'd put a healthy wager on Bail not being dropped. Will be a 22 game club member this year.

Surely Stef Martin's game showed that our recruitment of players isn't that bad after all?

If you can't see the work Roos has done in the 10 months he's been here you have NFI.

1. Stef Martin not in Melbourne colours 2. That shite excuse of a ground where you can't see anything, and they won't let you sit on the wing even when there are only 3 people occupying 10 stands 3. The lack of fight after Pederson wasn't decked

Yup, here it is: the epitome of threads that don't matter. I'm genuinely terrified about this game. Out: Tapscott In: Cross I know it's hardly ringing in the changes, but as tempting as it is to drag in class ball users like Nicholson and Matt Jones from Casey... Gosh I'm ready for this season to finish now.

How the hell did Merrett get cleared for his hit on Pedersen, or am I the crazy one here? The MRP said it was a legitimate attempt to spoil. See the incident here.

So what's the reason then if it's not lack of pre-season? I didn't see too many people raising these complaints about Garland last year when finished second in the B&F. Something has changed between then and now, so since you're an expert, I'd love to to hear your view. Speak slowly though so I can keep up.

there it is again! The interrupted preseason golden ticket! IDGAF if he got hit by a bus in January, he is a professional athlete who is declared fit and available for selection like everyone else, what kind of excuse is it to say that a bloke missed some training 5 months ago and therefore he is allowed to be shizen in round 19, one of the most infuriating lines that gets trotted out here. It's another one of these things absorbed from the ridiculously oversaturated media, bunch of boofhead ex-players like 'Kingy' and 'Johnno' and 'Richo' (see they're all great mates that's why they refer to each other by their surnames with an extra vowel at the end) all with their stupid heads on the screen 40 hours a walk trying desperately to say something insightful and instead carping out cliches, useless stats and theories that mean nothing - and then we get the pleasure of demonland posters regurgitating the same nonsense as their own original thoughts. A few years ago nobody even talked about a player's pre-season fitness - ENOUGH EXCUSES! /end rant

Players like Garland are the prime reason we are a shiite team. He should be in his prime. 26yo 112 gmes. Started out really well and we thought 'we have a player here'. And yet he has gone backwards in the past 3 yrs. Like he has had a footy lobotomy. Should be the marshall of the backline. Should be the player that the young guys look up to. She be a leader and a stalwart of the team. Instead he is a half OK player that NEVER dominates, goes missing in action regularly, has spectacular brain fades. In a good side would probably be OK. Rivers was a bit the same. Started great but was never a leader and was too easily coached out of a game. Poor disposal and a lot of average play in his last years. Chip has headed that way since his AA year. Jamar has had one year and gets toweled up by Martin after mouthing off about what he was gonna do to him WTF has happened. It has happend to so many of our players in the past as well. We never step up in line in the sand games. Never stand up when its counted. The number of times we have claimed to stand up and then fail miserably is pitiful.

See Martin got 10/10 coaches votes. FMD - so much for Jamars per match rhetoric. Typical.

No one will get a priority pick whilst the reasons given for deciding are subjective and based on future crystal balling. "The MFC will not be given a Priority Pick - with Paul Roos going into his second season with the club, we expect to see further improvement from all parts of the playing group having already seen much better defensive efforts. Jesse Hogan will be a big bonus for the club and........and..... and... we expect him to kick 100 goals plus next year. Jack Watts will have a breakout season and find the intensity of Chris Dawes. Jordan McKenzie will become the goalsneak the MFC hoped he would become. Dan Nicholson's kicking skills are on the rise and we expect a big contribution as an Ablettesque midfielder. It has also come to our attention after reading Demonland that Jeremy Cameron, Dylan Shiel, Patrick Dangerfield and Nick Malcescki are all on their way to the club and despite being the biggest spud god ever put breath into Chip Frawley has re-signed with the club for 4 years at $2.59 per season. We will therefore not give the MFC a priority pick - after a close vote it was also decided not to remove picks from the club even though a very persuasive argument was put forward to the commission that the Demons were a shoe-in for the 2015 flag"

From 2007 to 2009 we were armed with the type of draft picks you can completely rebuild a list with. 10 top 20 draft picks in three years. Of course there are no guarantees but surely you can at least secure a few stars with that draft bounty. Out of those 10 picks 8 have been failures. One has been a success (Grimes) and the other may or may not be (Trengove). Of the others Morton, Maric, Gysberts and Scully are gone, Tapscott, Blease and Strauss may join them this year and Watts has been an enormous disappointment. How can you have a 20% (or less) success rate with so many high picks? It's absolutely baffling and it's one of the key reasons why we are where we are. Watching us yesterday handle and use the ball like it was a pineapple just makes you shake your head at what could have been had we made the right decisions back then. Instead of a clutch of talented 23-24 year olds we are left with a gaping hole and a group of battlers who are not up to it. As loyal supporters of this club we have been robbed.

Well the "group" can get stuffed. I'm on Pedersen's side. One of the very few blokes at this club who has actually taken the opportunity presented by our new coach to turn his career around.

I know it's difficult to accept where this club is at the moment, and I know it's tempting to turn our malaise into a kind of moral issue and to blame factors like laziness, ineptitude, "culture" and so on for where we are. However, while the presence of all these factors amongst the staff and playing members might have played a part, I think it's important to look at just how unlucky we've been over the past 7-8 years. I know we haven't helped ourselves along the way, and have frequently made the wrong decisions at important times, but I don't think there are many teams who could have been competitive with the kind of luck we've had during this time. So what do I mean by luck? Well, I mean specifically our luck with regards to drafting and injuries. With drafting, I know there is a certain "science" to it and that we may have selected the wrong players at times, but - for the most part - we have selected players (in the first rounds at least) who had been universally regarded by the entire scouting community as being worthy of the position in which they were selected. If we hadn't been unlucky enough to select these players, then they probably would have been taken in the next few spots by a team that - as it happens - must have had a lot more drafting luck than we did. Here are the top 20 picks we had from 2007-2012: - Pick 1: Jack Watts - Pick 1: Tom Scully - Pick 2: Jack Trengrove - Pick 4: Cale Morton - Pick 4: Jimmy Toumpas - Pick 11: Jordan Gysberts - Pick 12: Lucas Cook - Pick 14: Jack Grimes - Pick 17: Sam Blease - Pick 18: Luke Tapscott - Pick 19: James Strauss Literally not one of those players has come on in the way we expected. Only Gysberts and Cook could really be classified as "surprise" picks (where the recruiters selected players much higher than they were anticipated to go), but the rest were all universally considered to be justified picks at the time. Partly we can blame player development, of course, but that only gets us so far. For example, Scully, Morton and Gysberts have gone on to play with other clubs, and none of them showed any more than they did at Melbourne, so it can't merely be a matter of "culture". Furthermore, player development requires some luck - so that new players are able to come in with experienced players bearing the brunt of the load for their first few years, so they have time and space to learn - and we never had that. While we shot ourselves in the foot by offloading players like MacDonald, Yze, White, Moloney and Bruce a little prematurely (with the universal consent of this forum, I seem to remember!) the fact is we just never had the cattle to help the younger players along. Partly this was down to having a bad list to start with, but even then the best and most experienced players we've had have spent more time injured than they have on the park. These endless injuries over the past few years are the second heap of bad luck we've had to endure. Let's take the players we've drafted there: Scully missed half his second season with a knee injury. Trengrove and Grimes have been hobbled with serious foot injuries. Blease and Strauss have both suffered broken legs. Toumpas and Tapscott have continually missed pre-seasons with hip injuries. It's difficult to develop these players when they can't get on the pitch, or - at best - are forced to get on the pitch playing with the equivalent of one leg! Watts is the only one of those 11 top 20 picks who is both not an abject spud and who has had no serious injuries during his time at the club. And for the rest of the team? In the last four years Dawes has missed 14 of 40 games. Clark has missed 47 of 62 games. Grimes has missed 25 of 84 games. Hogan has missed 18 of 18 games. Jamar has missed 33 of 84 games. Viney has missed 11 of 40 games. They aren't walk-up starters, but Gawn and Spencer have had knee reconstructions. Cross has broken his leg. Trengove has missed 16 of 18 this season (and I'm sure he was injured before that), Garland 7 of 18 (and I'm sure he isn't 100% now). When you're already struggling, you can't afford to have these players on the sidelines so often - particularly when you combine it with the poor drafting. Then, just to top it off, we can think about Jurrah, Clark and Wonaeamirri leaving the club for personal reasons at the height of their powers; Rivers, Sylvia, Moloney and Scully leaving via free agency (not the best players in the world, but I suspect they'd be best 22 atm); and so on. In short, we just haven't had any luck lately and I doubt that any teams would be particularly competitive if they had endured what we have endured. I don't wish to make excuses, nor to suggest that the club isn't ultimately responsible for where it is today: quite clearly it is. What I want to stress, though, is that a lot of the misery we've suffered over the past few years most certainly has been outside of our control, and it may represent the difference between us being a competitive side and the pitiful mess we see before us at the moment. These kind of miseries tend to be self-compounding: a team going well can afford to absorb a few injuries, or bad drafting choices, or players leaving the club: a bad one can't. Injuries have stifled player development, which has stifled onfield performance, which has stifled players development further. Small discrepancies in luck at the beginning can snowball into massive problems further on, through a kind of positive feedback loop: that's the essence of chaos theory, and if there's one entity in the world that currently embodied the ethos of chaos, it's surely the Melbourne Football Club. The only bright spot to come from all this is that - at some point - the luck has to start turning. We will eventually begin to draft players who know how to play and who spend more time on the field than in the medical rooms (Salem and Tyson are a good start). Until then, perhaps the best thing for it is to recede from it all with a kind of ironic detachment, to trust in Roos and to shake your fist impotently at the sky. I'm not sure there's much else for it.

After another deplorable display Roos comes to the conclusion some really may not be up for it. Next 4 weeks are their determination. Listen to Roos's pm presser. Im sure hes already got many cards marked....just waiting for EOS really Hes all but agreeing with many of us...the cattle isnt up to it. He can't understand why some play how they do. http://www.melbournefc.com.au/video/2014-08-03/rd-19-paul-roos-media-conference Big clear out coming

How we managed to bugger up so many draft picks over the years, and then manage to let someone like Stef Martin go for, essentially, nothing - well, it simply beggars belief. I absolutely loathed that game on Sunday. It was bloody appalling.

6-8 deplorable efforts... I don't know about that... Also, if I can't isolate the Adelaide game as a sign of improvement on 2013, then surely isolating the Lions game is not right. What has been the rule? I would say - excellent defence, unenterprising attack, and an inability to win games that we have fought hard to be in a position to win. I would say that is better than 'the rule' of 2013.

Perhaps a name change is in order you don't appear to think Grimes is that great anymore?

At the end of 2007 when Daniher sunk and Bailey came in, we started the 'slash and burn' rejuvenation of the list and installed a rotating door at MFC headquarters. In the seven years since, we have retained just five players from the '07 list, and added at total of 68 players, 29 of whom are already been and gone. Of the other 39 additions, I count (shown in bold type) 15 good, solid 'asset' players with possibly a bright future ahead (NB in some cases this is based on very little eg. Toumpas who is there because he was a high draft pick and is still young, 8 of the 15 are just kids). So, I would have to say the other 24 are dud picks/failures of development or with limited time left (Cross) that are still on the list. So, 29 been and gone plus 24 duds remaining equates to: at least 53 of the 68 players we have brought in to the club in the last seven years have not worked out for various reasons. Essentially, we bring in 10 players every year and 8 of them don't work out. In this time we have had a complete turnover in coaching staff and administration also, but it all has the same result. What in the name of God is wrong with us as a club that we have such a dismal conversion rate of drafting/recruiting and developing?

You are in a group of substantial size bbo

What you say is correct dc. So I wont say IDC. What I will say, is that watching Sunday's sh it has put me into a state on numbed apathy.

While I agree with most of those, Watts needs to stay in the side. The reason you don't hear his name called has more to do with his teammates inability to spot him up than his inability to get involved. If you attend the game you will see him making lead after lead out of half forward and being totally ignored by teammates who either don't see him or lack the confidence/skills to kick it to him and instead go for riskier and less productive short passes. If we could get a half back or two who are good enough players to see him leading and hit him then his stats and involvement will skyrocket. As he said on TV, the reason he is sometimes seen jogging past the contest is because he's just made six leads, been ignored and is totally stuffed. Yes he still needs to improve his contested work. but his overall workrate is as good as any in the team.

Conca only getting 2 weeks is a bigger disgrace

1. He barely gets any of the ball if at all, might just be the hit to head that moves the ball 2. The mark is already completed 3. The elbow hits flush to Pedersen's face and there's no motion towards the ball No one ever gets a suspension thrown out for a bump due to it being a legitimate attempt to bump. It's why we have negligent and reckless gradings. Biggest bugbear: The MRP seem to have just taken Lynch's opinion in the commentary and run with it. Guess who Merrett's manager is - Lynch of course!

No game plan can allow for players that can't or won't make the right decisions. The game could have been over at 3 qtr time, we had easy opportunities that should have put us 4-5 goals up, but no our players took the wrong option and worse still couldn't execute so when the ball gets turned over we are exposed. The lack of skill and poor decision making, the missed targets by hand and foot I just sat there is pure disbelief that players at this level couldn't execute very very basic kicks and hand balls.

Out: beer In: scotch

There is nothing wrong with the game plan. It is the woeful state of a list that can't execute the basic skills to employ it or any other game plan. I expect if we had our two primary key targets we could at least bail out long to Clark and Hogan but since they played zero games between them thats not the option. Any one that thinks we haven't improved is kidding themselves but unfortunately we have too many NQR's on our list to carry. No losses over 100 points (although that could change this weekend) and 7 losses where we have led in the last quarter is testament to that but there is another major cull and some correct decisions required at end of year to get us moving forward. The weekend was appalling but I think some people here seriously got ahead of themselves.

Melbourne will be wearing our away jumper this week. Orange vests and training cones on their heads. Seriously ... a new game plan is needed.

Hang OD, yes yesterday was horrible, I walked out with about 5 minutes to go, for the first time ever,...and I am thinking of taking a blindfold next week, but there was still a flicker of life...Viney getting a bit more education, Nev Jetta and Lynden Dunn carrying on with their consistent performances, Kent, Riley,Tyson, Tommy Mc showing glimpses....we all know there will be big changes, and pre season will be a [censored]...but Roos has at least got something to work with, I have faith he will get us back on track

He did manage to crack a half smile when talking about the mistakes. Seeing the absurdity of it all. He is being Melbournised.

i don't understand the don't cares the more we lose now at the end of the season the more we damage our brand the more unattractive we are to enticing players from other clubs the more we will lose existing membership the less new members we will attract the harder it becomes to retain sponsors or get new ones the more demoralised the playing group becomes it's imperative we finish the season off with something positive

This was definitely the case with a number of players but I think Roosy has realised that there are even more who are well and truly beyond saving.

Bail has played every game so far. I don't think Roos shares the popular view on this particular player.

Also...... I am fu%~^%~+^%~+^%~ing sick of losing...........

If he was wearing my jumper regardless of any personal cr@p I'd be in there. We are a weak bunch of pushovers.

Look on the bright side: Hawthorn next week.

2014 - 4 wins 2013 - 2 wins (GWS, Bulldogs) 2012 - 4 wins (2 v GWS, 1v Gold coast, Essendon) 2011 - 8 wins (oh heady days!) 2010 - 8 wins 2009 - 4 wins (PRE goldcoast/gws - and a loss to richmond after the siren 2008 - 3 wins 2007 - 5 wins (inc the "kruzer cup" 8 seasons. 38 wins out of 176 matches at 21.59% our list is not crash hot either as expansion teams and free agency (and poor drafting choices) have left us without talent. give us a first rounder behind our first pick but tell us we have to trade it so we get a ready-made player in.

No one in their right mind can have a go at Jetta's performance today, or all season in fact.

Kevin Bacon? Wouldn't that be 6 degrees of speck-ulation?

It may well be that some of the players playing today are there not because they have earned a spot but this is their final scrutiny as roos must realise that the list is a long way short of AFL standard. Damned awful today......

Can't wait for us to lose Frawley and get two first rounders to mask our need for more quality. We'll lose a quality big bodied experienced player and be 'compensated' with a potential Lucas Cook. Gee, free agency is great for struggling clubs isn't it? I don't wonder why the crowds are down. It's because only 4 teams can win the flag by the end of October when lists are lodged. The league made a huge mistake putting free agency in at the time it did after multiple compromised drafts. In 2 years time they'll be trying their hardest to deny its impact but the only clubs that will have moved up the ladder will be those that got handed picks in compromised drafts. You can bet that us and St Kilda aren't going anywhere as good side will keep plucking players from us. Meanwhile Chip will go play for a top 4 side on serious money. And why exactly should I pay when I go to the footy? I'm over it. It's a flawed system that doesn't protect the people that actually pay for it.

Yeah, we're 'better'. 'Better' has put us to a regular wooden-spooner rather than one of the worst sides ever. Needs to happen in some way. Probably end of first rounder. People will whinge about 'handouts' and standing on our own two feet, but one of the best coaches in the modern era can only win four games with this lot.

Not true. Sticks has gone on record many times saying they didn't want to let him go but had no choice in order to get Judd in.

3 wins 2 wins 4 wins 9 wins in 3 years To Good for a priority pick Gee that's ugly