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had to be done Should have been granted last season

Glad they asked. Think the answer will be no. Certainly will not get 1. At best it would be 4 but more likely, first pick of second round. I would rather a few picks that they made us trade for established players and then we use our normal picks for the draft. It won't happen. Can see the reasons given by Evans. You have Roos as Coach. Hogan had 4 possies in the VFL Sunday and he will win the Coleman next year. You lost Chip but you will draft a star who will win the Brownlow next year. Toumpas and Salem will be 2 of the greatest players to play the game. You will get Stretch and my mate tells me he will be better than Flower. I spoke to Watts and he told me he has been laying low so far and will play like a pitbull next year. You have got a new sponsor in Gatorade next year and it will make the boys kick straight. Your ruck coach tells me Spencer will be better than Sandilands next year. Etc etc etc.

Some of us need to get over ourselves. We need draft assistance. I'm not embarrassed that we've asked for assistance, I'm embarrassed by our performance yesterday, which underlined just how bad a shape our list is in.

Meth Coast won Premierships with a team of body builders, Carltank paid Judd under the table and used to hand players bags of cash, Sydney has been given their own bloody academy and a higher salary cap, Collingwood received favorable draws year after year, GWS still receive special picks, Gold Coast had the same deal plus the greatest player of his generation and Essendon have their own pharmaceutical division. Time for some pragmatism. I'll take the priority pick without a shadow of regret this year and, if need be, the year after that.

PriorITY PICK

There are two glaring problems with the team right now that need to be addressed if we're ever going to improve, and it's got nothing to do with running. 1 - We fumble everything: Watch what happens at the stoppages. We get a clean hitout from Big Max directed straight to one of our mids. The mid fumbles his first grab, stalls his momentum while trying to get the ball under control and is tackled. The ball spills, a scrum forms resulting in either a secondary stoppage or an opposition clearance. When the opposing ruck gets the hitout cleanly to one of his mids, they take it cleanly with the first grab, don't break stride and either break cleanly out of traffic or handpass to a teammate with the extra time they have because they didn't fumble. The same applies to our field play. I have never seen a team more likely to fumble a handball receive or when picking up a loose ball. It's exactly the same scenario. The couple of seconds extra they take to get the ball firmly in their hands is a couple of seconds they could have been changing direction, looking for a teammate or giving a quick pass. Instead, they continue running in a nice predictable path because that's where the ball is going and they haven't controlled it yet, giving their opponents an extra few seconds to close on them and make the tackle. While a couple of seconds may not sound like much, bear in mind that the majority of the players on the field have 20m sprint times under three seconds. That means that a player 20m in the clear will almost certainly be caught if they fumble the bouncing loose ball and have to chase it and go for a second grab. 2 - We Miss Targets: Have a look at how we kick to our forwards. I saw one proper pass into our forward 50 today, and it resulted in a goal. That's one out of 45 inside 50's that actually came in at the right height and was placed ahead of the forward on their advantage side so they could run on and take the mark. Amazingly enough, this resulted in one of only three goals for the match. The vast majority of our i50s were high bombs to the pack, the sort of thing we used to do in primary school at recess so the freak kid could take pack marks. We saw repeatedly that the kick would go long to a 2-1 or 3-2 against us and the defenders would happily hold our forwards out of the contest and let the extra man have an uncontested mark. Yes, this situation was made worse by the GWS flood, but the fact remains that our forward entries were almost without fail low percentage bombs that were never going to result in anything other than a rebound 50 for the opposition. Then we can look at our disposal over the rest of the field. I was reminded of that montage of the Saints kicking to Saint Nick that was doing the rounds earlier in the year. How often did the leading player have to stop and wait because the ball was kicked to where they are rather than where they are going? How many passes went 10-15m to the side of the target? How many handballs were at the feet or above the head of the receiver? How many Out on the Full were there today? Some of these issues come from the first point, that having fumbled the player now doesn't have time to get a clean disposal away, but far too often we are seeing players with time simply unable to execute the basic skills. Dawes took a mark on the wing, wheeled around and kicked it straight past the leading Watts to a clump of trailing GWS players. Riley took a free on the HBF and went across the ground to pinpoint a Giant who obliged by kicking the goal. McDonald repeatedly failed to take the first (and sometimes 2nd) option and wound up turning it over when he ran into trouble. You could watch the replay and see almost endless examples. Further to this is of course our inability to kick goals. Again this is a basic skill and something you would expect a professional athlete to be able to execute regularly. Our score today was 3 goals 16. That's converting shots on goal at around 15% (Not counting the ones that didn't result in a score). For the season we have kicked 168 Goals 182 points, or 48%. We have the worst conversion percentage in the league, and there is only one other side below 50%. Today we saw repeatedly our players' inability to convert basic chances. To me, it is these two basic areas more than anything else that need to be addressed. We fumble too often and we miss targets we should hit. Basic skills that most players learn before they hit puberty, and somehow our team have forgotten them.

I heard the guys on SEN announce it, first response was no way of course. Rohan Connelly was adamant that we didn't deserve one. You should only get one if you are a serial poor performer he claimed. At that point I think the Ox nearly fell off his chair, eight years isn't enough pain it seems. The tanking allegations were brought up as usual, now 4 years ago. It is interesting how everyone argues against it based on we don't deserve it, we wasted our chances, we tanked etc, no one wants to look at solutions. Fact is we are a cot case, that is a liability to the AFL brand so it is in everyone's interests to get us competitive again. We need draft help and that could come in the form of an end of first round pick,; in fact struggling clubs need more shots at good picks as the draft is a lottery, you can't be sure exactly who will make it, only that the odds are better that a top 20 pick will make it versus a third rounder. I believe we need draft assistance to help restore our list to a competitive position.

Unfortunately it has to be done.. rebuild through the draft and start over. Petracca Brayshaw and Wright would be very handy.. we surely couldn't stuff that up.... Right?

I'm thrilled to find out that Melbourne fans have still got capacity to be embarrassed by anything we do. Humiliation has been my default setting since Round 2 last year. Give us everything, I don't care what unwashed fans of other teams think.

Stay in Amsterdam, spend your money on pros and drugs and start following soccer.

Draft picks don't change a culture. Winning does. If we won those winnable games earlier in the season, yesterday never would have happened.

The number of first round draft picks that the Suns and GWS have had relative to us would be bordering on ridiculous. And, notwithstanding that, GWS still managed to take our former number one draft pick. That we've been managed very poorly over a long period of time doesn't discount or obviate the need to help us right now. Clearly the club is now being better managed, but it's also clear that our list is very impaired relative to all other lists in the competition due to the woeful mismanagement of past administrations. I'm actually surprised it's a controversial suggestion. Give it to us. Or salary relief like the Swans, Lions, GWS and the Suns (something which people conveniently overlook).

the case would be 37 wins in 8 years in that time we have been coached by 7 different senior coaches this year we have lost Clark to retirement, Frawley more than likely to free agency, so we are already down our best forward and defender in 2015

WTF is going on on Demonland? You're seriously putting that much research into bagging a second year player?! There's now popular threads about a forward in the worst inside 50 team in the comp, and a second year midfielder... Is this the first year you guys have watched footy?! This is where the blowtorch should be: -Our onfield leadership -Our game plan -Our lack of fitness when compared to a younger team who have 1 rotation for a half -The form of our peak age players who have no excuses: Frawley, Watts, Grimes, Garland, Jamar -The amazing disappearance of spirit and effort as the season has gone on Not a barely 20 year old player who shouldn't have the responsibility of having to be one of our best players yet. FFS.

Paul Roos is the best damn thing about this sad club right now. Unthinkable that anyone could question him at this time.

Couldn't disagree more.

We're all in the same boat there's no point turning on each other to.take out our anger and frustration. I'll sign up again next year because I'm a tragic but I can't really knock those who are fed up and just can't be bothered anymore. At some point this club has to start showing something to prevent people turning their backs. It's one thing to not give members reward for their support, it's another to completely repel them through your heartless and pathetic performances.

As had been reported previously on site - the Rev is battling the terminal illness known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Those diagnosed have a life expectancy of 2-4 years. The Rev's health is getting worse and he's done an interview with Tim Watson that will be on Channel 7 Monday night - apparently very moving. Just want to pass on my best to the great man who in retrospect did an unbelievable job at the Dee's. If only we could go back to the days of complaining about making finals every second year!!

There's no doubt that what happened yesterday was pathetic, an enormous step backwards, and a blight on the year. Even with it, 2014 far outranks 2013. We won four games. We should have won another 3, and we could have won a further 2-3. Last year we won 2, and that was that. In a competition with more crap clubs, too (i.e. this year is more competitive).

This simply means I'll be copping a lot more crap at work tomorrow. Thanks a lot, MFC.

It may be embarrassing asking for hand-outs however it will soon be forgotten if we start winning some bloody games!!!

I don't want to say anything bad about my own club.. but I'm dead set embarrassed by this request for a Priority pick to the league.

The games we won this year were done so on effort. We all remember the Essendon game. The Adelaide game was the same. Carlton played like spuds and so did the Tigers but we still had to bust our nut to get the win. I'm attempting to say that when the players actually apply themselves good things can happen. You can't draft effort. If we were constantly attempting to play football and sucked I would be fine with draft assistance. But the lack of effort we have seen over the last month makes me think a extra pick wouldn't change the outcome of the last few games.

Logical that we apply. IMO the AFL will award us some form of draft assistance because we not only merit it in our abysmal record over a long period of time but also because there is another club that is going to be asking for assistance very soon. St. Kilda has won only four games this year but look at the quality of player they are about to lose. In their worst case scenario they might win even less next year. If we get a refusal this year, the Saints will have to go empty handed next year. I'm not sure the AFL will want that.

Jones "goes through the motions"? Okay, now I have definitely heard it all. Jones is the reason I still give any semblance of a [censored].

MEMBER APPRECIATION DAY…..OR JUST MAD? by George on The Outer This was supposed to be member appreciation round, where the Club showed its appreciation for the loyal supporters who have endured much during the year. The MFC players showed exactly how much they appreciate the support given in 2014 with a totally insipid and downright disgraceful display against a bottom of the ladder side. The fans were rewarded with a 10 goal loss against the Giants, who already had sent 6 of their players off for end of season surgery, and then lost Ward, Patton and Davis all before ½ time! At least the Saints could point to having to play a potential Grand Final contender away, on their home ground despite their 12 goal loss. But there was simply no excuse for what the Melbourne players did at their own home in front nearly 18,000 of their own fans. Half the membership turned out after yet another shocker of a year, and that is how they were rewarded….2 goals to ¾ time, and nearly half a game scoring only a lousy 5 points! Save for Nathan Jones and an occasional cameo from Max Gawn, Bernie Vince and Neville Jetta, the rest of the side shouldn’t have turned up … and they didn’t! We now know Chip Frawley is on his bike, because he is simply disinterested in the game going on around him. Jack Watts has also become a spectator of the game, and stays further away from his opponent than an Ebola quarantine officer does with his patient. Surely Bernie Vince, Dom Tyson, Michie and Aiden Riley must wonder what they are doing, having left genuine football clubs with players who want to play football. Perhaps they too will fall into the Melbourne mould and adopt the ”bruise free” approach to how to play the game. Perhaps they will adopt the “scared little men” approach and constantly look for someone else to do the work, or back away from moving forward and putting pressure on the opposition. Yes there is a bit more work required with these players, and we need to get it out of Jack Viney and Nathan Jones while we are at it. So thank you Melbourne players!! We really appreciate the support you have shown us. It would have been good if you had to talk to the long faced Melbourne supporter on the way home on the Belgrave line. He had been a member since 1982 and bought seven memberships for his family this year. But the kids don’t want to go to the game any more, and it was probably good they didn’t go along today. So he can see no point buying those seven memberships next year…… …that is what happens when you – THE PLAYERS serve up what you did today. It is what happens to people who have supported the club for 40 years and have that support rewarded with a spit in the face!! Yes, we the Melbourne supporters are MAD! Angry MAD that we have been treated so badly, and simply MAD to even contemplate turning up to watch the team play when next in Melbourne. We don’t appreciate the way you have treated us! Melbourne 2.4.16 2.9.21 2.11.23 3.16.34 Greater Western Sydney 2.1.13 6.4.40 10.7.67 15.8.98 Goals Melbourne Garland Kent Watts Greater Western Sydney Palmer 4 Hoskin-Elliott 3 Kelly Smith 2 Boyd Mumford Shiel Treloar Best Melbourne Kent, N Jones, Tyson, Michie Greater Western Sydney Mumford, Palmer, Hoskin-Elliott, Smith, Shiel, Greene, Kelly, Tomlinson Changes Melbourne Nil Greater Western Sydney Nil Injuries Melbourne Grimes (hamstring) Greater Western Sydney Davis (concussion), Patton (knee), Ward (calf) Reports Melbourne Nil Greater Western Sydney Nil Umpires Craig Fleer Simon Meredith Stuart Wenn Crowd 17,218 at the MCG

There is no more fanatical Dees supporter than my son aged 31. He has been so since he could walk. He has gone to every Geelong game in Geelong for years, even when torrential rain has drenched him, coming home soaked, but not giving up after another thrashing and even some Interstate games when possible. He has lived and breathed the club his whole life. Yesterday in the 2nd quarter at the G he started reading the paper and not watching the game. This continued in the second half. He just said he couldn't watch or take this rubbish anymore, that it wasn't sport and clearly was just too much to take. He is a sports lover and loves the contest of sport. Yesterday was not sport. You just can't watch that inept crap. If we are doing that to a fanatic, what are we doing to the others less fanatical. Unless there is some dramatic improvement I fear we will lose support. We have had 8 years to do something by ourselves. We have failed. We need help, simple as that. If people can't see that, there is nothing I can do to convince them. I have faith in the Coach and I would love to see us do the noble thing and get it right by ourselves, but we obviously are so far back we can't. It is not one player needed by a PP, it is about half a team and you can't do that without some help.

My two bob's worth is that if there's one thing we've learned in our recent history it has to be that the people at the head of a club need to stand up and be accountable. In terms of football matters, that means the coach. We all have our theories about the ills of this club and there's no doubt a ring of truth to most of them but in my view, the current situation we're faced with after making some promising progress early is that in concentrating on making our team stronger defensively, we've put such little emphasis on the attacking side of our game that we've completely lost the ability to score. This was clear a fortnight ago when we were clearly the better team for more than three quarters against Brisbane but our inability to convert kept the Lions in the game to the point where they overcame us by going all out attack while we defended to try to save a game that was there for the winning. What did the coach do after the game? He attacked the club and the players raising past ghosts like "tanking" and "culture" and opening the floodgates for negative thinking throughout the club. The media got into the game as well and soon everyone was talking about Daniher, Bailey, Neeld, Schwab, McLardy our poor recruiting etc etc ad infinitum. Those things should not have been the agenda at that particular time. What was wrong with the coach saying, "look, I'll take the blame. We've spent a lot of time this year emphasising one aspect of our game. We now need to work on other areas to get ourselves up to the standard we require." That's how I saw things but obviously, I was wrong. The message the coach gave us was, "not my fault at all. They're terrible. Blame someone else". Whilst all that may be true, it had the same ring of denial that we've criticised James Hird for over the Essendon scandals and the result was predictable.

Neville Jetta: If only we could clone a version of him in every position. Never gives up, knows what to do and where to be, and generally takes the best disposal option. Puts many of his more-skilled team-mates to shame.

And, PR needs to stand up now and say 'this is MY team'. Stop fluffing around with 'the players'. What about some inclusive pronouns PR? Ffs.

You're still going on with this? Trading Jones is INSANITY. The only circumstances in which it would be a good idea is if you want to kill the club. Your target is the single last person in line who should be a target.

Really don't care who the 22 are once they run both ways, back up their team mates and do the basics leaving nothing out there. I'm the closest I have ever been to walking away from this club No amount of training the house down, pre-season performances or any spin they put on how our boys are doing will get me enthused until I start seeing the boys having a dip from Round 1 and in the proceeding weeks, because it is going to take at least half a dozen solid performances in the first two months next season for me to think we are heading in the right direction.

Oh, absolutely! But, they worked for EACH other!! Did you see how many hugged Phil Davis after the game?? He got concussed GOING HARD, and it didn't go unnoticed. When Pedo got his nose rearranged, our blokes stood around watching Pedo bleed. We're f u cked.

Watching Dawes this year, we need another tall forward. Peter Wright fits what we need 200+cm forward ruck. Get him Petracca with picks 2/3 then grab Duggan with pick 20 odd

I seen Meth Coast sweat over the same decision with Andrew Mcdougall Not Pick 1 but in the Top four possibly Pick 2. He got and extended stay because big men take time and his pick justified him staying on the list. He showed no aggression or tenacity and was always worked off the ball one and one and didn't go hard at the contest. In the end they cut their losses as they also did with Sampi, sometimes you just have to make that tough decision, if it's a second round pick so be it. I've been a supporter of Jack but he will never reach his potential in this side, he is not what we need right now to get us out of our current situation but IMO time to make the move for both parties and if we get a second round pick take it

Jetta Dunn Howe Garland McDonald (Insert Recruit) Vince Jones (Insert Recruit) Watts Hogan (Insert Recruit) JKH Dawes Gawn Jamar, Tyson, (Insert Recruit) Cross Kent Pedersen Viney Trengove can included in the possible New Recruits but I don't want to rely on so many youngsters in the midfield rotation again. We are still in need of some AFL talent through the middle and while I would probably not spend a high pick on it - I want some solid bodies to compete for 22 rounds next year. As for the ruck - Jamar has no value to us other than what he can put on the field next year - let's see where Gawn is in another year and move from there. I have little idea about the four new recruits that we can get but I would target 2 good inside/outside mids (hopefully one 22 or younger), an established HBF with great skills, and an established outside mid with excellent skills. So another off season of Tyson and Vince would be good and a Malceski and a Suckling thrown in as well...

I sit close to the bench and Nathan Jones was gutted. He looked like he was about to cry. I've seen some players hurting before, but he would come to the bench and he looked so angry and so broken, I've never seen anyone look so genuinly upset. I admire him so much for never ever dropping his head. He kept going long after everyone else gave up. If I was him I'd be giving most of my so called teammates a spray post match.

Play Strauss. Seriously. He can kick, which places him above 80% of those who took the field yesterday. If defensive accountability is the issue, he will be in good company. 100%DE last week wasn't it? Play him. Roll the dice. Nothing to lose.

Players are clearly unable to execute basic football skills under minimal pressure. I suggest Roosy gets in touch with Melbourne Storm. Ask them if they have 5 players in need of some tackling practice. Split us into 2 teams at training for a match simulation with the 5 Storm players instructed to tackle the crap out of anyone with the ball. Time to get used to extreme pressure

How can you put up all those stats and not mention the ones that clearly show him to be among our best three workers - game-high 25 pressure acts. Watch the replay and you see him chasing and running hard when others don't bother - does that make him tired and in need of a break? Rohan Bail is another who chases with intent and those who have been knocking him may now realise that even though he turns it over a bit, he is worth his place until we find other more polished hard-working midfielders. Sure Jack Viney's kicking efficiency has been down of late, but so to has Dunny's and a stack of others because we are getting beaten when we go up the line - partially because half the team now spreads laterally so as to be part of a cheap easy sideways kick.

I only have two words for Chris Dawes - Flat Hands Have you noticed how many times Dawes bobbles the ball in the air after initial impact only to take it on the second grab? It looks like his hands are behind the ball rather than to the side which to me says his main priority is to minimise turnovers by keeping the ball in front of him rather than maximising his chances of a mark if he had his hands to the side of the ball. His hands are too flat to take overhead marks but if that's the case the rest of the team has to learn to kick it to his chest rather than above his head. Considering Gawn took some very nice overhead marks to me it just shows that Dawes doesn't have the natural ability to take overheads marks. Flat Hands.

Yesterday was as bad as anything we saw last year, yes, but last year we saw it every single week. To say we are worse than last year is completely untrue.

I would take anything as long as he put his head over the ball.

I think I am going to nominate for the National Draft, I can't run to far these days, I can still hit targets by foot but I know Melbourne will pick me up because I'm a great pointer. I can stand there whilst players run past me and point for someone else to pick them up. I need to send through some footage to Paul Roos, I'm sure that I can make it at Melbourne, I will have to learn to miss targets but I'm sure I can do that. Our players don't want to work they like the notion of being AFL footballers but are a mile off being AFL footballers. We are so far behind every other club in the AFL. St Kilda has better young talent than us, the Bulldogs are a mile ahead of us, Brisbane is streets ahead of us. GWS showed yesterday how far ahead of us they are. You can't blame players for leaving, who wants to play for a club with no hope.

Thanks [censored] I'm flying out to Sri Lanka this weekend for a wedding. Will miss the last two games, as it surely won't be televised over there. See ya'll in 2015! Already signed up as a member as it just rolls over each each. Signed but still stupidly in love.

There are further issues than that. We don't run hard enough, due to a lack of runners, a lack of fitness, and today, a lack of work ethic. That means there's no overlap run giving the players options by hand, or options to kick to out in space. Another issue is that most of our players are timid and don't want to be the one to turn it over. That pressure makes them look sideways and backwards for someone who is unmanned so that they can pass the buck and let someone else try the harder kick forwards. The lack of spread and the lack of confidence are just as bad as anything.

Coach killers...

How did the list get like that? Bailey was too blase' with the players, they lacked fitness and structure while twits like Connolly promoted tanking (thanks Prendegast, you did good with the additional picks.....). As this occured the CEO Schwab had his head too far in the past whilst trying to micromanage everything, releasing the annual business plan online known as "Whiteboard Wednesday" off the back of some rubbish book, he also spent erratically. And yet the board was constantly split and leaking everywhere. The players (mature one in particular) run wild after hours constantly visiting Chapel St, new young players came in and what better way to introduce them to the club was by having a bender. Big Max'ey Gawn spewed all over Scully in China and LJ began to hit the booze hard.... ahhhh they were the days.... good times, and what better compliment to know you were really in with the boys by getting on "Beamer's Bumps and Bruises". Sylvia, Beamer, Russian, and Rivers truly led to the appalling player culture you see today. Then came along Neeld, the hard ass we needed to whip the place into shape - too bad he was a moron. He completely lacked the ability to innovate, communicate and build the appropriate relationships with players and staff - particularly those that would of helped rebuild a positive culture like Green, instead he stripped him of his captaincy and had him retire. He also ignored those that could actually help him take the club forward, like that of T. Viney and recruiting staff wanting to draft Wines over Toumpas. The moron Neeld didn't even write his one and only B&F speech, most of that was written off the back of a fans email. Now you try and bring Roos into it, trying to place him in the same light as Bailey and Neeld, I ask why? All I can say is for once I am pleased with the clubs structure, I see unity and professionalism amongst the staff. If the club is to go forward it will be because of the likes of Roos and PJ. Yes the list is still in tatters but there will be a big turnover at the end of the season and my word I look forward to seeing what unfolds.

By the way, nothing but respect and admiration for the MFC fans who went to the MCG today to put up with that gutting. You deserve better!