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I think I might speak for the silent majority who just can't be bothered answering every negative comment about Tom (and Oscar) but I'll post here every now and again for balance. Tom is a terrific footballer. He is fantastic one on one, he is a great mark both contested and uncontested, he is a fantastic aerobic athlete and most of the time he is a good kick able to make good decisions. He saves many many more goals than he gives away. But he also makes mistakes (like all players) that the haters jump on at every opportunity claiming each and every mistake cost us the game. It's rot. If Tom McDonald wasn't in our team we would be noticeably worse. He's being chased by multiple teams who are prepared to pay high dollars for him because they know that at his age you can build a backline around him for 8 to 10 years. He is in the top bracket of tall defenders in the AFL. I'll be bitterly disappointed if Tom leaves. He's a vital part of our future and that many can't see that surprises me. The concept of trading Tom for Tom Mitchell is mind numbing. A key position back who you can build your team around for a 3rd or 4th string mid who's disposal is poor and has been relegated to tagger on multiple occasions. Please stay Tom, you're a vital part of a very talented young group and to achieve what we all want you're required.

West Coast, the team 3 games and percentage clear from us, and at the opposite end of the experience spectrum, and at home, also were required to dig deep and find a way to win. Working out how to win is great, but in this instance the opposition were doing the same, in a situation where they have a clear advantage (age, experience, location). You seem to ignore the fact that there is also opposition out there. And I tell you what, nothing makes my blood boil more than the implication that because some of us see reasons for things, it's because we want to win less than others do. Seeing things through this lens doesn't stop me (personally) from feeling filthy about these type of results, I assure you.

I thought it might hurt less the morning after, not so. The utter frustration is subsiding though. This was like a classic game of soccer, with one side absolutely dominating possession, tackles, hard balls and yet still being beaten on the break, a quick long ball in hope that the opposition score from. Fark. They did it time and again. Outside of the obvious turnovers by foot, started by Wagners in the first quarter, we paid a very very big price for Watts, Hogan, Stretch, Viney and more being unable to kick reasonably simple goals from 35m out in front. Full credit to the players who simply went again and again. Gee I'd have liked Salem instead of Wagner or Omac in defence yesterday, just for his kicking alone. We are clearly making progress, slower than I'd like, but no doubt on a true foundation of talent, not aging B and C grade players. The saddest thing about yesterday is it had the potential to be the difining win for this young group, something they look back on and refer to for years to come about how they achieved it. It bloody hurts, it would have been worth 4 points PLUS a truckload of self belief, even for us fans. bugger......

Structurally I think the 3 most important players in our team are Gawn, McDonald and Hogan in that order. Hogan may end up at number 1, but premierships are won in defence. We need a Tom McDonald in finals. No team can win a flag without a strong backline. Some have won it with average forwards but defence has to be rock solid. McDonald, for all his kicking brain fades, is not even in the prime of his career and is already in the top dozen tall defenders in the competition. Do I wanna rip his head off when he turns it over? Yes! Do I thank god that he is ours when he takes countless of marks a week, punches the ball away, defends against the best forwards each week and can run out a full game without a break? You bet I do. If we lose him, we will probably go back 2-3 years minimum in our tilt at a premiership, and that's only if we can draft/trade/develop someone else who is equally as good. Maybe we won't. KPDs don't grow on trees. They are as hard to get as KPFs and they make or break a team. We have to pay maximum value for these players because losing them is going to cost us that much more in the long term. I will be furious if we lose McDonald for the sake of $100k or even $200k a year!

I've said it before but I don't think Clayton Oliver should ever be out of Mdlbourne's team unless injured.

Festering turd of a thread. The bloke's been terrific for the club - doesn't need his own thread because he made a couple of blues today.

I'm freaking p*ssed off that we lost. But there is a difference between being happy at aspects of the performance and being happy we lost. I am happy that we went to Perth, on a 6-day break, to a ground where the home team averages 10-goal wins, and dominated. I am happy that our best players included Tyson and Petracca. But I'm anything but happy we lost. If you've lost the ability to see positives, fine. But don't take it out on the rest of us.

Dawes was better than Hogan

IMO we lost this game because of poor skill and bad decisions, ours and the umpires. The umpires bad decisions were obvious for all to see. Ours, were an overuse of handball in wet conditions and electing to kick to players who were covered. For example, Vince who has marked 30 out and can kick the distance easily, passes to Kent, who not only has an opponent right next to him, but a much taller one in addition, just behind him. Of course WC get the ball and head downfield for a goal. I counted at least 5 passes to Kent in similar circumstances and each one was taken by a WC player. It was some of the dumbest football I have ever seen. Our shocking kicking for goal was not only heart breaking, it was match losing. We dominated the game having twice as many forward 50's and 100 more possessions. That is usually a very comfortable win. To those on here, who think we have no spirit, I would say, take up watching another sport, because you clearly know very little about football. The definition of spirit is not just winning a contest, it is the effort put in to try and win. We put in the effort today and beat that mob on their dunghill, everywhere but on the scoreboard, with the youngest and least experienced team in the AFL. If you didn't see that, you weren't watching, or you just don't understand. Now for the whingers, bring on your sh-t and attack me for those comments and in advance, I couldn't care less. Go Dees, we are on the way to becoming a good side.

Hullett has to be a chance to get a late game this season. Good hands and a smart footballer. Definitely time for Oliver to come back in and I thought Trenners was good, depends on what we are looking for next week. Agree with 'Sylvia', Joel Smith has got a bit of something going on...got a few years to make it and on current projection he's looking good.

According to the published stats, Brayshaw only played 58% game time. If that figure is correct, it's very low, unless he was injured. On the plus side, 20 possessions and 9 tackles is a great output for 58% of game time.

Jeez we should have beaten last years runners up, at their home deck and all of you are sooking? i think that domination we put on them does wonders for the group, surely making them hungrier than ever to give Hawks a huge crack. it was far more positive outcome than I expected. I was proud of them yesterday we are on our way

Whats the point playing Garland or Dunn?

Roos recently made mention of Oliver. Said he still has a lot to learn and physically tires. I got the impression that he may spend the remainder of the season -or most of it - at Casey.

Not even the bullet.

I don't necessarily disagree with the first paragraphs, but the second one is both unfair and simply not true. Oscar is so unfairly maligned on here that some people would only find his performance acceptable if the opposition kicked zero goals. Every time the opposition kicks a goal, Demonland looks for someone to blame, as though keeping a clean sheet is even possible in this game.

Watch the replay and see the suckhole Eagles talk , gesticulate and beg the umpire the whole last Q.as they did during the game. When Max got that last Q free against. ,which should have been for, he looked like he would eat the ump. Watts mouthed the words I said to the ump but at the player taking thr bs free. Roos has taught them never to start playing for frees and when the AFL sees this I hope they start to ping the western slime.

Hunt has had a better year than Petracca, Oliver or Brayshaw. Nobody could have predicted that. He is not tiring just gaining experience.

There are plenty of ways to express disappointment with today's loss. Having a go at the spirit of the players is not one of them. If you truly believe we lacked endeavour, effort, spirit or anything like that, you either genuinely have no idea what those things mean, or you are just blindly posting negative comments for the sake of it.

I can't decide what I hate more. People who think we lacked spirit today, or the fact that the same people who completely wrote us off pre-game now complain about winning every stat, leading all day, and losing a game everyone agrees we should have won. The latter I think. Hyopcritical pessimism is draining.

Hell no

If Hogan goes to hawthorn,we might be able to snare Travis Cloke. Him and Dawes would make a great forward line,back together again. Then we would really go places.

Tyson was BOG in the voting in the Nine Sunday Footy Show, Channel 7 Sunday and in the Sunday Age. I think he should get a lot more praise than " slow to offload".

You have to admire Terlich. I do. Never ever turns it up.

Watched the whole telecast. For next week I reckon BenKen (after late dash back from Perth) and Oliver didn't do their chances any harm. Michie, Grimes and Trengove were very solid but I'm not sure the senior coaches rate them enough to be a chance. Watch out for Joel Smith in 2017, could be another Jayden Hunt if we're lucky. Something about him.

I was thinking noise activated electrodes attached to their testies...

Despite the fact that he got two more goals than Hogan and Watts (combined) yesterday!

Although that wont be happening I do like seeing Terlich play well and always smile when he does something good. He has definitely made an ok career out of the skills he was given

Unfortunately the veterans we "got rid" if were certainly not in the caliber of those four !!

Here here... very well said Tom and Jesse play the 2 most important positions on thr ground. Both are excellent talents. Must keeps in my book. You build the team around these 2 blokes.. Please please mfc and tom get the contact done

He'll be ok ? Brayshaw will be a frigging super duper star.

Did you think that just maybe this club with the youngest list need another preseason & some more games together....seriously when we have a loss like that I prefer to listen to the "measured" experts talk about us & also the envy from some of my football loving friends over the future potential of our list than the abject pessimism that pervades on here....as Roos said in his presser....yes we made glaring turnovers but as the players string more games together & gain confidence in each other these turnover are greatly reduced...before this season started the majority of the posters wanted more tightly contested games & no thrashings ...we have pretty much achieved this albeit with a very hard second half draw....because we have been so much more competitive we have now become super critical of our young players & have unreal expectations ....players regardless of who they are need pre seasons & continuity ....I am super optimistic !!

No way should Brayshaw go out - needs time to adjust to the next level. Is showing plenty. Hope they stay with the same side, barring injury.

I want Oliver in the team.

So Oscar can go back to Casey with the other underdeveloped players on the list, and we can stand a seasoned AFL defender against one of their tall strong bodied forwards. Or in other words, so we don't concede the automatic 2-4 goals that O Mac is responsible for each week with his brain fades and lack of body strength.

Im hurting this morning too. Its hard to shake after losses like that. Watts missed three goals he would have kicked on any other day this year....nails even 1 of three and i reckon we win. But I do still think, for us, that self belief would be growing after that. I think after North, we were stoked we got that close..stoked to know we SHOULD have won it. After yesterday and Adelaide I reckon they will be more [censored] off. Sick of almosts and shoulds. Its the sort of pain that starts creating more intensity in tight contests.

And those who recognise the obvious effort put in by our team yesterday do? We put in a genuine four quarter effort yesterday. You can question our decision making, our ball movement, our forward structure, you can even question the talent of the bottom 4 - 6 players out there but you can't question the effort of the 22 who played yesterday.

Whilst yesterday is frustrating we have to take the positives. We DOMINATED last year's runners up (albeit not as good this year) on their home deck where they have an average winning margain of 63 points. Yes 4 points and a win is what you play for but you dont always have to win to be winners. Coming off the back of Darwin 2 weeks ago & traveling again yesterday was a massive effort from a young side late in the year. Yes I am as annoyed, angry & frustrated like the rest of you but we have to look at the bright side. Theres a saying that goes: "There are winners, there are losers and there are people who have not yet learned how to win yet." That is us right now

It was inexperience, lack of polish and footy smarts. It wasn't a lack of spirit. Are you seriously suggesting our players didn't have a fair dinkum crack at the footy. It was a tough game.

I think Bernie kits a few nails on the head with his comments re umpiring, fowardline wastefulness, disappointment and the attitude our players need to have in his comments on the club web site. http://m.melbournefc.com.au/news/2016-07-23/bitterly-disappointing-loss-says-vince I also think WC did yesterday what we should have done when we lost the ascendancy Vs St Kildia and thrown more players behind the play, played a tight back line and clog up scoring some more. Hopefully all this and the issues Bernie raised in terms of lowering the eyes a bit more come with a bit more experience/maturity next year and we walk away winners in these games.

Have to keep Brayshaw in, thought he did some great things yesterday and of course still had a couple shanks. A couple of his kicks dropped 1-2m short of there targets which is unusual but he will better for the run. He will be a wonderful player for us long terms so I'd rather get more games into him. I don't want many/any changes other than getting Clarry in and keeping ANB in. I'd rather play our kids more especially when coming up against other young teams

Don't think anything negative should be said about yesterday's performance ( umpires excepted ). Gave plenty of hope.

It was disappointing to loose, but then we have in the past won ones that we should not have. This team is very much a work in progress, if this result was against a bottom side I would have been gutted but it was against the Westcoast in the west, so while disappointed, I'm pretty proud of the effort. Yes we kicked badly, but a lot of other days we kicked damn accurately, the conditions were obviously not conducisve to clean handling. our forward line was crowded while theirs was open a lot of the time. all in all i think it was a great effort. One thing I must say about the deliberate out of bounds, I wonder why players who get tackled 5 or 10 meters inside the boundary can drive for the boundary line with their tacklers and it not be considered deliberat out of bounds, the weagles backmen did this time after time,

Pretty good effort I thought. It's true we are not yet a good side, but I think the evidence would suggest we are surely getting there. Seems when Jonesy and Gawn play well then so do we and they did yesterday. When we finally get there I hope many old scores are settled.

what that has to do with prestia i have zero idea. his skills would be a mighty handy addition to our gladbag of turnover merchants, as would his ability to break lines.

If we play with the same effort and intensity more often than not we will go places. Not often seen but I hope this game is the benchmark standard for the rest of the season and the next.

If we had 20 blokes that get as much out of themselves as Bernie does we'd win the flag. He makes mistakes but he has a crack. He's playing a vital role for us until the next generation evolve.

Luke Shuey, join the club.......scumbag

Robbed by those f'wits in yellow!