Leaderboard

This just in 10,000 Demon Fans Out With Broken Hands Fans believed to have punched walls, slammed table tops, in unexplained epidemic last Sunday afternoon.

Broke his hand playing footy for our club, all the best for his recovery.

Wow. Some of the comments on here are a disgrace. Can you just for one minute imagine plaing AFL football with a broken hand on a wet day when legs and arms and wet footy’s are being kicked around. Good on ya Jordan. Get yourself better as soon as you can A broken hand ?

A bit of unecessary vitriol from some. Grow up.

I urge you (if you haven’t already) to watch ‘on the couch’ for an insight into what a rabble we are in our defensive setup. Brown pointed out some really ordinary defensive efforts from both Lewis and Vince which also highlighted their lack of speed which again is problematic in the type of defensive structure Goodwin is trying to implement. The lack of accountability is pretty disguising from two very senior players.

I thought he certainly did enough to hold his place. We were pox on the weekend. He was one of the least pox.

Unfortunately I think it's a timing thing with this board. When you've had 2 wins in a row, even bad news gets looked at positively and now after a very disappointing loss - even the good gets treated with disdain. ANB in the salary cap, free-agency era is a player you definitely need. He's a middle round draft pick who tries his arse off every week. He has flaws and does make errors but too many times yesterday he was given a handball with a player already tackling him, or he was free in space before the kick didn't hit the target then putting him under pressure after he'd run to free himself of that pressure. In this day and age you simply cannot have nor afford 22 Petraccas, Olivers & Hogans you need serviceable foot soldiers that won't break the bank but will work hard. Watching this board and reaction to this article stuns me. He had 22 touches and 6 tackles (equal second behind Clarry). He far outperformed Petracca, Lewis, Melksham, Vince & Harmes who are either more highly touted, highly rated or more highly paid. Keep doing you ANB!

Great. He can run. But he has very little impact.

Happened past Gosch's this AM. Caught the last 15 mins of training. Most senior players not there, it looked like a VFL training session. Players mostly doing interval work, but jogging. Slow run 100m, walk 100m, repeat. All timed. In two groups. Spargo, Tyson (I think it was Tyson), Stretch, Pedo, JKH, Smith in one group. Everyone else in another group. No "name" players except in first group, and Hunt in second group, and Hannan, who was wandering around by himself taking the occasional casual shot on goal. Smith has a strapped shoulder and held it every so often. Looked like he was trying to work out how sore it is/was. Hunt also with strapped shoulder. Is it injured? By jingo ... physique on him is extraordinary. Looks like Viv Richards. I believe the main group of senior players were doing rehab at the Alfred in the cardio vascular ward. Receiving heart transplants as the previous ones seemed to be shrivelled up and barely functioning. Experts baffled.

According to the AFL tracker Alex Neal-Bullen today ran 17.2 km to make him equal 10th in the AFL for distances covered in a game since this started in 2017. Nine of the top ten records belong to Tom Scully and Andrew Gaff. He also had an equal game high 32 pressure acts. No doubt there are some areas of his game that he can still improve on but this kind of unheralded effort in a losing team deserves some recognition I reckon.

Thanks for your input, I’ll make sure not to read anything further from yourself.

Jayden Hunt is keeping Jayden Hunt out of the side. From the moment the first JLT game began until he was dropped he was in horrible, horrible form. It had nothing to do with Jordan Lewis.

Balic was training this morning and looked to be moving OK. Also Dom Tyson was running around and looked good. The Casey boys were training didn’t see any seniors training. TMac was kicking footballs and doing sprints, no Viney or AVB but I only rode past and watched for about 5 minutes.

Its a gutsy effort to play on with any injury but in particular with a broken hand. It does save the embarrassment of being dropped. This way he will probably come back via Casey.

We have too many slow plodders in the team, this will work to our advantage.

Did he fall over in the car park on the way out??

Lewis out injured.

I too, am very disappointed, but I don't think our problems are psychological or deep seated. After all the club at least, at the off field executive level has made enormous strides, We have an excellent CEO and a good president and administration-no more advertising executives, worn out politicians or tennis players, I think the record is a bit less flattering with the coaching staff however. I am yet to be convinced that a "losing culture" tag bears close scrutiny. Terms like these and "The curse of Norm Smith" are too easy to bandy around and while prattling on about getting rid of a soft or losing culture sounds impressive and provides carrion for the media vultures. it is essentially a very nebulous term because it is difficult to analyse. The facts are these: Melbourne had allowed its culture to degenerate to the extent that in the 2000s the playing group had been allowed to exert far more influence than they warranted, Melbourne had for many years become a retirement village for players in semi-retirement, Pickett, Pitt, Egan, to name a few. The recruiting targeting highly skilled players who were not tough enough, either mentally or physically to make the transition to AFL. Of course we also had notable incidents particularly Brent Maloney's off field exploits as well as those of our Could o'been champion Colin Sylvia. In what was a massive mistake in trying to correct this situation we recruited a disciplinarian, unfortunately he couldn't coach. But these days things have changed. Very few of the playing group, predate Paul Roos and quite a few would never have heard of Norm Smith, much less his spectre! Our recruiting has generally improved so much that now we have young men presenting themselves as professional footballers who have few "psychological problems" at least football ones relating to a soft culture. I didn't see too much softness on the day, Brayshaw, in particular was hard at the ball and didn't take a backward step and Jones as always showed what a toughnut he is in blanketing Mitchell. No rather our loss, relates purely and simply to faults with the senior coaching staff and the lack of adaptability in our game plan. I did some research into this and came upon an excellent snippet on how to play wet weather football by the Richmond Assistant coach Craig McCrae. He talks about the need to adapt the game plan in wet weather. Players are drilled so extensively that reactions become inbuilt so that it isn't easy to adapt. Richmond uses their runner to reinforce the need to adapt to the situation. We didn't, and without singling out one player for criticism, it was particularly notable with Petracca who played dry weather football with disastrous results. From a champion last week to a fumbling fool in the wet. So how should we have played? Well according to McCrae Richmond plays wet weather football with the following dictums: 1 Never go backwards, especially handballing -handball kicking, dribbling or tapping the ball forwards is the go, 2 Kick at the goals, not to a player or pack around the goal square from a long way out It is likely that the ball will skid through. 3 Constantly reinforce the change in game plan through the runners. I saw none of this in evidence last Sunday. I also same a lack of defence on the rebound. This is in part down to the coaching staff. That, in my opinion is why we lost. However if the proponents of the soft culture myth have any spells or potions to counter this wizardry please let us all know

I wa out Saturday night with Richmond supporter who said he wanted to get rid of Rance his first five years, run around like a headless chook. Then he finally clicked and became a gun! He also mentioned how hopeless at least half their team was, couldn’t hit a barn door was the phrase he used, and as a team it clicked from round 18-19 last year, and now they all believe! Lever is a young guy, give him some more time.

I suspect the editorial meeting at Fox Footy questioned which would be a better selling story: One Brayshaw moving west or a different one moving east and decided to go with the former. "Keeping an eye" on someone is no more than what every club should be doing with every player in the competition. If that's all Fremantle is doing with Angus Brayshaw, it's no more or no less than what the other 16 other clubs are probably doing.

Reflecting on the loss (again) one of the things that gutted me the most was the way we showed no fight at the end. How many times have we had other teams 35+ points down only to let them back in the game or let it become nothing more than a scrappy victory. To give up like that was a slap in the face of long suffering Melbourne fans.

In reality one need simply realise Football is only an 'amusement' ( unless playing. Players play, spectators spectate. Life goes on whether we win or lose which is just as well given our predisposition to losing. It's only footy. It's just Melbourne. Though I'd love us to be successful, I'm somewhat resigned to none. It gets the better of me occasionally but I'm not about to change my colours, nor does it seem the team theirs !! As OD often suggests...membership is a psuedo charitable contribution. MFC...the perfect mirror. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sort of reminds me of some films. They're remade from time to time, different actors , different director, script rewrites...... same shlt B grade result

Let's not single out Lever. His current form is on a par with most of his team mates. Unlike a new recruit or a cast-off, we know Lever can play at the highest level. He was sensational in 2017. Give him time.

Yes we are at round 4 but every week has seen alarming gaping holes which haven't been fixed since last year. After round 23, do you think its acceptable for these players who are meant to be 'burning' to give up so badly on Sunday?

Yes, Hogan must be furious that he's been made to run around collecting 25 touches due to Goodwin's evil game-plan - while at Fremantle he'll surely get to kick back in the forward-line and not be bothered about ever having to see the ball.

Pathetic. And I'm not talking about Lever... Its always the same here. Rag on a player for whatever reason, bemoan drafting him, his continual selection, his limitations.. etc Nek minnit... wow guys, that guy is good! I remember eveyone here used to say Tmac was no good. How'd that work out? Last year Omac was the continual whipping boy. Levers turn now is it? Why not just spare yourselves and everyone else the premature rants, and wait.

Page 31 and 32: http://www.aflcommunityclub.com.au/fileadmin/user_upload/Coach_AFL/2017_Laws_of_Australian_Football.pdf They need to extend the protected area to 5 metres behind the man on the mark too.