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I don't agree that we have stage fright. Stage fright isn't belting Port's midfield in front of 45K rabid Port fans. We didn't lose to Collingwood because of stage fright. We just didn't play well. That can still happen to young teams. If you suffer from stage fright you don't methodically break hoodoos like we have over the last couple of years. The number one contested team in the competition doesn't get stage fright. A tough inside team that leads the competition in inside 50s and is top 3 in tackles and clearances doesn't get stage fright. Outside down hill skiers get stage fright. But a still young team is not immune to poor performances. And it has nothing to do with poor regimes pre Paul Roos or stage fright.

It's a selective statistic because it points to a major weakness in our defensive unit and the individuals that play there. We may be ranked 9th for scores against, but that has nothing to do with the subject at hand. That's simply a reflection of the teams we've played against and how dominant our midfield has been in those games. Of course if opposition sides are gaining quick entries inside 50 with not a lot of pressure put on the kicker, it's much harder for our defenders to do their job. So I'm sure that contributes. But. Without even needing to look at stats, there are many many supporters who know the ease at which opposition sides seem to score with a loose ball inside 50. Aside from Jetta and Hibberd when he is in form, our scrapping ability in defensive situations has to be up there with the worst in the comp over the last two years. Whether it's multiple defenders going up to spoil, players leaving their opponents to try and impact a contest which inevitably doesn't happen, Vince or Lewis crumbling under physical contact and failing to mark their opponent or Oscar's lack of physical strength and inability to really impose himself at this stage yet, it's all problematic. The amount of times I've seen a bobble ball in dispute on the ground in our defensive 50 and can already predict an opposition score due to a less than satisfactory effort from repeat offenders in our backline is astonishing. We make the relatively easy look very very hard back there at times. We seem to have players who have an inconceivable disparity between their best and worst efforts. Very few can actually halve a contest consistently. Which is what makes Jetta so amazing as a defender. He wins contests that would on most occasions be halved by most good defenders and it'd be applauded. He is incredible. And he very rarely loses them. Having both Lewis and Vince play in a backline as one on one players against strong oppo is frightening imo. Both of them are wildly inconsistent in this aspect and make us extremely vulnerable to scoreboard pressure. Here's the thing. Everyone in the AFL world knows our game plan. Goodwin is hell bent on playing one way which is a forward half, high pressure, hard contested style of football that creates scores with repeat entries from immense pressure both in our forward line and through the midfield. If these elements and pillars of our game are even a little bit down, we're vulnerable immediately due to our inability to play any other way. Weve drafted players for the contest, not for run or use by foot or hand and not for composure. That's fine, but we need to tinker. I strongly believe that as of next year, we need to be playing two key backs with Lever as the third tall intercept specialist. I think we need to play a similar style setup to West Coast in our defensive 50 and to what Adelaide had when Lever was there. From the sounds and looks of it, Petty has more tricks than Oscar and I'm really hopeful that as of next year, we'll see him in the side permanently. Oscar imo will be like Kyle Hartigan for Adelaide. A stopper who doesn't need to do much other than stand his man and compete hard. Petty will be a step-up from Oscar given his pedegree as a defender at state level and his standout attributes which are intercept spoiling and play reading. But he needs to put on weight quickly. A backline next year that consists of an extra tall in the place of Vince would be ideal. B: Jetta O-Mac Petty HB: Hibberd Lever Hunt A taller defensive set-up is much more conducive to the type of game we play. If you play a high press as a defensive unit, it's paramount to have talls who specialise in intercept play. Petty and Lever both have that ability in spades and Oscar can hopefully become the anchor in that situation. Release Hibberd to a flank and bring Hunt back and we've got run. Jetta will be the rock and imo we look far more balanced and better equipped for opposition attack out of our forward line. I hope we see Petty this week for his first run. I'm not sorry about the long-winded post either.

That's far from certain. Port were smashed in the middle and 19 times out of 20 they lose that match. And 10 points hardly constitutes anything worth worrying about. Richmond are a better and more seasoned team. That's not a mental issue. They're just better. The other losses early in the year are irrelevant. Our game-plan, structure, and personnel is now different. Holding on to those losses merely exposes a lack of understanding. Jaded cuts slack to West Coast for losing to a flaky Essendon because they were sans two important players. But Melbourne's own supporters don't cut the team slack for being sans McDonald and Viney early in the year. They're just as important to us. It's a long year and you should be smart enough to know that you shouldn't make cast iron assertions. Plenty can and will change by year's end and not just for the MFC. In rounds 7, 8, and 9 last year Richmond lost 3 games by under a goal. Their equivalent WYL supporter would have been carrying on like a pork chop saying how mentally fragile they are. Their side 10 weeks later was vastly different to their early year side. Cast iron conclusions by supporters are usually based on a pile of hot dung.

Tyson will never be good until he is playing as an inside mid. He is not an outside runner, and Goodwin trying to make him one, won't work. He is slow and a poor user of the footy. What he does exceptionally well is win clearances. As for the Smith vs Weideman argument, both bring different things to the table, but bottom line is Weids is the future. We need to get game time into him, and the time to do that is now. Our backline is my biggest worry, for which there is no great solution. Frost is major NQR, Petty is untried and raw, and that's about the depth we got going on. We have lost a lot of quality down back in recent years in Frawley, Dunn and Howe (say what you like, the two boys are doing very well at Collingwood). We've only regained Lever in the process. That's 3 out 1 in, and now he is injured. We are really thin for backline depth and it's a major worry.

He’s making all the right noises. Time to leave him alone.

we'd need to get support from the wurundjeri people. we could call the training ground "marngrook oval"

So we just wait a full year until Lever gets back? lol. We need to change something and get more numbers back because once the opposition team wins the clearance you can almost immediately see their pathway to goal.

An MFC-themed playground with a never-ending merry-go-round and a ten-foot deep ball-crawl. We could even pitch in for the Demonland/Bi-polar Association co-sponsored see-saw.

Just watched the news on tv, Showed the Jeremy Cameron thing again.....then showed the story on TMac......That Port arsewipe lined Tommy up and hit him straight down the middle.....Result is a bruised bleeding lung and nothing happens....Just like Sylvia's jaw a few years ago. We just don't matter in the eyes of many. Frustrating.

Apparently we have a candidate this year we get first crack at. Toby Bedford, a small forward. This is what was said after his game recently (https://www.afldraftcentral.com.au/tag/toby-bedford/? #3 Toby Bedford (Dandenong Stingrays) Starting the game inside 50 as a small forward, Bedford showed some fancy footwork on occasions but struggled to get into the game in the first half. Although late in the third quarter he was moved up the ground to the stoppages and created a real spark. He won a couple of hard balls in traffic and released each to advantage, before his defensive efforts were rewarded with a holding the ball free kick. He broke from a centre bounce in the final term and almost set up a goal with a long kick inside 50. AFL link to where it links him to us: http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-06-27/u18-the-fatherson-candidates-linked-to-your-club

Eating way too much pasta!

I sometimes wonder when these articles appear if the clubs have pressure from the marketing gurus in the AFL (and maybe the club itself) to keep feeding the media. I can't see any reason why a player or a club would do so otherwise. I cannot see how it helps the player improve nor makes the supporters feel better. Even the most casual supporter will see that he is playing poorly and only an idiot would think that the coach and the player don't know it and are not trying to fix it without being told in this article. Publishing this trash doesn't help fix it - just sets the player up for more unwelcome attention.

Our culture pre Paul Roos and Peter Jackson was terrible, hence the club being in the doldrums. That's not some mythical Norm Smith curse - booga booga - that's having the wrong people at the helm. I believe we've now got the right people at the helm and a talented group of players, hence the past is irrelevant. As I said, it's pure logic. And you either have that or you don't. ?

In the article he is quoted as saying: “I want to be someone who has an impact in every game. At the moment I’m probably not doing that". Even the very best players do not impact every game. Not Dusty, not Fyfe, not Dangerfield. Time Christian took some pressure off himself. Get fit, work hard and lay low for a while, out of the media spotlight. The more media he does the more the spotlight will be on him when he has a flat patch.

You've got two choices ... look backwards with despair at the past, or look forward with optimism at where our group of players is going. I prefer the latter, and I'm with ProDee. While I think great things in 2018 might be premature (although you never discount anything) it's still a stepping stone. In 2019 and 2020 we'll see this team really arrive. Slashing your wrists in the meantime is, of course, your prerogative.

you'll like the social club, od. they propose to call it "blazers"

Would that MFC see saw always end up with the kid at the bottom looking up and hoping, only to be let down again? ?

The last 2 weeks have not concerned you at all Wise? when the pressure is applied, and i mean Real Pressure, The MFC falls away.... have been doing it for decades. We are now a mid table club, but until the club learns to smell blood and go in for the kill, regularly, that is as far as we will go. Our list is still over rated. It still contains lots of potential, but top end leadership is not there. For all the good work last week, from the 17 minute mark of the 3rd Quarter we failed to score a goal, with 68 inside entries. That is a massive problem against real pressure.

How far are we going to go with these meaningless stats? Melbourne is 8-0 when more than 10,000 hot dogs are consumed, but 1-4 when under 10,000 are consumed.

We're all impatient, but nearly all of our best players are sub 80 games. We had 15 under 100 on the weekend compared to Port's 9, yet in most metrics we smashed them. I get sick of the excuses too, but I'm consoled by a strong view that the future is very bright.

Never said it wouldn't happen PD. Simply disappointed that it hasn't happened regularly yet, apart from Oliver Viney Gawn, and T-Mac. I thought last week was the first display of true finals style football that we have played in the Goodwin era, and one of the best games i've ever seen (losing aside). It's a bloody shame we didn't get over the line, as it would have only taken 5 minutes of Hogan/Petracca to have iced the game for us. Once our guys have the maturity to play that way week in week out, we will be in Premiership mode, and bloody hard to stop.

Change your game Jesse Crash the packs again and make the opposition crap themselves. 5 marks 5 kicks and 5 goals and that is 5 poss for the game. Anything more is a bonus. We are not asking for much. COME ON !!!!!!!!!!!!! Just do it.

If you are a talented key forward you must compete in the air as often as you can and make sure at worst you're not out-marked so the ball comes to ground. From there the ball is either crumbed by a teammate, or it is retained in the forward-line through pressure. Making it hard for the opposition to get the ball out leads to poor quality exits from D50 and therefore (hopefully) repeat entries. You don't want Hogan front and centre if he has an opportunity to compete for a high ball. Ideally, you want him getting hit-up on a lead, but where there is a bail out kick, or top of the square kick, he needs to compete. On occasions he's been choosing not to. It has to - and I'm sure will - stop.

Yes. Incredibly poor judgement, unless he has been reading DL and this was a release valve. Inn which case he should have posted directly. /jk

I think this is contradictory. We are attacking from our defence, and this attacking intent is the reason we have sacrificed some of our close checking defence. Our strategy is to defend as a unit, up the whole ground, preventing the ball from reaching our D50. We do this by playing more attacking defenders, who sit up the ground, repelling attacks in the midfield and launching our attacks. This is a risky strategy, but has huge upside. If the average team concedes 5 inside 50s each week, and a conversion against of 50%, they'll concede 25 shots against. If we concede 35 inside 50s and a conversion of 60%, we'll concede only 21 shots. If we are relying on repelling goals by our defenders on they last line we are in a desperate position.

The good old four walls. Where would we be without them? Time to pull your finger out Trac.

Dermie is a great teacher, and this comes through in his comments on players of all clubs, his understanding of the game and how to effect performance improvements. Dermie has an easy-going manner about him, is patient and speaks particulalry well. He is also quite often misquoted for effect, and what he has said is often misinterpreted. He'd be a great - if not the greatest - mentor for Hoges over some time, at training, in skills practices, in reading game plays.

It's actually our game plan, blaze away into 50 at all costs.

Rational thought Ernest what is wrong with you? I suspect you are not really a Dees supporter. Seriously though after 54 years lots of us are a little impatient and I for one am running out of years. However I never thought we would be in a GF in 2018 let alone win one. However I am going to be seriously disappointed if we are still doing this next year.

Wise words. Many of us tend to be myopic and impatient when looking at our team and view results against our expectations which rise exponentially when we win or string a few wins together. Well it certainly applies to me if no one else. Rationality is diluted by our passion for our team and our impossible demand for constant success. We celebrate success but find it hard to deal with failure. We forget to look at the trials and tribulations that all teams and supporters experience over a season or many seasons. As the old saying goes we are never as good as we think we are (when winning) and never as bad as we think we are (when losing). Resujts are influenced by factors that include experience, injury, fatigue, form, skills, game plan and horrific umpiring. We certainly need to acquire more players with the skills and strength of mind to win matches more consistently. We have a number of players that are not really up to it, players who are over the hill, lacking skills, and who are unable to have consistent form that makes a team formidable such as Richmond.

Stevethemanjordan, epic. You deserve a weekend at a Buller chalet with drink passes for the Arlberg for that effort. Praise be. Petty in this week. Run of 3 teams he can play in and work into. If bad, drop back to develop. Now is the time. Isn't it?

Is that true?

Petracca, Garlett, Tyson must lift if we're a sneaky chance at snatching one.

Also this is a very selective statistic. We are ranked 9th for scores against, which is much better than the 16th once they are inside 50. The point is correct that because of the press that opposition score against us when they get it over the back. But to go from 9th to 18th (i.e. the best) team, it is reducing our scores against by 2 goals a game. To be up with St Kilda and Carlton as Gary has put us, teams would need to score 4 goals a game more each week. Yes we do need to reduce a goal or 2 per game that we give to other teams (although if you take our 3 blow outs - Haw, Rich, Coll, - and only make them 2 goal losses, it gets us a lot closer to the pin) - but there was something quite interesting Salem said today in the press conference - that Bernie and Lewis down back are helping Salem improve his game. Long run here, yes a fairy tale would be nice, but it is about getting the pieces to have a dynasty - not just a flash in the pan.

Or maybe Spargo / Bugg for Tyson / Smith DC? Go smaller for the extra crumbs / goal potential and speed around half forward. Frost in for Vince could have covered the resting ruck role. Just need to compete and halve the contest when Maxy's resting. Any big body will do for Maxy as long as it's not a top liner.

It's about giving the team the best chance to win. Hogan's had 2 bad games in an otherwise All Australian year. He's in the top 3 players in the team. Any talk of dropping him is absurd. I didn't say anything about Petracca. But since you brought him up, he's in a different boat to Hogan.

Disappointing but not that surprising. After the first two games it was clear we have a major weakness in scoring. Only two in 3 games and both from penalties. And the most conceded goals by a far shot. Also, Peru are higher in the FIFA rankings than Denmark. Now we're into the hands of Graham Arnold which does not inspire. Two things are now obvious. Bert is a better coach than Ange. Bert had us looking dangerous. Compare that to qualifying where we stumbled and bumbled and managed to leave it to the last leg of the last tie over 4 years to lock it in. Other thing is, we need a striker and how! Fozzy on SBS is crapping on about how we could have and should have done better, we had plenty more to give, etc. How Ange had us on track but then we make this dramatic change (Bert) for the last part of the tournament, why oh why? Foz ... where were the goals going to come from? And if Ange was in charge would we have even looked like scoring at all? France already through were not going to try hard against Denmark. And Denmark's only incentive -- knowing a win or draw would see them through -- was to stop France scoring. So no surprises there. Back to the drawing board.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/coupler.foxsports.com.au/api/v1/article/amp/afl/latest-afl-run-home-final-ladder-and-finals-series-projections-round-14-2018/news-story/eeb04407d5fd11ba78aed3789ffc89f9 Wouldn’t this be nice !

Until we beat another side in the top 8, this question will continue to be asked. Agreed. We've had two shockers - Hawthorn and Collingwood. The Richmond game fell apart but we showed significant positive signs. We should have beaten both Geelong and Port and, had we done that, we would be equal top of the ladder without this question being asked. But we didn't win those games, and so we deal with this question and the uncertainty until we beat someone better.

Everyone is frothing over Collingwood. They've beaten Carlton (twice), St Kilda, Brisbane, Fremantle, the Dogs, Essendon, Adelaide and us. We've beaten Carlton, St Kilda, Brisbane, GC, the Dogs, Essendon, Adelaide and North. But the narrative at the moment is "Melbourne can't beat anyone good" whilst "Collingwood is more dangerous than Richmond". If we're no good then they have no wins against anyone good. At least we've beaten North!

Still injured. Posted on his instagram today that he's out of the moon boot.

Misson looks like he’s struggling to live, a smile wouldn’t hurt the bloke, too depressing to watch

If you’re planning on going Sunday, don’t.

God I agree, and God/Yahweh/Jehovah/Deus/Allah/Hu/Krishna/Gaia, whatever she prefers - I hope so soon.

People whinge when they fly together and also whinge when he doesn’t fly.

68 to 39 inside 50's and lose is complete MADNESS.

We have a different team and structure to the one that lost to Hawthorn and Richmond. And we haven't even played Sydney. Hawthorn lost to Brisbane FCS. Are they one of the "good teams" you're referencing ? Sydney have lost at home to North, Port, and the injury plagued Adelaide. Are they this infallible outfit ? Richmond were beaten by Port one week before us. And they never had the numbers we put up against Port. I don't think there are any great teams in the competition. And I certainly don't think a mentally fragile team wins 18 quarters in a row. The most quarters in a row Hawthorn have won in their history is 13. Do you know how many flags they've won in the last 50 years ? There were plenty of crap teams they were coming up against during this period, so it's lazy to reference our opposition during that streak. We're far from perfect, but I don't buy this "mentally fragile" BS. When you smash a team like we did against Port and you don't get reward for effort on the scoreboard and you leave the door open you're a chance to have what happened to us happen. Especially in that type of environment interstate.

I’d prefer TMac play permanently FF, but when Hogan is playing deep we need to kick it so he can run on to it, that’s where I believe he most dangerous. Rather than have him camped underneath the high ball every time.

Hes had a couple of quiet games... three games ago he had 19 possessions, 10 marks and kicked 5 goals. The game before that he had 20-11-5. Give me a break.

Get Dermott down to the club NOW to forward coach Hogan. Pay him a good wage, he knows exactly what Hogan should be doing, as he was the same player 30 years ago GET Dermott MFC 4-6 goals a game we should be getting with our i50 count 68 last week and Hogan was unsighted!!!! MADNESS..