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Mick McGuane wrote a good article today in the Sun around solving our problems when going forward, and this part of the article makes me feel a little better about tonight and the direction we are heading. As McGuane says, it's only a small snapshot, but proof that we can fix some of the things that are missing right now. MISSED OPPORTUNITIES It seems strange to talk this way about a team that lost by 80 points to Geelong, but things could have been a little different but for missed opportunities. At halftime, the scoreline was Geelong 46 to Melbourne 22. In the first two minutes of the third term Melksham missed everything with two kicks for goal. Those two shots resulted in two boundary throw ins. That’s fixable. The third entry saw Weideman almost mark, but spill it 35m out. Fixable. Then Christian Salem hacked it on his left foot for better composure. The result was a boundary throw-in, from which Angus Brayshaw’s quick kick saw Alex Neal-Bullen spill a mark 15m from goal. A fifth entry saw a committed Neville Jetta win the ball and with good composure find Weideman in front, but he hooked the kick. After the kick-in, the Demons won the ball across half back then went back in at speed before Petracca mistimed his jump and went at the ball one-handed when he had Tom Stewart cooked. That’s fixable. Too much over-finessing the ball before it landed in the arms of McDonald, who hit the post. Stiff. Jack Viney won a free on the boundary, had a left foot snap and overcooked it. Another behind. Then came a hurried left foot from Nathan Jones to a contest 45m from goal in the “trampoline zone”. The kick should have been aimed more along the boundary to create a stoppage. Geelong won the ball to the wing, before a lazy free kick was given away by Sam Frost to Esava Ratugolea. The result: the Cats went in deep and another free kick was given to Gary Rohan at the top of the square against Steven May. For all that toil, there came nine inside-50s and three behinds to one inside-50 for a goal in 12 minutes of play. That’s fixable. The effort, contest, pressure, territory and structure are all positives in this small snapshot of the game.

Just arrived and a young lady gave me a yo-yo! i offered to show her “around the world “ and she looked at me as if I was a pervert

If we lose tonight (to the team I despise over all others) it will just confirm my theory that supporting Melbourne is like having a child who constantly disappoints. Yes there are occasional moments of pride and joy but life with him is generally full of let downs and frustrations. Promises to try harder are followed by excuses and failure. He (sort of) got caught cheating a few years ago and now an older, drunk friend of one of his school mates, who has a big mouth, is bringing it all up again. My kid has never topped his class and although he buckled down and did his best last year, he is back to form this semester. Id like to kick him out but, for some reason, I still love him dearly......

Agree Rjay. I remember when Libba came out and said point blank that Carlton tanked and he was part of it. He was threatened by the AFL and recanted. Eddie admitted Collingwood had done the same. Wallace admitted the Tigers had done the same. There was reference to the Saints doing the same to get Reiwoldt and Kosi. Guess what, only one club has ever been investigated. Yes we tanked, just like many other clubs, but only us were put in the sh-t. Warner has got his hands on 80 pages of Interviews that could only have come from the AFL. Who has leaked them? that should be the question that is now investigated. Of course Essendon fanatic Robbo is up to his eyeballs in this and it is released when, on the eve of the Bombers must win game against the Demons. I hope we beat the druggies by 100 points and refuse to comment on 10 year old non news.

I’m not saying we were great but it makes it tough when you get slaughtered by the umpiring

Awesome atmosphere now at my house. Brother’s are getting hot dogs done and dad is giving me a FANTASTIC foot massage. Please don’t sour it for me. I’ve promised everyone savoury tartlets if we win

I’m looking forward to the 80 page special about West Coast going from finishing 3rd (2007) to second last (2008) and being rewarded a priority pick which just happened to be a bloke called Luke Shuey. Or an investigation into Collingwood’s round 19 performance against North at the formerly known Telstra Dome. 40 points up in the third quarter, 5 wins on the board, another win and they lose their priority pick. They end up getting rolled, lose their remaining 3 games and score Dale Thomas and Scott Pendlebury. Happy days for them and not a peep from the media.

Yes I liked McGuane's assessment and agree it was almost laughable the dominance in the third quarter followed by the ball going up the other end for a goal via a dubious Rohan free kick (dubious because the umps also missed the Hawkins shove in the back on May before he and Hunt collided high on Rohan. But here's my issue, our forward line is malfunctioning and yet we made just the one minor change to it for tonight (Sparrow out), so Goody and the selectors in part are hoping that playing a lesser opponent that is down on form and on our home ground will help solve the scoring problems of the first two rounds. He's also decided to stick fat with underperforming forwards - something that will be highly credible if they turn things around tonight, but seem ludicrous if they don't. Hopefully we will turn things around and win easily, but there's also a chance that we will again dominate the midfield and struggle to score, rendering the game a tight, tense low-scoring affair that will be won on the flip of a kick or the mouth-whistling ability of an umpire. Of course, Goody and the players may have already made adjustments, but given how reluctant we are to swing players around these days (and practice in their three set groups) I can't really see much of a change. That means the spotlight will once again be on our four down-on-form forwards. If they succeed tonight it is happy days for Sydney, if they don't, the same hard questions will arise. Petracca - why hasn't he been sent down to VFL to try and remedy some serious flaws in his game and at the same time dominate at the lower level to restore confidence. This has been a lament of mine for two years no with him. Among his flaws are his high ball drop which causes him to at times, when harassed, misqueue his kick. He also still fails to get back on his mark far enough when he gets a free or takes a mark and on occasions his opponent on the mark touches his low flat pass to a leading opponent. Obviously we'd all love him to find an extra yard of pace, but that may not be possible (genetically) and it's not a death sentence even if it is. Please note that ultimately, Trac is our best chance on our list of providing the Stringer/De Goey type forward and with both Hannan and Joel Smith out, there are precious few options. On paper at this stage, finding another player of this type (eg: Cats and Rohan last year), is now our No.1 recruiting need. Weideman - he spent all of last year learning the back-up ruckman craft but his form against Port in this area was abysmal and the Dons have added a third ruck (Zac Clarke) to their set-up for tonight. His manager pestering for a $700K contract would also be distracting, but more than anything he needs to get back to working again on his agility like he did pre-season last year and it is a surprise to me that Goody has persevered with him this week ahead of going with the Preuss option. Neal-Bullen - Almost everyone's most hated player but I have always loved his workrate and believe that you need at least one small forward playing this type of sacrificial role each week on your forward line. Obviously we'd all like it if his disposals were neater like Robbie Gray, but it ain't happening at the moment. He may need time in twos for a confidence boost, especially now that the 6-6-6 has stopped him getting involved by running off the back of the square. T-Mac - It's been clear that he's not quite as maniacally fit this year and a turf-toe relapse and shoulder ops obviously hasn't helped, plus he now cops the No.1 tall defender each week. To me, the solution is to give him a week down back and the obvious swap is with Oscar, who Goody seems to have forgotten was a forward for much of his time in the TAC and is a lovely kick and has high endurance running-ability, even if his speed off the mark is now being questioned. Playing Oscar forward for a bit would be an extra part in his evolution as a defender anyway, giving him a close up look at how opponents are blocking and positioning on him. Playing T-Mac down back is not a long-term solution (we all recall that he mixed moments of courage and class with a high clanger kicking rate), but it may get his marking confidence back and give him a refresher in the importance of pressure before he returns to the forward line. I haven't included Melky in this group, because I've been pretty impressed by how quickly he's come back from his pre-season setbacks and his body-positioning on opponents taller than him is superb. Based on the side chosen tonight, I imagine Lockhart and Corey Wagner will also play as small pressure forwards, although I wouldn't be surprised if Goody sends Hunt or Fritter forward at some point. But to me if our forwards malfunction again, it really is time for Goody to experiment again, just as he did at the start of last season. And by that I basically mean, removing Weid for a bit and playing Preuss - I don't expect this to be a fail-safe move as I am aware BP is slow, but he does bring a presence and fear factor that Weid can't provide and when on the ball he allows Gawn to spend time up front where he is also a fear-factor presence for opponents. With Joel Smith and Hannan out for a while yet, Goody has to decide if he can switch his best Petracca-replacement options from their current roles. By this I mean whether he is willing to rob Peter to pay Paul and send one our our quality midfield troika - Harmes, Oliver, Brayshaw - forward to play the third/fourth tall role that Trac has failed in. Such a move is not ideal, but in the short-term it may be necessary. But alas we should win tonight and the mild conditions will help our forwards, so such experimentation by Goody may not be required - at least for another week or two.

At least a dozen clubs have tanked and it has happened about 40 times. And it still goes on. Why should any Demon supporter feel one ounce of guilt about tanking? Seriously? So we tanked, who cares? I don't and never will. I'd happily see the club tank again if needs be. And I suspect we did tank in a very subtle way in 2014. Rule of thumb ... If you think a club is tanking, they are probably tanking. But there again, the draft is severely flawed anyway so you can tank for garbage returns. That's the risk but again, it's a risk worth taking. If we had have better returns through our tanking, the tanking investigation would never have happened. Ask Hawthorn & Collingwood - both teams tanked and then won premierships. So it is risk/reward/kick in the guts. As an example, Carlton have tanked at least 6 or 7 times (including last year) ... and every Carlton supporter I know freely admits that their team tanks regularly. They are not ashamed either - they couldn't give a f/f. It's as if the footy public & footy media are continually outraged about something that occurs regularly ... they're either oblivious to the obvious or are so attached to footy that they simply don't want to know about it. I suspect the latter explanation is more apt. Footnote ... tanking has probably occurred in the USA over 200 times in the last 20 or 30 years. Same circumstances - a draft and people are the same all over (i.e all humans have the same exact traits - greed, cheating, envy etc etc) And the yanks couldn't care less about tanking - it's an ancient, irrelevant story over there.

Didn’t watch a second of it. Thankfully I was packing my boat with 300 cans of beer for a six day trip to the Abrolhos islands leaving tomorrow morning. Good times. ?

No. When he dropped that mark very early in the third term, which was under no pressure, I yelled so loud I woke my 12 week old daughter up. The wife told me off, but I told her it was ANB's fault. I've defended him before, but I just can't do it anymore. The bloke is simply not good enough and his fumbles, dropped marks and lack of contribution can waste away at Casey for the rest of his career.

Loving the game of both Wagners tonight but especially Corey. Not hard to see why Goodwin liked him - he definitely plays the Goodwin brand. Hopefully that quarter is the moment we officially “click”. First one I’ve genuinely enjoyed so far this year.

The behaviour by Michael Warner and Robbo is unacceptable, irresponsible and would be in any other industry characterised as bullying and intent to intimidate. There is no purpose to this story no connection nor relevance of today. The purpose of this story and subsequently the decision by the herald sun to published a full front page story is designed to harm, injure and shame people, living and those who have passed away. It is time for the AFL industry as a whole to collectively make a stand and say enough is enough. The impact on mental health and damage to the emotional state of people, players and volunteers who make up a club is enormous. On the day that the Melbourne Football Club launched its stamp out bullying campaign these people chose that day, on an evening when our tv screens and digital platforms have been broadcasting our anti bullying campaign these 2 men, the editor and the decision makers of the organisations that approved these stories and tactics chose to publish and run with this story. To choose to list names of people who participated willing or unwilling in a confidential process that would have been stressful, and to publish a confidential AFL document that was part of a process over 10 years ago would be unacceptable in any other industry. There are standards of behaviour that we all have to abide by, if we don't as employees or representative of organisations we are held accountable. In an era where the AFL, the wider community is trying to stamp out bullying, harassment and unacceptable behaviour, how come there is no accountability levelled at these two people. What makes their behaviour even more damaging and calculating is that they on their own video segment are laughing about "dredging this up after so many years". This is a point that can't be ignored. They know that running this story will affect the people who were involved, affect the players who are playing this evening, and will affect the families of the Stynes and Bailey families but both Michael Warner and Robbo chose to laugh and make light of their intent of running with this story. My responding to this article and their behaviour is not advocating suppression of freedom of speech or opinion, and I know that a lot of people and these two journos would argue that footy is a tough sport, you have got to take the bad with the good. There is no good from this. It is designed to harm, and hurt. On the eve of a very big game for both Essendon and Melbourne they choose to do this. Robbo is the first to hold people accountable. The AFL community need to collectively say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH before its own people, from players, staff, volunteers and board members pay a massive human price. We can not take fox footy or the herald sun seriously let alone the industry of AFL when they talk about mental health, workplace safety for its people working within the industry, if journalists are not held accountable. May I say, I do not know much about tanking , I didn't even live in this country at the time, and I don't know any of the people involved but that's besides the point. As football fans and as people in general we should say ENOUGH is ENOUGH before people and their families suffer further mental anguish and hurt!!!!! There is nothing good going to come from this - shame on Robbo and shame on Michael Warner.

Hey guys.. I am upbeat and confident!! I am also often let down and generally wrong..

Bradtke is playing for the Dandenong Stingrays this weekend.

Did we kick out from a point once tonight to a Demon player? We are even incapable of that. We just bomb to a pack every time. That is a basic of footy to be able to clear the opposition goal and start an attack. We never did it once. Whoever is in charge of the defence should be replaced immediately. Whoever picks ANB should be replaced. Whoever refused to draft pace and skill in the last few years should be replaced. Whoever thinks win contested footy don't worry about anything else and that is our only game plan should be replaced.

I have never, never seen a worse decision when Jetta was charged face on hit on head and no free! Even without contact a player cannot run straight at an opponent even without making contact .He must turn his back at the last second. The decision against Neville when he made a perfectly legal spoil was also laughable. Melksham too was held, pushed the back for no free in last quarter. I could go on. Loved Maxy's huge kick off the ground one of the few good moments. Throwing away my membership? Come off it mate you stay with the ship. Too many fairweather supporters on this forum I am sorry to say. Our defence is certainly our problem ATM

Has ANB done anything beneficial for the team in 240 minutes of football? Him and Frost, [censored] me I’ve rarely seen 2 more useless players. Then there’s the defensive setup. Whoever is in charge of that... did they have a ceremony where they took out all of Paul Roos’ notebooks and shat all over them just to really ram home the point? Just embarrassing, you feel the easy score coming no matter where on the field the opposition gets the ball. We let one of the worst teams in the comp score 130 [censored] points. And Essendon should be embarrassed that they let the worst team score 112.

Get Rawlings back

Been a while since I felt this flat. I'm not panicking yet, but I couldn't feel any flatter. Just an awful feeling. The bottom line for me is the gameplan, which is what many of us discussed last week. Yes, ANB should be dropped, Frost and O Mac were putrid pretty much most of the night and we have others like Hibberd and Tom Mac who are horribly out of form. They are are small pieces of the puzzle right now. But the ease with which opposition teams are scoring against us right now is alarming. In that third term the Bombers kicked 7 straight from roughly 12 inside 50s at one stage. This is horribly similar to what the Cats did in the third term last week. Every time they ran forward they looked like scoring and we did absolutely nothing about it. When you have McKernan and Tippa kicking 4, you know you're in deep trouble. We simply made the same mistakes last week and we paid dearly for it. How often did we turn it over at half forward and they hit a couple of over the top handballs and ran off with the ball? How can we let that happen? Are the instructions wrong, or do we have players at the moment who simply aren't putting them into practice? The pressure is on, now. Goody had a week to rectify things and he didn't. Thankfully the Bombers are rubbish as a half decent side would have probably beaten us by more. If there are any positives, it's that we seemed to lower our eyes a little better this week, but we still allowed the ball to get out too easily. Gawny wasn't bad, Gus tried hard and I thought some of the lesser lights like Lockhart and Corey Wagner did some good things. But we have nowhere to hide now. The season is slipping out of our grasp and we have very little time to get back into it. It seems hollow for me to say, but don't lose the faith.

We were bad Bombers actually worse Umpires absolutely atrocious

Im so disappointed. It seems to me that the game has passed us by. - too many players going for 1 ball (an issue last year) - not enough spreading (an issue last year) - mass inside 50s which clearly is a quality vs. quantity issue - poor forward pressure - zone defence when the game's 6v6v6 format advantages 1on1 - poor kicks from defence to 40m when clubs are taking advantage of new rules to 60m The stock is there, but the strategy isnt. Really poor coaching. We've lost a prelim, 2 JLTs and 3 2019 games... thats 6 in a row. What have we done to change? Never thought we'd be 3 rounds in and #18.

Never doubted the lads

ashamed to say I put $10 on Essendon to win by 40+ @ $15.00 as misery insurance...

And I remember only a couple years ago Slobbo suggesting himself that it would be unwise for the Lions to win another game. The hypocrisy is astounding.

Tom McDonald was played out of position last year.

So the clown who ticked off Slobbos 10yr old article for todays front page is also a Essendon supporter. Surprise, surprise. Of course they ignored their drugcheat clubs cover-up. Slobbo even thinks his needle wielding mate Hird should coach them again. FMD, what a joke.

The arguments and the counter arguments lie buried in contemporary news items and can be read if one wants to delve into the archives on this site. Some is fact, a great deal is fiction based on supposition including quoting a dead man in a different way to the manner in which he told it. The purpose of the article is clear and needs to be treated with the contempt it deserves - not even as tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapping. That era is over now and I’m looking ahead to tonight’s game.

Hawthorn got Hodge, Lewis, Franklin and Roughhead. Collingwood picked up Pendlebury and Dale Thomas in '05 after playing off with the lions in '02 and '03 GF. Carlton won both the Gibbs and Kruezer cups. West Coast played in the' 05 and won the '06 GFs only to pick up Nic Nat at pick#2 in '08. And we were the ones who got lynched by the media. Now during the week Slobbo throws out his good mate drug cheat Hirds name again as a "potential" replacement for Worsfold. And then has the gall to drag up our tanking labelling it Footys Biggest Cover-up on the front page the very day we meet his precious drug cheating footy club. What a Forking joke of a biased journalist.

How did Mick Warner get this documents? What someone at the AFL just handed them to him. I feel sorry for Dean Bailey's family having this saga dragged up and of course Jim's family. I wonder of Chris Connolly will come out and say something. again I ask why do we need to hear about this 10 years on.

Yep. We made massive mistakes in their time at the club, and they are mistakes I hope we never get close to replicating. Still, at least we aren't drug cheats.

harsh on Lockhart. he kicked 2 including mark of the night.

Yep, that banner combined with tonight's result will make us look like more of a laughing stock. The MFC needs to get off the soy and concentrate 100% on football.

Now before you start kicking the guts out of our team... analyse the influence the umpires have had on the result

We looked the goods when Tomald was off the field.

Least of our issues. Umpires arent causing the continual brain farts, fumbles, lack of leadership, continued repeated mistakes etc.

Umpires are corrupt

Essendon fans walking around in a daze unable to find where they sit at an away game against Melbourne.

Not enough. We got this.

With the time delay it’s on at 4.50 here which is too early to settle down and watch the game so I’ll have it on record. At least I’ll be able to fast forward the bad parts. If we lose this game I’ll be prepping the microwave and putting on my Spider-Man costume.

Our handling of Preuss is puzzling. We played him with Gawn (in the role he was brought in to play) against Collingwood in the practice match and from all reports they worked well together and he was a good forward option. We then played him on his own in JLT1 in a role he is not suited for (sole ruckman) and he was unsurprisingly exposed. We then dropped him for JLT2 and went back to Gawn as the sole ruckman while Preuss was injured paying for Casey. Gawn hasn't been at his best so far and was worked over by two rucks in round 1. He did better against Geelong but having another big option forward to captialisse on all our forward entries wouldn't have hurt. Essendon are going with two ruckmen tonight in a bid to work Gawn over. We cannot afford to run Gawn into the ground any longer and Preuss should be playing in the role that we brought him in to play.

apparently being rubbish at kicking for goal and not having composure is fixable. great, someone tell the coaches!!

Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to be a Wagnerian Tragedy opera.

Good to get these “line in the sand” games out of the the way early.

Christ we got Watts didnt we>? Scully..?? Bit like winning the lottery and the cheque bounces..

Whether or not I agree that we did anything 'wrong' we have been made to face a truth no other club has had to. Every year the AFL allows clubs to sit players and play youth, with the incentive of a higher spot in the draft. We have learnt from it and we are a stronger organisation. But we are alone in that damnation. The AFL are the ones that need to learn.

It did keep Bill Shorten and his Budget Reply speech off the front page. Half the comp has tanked. Teams in most elite level competitions tank. The common element is the draft.

Please God let us win this one. Don't know how I am going to get through work today.

I don't know why I'm even bothering to enter this conversation since neither of us know the intimate details, but do you really think a shrewd operator like Peter Jackson would have kept Misson at the club if he wasn't happy with him? Seriously, your constant rantings about Misson are the very definition of twaddle. You have no idea, you're completely speculating and unless you've had any medical insight into even each of those cases, your comments are arrogant and pointless. This constant 'I know better than professionals' or 'I know better than properly qualified people' is what's wrong with our society at the moment. You just sound like a dill.

Agree 'Diamond'... ...but get really angry that other clubs are not held to the same standard. 2 clubs coaches have come out and basically admitted tanking yet nothing has been done about it and we are forever going to carry the can as the only club that tanked. I guess like everything else we did at the time we were bad at it. I mean look at who was running the place and his offsider, jobs for the boys. Should never have been allowed back into the club. It was a disastrous period and nearly sank us, we've still recovering. If we pick the clever clubs then Collingwood, Hawthorn and West Coast covered up well. They set the standard... Carlton had influencers (the guy who leaves the room) at the top to help them cover up and the Tiges, who knows why Wallace (and club) was never investigated over comments he has made.