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Congrats to the young fella on his debut!

Unfortunately it has been worse than ever this year. I have no idea about what the boards KPIs are for pert and so no real sense of how he is travelling as CEO. Except in regard to communication. Communication and supporter engagement is critical for teams long terms success and viability. i would argue it is never more critical than when a team i struggling. And responsibility for communication falls squarely at the feet of the CEO. Really it is beyond ridiculous that the Pert could publicly say we are aiming for 70, 000 members (which is fine in of itself) and then allow our communication to be so woeful. I mean talk about a disconnect. I have been banging on about this for years now. Time for me to put my money where my mouth is. I will go to the next AGM and ask why our communication has been so poor and what they plan to do about it.

Yet another blunder from the selection committee, it’s just about a weekly event. How does JKH not get a gig after his game last weekend? Did anyone outside of the selection committee see a particular reason amongst his 23 disposals and three goals that would be the justification for denying him promotion? Whatever that reason is, it seems the Casey coach didn’t pick up on it. “Kennedy Harris was just so clean in difficult conditions… so clean with the ball, and his finishing was outstanding.” Yeah no, can’t have someone like that in the seniors. Jeez, he might show some of them up.

Mine might be “wish dad chose another club” ??

33-43 points and 18-25 free kicks at 3/4 time on a Friday night. Good work Gil you [censored] moron.

Agree, it's got late withdrawal written all over it. Still don't know why all the talls. Maybe a few more late withdrawals or they'll play May and Frost as smalls. I'll stop now before this it turns into a poem.

This club is very poor at communicating to their members/fans. Surely they would realise a dropping of Baker would cause a WTF moment and should have come out and said why, they were asked on twitter as to why but as usual never reply. Not hard.

Collingwood has more free kicks than inside 50s.

I seriously feel sorry for the MFC employee who will be reading these emails. I will not hold back Sharpening the Blades before i commence...

I might hit the whisky tonight and fill it in...

What has happened to the Pies? Of that's right a third of their best 22 are out with injury. But that's no excuse......

Yes i saw that. Will fill it in after lunch. I need to prepare....

Spoon spoon prelim spoon spoon.

I would guess that Baker needs a rest. He started well but has been down the last couple. I don’t mind him being dropped and then coming back in soon for another red hot crack

I endorse this post x 2 You can even tell them you are "Ding from Demonland" if you dont want your rep tarnished. Mine is already rubbish so i dont have anything to lose.

Cool, let's play Max until he suffers a major injury from overwork and then maybe we can give Preuss a run.

Spleen vented, pity the poor soul that has to pass on my comments.

Will be wet and cold. a horrible game to watch with skill errors, fumbles and free kicks. we've gone tall at the back (in the wet) with Petty, Frost and May and their two tall targets are out injured. Winning will leave an empty feeling, losing will be horrific I for one, cannot wait for the game!!

Dunkley confirmed for debut. Excited to see him. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2019-07-05/a-surprise-debut-for-dunkley

A pyrrhic victory od. I'm not sure I could cop that. Preseason we might have nominated this game to hand out a flogging and roll on into the finals. FMD. What has become of us?

We fill in the surveys each year but never get a response or any feedback. I understand that on-field performance will fluctuate, but nothing seems to change off-field regardless of the survey results or feedback. Communication to members has always been poor, but it has been totally absymal this year. Couple that with the dire on-field performance and I really wonder the club hopes to gain from this survey.

I haven't received this yet. In the past the 5 words I've used have been along the lines of history, soft, irrelevant, pushovers, homeless, unprofessional etc

The problem for JKH, and Stretch for that matter, is that they fall somewhere between AFL and VFL standard.

He was always a gamble

The disappointing thing for me is that for once, outsiders were beginning to take us seriously as a club. Many tipped us to finish top 4 and to have a fair dinkum crack at the flag. We hit a record membership number and were rewarded with a couple of Friday night games. If we bounce back next season no one will care because we’re just ‘typical’ Melbourne. If we lose to Carlton on the weekend my response would be ‘meh’.

All i want from this game is for Goodwin to not talk to the press. His corporate speak makes me want to stick a chopstick in my ears.

After seeing Goodwins presser I would really like to know what he puts in his bong. Or maybe it’s medicinal THC.

well that is in direct opposition to what misson told the board. he specifically quoted the deficient preseason loads achieved across the list with actual statistics......the required workloads were just not achieved and were so low it was worth highlighting to the board

Gibbs is still is high quality player (ask Clayton Oliver about the third quarter the other week) but he has clearly dropped off in form from the sustained excellence of most of his career. Has always been short of the star expectations people have about No.1 picks, much like Murphy and Kruezer. Has always been picked out as looking a bit gentle on the field, despite pulling his weight for things like tackles, contested posessions, and all that. Bizarrely, it looks like even though Adelaide would probably now be regretting giving up two first round picks to get him, Carlton at the same time would be unhappy with what they ended up with, although that has more to do with the way they used their picks. I once had the pleasure of sitting opposite Gibbs at a cafe, without actually realising it was him. It was right before the trade, and the public talk was that the move was for family reasons. Coincidentally, it was the really delightful way this unknown man was having lunch with his toddler (a freak'n angel kid in appearance and behaviour) that made me look up and smile, long before I realised it was anyone significant. Moral of this story, Gibbs moved to Adelaide for family reasons, and his family is doing fine over there, and we don't even have to think about whether we want him or not because it isn't going to happen. He even has another kid on the way. We can all just sit back and wish the best to a nice guy who is doing fine. Nothing to trouble ourselves about here.

Crows gave him a 4 year contract and gave up picks #10 and #16 +/- later picks to Carlton. At this stage it looks a disastrous trade. But there may be some solace. Crows hold Carlton's 2019 1st and 2nd round picks! ? Some weird dealing going on between those clubs especially when last year's McGovern, McAdam and live-pick trades are factored in. On topic. Gibbs? No way! He is 30 with 2 years to go on his contract and can't get a game. A club would have to pay the Crows 'overs' to break the contract. After the Crows pigheadedness on the Lever trade don't want to deal with them again.

In an effort to move past the teeth gnashing and knee jerk reactions to this year's disappointments it's time to acknowledge that the real reason probably started a few days after the loss to WCE in the Preliminary Final last year when something like 17 players were scheduled for end of season operations to fix ankles, shoulders, hips, knees and heavens knows what else. This cruelled our preseason which most recognize is the foundation stone of strong on field performances. Fitness is a non negotiable in footy and we just don't have it. It was reported here that Craig Jennings (I think) said that at one stage in the preseason we had 12 players fit enough to complete the main session indicating that the injuries we had went well beyond those who had operations. Key players effected included:- Our entire starting midfield had interrupted preseasons - Viney, Harmes and Oliver had operations and Jones and Brayshaw had injuries. If my memory is correct none started with the main group until February and some not until March. Three of our best forwards had interrupted preseasons - Tmac had both ankles operated on, Melk had hammy issues and Trac a knee operation Our best defenders had interrupted preseasons - Jetta a knee, May with his issues and Lever recovering from an ACL. From memory Hibberd might also have had a operation. This is a list of the "main crew" who had little or no preseason.. Then there were players like Stretch, Hannan, Oscar Baker and Hore who were also significantly disrupted. Through no fault of anyone, unless you want to suggest we send 13 of our Preliminary Final players off for end of season surgery in August, these players lack fitness because of the lack of a proper preseason. I think this lack of fitness underlies the majority of the issues we have faced this year including:- an inability to run out games inability to play 4 quarters basic skill errors - these occur when plays fatigue a lack of confidence a lack of connection a lack of two way running Compounding this has been a wretched run of injury in season. AVB, Smith, May, Melksham, Hibberd and Jetta have been significant losses. JKH, Stretch, KK and Garlett have added to our issues. On Champion Data stats we lost 89 games to injury to our best 22 in the first 10 games - 50% more than any other team and this on top of a poor preseason. You can carry some injuries but there reaches a stage when you lose so many that the game just falls apart because you're playing too many players who are NQR. We've seen this with Richmond and Collingwood. Is it any surprise that Geelong and Brisbane are doing surprisingly well. They've had no injuries of note. And is it any surprise that Gawn and Salem have performed so well. To my knowledge they had good preseasons. The vitriol directed at players, coaches and fitness staff beg the reality of our situation. Calls to rebuild, change the coach and radically change the game plan ignore core issues that have led to our situation. Posters are far too keen to find blame rather than find reasons. I've never been more confident that we've got the building blocks to be very good. There are some gaps in our list we need to fill and we could well do that in this trade period. This has been a disappointing year but is not reflective of our Club or the players and staff.

When rating our on-field performance from a rating of 0 (extremely disappointed) to 10 (extremely satisfied) I can’t see many people going above the 1 watermark.

The true results of the survey will be manipulated. Back it in. They will already be locking in key words like improving, potential.....

I want my money back. ?

well done gents...you quickly answered to the wrong suggestion. I dont particularly blame Misson. I will be interested to see how his replacement fares but my question was asked in hope that some might realise that whilst Misson is the performance manage or whatever, it is the Football department as an overseer that takes the ultimate responsibility for the who and how they present themselves. Without doubt Misson would have had to present reports on players. So if he knew all was not well, then so would the FD. Our FD imho is without doubt the major cause and concern of this club

Too old, too slow, too timid, too expensive - just the type we would go for.

Would fit perfectly into our one-way unaccountable down skiing midfield.

Actually this raises an interesting point. The Cue We don't play with a Cue. Even though one might be handy , a cue is used in games that require an understanding of the nuances of a ball and its field of play. it's about position and temperament , about the next move. Its about touch and precision. About when to go hard, when to go soft. No my friends we don't use cues. We at the MFC use another implement. One that knows grass only too well. I present to you the mallet. We aren't skilled enough for cues !!

"Essendon is in a similar scenario to Hawthorn and Melbourne under the new trade conditions. All three clubs drafted two players in the first round in 2015, but the Hawks and Demons haven't used one since and neither has one this year. They can do as they wish with their first-round pick in the 2019 NAB AFL Trade Period, including offloading a future one, because they have used at least two in the preceding four-year period. However, like the Bombers, unless they trade in extra first-round selections this year or next, they will have to start using those picks in 2020 until they satisfy the four-year rolling requirement." https://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-11-02/trading-firstround-picks-afls-most-misunderstood-rule-explained

Been like that for years

Kinda reminds me of our goal kicking efforts this year

JHK is out of contact and might have his papers stamped, while I'd give him a chance that might just be the reality of it. Baker needed a week off, I also think Hore might get one when lever is right, first year guys find it hard to make it through a full year in the 1s, so nothing wrong with it if done right. There was an article on Dunkley this week so hoping to see him get a run.

The answer would be because he doesn't do it in the seniors - but then again we've named 2x Wagner so can't really run that argument

Just like his role model big Jimmy, Maxy's heart is too big for his own good and no good for mine. I just about had an aneurysm last week when I saw him limping off and going down the race, thinking he'd done another ACL. I agree with others who have said it would be utter stupidity to play Gawn this week. If he does play, you can bet his ankle will get stood on by every Carlton player on the ground. Why would we risk our most valuable asset in a meaningless game? Haven't we learnt the lessons of seasons and players gone by? I don't mind @DeeSpencer's suggestion in the other thread that we mess with Kruzer's head with respects to does he play on Gawn or Preuss, but if Gawn actually plays, Mission should have his contract terminated immediately.

Analysis of the week award right there.

If the rest of the season is about preparing for next year, this is a crazy decision. Baker has shown signs of being a very good long term player, and we are crying out for speed. Hard to believe either of the Wagners are a better solution to giving this kid another run. You can only shake your head.

Fitzroy had Murray, South had Skilton and Footscray had Whitten. The Bulldogs won a flag for Whitten in '54 but their team along with South, the Roys and our team at least had a great player who could mix it with the best. Flower would dominate in games where we got smashed by much superior opposition. And he did it consistently. The mark of a great player. But it is hard to replicate ... players are born with that never-say-die attitude and if they are highly skilled as well, you've got yourself a star. Fast forward to today and Gawn is our star along with Oliver if he can be freed up. I'd take Oliver out of the middle and played forward for the remainder of the season to free him up. Petracca into the middle and then see how they both go playing different roles. Let's face it, we've got nothing to lose and Oliver is not impacting games anyway. Brayshaw is another and he might shine more without Oliver by his side. Change things up I say. Rather than putting the cue in the rack we've got a great chance to start preparing our side (and game plan) for next season. And we can still win games in the process. Win/Win.