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I find the fact we have to travel from Perth to another away game, with only an 83 day break disgusting.

I 100% agree with you @58er. Nothing is given only earned. In order to earn a premiership, a club must properly prepare itself by providing all employees with the proper facilities (for which we have severely lacked for decades). If land near the G cannot provide for this, then it would be foolish to insufficiently cram it all in. Do it once. Do it right.

Go get some fresh air Saty. There’s only one person on here who is bringing the forum down with their constant whinging and whining.

1964 was a long, long time ago for our last premiership flag. Why is it so?

It is impossible to know what is happening on the ground, when watching it only on television. However, our observations are consistent about what happened in the WCE game. Barass/ Hurn/ McGovern are able to play off their man because we are playing our "loose" man up the field, and around the ball i.e they are playing a form of the old 1 man extra in defence. And like all teams they play a zone defence, but very, very well. The closest defender comes off their man after the ball has been kicked to intercept. Trouble is on TV all you see is one of these 3 marking the ball seemingly all on their own. We didn't go into the match with 3 talls up forward, but they had 3 tall defenders, who have perfected the zone defence perfectly. Then to make it even worse Tom Mc gets taken into the ruck for the 5 or 10 minutes each quarter to give Max a break, and our tall forward consisted of ..Brown! ( who couldn't catch anything that day, despite the ball being given to him on plenty of occasions) . With only him to worry about, that left WCE's 2 other tall defenders on ...Fritsch or Melksham... Richmond play Lynch and Reiwoldt but they also use Soldo and Nankervis in the ruck. No robbing Peter to pay Paul. WCE in this game had Darling and Kennedy, but had Natanui and Hickey in the ruck. Same deal. The trade off the coaching staff are making is about getting more possession around the ball. But at the moment, the downside is while the ball goes inside the forward 50 more often, because of those possessions, we haven't got the right sized people to kick it to, or even to bring it to ground.

I'v actually got a lot of time for the guy Ding. Governments of both the liberal and conservative persuasion (even though the latter call themselves the former over here) have been sucking at the teat of China for a long time and it has been a major factor in our uninterrupted (until now) run of continual economic growth. The key is to find a balance that benefits us without selling our economic soul. Our moral soul in relation to China died a long time ago unfortunately.

I'll take the defence of '94, the forward line of 2000, and the midfield of 2018. Yes, that means two David Neitzes. But does anyone see that as a flaw?

To be honest, we had our chances in the first 11 minutes and probably dominated play. We allowed them 5 goals in 4.5 minutes. I’ve rewatched the rd 1 game and while I concede we made some errors, wasting our scoring opportunities was what hurt the most. The game was fairly even in general play

i'm still in the 'a lot can change in two weeks!' mindset it's a weird thing, that's fer sure be interesting to hear about who trains the house down in the next fortnight...which of course no one other than the coaches and direct admin staff will see, out in casey on their official list, they have: Eddie Betts Calf Charlie Curnow Knee Brodie Kemp Knee Harry McKay Groin Caleb Marchbank Knee Zac Fisher Ankle Matthew Kreuzer Foot Nic Newman Elbow as of a week or so ago, the scum was saying: Matthew Kreuzer (foot) is on track for a late season return and Charlie Curnow (knee) is done for the season but the Blues are confident Eddie Betts (hamstring), Zac Fisher (low-level syndesmosis) and Nic Newman (elbow) will all be ready by the week of June 11. i expect the latter three will all be good to go

I want to be excited, but I'm a little bit meh.

Carlton at our fortress. Challenge accepted.

Likely Round 2 fixture Collingwood vs Richmond, MCG Geelong vs Hawthorn Brisbane vs Fremantle, Gabba Carlton vs Melbourne, Marvel Stadium Port Adelaide vs Adelaide, Adelaide Oval Gold Coast vs West Coast, Metricon Sydney vs Essendon, SCG GWS vs North Melbourne, Giants Stadium St Kilda vs Western Bulldogs, Marvel Stadium

We’ve got Carlton it appears. Saturday twilight.

I guess I'm one of the non believers...I think it will be a miracle if we get 17 rounds of footy let alone any crowds. I'm more than happy to be proven wrong. ...but at the moment I think we may be in a fools paradise.

For a number of seasons, the rationale behind the AFL’s draw has been that the more lowly teams should have the benefit of an easier draw. This was reflected in the number of highly placed teams you played from the year before that you played twice but that’s not a consideration when you only play each team once. It stands to reason therefore that this year the lower placed sides should get 9 home games rather than 8. However, “reason” rarely applies to AFL fixturing even when the size of crowds don’t matter.

6 races down at Sha Tin and Purton & Moreira share the spoils ... 3 winners each! 122 winners each for the season. Zac reckons 145 will get it done. Maybe.

In all my years of following the Dees we have always been undersized compared to the top teams except for when we had the Big Red Engine and Jimmy working in tandem. gee it gave a lift to their teamates and the fans.

[censored] west coast love to whinge dont they. any game we play in qld is an away game cant we have more than 25 staff like everyone else VFL bias you dont hear this from any other club

Teams that don't have a will to win?

Clint's father John was given life membership of the club in 2018 in recognition of his services as Head Trainer: https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/267958/agm-head-trainer-receives-honour

Seems a pretty dumb plan to try and keep it in the forward line when the kicks going in favour the opposition getting the ball or clearing it quickly out of there.

So what you're saying is you derailed a discussion. That's not like you.

looking forward to Kent playing the best game of his career and tearing us up.

Geelong led West Coast by 3 goals at 3 qtr time in the final round of 1990, but couldn’t hold on. Had Geelong won, we would’ve finished third and played second place Collingwood at Waverley in week 1 finals 1990. Bit of a sliding doors moment.

We could light it up at night time in the colours of the CCP and raise their flag over it during the day.

Not your finest work D.

1994 easily, IF Jakovich had played the full year. he was that good

Sell our pokie venues

That is a bit simplistic. This is how I see it. When you play a WCE, who are probably the masters at intercept footy, you don't kick the ball high to two Eagles on one Demon, which we did continuously. How often did we kick it to Fritsch, who had McGovern and Barrass/Hurn on him? That is just lazy and stupid footy. For a start we have a loose man in that situation and we ignored him. We also had some pace down there in Kossie and Bedford and you a least give them the chance to get it, by either finding them with a kick, or by kicking it wide of McGovern and his mate, which would see the ball on the ground, giving us a chance to get it and score. I am astounded at how dumb some footballers are to keep doing what is clearly not working, over and over again. I don't know what the Coaches are doing or teaching them, but if it was me Coaching, I would tell them that the next bloke who kicks to 2 on one as above, is going for a run after the game. Get the message across to them. The other problem we have is a general lack of skill with the ball, which sees us miss passes and handballs. That is a killer in today's game. Having 2 big blokes down forward is not the panacea to our problems.

I remember we would grandly announce a five year plan every three years.

We did not reach it

Me too. Was a very disappointing game to watch.

Petty may yet be the one. He is a good reader of the play, a good footballer and a competitor. As the mobile tall third, he could be the surprise.

when things are glum, there's worse to come!

If ever a poster resembled his avatar ... cheer up Andrew!! ☺️

My money is on us playing St Kilda at Marvel on the Sunday in our first game back.

Believe it when I see it.

It will be interesting. I see geelong want to play there games down at there ground because crowds won't be an issue. I hope the AFL send collingwood and essendon down there. Give them a go at that ground.

Such a shame. Has been a great asset to the club. Best of luck Crossy and thanks for your service. I hope you find your feet and perhaps get back to the club once this is all over.

the Crows should be favourite for the spoon imo. they've got no big bodied mids left after letting both Greenwood and Ellis-Yolmen go, which means teams will target their small ball winners like Sloane and the Crouch bros and absolutely smash them. well that would be my plan anyway! plus they've also got a new coach implementing a new game plan and they'll probably be playing more than a few untried kids in an attempt to sort out where the list is at. I think those things together will see them lose a lot of games.

Didn’t bother Meth Coke. They just got on with it and did their job

Sounds like a Rodney Dangerfield line, Biff. "I drink too much. Last night time I gave a urine sample it had an olive on it!" "When I was a kid my folks moved a lot, but I always found them..."

In other words zero interchanges for the team over the full four quarters. Granted that the pace of the game is different these days but I reckon our blokes these days are pampered.

More importantly, do I get a new fridge magnet?

I remember a game at Arden Street ( but not the year ) where due to injuries Barassi was forced to play as ruckman in the last quarter . In a thriller he took running leaps at his opponents at throw-ins or just bustled negatively . We won by a whisker and the great man was so stuffed he had to be assisted off the ground '

I was on the hf line on the Punt Rd side of the ground and had a direct side on look at the incident. Barassi and Dean both had a piece of the ball, Dean was on his knees and RDB was standing up trying his hardest to knock the ball out of Dean's hand with a downward motion of his fist. He did not touch the Dean's face and it was a a complete fake. The whole incident was in the open and there were no other players around. Who in their right mind would believe that RDB would deliberately strike an opponent in such a setting. The umpire and the tribunal were demented. Four weeks for this possibly costs us a flag. No wonder we dislike the umps, tribunal and all officialdom.

Great year 1964. The closing match at the mud heap (Glenferrie Oval) probably was the first time I heard a crowd chanting Melbourne Melbourne etc. Exciting win. MCC were great in letting us in early to put banners up and we made the old girl "Greysmith Stand" look good. After making the Granny we were at the Prelim and at three quarter time we went and queued up outside "T-Section" and stayed there all week to get the seats behind the goal. Parents kept coming in with food etc and snuck home during the day for showers. Black & white filth were more than us and we got pushed to the side but still a formidable support for the Dees. The rest was history and after the match, having been there all week, wasn't sure what to do but the Club turned on food and drink outside the change rooms and never got home until Sunday. Sure we were young then and not quite sure how I would handle a flag these days. I'd give it bash though. I have, like most, been really patient waiting for the next.

Greg Parke was so obscure in the late 60s/early 70s that they couldn't even spell his name correctly on the bubblegum card. (Was not really obscure at all. Wonderful contested mark. Less said about the kicking, the better).

Yeah well Lethal.... I guess you reach a point in your observations where.....I suppose you finally arrive at a useby date when your judgement becomes somewhat impaired or suburban in its outlook....thus rendering oneself useless or unable to correctly visualize any given situation in todays modern football......