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Just watched "All of the Melbourne Goals" on the club's site. At least six goals were the direct result of Petracca's play. Three from direct passes to Hannan, TMac (on a good lead where he doubled back and led towards Tracca) and to Fritta. Three from indirect play through Fritta to Melksham, through Pickett to Fritta and through Brayshaw to Hannan Quick choice of best option and good delivery. Six possessions like that are worth more than a haul of crappy possessions. Let Tracca coach Clarrie on how to get to the right spots and pick the right option. If taught well, Clarrie could do the same standing on his head. He is that good also.

I think it was Gawn who once said something along the lines of if the supporters are hurting, the players are hurting ten times more. There are times I really struggle to believe that.

Only 31 years?? luxury...

I'm past frustrated Goody - I am depressed about our club Another game of more inside 50's - another game of losing - whatever you are teaching the players, clearly isn't working

Ox is a simpleton with his football analysis on the best of days but he's an emotionally invested supporter and hurts as much as any of us. He also talks us up when we're flying more than anyone, Lyon is a bit more grounded in his thoughts. Schwartz tries to invoke an emotional response by speaking from the heart as a real fan. Lyon speaks like a commentator with an obvious interest in the club. Ultimately they both have the same destination, they just take different roads to get there. Both are correct in this case.

Have been treated with contempt by this club for years. The continual torment has left me with nothing but a misguided sense of loyalty that ends with paying my membership but not bothering to watch games. The handful of semi-successful seasons over the last 50 years are scant reward for decades of support.

It absolutely can hurt. May has flat hands, he's not a great mark, he is an elite defender at using his body to get position and spoiling. He's also a very good - not great - field kick with penetration. He can find the ball and link up. He's starting to get the balance right between coming up and sitting back and having the ball come to him. In a zoning defence cohesion and experience matter. Tommy has started to turn the corner with his marking and his movement over the last two weeks. At least some of our players were looking for him across half forward today. Why unsettle that and move him back where we've got years of evidence that his field kicking will give up goals and some signs in 2016-2017 down back and since up forward that his movement will see him struggle to turn and chase opponents. Elite tank, clean sets of hands, good shot for goal, turns like the queen mary. He is a CHF these days. Oscar - no. Unless he's suddenly found a whole lot of fitness to move at CHB the man is a witches hat who trails opponents over and over and provides little in rebound or at ground level. Unless we want to take Lever out and move Smith and May up the ground we can't get slower and safer just to be different. Smith is spoiling and using the ball to the same level Oscar did and he has a heap of upside, we've had years of Oscar without improvement. Unless his body was completely broken last year and he's now a whole new athlete with a whole new mental composition - faster, meaner, more aggressive - there's no reason to go back to him.

What a disappointing and pathetic post.

I think you don't have to separate the two. The classic 'playing for the jumper' means you give it everything on game day, sure, but I think it also speaks to how you spend the rest of your time. Do you study footage of your opponent? Do you work hard on your fitness? Do you work on your skills and craft as a footballer? And I don't mean go through the motions of training, but really, genuinely work (and put in the extra work) into those things. That is where we're failing at the moment. That's why our skills haven't improved. And that's why this question of 'bleeding for the jumper' can come up despite it not being just about effort on game day. Are these blokes just professional athletes, or are they footballers who want to win?

After the high of 2018, last season is the most disappointing I can remember followed by 1994. Jeez we were exciting that year, do yourself a favour and get your hands on a copy of ‘Demon Attack’ if you haven’t seen it or need a reminder. I wrote this season off after round 1, our poor performances still irritate me but the whole season is ‘meh’ for mine.

MFC have managed to destroy my love of football, but its my kids I feel sorry for the most. No Joy whatsoever ever

I have been banging on about our poor disposal skill for years and to be honest was surprised we made a Prelim in 18.I didn't see it coming and we got there with chaos footy and a hard competitive edge. That is not the game now. Sides have us worked out ala the Cats last week. We have been beaten the last two weeks by sides who played well below their best, but they know they will get the ball from us in addition to what they get themselves and it will be enough to kick a winning score. We targeted the contested beast in recruiting and ignored the quick skillful player and in today's game style it is what is killing us. The stats show we get the ball quite well and are also the best in the AFL at giving it away. Viney turned it over nearly every one of his 18 possessions yesterday and it was probably the worst disposal game I think I have ever seen. That from a guy who works so hard to compete and get the ball. He is the perfect example of a hard nut without AFL level disposal skill. We gift other sides goals like no other. That is why we lose. Fix our disposal and we are ok. That probably means trying other players on our list who may not be ready, or recruiting them over the next year or two. Last, the Coach insists on a quick turnover game and with poor skill and a small forward line that can't be done and needs to change.

Can’t argue with any of that myself. Will Goodwin change anything or will the side just continue to play at high speed, badly. Goodwin will be gone if he keeps the same systems going. He has had more than enough warnings that it isn’t working

So we have Jackson, Weideman and Brown waiting in the wings... and we want to swing May forward instead? No thanks. The three mentioned above deserve a crack first before we even look at moving May forward. With some consistent games under his belt he is really beginning to show his worth to the side, and we want to change that up? It doesn't make sense to me. I'd leave the back six as it is. They're doing a pretty good job right now. As others have said above, it's our forward mix and how we deliver the ball in there that's the issue. I'd be looking at trying a few things in that regard first before shifting anyone out of defence.

I know many here have many more years on me, but in my 33 years following this football club I have finally realised something - I don’t enjoy watching us play. Watching the dees is associated with negative emotions every time. I don’t look forward to it and normally once it’s starts I can’t wait for it to finish. I expect us to lose every week. I couldn’t help but feel like that even in 2018. Why do I even watch? I don’t know. I think it’s time for me to care less about footy and become a fair weather fan. Wake me up if we ever play finals again.

Hot take: Brisbane don't really play like Clarkson's best teams did at all. They play like Daniher teams. Fagan was a great Melbourne find who then went out with the bath water when Daniher reached the end. How did Brisbane end up with Fagan - they first had the AFL give them David Noble, the best administrator in the game. We chased after Roos, sure a good idea, but surely better is to get someone like Noble who will be there for the long haul. Roos says he'll appoint a senior footy administrator knowing it's importance. Then he and the club decide Mahoney is up to it - based on what? Neil Balme - failed Melbourne coach, successful administrator at 3 other clubs. Brett Ratten, wow what a great job he did with our mids for a season before Carlton snapped him up, why didn't we store that information away and get him back at any time since? Sean Wellman developed our backline under Bailey. Ran back to Essendon then left footy. Peter Jackson - a great hire. Yet there never seemed to be a long term commitment to him and a plan to have him stay or at least develop or pick his successor. Pert, I still feel unwell about. Some of that's waffling, but the point is we don't seem to ever have any continuity. New board comes in, new CEO, new people in the footy department. Plenty of first time coaches do a great job - it's really hard to get experienced guys back in for another go in their prime. I've got no issue if we think the best man for the job is a first timer. I'm sick of the club being a first timer. There's just no institutional knowledge in the place.

How lovely it was to come on to the site after a pretty deflating loss, and find this thread. Lovely in the fact that there is no anger, just acceptance of the inevitable of the cycle of this club. I cannot be bothered to dissect individual players, critique Goodwin and the FD, or even analyse the game plan. It genuinely genuinely genuinely feels like we've gone back 8 years. Not that anyone knows me, or care really, but I'm opting out of the rest of the season, and the reason I am expressing this, is that I dare say I will not be the only one. Are we at our lowest ebb? Probably not, but jeez, as a country member who has only a few links to the Melbourne City itself... I seriously need to ask myself why would I choose to continue to fund an entity that gives very very little joy.

It's a HUN article, so I'll dot point the main parts: Says the Dees are irrelevant, as per the headline. We need a 'harder edge' - used Luke Beveridge's comments where he said things weren't good enough in a press conference, and they have responded, as the Bont did against GWS. Who will stand up and do that for us? Says not enough players 'play for the jumper' That some players only came for the coin - they should want to come to Melbourne, and uses Jake Lever as an example of this (as in he came out and said he wanted to be part of something special). Says heads will roll, especially at board level, if this keeps up. Then adds the pressure should well and truly be on the club at all levels. It's not too dissimilar to what Lyon and others have spoken about today, but it's still pretty relevant to how we're tracking right at this minute.

I coached/watched my eldest boy and his mates play yesterday Old Dee, nothing better than seeing players play the game they love with mates. Boys had a good win, which makes it better although I sat down with a red to watch us v Richmond when I went home. I love watching my youngest play because I have no coaching duties just a father watching his son play I hurt watching our Dees, but I'm over getting frustrated and letting it ruin my weekend or mood. I have my 2 sons footy on Sundays and Ammos started back on the weekend so I have that over a few frothies with good mates every Saturday and the 2 boys on Sunday. Life is good just not the Dees currently

That's the big if though AF, we show flashes of really good footy with quick ball movement but it's just not sustainable over 4 quarters. You can't play that manic pace and not turn the ball over Players need to learn to control the tempo we can't go bull at a gate with every clearance, and we certainly need a tall target for quick entries from clearances and the right crumbers when it hits the deck. Tmac up the ground and Weid close to home has to happen. Not just for getting games into Weid but to enable list management decisions I wouldn't tinker to much with the backline, maybe Omac for Smith. Bennell needs to be looked at for his creativity. Thank god junior footy is back, to give me something to put a smile on my face

What is most depressing is the club decision making that saw us burn top draft pick to secure Langdon; Tomlinson; Lever and May. It smack of over estimating where we were at after 2018. Whilst that ride was great it came off the back of a mediocre year and cards severely fell our way.The ruthless dissection of our club by West Coast should have showed we were a long way off. If the club had taken a longer term view we could have targeted young talent and continued to build. Instead we have placed all our chips on B and C grade talent and have gone bust. We now see ourselves with a compromised list. There are two many big heads at Melbourne who got ahead of themselves after one reasonable year. Those who recruited some of the recent duds (don’t even mention Kolodjashnij) need to be held to account. It is just so depressing and Goodwin exemplifies it by refusing to change or realistically ackowledge where we are at. He is either completely clueless or deliberately misleads by stating hard work will fix this it won’t. There are now massive structural issues with this list. Continually saying they are working incredibly hard is a mockery this is an expected so why mention it. Our kicking is terrible so why do we recruit guys who can’t kick. Unreal. In his presser he state we turn the ball over. Hello that was obvious yet we recruit two guys who can’t kick. He says he can’t fault the endeavour of the players yet Langdon is laughing at half time without a care in the world. Watch Brayshaw at break he doesn’t even listen to the coach. He speak platitudes everyone is clueless about how Bennell and Wied are not in this team but try to understand why impossible. Some guys are assured of games he need to identify the protected species and drop them. Oliver’s kick and handballs yesterday were deplorable he should be shown the door to the seconds and others until they learn it unacceptable. If it causes losses so be it at least it send a message. There need to be a circuit breaker we just roll up and do the same thing every week and then get the same crap back as to why it occur. He said our forwards are getting better. Sorry but this is unadulterated BS they are demonstrably worse. He says they havent played much together. Last time I looked MacDonald has been putting out the same crap out for years. He then mention Brown as a saviour. My god an Essendon reject to build around sure he would get a game at Brisbane. He says we haven’t had any continuity why not. Every team is impacted by COVID it just another excuse. The supporter group are being treated as mugs. There are no short term fixes for where we are at. It break your heart to know we have on traded our first round draft pick for next year so even finishing last will not come with a reward. Melbourne says it values are trust; respect, unity and excellence. It says it aim is to play finals every year and win a premiership by 2023. If Melbourne want trust and respect it need to acknowledge it strategic aim are unachievable. Goodwin should see out the year but should be shown the door. There need to be a commitment to surround our core group of elite talent with other elite talent via the draft. A commitment that we would only trade out a top draft pick if we got super star in return al la Lachie Neal or Patrick Dangerfield. The Board should sign off that no top draft pick would ever be traded off for B graders so the current Lever; May; Tomlinson and Langdon debacle never happen again. Unless there is genuine change like that where stuffed and doomed to listen to the perennial drivel trotted out in the weekly presser. Thinking need to be long term strategic not week to week where working hard and it will turn around it won’t.

I had a good chuckle at a comment on MFC's Instagram post yesterday: "You've legitimately diminished my quality of life for 31 years. I hope you know that." Summed it up perfectly!

So you missed Tomlinson going forward for the second half yesterday? Fritsch coming up the ground. Vanders going wing/on ball and Oliver forward. Goodwin makes a couple of moves in most games that we are struggling in, but he's got limited options given how many guys just play one position.

Good kicking to advantage is a function of both the kicker and receiver. If the kicker can't kick reliably well to advantage, that's bad enough. If the receivers can't, or won't, run to receive to advantage, then that's worse. When both kicker and receiver don't play the game as they should, then you get the dees. Jesse knew how to receive but we couldn't deliver. No wonder he got frustrated and wanted to leave. Same with Jack Watts. How often was he stranded on a lead. Too often for the good of our team. They were two natural forwards who knew where to run to receive and could convert but they were ignored and we lost the opportunity to score and have success. The writing has been on the wall for years - how many times can we have many more forwards entries and still be outscored and lose? And nothing changes. The time to fix it is NOW. If its too expensive to replace Goodwon, then get better assistants who can help. But just do something. Resurrecting kanga might be a good starting point.

Garry and Tim did a bit of an analysis on the club this morning. Please listen to the link below everything they have said pretty much sums it up and are spot on. Garry did hit the nail on the head when he said that Melbourne supporters aren't frustrated, but more so just gutted now. Reading some of the comments on here, I get that same general feeling also. https://www.sen.com.au/news/2020/07/05/melbourne-supporters-gutted-by-teams-inability-to-kick-lyon/

If this is a repeat of an old thread then feel free to merge. After pondering Kingy and Derm's post game comments, one interesting thing lept out, that being, we have heavily infested in two key defenders (May and Lever) who, while both being superb back-men, don't offer a solution to our biggest problem that being translating all of our forward fifty entries to goals. To win games you have to kick goals, it's as simple as that. Fritsch and Hannan offer something, Hunt bobs up every now an again, Kossi looks dangerous but isnt quite there yet, TMAC as well all know has been well off his best for a while. in short we don't have a weapon in our foward line. we don't have someone who we expect to kick four goals a game and be a real target going inside 50. It is indicative that we haven't posted a score above 55 this season and were horrible on the scoring front last season. this begs the question, with no real fire power waiting in the wings (brown and weid aren't going to resolve the issue imo), can we swing may forward and then use either of the macdonald brothers in the backline. let's remind ourselves, Steven May kicked 40 goals in 8 games in his year 12 APS season for Melbourne Grammar (average of 5 goals a game). he was drafted as a forward to gold coast, but was quickly transformed into a key defender at the request of some random gold coast coach. he's shown himself to be very damaging in the forward i think there's real potential for May to go forward, not only to offer a real target up forward but actually take a contested mark or two and slot a few goals. i think the solution has been under our nose the whole time but goody is too scared to possibly change anything and just coast along instead. but i hear you all say, surely if we move May back then we will only leak goals instead but this is where i think keeping o'mac is really going to benefit the club. The first 6 or so rounds of 2018 when Lever had just come in to the team, O'mac shut down hawkins in round 1, he shut down Hipwood in round 2, he nullified ben brown in round 3, he didnt have a great game against hawthorn but he kept riewoldt out of it in round 5, he kept daniher goaless in round 6, he kept patty mccartin to 2 points in round 7 (which was the same round that lever got injured) and while he was alright for the rest of the season he was never as dominant for the rest of the season. now i know a lot of you have issues with o'mac and i'd agree that he's had some shockers over the journey but he has shown that he can nullify some of the best forwards in the game so i don't see why he can't do it again. In short, try May up forward and replace him with O'mac in the backline (drop joel smith to open up a spot) and see if that might provide a solution to our scoring woes. after all, if you want to be inventive, this is the season to trial things. Thoughts?

Sadly extremely accurate. We are a horrid kicking team, so why are two of our best kicks/decision makers in Jetta and Bennell not playing? Ridiculous. Still find it hard to listen to Lyon though and him continually trying to cut off Watson was so annoying.

Garry is spot on and is talking on behalf of most supporters i reckon. I have had a gutful of this clubs ability to disappoint. Last year i thought it was worrying but was prepared to say injuries and one of those years.. how silly was i. 2018 was as close as qwe will get to success.. at least for teh next 5-10 years because unbelivebaly we need to turn our list over again. we need to recruit some skill. Langdon now in hindsight is a bust, he simply cant kick, is a shocking handball. Great runner, but whats teh point of that.. Tomlinson has not one great asset. In fact yesterday he was horrible.. Im a Hunt fan but he was timid yesterday (which he isnt at all) and he cant kick. I am Jack Vineys biggest fan, i love his competitive b=nature, but facts are he cant kick. Oliver is a jet, but is putting players in difficult spots with his gung ho handball approach and i noticed yesterday is often behind his opponent, to me thats complacency. Angus can kick but he has no care on his disposal.. never looks like he knows where its going. James Harmes is a good kick of teh footy, but what is his role in teh side at the moment? Tom Mc has regressed, Salem has Regressed, Hibbo has regressed (although thought he was great yesterday) Smith is not a natural footballer.. so why would you have him in the backline.. put him forward and tell him to go for teh ball.. Lever is a bust like no other recent trade.. horrible. Melksham is a selfish jerk who is getting away with murder at the moment. Goodwin says they wanta small fwd line.. well he has mental midgets playing up there so he has achieved that. I could go ona nd on.. but im at tipping point in terms of frustratuion. How can Goodwin sit there every week now for a seasona nd a half saying our "connection" going fwd is no good and not fix it. Dont recruit guys that cant kick for starters. The season is a write off. I would now get games into Swallow and Jordan and Bennell.. something ahs to change. Also how can 6 coaches sit in teh box yesterday and not change a dame thing at half time.. Out of their depth and completely devoid of plans.. Like all of us, i will front up next week and hope things b=are better, but we sat through some awful times recently, but at least then our excuse was that we had about 2 good players and a shocking list.. we have some reak quality players and they are being wasted and it kills me.

I think most of the media didn't want to go too hard last year in case the injuries and interrupted preseason turned out to be the real issue. Now that we are continuing to show that is not the case, it will and should be open slather.

Thanks for posting. Derm has lit the fire as well with a brutal but honest assessment late last night. I cannot fault any of the criticism. I hope this week the media finally puts the heat on MFC because so far we have got off lightly. However the team are in Sydney and distant from the white noise and no-one cares as we become more irrelevant. Same old same old

In addition to this - if the players don't possess the skills to execute your gameplan, then you need to alter the gameplan to give the players at your disposal the best chance of success.

What disappoints me the most about you, and others like you, is your genuine enjoyment at being "proven right". The easier option is to be negative. 17/18 clubs fail to win the flag each year so the odds are in your favour. Last year in particular, a number of us tried to keep our hopes up. I maintain that being optimistic is much harder to do. So it's always deflating when there are people like you who label the optimists "pollyannas" just for having that hope. Now here we are, in a thread where everyone is admitting they're losing hope. I am too. As every week goes by that we make the same mistakes and exhibit little to no improvement, I question whether and when it will turn, and whether we'll be able to make something of a list which should be playing better football than it is currently. I'm rapidly losing faith in Goodwin, I'm rapidly losing faith in Mahoney, in a number of players who should be "core". It sucks. But I wish people wouldn't gloat about it when things go poorly.

Yeah look i am ready to pack it i to be honest. Not just the Dee's, but AFL in general. I got howled down on here back in March by the likes drysdale demon for refusing to buy a membership due to financial strain, and my brother battling cancer. We've had to do so many round trips each week to Melbourne from Albury just to see him. Now we are barred from seeing him unfortunately. This is on top of my Mrs losing her job over covid and trying to support a young 7 month old as well. I eventually bought a membership just to at least have some form of hope but also give back to the club during the difficult time. A part of me wishes I didn't buy a membership now... I'm beginning to lose interest in the game itself. I have other new hobbies that I'd like to invest more time and money into just to keep me sane. Bit sad to read all the comments to be honest. I only post on here because we are like one big family. We argue, we laugh, and we all love this club. But it's getting to the point where you do ask we'll we ever see success. I've always been someone to at least have some hope, but even now it's just slowly fading away. I personally also think footy will never be the same again.. the world itself will not be the same also. It scares me to think where will be in 5 years time.

I don't want to drop TMac until we've seen how he goes with proper support. At least one of Melksham, vandenBerg and Hunt has to go, preferably two. At least one of Weideman and Brown has to come in. Bennell, Jones and ANB could also get a gig. I think one of Rivers and Lockhart has to go as well, I don't think we can carry both. Maybe opens a spot up for Jetta to return. But even with these key changes, we won't improve until our midfield improves its kicking and decision-making and our forwards lead into space, hold marks, create opportunities, and work better together.

The positive (note the singular): A big shout out to Michael Hibberd. The guy is under way more duress than any other player in the team and still managed to shine.

Look at this... Viney with the ball kicking inside 50. Left to right he has Hunt running to space, McDonald on his own with no one near him and Langdon on his own with no one near him. Where does it go? Long bomb to Fritsch in a 1v3 That not a problem with the forward structure. It's just taking the wrong option when going inside 50. Much as I like Viney, he is one of the worst offenders.