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I have been following MFC since the early 1960s and have been a long-time paid up Member (in high tier of the membership commitment). I live in NSW but up until this year I have attended 16 games a year in Melbourne (as per home-and-away Membership). I don't think I will renew my membership again this time around. Why? 1. I did not withdraw my membership this year even though I knew there would be no possibility of attending games. I did write to the MFC asking them to reciprocate by negotiating cheap Kayo subscriptions for members, particularly those in NSW, who rarely are able to even watch the games on TV (7 Mate only carries a few games up here). MFC declined that suggestion. So I concluded the loyalty in these difficult times was one-way - me to them. 2. Irrespective of the fact they mistakenly renewed the senior coaches contract for some years it is clear he is consistently out coached by smarter operators. He needs to be replaced. He appears inflexible and is often outwitted by other strategies (the Footscray game was a classic example of that). 3. His game plan, inasmuch as there is one, relies on skill levels that our players do not seem to have. I cannot tell whether that is a basic talent issue (player problem) or a lack of player development issue (coaching problem). 4. They consistently select players that are incapable of the standard. Hiding Oscar in the forward line yesterday was embarrassing. 5. I did manage to see a game in Sydney this year. Melksham was playing poorly and at one stage he came off the field to the interchange and a supporter (there weren't many) shouted something about getting a move on (nothing offensive) and Melksham replied something like "come down here you [censored]" (threatening the spectator) which summarised his disdain for those who support the club through thick and thin. He rarely sets the world on fire with his play, often doesn't contest and is clearly a product of poor decision-making from the coach via his Essendon connection. 6. The fact they select players who cannot compete with the better teams and/or (most importantly) lesser teams that display more earnest indicates a recruitment problem. Despite all the fanfare about Lever, for example, the rate of return to the club from his contract is very low, and I am not including his injury period (which was not his fault) in that assessment. He talks a lot about leadership but is not worth the fee. Steven May is clearly playing well and apart from his initial misadventure (overweight/undertrained etc) has contributed strongly to the club. But he is also expensive. That outlay might have been justified if we were that close to contesting the GF. But we are light-years from that now and we should have used that cash to develop some younger talents. Some of the other recruitment decisions and trading away draft picks are mind-boggling. 7. I can cope the team losing - we have been loyal for decades with that the norm - but when I saw players not even running last night as Sydney players broke tackles with ease - then one has to question why I pay several hundred dollars a year to fund that sort of player commitment. There is a disconnect somewhere and it doesn't seem to be getting any better. The post-match analysis from the journalists often highlight the lack of two-way run from many of our players, who often seem to be coasting. I have seen that a lot. These are reasons among others why I find it difficult to continue. I thought things were on the improve with Jackson/Roos. But whatever development work they put in seems to have been squandered by a series of poor followup decisions, including the senior coach appointment. It is very hard psychologically to remain anything other than detached from what is going on with the MFC. And, footy after all is just a game that we seek a bit of fun away from our other, more serious endeavours in life. Two things the club should do to change this: 1. Get an established senior coach who has demonstrated their skills. If the club asked me to put in an extra hundred bucks or something to help them pay out existing contracts I would do that in a flash. 2. Stop talking about brands and all that hype and admit that the team is nowhere near being a successful finals club with its current list and use that cultural shift to renew the list. St Kilda and Carlton are now ahead of us in prospect and Sydney and Fremantle will next overtake us.

Thanks for the kind words all ? I don’t take the jokes as anything but making fun of the ridiculous world we’re currently living in (some of them were hilarious). Im just super annoyed that both the Queensland government and the AFL will excuse this all away - while paying lip service to the community. They should both fine Richmond $500k and donate the money to pay nursing staff in Victoria for the hell they’ve had to endure these last few months. As for my brother, he’s a Melbourne supporter, so he’s always joking that he already knows about pain and suffering ??‍♂️?

Sorry to hear that mate, that’s terrible and heartbreaking please don’t mistake us joking over those two muppets making arses of themselves as being flippant around the wider issue here impacting many families , you’re spot on the hypocrisy here is astounding , you have every right to be filthy that sportsmen are being offered such privilege which in the scheme of things ought not to be considered priority over saying goodbye to loved ones

Anyone remember what Port we’re doing earlier this year? 4 am flights fly in fly out ring a bell? Stop making excuses for this mob. They are mentally fragile. A team that truly wants to win would have found a way. How many sitters did we miss? Despite being 5 goals down we had every opportunity to win the game in the last Q. [censored] weak. I’m not a Goodwin fan but this performance was utterly disgraceful by the players.

Like many of you I was going to give it 24 hours before going into a bit of a debrief. All I could conjure up was the most loony nut-job contributions. Usually this simmers down after a good night's sleep and a new day. Except now, I don't feel any different at all and am still totally lost for words. I can't even comment on what is right and wrong behaviour right now. If you want to be negative, be negative. Positive, be positive. Stick with your membership? Sure. Fry it to smithereens? Go for it. I honestly don't have anything to say about it. As for the game itself, well the ball was bounced, that's a good start. The half a second before Trac got the free kick seemed good, and the grass did a good job being run on before Salem was pinged for holding the ball. And then that was it. Now to get to the bigger picture, this is nothing we haven't seen before. If this could be the aim of playing the game I'd be so happy, if I can just find a way to really enjoy building up to a position where we start favourites and then falter terribly then there will be no problem. Honestly I think this is the only way forward rather than focusing on when to win a premiership and all the excruciating things that come along the way. Let's just focus on being flat track bullies and making extreme heavy weather of anything that might be remotely possible and when the pressure is on just make sure we know how to put that white flag up as quickly as possible. I am getting sick of saying how stupid we are when playing in swirling wind conditions. Why on earth aren't we smarter about this? 45 metres out 45 degree angle, wind swirling everywhere. This is a LOW percentage shot, I don't care if you're Bayley Fritsch or Jack Gunston. We need to be focusing on ways to get better looks at goal. Most of Sydney's goals in the first quarter and a half were from inside 30 with opportunistic crumbing and snaps. Gus kicked his in the first like this. That was where the action was, not out on the fricken flanks. Run. This word is great! It's a really cool word especially in modern sports. You see the action of running means to move quite fast and put 90+ % effort in. You need to do it more! Both ways. They had their 5 day break and 5 hour travel yes yes yes blah blah of course but this team has done this on occasions without these factors. Running is hard but you need to run, no one is perfect but if you can't run for more than 80% of the game then just bugger off back to the ammos or something. It sounds harsh I know but this is yet another 5 unanswered goal stretch. I'd go as far as saying there is a finite number of these stretches left in Goodwins quota. Maybe about 10 left. Fumbling. This team finds new, exciting and creative ways to fumble the football. Gus had the ball in the middle with no-one on him and the moment our hearts felt there was a possible move forward the ball just miraculously slipped out of his hands like some poltergeist. Then there's the decision making, I'll rue this term for a long time. These twerps who think it's a good idea to back themselves when an option isn't on, seriously. What in god's name was Melksham thinking late in the 3rd when there was space in the 50 and he motioned to the middle then faked only to kick it short and wide to a contest in the pocket, and Jones who marked and could have kicked one his many team lifter goals plays on into the mark. People seem done. I don't blame them. From the outside we'd probably get that fickle tag that we know all too well, in isolation maybe these days do happen and maybe the coach does have an excusable shocker but this club and it's fans have been at boiling point for a long long time and no-one understands this better than us. I'm tired, need a coffee.

We need 22 players with the commitment of Langdon. Yes he made some blues at the end but he tries his guts out We have some serious downhill skiers.

We missed Pickett...needed his point of difference, forward pressure & work rate.

Perhaps the fine should be taken out of the Total Player Payments and not the livelihood of a staffer/coach.

The dees aint no ferrari The dees are one of the 1970s Mazda cars with a rotary engine, perhaps the 1972 RX-3. Great fun to drive, fast and great speed to weight ratio. Can perform remarkably well. When on are super exciting. But break down way too often, are temperamental and unpredictable and parts are all but impossible to find. As are mechanics who know their way around a rotary engine.

Righto boys, pipe it down. There's a time and place for it and this thread is not the place. We all know he's officially finished now. No need for this kind of negative trot. Unfortunately we'll see Jones call time on what has been a fantastic career. Thank for the blood sweat and tears Jonesy. Forever salute you as a Melbourne great.

Ben did a great job asking the questions. Max on the other hands response was pathetic.

My 70 year old mother had to get a special letter of exemption from the Queensland department of Health (which took her months) just to be able to visit my brother, who is dying of liver and bowel cancer in Brisbane. Then she had to do 2 weeks of quarantine by herself, where she got fresh air exactly twice in those 2 weeks (including doing a 9 day streak with no outside air at all). I’m not allowed to travel to Queensland and may never see my brother again. The Queensland government and the AFL needs to explain to me, my family, and the literally thousands of other people with heart breaking stories like mine why they are getting such a sweet deal - when they continue to prove they can’t even live by the most basic, community minded rules. It makes me sick.

Exactly. It does not matter who instigated the fight or even what time it occurred. The only relevant issue here is that they were out of a strict quarantine hub. Who knows what they could have caught outside the hub and potentially infected everyone in said hub. That's the reason they have these hubs isn't it. Otherwise they'd all be allowed to go to day spas everyday.

Admittedly I don't know how the hubs work but I guess players aren't just allowed to waltz in and out. This strip club is in the heart of Surfers Paradise. Where are the Tigers staying? Presumably they aren't in the heart of Surfers so the players would have had to have taken a taxi/uber. Surely they can't just leave the hub in a taxi. I don't care what the COVID numbers are in QLD. This is a serious breach.

How many threads does olisik need to start after a loss? To answer the OP, no, we didn't get it wrong.

That is this season, I am afraid. Teams are playing games at a disadvantage from time to time, short turn arounds, too much travel on game day, inequities in training and residential facilities etc. We had a chance to get back into that game despite our poor start but our execution was VFL standard at best.

Just wanted to bump Gibbo up again, after his post-match interview with Max on Thursday. Mentioned to Max that a lot of our ball use was sloppy during the game, which looked to take Maxy off-guard a bit. I've noticed a few times that Ben is quite prepared to ask the hard questions and is certainly a refreshing change from the usual sycophantic approach that many in-house sports media have. Well done Ben, for keeping the barstewards honest!

Yeah i try not to post too much on 'Jim' to be honest Redleg, because i know him well through my younger brother who is one of his good mates and also through Yarrawonga Football Club and local cricket. I've personally detached myself from a lot of chatter regarding Jordon because of the bias connection. What I do know is that the club is wrapped with his development. He was a bit of an unknown raw kid who's talent was noticed more through school footy where he dominated with his hardness and ability to break the lines and use the footy. His professionalism and attention to detail is why he is one of the most coachable kids on our list At this minute I must admit I am still scratching my head on why the club has a fascination in trying to turn him into an inside mid. In my opinion he plays his best football on a wing or half back. He spreads and gets out onto space well and that's where his strengths are best utilised with his ability to drill low flat 40m passes onto the leading forward. Instead we are trying to turn him into an inside beast on top of Brayshaw, Viney, Oliver, Petracca, Sparrow and Harmes. Tell me who he gets a game in front of those guys? Sparrow perhaps, but he's more physically developed and suited to his natural inside role. We are a team screaming for outside pace and kicking skills, and yet we have someone who has the potential to play that role perfectly on a wing or half back, and instead we programming him to be an inside mid... its just mind boggling. Look I haven't spoken to anyone recently from Yarra regarding Jordon's progress for a while. But my understand is that he's developing really well and if it wasn't for him injuring his hand, i think we would have seen him debut when Sparrow hurt his shoulder.

I would be quite happy for the whole blasted farce to be cancelled. This is so typical of the whole stupid year. Some people thinking the rules don't apply to them while we all try to do the right thing. I see it every day and I am really pd off.

We have to get ridiculed about 3 or 4 times a year. The message doesn't sink in only lasts a handful of weeks.

The wind/weather had nothing to do with it, Sydney’s disposal wasn’t great either, they simply wanted it more and went in with a plan.

Oh ffs, this is why I hate when we lose. You get [censored] morons like Olisik who come out of the woodwork after every single loss and start rubbish threads like this.

Completely agreed. Deserves our admiration and respect. He has done nothing but been great to this club. Always represented the jumper with passion dedication and honour. It is sad that the end for him is coming with injuries and not with finals. He deserved better.

Yes and then the fumble, goes to ground and ball gets out to Swans to goal. Under 12s stuff.

Propaganda machine in full swing aided by the media. It doesn't matter if they were drunk or not, it doesn't matter who started the fight. The point is why were they out at 3 in the morning in the Gold Coast crook city area. Stop the spin.

This. Premiership points is the only deterrent. What do the players care about a fine paid out by the club? 8 premiership points puts the Tigers battling it out for a finals spot and impacts their peers.

Surely some poor bastard isn't going to cop the penalty for two knuckleheads who should already be boarding a plane out !

We are not even allowed to be on the footpath of our street after 8pm What absolute [censored]

I didn't post yesterday because commenting on Oscar would have been too stressful .His journey at this club beggars belief .He has been an absolute spud from day one and a laughing stock of the competition but has remained on our list for 6 years .He is not an Isaac Weetra whose ineptness was realized after 1 game and then sensibly delisted .He is not a Brad Miller who was played week after week constantly struggled but always gave it his best shot .He is an absolute liability who has shown nothing in 6 years .But yet posters defend him and rubbish Clayton Oliver and Jack viney who would run through a brick wall for the club .This is not Demonland .This is Bizarroland where the worse you are the more you are appreciated.

Exactly look at the pressure they put on our ball users from the 1st bounce. Even the goal Brayshaw kicked he had about 3 or 4 Swans ready to tackle him. Meanwhile we just let the Swans waltz through middle of our zone with handballs with no pressure just "corralling" them through. Pathetic

I didn't watch any of last night's game, but we've all seen it countless times before. We have 5 - 6 players who try their guts out every week (Gawn, Oliver, May, Langdon, Petracca,?), a group who wake up on game day and decide whether they will bother trying or not (Melksham, Salem, Fritsch, Weideman, Lever, etc), and a bunch who simply aren't AFL standard (Smith, Neal-Bullen, Spargo, Brown, etc). When we have the majority of the team working hard we look capable of playing good football and matching it with the better teams, but we have far too many players who pick and choose when to put in. For me this all comes back to our putrid list management and drafting. We give long term contracts on good money to fringe players (Kolodjashnij, Vandenberg) and keep proven failures around for years after their use by date. Hunt has been on the list for 7 years, Neal-Bullen for 6, Vandenberg for 6, J.Wagner for 5, Smith for 5. Even Jetta, who we love, has only played more than 9 games five times in his last 11 seasons. Why has Nietschke, a speculative mid range selection who can't get on the field, been promised another year? We should be turning over the list regularly and finding players who are capable of being consistent contributors at AFL level. To be out of the 2019 draft after the second round last year was inexcusable. That's to say nothing of the ridiculous trade to get Pickett that cost us a top 10 pick this year. Players like Salem and Melksham know there is no competition for their spots in the team so they are happy to cruise along, taking a nice pay cheque each week. If Goodwin had any balls he would have dropped Melksham in the first month of the season and set the standards. What's the bet that most of Vandenberg, Hunt, Hannen, Pickett, and Lockhart return this week as we shuffle the deckchairs again? Then we'll get to the end of the year and give new contracts to the likes of Bedford, Chandler and Dunkley who have done nothing to deserve them.

Our midfield dont play team midfield it is all individual. We never seen any blocks making space. It starts the ball goes up we should know where Max is tapping it but there seems to be no communication from max to tell mids where he is trying to hit to. Then ball comes out our mids play like u9s everyone goes to the Ball and wants the ball. Again no one tries to block to create space for an easy exit, we allow pressure on the ball carrier 1m flick handball, repeat 2 more times before turnover our a bomb kick out. Individual effort not team effort. Forward line is the same, no one works for their team mate they all go to the same spot and compete for same mark. No blocks to create space no front and square. Seems we work on team defensive structure when we dont have the ball, but as soon as we get it we have no sense of the selfless acts to help out team mates. Credit to the backline they do work together to protect each other.

Fmd should have recruited another inside mid

serong is a midfielder not a forward

Have refrained from posting post game so far as I have been incredibly disappointed with what I saw last night. Rang the membership department today to ask them to downgrade my membership for next year as I’m kinda over paying good money for the team to repeatedly make the same mistakes. The lady on the phone was lovely and I really feel for her as she is a long time member and hurting just as much as all of us. She explained to me that the phones have been busy today with people wanting to cancel memberships for next year and downgrading. She also confirmed that they keep a record of calls like mine and send the report to Pert each day, which is the main reason I wanted to call. As it’s the only way I have of telling the club that the current habits are unacceptable and inexcusable. Unless things change dramatically over the coming weeks, there is a really good chance membership numbers for next year will slump back to numbers last seen in the bad old days early last decade.

A couple of posters have talked about club culture and how important it is to have these milestones, such as 300 games. They're right. Milestones like this don't come around every week and when they do they should be pushed for and celebrated. But it has to be on the club's terms, not the player's. It's a team sport. Nathan earlier this year said something like, when he's playing he brings more to the team than any other player. He must genuinely believe that to have pushed on this year. Unfortunately he's managed to highlight to the football world the hollowness of that statement. I think the club have let it play out on Nathan's terms too much. The closer he gets to 300, the harder it will be for him to come to grips with missing out. He'll be at the coaches this week demanding a chance for redemption against Freo. Will they give in? He should have been tapped on the shoulder at the end of '19 and given a dignified champ's exit. He'll be remembered fondly, as MFC royalty, as a bright light in a dark time, but every game he's playing now tarnishes his record just a little bit more.

The bolded part is absolute dribble

I can never understand the blaming of our fringe players after a calamity like last night. Very few players at all would get a pass mark for that performance, but I feel way more let down by the 10 or so players that take home 50% of our salary cap than by the guys that we all know are 18-30th on the list. Weideman. Melksham. Salem. Lever. Fritsch. Brayshaw. Viney. PETRACCA!!! Oliver. They were all woeful. If our best players turn it up like they did last night, what hope do players like OMac, Spargo and Smith have of changing things?

You’re first reason is why I can never see Melbourne under Goodwin being a successful side. We just rely WAY too heavily on our best players getting us across the line. Did you watch Richmond on Wed night? Dusty had a stinker.. but they have 21 other blokes who play a role & play it well. Last week we don’t beat Saints if Trac, May & Gawn don’t play. We’re so predictable.. Shut down our best & we go to water.

The fact we flew in so late is almost certainly on the AFL. We were in Alice Springs with St Kilda. St Kilda needed to return to the Queensland hub. So we flew with them. Fremantle was in the hub and needed to fly to Cairns. So we flew with them. Had we flown directly from Alice Springs to Cairns, that's an extra flight the AFL had to arrange (St Kilda still had to fly back to Queensland and then Fremantle still had to fly to Cairns). Sydney was in Adelaide and had to get into Queensland somehow, and no one else was flying from Adelaide to Queensland, so they were able to just fly them to Cairns without having to worry about anything else. I'm not sure, but I'm relatively confident these decisions weren't made by us.

Collingwood had one of the hardest runs in the first footy frenzy. Perth -> Bris -> Adel -> Bris in 13 days. But of course we didn't care when we got the soft kill in the last of those 4 games

Apparently we had a 2hr bus ride at 7am to get to the airport for the plane trip and landed in Cairns a few hours before the bounce? I don't want to give them any excuses as it was still [censored] poor but that is absolutely unacceptable if true. Someone in the other thread said we went today so we could wait for Freo to fly up on the same plane after their game last night. WTF??? Cost saving measure by the AFL at our expense? And they don't give a stuff because they know that we will never push back or kick up a stink over it. Wouldn't it have been smarter to make the Swans wait an extra day for US to return from Alice before heading over with them on Monday?

Is that why we were crap from the first bounce?

If we can't beat that Swans team we don't deserve to play finals. time to have a look at the reasons why our list isn't playing anywhere near it's potential and why the gap between our best and worst is wider than any other team in the comp and why we're still dealing with the same issues we were in 2017

Look, I'd much rather Demonland have positive threads on our players, rather than it continually be clogged up with threads started by Olisik or Elegt potting everyone under the sun. But OMac is bad. Really bad. Making the same mistakes he's always made, showing no improvement. Fingers crossed Petty and/or Hore are fit and ready to go next year.

And that’s the gist of it. Smith is too unpredictable and he cannot read the play. He is basically Frost but more attractive to look at. He throws the back line out of whack and leaves May and Lever too worried about covering too many holes. I have no idea why Lockhart didn’t play this week but with Jetta seemingly coming to the end of his career we need to develop that replacement small. Smith ain’t it. We look best with May and Tomlinson at FB and CHB and Lever as the third man up. Hibbo was a big loss but he’s also at the end of his career. We keep throwing all sorts of players at half back and they don’t seem to work. More so than getting another winger I would look at getting someone with zip and good disposal to play that half back role. We are woeful at transitioning the ball back.

Would prefer a 2016/17 Jack Watts over him.

Smith wasn't too bad if you watched closely. The problems came from the entry into forward fifty and lack of forward pressure. Tackling was WAP from the get go. Lots of falling over, lots of bad disposal.