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"Winning is everything! the only ones that remember you if you dont win are the Dog and your wife" The Sunday times quoting Damon Hill "There are no secrets to success,Dont waste time looking for them. Success is the result of hard work, perfection of skills,learning from failure and loyalty to those whom you work and persistance" Colin Powell 1937 U.S Military leader Venturing to Casey Fields today one was greeted by the bright blue skys, a slight easterly wind permeated the pleasant Wednesday morning. The drone of a school athletics carnival next door with its cacophany of sounds emanating from cheering, starter bells, chants and shouts of obvious victory gave way to what has become the constancy of MFC Training music which was being played at the Botanic like Casey Fields oval. Far from the sounds of the 70s and eighties last week I was treated to the techno world of synthesisers and repetitious drum beats. You know the stuff I'm talking about, the lyrics which said without a break just sound like one long drawn out indecipherable drone for example WentothepartyhadsomebacardiwentothedoctorsaidIhaveaheadachehesaidthataintnoheaditsyourleginsteadwowowoho,wowoho,iskippeditinstaedbutshouldagonetobed Possibly one of the worst songs EVER Recorded. Training report, Hnmm well I got there a little later than had planned and my opening quotes relate somewhat to the feeling that for MFC to be succesful a few things need to be ingrained and part of an ongoing culture of excellence. 1 Notable Abcenses Steve May and I'm not sure Max was there either? 2 Ultra Rehab Group Ben Brown, Sam Weideman, Joel Smith, Adam Tomlinson all light duties 3 Rehab Group Christian Salem, Mitch Brown, (Jake Melksham seemed to do some main drills) 4 Drills, Skills and Maneuvers I think today was a light skills day I say that because players worked in groups of between 10-12 on things such as A Precision kicking to close targets and dish ofs B Blocking and run and carry over short distance C Close in handball to correct target Session ended with goal kicking practice and whilst there were some excellent shots on goal, quite a few horrible misses and some oout on the fulls! Positives Jack Viney, Gus, Kossie,Melksham for most part, Hibbo all joined in main group work as above. Clayton Oliver looks good to go Majak Daw's continued return and even though it appears unlikely , I would strongly consider him for round one, Just does all things well Negatives Not sure that Christian Salem is right to go for next week at this stage did some run throughs but not at full pace. Steve May , I think must be doubtful. Other observations Saw coach speaking at length with Ed Langdon and clearly demonstrating a proceedure he wanted ( but no idea about what) Intensity!! If it was a light skills session then I can understand that pressure and evolution of skills were the elements of today, but not sure if Intensity was of significance. Saw Clarry, Melky JV and Mitch Brown doing mini circle work over about 40 meters kicking to each other I'll leave with this thought. I think that we may see some debutants for round 1. I know we will welcome back some very good players but just a feeling I have. As iterated I would strongly consider Majak for round 1 in the forward line. Cheers PF

He's just speaking in generalities that can't ever be proven or disproven. It's extremely lazy. His evidence of poor culture is senior players not being dropped (which I'm sure Tom McDonald disagrees with). The only reason he is still kept around in the footy media is because he has name recognition and because his low analysis populism appeals to a certain subset of the population who relate to what he says. It's easy to come up with his comments, which I'll do for any team that lost this weekend: Bad culture They're soft and don't go hard enough at the contest Lazy and don't work hard enough Bad gameplan Players look lost Players don't want to win enough Coach is out of ideas and has no plan B Not fit enough Players unmotivated or 'not switched on' It's completely unprovable, but just panders to many supporters' existing feelings. It's like reading your horoscope. If you put generalities out there without any evidence (or knowledge) then people will just insert their own preconceptions into it. If you want to see how this sort of thinking works, just check out this forum after a loss.

I am always impressed by those who think they can distinguish (from the outside) some cultural problem from a simple lack of skills which are obvious to all who watch the game. No amount of culture will turn a team of unskilled players into a champion team.

Agree. But culture will help turn a team of very good players into a championship team. One example. Few would argue that our best pure midfielder (ie not tracc) is Oliver. One of the best players in the AFL. In the tigers practice match in the last quarter he brilliantly won a contested ball, accelerated from the contest and then handballed to Salem who was ahead of him, about 70 metres from goal and had space to run into. Great work. And it should have set up a scoring opportunity. But didn't. Because Oliver stopped once he handballed and didn't do the basics - sheppard/block the player chasing him. Footy 101. That player was able to put enough pressure on Salem to affect his kick and Salem kicked it straight to a tigers defender inside 50. A turnover instead of a shot on goal. All because Oliver was lazy and chose not to do the basics. No doubt that error was picked up in the review with coaches. But i reckon it has more power coming from a teammate Now, perhaps a teammate pointed that error out to him. I certainly hope so. I hope a senior player gave him a bake as defence is an area he need to improve in. I hope so because that indicates the sort of culture Its time noted was embedded at the swans Sure it is a practice match but that is absolutely no excuse. And i'm not wanting to bag out Oliver, who is an out and out star. But Oliver is senior player - and should be setting an example to his teammates and in particular the young players', who must look up to him. And it is hard for him to hold teammates to standard he doesn't reach. To be honest, it is for reasons related to culture that I have come to appreciate what Jack Viney brings to the team more and more. He can't hold a candle to Oliver talent wise but he would have made the block.

Disagree - I have heard him stick the boots into the Dees for years. He makes these big statements but really has no idea what he's talking about. I'm not saying everything is fine with our culture but I won't take notice of what Maclure thinks as I see him as a Dinosaur of a different era. If you listen to him talk about any team (not just Melbourne) he wheels out the same narratives when things are going poorly for a team - he doesn't do the research or keep up with the changes, just shoots his mouth off and that's enough to start a chain of articles. Do people seriously think that Max Gawn isn't "doing it"? Do you think the senior players aren't getting together and talking about it? Gimme a break. The AFL is a very competitive industry where 9 teams lose every weekend - we're in the preseason with half our first choice team not playing against a nearly full strength team that will be in contention this year.

There's always talk about "culture" but hardly ever any attempt to define it. Some years ago Jude Bolton was generous enough to come down and speak to a Junior team I was coaching. We asked him to explain the famous Swans "Bloods Culture". He said when Roosy arrived he said to Stewy Maxfield the culture needs to be owned by the players. Maxfield created the Bloods Culture which in summary is:- Don't ever let your mates down. Every time you walk through the door of the Club you give 100% to every training session and every game. Anything less is failing the culture. You could see from then on you knew you were going to get 100% effort every time. Can you say you have the confidence to expect that every time MFC plays. The fact messages are coming out of the Club saying midfield egos have to be parked, says a lot about what the Club thinks about the culture. Maxy has been communicating a clear line about the players taking responsibility. Lets hope the players hold each other accountable to bring 100% every time. I'll believe it when I see Clary and Gus finally becoming defensive. I'll believe it when I see Langdon looking up and delivering passes to leading forwards instead of just bombing away like he did again v Dogs. I'll believe it when I see players gut running off the ball on defensive transition. Are we supporters the problem? Do we not demand enough accountability from the footy dept and players. Are we different in that compared to the Cats, Hawks, Swans, TIgers? I don't know but I wonder. Go Dees.

I think this is way too simplistic. I don’t disagree with the need to be honest and for the players to drive this, but if it were as simple as isolating one factor in why clubs succeed or don’t then this would have been identified centuries ago. My question for Maclure is what evidence does he have the club isn’t doing this other than losing a preseason match?

Love him or hate him. He is dead right.

His injury (if that's how to refer to it) was on the 8th - round 1 is on the 20th - the 12th day after the concussion Therefore as long he is ok to play there is no problem - or am I missing something

Geez, the posters who want to find fault with Goodwin at every turn. If you listen to his comments in full you will hear him mention the concussion issue as well. He may not be the best/good/poor coach but putting the boot into him like that doesn't add any credibility to the case against him.

AFL rules - anyone's guess how they interpret things but the article says Under the new guidelines, the earliest that a player can return to play after a concussion is on the 12th day after the day on which the concussion was sustained. The concussion occurred on the 8th The first day after was the 9th , the 12th day after is the 20th - therefore he would be ok to play that day

Fair points. And simplistic is McClure's one wood. Agree that players being honest with each other is no silver bullet. But in more general sense honesty is an element of a broader culture. And culture is a critical element of success. Culture in footy club has many elements and whole club culture is super important. But i reckon the most critical element is the culture of the team itself - that's to say the players. They have to drive each other and set the standards and non negotiables.

Commentators are over paid and, generally, underperforming. Maybe they should apply some standards to their job instead of rolling out ill conceived bias from yesteryear. On Sunday listening to Gary “pull your head out” Lyon talk about us, he rambled that Kozzie would be back soon from interstate... when in fact Kozzie was already back and played in our Casey team earlier that morning.!! Gary, how about you do your job? Maclure is muckracking with stereotypes for simpletons, essentially because he is one, and it’s easier than looking closer, doing some research or, god forbid, thinking. rant over.

When the community series was first publicised it was stated that there would be a weekend in between the series and the opening round and among other things, this would enable players who suffered concussion enough time to recover under the rules. I assume this is a direct reference to the “12” day concussion rule. If it were otherwise then the four clubs that played on Monday would be at a relative disadvantage to the other clubs.

People can pot us all they like until the team wins the games it should, and also the games it shouldnt. We have no choice but to take the hits as long as there are column inches to fill, and we continue to underperform. A win in round 1 is more important than most people realise. Take the points with our first choice forwards out and confidence goes through the roof. Who knows what we can achieve when BB and Weid are back if the team is in form and confident.

FCS, watch his post-match press conference. He did not hide the concussion issue. This is getting tedious.

Calm down. We lost a practice match against a team that has us beaten for contested footy for the last 3-4 years - and we were missing 3 of our best 4 contested players. The week before we beat the premiers in a practice match. Where were these comments then?

I think commentators saying a club's culture is soft is just lazy journalism. Max Gawn is a 4 time all-australian and the best ruckman in the competition, does Mclure honestly think he isn't giving it 100% every time he runs out and also trying to help his teammates? What is frustrating is the following: Our list management - Why didn't we go after Phillips after missing out on Smith? Why didn't we go after Butler when it was so obvious we had no quality small forwards? Why have we not put foot skills as a high priority until now? Player development - Why did we move Fritsch from a forward line role to a backline a couple of years ago? Why did we move Harmes from a tagging role to half back? This has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with questionable list management and coaching decisions.

This is your early storm warning signal that's it's open season on the MFC in 2021. The footy media smell blood and are already sharpening the knives. Prepare for a series of attacks, culminating in the the old faithful "what does Melbourne stand for???" Only one way to stave off the onslaught, and that's by winning games, and lots of them. GO DEMONS!!!

He's right that its been 56 years since our last premiership That's not something to be proud of - somethings NQR Our list is either not good enough (possible) or there is a lack of real hunger by the playing group in particular For many decades this club has appeared to be happy with either modest levels of success or found ways to excuse its failings I think most of this rests with the players, once they cross that line the coaches have limited control In my long journey supporting this club the times I have felt confident going into games knowing that the players would play for each other and give 100% unconditionally have been fairly limited unfortunately

Mark Maclure saying the culture and success at the Dees needs to be driven by the players. He is the perfect guy to comment as he was a key member of the fantastic Carlton sides of the 80s. Parkin may have coached them but that group played together socialised together and won premierships by being honest with each other, never letting egos get too big and having immense pride in their ability to play big time footy.

Hard to disagree with much he says. I actually think we need these type articles to actually put some fuel in our belly. It usually takes either the media, or the president to fire us up. We play better when unsociable. After a few wins the media start some feel good articles and way too often we put in an insipid performance vs a team we should be beating. They did not allow us to play "Our" way is a load of bollocks that happens too much also. Win ugly, win pretty, put in 100% and try and win every contest. Tackle with intent, trust you teammates, shepherd/block, stop blazing away and kick to advantage. We have a few guys who give a 100% on any given day. We don't hold each other accountable for anything less than 100% effort, nor does our coach. Thinking Melksham/Harmes/Brayshaw/Tmac for starters last year. They should have all been dropped multiple times. They were too lazy to chase and that is 100% lack of effort....it happened too often. These are senior players showing an example to the young guys coming through. It is disgusting to me, but it does come down to culture and not many other teams would accept the lack of effort, and not being prepared to do the basics. We don't seem to be able to play very smart football. In 2018 we had almost the perfect game to scare anyone. Why have we gone so far away from this?? We have tried to add layers to the game and they forgot the basics of football....it is ridiculous. We have played football like an under 12 team all hunting the ball, with no discipline. We tried stacking our backline to stop the bleeding. We quite often don't pressure the ball carrier, most of the team are frantically running backwards to catch their man. Opposition just loops around, or gets out the back and we tend to not pressure the ball carrier for much of the field. We give ground for free. This is game plan, lack of effort, or low footy IQ, quite likely all three. We have the players to really start setting the standards. They need to get angry, like us supporters that are starved of success and can do nothing but vent, or hope. They have control of the narrative by virtue of their actions. I hope they all are reading this thread and getting thoroughly angry at many of the comments and make a pact to never give anything less than 100%, for any reason. If you think one of your teammates is not putting in, ffs tell them. Demand more of each other. Supporters want nothing more than success. We probably want it more than the players do. This needs to flip. They control the narrative for good, bad, and everywhere inbetween. Get angry Demons. McClure would have.

Maclure was a good footballer in his day, which was last in 1986 .... 35 years ago! However I'm not necessarily sure that he's the one to be talking about off-field culture either, given his reputation during his playing days. The reason he has the nickname 'Sellars' is because his messy behaviour when drinking reminded them of Peter Sellars. Is this the guy who you want to be lectured to about culture?!?! Did he give 100% of himself? Reports are mixed. As for listening to him rather than bagging him, the reason I'm bagging him out is because I have listened to him! I'm bagging him out on the basis of what he says. And what he says is terrible.

Picket your reports are positively blooming, loved the Colin Powell quote. Here's another one of Colin's "It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning"

Lewis said much the same thing about the super successful hawks team he played in. The players set and maintained the standards. Let their teammates know when those standards were not met and payers answered to each other when not met. And also said the culture was different at the dees when he got there....

Or they may be doing it and just might not be good enough? There's so many factors that add up to a being a successful team - recruiting, revelopment, game plan, conditioning, skills, injuries, culture etc Every club is trying their darndest to make finals and win it. You need a bit of luck and sometimes things just need to click into place. I'm not saying that's us - but I sure as hell hope it is! Maclure is dead right because it's easy. Pick any club that hasn't won a flag in more than 30 years and it's culture, it's cos they're soft, no one is putting their hand up etc etc. But he actually has no idea as he is not close with anyone at the club and does not do any research - ever. For what it's worth, I remember tralling through the Port Big Footy thread prior to our game against them last year. So many calls for their coach to be sacked, that we were going to smash them, that their season was over etc when they went very close to being a grand finalist and many think they'll be right up there again this season. Might be an interesting read for some to realise sometimes it's not as bad as we supporters think and that things can turn pretty quickly. https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/rd-9-vs-melbourne-changes.1243698/page-19

The disparity between our best and worst, the fade-outs and inability to arrest momentum suggest mental fragility and/or lack of accountability to me. No fan of McClure but I think he’s right on this one.

Petty He's been cooling his heals for 580 days plus I think. If May plays Petty should be at CHF. Or FF.

At risk of calling the AFL competent but I would have assumed the AAMI series games were deliberately organised so that every team had a full concussion protocol window between their AAMI game and round 1. Wait no, scratch that. The dogs play on the Friday making it the 11th day. Can't believe I even for a second contemplated AFL competence

The good old medium rare concussion, he’ll be right

Love this expression. It suggests there is a type of pace which isn't genuine.

Nonsense. All it shows is that Goodwin knows how to take the pressure off players by lowering supporter's expectations.

Petty should be playing ahead of Tomlinson in the back-line. May, Lever, Petty is optimal. That said, you're right. Without Brown and Weideman, Petty as a fill-in key forward makes sense. McDonald, Jackson with Gawn floating forward isn't the answer. We ned to be flexible and Petty forward is a better option. Even if only for a few weeks.

That is a super observation dd, very observant mate and lovely to see

I don’t want my footy club or its supporter groups hosting functions at a men’s only members club. It’s the year 2021. What you call virtue signalling is simply people trying to do better. We know better, so let’s do better.

I'm happy with the signings. I saw Smith at training during the pre-season and he stood out to me. He's lightly framed, but he moves really well and has Rosman like fitness/endurance. He can play Wing and Half Back like Bowey... perhaps we will see a changing of the guard by mid season with Nev and Hibbo nearing the end. On Daw, going by the 2018 highlights he looks really good to help out in the forward line if needed. But I mainly see him as a back up if Gawn goes down. We can't leave it all up to Jackson to carry the ruck duties, we needed a senior body and he'll be more than serviceable when called upon.

"I can't believe the woke 'cancel cultured' my ability to keep slaves, imprison homosexuals and beat women!" - All the triggered snowflakes in this thread probably.

This in a nutshell is why it was it was silly for Bartlett and pert to agree to speaking. And why it was right thing to do to encourage the group to find another venue and remain on the bill, so to speak. And leaving aside being the right thing, it is good business. A great irony of the thrust of the complaints against such a decision ( ie that they are driven by a so called woke minority with an outsized, social media driven, influence and threat of being 'cancelled') is that in reality they are often cold hard, business decisions. The bottom line is misogyny is bad for business. Like the dr Seuss palaver. What a nonsense all the woke cancel palaver is. The dr Seuss foundation made a business decision to no longer publish six of their 100 odd books because they were racist. Six that didn't sell i might add. That's not cancel culture. It is the opposite. It is a business choosing to respond to the market. A business decision. The right one, but a business decision nonetheless. A decision that is made in the context of a changing culture, where casual racism is not acceptable, not some woke minority but to the majority. They didn't do it 20 years ago - when it would have hurt sales.

& weve seen this story before...

Anyone notice Goodwin giving Pickett a big hug in thr background as they were all high five each other?

Congrats Majak. Simply my observations from venturing out West yesterday, some others might have seen different. As mentioned previously he only played a half. He started full forward and was our main target. He led up to the 50 several times in the first quarter (we sat directly behind our forwards) and the pleasing thing was he was able to get his hands to the ball first in pack situations. The Dogs were well drilled all day and didn’t allow us space and time from the start. Daw was always fighting two and three blokes. I wanted to see him stick a few marks which wasn’t the case early but at least he brought the ball to ground close to the packs. By the end of the quarter he took a couple of marks. His work rate off the ball was good, never gave up a chase and we were chasing all day. He got his goal in the second quarter curtesy of a free but that was more to do with good positioning. Not sure how we use him going forward but wish him nothing but good luck, you just never know.

Tomlinson to the wing which is why we threw a 4 year contract at him. He played an outstanding prelim final in 2017 on a wing and did have a 34 possession game last year against Hawthorn in the Marsh series. Petty to take Tomlinson's role in defence. Baker to play at Casey. Fritsch to have a tracking device on his ankle that goes off every time he leaves the forward 50 metre ark. He's our only legit forward option in the early rounds and must stay there.

Tomlinson, but with Spargo riding on his shoulders giving him directions