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On the weekend across a number of matches I watched, I saw players being rude and downright disrespectful towards trainers. One case is hand is when Viney was sore and the trainer came over to assist only for him to push her away. It is a regular occurrence in the game and one I always hate seeing. It’s always a bad look and I have absolutely no idea why players would treat trainers in such a way.

Except you, of course

So much talk about our fwd line when the game was clearly lost in the midfield pressure, intensity, clearances are the issues that need fixing

I've been Vineys biggest critic and was gobsmacked we signed him for 5 years. But, his first couple of games this year was some of the best footy I'd seen him play for a long time. I'm not ready to write him off just yet, as he has come back from a significant foot injury. It's taken Patrick Dangerfield 4 weeks to get back up to scratch and on the weekend he was back to his powerful best once again. Have faith that Hopefully Viney gets back to his best form that he showed early on this year.

I think its reasonable for a bloke to not be happy with watching one of our senior players push a female trainer in frustration on the field without being accused of being "offended" ... I get the feeling I'm about to be called a snowflake or similar

Saw Viney push the trainer too. I get that he's competitive, but that was as disrespectful as it gets as far as I'm concerned. She is a member or staff who's job is to look after the well being of the players. And he physically pushed her away? Extremely poor. All across the ground in the weekend I saw infighting amongst our group. It was an embarrassing mess of a game all over the ground. The mistakes were extraordinary and the selfishness at times was unbelievable. This isnt the thread but I completely disagree with those that think this was lost at selection. We've been at our best this year without Ben Brown. Do supporters understand that or not? We were something like 6 or 7 and 0 without BB or Weideman. Supporters have no idea. We losg the game due to our atrocious ball use going inside 50 all game. We were also comprehensively beaten up around the ball for three quarters. There's nothing else to it. Hopper came out and said that they had lined this game up as a 'final' for them and they played like it was a final all game. And we finally decided to give full effort in the last. But unforced errors still cost us even when we could have snatched it on the line. Not having Ben Brown out there was not the problem for one second. Between the ears again, completely. Petracca, Oliver, Harmes, May, Gawn, McDonald, Rivers, Viney, ANB etc. The mistakes they made all day killed us.

The 6 6 6 rule has made no difference Standing the mark has made little difference once the Coaches had time to study it. there is only ONE way to open up the game to have high scoring Reduce Interchange Rotations by a lot more, it is the rule change that bought in congested play. Before then, the game was man on man. https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-news-2021-steve-hocking-quits-afl-footy-boss-new-geelong-ceo-gillon-mclachlan-chris-scott-geelong-cats-board/news-story/157a05681968329bb049449434678915

Word going around Boak is in doubt due to hamstring tightness plus the 5 day turn around.

all of the above

And this might be partly why it continues to happen and continues to be accepted behaviour. Issues such as this should be discussed. Btw, I’ve only been on DL for a couple of months, but in that short time I’ve lost count of thread topics more unwarranted than this one. ?

We will lose to Port on Thursday, and there will still be people on here pretending that 3 wins and 4 losses from the past 7 games is nothing at all to worry about and that the flag is in the bag.

As I understand it Selwyn Griffiths was the fitness and conditioning guru at Lions who was credited for a lot of their build up the ladder fitness wise. We poached him end of last season and he's being mentored by Burgess this year. He sounds like he's in the mix amongst the best with Burgess, and Russell at Blues. Here's hoping.

Viney’s attitude towards teammates has been poor most of his career. Something tells me he is very much his own person and not really a guy that everyone gets along with. There was a game last year where he stormed off into the rooms and didn’t join in the song. Apparently it was because he had to take a bog. It was quickly forgotten about, but I’ve never been convinced the story was truth. He is what he is and the weekend was a prime example of a few contradictions in his character.

A compelling argument. I'd prefer the safety of 12th personally.

People have suggested Petty and Hunt forward. We won't fix our problems by creating more. Hunt's most consistent football in years has been in the backline this year. He's a game removed from one of his better performances on AMT. He stays right where he's been all year. Ditto Petty, for whom we don't have a good replacement anyway (don't tell me Majak Daw can play his role, he hasn't played FB for Casey all year).

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/four-points-danger-holds-destiny-franklin-s-little-buddy-dee-minus-for-mids-20210704-p586qo.html Michael Gleeson nails us here. 10 marks inside 50, compared to 6 for the Giants - so when we get the ball forward someone is there. Smashed at stoppage and clearance is the problem. Midfielders getting beaten. I really do think it’s that simple.

Our winning record since 2002 probably isn't much greater than 8 wins per 29 games...

Off to bed mate

I have also been assured that our replacement is a young gun, who has been working closely with Burgo, so he is not leaving us in the lurch.

Thought Viney's attitude looked poor all day tbh. Gave Harmes a spray when he went for the torp on the half time siren, but in the first quarter he completely burnt Trac.

What is bad is when you finish outside top 4 or have finals outside home state This team has given itself its best chance in very long time - its destiny is completely in its hands - are they actually any good - we are about to find out I'm really disappointed in their current form but plenty of top 8 teams have delivered up stinkers this season. The measure of a good team versus one that's average is how they respond Thursday we get to see what they are made of

We're not pretenders. Pretenders don't get to 12-3 with wins over the three best sides in it (Bulldogs, Brisbane, Geelong), and a record of 5-1 against the top 8 and 8-1 against the top 12. Pretenders are sides who inflate their W-L record with wins against lowly sides but struggle to back that up against good sides. Like, for example, Port Adelaide (1-4 against the top 8). Losing games doesn't automatically mean we're a "pretender".

Great post very balanced and good observations. Way better than all the nitpickers and wrist slashers on here. We have been so far off the pace for the last 20 years and have been the joke of the competition. These days were out of debt, dont want the coach sacked and weve lost 3 games this year by a combined total of 27pts! Credit to the team where credit is due. We probably wont win the flag but so what. We are at least in the game now every week and finally have a top side that can beat anyone and we will be good for a few years to come yet. Hardly the end of the world.

Yep, good stuff. I think I agree RE mids tiring. I'm convinced we're using our carefully managed TOG to load within games though, rather than loading during training. I was going through the TOGs of all our young players (Spargo, Jordon, Sparrow, Kozzy) at quarter time on the weekend using the AFL ap and they'd all played approximately 50% of the first quarter. Looking at the stats by the end of the game, they looked like this: Sparrow (55%), Jordon (65%), Kozzy (67%), Spargo (71%) and Rivers (73%), with Harmes (72%) and Gus (75%). Viney had 77% TOG, having had 74% his first week back, so they're ramping him up for a big game this week, I'd say. In Round 10, Jordon had TOG of 59% (the loss to Adelaide) and still managed to lay a staggering 9 tackles. His TOG in that game seems to be a strategic decision in the lead up to the Bulldogs and then Brisbane games. In Round 9 against Carlton he played 73%. Against Bulldogs he played 70%, then up to 86% against Brisbane (as a wingman) and then back down to 57% the following week again Collingwood. We then had the bye and he played 62% (our second lowest TOG that day) against Essendon and 65% against GWS. Going from how we played him against the Bulldogs and Brisbane, and off a 5 day break, I'd expect him to play 70%+ this week. And while I'm on Jordon, his tackling pressure around the ball was super important through the first 11 rounds (he didn't lay a tackle against Brisbane, playing 86% TOG as a wingman, which I'm sure was more about keeping his width) and has plateaued since, only laying 5 tackles since the Bulldogs game. He was getting 5 or 6 tackles a week earlier in the season. Whilst Viney gives us good tackling around the ball, he's not as smart or as clean at Jordon and I think this is really impacting on our midfield as Jordon's dip in tackling numbers have coincided with lesser performances against Collingwood, Essendon and GWS. It's not all on JJ of course, but his tackling support to Oliver, Petracca and Harmes/Viney is vital and made us the defensive beast we were earlier in the season. But back to the TOG stuff. We've been managing Rivers in a similar way to Jordon. Against Adelaide he had 74% TOG, down from 81% against Carlton. For the Bulldogs match, he was up again at 85% TOG (I'd suggest we wanted to keep continuity in our back 6 for that game), and then against Brisbane he was back down again at 71% TOG and 67% against Collingwood. We then had the bye and he played only 70% against Essendon and 73% against GWS. I reckon he'll be up in the 80%+ this week against Port. It seems clear this is how we're managing 3 to 4 players a week from about Round 13 onwards, so it could point to our patchy form since then. Sparrow is playing very low TOG. Jordon, Spargo and Rivers are all being managed through this middle part of the season. Add the inclusions throughout the middle part of the season with Weideman, Brown, Viney and Harmes (who all had interrupted pre seasons or early injuries this year) who have all had carefully managed TOG. This means that Lever, May, Langdon, Gawn and Petracca are playing very high TOG every week to compensate for these younger players and the guys coming back into the team. It could well be impacting their performances. Even from a concentration levels perspective. If Gawn and Petracca are regularly playing 90% TOG as mids and resting forwards, I wonder if it's impacting on their focus at stoppages? Who knows, I doubt even the players can be quite sure what impact their TOG is having, but it's no doubt that we're managing loads throughout games. Apparently Goodwin has said we haven't been managing loads, so I presume he means training loads, so it'll be interesting to see whether Jordon, Spargo and Rivers can return to some form over the coming weeks. We desperately need them to if we're going to finish top 2 or top 4.

I wouldn't get excited about him leaving, everything he did was under instruction of the league, they'll just hire somebody else to be the public face of ineffectual stuffing around with the rules and the circle will continue.

If Majak is the answer, what's the question? As a serious response, throughout his career Daw has shown occassional glimpses of ability but has been unable to show consistency. I still see him as a "break glass in case of emergency" type player and that emergency is probably only when all of Gawn, Jackson and Weideman are unavailable or if May and Lever are both unavailable. To Daw's credit, he's still a handy emergency choice.

Mid-season staggers by premiership winners. Some are definitely there, some are pretty minor and not really worth considering, and some teams had start-of-season problems. Melbourne's 3w 3l run mixes in without so much as an eyebrow raised. Richmond 2020 - not sure if going 1w, 1d, 2l to start the season counts as a mid-season slump! Richmond 2019 - round 11 to 13 - three consecutive losses (by an average margin of 45) West Coast 2018 - round 13 to 15 - three consecutive losses Richmond 2017 - round 6 to 9 - 4 consecutive losses (without passing 75 points) Footscray 2016 - round 13 to 19 - 3w 3l Hawthorn 2015 - another from the start: round 1 to 8 - 4w 4l Hawthorn 2014 - round 5 to 10 - 2w 3l Hawthorn 2013 - no slump Sydney 2012 - round 6 to 9 - 1w 3l, and again in rounds 20 to 23 - 1w 3l Geelong 2011 - round 15 and 16, consecutive losses. Collingwood 2010 - round 9 to 12 - 2l, 1d, 1w (and that draw was to 2011 Demons!) Moral of the story: Calm yourselves.

For anyone still doubting the Ben Brown playing time stuff: Both the AFL and VFL-listed Demons face a five-day break before the trip to tackle the Power, with a handful of players including midfielder – and unused medical sub – Aaron vandenBerg also managed in the reserves. Brown finished goalless with three disposals after a directive to play less than 50 per cent game time ahead of the Power clash. Ben's back? The big indication key tall could return

only viney's 2nd game back after a long break off......give him a bit of time, he's still got credits

The lack of faith on this forum is funny. we are a genuine PREMIERSHIP threat, who had an off day Sat, just like all the other premiership threats have done multiple times this year. we will beat Port Thurs, and you will all jump back on again.

Earlier in the year we were holding the ball in our fwd 50. It seems this aspect has dropped off. And that is Spargo Kozzie ANB Fritta plus the wings and mids helping out. GWS exited pretty easily and thats a concern.

Vanders doesn’t bring anything into the side we don’t already have. We don’t need more defensive mids. We need attacking players with flair and forwards.

Seriously man? I assume you're being deliberately provocative, or you think football selection committees are a) made up of one person or b) made up of many people, with the almighty dark overlord Goodwin vetoing all opinions aside from his own.

It was really great to get back to a live game at the Gee but we started so poorly it gave GWS a lot of early confidence and they kicked a couple of easy goals and we’re able to repel our forward entries in a similar manner to what we we are used to doing to the opposition. We were sitting on the dead wing opposite the MCC and didn’t see much action as the game seemed to be played on that side off the ground. Even when we had Langdon and several other players free the team ignored them and continued to play down the opposite wing. Where was our aggression and hard working DNA team first selfless winning ways. When we finally came out of the slumber we sprayed the ball around which further lowered the morale of the team. It was really, really cold and hard to stay focussed and doubly disappointing when we failed to take advantage of nearly all our opportunities. Thanks Fritsch’y st least you kicked straight and I really hate the Giants song and had it ringing in my ears all the way out of the stadium surrounded by a lot of sad looking fellow supporters. I really felt gutted and sad for another lost opportunity that would help us achieve something special in the footy world. Come on you Dee players get your act together you have to kick the easy ones that is your job. Please do not serve up that rubbish again in 2021.

Are Geelong who lost to Adelaide and Brisbane by 10 goals pretenders ? Are the Dogs, who lost to an undermanned Richmond as well as your ''pretenders'' ? Are Port, who've lost to Geelong, Brisbane, West Coast and the Dogs, i.e. nearly every top 8 team they've played ? This year is very close and there's no super team. Anyone who finishes top 4 can win it and anyone who finishes top 4 will have queries against them. Melbourne are no super team and there are queries. We have 6-7 weeks to start playing better football and finish top 4. If we finish 5th we're cooked.

Congratulations. You’ve won supporter of the year. Enjoy your salty tears.

if there was a decent forward making space he would have kicked it earlier our forwards stood still like trees

I read posts like this and often try and picture someone taking the time to compose this and it always puzzles me. I usually find your posts interesting, but this is infantile dross. I'm puzzled about why you feel compelled to maintain a record of people you need to call out in this fashion. More specifically, to your point: I'm not clear what you told me. I've been very nervous for some time about our consistency and hardness, even during the 11-0 run. I do not have blind faith - you can use what appears to be an excess of spare time to trawl through my posts to confirm this yourself. As to expecting personal apologies - don't hold your breath. Deary me.

What. A. [censored] (Edit: I can't believe a word starting with the letter T and ending in osser needs to be censored!)

Bowey has spent the entire year playing back. He won't suddenly be brought in to play forward.

2021 post-loss threads are just insufferable Pretenders don't get to 12-3 with an almost perfect record against top 8 teams Pretenders don't have an average losing margin of 9 points after 15 rounds Pretenders don't spend 9 of 15 rounds on top of the ladder Collect yourselves and show some bloody resilience instead of throwing your toys out of the cot when things (rarely) don't go our way

In the first half we continually had one less player at stoppages. We fixed this in the second half. Coaches need to be quicker on theses sorts of things

“Fee-fi-fo-fum, without a Full Forward the Premiership can’t be won!” So said the GWS Giants, as they exposed Melbourne’s fatal deficiency with a nine point win at the MCG. In past weeks Melbourne has been barely able to gloss over the lack of a serious target in front of goal, while others were able to contribute. But in a near repeat of the game from the previous week, players running up the ground simply had no-one to kick the ball to, when all that was needed was that one tall target. It didn’t help that Melbourne could not kick straight, by making 35% of their shots at goal, and a good number of them ordinarily easily converted. Kick just two of the easy misses and the game result would have been very different. However, not a single tall playing in the forward line, Tom McDonald, Luke Jackson or Max Gawn was able to trouble the goal umpire for the match. This simply cannot continue and the concept of resting rucks in the goal-square has been an abject failure. They are ruckmen and do not know or indeed have been trained to play as the leading full-forward. In the middle of the ground the story was similarly an abject failure. The Giants simply overwhelmed the Melbourne mids with centre clearances 11 to 6. Normally, this is not a problem, but the quality of clearances was telling. James Harmes was given the job in the centre, yet failed to tag Hopper, Kelly, Ward or Taranto. He certainly didn’t add anything in terms of attack, as his turnovers and fumbles at critical times cost the side dearly. Likewise, for his limited game time of 62%, Jack Viney was barely sighted. He is either carrying injury or is significantly unfit, because this wasn’t the Jack Viney that we have come to know. Thank goodness for the backline, who held strong throughout the game. After all, the opposition only scored nine goals. Jake Lever, Steven May and Harry Petty did their jobs, and Christian Salem and Trent Rivers were there when needed. Salem back to his best with 31 touches, and Lever and May combining for 24 intercepts and Rivers 7. Still we were pantsed by Toby Greene early on who had 3 goals out of their side’s first 5. Fortunately, Michael Hibberd shut him down after that, but the damage had been done, given the final margin. It wasn’t until the last quarter that the Demons showed any fire and desire, but needing three goals to drag the margin back was a big ask when they had only kicked five leading into the final break. Jayden Hunt failed three times as he tried to run the ball down the field, but while fans bemoaned his lack of vision, without a target he simply had to keep running. Bayley Fritsch gave the side a sniff and contributed well with his three goals, often at critical times in the game, but he can’t do it all on his own. He needs help. Same as McDonald. He can’t do all the leading up the ground, gaining 10 marks, 3 of which were contested, and then be expected to be the FF as well. Kossy Pickett was unsighted with only 4 touches for the game, despite a couple of stints in the middle. He looked tired, and perhaps some time away for a refresh is needed. He was taken from the ground for the whole of the final quarter, but is his form just another sign of not having a suitable 2nd tall to be able to feed off. Charlie Spargo fared better with 11 touches, but again with no crumbing opportunities his output was well below his best. Melbourne have now lost three of their past 6 games. With upcoming games against Port, Bulldogs, Eagles and Geelong, there is a real chance not only of losing that valuable top 2 spot, but dropping out of top four. The change needs to be made now. The team is desperate for a structure up forward which matches the reliability of that which it has down back. If Ben Brown is not fit, then that should no longer be a consideration. He is a 200cm target which we currently don’t have. And with finals closing in, now is the time to stop experiments and put in place the structure which will see the side through to the end. If not it will be “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of the Demon!” MELBOURNE 1.3.9 3.6.24 5.9.39 7.13.55 GWS GIANTS 2.2.14 6.6.42 8.8.56 9.10.64 GOALS Melbourne Fritsch 3 Neal-Bullen Pickett Salem Sparrow GWS Giants Greene 3 Himmelberg Kelly Reid Taranto Ward Whitfield BEST Melbourne Salem Petracca Fritsch Langdon Rivers Gawn GWS Giants Kelly Ward Taranto Greene Perryman Hopper Whitfield INJURIES Melbourne Nil GWS Giants Buckley (knee) REPORTS Melbourne Nil GWS Giants Nil SUBSTITUTES Melbourne: vandenBerg (unused) GWS Giants: Reid (replaced Buckley) UMPIRES Dean Margetts Curtis Deboy Andrew Heffernan Official Crowd 16,963 at the MCG

Yeah WTF its only been 57 years

I can feel a panic. We should be getting better, not worse. Even the old problems are there. Not wanting to play 4 quarters, falling off in the time on periods, not converting from the numerous times we get it in the 50 arc, not getting the ball, allowing teams to go quickly through the middle, and most importantly not having a functional forward line. Hard to kill off bad habits. Hoping mental weakness doesn't come back as our label. Bathwater and getting ahead of themselves, has. They can't pick and choose when they want to go hard. Our leaders were able to change the style of game or switch the momentum during the quarters in the early part of the season, now we have to wait till the half-time rev up. It is good that they believe they can chase anyone down, but the other teams are getting full fitness and can now run out the game as well. We shouldn't get ourselves in that position. What happened to play angry? Looks like play "happy". Hoping it is just two steps backwards and we are now ready for a some improved development of our skills and game plan. Really we could be fine tuning but we are searching for answers. Panicking, because losing can be just as contagious as winning.

I don't think you're right. We're still second on the ladder and we've got seven more games to maintain our position in the top 4. Even if we don't make the top 4, would finishing 5th really be that bad given how underwhelming our last two years have been? As for your "Kozzie Pickett projections," give the guy a break for once. He's barely even 20 years old and he showed numerous times early in the year that he's got the potential to become a star. Two years ago I was reading some pretty insane Christian Petracca projections (e.g. he will be traded, he'll never get fit, he's not going to be a star). Look how those projections have turned out.

Hope you are ok mate. Your pathological need to be right is strange. If you ever need or want to talk, pm me

The criticism of Gawn here is so far removed from reality. He was immense.

Better to be in a form slump in July than September. No point peaking now. But we need to sort out our issues ASAP so we don’t completely ruin our chances of finishing top 4.

How does that conversation go in match committee? ”I think Kozzie is looking tired, he’s not getting involved as much. Maybe he needs a spell this week.” ”Yeah but unfortunately our hands are tied. Robbo wrote a nice article about him in the HS so we are now honour-bound to keep selecting him.”