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Wu’s not telling us anything we don’t know but seeing all those stats laid out, it’s grim. Does anyone else find themselves avoiding footy media cause they don’t need to hear over & over what’s wrong. I watch us every single week - I KNOW what’s wrong, I don’t need David King & Kane bloody Cornes telling me

What difference does it make. We would've missed the target even if we kicked it to him.

TL;DR We need to review the rule of contesting the ball in the air, with the perspective of banning hitting players in the back or the back of the head, making it an instant free kick and, if the player gets injured, a reportable offense. As a lifelong fan of the game, and a former player in the MPNFL in the 90s, my connection to AFL runs deep. Even after migrating to the USA 4 years ago, I make it a point to watch every game. However, the physical distance has given me a new perspective, allowing me to reflect on the game without the constant AFL noise that used to dominate my life. Let me be clear, this is not a post aimed at condemning Moore. As a former player, I understand the strategies and techniques using knees in contest that are part of the game. Bringing your knee up when jumping into a contest was part of our training, a strategy to protect ourselves and to hit the player in front. Ideally, it was to knock them down, and if injury occurred, it was seen as a bonus. I have not written this as a knee jerk to the Trac injury that occurred during the game. I know it is a legal move. But now we have a player with broken ribs and internal injuries and it is the second time this has happened this year - the first was Mays injury. While this is bad, the more serious side is the knee in the back of the head, which is still allowed. Hitting anyone in the back of the head is dangerous; with a knee (or elbow/fist) done at speed, it can cause concussion and long-term have all the effects that we are all too familiar with in the loss of Brayshaw. The NFL in the USA banned the use of the knee in aerial contests (say between a Wide Receiver and a defensive player like a Safety) due to the high risk of injury and an illegal attempt to interfere with a legitimate aerial contest. It is now time for the AFL to reconsider the rules around aerial contests for the ball, including center ball-ups, and ban bringing the knee up to protect players. This change will prolong the careers of ruckmen and also prevent head injuries. In the case of someone standing under a hospital pass getting cleaned up, it should be an instantly reportable offense, given the high risk of serious injury to a player. Last point: while I acknowledge some will decry such a rule as "softening" the game and the inevitable death of "the hanger," I would rather see the game evolve (which it has done for 150 years) to protect players and prolong careers. Changing this rule will still allow taking a mark on someone's back; you just cannot hit them with an outstretched knee. You must use your shin, and just like in tackling and bumps, you have a duty of care to your opponent. Do it wrong, and you pay the penalty.

Melbourne players are clueless as to what to do. There is confusion from the coaching staff clearly - pretty sure he's not telling them to play like this. We are so Max dominant that we are easy to coach against. Players continually dump kick to Max despite us have free players around. Viney has tunnel vision and simply cannot see free players around him. Is possibly the worst for bombing into our fwd50 Oliver is currently a liability. I'd play him out of the fwd 50. Can't do any worse. Fritsch is insanely frustrating with his poor/lame efforts and lack of physicality. He also has blinkers and misses easy hit up kicks. Something is wrong with May His positioning the last few weeks has been terrible. Teams are forcing him up the ground. He looks lost without Lever, can't bend over and is playing in pain. He has become fumbly. McVee has lost his drive. Howes has become pedestrian. Billings is slow of mind and of foot. Turnover city. Pressure applied has fallen to its lowest this year. The players are cooked in the mind and bereft of confidence. The gameplan has fallen apart. Cant see myself going /watching for the rest of the year. Its too emotionally draining. Goodwin will be Houdini if he can turn this rotting ship around.

I immediately thought it was a kidney. Looked like a boxer that copped a heavy kidney shot from how long it took he to ‘recover’ and the level of pain. Watching him walk off, I was expecting him to go to Hospital and get checked out. I think it’s worth saying that players will always want to go back out on the ground and the pain threshold goes through the roof when you’ve got adrenaline pumping through you. Just from my own experience (and I’m 100% positive other people on here have experienced the same thing) I’ve broken fingers whilst playing footy and just kept going because I wanted to keep playing. Which isn’t a ‘toughness’ thing, it’s physiological. If I did the same thing at home, I wouldn’t be just going about my day, it’d [censored] hurt. Things hurt less on the footy field. My point being (and this isn’t a defence, it’s just true) it must be hard to assess a situation like that in the heat of the moment for a doctor. Having a player continuously say they’re right to go, doing sprints on the sidelines etc. Still the wrong call to let him back on but as others have said, the AFL should really be supplying equipment to deal with these situations. Could’ve ended very, very badly. P.S. I can’t remember the exact examples, but there’s been a couple times this year that I thought a player was unable to continue playing, only to be perfectly fine 10 minutes later. So when he was going back on I thought it was one of those scenarios.

A rapid Dee-cline: What’s gone wrong? Andrew Wu Numbers show worrying trends for struggling Melbourne. Amid the drama at Melbourne in the past nine months, Max Gawn and Christian Petracca have been the calming presences. In a troubled campaign, punctuated by off-field issues at the club, both have maintained their customary high standards while injuries or loss of form befell others. Neither could have done more for the red-and-blue cause. Now, Petracca, won’t be there. For how long, not even the Demons know yet. It is not uncommon for such internal injuries to take months rather than weeks to recover from. There are no guarantees the club’s champion match-winning midfielder will even be back this year. After 10 rounds in 2022, the talk was around whom, if anyone, could stop Melbourne from going backto-back in a Demons dynasty. Two years on, they are no better than a 50-50 chance just to reach the finals. How fans must yearn for the time when they could fret over another September straight-sets exit instead of the fear of missing out entirely or, even worse, the possibility of the end of an era. North Melbourne great David King suspects the Dees have overcorrected in a bid to find marginal gains after the finals failures of the past two years. But by giving up part of their contested game, a team built on grunt has lost its way to the point where coach Simon Goodwin made a glaring concession last weekend to this masthead. ‘‘When you try to make change you run the risk of losing your identity and right now, we haven’t got a clear identity,’’ Goodwin said. The numbers are a worry. There’s enough red – where they’ve dropped away dramatically – to make any Dees fan blue. A team that prides itself on winning contest, defence and reliant on territory has fallen in each area. The best contested possession team last year, the Dees have plummeted to 11th. They are in the bottom three for ground balls (16th) and loose balls (18th), down from third and fourth respectively. It has affected their territory game. Only West Coast, Richmond and North Melbourne have a worse inside-50 differential. A club with a generational centre-square quartet of Gawn, Petracca, Clayton Oliver and Jack Viney was taken to the cleaners by a Pies midfield missing Jordan De Goey, Scott Pendlebury and Tom Mitchell – smacked 14-6 for centre clearances despite Gawn’s ruck dominance. As former Melbourne ruck star Jeff White pointed out on social media platform X, the Pies’ midfield set-up expecting Gawn to win the hitouts, positioning themselves in his preferred tap zones. Collingwood coach Craig McRae and his brains turned an area of vulnerability into one of strength. ‘‘When you’re going up against someone much taller and a very good player, you put a strategy in place to try and shark the taps,’’ White, careful not to be seen to be critical of the club he loves, expanded to this masthead. ‘‘Gawny is effectively hitting to six mids. ‘‘A really clear indication you get of the homework clubs do is the first centre bounce. The first two centre bounces is what I showed in the video [on X]. They didn’t go to Cameron’s dominant right hand, they flooded one side.’’ In a competition where you fall behind if you stand still, not enough Demons have improved since the historic premiership of 2021. Arguably, more have regressed than progressed. Oliver has gone from great to merely good after a summer of tumult. Angus Brayshaw, sadly, has retired. Luke Jackson has gone home. Ben Brown can’t stay on the park. Tom McDonald, the other half of their grand final key forward pairing, is back in defence. James Jordon, the sub in their premiership, has become a key player in his club’s flag push, but in the red and the white of Sydney. James Harmes has been offloaded to the Dogs. Both would be playing regular senior footy this year at Melbourne. Their departures have created more opportunities for Caleb Windsor (19 years old), Judd McVee (20) and Blake Howes (21). They will improve the Demons in the long term, but the premiership window should be open at its widest now. Tom Sparrow, Alex Neal-Bullen, Kysaiah Pickett, Jacob van Rooyen and Trent Rivers are the notable risers. Pickett and van Rooyen are the two who can become more than role players, and drive the side. It is asking a lot, particularly of van Rooyen, who must bed down a key post in just his second year of senior football, but they won’t play finals if they do not deliver. Pickett, though raw, has the speed to spark the Demons midfield. Christian Salem, a damaging half-back in their flag year, has the class and the damaging left boot to change the angles. As difficult as it may seem, the Dees remain in the hunt. Victories over North Melbourne and West Coast (at the MCG) in the next three rounds would have them 9-7 when the whips start cracking – but if they cannot rediscover what made them great, Goodwin may well be flogging a dead horse. With or without Petracca.

This is @WalkingCivilWar one chance to get his job!

The football department is responsible for our downfall. From coaching, strategy ,to list management, player management and fitness. They can't get out of their own way, in terms of bad decisions and stupid ideas.. It feels like the team is over coached, and maybe over trained. The players are so tense every week. You can see it. They play tence. The bigger the game the more tence we look. Its no wonder we never start well, or kick accurately. Its all incredibly frustrating, because we should be much better than we are.

Sestan was told a few weeks ago that he was close to selection and was given a couple of key items to work on in order to debut. I haven’t followed the Casey games closely but I think he is going ok, might be a smokey next week.

Known him a while and hardness is just in his makeup

I'm a big believer that 2023 is up there with 1998 as the biggest missed opportunity of a flag. All the stats in the land had us pretty much the number 1 ranked team of the competition. This is controversial from my end but losing Melksham from our forward line was a bigger loss then Brayshaw. When he went down our forward line lost all its system and leadership. He was the captain we needed up forward to galvanise our set up and then it's he's ability to engage with the number 1 defender to not only take him out of the game but hurt on the scoreboard just completely hurt us. No one will ever change my mind, but absolutely 2023 was the biggest missed opportunity for a flag from our end.

You’ve clearly never heard a Melbourne player speak about Gus. There is a reason we wanted him to be involved at the club and especially on game day on the bench. It wasn’t some sympathy job offer. The club knows full well how vitally important his leadership was. Forget the fact that he was incredibly versatile and excelled in just about any role you gave him, forget that he’d help our midfield woes, forget that he often stood up in big moments. Good players come and go, but great leaders are hard to find and harder still to replace.

Of all the players who departed our club since 2021, the only one that’s left an irreplaceable hole, is Gus. The rest would make no difference to our fortunes right now. But the loss of Gus on field and off it, has had IMO an immeasurable negative impact on the team.

Last year at exactly this point in the season (after round 13) the Swans were 13th, Giants 14th and Blues 15th. They finished the home and away season in 8th, 7th and 5th respectively. The swans went out week one, by a goal to the blues. And of course the blues and giants made prelims (and the giants were very unlucky not to make the GF)

Certainly true in hindsight after seeing the scans etc. But we are kidding ourselves if we can be sure they made a mistake given the info they had at the time. They may have got it wrong, they may not have. We don't know. But some here and in the media claim they are sure, often with a barrow to push.

I fully expect us to bounce back, make finals, and then lose to Essendon in week 1.

The time will come, be it soon or years from now, when the lost and lonely will sigh about how the MFC is a mediocre team, winning rarely, offering false hope occasionally, dashing that hope perennially. Pundits everywhere will nod sagely and agree that the Demons are pitiable and always have been. But some among us will step forward, hand on heart, and say, ‘No! We won’t have it!’ because we few, we happy few, remember when our players strode the MCG like gods, fair of face and clean of limb, outshining all others and grasping the ultimate prize through skill, heart and grace. We’ll remember Max the colossus, peerless in his craft. We’ll remember sunny Christian, relentless Clayton and dogged Jack, never giving in, never surrendering. We’ll never forget Steven, the Jakes, the other Christian, Kossie, Bayley of the unrivalled hair, Ed the running man and others, for we all had our favourites. We were part of it. Through our commitment and love we were part of it and we will remember though times be dark, though times may grow dark for we know that when the times lighten, they lighten with fire. Go Dees.

Our depth is not is strong as we thought. Most premiership have good runs with player availability. Brayshaw retired, Oliver and Petty no pre season, Smith out, Melksham knee. And now Tracc out. JVR 31 GAMES, McVee 38, Windsor 13, Laurie 9, Howes 11, Turner 8. Not a lot of experience. Chandler, 46 games has not set the world on fire. Billings just a fill in. McAdam hardly ever on the park at the Crows. A slump was always going to happen. We need to get some games into Tholstrup, Sestan and Brown to see what they can offer If we want to stay in the window we need to get a decent free agent in and then recruit wisely via the draft. We may not make the 8.

If Maynard brings alcohol after giving Gus the worst concussion imaginable, my guess is Moore will bring a book of jokes and riddles for Trac's broken ribs

A draft stacked with midfield talent is perfect because that has to be our number 1 priority.

Those of us seeing the clear light of day , quietly balming in the calm of quiet reflection might respectfully disagree. We're stuffed: No effective forward line. A neutered midfield. An undermanned backline. Do i even need to mention a non-understood game plan. Some folk, and i casually include myself don't feel hysterically inclined. Quite the inverse. There's quiet , there's peace. There is no expectation. This comes when you realise ,for one reason or another 2 wheels have come adrlift. You're weaving all over the place and you notice the nuts on the 3rd wheel aren't that tight. The rubber on the last is worisome. Your maths whilst theoretically possible requite results of near powerball level. I really admire your positivity. I reckon you're mad.

Agree but I’d definitely add LJ - imo a huge loss in so many ways

Game plan has not evolved Like @deegirl said, we all know what's unfolding The coaches and the players are responsible now

I suspect that ‘banning’ the process of knees into the back will eliminate the whole concept of taking a hanger There’s only a handful of players who have the dexterity to leap above their opponent’s shoulders without including the back for liftoff

Yikes. I hope the players don't roll over and play dead as quickly as some of the supporter base have.

The medical staff did their job. The assessed Trac at quarter time, diagnosed that he had likely cracked some ribs, and while in some discomfort he was able to breathe and did not display any of the red flags for organ damage. If he had difficulty breathing or had shown sides of organ failure the they would have sent him to hospital immediately. When he didn't improve and wasn't able to perform he came off and was subbed out of the game.

Jesus, forget about footy, just hope he is ok

Yep. I truly believe that we wouldn’t have won the 21 grand final without Gus’ heroics. He turned the game on his own. Will forever be in my heart. The most jarring part of the Pies Loss for me was how chummy we were with Maynard. I’m not a one eyed supporter, I call things as they are even when it goes against us. But, it’s discouraging and deflating to have the team show us that it’s just no big deal? For contrast: Langdon says words. ‘No duck no dinner’. They flatten him and drive his face into the dirt. Maynard (no matter what anyone thinks) finishes Gus’ career. And what’s our response? We let him bully the [censored] out of us, shake his hand, pat him in the bum and have a good laugh afterwards. Does anyone reckon 90’s North, 90’s Adelaide, 2000’s Essendon, 2000’s Brisbane, 2000/2010’s Geelong, Collingwood EVER, Luke hodge Hawthorn, 2010’s Richmond would allow that let alone: The huge impact it had on its supporters? Zero chance. Along with a litany of other issues… there is a MASSIVE disconnect between this team and fans. For those that argue that we just wanted to concentrate on winning, fine, then recognise when we got [censored] on the field that the last thing we want to see, after Tracc went down, again by a pies player, was to see Oliver and May being super friendly with that [censored]. The fans are the MFC. This club is nothing without us. And I can’t recall a bigger spit in the face than this game. I’ve never been this angry and disheartened.

[censored] the AFL

I hope he gets stronger every day See you in 2025, #CP5

the liver takes over ... though not as efficient my brother has been spleenless for over 50 years now

Chin up. Too soon?

I'd being favour of Goodwin moving back up into the coaching box. Whilst it may have been a good idea when the players were younger and needed more immediate feedback etc I think the time is for the coaches to be together to strategise game day and be more responsive to bad starts, run-ons etc. Choco can handle the bench but the bigger issues are being sheeted home to the coaching staff - maybe its the messaging getting confused - who knows. I would be trying it though.

I thought Billo would be decent for us but he has been a big bust along with Hunter though Hunter was servicable last year before injury. Our trading for established players after 2020 has been biss poor and Tim Lamb has to shoulder alot of that burden.

Was just thinking about Carlton last year too. They were bottom 4 this time last year, and as they kept losing each week the acid was poured on them and they didn’t respond. But they got a soft kill vs Gold Coast and then found their passion and identity again. I know plenty on here will say it’s pointless to compare with other sides in previous seasons but I do use them last year as an example of how, with the right application, terrible form can be turned around (and we have 3 more wins at this point of the season than they did).

The challenge i see is that we built our list for the contest/defense/chaos game plan, and if we move away from that it's difficult to see how it can work without a re-build or re-set, we simply don't have the high quality ball users that teams like Collingwood and Sydney have. I think the decision to draft Windsor reflects a little bit of an admission of this. if we are going to move in that direction i think we have to look at potentially trading one of our gun mids to re-balance the list. but that relies on there being someone on the market that suits our needs more, and one of them that we'd be willing to part with having any significant trade value

Trac going out puts more pressure on the game plan than ever. What will Goody do without an AA mid? Real pressure for everyone to step up now

Had high hopes for Billings, thought he may prosper in a new environment. Will give him a little bit of benefit of the doubt because we're not the most cohesive unit at present but fella needs to lift. On this evidence not sure we'll see much of him in 2025.

Petty has clearly been in the departure lounge all season long. How can the selection committee be so blissfully ignorant about something so obvious to the supporters? There was a time when this selection committee had integrity and were rewarding performance and punishing poor form. We get it, the KPF cupboard is not overflowing with options but you simply cannot continue to reward mediocrity it sends all the wrong messages to the playing group. Play a small mobile forward line if you have to. And the midfield needs a complete reboot. This will be the most important draft/trade period for MFC in quite some time.

I just expected a far better kick of the football.

Jack Billings. What were we thinking. We helped the Saints with a salary dump and got a small ineffective declining player who offers nothing to our list. We had small forwards. His skills are very average and goalkicking is poor to be fair. Defensively poor. Tackling is weak. His attempted marking spoil was Harrison on Monday was symbolic. Ran, looked, “stopped”, then sought of tried. Then walked away. He is a barely a shadow of a player now. My no no no call remains.

Excellent post... considered and balanced. The question within the question in my view goes to motive . A vexed one without doubt but not all actions are simply "part of the technique" Gus says hello and thanks

Sparrow back, McVee mid.

Not on past results it won’t.

You think we didn't win the flag last year because of Maynard and injuries? Amongst other things, we didn't win because despite having the best MFC list in 60 years, our midfield could not kick anything i50 except long bombs. And our forwards couldn't hit the ocean with a beach ball We've gone from an attacking, fast, risk taking team to a slow, defensive, fumbling, turn-over team in 3 years That's on Goody What a waste of a 'dynasty'

If i was a defender I would put my knee up every time. obviously you want to make your opponent feel it. Moore didn’t do anything wrong or illegal

I am already cleaning up the mess. i would not play him or Hunter again and start trying out the kids, Kolt, AMW, Sestan, maybe Jefferson later in the season and Woey not as sub.

Fritsch was manned by Moore in the first half. Moved up the ground in the 3rd and got into the game. He can be laconic and defence is not his go but we play him out of the square copping the best defender who doesn't have to worry about Petty doing any damage at all.