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Just the title on the other thread makes me nauseous. Goodwin has delivered a period of sustained success. No real evidence of disharmony at the club. His career tracks alot like Luke Beveridge, sustained criticism from a 30/20 hindsight POV. No appreciation for the fine margins and luck involved by those calling for his head. Anyone would think he is Neeld 2.0 Has done an amazing job of blooding new talent. Has made the occasional blue with selection, and perhaps could have been more ruthless regenerating the side after '21., but hard not to support the list that delivered a flag. His method has been consistently good, if the team had executed better we would have played in the last two prelims. They don't hand out top 4 spots in a packet of corn flakes. And I'm sorry that 17 other clubs don't lay down and give up their generational talent. Be real, the Max replacement is never going to be satisfying, deal with it.

Stoked to have him sign on. He's been a terrific player for us.

Lingers! The best winger in the game. Love the 4 years. The guy is a freak and will be 32 by his final year of contract. No problem with that at all. He may even get another contract or two after that. Well done, Tim Lamb.

Don't all the players hate Goody though?

Little known fact - its inventor wanted to call it a "brella", but hesitated at the Patents Office.

This is a good post. Principally because it acknowledges that multiple factors go into our performance. It's not just one. It's certainly not just fitness/injuries. It's not just list management. It's not just our game plan, or our ball movement, or even our skills. And it's not just the loss of Gus. It's all of them. I don't come down as harshly on Goodwin as you do, but one area that we have to acknowledge he failed in this year was his attempt to change us after the 2022-23 finals failures by changing our set up and relaxing our press in the first third/half of this season. It didn't work. I think the idea to tweak was correct, but we went too far and, regardless, didn't get it right given our playing list. The lack of a proper second ruck/forward is an absolute disaster of list management/coaching, however you want to split it. Running Gawn into the ground on 1.5 legs and relieving him with our only promising natural tall forward is bananas.

We just need Gus Brayshaw mentally healthy and living his best life.

Excellent re-signing on the back of a rebound to form season. Would’ve been shocked had he looked elsewhere given we let him go to his sisters’s wedding overseas (which was the right to do by the way)

4 years = less money than say 3 years. Smart list move to keep cap space to lure free agents etc. Langdon is only 28. It’s a no brainer to give him 4 years. At worst he will be a very good depth player at 32. Everyone crying about our lack of depth but also don’t want to sign anyone for longer than 2 years.

Finally they caught him and got his signature

Another great thing about this re-signing is Windsor has a wing partner for the next 4 years and we can really plan around that. Brilliant.

Hard to beat 2021-2023, went on a 17 game winning run which most of us haven’t seen before and probably never will again. A flag in the middle of that run. Have faith he will have us competing again soon.

With three rounds left of the season, is anyone slightly concerned that Langdon still remains out of contract?

It's the classic goal-post shifting that is the more hilarious thing from Binman and the like. It's now fatigue apparently!!! Fatigue! I mean, give us a break! How did fatigue go for us when we managed to peg GWS back in that last quarter? Was it fatigue in the first quarter alone against the Bulldogs? How are we measuring this exactly? You can't take that bunch seriously because there'll be an excuse that becomes 'The Reason' for our failings for that given season. Which is utterly ridiculous given these are commonalities ALL teams go through and just covers over underlying issues that have existed for too long. Injury and fatigue hey. Wow. How you measure these as a supporter depends entirely on what level of bias one holds for their team. For Binman and co, the dees always seem to be victim of such cruelties, more so than any other side in the AFL! That's because this particular group of dlanders have held the long-standing and unequivocal belief that we are the best team in it, we have undoubtedly the best game-plan and the most talented list. If you vehemently believe the above to be true, you're no doubt going to throw up one or two excuses as 'The Reason' for a failed season. Which is exactly what this crew have done since the 2022 finals campaign, all the while completely ignoring a set of underlying issues that have plagued us even throughout our 2021 home and away year. Along with the obvious disadvantages that all teams face every year, why don't we look at some of the contributing factors that have remained with us as a side for far too long now. And are the reason that all supporters get so frustrated with Goodwin. 1: Jackson replacement/genuine Gawn support. Why is it that Goodwin defenders cannot seem to handle criticism of the failings in this area? It's been a significant fail given the way we have relied on him and provided next to no support. If dlanders are happy to throw up the injury excuse when he's out or when 'carrying' injury, how do you not point the finger at Goodwin and co for providing no support in a game where injury is bound to happen to anyone at any time? Especially so when part of your game-plan has been built around Max Gawn. 2: Midfield balance/attribute diversity I've banged on about this for I don't know how many years and it has plagued us in just about every game in which a team brings heat to our midfield. How much longer will it continue? Look no further than the first possession that we had on Friday night against the Dogs. Viney racing for a ball in dispute, gets to it and has two free Melbourne players if he manages to hook a dominant hand handball over his right shoulder. But no, he sees red, handballs blindly forward straight to a doggies player who takes possession. That kind of play is emblematic of our entire midfield unit when any serious heat is applied. And it happened all night. We have a contested heavy, ball winning heavy midfield unit who all lack in the same area when under pressure. Composure and disposal. It is that simple. We win the ball in tight and give it up almost immediately when the heat is applied. And every single side that have a half decent midfield know this when they play us. As the game goes on, the more desperate our mids become to win a clearance/contest and the more we swarm to the same ball and man with ball, in part because these mids have been 'ball winning' players since they were kids and desperation kicks in. The commentary around our lack of pace/run and the 'fatigue' comments are actually by-products of what is happening in close. We give the ball up that easily when heat is applied, it makes the opposition look quicker, fitter and like they have more players on the ground. When opposition half-backs could see the standard set by their mids on fri night, they knew they could have a field day by rolling the dice and streaming off their men, getting that call right the majority of the night due to how easily we were giving the ball up in close if we were getting our hands on it. (Which for much of the night we weren't even doing). So then it's two fold. You've got oppo half-backs playing their own game of footy as their mids are just consistently either winning first possession themselves and handballing out of congestion and then to running half backs, or they knew if we were to get first possession, we'd likely cough it up thanks to the the heat their team mates were applying in close and our lack of composure and disposal came to the fore. When the dogs bring heat like that, they look a million bucks because they are one of a few clubs who have mids who excel at feeding a ball out of a contest with a quick, smart handball under pressure. Libba and Bont specifically are specialists at this. Even Treloar has better hands in close than most if not all our mids. Now, clearance altogether has two parts to it. The one I listed above and the second being our actual setup at both centre bounce and stoppage. Both our positioning and lack of connectedness with Gawn has been wildly inconsistent for too long. Another issue that Binman and his brigade seem to ignore when they say things like, 'oh well, we don't place a premium on clearances anyway'. How about nah. Clearance gives you complete ascendency if you get it right. End of the third Q grand final? 3: Forward setup/personnel. Again. How long? Let's go back to last year's finals and those who basically said inaccuracy cost us the flag. That might be so, but that has been in part down to game-plan and personnel. And inaccuracy has cost us in plenty of other games over the last few years. I'm not sure what Goodwin expects when he plays two key defenders as key forwards and one young kid who is still learning how to be a forward at AFL level. (JVR played a lot of defence as an under-aged kid and I don't classify him as a classical key forward). Our inability to land one has been telling. We have a make-shift forward line that consistently looks like a dogs breakfast with little to no predictability in the way it moves. At the very least, Ben Brown was a straight line ball leader, which created vacuums of space for specialist forwards like Fritsch or Kosi to creep into. Goodwin has seemed happy to continue to play 'competitors' which means our kids are again happy to bomb away into the forward 50 with little to no intentionality. This problem also goes hand-in-hand with our midfield issue which I highlighted above. We have average ball user through our midfield when under no pressure and they're poor when under pressure. So, what will it take for us to land a specialist forwards assistant coach and perhaps a complete re-think of the type of players we want to have inside 50? Are we prepared to continue to play Fritsch when the ball isn't perfect for him given his complete disinterest in competing defensively? Another factor in why opposition teams waltz the ball out of our defence. Opposition defenders completely exploit that part of Fritsch's game. Do people notice this? When will Goody hold him to account? I won't hold my breath given the myriad of issues we have in our forwardline anyway. Ben Brown at full fitness is what this team misses more than supporters give credit for and we need to bring in another player of that type pronto. So, whilst I'm not in the 'sack Goody' camp. I certainly think that he's done this team no favours in the last few years and if he is not to blame, who we blaming? The umpires? Injury? Fitness? How about no. Those things will be there every year, period. Sure Petracca has been a missive loss. But that's even more telling! If a team is that reliant on one player, there are some serious underlying issues. And just so it's clear, I'm no doomsdayer. I believe we can rectify, recalibrate and go again whilst we still have some key pillars. But we need to absolutely nail this off-season and nail the pre-season and actually fix some of these underlying issues that have existed for far too long. If not, it will indeed be a wasted era.

Of course the one day I raise concerns around when he would sign his contract they... announce his contract signing 🙄 Great to have him on board!

You don’t think the fittest man in football can play another 4 seasons?

I was told by a reliable source that the club would love to play Jeffo for the last few games but they have serious concerns. These are that they feel his arms are not big enough for the average demonland supporter.

His ankle looked 3 times its normal size on Friday. Maybe, just maybe, the big guy can take an early mark and rest before the whole limb falls off.

Can I get in early with my excuse for Saturday - I hate this season.

Don't forget to cancel Kayo/ Hubble or whatever they want to call it these days. Remember you are billed for four weeks in advance so it might be wise for some to cancel now. Finals are on free to air, I think. ( I live in New so not entirely sure). But if they are you may not need kayo. I just cancelled mine and while not hard, I have to say, the process was very OBSCURE. It's more of a process of editing and then cancelling the app. Almost as if they are trying to deter people from a simple cancel subscription option. But then I forgot who owns it. Silly me

Thank you Ed Langdon and MFC a great signing, I was hoping for three but rapt with four, Ed could break the 300 game barrier , he runs so effortlessly. That’s all our critical re-signings.😁❤️💙

I reckon he can run until 2048.

i laugh at people thinking we should of won 3 flags, winning 1 is hard enough, winning 2 is bloody lucky, you wont see another 3 peat again

There's probably room in Tom Morris's dumpster, if it's one of this double lid types

My biggest issue is that after Jackson left we got Grundy. When he left we didn't do anything. Our fwd line imploded in the the 22 season finals with Bbb doing nothing, Melksham the same and Jackson absolutely nothing( already changed clubs). Tmac injured. Come 23 when we almost beat Cwood and despite losing Gus the same it didn't fire again. Sadly Milkshake in his career best was injured prior to finals. This time it was Tmac who gave nothing and Bbb injured. Credit to Fritta who tried very hard and was the best fwd we had. But our replacement for Jacko was left out. Maybe the memories of Jackson doing nothing was part of it, given Grundy had already moved on. Point being, we have been complacent with our struggling fwd line for three years. Now it's our ball collectors struggling. Gus is gone. Oliver has been struggling, Tracca has a serious injury. Jack Viney has been well down on last year's form and Sparrow really just makes up the numbers. Harmes and Jordan and Hunt and Bedford have all moved on for various and fair reasons. And while not all of these are necessarily were keepers it's been interesting to see the players we picked up from other clubs. At least our backline is still fairly solid. Although Lever and Salem and Bowey have been suspect this year and our big beltings were not really incumbent upon our defence. So it's some tough times ahead for us as a club I believe. Max is showing signs of age and we have players like Schache and Fullerton that we never play. Goody is partly responsible for the lack of recruiting but it's not time to panic and throw out an experienced premier coach. That would make things worse. The upside is we have some great young talent we just need to spend a fair bit of cash and bring in some experience. But no more Billings or Hunters. Also let's be careful on how we spend money going fwd. I dare say there are too many players now on our list that are not playing according to their salaries. Id point out Kozzie as a good example of this. He's a great player at times and a match winner on occasions. But look at his last three games. He has been very inconsistent this year. He has done very little in our last 3 rounds when finals were on the line. It's very difficult to point out where we lost this season aside from a dodgy fwd line where for 18 games Petty has given 6 goals. I mean after Gather we were four from five and then we fell off the cliff one week and rebounded the next only to see us get worse week to week. Losing Max and Tracca our two best obviously contributed to this but the real fact was and is our lack of depth. We have been losing players and not replacing like for like. But losing Goody at this point in time will just make things worse.

Windsor definitely meets that criteria.

I'm guessing he means building his tank. There's a bit of science around doing long slow (relative) runs to build fitness and endurance and young pup's tank clearly isnt there yet.

Jayden Hunt would have offered more than Billings or Hunter.

What?

As a self proclaimed pessimist and genuine hater of a lot of things I do believe that 2025 is Melbourne’s last season as a potential contender with this group. 2024 has been the season of what could go wrong has gone wrong and continues to get worse. - Before the season begins, the Clarry saga derails the offseason for the club. He then proceeds to play his worst season for the club because he had basically no pre-season. We can expect that he will be better in 2025. - The best player on the list lacerates his spleen and we only get 13 games out of him. Hopefully Christian can trust his body to be the best version of himself in 2025. - Max goes down at the most crucial point of the season and we end up with our two best players out the side when they were most needed. The Max we have seen since round 15 is a shadow of himself and he’s clearly been playing hurt for longer than the club wants to admit - The Brodie Grundy situation allowed Max to be rested when we hit finals but this year he has had little to no help and has had to ruck 85% game time compared to 50% in 2023. This has to be rectified going forward. - Round 4 sees Both May and Lever go down with more serious injuries than first realised. Lever plays hurt for a month before finally having surgery and then rushed back. He’s been bad ever since. May has clearly been hampered all year since that Hawthorn game and it’s almost like he’s finally been put out of his misery now. 2025 and we hopefully see Rick and May be their best selves. May probably only has one more year at his best. - The trading situation was just [censored] and not entirely through the fault of the club. Angus buggered everything, there was no way the club trades harmes and Jordon if we knew Gus would not be on the list in 2024. The rest of the trading (Fullarton, mcadam, Hunter) over the last few years have all unfortunately been busts. One can hope they get it right in 2024 trade period. - We are going to get pick 6-8 this year because of where we will likely finish. This can only help with 2025. - We will get another pre-season in Windsor, Van rooyen, Jefferson, Tholstrup etc and these kids can have a greater impact in 2025. - Petty will surely be a defender. Can’t have him as a forward again. - Career worst seasons out of Salem, Sparrow, and massive drop offs from Mcvee and Fritsch. - Losing Hibberd was enormous because we couldn’t match up on a general forward who has continued to dominate us this year. Hoping Howes can become this. - Coaching panel needs an overhaul. Stafford been there way too long and Mcqualter seemingly broke the midfield but he needs a chance. Reckon a lot of these can be bettered in 2025 and we can have one last crack at a flag with this list.

Ed is so laid back he probably had that contract sitting in his bike short pocket for 4 months and forgot all about it.

I was afraid he'd retire to coach a tennis player

You're*

As much criticism as Lamb has gotten in recent weeks (much of it deserved), one thing he has done a great job of in his tenure is signing up all of our important players (Jackson excepted, not on Lamb though) Excited to see Ed running up and down the Shane Warn wing for many more years to come!

Good positive post and I agree he has many great traits that we overlook. Flags are mighty hard to win and you have to have everyone fit and going at the right time of the year. I agree that tactically he isn't a Longmire or Scott but the is a great man manager. Look at Sydney now shades of us in 2022 win the first ten then a few injuries and the bottom falls out of the club. We have been consistently rewarded with success and wins for the last 5 years. The only downside is he has raised our expectations and we expect a lot. How many have Geelong and Sydney won in all their years of sustained success?

Could never have guessed

I think I would rather we keep our powder dry so to speak and work on offering a monster offer to Finn Callaghan next year. Get Isaac Cumming as a free agent. Get a genuine back up ruck. If we can find a decent key forward/ruck that would also be great. Then try trade our 2025 first rounder to get a 2nd first round this year and try take 3 picks within 30 or something along those lines.

I'd send him on holidays now. Big preseason.

This was as of 27/7

Wonder if we'd have a nibble at Peter Wright

You've argued for him really well, but I think the club is edging into the delusional if they think one (or even two) very good 28 year olds can help us return to the top 2 or 4. Yes, a lot has gone wrong this year. No, we no longer have an excellent list capable of winning the 15 to 19 games you need to guarantee a double chance, let alone win finals. We need to plug lots of holes, not one or two.

I'm bullish on 2025. If a few things go our way (Clarry's form, a couple of savvy trades, Trac back to full health), I can definitely see us contending for the top 6. Top 4 if next season is as close as this year.

Houston is not worth two first round picks under any circumstances and there's no world I can see us giving two up unless we're planning on completely compromising our ability to regenerate our list before draft picks are taken by Tassie. It would be utter lunacy. Also, that champion data stat is pointless. We all know hes not the fourth best player in the comp. In fact, there are a handful of half backs I'd take ahead of him.

I think that speaks more on champion data then it does with Houston... For instance, Champion data graded us as having the number one list in the entire competition at the start of 2019. I'm still very hesitant with splitting put pick6/7 for a a couple of pick in the teens. With Tasmania coming into the competition in a few years, we'll need to make sure we're continue to stock pile on talent and rebuild along the way. With Jason Taylor, you've got a potential 10-12 year player with our earlier pick.

One more thing I'd like to add on this Goodwin thread. The other day, a mate sent me a snapshot of a Facebook comment a lady made from an article about the dees. She ripped into Goodwin after one of our putrid losses. The comment got a few likes and one like in particular was from one of Petracca's brothers. I think it's interesting that Trac's brother would 'like' a public Facebook comment defaming Goodwin knowing full well Melbourne supporters would be reading the comments of this particular post and see that he 'liked' it.. People may brush that aside, but I have wondered for a while now whether Goodwin still has the players on his side given some of the performances we've dished up. Makes you wonder.

This incident has totally changed how I feel about this game. Something died in me that night. It still eats at me what that POS did and how he got rewarded for it. I hope Gus finds his peace ❤️

That is a ridiculous take. Oliver may never get back to his best - I will concede that - but selling now is akın to shorting Apple stock right before they released the 1st gen iPhone. You never sell low and right now Oliver cannot get much worse. Even if he ‘misbehaved’ it will likely nullify his contract and he’d be off our books - that to me is worst case. If he somehow becomes a top 20 ranked player again next year AND we had to do a trade, then I think we at least get 1st round pick with no salary concessions. At least with a solid pre season, we’d know where he is truly at. As for Houston, he’s the type of player you’d take on your way up the mountain not on the way down. I’m convinced we are on the way down - not in free fall but mini rebuild territory. Need to restock our mids with better ball users and more athletic types - Butters / Serong are the types we are in need of. Decisions like giving up 2 first rounders for Houston now may get us back in finals but it will be short lived and the implications will be a longer and deeper rebuild right when Tassie comes in.

I know we have had a bad run with injuries and unforeseen retirements etc but if you have watched much of Casey this season you would have to conclude that we have quite a few players on our list that are not likely to make it. There are plenty of holes to fill so that we have reasonable depth on our list particularly in certain positions (ruck, midfield and key forward) This team feels like it needs an injection of some talented fresh faces - I’d like to see us trade into this draft so that we add as many quality youngsters as possible (Windsor is an example of the impact quality young players can have)

I’m all down for a Jeffo debut…. But only if everyone on DLand promises not to start a ‘Delist Jeffo’ post when he doesn’t kick a goal in game 1