Scoop Junior

Because it's a game that puts an emphasis on defence. Good defending should be appreciated just as much as good attacking play and is in fact more important. Same philosophy to why Melbourne is chasing Ross Lyon. If you can keep a clean sheet you always give yourself a chance to win the game. And it's pretty hard to get beaten if you don't concede a goal! Of course a 0-0 can be a good scoreline. If Fulham play away to Chelsea and get a 0-0, it's a fantastic result for them. If I said to you Melbourne drew a low scoring game with Geelong, you'd be thinking it was a great result too. 0-0 is not always about failing to score, it is also about preventing the other team from scoring.

I can't understand how people would not embrace Ross Lyon. Mick is the number 1 target, but after him I couldn't think of another current coach that I'd rather have than Lyon. He is a proven coach. He is hard on the players. He is a good communicator. He gets the best out of the players on his list. His teams play with fantastic defensive structures and are hard to beat. They are always willing to scrap out a game and hardly ever give up. He was a Matthew Scarlett toe-poke and a bad bounce away from being a back-to-back premiership coach. Yes St Kilda has some superstars on their list but it's one thing having the talent and another thing to get the most out of that talent and delivering on potential. Lyon has clearly delivered on the potential. As I said, other than Mick, this bloke has all the attributes that we are after in a coach. As for an ugly style or brand of footy, who cares. We are in this business to win, not to play attractive attacking football. Can anyone seriously say they would prefer to see a a high scoring loss in a shootout rather than a dour low-scoring 20 point win? I want to see the MFC win a premiership and whatever it takes to get us there is fine by me. And in any case I think there can be something attractive and engrossing about watching a team defend well and employ sound defensive tactics. Football is not just about goals and high marks, but about seeing committed team defence too. People complain about us being a front-running side and then worry about becoming too defensive. Staggering.

Davey was terrible today but he's been like that all year. He hasn't fired a shot at all this year and has been so disappointing considering he's a senior leader and one of the highest paid players at the club. Watching him today it looks like he has lost his explosive pace. If he can't get that back then I'm afraid I can't see a place for him in the side. What does he bring to the side otherwise? Of course he is an elite kick but no use being a great kick if you can't get the footy. And without his speed he will continue to struggle to get the footy. He has never been a player that can win inside ball (which is why he can easily get tagged out of the game) and if he doesn't have the pace to break away from opponents and find the loose ball in space then I don't think he has much to offer the team.

Agree Choko. I understand the need internally to keep the vibe positive as it's important for the playing group to be upbeat and keep morale high. But externally I would rather hear a bit more anger about where we're at rather than towing the party line. If asked about playing finals, I would love one of our players to reply something like "Finals? We have just come off three big losses including an absolute thumping by Geelong and you want me to talk about finals!? We are solely focused on getting back to playing good footy and competing hard and we are not looking further ahead than Richmond this week. If at the end of the season we make it, then we make it, but with where we are currently at we're not even thinking about finals."

That is seriously laughable. Just rattling off the cliches and stereotypes. Surely you would add in going to the snow, cheering for "number 5" and driving a four wheel drive as what Melbourne is known for according to your logic.

Hangon: So in your opinion we are not relevant to our own? So 37,000 people cough up the cost of a membership each year to something that is not relevant to them?

Hangon: Honesty? So what. Smith's comments are gratuitous and a cheap shot at the MFC. So what if the MFC is not relevant to him. Classical music is not relevant to me, does that mean I believe that it has no relevance to the community? There are 37,000 members who the MFC is more than relevant to, plus thousands of other supporters. I don't buy these ignorant comments that only surface when a club is struggling. If we weren't relevant no one would care about our performances this year. The fact that it has been so heavily scrutinised by the footy public shows the relevance of the MFC to the footy public. You agree with him that we don't stand for anything at the moment. Yet you have clocked up over 1,000 posts on these boards. Surprising that something that you don't think stands for something can command so much of your time.

I too would have preferred to see it done at the end of the year. Bails has been nothing short of 100% in his integrity and his determination to put the club first. He basically sacrificed the second year of his contract to put the club in a better position for the long term. I am grateful for what he has done from a list management perspective and in the way he has handled himself. I don't think he deserved to be knifed the day after the game and perhaps it would have been better to wait until the end of the season to do it. I understand that there may be other factors behind the scene of which I'm unaware which may have necessitated such swift action. But in the absence of such factors I would have preferred to give him until the end of the year and then the decision not to re-appoint him can be made then.

I would have thought that a senior leader failing to go when it's his turn and toe-poking the ball off the ground instead of bending down to pick it up (thereby failing to put his body on the line) would create a far bigger cultural issue for the playing group than "tanking". Ooze was a great player over many years but he didn't lead the way when given the chance towards the end of his career.

Well said Flying Cloud. I was disgusted by Smith's comments. What an absolutely ignorant, spiteful and gutless piece of work that guy is. Easy to kick someone when they're down and not looking. I didn't hear the end of it but I hope someone called up and pointed out what the MFC is about and what the MFC stands for. If anything, the amount of coverage in the media about what has happened over the last few days shows how RELEVANT we are. If something is irrelevant, you don't talk about it.

Jaded I believe you have been very harsh on Green. I agree that he isn't a great public speaker and the one thing that really annoyed me was seeing him crack a smile today when a reporter asked him a few questions. I know he only smiled when saying that he didn't get much sleep last night and it was only an innocent thing but I would prefer to see some real anger and disgust in his face. Anyway, Green has been a great player over many years for us. He has repeatedly put his body on the line and has been a very good contributor to the team over the last 10 years. Yes he is having a very inconsistent season and he is obviously struggling in the captaincy role. But to continually point the finger at him and excuse others is scapegoating in my opinion. The whole team yesterday were disgraceful. Brad was a part of that, but he wasn't the only one. As a forward he was reliant on delivery and service from up the field. We hardly won a centre clearance in the first half and on the few occasions we managed to get the ball forward it was a haphazard bomb to no one. Green as a leading forward had no chance in that performance and that structure. And on at least two occasions he found space but teammates failed to kick it to him. It's all nice and easy to pick on the captain, but don't forget what he has done for the club over the years. And don't forget that yesterday there was a team of 22 players who were utterly pathetic, not one.

Yeah I was there till the end. After the Casey game I said well at least we won't concede 30 goals in the main game! I previously thought the first quarter of the West Coast game this year was close to the worst football I've seen Melbourne play. Well today we served up four quarters of that.

Judd doesn't have exquisite foot skills. Scully has explosive pace, and to say he is skinny and currently unable to shake a good tag is failing to look at where he will be in a few years' time. He will get bigger and he will learn how to deal with tags. I think you're selling Scully short there.

I think Maric is a very good kick but he needs to work on his handballing. Both his decision-making with his hands and his execution currently fall short of the standard required for a good small forward. Too many times I've seen him give a handball to a bloke under extreme pressure, handball to a bloke's knees or just miss the target completely. Given small forwards don't get a lot of ball, they need to make every possession count. This is one of the areas that is holding him back at the moment IMO.

What I find strange is that his management advise him to put contract talks on hold until the end of the season so as to see what he's worth then and to not distract him from footy, yet they go to GWS during the year and request them to make an offer. This is hypocrisy at its finest. Whether or not Melbourne did the wrong thing by putting in an offer before the end of the year, it does not justify going to GWS and asking for a contract offer. You just say to Melbourne thanks for the offer but as we've previously said we will wait until the end of the year. Seeking an offer from GWS is only going to increase speculation and it makes a mockery of prior comments that contract talks will be put on hold until the end of the season. And in relation to the two first round picks, as others have mentioned picks 12 and 18 (for example) are not the same as pick 1. We need stars on our list and the best way to get stars is with the top 3, 4, 5 picks in the draft. I'm not interested in replacing Scully (if he goes) with two good players. We have a potential star in Scully and if we lose him we must replace him with a star.

Agree. Collingwood showed the way in this respect, they forced so many turnovers by foot that the Hawks' kick-through-the-zone game plan fell apart. They weren't able to find free targets, take the mark, stop, assess the options and deliver. They were constantly put under pressure by Collingwood and didn't have the time to firstly make the right decisions and secondly execute the kick.

I think the two key aspects are: 1) Clearances - we need to be competitive in this area. Port beat us in the clearances and it's going to be a massive step up against the likes of Hodge, Mitchell, Lewis, possibly Sewell and co. As others have said this is an area Hawthorn have dominated in against us over the years. 2) Defensive structure on Hawthorn transition - assuming we are competitive in the clearances and can get enough ball into our forward line, the test will be how well we can defend Hawthorn's ball movement from defence to their forward line. Hawthorn has changed its game style in this respect - they will short chip their way out and will take it forward with precise kicking and uncontested marks. If we sit too deep and allow them uncontested mark chains, they will just cut holes in our defence (this is what we did last time). However we also can't press too high as if they get it over the back we will be in big trouble. It will therefore be a balancing act, but we definitely can't fall into the trap of just zoning deep in defence like last time. We need to be especially focused on their best kicks and guys like Birchall and Suckling are the regular counter-attack players off half back. Their opponents must put them under pressure when the Hawks have the ball. I don't want to see those two players running around on their own spearing kicks up field. Guerra too is a good set-up kick from half back. Our small forwards must be in these guys' faces.

I agree that we should make a few changes and freshen the team up after what was a pretty taxing game in Darwin. I thought pre-game we went in with not enough small runners and the way Port finished over the top of us and looked fresher at the end probably meant we were a little top heavy, especially with Scully being subbed off as well. I really didn't understand Howe as the sub. I thought this would be a game where you'd want to bring on a fresh running player as a sub who could really explode in the last quarter. Perhaps someone like Bennell would've been handy to release in the last term. On the other hand though Maric was a very good selection. Most probably didn't think he'd get a game this week but he was a good choice in the conditions and played an excellent game.

Agree Territory. Eddie's comments have just made him look stupid. What the compensation test looks at is their future value. To assess Scully's value you need to make projections about where he will get to at his peak and his future performance level. What Eddie is looking at is their current impact. Obviously Thomas is having a bigger impact now than Scully, but he has had four more years in the system. If Eddie wants to compare apples with apples, why doesn't he compare Scully now to Thomas in his second year. Scully is miles ahead on that comparison. What an ignorant, biased, ridiculous comment by McGuire.

I like this quote by the writer: As reports emerged on Wednesday that the Demons would offer a third-party deal as part of the package to keep Scully from the clutches of GWS, If Melbourne offer the deal, it is not a third-party deal is it! Anderson comments that: "The rules have been tightened up since then so any arrangement entered into with the purpose of keeping someone at a club or getting them to move a club would go into the salary cap," he said. Good luck trying to prove that a deal between a business and Scully that is on normal commercial terms has been made "with the purpose of keeping someone at a club". Unless there is some link between the MFC and the arrangement I would think that trying to prove that such a purpose existed is going to be very difficult for the AFL. Anyway, why does the AFL have to come out and comment on everything Scully-related with continual undertones of him leaving? As others have said it is like they are desperate for him to leave. It's a real us-versus-them and there would be nothing sweeter than for him to stay and we win a flag and stick it right up them.

Titan - agree with your post in terms of 'bridging the financial gap' and I've been saying the same thing. I think this gap between the GWS and MFC offers can be bridged financially (through third-party deals) and through non-financial means (playing for a traditional club, in Melbourne, at the MCG, living with family and friends and not in West Sydney for a soulless club that no one cares about and will struggle for a number of years). If Tom wants to stay, then I'm sure we can brige the gap and keep him. If however he doesn't want to be at the club, is desperate to leave, and is happy to play with GWS, then obviously there won't be much chance of keeping him. In other words I think we can meet his requirements which means if he wants to stay, he will have no reason to leave.

If the offers are roughly correct then I would like to think that the gap between what we offer and GWS' offer can be made up by the following: 1) Some left-of-centre Judd-Visy type deal/arrangement or alternatively arrangements that will help him money-wise after footy. 2) The "intangible" of being a one-club player with an established traditional club, possibly being a club great and the feeling you would get from achieving success with such a traditional club with loyal fans rather than playing with a soulless club like GWS who have no history and whose success will bring joy to few people. 3) Playing footy on the MCG in front of big crowds against traditional rivals as opposed to playing in West Sydney in front of 5,000 people. 4) Staying in Melbourne, with family and friends, as opposed to moving interstate. If the money is a $2m difference over five years, being $1m after tax, then I would think that we could 'bridge the gap' between our offer and the GWS offer through the above means. I don't see it as an insurmountable difference at all. I would consider it a very low act to leave a club that has invested so much in you purely for that difference in money (especially considering the non-monetary incentives in staying at Melbourne and the possible post-career monetary incentives in staying loyal to Melbourne).

I don't get all this 'let's take a look at Essendon and follow them' talk. Did the people that are making such statements watch them the previous week against Hawthorn? They were absolutely insipid against an injury-depleted Hawthorn. A few weeks before that they were woeful against Freo in Perth. Yeah they pulled off an amazing result last night but don't forget what they served up over the previous four weeks. There were similar comments about Richmond earlier in the year when they were flying. 'Look at Richmond, they're a young side too and look at how well they are playing'. Well I wonder if those people are still making those comments after the Tigers lost to Port and got absolutely belted by Carlton yesterday. Not to mention the fact that we beat both Essendon and Richmond this year. Yeah we've put in some stinkers this year (probably a few too many) but so have Richmond and so have Essendon and so have most other teams who currently occupy the mid-range positions on the ladder.

Agree sylvinator and Artie. Looking at the sides on paper, I was concerned. Sure the Dogs have been out of form most of the season, but when going they still have a quality experienced midfield. A midfield good enough to get them into the prelim three years in a row. We only had Moloney, Sylvia and Jones as mature bodies up against them, with the rest of our midfield comprised of youngsters. Beamer was tagged out of it and was poor after half time, Sylvia didn't play midfield and Jones just went. I didn't expect us to lose that badly and I thought we would play a lot better than we did, and there's no doubt at all that we made the Dogs look a lot better than they are. But I did see a loss coming.

Agree High Tower, I've never read such trash in my life. Firstly, Gieschen has basically admitted that it is the outcome that matters, not the conduct. I don't think any reporting system should be based solely on outcome. It should aim to regulate conduct, not outcomes which are out of a player's control. So what Gieschen is saying is that if you deliberately drive someone's head into the ground in a tackle but they manage to escape injury then you're fine, but if you just slightly sling them and they then accidentally hit their head on the ground, you'll get a 2-week suspension. This is completely against the whole concept of punishing dangerous conduct and trying to protect players. Secondly, on Trengove, in saying that the umpire deemed it a legal tackle but that the MRP may have a different view, he is basically implying that the umpire is incompetent. The umpire was in perfect position and if he is not able to discern whether Trengove's tackle was legal or not then he is incompetent. That, or the umpires have not been informed what is a legal tackle and what isn't. I'm sorry, but you can't have an umpire in perfect position pay holding the ball and deem the tackle legal and then have the MRP overrule him and deem it illegal. To top it all off, how can Gieschen say that the MRP might regard the tackle as illegal when he says it's more about the outcome? Even though I disagree completely with this 'outcome' approach, if you are going to apply it then Trengove is no chance of copping a suspension as Ward did not hit his head and was not injured. For Giesh to say it's about the outcome and then to imply that Trengove may be in trouble just proves he has no idea.