Scoop Junior

That was actually harder to lose than win. But not for the experts in losing - we could write the text book on how to throw games away. How many games have we just completely thrown away in the last few years by our own doing? That was by far the worst of them - it was absolutely ridiculous to lose that game of footy. One of the biggest chokes I reckon I've seen

Really? Do we need reminding of the state of the football club just prior to Roos taking over? We had just gone through two failed rebuilds, had come off a season where we won 2 games with a percentage of 50%, were getting absolutely belted week in week out, had very little talent on the list, had been right down the bottom for 7 years (save for some flashes of good footy in 2010 and 2011), were considered a basket case on and off the field and even the most loyal fans were struggling to have any hope for the future. The culture was a mess, no one wanted to play for us, good players wanted to leave...it was an out-and-out shambles. Five years later we have improved every year and got within one game of a Grand Final last year with a young and talented list. If anyone was offered that during the 2013 pre-season they would have grabbed it before finishing the sentence. We may be struggling at the moment but surely it's fairer to look at the incremental improvement over 5 years from 2014-2018 than a 6-round sample size. I shudder to think where we would be as a club without the input of Roos, PJ and others from 2014 onwards. Would we even have a club to support? This thread is nit-picking at its finest. Of course there may have been the odd decision-making error along the way, but that happens at all clubs. Looking at it in its entirety, Roos did an absolutely sensational job of steering this club away from extinction and onto the path towards being a respected team in the competition.

People can say the there was no heart, no desire, not trying, etc. but I disagree. There was plenty of effort in the first half. The problem was the usual structural issues - we were absolutely slaughtered by a far better structured side forward and behind the ball. St Kilda absolutely schooled us in game style / structure. So despite dominating most of the game, we were only 3 points up midway through the second quarter. The combined effect of not being able to translate midfield dominance into scores and the leaking of easy goals down the other end absolutely drained the confidence and belief of the players. Then you get what you get in the third quarter. Time to make changes, especially behind the ball. The free players for the opposition inside 50 week-after-week is just disheartening and deflating for the supporters and obviously the players. Unfortunately our style of defence is very high risk, super aggressive and only works when you're absolutely on top of your inside game, your forward 50 ground balls and your forward pressure. Clearly the players aren't at the level of last year at the moment and therefore we're getting completely exposed by our aggressive defensive structures. Surely we need some structural changes to help us defend better and stay in games when we're not producing the levels required.

For the talent on the park that is an absolute embarrassment. A midfield with Gawn, Oliver, Brayshaw and Viney yet we are producing performances that many Melbourne teams of far less talent were able to better. For me it's the structures. We are getting absolutely schooled by a far less talented team in terms of structure behind the footy and structure ahead of the footy. We played some decent footy at times in the first half but I reckon the players' confidence and belief gets destroyed by the failure to convert midfield dominance into scores and then the subsequent leaking of easy goals to the opposition. That quarter looked like a side that had lost belief in its structure. I've rarely seen a side so confused behind the ball - the way we just blindly run off our man no matter what the situation is like under 9 stuff. Attention Melbourne players - there's no need to run off your man when the player coming at you has time and his head up because he will just loop it over the top to the man you have just freed up! Time to look at the structure, particularly defensively - it's not working

I've got a lot of faith in Goodwin. He's a smart operator and has shown before some innovative tactics and also an ability to adjust to get us out of a hole. It was also good to hear him specifically refer to the team defence and that we leak far too many goals, which in turn gives the opposition belief and confidence. That was the biggest issue last night. I disagree with some on here about the changes to the game making it an uncontested game. I still believe a game based on contested footy is the right way to go. The year is still young and as the rounds roll on it usually becomes more contested. And we know that finals footy has always been a contested style of footy. So I don't believe we need to fundamentally change our approach as being a contest-based side. What we do need to do though IMO is to make some slight tweaks, both in terms of structure and personnel, to be able to defend better when we're not dominating the contest and to get some more spread away from the contest. We've actually been fairly ordinary in the contest this year. Last night Essendon beat us in contested ball and clearances and they are far from an accomplished contest team. So of course our game plan will look a failure when we are not achieving the key fundamentals of the plan, which then fully exposes our weaknesses. Getting our forward 50 pressure and contested work back to something resembling last year will make a massive difference, but clearly we need to consider some more conservative set ups behind the ball.

I reckon it's a game-day pressure thing. He is probably clean and crisp at training but once opposition heat is applied in the cauldron atmosphere of a H&A game he seems to crumble. It's the only explanation I can think of because if that is simply a reflection of his level of ability (i.e. dropping sitters and fumbling ground balls) then he wouldn't even be a VFL standard footballer.

Our defensive problem is two-fold. One, we play a high press reliant on keeping the ball inside our forward half and forcing any opposition exits to be rushed. Hence we take aggressive defensive positions to chop off the rushed exit. But when you're not dominating the contest/clearances and not applying enough forward pressure, the opposition exit cleanly and then it's game over. Once they're out, our lack of leg speed means we aren't going to catch them and the high press and aggressive defensive positions means the opposition have loose men streaming inside their forward 50. With no pressure on the ball carrier it's just handball-chip kick all the way to an easy mark inside 50. The joke was this was happening in the first 5 minutes of the game! In the first quarter alone they constantly had loose options inside 50. The worst thing you can do when you play a low-on-confidence side is give them easy goals to get their adrenalin flowing. Guess what - we did just that in conceding 6 goals in the first quarter. The question is how can your structure be so easily dismantled by an ordinary side in the first quarter of a game? It's mind boggling. The problem was there for all to see last year. It happened enough times to be worrying. But our contest work and inside 50 pressure was so good that it masked the problem. So far this year we haven't reached anywhere near those levels in our contest work and inside 50 pressure work so the problem of our defensive structure rears its ugly head. I just find it astonishing that we've seemingly been happy to move into season 2019 without any tinkering to this area both in terms of structure and personnel (other than the recruitment of May). It's just unrealistic to expect to dominate the contest every single week. We needed to find a way of absorbing pressure when the opposition gets on top, when we lose the clearances and contested ball, when we can't retain the ball in our forward half. But we are so easy to transition and score against and not only is it giving the opposition confidence but it's deflating ours as well. The second problem with our defence is that when we are finally able to get a one-on-one or a legitimate contest, we have a combination of horrible one-on-one defenders and out-of-form defenders. 20 goals against a previously-struggling Essendon is putrid stuff. This after 20 goals last week in wet conditions. We will not go anywhere unless we can limit the scoreboard damage when the game is not on our terms.

Agree with this. If there is one thing we Melbourne supporters are exerts in, it's experiencing pathetic performances and enormous losses. This was not one of them. Yes, it was an 80-point loss on the scoreboard but it was far from an 80-point loss on the performance and balance of play. Make no mistake, we were nothing flash, but we weren't nearly 15-goal losers. A nice little statistic I look at after games is the expected score vs actual score (based on teams' usual goal-kicking accuracy probabilities). The expected score was a 44-point loss to Geelong. As usual against us, they could barely miss on their home turf, kicking snaps and goals from the boundary in the wet. We, as usual against Geelong down there, missed a number of easy chances. So ignoring any other factor, on just goal-kicking accuracy probability alone, the deficit would've been halved and would've IMO more accurately reflected the state of the game. That period in the third quarter summed up the game. We dominated the early parts and should've been back to within 2 goals - instead, we don't score, the Cats go bang, bang, bang from 3 entries and all of a sudden it's 7 goals the difference and game over. We crumbled too easily at the end but it's human nature to drop off when you put so much effort in for no reward and you see the game slipping away. Despite all this, we clearly have key issues to address at both ends of the ground. Structurally we were an absolute mess up forward - probably the best indication of this was the number of times we kicked it inside 50m and the next player to touch the ball was a Cats player (it seemed to happen all the time). The mids just hacking it in without looking certainly didn't help, but it almost looked like they were told just get it in at all costs given our desire to play a forward-half game. Problem was we showed absolutely no ability to lock it in there and Geelong are probably the best team at setting up a defensive structure to deal with hacked kicks forward. We currently look stodgy up forward, predictable and devoid of X-factor and flair. And defensively we are almost in as bad a shape as up forward. Geelong's forward line is hardly imposing, especially when their best forward Hawkins is nullified by the weather. But they scored 20 goals from 48 entries - a quite ridiculous statistic in the wet. Port the same. Richmond the same in JLT 1. Brisbane the same in JLT 2. Essendon have really struggled with their inside 50 efficiency so far this year so if we can't improve in that area next week we are in a fair bit of trouble.

I think this is a common early-round occurrence and is raised most years - in hot and sunny conditions on dry decks with teams at different levels of fitness, often the outside game dominates and the fitter, faster, harder-running sides do well. But I reckon in every season, once teams are on more of an equal-footing with regards to fitness, the cooler weather kicks in and teams are more match-hardened and with their skills/decision making refined, the better contested teams start to shine through. And there's absolutely no doubt that come finals time, it's contested footy that wins the day. Having said that, it doesn't mean we don't need to improve our outside game (particularly with regards to our defensive spread in transition). We were poor at times in this area last year and have been again so far this year. Clearly teams have identified this as our weakness. But I wouldn't be changing our primary game plan focus on contested footy and winning it inside as season after season has shown that this is a successful formula.

I'm not so concerned about the result - Round 1 can be overrated because of the focus on it and both Grand Final sides lost their Round 1 games last year. What was concerning was the way we lost, especially having a middle of the road interstate team run rings around us on our home deck (after the Lions did the same thing in JLT 2). Once again our defensive transition was found out - I know it was only JLT but in both those games and today we were so easy to counter attack against from half back. Chain upon chain of easy uncontested possessions. They have all been like the St Kilda game last year where Goody was furious with our defensive work ethic. After that game we seemed to fix it but it has been back on display in 2019 so far. What was the cause for this? Attitude or fitness? I almost would prefer it to be an attitude thing as that can be fixed up - but it looked more of a physical fitness thing and that's more concerning as it does take time for that to turn around. Our guys just looked like they were running in quick sand for most of the day. We looked terribly underdone (no doubt due to the number of post-season surgeries) and in an even competition with a modern game that relies on pressure you just won't beat many sides when you are giving away a significant difference in fitness levels. How long does it take to get up to speed after a difficult pre-season? Hopefully not too long! We broke even in contested ball and clearances so we were not disgraced in these areas, but we were far from the rabid contested side of last year. We clearly have the personnel so I'm not too concerned about this but it obviously needs to get better.

One of my favourite games - a narrow victory over the Blues at Optus Oval. James McDonald kicking that goal to bring us level which looked like it went through for a point. Garry Lyon laying a crunching tackle near the end. And a young blond ponytailed Nathan Brown making his debut. ND's first year and what a great year it was after a number of shocking seasons in the 90s.

Saty - which group has Fritsch been training with? Given he played initially as a forward last year, then went on to the wing, and then to half back, I'm interested in any indication as to where the coaching staff believe he will play this year.

He was instrumental in three key plays late in the third term that established our 32 point lead. First, he sprinted after Gunston who was running into an open goal. That little bit of pressure was enough for Gunston to look back just before kicking, which seemed to affect his easy shot. A goal there and the margin was 9. We then get a goal at the other end and at the next centre bounce, Worpel was about to walk out of the centre and deliver deep inside 50m but Viney dived in the air and caught him in a tackle, affecting the kick and preventing an inside 50 for Hawthorn. We then kick the next goal. Then, he wins the hard ball at half forward, dances through traffic and throw it onto his boot. Brayshaw marks and the lead is beyond 5 goals at 3/4 time. And I thought in the first half he was the one midfielder really keeping us in the game when Hawthorn were on top. He was absolutely phenomenal tonight.

More than 2 minutes left and only 11 points up...maybe I'm scarred from too many painful losses but even at this stage I was still thinking the Eagles could easily kick two and win by a point. But when Petracca hit up Melksham 15 metres out, with 1:30 to go, then it was party time!

Yeah I saw that at the ground - was absolutely pathetic. The bloke is a champion footballer and I've always liked watching him (except against us) as he's just so powerful and skilful. But recently I've lost a lot of respect for him as a sportsman. In recent games I've seen him repeatedly hold an opponent's arm after they apply a tackle on him to make it look like he is being held after getting rid of the ball. He milked the ruck free kick last night and then his dive over the boundary was another blatant act of staging. I suppose he has learnt the art of milking frees off his captain, who I noticed time and again whinging to the umpires about not receiving a free. And all Ablett has to do is throw his arms in the air and he gets an immediate free for holding. Then you have Chris Scott carrying on like a pork chop when one decision doesn't go his team's way, only to then act all sanctimonious the next day in his media interviews. I never minded Geelong in the past but recently I've begun to really dislike this mob.

I don't think I'll be able to fall asleep soon so I might as well write something. I went down to Geelong for the game and I can't remember being that shattered after a H&A game. Even though I fully expected Geelong to come back and probably even snatch it near the end (we've seen this script too many times before), nothing could have prepared me for losing like that. Lead the whole second half, 5 goals up in the last, missed shots, unfavourable umpiring, Cats not missing a shot at goal, ball in our forward line with 40 seconds left, we can't hold up their final surge and then let them have a one-on-one inside 50...it's just the most heartbreaking way to lose a game of footy (and with so much on the line). 3 seconds away from what could have shaped our season, being 2 games plus % ahead of Geelong and sitting in 4th spot. 3 seconds the difference between final 8 consolidation and now being at risk of missing out. And from a selfish point of view, 3 seconds away from what would have been one of my great footy memories - going down to Geelong on a Saturday night, without key players, sitting amongst the Melbourne fans right near the players' race and holding on to win a thriller - I can imagine the scenes would have been incredible after the game and it would have been one of the great walk backs to the car and drive home. 3 bloody seconds. Instead, I don't want to watch the replay, I don't want to see the paper, I don't want to see a footy show, I don't want to hear the radio. What a fine line between one of the great footy nights and gut-wrenching emptiness. It was probably as close as I've got to shedding a tear at the end of the game (as an adult). I was only 4 when we lost the 87 prelim but my parents always spoke of the pain Melbourne fans felt after that game. This wasn't a prelim, but I think I now understand what that feels like.

Yep I think you make a really good point ProDee about what we're doing right, which is often overlooked when we have such a disappointing loss. Our ability to win the inside ball and get enough supply is up there with the best in the competition. So we're clearly being well developed in that part of the game. But definitely some tinkering needs to be made in how we set up defensively when the opposition gain possession in and around our forward 50m, especially on wide grounds like the MCG. St Kilda's ability to move the ball up the ground time and time again without pressure and isolate 1v1s or 2v2s in its forward 50 was an absolute joke. And it has happened enough times over the last two years to be cause for concern. In my view we would have comfortably beaten Geelong and St Kilda if we could've defended their rebound better. Geelong went at 66% for scores per inside 50 (off the charts) and St Kilda at 58% (ridiculous for a bottom three side). Win those games and we would be sitting second at 10-4, with the footy public lauding what we're doing. Arguably we should've also beaten Port taking us equal top. It shows two things - 1) this is a game of really fine margins and 2) we are doing a lot of things right. Even as we stand here at Round 15, we are effectively only improved defensive transition off being a top 4 side.

Conceding so many goals and being so easy to score against has a double effect - the obvious one being it's harder to win the more goals you concede, but the less obvious one being the effect it's having on our opponent's confidence. Nothing gets a team going more than kicking goals - they celebrate goals with their teammates, the players can see their ball movement paying off, the crowd get involved and most importantly they start believing they can score regularly and win the game. You could just see St Kilda's confidence rising as they kept on banging through easy goal after easy goal. This from a team that has regularly struggled to score more than 7 goals this year. At the moment it's not surprising that teams are delivering their best against us because of our shambolic defending.

Agree - at the moment we have to absolutely dominate the midfield to have a chance of winning against decent opposition (and even with such domination we can still lose like last week). I would've actually taken the Saints scoring from every second entry - they went at 58%! I looked back at their games before GC and they were generally at about 33-39% for scores per inside 50. 58% today! In most games at the G in the last two years we've been too easy to score against. The opposition break from our forward 50 and just carry the ball uncontested into their forward line and score. There is a flaw in our system or personnel at the G. We don't need to change our whole style but we do need to make some adjustments in either the system or personnel playing the system - when a side like St Kilda can do what they did today you know there are problems.

It's a real concern. It has been happening for two years so it's not exactly a one-off occurrence. We cannot defend the opposition running the ball out of our forward line. How many times today did St Kilda just run it out with uncontested possession chains and get it into an open forward line and score? Just happened time and time again. It was the same versus Hawthorn, the same versus Collingwood and the same versus Geelong. There is a fundamental flaw - either in the system or the personnel trying to implement the system. It can no longer be put down as "a bad game" or "players not executing it properly". I've seen it too many times and for a team like St Kilda, who have only beaten GC and Brisbane this year, to kick 18 goals and score on 58% of their entries inside 50 shows there is a fundamental flaw. I'm not saying change the whole style of play, but rather it is clear that adjustments need to be made in either the system or the personnel, especially at the G. Chris Scott said a few weeks ago you need to play a little differently at the G given the width of the ground. If we can let St Kilda score as easily they did today then a good team will kick 25+ goals unless we address it and make some adjustments.

Agree - I don't think umpires often influence the overall result but in a very close game where it's extremely one-sided umpiring, clearly it does. Basically according to the umpires we infringed 1 in every 7 times the ball went inside Port's attacking 50m. On the other hand, Port's defenders did not infringe once during 68 inside 50m entries. How is that possible? Either that's the most extraordinary defending in any form of sport that I have ever seen or the umpires are too afraid to pay frees to visiting sides close to goal in Adelaide and Perth. I wonder which one is right...

That was one of, if not the best, games from a small defender at Melbourne that I've seen. He kept us in the game early when the Dogs were on top. It was a critical period as if they had kicked 5-6 goals it could've really changed the game. But time and again he was not only in the right spot but won the contest to restrict them to just 3 goals. A few late goals by us had us right in the game at quarter time despite not playing great footy early. And then, even after that, he just got better and better. Winning marking contests from every position - in front, from behind and from the side; positioning himself perfectly; winning ground ball contests; nudging his man out of position and then using the ball with poise and precision each time. It was just a magnificent display of defending - concentration, commitment and confidence. The Dogs had 51 inside 50s, more than we have faced in a while. Yes, their forward line is weak, but that shouldn't take away from his significant contribution to conceding just 7 goals from those inside 50s. An absolutely clear BOG for mine.

Obviously our game plan revolves around winning the clearance (particularly centre clearance), getting the ball forward quickly, if not scoring then locking it in with a high press to play the game in our forward half and getting repeat entries through pressured opposition disposal out of the backline. In that context it is pretty easy to see why, on occasion, the chaos ball or torp is being used as a Plan B or C when nothing is on. The other tactic I was thinking of was the intentional free against when the opposition are able to get out of our press and look to break up the ground. It's occasionally used in soccer when a team looks to counter-attack and gets beyond the high press of the opposition. The problem with soccer is you can get carded and then sent off for repetitive fouling. But not in footy. The idea would be to stop the quick break of the opposition while our defenders are in an aggressive press position and allow them to re-set. We seem to leak goals easily when teams break on us from half back due to our aggressive pressing. If we gave away a free, forcing a player to go back over the mark, stop and look up for options, it allows us time to re-set and get in position. We seem to set up and defend the slow ball movement really well and have good intercepters across half back - what gets us is the fast clean rebound ball when we are caught out of position.

How easily 2013 is forgotten. A time when we would regularly lose by 10+ goals, when matches were over at 1/4 time, when supporters came to games knowing we had almost no chance to win, when drafting and development of players had been shambolic, when many players were wanting to leave, when no players from opposition clubs with any modicum of talent wanted anything to do with us, when the culture was so poor that players didn't even know the level of work required to be a professional AFL player, when the talent on our list was so far below AFL standard that Terlich and Jones finished top 4 in our best and fairest... This club was in an extremely precarious position only four years ago. I'm not going to go into the things Roos has done, but in the space of four years (one year under Goodwin) we are now a team that is attractive to elite young talent, players want to stay, is expected to play finals, tough and competitive, has exciting young talent, can develop young players and can beat any opposition side on any given day. The turnaround is quite remarkable and anyone of us would have grabbed this in a second if offered it back in 2013. It's not just Roos. And Roos has never said it was just about him - he was very quick to point out it's about having good people. But Roos was a significant part of the turnaround and did everything we could've expected from him. The "easiest coaching job in the world". Funny that, because at the time Roos was appointed it was being described as one of the hardest and one to avoid if you wanted a career in coaching. As I said, just think back to what we were in 2013.

Obviously the overriding feeling is extreme disappointment. Just when you think Melbourne have finally found a way to deliver something back to the fans who have stuck with them through what has been one of the darkest periods in the history of the club, they go and do that and find a new way to break our hearts. It's difficult to be rational in times like this but if I try my hardest I think this season needs to broken down into two components - 1) getting into the position where we could make finals and 2) what we did once in that position. In relation to the first, I must say I have been impressed by our ability to stick it at with what we had to go through. I reckon I thought it was "season over" (from a finals perspective) on a number of occasions - when Gawn went down in Round 3, when we lost our back up ruckman in Round 5 (after dropping winnable games v Dockers and Tigers), when we lost to North in Round 9, when Hogan was out for an extended time, after the Sydney game when we lost Viney on top of our other injuries, etc. But we kept finding a way to win games and stay in the hunt to the point where were strong favourites to make the finals. This shows some resilience and spirit in the group and needs to be acknowledged. But then there's the second point, having got into the position we did. Make no mistake - this was a choke of absolutely monumental proportions. Having the bottom side on the ropes at home, 5 goals ahead with valuable percentage up for grabs, we choked. Even retaining that 5 goal lead would have seen us play finals. But we let them back in and fell over the line. Then we choked again on the weekend. Playing a side with nothing to play for and with about 8 players out and we find ourselves 6 goals to 1 down at quarter time. Some say we didn't come to play or we just expected it to happen. I cannot believe that to be the case - the players knew finals was up for grabs. For mine, it was a choke - we got nervous, froze and didn't know what to do. The signs were there - Garlett's rushed snap, Hibberd's rushed snap and skill errors - skilled players who normally do better but froze in the moment. 3 tackles in 20 minutes. Outnumbered around the ball. You can't say our players didn't care as players clearly want to play in finals. But it was symptomatic of a nervous team that lost their heads and panicked. While we recovered somewhat and were reasonable after that - we won the rest of the game by 3 goals - the damage was done in that first quarter. And that brings up another point. What on earth is going on against bottom sides? We had a 7-5 record against the top 11 and a 5-5 record against the bottom 7. Even in the games we won against the bottom 7, it was a struggle and we were usually behind at some point. 5 goals down against Gold Coast and Pies on QB, trailing Carlton during the 3rd quarter in Round 2 and 4th quarter in Round 16 (albeit with a depleted side), and falling over the line against the Lions. Not once did we easily account for a bottom 7 side. Can this simply be put down to attitude? That we don't show up against the lower sides? I don't think this is the only reason. It can't be - it can't possibly be that our blokes are so dumb that it's groundhog day every time we go into a match as favourites. For mine, it's more to do with personnel. We are an effort and intensity based team - our best performances for the year have been when we were underdogs and were able to summon up an intensity and defensive work rate that overwhelmed the opposition. We were the hunters on each occasion. But it is unrealistic to expect this every week. It's only natural that your intensity fluctuates and that against lower teams you are going to be the hunted rather than the hunter. To win these games you need to stay in the game and limit the damage when the opposition are on top (particularly early in games) and then you need your class to come to the fore. And on these two aspects we have failed miserably. The Hawthorn, North (in Round 9) and Collingwood losses saw the opposition 5 goals up at quarter time - an absolute failure to stay in the game. If you can hold firm and go into the break say 2 goals down, you give yourself the chance to settle down and then kick away after half time. I've got no doubt if we were only 2 goals down at quarter time on the weekend we would've won that game. But if you give a lower side a big early lead, they get confidence and a sniff and then you are pushing the proverbial uphill the rest of the game. And the second aspect is class. Class should allow you to get over an inferior opponent when you're not at your best. Perfect example is the way GWS have won games this year with lots of players and out and playing well below their best. I understand their list is stacked with quality, but I also feel we have built a side high on aggression and competitiveness but currently low on class. We make too many basic skill errors and poor decisions. In fact, we have probably been outclassed by both Brisbane and Collingwood in the last two weeks. So essentially what happens when an inferior side hunts us and matches (or betters) our intensity is that we don't have the quality to fall back on to get over the line. We come back, which shows we have resilience and competitiveness, but we make basic errors and fail to capitalise on our control of the ball, which makes it very hard to kick away from a team. Unfortunately while there were many positives in the season, the overriding taste of the season is sour and what will be remembered is that we completely bottled it when it mattered. This team must accept that they are currently seen as bottlers, a tag no sportsman wants to be associated with. It will be up to them to summon up the mental strength required to overcome this - and the only way to do it is to perform when it counts.