TeamPlayedFine39

I tend to agree. The young players stats are looking good, but the two way running and pressuring of the ball carrier who is delivering into our defensive 50 in completely non-existant. Good teams don't leave their defenders one-out against their opponent, or as we've seen often in the first three rounds, outnumbered in our defensive 50.

I was being facetious, but in actual fact, we had four draft picks before Lynch went. We used all four picks on Tasmanians but not on Hobart's very own Alistair Lynch. So he would have been pretty close to our nose.

We also missed out on drafting Alistair Lynch who slipped to pick 50 in 1986!

I agree- dropping KK is premature. Early he looked off the pace and rushed a few kicks when he had time. He’s played very little footy at all for the last couple of years and needs to clock up some minutes in the seniors to get his judgement tuned in.

He’s escaped almost all scrutiny but I would say he’s one of the worst performers in the team when you consider what he’s capable of doing. He’s being exploited one-on-one and cannot compete in the air. His confidence looks shot and his kicking, which used to be a weapon, is a liability at the moment. The reality is, in the absence of Lewis, he should be one of the leaders holding our backline together.; but on current form, he’s a long, long way off.

Remember that well. Rubbish call.

Very happy for the lions. They’ve had a horrid run and are now playing a great brand of footy with some very exciting players. Clear example of how getting the right people in the football department trumps draft picks.

Is there a club that hasn't had great talent leave? Hawks, Swans, Cats, Collingwood, Richmond... successful, powerful, well-run clubs have all had great players walk. It's a fact of life.

He didn't want to be at the MFC anymore. My understanding was: - We offered Howe a contract, which he declined - We then arranged a trade with Gold Coast (Pick 7 I believe) and some very big money for Howe. - Howe agreed to Gold Coast trade (in principle). - Collingwood then came in and offered him less money than Melbourne and Gold Coast, with a wing-half forward role out to him by Buckley whilst in holidays in Bali - Howe accepted that. Howe had wanted out of the club for a long time, but was held by his contract. He honoured the contract but nothing would have kept him here.

If a player walks, they walk... there's not a whole lot we can do about it. He wanted to leave.

Collingwood are going to be very hard to beat if they can maintain this intensity throughout the year. Their run, spread, effort and physicality is first rate.

There are already several threads where we are wallowing in self pity so here’s one where perhaps we can look for some optimism and hopefully history repeating itself... Melbourne started the 2006 season as a finals fancy but sprung from the gates with a horrid loss to wooden-spooners Carlton, followed by a big loss to the Bulldogs and a heart-breaker against Adelaide. At 0-3 our season was shot, with a trip to the SCG to take on the reigning premiers, who were coming off their first win of the year against Carlton (Sydney play Carlton round 3 this year as well). A close, low quality match eventually saw The Dees scrape home by 5 points. Sydney 13-14: 92 Melbourne 15-7: 97 Melbourne then went on to win 11 of our next 12 games, sitting at 2nd on the ladder before a fade out towards the end of the year. We are playing very poorly, but no worse than rounds 1-3 2006. We again face Sydney at the SCG... can history repeat itself?

Baffled when we hired him in the first place. Bridge burner. Later mate.

I get that we need scapegoats, but the fact that we have a thread where we manage to pinpoint just two players is over the top. They weren’t our worst.

Very early days in the match and the season- but we are in real trouble.

Realistically, what's there to be jealous of? Our money? Massive membership?? Success??? I think people like to kick any of the big, rich and powerful clubs when they're down. Sadly for us, until we either get money, members or a premiership cup on colour television, then people aren't even going to consider us when looking for someone to kick.

This would have to be one of the biggest surprise selections of all time. Amazing that he is fit enough to step into AFL football after a week!

FWIW... Geelong were 2 wins and 3 losses after five rounds in 2007. North Melbourne beat them at Kardinia Park and the mob was calling for Bomber Thomson's head. They then went on to lose 1 more match for the year. Brisbane were 4 wins and 5 losses after 9 rounds in 2001. The received a 74 point hiding at the hands of a struggling Carlton and were all but written off before not losing another match for the rest of the season. Hawthorn were 4 wins and 3 losses at the start of 2015; they were injury ravaged and looked slow. Went on to thrash West Coast in the Grand Final. The three best teams of the past 20 years.

If only we traded in another ruckman to cover for Max under such circumstances...

I personally don't see us making many changes this week, and this is in keeping with Goodwin's MO. If there were players who were 'underdone' for Round 1, then hopefully we can see them primed and ready for Round 2... this means VINEY, JONES, McDONALD, OLIVER and HARMES will hopefully start to resemble themselves. - MAY comes in for FROST. - KK needs another run in the seconds to get up some match fitness. - I'm not yet convinced on HORE, but he didn't disgrace himself on Saturday and has shown some promise. PETTY is a good young prospect, but he was played far too early last year and I don't want to see us make the same mistake twice (especially with the pressure vs Geelong, in Geelong on a Saturday night) - STRETCH is vanilla, but he does have the ability to lower his eyes when kicking, so he may improve our delivery forward of center. If he comes in, SPARROW may make room following a solid, but not spectacular debut. SPARROW stays IMHO. - I'm a SPARGO fan. Though out of form, he is a pure footballer with an excellent brain, intuition and poise in traffic. He plays. - MAX got beaten up and beaten on the field on Saturday. Goodwin insisted that the physical pressure is nothing new... well, if that's true, then he stays solo for Round 2. We were killed for pace on the weekend and the inclusion of PREUSS does little to improve that. - WAGNER but he has some pace and find the right spots; big improvement on his brother's output. Has some potential and was far from our worst. - HUNT is not a small forward. Never has been, never will be. Either needs to play at half-back or wing, or at Casey. - LEWIS is well and truly past his best as a player and is borderline best 22. If fit however, his leadership and experience would have been valuable on the field now that the runners are so restricted. We missed him on Saturday and we'll miss him in Geelong. In addition, we really missed AVB and HANNAN. HANNAN's pace and AVB physicality were vital in the closing rounds and finals of 2018. FB: JETTA . MAY . HORE . HB: HIBBERD . McDONALD . HUNT . C . FRITSCH . OLIVER . SALEM . HF: PETRACCA . McDONALD . MELKSHAM . FF: SPARGO . WEIDEMAN . WAGNER . Fol: GAWN . BRAYSHAW . HARMES . Int: VINEY . SPARROW . JONES . ANB .

It's just getting ridiculous.

Interestingly enough, the only time I remember that being said publically was by Neale Daniher in 2006. We’d faded badly in 04 and 05 so they structured preseason differently. Started slowly, losing the first three- then spring to life.

3 out of 4 of last year’s top 4 lost in round 1 2018. Round 1 is a terrible indicator of future success in a season.

Massive overreaction to one match. We played terribly; it’s not as though we gave it our best but we’re outclassed on the day. We were run off our feet on 31 degree day by a team that had a month head start on us over preseason. Same thing happened to West Coast, Collingwood and Richmond (Carlton are very, very average but this game was close.) Richmond started on fire, slowed and were almost overrun. West Cost started on fire, slowed and were overrun. We, started on fire, slowed and were overrun. Not to mention the fact that we also had most of our better players in the operating room over preseason. It is nothing short of lunacy to write off or in any team after round one of a very long season. Give it at least another month and we’ll have a better idea of where we’re at. Realistically, we won’t know how the season’s panning out until the bye. We should also be giving much more credit to port- they were excellent.

Essendon has bumped Melbourne off the back page for the next week.