Watts the matter

How the coaches have let Clayton Oliver continue with the rubbish week after week this season is astonishing. He needs to hold the ball when he gets it and then chose an option, time after time he will try and do an instant 1m handball which is of no advantage to the team. All season he has been hacking the ball when kicking, his first kick where we got a goal was a prime example, terrible play despite the Preuss goal. He is not even close to the 10 best players in the comp which a bunch 'experts' had him in at the start of the season. Fritsch and Hibberd absolutely awful and the and the two of the main offenders leaving their man for no reason when there is no cover out the back and they will not impact the ball carrier. How many coaches do you need and you still can't get something like this right. Season done and despite terrible list management I still think we will bounce back hard next season with a few key inclusions into the team.

Sue, you have misinterpreted the post. Jaded is correctly stating that Sydney have been poor at the SCG, nothing to do with the Carlton part of the sentence.

I think it is later, when Oliver comes back on from his incident and goes back with the flight of the ball. BT made a mention that McDonald was slow to get up.

A bit generous to Oliver I think, had some real brain fades with the ball in hands this week. Effort was great though.

Typical, I would like an explanation of how this can be downgraded yet May's could not due to the 'look'.

Ok, clearly you don't watch football so have a look at this and come back to me. If you can find the same for Jayden Hunt I would love to see it. West Coast clearly love Jetta kicking in because he is a horrible kick.

Brad Hill and Stephen Hill also, in terms of speed and endurance.

It's not even a contest with Lewis Jetta and Daniel Riloi. They are clearly quicker and anyone who watches multiple football games a week would know this. Regardless, AFL is not about straight line running, once you bring in agility it's not even close. By AFL standard skills I don't know what you are referring to. I would label the ability to judge a ball in the air as an AFL skill as would not running past the ball or fumbling. Both of them are poor kicks, you can try and mask it as decision making but in AFL you need to make a decision that you are capable of executing and then hit the target. The ball is just as likely to end with the opposition as it is with a teammate with either of these two players in possession.

I was fine with letting him go as I don't think he handles high pressure games well. He panics when is possession if you put pressure on him but he has been handy despite being goalless in the first 2 games. Like many Melbourne players (Petracca, Brayshaw etc.) he has a flawed ball drop which stops him from kicking accurately when running in a straight line. McCarthy burned him a few times with terrible passes when Hogan had made good leads. His trade value was about right in the end. He is a good player, not a great player. I don't really see the Gunston comparison as his main asset is his kicking and ability to kick goals from anywhere inside 55 which Hogan doesn't have.

Well you would lose on that bet. Aside for this, the three of them have poor agility and struggle to change direction. Hunt and Frost are also not one touch players and have terrible skills.

If you are a Melbourne supporter or recruiter then that's probably what you think. The problem is it isn't actually a myth. I think you are missing the point, a mixture of different types of players works best, we lack a point of difference in our team. Let's take a look at the past 2 premiership teams and the speed they have. West Coast: Ryan, Rioli, Jetta, Cripps with Shuey and Gaff who provide better run than anyone we have and Petrucelle developing now. Richmond: Riloi, Butler, Short, Castagna and to a lesser extent Higgins and Lambert. Then they have others Bolton and Markov developing.

That trade is a bit more complicated than that. Adelaide included their 2019 first round pick to get it, which the way us and the crows are travelling currently isn't looking that good.

Yes, but he was a free agent after this season, we got him in to make an impact now.

You avoided my question. Do you expect better from a mature recruit? I like May as a player but I am very disappointed about what has happened with him and the team thus far, he was a free agent at the end of this season and we gave up big currency for him to come in and perform this year.

We've heard the explanation and many of us think it's a cop out. The question is, do you expect better from a mature age recruit? Sir Why You Little is on the mark, it was poorly handled by everyone involved.

Disagree entirely, If you rock up to a new club, especially when you are the big recruit and a former captain at 27 years of age you should know how to look after your body. The first thing you do when you get traded is talk to the fitness staff and set up a plan for your off season (the club can't tell you what to do because of the ALPA but I would expect a new recruit to want to set an example to his new teammates). When you give up pick 6 for an older player we don't have time for him to be learning how to be an AFL footballer, we could have gone to the draft and found someone to teach. The point Lyon and others have made, wasn't about if he was training his [censored] off in the pre season, it was questioning why a mature recruit is turning up out of shape.

This is a silly argument to make in a recruitment thread. It's a recruitment error that our recruiters couldn't identify the talent that Kelly had and passed him up on 2 occasions.

Apparently one of the tweets mentioned on the banner was “What the actual f*** was that kick anyway?” I don't see how this is bullying. As long as it's not directed at the person and focuses on the action or play, I fail to see how professional footballers should be exempt from their performance being critiqued.

Yeah, pretty ridiculous to expect a 27 year old former captain to show up to a pre season in shape. Combine his lack of fitness with Dave Misson and look what happens, despite the claims his last injury is unrelated, I find it pretty hard to trust any of their management given the Joel Smith saga.

Keep improving, "nothing that's gonna turn it around but hardwork". No Simon, we need to work smarter not harder. Our game plan is just lame, win the contest and hope the rest takes care of itself. That's why we never matched it with the best teams last year and we never will until this changes.

ANB - momentum killer, time and time again fumbling basic balls and costs us goals. His been given too many chances, Spargo (who I don't rate that highly) would be a better option at this stage, he at least often gets involved in scoring chains. Frost - needs to go, can do some good things at times but you never know what you will get from him in any individual contest so he is a terrible player to play with. Oscar - Guess he will need to stay for now. Umpires - pathetic, the amount of times we got hit high or arms taken inside our 50 and not paid then the softest free kicks to the bombers. Josh Mahoney and Jason Taylor - Dangerous small forwards. I can't think of a club in the league with worse options.

If these guys don't take Francis to the cleaners, they shouldn't be in the team. He is fragile and has terrible concentration.

Spargo really was a strange pick. I'm sure they preferred him over someone like Miers as he was also a midfielder in his underage years. The trouble is, Spargo will never be a midfielder at AFL level. This might seem strange as he played some solid games last year, but these small players so often come in and have promising first seasons and then don't show much improvement. Our very own JKH is a prime example of this. I know a lot of people on here rate Spargo quite highly, where do those people see him playing throughout his career? The more I look deeper into our recruitment the more I question it, which is strange because at the same time I think we are very well placed for the future. I just think with everything we have had at our disposal we could be even better now with better recruitment and list management decisions (and I see them very much as the same thing, so the we wouldn't have drafted Josh Kelly doesn't really work, thats a cross against Jason Taylor for not identifying his elite talent).

Agree with you but just from last weeks game, May started on Ablett with Frost and Oscar on the talls. Wagner will be coming in to play a similar role.

I definitely wouldn't be listing J Wagner and quick in the same sentence. I guess we all see it very differently.