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The Brisbane game has me spooked. They have been our bunnies and we were terrible. I hope it’s an outlier. It doesn’t make it any easier having to back up against Sydney. Sydney games are hard to watch even when we win. I just can’t escape the feeling we might be in trouble this year after seeing us against Brisbane. It is a reflexive position to take as a Melbourne supporter and I hope it’s just that. Our arrogance coming in to week two as supporters and the massive let down feels kinda familiar. Logically I think I’m wrong but emotionally I am concerned.

We gave away lots of high frees. Some of them seemed questionable. You grow the [censored] up. Complaining about people complaining about the umpires is like complaining about there being oxygen in the atmosphere.

Yeah, our deficiencies are we don’t look great without two all Australians and a future all Australian, struggle in humidity, players coming back in under done don’t make up for having other players out and we find it hard to arrest momentum when we have a bad 8 minute patch where the best player in the league is taken out of the game and the umpires are throwing a bone one way all night.

We can’t deal with the slippery conditions. We are wrong footed and fumbley as a result. They are doing fine with it. How many high tackle frees have we given away this quarter? Some kind of record

Liked bowey tonight liked the way McDonald created space in the forward line mcvee is going to be super silky

Collingwoods game style must be incredibly taxing. Let’s see how their bodies hold up for the second year playing that way. As we know a lot happens in a season

There’s many more options to consider. For example, Goodwin has had one of the great runs in modern football and after four flags in five years tells the club that he is burnt out and it is time to take a year or two out of the game. In comes daisy. The list needs a rebuild. And she’s the person for the job. all of this is highly unlikely, I just don’t like the idea of her being a cat so it’s easier to manage while imagining such a scenario.

5 years at the cats and then take goodwins spot.

Half the team couldn’t get past a jog in the semi final. We were beaten up badly.

Judging our fitness program given we know now how injured we were is silly. You can plan the perfect program and change it on the go and have the greatest sports science minds in the world but when half of your finals side is playing injured and hobbling around no amount of planning is going to change the result. Comparing to Geelong is also a waste of time. We are different sides who had different luck with injury. on the not blooding enough vfl players theory. We tried a lot of them and a lot of them showed very little. We don’t have the depth some people wish we had. It could be that the bottom six did what they could but given we had a huge decrease in output from those above them due to injury, lack of continuity, short pre season etc they weren’t able to do what they did last year. given time to reflect I think we did exceptionally well to hobble to second on the ladder and it shows just how good our top ten or so players really are that we did so despite not being anywhere near our best.

What would you propose they do differently. Who else is available? Would you not take the moneyball option to give us a few percent extra in an area we need it. It’s not like we had the pick of all key forwards in the comp and landed on Bruce. There is reality to deal with when trading unfortunately.

We beat Geelong three times last year. At the start and twice at the end of the season. They changed a lot this year directly because of us. They were in no way better than us last year.

I never said all home games

Clayton oliver we will wear red and blue we will play home games at the mcg

It’s gotta be the Collingwood jumper he’s worn clouding peoples judgement.

Well he played one afl game, looked really promising and got knocked out. Trade him. Delist him. He obviously doesn’t have it.

He missed half the year, losing much of his conditioning. If anything blame the coaches for playing him

We lack great kicks. Salem is a great kick and last year he was combative, good in the contest. He suffered the same problem a few others did this year. Never got back to full capacity. I think we need to retain and find more elite kicks.

Nailed it

I much prefer the minimalist approach to the match experience. I don’t want noise and things to look at shoved down my throat at every opportunity. It’s nice to sit quietly in between quarters etc.

Yes I do believe that, with all things being equal. But they weren’t equal this year. We got injured. Doesn’t disprove anything. Just that there are multiple things to look at, which no one disputed. This was never a one or the other conversation, it was an as well as. Do you think we would try and be at less than peak fitness come finals? Remember Chris Scott’s comments regarding training loads this year? He would rather miss finals trying to peak at the right time than come in with no hope. I do enjoy your insistence on getting revenge on those who thought the idea had merit though. I hope thinking you are right and I was wrong brings you the comfort you need this off season. Go dees. I look forward to more constructive conversations next season.

Given the extra two weeks we should nail our training loads next year.

We played in a semi and everyone’s [censored] off (I am not). That’s a great place to be. We were in every game and had leads in all losses except one. I will continue to argue that injuries killed us in game during our losses and hampered our fitness come the finals. you can manage a team to perfection but if they get injured it’s game over. Teams don’t use the excuse, but we are fans, not the team, and I’m using it. I don’t have to manage the players psychology/expectations etc. Our core is the elite of the elite. We were probably a Tom McDonald away from finishing first again. We have probably started to implement things in game that we will see the benefit of next year. It sounds like we will have some amount of new talent come through which is exciting. Our draw won’t be as hard next year and I’ll get to watch the [censored] fall out of Collingwood after their stupid run this year. Damn the torpedoes, bring on ‘23.

We tried lots of players. They weren’t better

Untenable? Struth