At the break of Gawn

I can't understand why commentators are saying this is some sort of competition between the two. Ben Brown had 1 game without a goal and he's probably on track to win the Coleman (but here's hoping Jesse will beat him) - I don't think a player kicking a goal in every game in a season is some sort of big achievement.

First Melbourne game I went to he kicked 8 and led us to an upset win over the blues in 1996. Was probably my favourite player before that as a kid but that day just cemented it for another 12 years. Champion player.

Saints didn’t drop their heads at all. We all thought that would happen in the last qtr but to their credit they didn’t which made it difficult to get a 10 goal win.

6. Clayton Oliver 5. Jesse Hogan 4. Angus Brayshaw 3. Max Gawn 2. Michael Hibberd 1. Nathan Jones Apologies to Lewis, Lever who were rock solid and Tyson who played one of his better games.

It’s difficult to judge Port’s forward line while Paddy is injured (I think he’s back this week though) as Dixon has had to ruck and that other young kid (Marshall I think) is out with personal leave, meaning Watts was there no.1 almost and he never does well in that circumstance. i just hope he keeps his spot so we can see him line up against us in a Friday night game (it’ll be an interesting dynamic to watch).

I think if it’s just football centric criticism then it’s fair game. It comes with the territory, and most players (especially Lever) are adequately compensated. Essentially it’s the same what guys like Robbo or Caro write. Personal attacks are definitely not on, however.

He thinks he’s Dusty Martin now that he wears no.4. Got caught holding the ball 3 times on Tuesday trying to do a fend off. He gets sucked into contests all the time when he shouldn’t and his foot skills are poor. What Harmes thinks he is capable of and what he can actually do borders on delusional. It’s a bit of an indictment on the match committee that he’s not even on the extended interchange this week.

It’ll probably still be short of the vitriol you threw at Jack Watts over the years.

Yep, read the article. Can't wait to see the joke asking if it was Jordan De Goey's dog.

Surely just a dose of antibiotics would be enough...

From a dog bite? wtf? really?

Similar position to last year. We had just lost 3 in a row (Geelong, Freo and Richmond) and we just had to beat Essendon. Thankfully Danniher couldn't kick the side of a barn that day and we ran over the top of them in the second half. Watts and Petracca both kicked 4 that day. If Hurley or Hooker nullify Hogan, I just can't see us winning.

He actually did the exact same dumb kick just before half-time against Richmond last year (totally gave them a spark at half time). Scroll to 2:53 and you'll see.

On field leadership is definitely an issue for us. Without question. It's one of the main reason we can't stop the bleeding during those lulls. People blame Goodwin, but if a run-on starts 5 minutes into a quarter, Goodwin doesn't have a chance to chat to the collective group until 25 minutes later. Richmond's leaders saw the momentum swing in the 3rd qtr and wrestled it back. Unfortunately we don't have that same type of leadership to do the same. Jones isn't the only leader out there, but he certainly should be doing more when the opposition is on a rampage.

Out: Harmes, AnB, Vince In: Spargo, Lewis, Tmac or Pedo (replace Harmes with a tall). I’d leave Stretch for another week. Harmes has to go. Has given nothing for 5 games.Vince is done and the statement Goodwin needs to make.

Must not have noticed them. Didn't have much of an impact though and would still question why we would pick him above Pedo.

Harmes has to be dropped. Can’t believe we let him have no.4. Stretch nervous and fumbly Vince has to be dropped, surely . Nothing game from Tyson i cant recall Weid taking a mark so not sure about some people calling it an encouraging game Goodwin had no answers when we lost the clearances in the second term. Just had to submit to Richmond’s structures. Only positives: Gawn again, Lever looked comfortable, Melksham returned to form, same with hibbo. Jones and Oliver very good in the middle. O Mac our best defender almost at the moment.

30% chance of rain. I don’t mind those odds.

I’d still prefer Macca running the defensive coach role over Chaplin. He was a spud of a player and has zero runs on the board as a coach.

It says on the MFC website that Macca is a player development coach but according to the article he also shares with defensive line coach role? Makes it even worse that we have two defensive coaches and yet it’s a complete shambles at the moment.

Maybe Goodwin thinks Macca down there will get the message across to the players but Macca didn’t want to go? (Being optimistic here) Tom Morris is a Dees fan and hosts that inside Melbourne podcast, but not sure how good his sources are regarding the reason.

Spot on. Some of the footage showed Jordan Lewis and he just wasn’t running hard enough. Playing zone defence shouldn’t devoid you of responsibility of chasing an opponent to eliminate that option.

Teams will be available on Monday according to AFL.com. Unfortunately I can't see us winning this game. Richmond has won the past 12 or 13 games straight at the MCG and they defend it extremely well. With Hogan and Garlett being our main avenues to goal so far this season, I'm struggling to see us kick a big enough score with the likes of Rance and Astbury roaming their defence. Tigers by 5 goals.

I saw some footage earlier on Fox on the "weekend low down" which has Nick Dal Santo, Ben Dixon among others and one thing they highlighted was the "laziness" that was displayed by some of the players in the middle of the ground. Essentially, as a collective we weren't putting enough pressure on the ball carrier or at shutting down the next "chip kick" option which allowed them to progressively move the ball forward with ease. Another interesting point was that since how we are such a mediocre pressure side at the moment, there's not enough pressure on the opposition ball carrier which means they don't "sky it" as much to allow players like Jake Lever to take intercept marks. In other words, if no one is pressuring, the opposition is entering attack with no pressure and can easily execute a good option which makes our defenders more vulnerable.

That's the side effect of the high forward press. It's a high risk game Goody plays. If the opposition gets past the forward press, the opposition forwards have heaps and heaps of space and run rings around our defenders. Take a look at JoM's soccer goal in the 3rd qtr, it was straight out of the"how to score against Melbourne" playbook. The Tigers' smalls will have a field day with that much space to run into to go past their. The problem is that the press is way too high. Omac, Lever, Frost should be in the middle of the ground, not near our forward 50 when we have it in there. Hawthorn always had players down back way behind the ball so that when we did get it forward, they had the defenders already there. The forward 50 entries are misleading as a lot of those are repeat entries and by that stage the forward 50 is so congested it's impossible to properly hit a target or take a contested mark. Goodwin just needs to cool the jets on the high forward press. He's placing too much faith on the players keeping it in our forward 50 winning every contest. To put it simply, he just needs to adopt a less aggressive game style. I can only hope that the Hawks game and all the commentary from Paul Roos and co will make him admit that the formation is too aggressive and it needs to change.