At the break of Gawn

Couple of observations: a) I respect Goody for making a few changes, but there's a fine line between sticking to your guns (and the plan you have laid out all summer) vs looking desperate. Some of the changes he made tonight smelt of desperation. Notably Brayshaw didn't attend one centre bounce. Not one. And he is our best centre bounce player. Tmac going back made our forward line as impotent as a 95yo man in a nursing home. b) Goodwin keeps on banging on about "Connection". The reason we can't connect with our forward line all comes down to the very last possession going into the 50. We have guys like Oliver who slams it on the boot and bombs it in high, Brayshaw blindly kicking around corners, Viney who rarely makes a good decision with ball in hand. We need that last possession to go to someone with class who can dispose of it. The only people I can think of is Salem and Melksham otherwise the ball is going to keep on bouncing back out of there. Tom Lynch (Ade) is a great example of a connector, Watts was also pretty decent at it as well (he was ranked 1 for kicks that get retained inside the F50 in 2017). c) Richmond's pressure is elite. This makes their back 6 look amazing (although they are good in their own right) as every kick forward from the opposition is under pressure. Collingwood's game plan of keeping off is the only way to beat them. Unfortunately our skill level across the board is so below the Pies we could never execute that game plan d) Richmond home games are horrible for anyone with a GA membership. Since how they have 98k members there's barely any GA seats left because they've farmed out any decent seats as reserved.

Download the MFC app. You can access your membership there with barcode. It’s in the tickets session.

We beat Essendon convincingly last year (albeit at Etihad).

It’s a reciprocal game for members so it might be slightly better. Watch out for QBD to be one sided. Collingwood home game and not reciprocal.

Fall into a false sense of optimism again. To counter this, after tonight’s game, regardless of result, I’m not going to another game this year unless we have won our previous 2 going into it.

Going tonight with zero expectations. Would just like to see a good game of football and some resemblance of a Melbourne brand.

I think Jack Riewoldt coming off a 3 week wrist and knee injury is an ideal time to play them. He’ll probably be quite underdone. If my memory serves me correctly, Riewoldt used to have a horrible time playing against TMac back in the day. He had one good game in 2017 where he played most of it on Frost.

I think the 4-6 basically means they are still sore and they are hoping the soreness disappears in the next 2 or so weeks, and then they need a month of training to build up heir fitness base again to be match fit. It’s the only reasonable conclusion I could come up with.

Frost on Lynch, Tmac on Jack.

What’s with Preuss? Played a full game on the w/e. Is it his shoulder?

We didn’t have a defensive coach last year and our defence was better. This could be a result of overcoaching going on here. Looking at other club sites, there’s no “defensive” coach. Just a backline coach. Although Richmond does have an offensive coach. FD needs to put McCartney back into his old role I feel.

https://www.melbournefc.com.au/Team/players/coaches Says McCartney is the Defensive Coach. I somehow recall looking at this site just a few weeks ago and it had McCartney as the development coach. This must be a 2019 change. No wonder there's tension.

Saw this too. I didn’t even know McCartney was responsible for our defensive 6. There’s a bad smell coming out of the club at the minute. Perhaps McCartney leaving may be our circuit breaker like it was for Essendon in 2018 with Neeld. Mahoney, being the good operator he is, needs to sort this out ASAP.

I also think one of the reasons the sky is falling down with a few injuries is because of a severe lack of depth and a game plan that stinks. Collingwood last year had a horrific injury list last year that would send this site into meltdown if it was us. GWS also. I think the difference there is they can have bodies come in and play a role because they are educated exactly on the game plan. We have a guy debut or come in and they’re either genuine VFLers or got no idea how to follow this BS zone defence

Who are the other good assistant coaches that may be available out there?

I love the way Jack Viney goes about it. But unfortunately, he’s not a very smart bloke at all. He’s just a see ball, get ball, kick ball player. Who is ultimately not a very effective player when you compare his effort to his output. He doesn’t have a qtr of the footy IQ of a Pendlebury, Cripps, Bont, Davis, Hurn, I could go on... I honestly think in two or three years they’ll give the sole captaincy to Lever if he gets his body right and can reshape our backline. Lever has all the hallmarks of a great captain.

We have been pathetic all year in ground ball gets. Especially in our forward line. I’m not sure if this is correlated with the poor form of Tmac and Weid but also the poor quality small forwards we have but something has to drastically change. Apart from defensive structures, this has to be a top priority that the FD has to address.

Agree. Richmond 2015 finished 5th (same as us in 2018) although got knocked out finals first round. 2016 finished 13th, and we all know what happened in 2017. Success doesn’t always happen in a straight line. But I will say, that teams like Richmond and Collingwood had major shake ups of their FD before it all clicked. Same thing needs to happen with us and hence the clean out of some dead wood assistants.

Crazy idea, but why doesn’t Melbourne employ Roos again on some part time consultation basis? I saw better performances in most of 2016 than I have seen all this year.

Yep, Ben Matthews too I feel. Got the most talented midfield going around and can’t win clearances. At at the end of 2017, Collingwood brought in Garry Hocking and Justin Longmuir who had immediate effect. The FD needs at least two or three changes at season end. Starting with Misso, Chaplin and potentially Matthews.

Well I was dead wrong. The Saints aren’t the bees knees, but they play a really simple and effective game style. Tore us to pieces in the middle and their transition from defence is very good and no nonsense. The only 4 we’ll be worrying about this year is the bottom 4.

Saints have overachieved so far this year and sitting pretty after a very soft draw while also running into teams at the right time (Essendon as a shambles, Hawks on one leg). The headline tonight will be “Dees give Saints a reality check”. Melbourne by +30pts

Disappointed that Garlett or Lockhart didn’t get a look in.

I also have the same feeling. But mind you, I also had the same feeling going into the Bombers game.

I thought groin injuries were usually a 4 week injury. It’s already been 4 and Smith is a 4-6 which means he’s potentially going to miss half the season with a groin injury???