Mazer Rackham

Right now Gil is in his study sitting in a leather upholstered chair in front of a roaring fire. Nursing a huge balloon of brandy, smoking a Cuban cigar. Congratulating himself and contemplating how he has managed to steer his prodigal son back to bigger finals attendances the path of righteousness.

Somewhere in the 1990s. Set back 20 years. There was a time under Daniher when we alternated between making finals and missing them. Why was that? Why finals/no finals/finals/nofinals, etc. Mental weakness. At least we could make them then. But even in our good years with Daniher, how often did we flub the end of the season? Sitting high then losing games all of a sudden. Mental weakness. Daniher didn't have the answers. How deep seated is this problem? Now it's back. More like it never went away. Maybe our game plan is too demanding. Maybe we are young and developing. Maybe Oscar isn't up to it. Maybe he is. Maybe we need a second key forward. Maybe this. Maybe that. And what about the injuries? All irrelevant because we would have made the finals except for mental weakness. Even with all the above. It should now be obvious that the one thing, the most important thing to work on is mental. It stood out at the end of last season. That should have been enough. Now it's glaring. I fear that it won't be worked on. Modern footy coaching groupthink, where a player who kicks a goal and is on a high, gets to go to the bench ... where players aren't allowed to practice goal kicking because it wears out their delicate bodies ... will not allow such an outlier approach. (It's like basketballers not being allowed to practice throwing baskets. It's like boxers not being allowed to practice punching. It's like a golfer not being allowed to practice putting.) They will practice faster, slicker ball movement, harder/faster running both ways, and of course, injecting a dose of whatever the eventual premiers do best. (Because that must be their "secret".) The obvious failing, mental squibbing, won't be addressed. How deep seated is this problem?

Do you mean to say that some people have calmed down? Five days after the biggest calamity since 87 prelim and people have managed to calmed down?

Splitting hairs. They turned up the pressure and we didn't. Whether it manifests as "not tackling" or "they had plenty of space".

Just watched the first quarter again. I think the tackling/lack of tackling is a furphy. It didn't stand out at all. What stood out was: we were constantly under the pump for space. Pies closed in on us giving us no room. Which is what they were always going to do. But why oh why did we give them so much space? They were in the clear more times than Hogan has appealed for free kicks. ball handling. Inability to pick it up cleanly. Inability to get it to another Demon by hand ... always seemed to be at their feet or to the worst possible disadvantage. The slight delay every time killed us. Couldn't kick to another Demon to save ourselves. That's what it looked like at the ground and the replay only confirmed it. It didn't look like Collingwood were all that good at it either, except we gave them so much space to do it in, they were more effective at it. Yes they jabbed a few goals. It happens. We had our chances to jab them too but flubbed it. Letting them get in front just made the arsey goals hurt more because then it goes from catch up footy to catch up plus.

Why are we revisiting history on Martin? haven't we got enough fresh new material to bash ourselves with? Every club has their hard luck stories on "the one that got away". if you have to shoot yourself, do it over things that actually happened, not things that didn't happen.

Caro doesn't report football stories, she reports gossip stories disguised as football stories. Caro's ideal story: Demetriou's estranged wife declares bankruptcy after failure of joint venture to supply imported oranges to GWS at half time that gave food poisoning to players' girlfriends. Second best: North to face huge fines from Tassie govt for breaching public safety standards with new turf sourced from Chinese mistress of Hobart council worker who previously boinked assistant coach's wife.

Is this the MFC version of the "messiah complex"? Carlton got in Judd. Got 'em nowhere. Suns got in Ablett. got 'em nowhere. Many other examples over many years. MFC get in someone to magically fix up our soft doughy minds? Vince hasn't done it. Lewis hasn't done it. How about we look from within to find and fix the problem. One more "mental messiah" isn't going to do it.

This is the biggest fork in the road since 186. Which way we will we take. Harden up and become ruthless pricks. Or drift along always making up the numbers. Every time I go to training from now on I will say nothing, but shout out "one oh five point two!" "ONE OH FIVE POINT TWO, DEMONS! ONE OH FIVE POINT TWO!"

**ring ring** Goodwin: "Hello. Simon Goodwin." Mark Neeld: "They're getting better at it." Goodwin: "What do you mean?" Neeld: "It took them 2 years to mentally scar me for life. They did it to you in only one." Goodwin: "Yeah right. Thanks pal." Neeld: "A ha ha ha ha ha! A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ! A HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!" Goodwin's eyes roll back in his head and something seems to come over him. Goodwin: "A HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ! A HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !"

Goodwin, now mentally scarred. Dragged down by the curse of being associated with the MFC. Forced to endure the afterlife forever wondering about that 105.2 percentage. On dark Sunday nights at the MCG when the wind is up, some say you can still hear his voice in the coaches box, shouting "just kick the bloody thing!!!!!!!"

Keep thinking, you'll get it

Brisbane already did in round 22. They really thought they had our number. And we practically printed it out for them in big letters and stuck it in their kit bags to make sure. Collingwood did. Because that's the kind of [censored] they are. And we didn't want to ruin their big day so we rolled over for them. Carlton did both times we played them. They know what can happen, first hand, when you give the mighty dees the treatment. Look forward to it in '18! If we're made of anything, we will stand up. Otherwise, look out.

This is the number one issue facing the club. More than another big forward, more than the McDonalds/Frost/Lever/whoever setup down back. Mental fragility is the number one issue.

Agreed. Everyone knows that Viney is really the vice captain. But as long as he wears the name tag that says "captain" he has to do everything expected of a captain. Including the bad parts.

Also, I wouldn't take lessons in "resolve" from Jobe Watson. "An unprecedented, unusual, and highly irregular injection regime? That sets off so many alarm bells that we the players demand the club indemnifies us from legal repercussions? Whatever you say, boss."

Part of a captain's job is to eat a [censored] sandwich when required. No excuses. I hope Viney does not come out and say "I didn't have to grovel because I wasn't in that game" -- because that would disqualify him from the captaincy.

Viney is supposed to be a captain even when he's not out on the ground. Should have faced the music with his co captain.

I have cut the club plenty of slack over many years. But Bossdog, against your multiple positives, there is one major negative which cannot be overlooked. We are serial flub artists. Multiple times this season, when the heat was on, we melted. Once is unfortunate, twice looks like carelessness, but 5 times is a major problem in the mentality of the list. Until that's rectified, we will forever be putting up lists of all our positives and our charitable deeds, while other clubs play finals.

What should have set the club up for at least ONE year was flubbing it against Carlton last year and then completely squibbing it against Geelong in the last round. It seems that did nothing in the "resolve" department. This year is worse because we were already in the 8!

So he wasn't on the ground on Saturday. But he let his co captain front up and grovel to the media by himself. If you're captain, you don't pick and choose when you are/aren't. And you sure as [censored] don't pull the "not my responsibility" line. Not a good look for Jack.

Was he not captain of the club for those 2 1/2 hours?

Where's the MFC captain? The other one. Doesn't he care about any of this?

WTF? Is one of our captains not a captain any more?

If it's an apology, and Viney isn't there with him, then Viney's the one who should step down as captain.