Bay Riffin

can't watch it anymore. umpiring is atrocious, but so are we. Short summary of that 3rd quarter...Bartram gets ball on wing dummies and creates space to run ahead which he does, then dribbles ball along ground 10 metres away with no-one near him, shocking turnover, Fitspatrick runs into open forward line by himself, dribbles balls off his left with free men everywhere close to goal, Mckenzie handpass out of pack to Trengove in clear runs into open goal 30 metres out and yes, mis-kick to Port player in the square. Guy we are a F$%king train wreck. this is the bottom side. having said that, their goals appear to come from direct free kicks. most one sided umpiring I've seen all year. seen 3 clear frees against Motlop all missed. forward line is a shamble today.

Well there was always talk when he got his last big contract that he was a leader of our exciting young aboriginal talent and vital for them. Well the club cannot be happy with his year. He was no doubt playing injured but his leadership was non existent. He pushed the club for a long term deal but has gone downhill since. When people look at our lack of character and soft tag look no further than Davey. Reminds me of use of yze right now

So can't decide between training sessions hasn't even looked at the contracts but after playing this weekend will decide in a day !! If this reporter is right surely he is gone. If he goes to gws he will go quickly no doubt and avoid mad Monday and everything else.

How do you figure that? We are missing 2 or 3 big blokes for a start, have heavily invested in midfield talent that is getting beaten in clearances by Gold Coast and whoever else we play and have a good promising backline. We only started addressing our lack of key position talls in the last draft and we are missing a few good kickers. our list is promising but hardly without missing pieces.

really good debut by the big guy. seemed quite attacking and made good choices. was found out a bit deep towards goal but overall I reckon the coaches would be happy with his game. Would be nice to develop a genuinely big key defender, in fact it's vital for us as Frawley and Garland time and again have shown they can play on smalls and talls. Also hearing Davis played a great game for Casey, so it is promising for our key position stocks.

if its another 3 months then it sound like ground hog day all over again for Aussie. No way is this just luck. his body was highly likely to get injured after such a lay off. I was expecting it to happen. Grimes is bad luck, but this isn't. he is not conditioned and probably the least fittest at the club. I think he is worth persisting for 1 more year but he would have to be desperate and totally committed. one more year of injury and it's a waste of a valuable spot so he would be lucky to get another year.

what did you base this on ?

was just wondering the same thing myself. we are one of the few clubs who lose complete confidence on our home ground with greater support and we get a few goals down. commentators were already saying 'rabble' and 'coming apart' 10 minutes into the second when really why should we be ? suddenly we get sapped of all confidence when the momentum is against us. what are we - pathetic ? I do wonder. we go to the draft and get truckloads of talent then suddenly cannot improve in our 4th year of rebuild. not only that but we are officially worse than last year.

You want players to play for the coach, but they don’t have to love him. In Wayne Careys recent book he said Pagan would tell them you may hate me, but we will win games of football and mentioned Melbourne under Neil Balme had a coach they loved and were down the bottom. No way were we playing for the coach. Let’s not gloss over the 2nd worst loss in the history of the AFL. We were rubbish and have been rubbish in most of our many losses this year. Let’s not get confused between loving the coach and playing our best for the coach. Bailey time and again failed in our ability to defend and turn things around when the chips were down. Let’s hope we fire a shot this weekend. If we don’t we are in serious serious trouble.

ironic one of our biggest front running players of the daniher era would comment on our current front running side. Very easy to take pot shots on a club who played him for more games than he was worth and on very good money too. When the chips were down, he was often the first to go missing. This behaviour is the pits to me.

Is this a joke - ask him how they did in their only final in Adelaide. Is he conveniently rewriting history here and all the shallackings they went through. His team just kicked 2 of the last 14 goals against the pies and wants to preach how we are not as strong as the bombers. Given his coach just told us how selfish he was not playing the coaches way I call the pot calling kettle black here

Why not go for Jesse White who can play a very similiar role to Dawes? People bag Jesse White but Dawes also is not a natural talent but very important to the pies structure. If you look at Dawes output for the amount of delivery he gets, he does not set the world on fire, but he does bring a contest to allow the smalls to wreak havoc. Why couldn't White for us? I really don't think we will progress unless we can get 1 or 2 key positions of decent size to help straighten us up.

So how do you explain that whilst Scully has stated all along he will wait till the end of year, he will then make up his mind within one week after our last game? If you were leaving, you have to leave straight away before functions, best and fairest etc but why is it too hard to make a decision at this time with all details laid out on the table, but then he will make his mind up in a few days....hmmm...explain that one. I must wait until the season is finished but then will make up my mind immediately !!

Are you suggesting Tom doesn't know about a huge contract has been offered by GWS even when his manager states this on radio. that he wouldn't know the money being offered? is this candid camera (looks around the room) ??

I just find that impossible to believe. How can we believe whilst the footy world discusses this every day, Scully himself has no idea what contracts are on the table by GWS and Melbourne. If this is what he hears, I smell soemthing dodgy.

Melbourne have invested heavily in running players last 3-4 drafts. what we absolutley need is a couple of bigger bodied key positon types. We can't spend 2012 all year hoping Watts and Jurrah can be our talls all year.

The worrying aspect is his manager saying Scully won't make up his mind till after the season ends but will then make up his mind straight away and within 1 week. That screams out he has made a decision already, and he can't announce he is going. That and his latest quote that Tom is happy at Melbourne and that is not a factor in his decision. might have let that slip, as it doesn't make any sense as you read it, if he was staying. Those quotes have me thinking he is gone. If he goes he was defintely lying as how did everyone know about this big contract that was only just put on the table a week or so ago.

I think you have it right, his job and the way he goes about it at present reminds me of Frawley when he first started, he had pace and was learning to just do a shut down role. Helping out teammates and doing some grunt work. Once Frawley gained confidence to defend, he then he started being more and more creative as his confidence built. it may happen for Strauss. I like Strauss effort tonight, there seems to be a lot of team work happening in our backline and Rivers, Frawley are starting to team ok with him there. I reckon the coaches are happy as he is developing his weaknesses at present. Actually thought the same about Cale last night and neither set the world on fire mind you.

This really irks me. Sometimes people get their perspective all out of whack like somehow MFC need to pander to each player. We have every right to talk turkey with Toms management. Every right. This is a key contract that effects discussions with other key players like Sylvia etc. If Tom doesn’t like it, get over it and quickly. GWS and any other club would do the same. In no way does the club need to be apologetic for putting an offer on the table at round 17. The perception is we have to walk on egg shells or something. Geezz, most here would give their left nut to play for the dees, and people are suggesting the MFC are to blame to start negotiations on a key young player. Let’s not forget the oldest club in the land is bigger than the individual here. Talking to his management is not only acceptable.

exactly what i thought. Seemed like a content bloke with no reference with dealing with the MFC at the end of year.

bit out of left field but if Scullys mind was set on leaving for bigger money, surely we could provide a chance to go to Gold Coast instead. From his point of view they have Ablett etc and a more favourable environment all round, they can offer him more money than any existing clubs BUT can trade us something decent for him, most likely in terms of draft picks. Don't forget they will be possibly first cab off the rank (outside of GWS) in the draft say pick 4, or even pick 6. They may be very tempted to go with a player who looks on performance very likely to play 10 years compared to a player with just potential. Isn't palatable, but if worse came to worse we can end up with decent compensation. Let's not forget Geelong were given peanuts for giving up the best midfielder in the league. an end of first round compensation pick for a champion.

we need to take note of ourselves here and learn from the recurring issues we have. time and again for god knows how long now we have had certain players play well then turn in shockers like today. The three who have consistently let us down have been Bruce, Green and Rivers. Bruce is gone, Rivers is a function of being able to beat certain types like lumbering ruckman then gets carved up by big forwards like Hawkins, Cloke etc. This is also a function of Baileys obsession of recruiting midfielders on mass whilst we lack decent talls. Green however I have no answer for. he seems too slow now. even last week he wasn't getting much separation on his opponents and hasn't all year. A couple of years ago he was our gutsiest player, almost suicidal in fact, but now he is putting too many lamentable performances together like times gone by. i just feel only natural attrition and turning over our list will eliminate this massive inconsistencies in our performance.

It was embarrasing when he announced he fully expected Bruce to be at training on the Monday to start pre-season and he wasn't. I thought he would have learnt from that. Don't play it out in the media Bailey.

Geez I wonder why i have to read stuff like this. go replay Marics last games against North and Saints. how many of our blokes can wheel around and dob them from 55 metres? his kicking is very good. just needs to work on other areas. Yes Strauss and Maric have been softish, so can't kick ?? yes he kicked some bad ones, but who has 100% efficiency? People should be barracking hard for this kid Strauss. he has v good pace, very good kicking skills and could be a valuable weapon for us. That was his third game and he did some good things. if he can maintain his spot going forward we will be better for it. not everyone has skills and toughness like a Tapscott, be he showed good composure on Friday night.

I would have thought a key stat for Morton was tackles which hasn't been his strength. in game where we didn't have the ball he laid none. zippo. Nicholson came on and laid a few tackles. I am still amazed Bailey cannot get Morton with elite running ability to get quite a few tackles into his game. he should be a right nuisance, impossible to get away from, but he doesn't tackle !! He was ok on goodes so why not give him some defensive roles on good running players. this week perhaps Heppel as a defensive forward ??