Dante

As I said, if we can't beat the Saints and Blues and we've let a few to the Scum as well, we will always be middle of the road. i recall the Hawthorn games where we were beaten every time we played them and you could be confused for thinking the game you were watching was a replay of the game the year before. I was at the Carlton game last year and it was so much like the game on the weekend, it was all over after 5 minutes. We have to change the way we approach the Saints and Blues games and also, we cannot afford to get beaten but a club like Essendon.

Played 2008 Blues Lost 1 Saints Lost 1 2009 Blues Lost 1 Saints Lost 2 2010 Blues Lost 1 Saints Lost 1 2011 Blues Lost 2 Saints Lost 1 2012 Blues Lost 1 Saints Lost 2 2013 Blues Lost 1 Saints Lost 1 2014 Blues Won 1 Saints Lost 1 2015 Blues Lost 1 Saints Lost 2 2016 Blues Lost 1 Saints Lost 2 In the last 9 years we have beaten Carlton once and the Saints not even once and at the same time we have lost to them 19 times and you don't think there's a problem?

Plan B may be as simple as having Spencer in the side, as well as Gawn, in games where we know he has an opposition ruckman he struggles against, like Tom Hickey and Kreuser. Other sides have worked out that if they negate Gawn we are in strife and they either beat him or break even in the centre and use a third man up at other ball ups. Gawn is the most important player in our side and if we want him to continue to be that, we must rest him more and I cannot understand why we brought in Weed (who is a long way off senior selection, he will be good but needs time) and dropped Pedo and didn't consider Spence. We need someone that can jump in to the opposition ruck and slow them down and we need players to stop the third man up.

If that's the case then why can't we play Gold Coast and GWS as away games at the MCG, it would achieve the MCC's purpose and give the interstate clubs the opportunity of playing at the G. There may only be 15,000 supporters at the games but MFC supporters would be happy. That way we could play Essendon and Carlton twice a year at the G, as well and get even more games there, the MCC would be over the moon.

What you say might be true, for the most part, but it still doesn't address the problem we have with Carlton, St Kilda and Essendon, they play a style of football that we don't seem to be able to counter. Until we can sort this out we will be middle of the road and those clubs, if they get their act together, will go past us.

Kade Simpson - We didn't set out to end Melbourne's season, that's just a bonus. If that doesn't inspire us to beat them next time, what will? Melbourne play bruise free football?

I disagree with this, I believe our midfield was outclassed, it sometimes looks like you've had an off day when your opponent tears you a new one. We had no answer to Cripps and Gibbs, simple as that and that's why I believe we don't need bit players we need class in the midfield.

10 wins is not a good return, we should have beaten, at least, Carlton and Essendon and probably one of the Saints games. I'll excuse them for the North and Weagles games because we were crucified by the umpires but if we are to be taken seriously we must beat teams on our level and below. Don't fall for the Richmond mantra, "we finished 9th this year so it's finals bound next year", every year is different so we may not get the chance. Make no mistake we were absolute crap today and the players should be ashamed, particularly the leaders in the midfield. On Hogan, this was a low pressure game and his kicking was awful, how would we react if it was a final and he lost the game for us because of the yips?

We chased them all day and when we did get the ball we turned it over, they kicked with some precision we kicked like and under 12 side. Not one side in the 8 would have dropped that game today, we did because we effed up the selection and we don't have the pace to go with them. We should have added some outside pace instead we added a skinny kid, an ordinary slow fringe player and a new player who was having his first game for some time and was played out of position. We always get beaten by them because we always do the same thing and they do the same thing and they know we will, we don't learn. The football department should look at the Essendon, Saints and Carlton games and work out why we always fail against them, it shouldn't take them long. I sent a mate a text at 1.20, 10 minutes in and said we are playing like crap again and it just didn't get any better. Don't underestimate Kreuser, he performed well and their third man up negated Big Max.

Went to the game today and left before 3/4 time, we were terrible today and always will be against clubs that have good outside runners, Saints, Essendon and Blues. We were gone at about 20 minutes in to the game and you could see we had no answer to their pace, run and kicking, we were blazing away and they kicked it to a team mate. Dreadful effort and there are some who will gone next year and a couple of HBF's won't help us against running sides, we need at leat two players who have some outside run and will continue to struggle until we get them. Gibbs and Cripps killed us today and our midfield was innocuous, I don't care how many ineffective possessions our mids got, the Blues midfield had quality use of the ball all day. Our forward line was missing, I don't know how many times we bombed it in to the forward line to a lone opposition player. Not sure if the players were confused by our jumpers today but they continually kicked it to one of theirs or too a contest where they had the advantage. They looked beaten from the opening bounce. Our midfield is in dire need of some quality, dire need.

Forget Hurley and Hibbered, we need class in the midfield, we really have none, just blue collar hard workers (not today though).

I am serious, he is without doubt a good coach but the old adage is Good Players make Good Coaches, take a look at Mathews record, he won one flag with Collingwood and was eventually sacked. He also won 3 with Brisbane when they had one of the best teams ever assembled, but what happened to him and them once they lost some of their top players. Their and his record after 2004 was terrible. Clarkson is a very god coach and has been revolutionary, but it is a lot easier if you have the players that can carry out your plans. Next year he will have an ageing list and the players that have carried the team for the last 10 years or thereabouts will be on the verge of, or retired. Their top three possession winners last night, Hodge, Burgoyne and Lewis are getting on, Mitchell is mid 30's Roughy may not play again, Gibson is getting on. Who do they have to replace them and if they can't then do you think they will still be finals contenders or will they go in to rebuilding phase. As I said the next three years will see just how good Clarkson is, he won't have a team of champions anymore so it may be a bit more difficult to conjure up a flag with an ordinary side. Not sure why you got so uppity about it, it was just an observation. Norm smith had a great record because he was a revolutionary coach and had the fittest side in the competition, he also had a great group of players that were able to carry out his instructions at a time when most players only played football as a means of supplementing their income. But even the great Norm Smith had a vey poor record after 1964.

The true test of Clarkson's worth will be the next few years, when he loses several champion players and he can't just go out and take replacements from other clubs. Destination clubs are those that have an immediate future and Hawthorns is not looking all that good. Chip must be pondering the future at the moment.

Watts has been really good this year and he's played a number of roles, so you can't really compare his numbers and form to Hogans. Watts has played forward where he's won games for us, he's played back where he's saved games for us and he's played ruck to give Big Max a chop out when required. He's been by far our most versatile player and you could say our most valuable, he may have only come to the fore this year but he's done it with a bang. It is regrettable that we have to denigrate Watt's performance so we can compare the two players. So what if Watts doesn't get the best defender, he still has to kick the goals or assist others, so what if he doesn't play on the best forward in defence, he still has to get to the backline to take the match saving mark. They are both good players but there seems to be the need to match them against each other to get some sort of result.

Few things, if I was the full back I couldn't care how many marks the full forward took if they were on the wing or half back line. If Hogan wants to play CHF then he should be kicking the ball in to the forwards who are doing the FF and FP positions, he's not doing that at the moment. He needs to get the ball moving when he's up the ground and takes a mark, he's taking forever to get rid of the ball. If it was Grimes or Trenners doing the same thing there would be mass calls for his/their dropping. I'm sure the coaches have this under control and I'm not calling for him to be dropped, just pointing out some observations.

Perhaps H might play better football with us, now we are playing better football. I hope he comes back for both himself and the club, we've had a few long term concussions and let's hope he gets over his and soon.

I think Jack came good last year but slipped up towards the end, he got dropped and I think that was the wake up call he needed. He's been good all year so far and I would imagine he now understands he has to put in every week, not every now and then. Some players get harsher treatment than others, there are some that more is expected of and I reckon Jack is one of them.

You are right it was an accident and Bourke hit him, see 5.00 in, Biff was looking on.

Interesting when you read the Casey review, some of the players get mentioned as playing up to AFL standard and ready for a recall and others get classified as playing very well and doing all the things that we ask of them. This week, look at the reviews for Matt Jones, Grimes and Trenners, you can clearly see who is in the frame for promotion and who is going nowhere. It seems as if there are some who will not get promoted no matter how well they play, their cards are marked.

I must confess I can't recall games results around that time, it was a while ago after all. The only thing I can say is that they won flags in 1961 and 1971 and became a much better side after that whereas we were on the downhill from 1964 on, we won the first 8 in 1965 but only won one more for the year. It was a dreadful ground with one side jammed up against the railway line with just a few terraces for standing room, the ground was very narrow and was boggy even after a small amount of rain, they knew how to play it better than other teams.

I think we've ended the year ahead of schedule, whereas half way through the year we were behind schedule, if we make the finals it will be because we deserve to and if we don't it's because we've dropped games early in the year we shouldn't have. Having said that, we probably dropped those games because we were trying to play a different style and if we weren't, we may have won those games, but we maybe wouldn't be where we are today, a really competitive unit. I doubt us making the finals this year will be detrimental to our ongoing development and if we do it won't have any bearing on what happens next year, we have a very professional unit running the show now. We are not Richmond and if we do make the finals, our group's leaders will not allow the players to get ahead of themselves, Richmond just naturally expect they will get there the following year because that's how it evolves, well it doesn't.

Three of our more maligned players Buggy, Harmesy and Wagnery do a lot of unheralded work and are all part of the overall structure of the side, pressure acts form part of their worth. They all have problems with disposal, at times, but they do other things that more than make up for that.

I think they went after him, he was finished after that, it basically ended his career.

I was there too and they still beat us, I think Iva is thinking of another day when we won there, which wasn't often. If I recall Biffen was involved in this as well, correct me if I'm wrong.

I was at the ground that day, behind the goals where Hassa kicked the goal, I was getting a bit anxious but always thought we'd win. If you weren't around in those days you wouldn't believe the conditions of some of the grounds they played at, especially Glenferrie Oval where this game was held, it was a long narrow ground and I doubt they had any drainage.