Wiseblood

Absolutely. Not knocking your right to hold that view, merely commenting on where I see it potentially going down the road. I could well be wrong in that, but that's life. And I didn't believe you were writing LJ off - in fact, I see you as someone who isn't prone to making such quick judgements on players. But I see LJ as the modern footballer. He can ruck, go forward, impact the play around the ground and is very athletic for his size. He will take time, but I can see him being exactly what we need going forward.

True - however, I note that you're already lamenting that we didn't select Young, even though both of their careers are in their absolute infancy. Yes, I get that you haven't written Jackson off by any stretch, but already you're looking longingly in the direction of another player from that same draft, even though it's extremely early days. That's where it starts.

I agree 100%. If you go back and watch the last 4-5 games, including finals, of 2018 you'll see him involved in numerous scoring chains by getting to the right place and then hitting targets, either by foot or hand. He was terrific. No doubt he is out of form at the minute but he is worth persisting with.

He stayed behind. You're really taking every opportunity to sink the boots into Spargo. Not sure what he's done to deserve it to be honest.

And watch Melbourne supporters give him zero time to develop as well. Have a look at our ol' mate Poita - already calling him a 'blatantly poor selection' even though the kid has been part of one senior game. Classic.

Plenty of water to go under the bridge first. I'm happy with what we did last year. Hopefully we can get a few wins on the board and at least make the North pick land outside the Top 4, but as someone mentioned above, we won't know the outcome until years down the track. North might end up with Sam Walsh or Cale Morton.

The only problems I see with Daniher are that he wants to go interstate if he were to move on from the Bombers, and that he is horribly injury prone. Knowing our luck we'll recruit him and we won't be able to get the bloke on the park and then every Melbourne fan will cry for eternity, if they aren't already. I think we'll look not only our tall forward stocks come seasons end (and if Weideman shows little progression again, do we look to move him on?), but our forward structure in general, as what we have right now isn't working. I think we've got the talent to turn things around, but it's getting things right both inside 50 and further up the ground that will see us improve. If we can't then, well, we know where we'll end up.

Both of these are valid points, LH. At the end of 2018 we needed to bolster our defence, which we did. At the end of 2019 we needed to bolster our tall forward stocks which... we didn't really do. I mean, we added Jackson who is of course going to take time, and then we added Mitch Brown for depth. It didn't really answer the problem, and we spent more time addressing another need in improving our two way run by adding Tomlinson and Langdon. However, Goodwin has pretty much stuck with one key forward for the last few weeks - Brown had a go in Round 1 and was quiet, while Jackson was the same in Round 2 - but I think we're crying out for that extra tall. Either Weideman improves, Brown shows that he's still got it or Jackson comes on in leaps and bounds, or we're going back to the drawing board at the end of the season.

The idea is sound. Unless Weideman comes on, or Jackson shows vast improvement in the coming weeks, then you would assume we would be in the market for a key forward. They've clearly just put 2 and 2 together to make 5 with Daniher - tall forward, out of contract, we need one - but you would assume that if Daniher goes anywhere then it will be interstate. Having said that, I can't see the club being interested. Who else is there that is a legit target? That might open up as the season progresses, but unless something drastic changes, you would expect us to chase someone in the off season.

Of course not. I loved that season. Just making the point re: the finals fixture.

We should have made the Grand Final that year, but the fixture screwed us by making us play North, while the Crows got the easier game (I think against the Swans) even though we rolled them in the first week of the finals.

It's a HUN article, so I'll dot point the main parts: Says the Dees are irrelevant, as per the headline. We need a 'harder edge' - used Luke Beveridge's comments where he said things weren't good enough in a press conference, and they have responded, as the Bont did against GWS. Who will stand up and do that for us? Says not enough players 'play for the jumper' That some players only came for the coin - they should want to come to Melbourne, and uses Jake Lever as an example of this (as in he came out and said he wanted to be part of something special). Says heads will roll, especially at board level, if this keeps up. Then adds the pressure should well and truly be on the club at all levels. It's not too dissimilar to what Lyon and others have spoken about today, but it's still pretty relevant to how we're tracking right at this minute.

It's a fair concern, although we have far more talent on our list than what we did in, say, 2013. Either Goodwin makes some inroads this season, or hopefully our next coach can do more with what we have. I think a large chunk of the frustration is that we, as supporters, know we are capable of much better than our current output. Under Neeld, we knew we were rubbish and we couldn't do much about it. Now, we can. I'm hopeful that Goodwin is the man to do it as I like seeing us in a stable position, but if he's not, then someone else gets the chance to do more with this list.

I'd still play him. Hunt, AVB and even Melksham deserve the flick before him. At least you feel as though he puts the pressure on and is capable of doing something special. The other three can't get near it.

2019 deserves a run in the Top 10. Regardless of circumstances, hugely disappointing year after the 2018 Prelim.

Ah okay, sorry, I didn't realise you meant Tomlinson. If, as you say, the other talls fail then of course I'd be more open to trialling May there. The club might look at it as well. However, for the time being it makes more sense to allow May to continue his excellent form down back while we give some others a chance up forward.

Serious question, and I'm interested to see what others think: Is Ross Lyon really the answer for us as a club if Goodwin were to be sacked or step away? This is purely hypothetical as I'm not in the sack Goodwin camp right now. We know what he brings to the table. We know that he is very good tactically and has taken both St. Kilda and Fremantle, which is a pretty good achievement in my book, to Grand Finals. However, we also know that he doesn't bring much to the table in terms of attacking footy, and he left both of those above clubs in a bit of a shambles when he left. Is he the type of coach we really need? I'm not sold on him to be honest, but I'm interested in what others think.

May has been fantastic for us so far this year. Why rob Peter to pay Paul? I feel as though, in this current form, May can take any key forward in the competition and that is exactly why we got him. I wouldn't feel that way if it was Tom Mac. If May was out of form then I'd consider it, but I think it would be a very dangerous move for us right now. I think we can roll the dice in other ways (re-jigging the forward line, adding another tall etc) before we would even need to consider moving May to the forward line.

Yeah, Ross Lyon doesn't do a whole lot for me either. He's had a few chances at it now and I can't see him doing any better with us. If we were to ever move on from Goodwin, something I'm not convinced of yet unless we were to finish the season in the bottom four, then experience would be nice for a change. Hird doesn't do much for me, but I'd be happy to look at others like Voss.

Fair point re: the rookies. Neeld, Bailey, Goodwin, even Daniher. Taking out coaches currently in a job, who would you put in place if Goodwin were moved on? Rookie coaches aren't always bad, though. They are all rookies at the start of their coaching careers. I'd say we just haven't made the right choices over the years. Roos put us in the right direction, and Goodwin went with that well in his first few years, but the challenges we now face are going to be career defining for him.

I'll admit that I don't agree with you often jnr, but on this part I do. How many 'good' coaches are out there? Not many. The good ones are hard to get out of their current club, while there are some good unknowns waiting in the wings... but you have to choose wisely. I have no doubt that a good coach would have us playing far, far better in the forward half than what we are doing now. Is that a simple change of assistant coaches, or do we need to flick Goodwin and look elsewhere? Time will tell. At the defensive end we look pretty solid and well set up. It looks very, very average in the forward half. Fix that and we're a much better side, but how we fix that is the issue.

And defence could turn in to a problem by taking our best key defender and sticking him at CHF. We need to see how the tall forwards we have go before we start making these sort of drastic changes.

Great, and I recall saying right off the bat that it's your opinion and I respect that. I did not 'howl you down'. I thought it was a good, back and forth discussion. If that's your definition of being 'howled down' then I'd hate to see how you feel during a proper argument. Kozzie aint the problem. Neither are Rivers or Lockhart. I'd be dropping Melksham, Hunt and AVB before I look at dropping Kozzie. He at least puts some pressure on. Those three did little of that yesterday.

So we have Jackson, Weideman and Brown waiting in the wings... and we want to swing May forward instead? No thanks. The three mentioned above deserve a crack first before we even look at moving May forward. With some consistent games under his belt he is really beginning to show his worth to the side, and we want to change that up? It doesn't make sense to me. I'd leave the back six as it is. They're doing a pretty good job right now. As others have said above, it's our forward mix and how we deliver the ball in there that's the issue. I'd be looking at trying a few things in that regard first before shifting anyone out of defence.

It's difficult not to be a little deflated after this game. I thought we looked okay in the first half, and it seemed we had actually instituted a couple of changes (such as pushing Fritsch further up the ground to make use of foot skills), but the second term was a return to the norm for us. We broke even in the other three quarters, but were undone by a horror of a second quarter. We are still doing some things well as part of the way Goodwin wants us to play - we are getting our hands on it in contested situations well, we are generating inside 50s and, even though we were slightly worse this week, our defence is still pretty good (even though it's difficult for them to hold the Tigers at bay when the ball is sling shotted on the rebound as much as it was). However, forward of centre is an absolute mess. I thought Tom gave us more this weekend but he's being asked to do way too much on his own as the only tall forward on the park. We are carrying three players down there at the minute - Melksham is in career worst form and is giving us next to nothing, even though he hit the scoreboard this week, Hunt is increasingly looking like someone who is not up to AFL standard, and Vanders looks a mile off it. When you factor in Rivers and Kozzie being a little quieter this week, you get a side that is struggling for consistency and one that finds it tough to find a way to goal. Goody can't ignore this problem any longer. He needs to suck up his pride, put his stubborness aside and make a few changes. We need an extra tall in there and he needs to shift some of the players around down there. One of Jackson, Weideman and Brown should come on, while ANB, Bennell and even a Toby Bedford need to get a look in at the expense of a few players as well. It's not all doom and gloom for me, but we're clearly not a top eight side at the minute and we are struggling in some areas that should have been addressed by now. I've been happy to back Goody in to make these changes but he I'm quickly running out of patience.