titan_uranus

I knew this thread would start up the whole Dean Kent thing. We did nothing wrong in moving him on, and he's not playing as well as this thread suggests anyway. We don't make decisions with the benefit of hindsight, we make them at the time we make them, and at the end of 2018 moving Kent along was a completely justifiable decision, as was keeping vandenBerg. The tendency of MFC supporters to complain the moment an ex-Melbourne player kicks a goal is so incredibly frustrating.

And ahead of Jones and ANB, too. Did he play well in the scratch match?

Poor old Weideman clearly still struggling. I hope for Rivers, Hunt, Brown and Lockhart as the bench, meaning Brown takes vandenBerg's spot.

We very well still might. We've already had a FTA game and we've got another one coming this week. That will be 50% of our games so far on FTA. It's hardly a disaster.

The same Ross Lyon who spent his entire career being criticised for being overly defensive and not scoring enough? The same one who never won a premiership despite coaching the best side in 2009-10 and getting three GFs to attempt it? Meanwhile Simpson "has a great team" which is some sort of negative against him (how does that work) and Beveridge gets two question marks. At least they've gone all the way!

I think this is a case of correlation rather than causation. I don't think teams win finals because they have an "average" ruckman, or because their ruckman isn't as talented as Gawn or Grundy. I think you're just looking at some recent successful sides and noted that their ruckmen aren't at Gawn or Grundy's level and concluded that there's some sort of relationship. I don't think there is. Wasn't directed at you, there were others who were jumping on Gawn and bemoaning his output. Part of this makes my point - where you say hitouts to advantage is as much a midfield group stat as it is a ruck stat. I agree. That's why I asked the question of whether playing against WC and Geelong, two strong midfields, impacts that stat across a sample size of three games. That doesn't mean Gawn is doing flawlessly in the ruck: indeed, the other side of the coin of him dominating the first half vs Carlton was that he let Pittonet level the playing field in the second half. All I'm saying is that I don't think Gawn is playing as poorly as some other posters on here suggest, and I don't think his output at the moment is a significant reason for our current poor form.

Nice conspiracy theory but we can't go to WA because we've already played West Coast. Having said that, North is being suggested as going to NSW but they've already played GWS and Sydney so I can't see the logic behind that.

I've just watched the segment. I think the thing I liked the most was Ross saying "play the way you face", which was in response to a clip of Gawn picking the ball up on the lead and then turning around himself, rather than handpassing to Pickett who was running past him. He should have given to Pickett, he didn't, which didn't help, and then he missed Melksham out in space and went to the pocket. Too often we have players who take the ball on the lead but either are given no options for runners past them (i.e. we're not working hard enough) or they don't take the opportunities when presented.

IMO it makes no sense at all. There were signs, albeit small ones, of our defensive unit actually starting to work better together as a unit vs Geelong. There were also small signs of TMac getting some form back with his marking. Now is not the time to make positional changes for the sake of it.

Can we ease up on the Gawn bashing? I agree he hasn't been dominating in the ruck so far this year but before we all jump on him, two of our three opponents have been West Coast and Geelong, two of the best midfields in the comp. Maybe that's part of the reason his hit out to advantage stat is lower? Gawn's midfield/repeat effort work vs Geelong was exceptional. He leads by example in training and on the field. He's not perfect (he's a repeat offender when it comes to poor kicks inside 50) but he's not even close to one of our biggest problems right now. Edit: and of course, our best football this year was the first half vs Carlton when Gawn was utterly dominant.

Right, I understand. I suppose the question is how impactful is our financial position on our footy (e.g. how, if at all, does it impact training?).

Can I just call this out? @Demonland and others go to significant effort to run the podcast and to get someone as important as Bartlett as a guest. This isn't a hard-hitting investigative piece of journalism, it's an online forum. How about, if you want to ask the club a question, you do it, and otherwise don't [censored] and moan about questions possibly not being asked of Bartlett tonight.

Nope. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/735403/we-don-t-use-covid-19-as-an-excuse-bartlett “We rolled out some club values at the start of the year and some expectations, and one of them is that we’re not going to use COVID-19 as an excuse” “Our expectation is to play finals. “We set out a strategic plan at the start of the year for the next four years and that plan hasn’t been altered. “We can still absolutely assess the performance on and off the field - the performance of our coaching group, our playing group, everyone across the club. “Absolutely you need to take into account the circumstances we’ve faced, but also how we’ve dealt with those challenges and circumstances.” I read this as an admission by the club that our response to COVID is where we can, and should, be analysed (i.e. rather than saying "COVID means this season's a write off", we need to accept COVID changes things but grade our performance based on how we adapt). What he's actually saying, if I read the articles correctly (I didn't hear the interview), is that we've decided to ask our supporters for donations and if we can get $1M in donations by the end of the year, we won't need to rely on an AFL assistance. That, to me, is not an unreasonable financial decision. If we have a wealthy supporter base, why not try to tap into that before we have to go to the AFL? I also don't think that's inconsistent with us saying we should still be playing finals.

I can't stand the whinge of a team "passing us". Did we pass everyone except West Coast and Collingwood in 2018? Yeah, we showed them! Did Fremantle "pass" us last year? But now we've "passed" them? Have we "passed" West Coast now?

A disgrace. We traded a first round pick for a first round pick. We cashed in on what we knew was a strong first round. We backed ourselves in to be better in 2020. That's precisely the sort of attitude this club should have. Doing the opposite would just be "accepting mediocrity", wouldn't it? FFS. There's plenty to question about Mahony and the decisions our club makes in many areas. I really, really, do not think this is one of them.

I largely don't agree with any of this, but appreciate individual perceptions of players can differ. Even if he is slow with ball in hand, I don't see it as an overall blight on his game, given the attributes he's bringing to the table. In a side that has, for years, cried out for two-way running up and down the wider wings of the G, we saw yesterday from him precisely what we need, and with effect given he was involved in link-up plays. Some of the stats which I think show his impact yesterday: 19 disposals (3rd highest for us), 5 marks (2nd highest), 6 inside 50s (2nd highest) but also 3 rebound 50s (suggesting he works both ends of the ground), 4 score involvements (equal highest). Again, I accept he may have weaknesses, but I think you're (significantly) overstating his weaknesses whilst (significantly) underplaying his strengths.

I'm wrong: they can't play Geelong because Geelong was in Melbourne yesterday. This will all be very interesting.

They actually play in Geelong, so I think they can avoid the new rule by just avoiding Melbourne altogether (e.g. flying in/out of Avalon). The problems will begin to mount from there, though. We can't play Fremantle next week, Brisbane can't play Collingwood either. And there is a third limb to Queensland's new rule: if a Queensland team plays any side who has been in Melbourne in the previous 14 days, they have to quarantine. There is every chance the 10 Victorian teams will have to leave Victoria to keep the season going.

I'm guessing we'll play Richmond on the Sunday, and Sydney will be moved to the Thursday night to play West Coast. Possibly throws Sydney's preparation out of whack as they've been preparing for a Sunday match rather than Thursday, but they at least played last Thursday and so get a full week's rest compared to us, we'd get 5 days with no notice.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/richmond-west-coast-clash-in-doubt-20200629-p5574q.html

ANB was a beneficiary of his favouritism in previous years. I'll reserve judgment until I see the team this week, but I suspect we will see vandenBerg hold his spot and ANB fail to retain his. IMO, we have few players who are more trustworthy delivering the ball inside 50 than him. I genuinely do not understand your attack on that aspect of his game. He's one of the few players who kicks to a forward's advantage. Did it yesterday on at least two of those inside 50s you mention, did it again vs Carlton. He's also one of the few players who consistently, all day, runs both ways. I can't think of one example in three games where he's been obviously caught out for a lack of speed, either. Not every player has to have Hunt's foot speed. From what I saw of yesterday's game he was probably in our 10 best players.

You're right in that pinpointing one error and trying to extrapolate it out to affect the conclusion of an entire match can be unreasonable. But the issue with us is that we see, weekly, basic fundamental errors being made. IMO, the issue is that it's a pattern of behaviour. We regularly stuff up our attempts to touch the ball on the goal line. We regularly drop marks. We regularly miss shots from directly in front. We regularly take on tacklers and get caught holding it. They are a feature of our game and when I see them week to week, I get concerned.

That may well be the case. His mistakes will have to be outrageously bad for me to consider returning to Jetta after just one game though.

They're not "very good", as @Fat Tony suggests, but they're not a terrible side. They seem to me to be mid-table and a clear chance of finals. They belted Hawthorn, who are undefeated outside of that match. Yes they lost to Carlton, but Carlton have shown signs of improvement (we played them into form). We did a few things right today to keep them from getting the ball into their forward half and from scoring. The way we defended the MCG today was not as bad as we saw in many of our 2019 losses.

I've only seen the first half and 5 minutes of the third, so I've missed what seem to be Lockhart's big errors, but from what I saw there's no way Lockhart gets dropped. What he showed in the first half was miles above what Jetta's been giving us in that role since the start of 2019. I'm also shocked to see any calls to drop Tomlinson. He was clearly one of our best in the first half and he's one of the few consistent two-way runners. Salem was poor, but the bigger problem is the forward half. We're not going in with the right line up and it needs to be changed. We've made big calls dropping Jones and Jetta, it's time to make the same call on Melksham I think. We need another tall forward so someone has to come out. Other than a structural fix to our forward line, the improvement we need to see isn't going to come from making changes to the 22, it can only come from the 22 we put out there improving individually and as a team.