titan_uranus

Couldn't agree more, Scoop. A bit of baby-bathwater going on with this one, IMO.

What are the alternatives? You're not a Weideman fan so I can't imagine you thinking he should be in the side. Who would you rather us have picked? This forward line is about as good as it is going to get for us this year.

I think is a fair way to look at it. I agree that, on paper at least, this side looks better than the Round 1 side. Having said that, if there isn't improvement from the likes of Langdon, Gawn, Oliver, Viney and Brayshaw in terms of their disposal going inside 50, some of these changes won't make as much difference as they could.

No surprises as to Spargo, Bedford or Brown. I am surprised that OMac has gone but I think we suspect Carlton will go in with a smaller forward line and we can cope without him. I'm surprised, but not disappointed, that ANB and Hibberd have been dropped. I'm surprised and disappointed that Lockhart has been dropped. I'm even more surprised that Hunt is in the side. Edit: OMac's not an emergency (Spargo, Hibberd, Weideman and Jordon) so we must be confident in Lever's fitness.

In: Bennell, Rivers, Jackson, Salem, Jones, Hunt, Smith Out: Hibberd, Lockhart, Spargo, Bedford, Brown, ANB, OMac And you thought you were joking!

So you're saying every time a side wins they are more professional than the side that loses? If you are correct, and our players "felt" the suspension of the season more than West Coast's did, why is that such a disaster? Humans do not all react to things the same way and I do not expect our players to be robots and to block out every emotion. If they were affected by the suspension, I understand that. If they were affected more than West Coast was, I understand that too.

No there's not. You're welcome to set your expectations as high as you want. If you choose to mark the team harshly for Round 1, you're entitled to. 2019 gives you that. But I don't think it's unreasonable for others (myself included) to look at Round 1 in a different context and come away from it less disappointed than we otherwise might have been in "normal" circumstances. It's very easy to sit at home and say "the players should have played to their best ability regardless of the suspension of the season". Very easy to say, very hard to do. I don't agree that West Coast played to any sort of different, or more professional, standard than us. Indeed, but for our finishing inside 50 the game was relatively even (both statistically and in terms of watching it and the general "feel"). The game was played under extremely odd circumstances and if our players were affected by them, I completely understand that. It is therefore my view that it is reasonable for any MFC supporter to take our Round 1 performance with a grain of salt. This week, assuming no further changes to the AFL/COVID landscape, will be different.

Exciting news, even though I'm a little worried that Jackson isn't ready for AFL. If we assume Salem is an inclusion, that's four changes minimum. Jones is also a chance to be brought back so could be five. Could be more if we're looking at Smith or AVB but I suspect they're depth at this stage. Would have thought Spargo, Bedford and Brown are all going to make way but from there I don't think it's clear. Presumably someone has to come out of the backline (Lockhart or Hibberd).

Reading this thread reminds me about how much of Demonland in the 2010-2014 period was a constant debate between drafting and development.

Yes, but what if there has been improvement in the midfielders honouring leading players and hitting targets (which is something Lever08 has mentioned)? A smaller forward line can work: look at Richmond. The key isn't necessarily the height of the forward line but making sure that, whatever forward line we go with, our ball movement suits it. So, if we're going to have TMac and Weid/Jackson leading up the ground out of the 50, their leads need to be solid, we need to honour those leads, and they need to hold their marks. If that frees up space for Fritsch (who is smaller but plays a marking forward role), Melksham, Petracca and Pickett, then that can work. My thought on TMac's comments in the video is that we're doing something new/different and it works some times, but not all the time. I didn't, at all, read into his comments that he's frustrated with his personal performance or where he's being played. I thought, instead, that he's concerned that we're going to stuff things up and the fans are going to get upset.

@Lever08 thanks for the write up. How was the ball movement and structures?

From the footage on the MFC website and Twitter, I get the sense that we were keeping more players forward of the ball. Seemed to be more options forward of the ball carrier in each clip than what we saw in Round 1 and for most of 2019.

Would love to know if there were any interesting/surprising players lining up in the royal blue "seconds". Defenders aside, sounds like Bennell and Brown were royal blue and Weideman and Jackson played half-and-half. Edit: looks like lots of players spent time in both colours: from the TMac interview video, I can see Jones, AVB, Bennell and J Wagner all spent time in both royal and navy blue. I can also see ANB and Hunt in royal and Lockhart in navy.

Quite a few interesting arguments/debates in this thread. I agree with those who say the club's communication to the members during COVID-19 has been poor. IMO it is a continuation of the downward trend in the club's communications over the past 1-3 years. On the topic of taking out memberships, my position has always been that if you have the money but you choose to withhold it as some sort of "protest", you're doing the club a disservice and you arguably call into question the use of the term "supporter" to describe you: what sort of "supporting" is that? As to attendances, there's no doubt that when any team plays poorly in a season its attendances drop. The interesting thing seems to be that this phenomenon affects some clubs more than others: in particular, it affects us more than clubs like Richmond, Collingwood or Essendon. When we play poorly, we stop going. When they play poorly, they still draw crowds. That helps the AFL keep scheduling them for blockbuster fixture slots even when they're coming off a poor year. It's very hard to criticise people for not going to games because there can be so many reasons why attending may not be possible for all of us at all of our games. My general view remains that if you can afford it (both as to time and money), you should go, whether we're playing well or not. Certainly, regardless, my view is that if you make a deliberate decision to not go to games or not buy a membership out of "protest", you shouldn't then complain about a subsequent poor fixture or poor sponsorship results given both those things are impacted on our attendances/memberships. This reads as sarcasm, which I don't understand. The crowd at those two finals was incredible, akin to any loud finals/ANZAC Day crowd I've ever been to, and MFC-dominant both times.

The revisionism about this game never ceases. We were 7 goals up when we had a bench. They caught up because our 6-goal in three quarters FF went off and we couldn't rotate anyone off the ground in the fourth quarter.

With no crowds, I don't mind the three Sunday 3.30pm games. Easy enough to watch on TV. Will mean that at Round 5 we'll have had 1 home game and 4 away games. I imagine that means we're one of the 9 clubs to get 8 home games this year rather than 9, and that we'll have a 7-5 home/away split for the remaining 12 matches.

It's certainly not a great plan when we: don't have decent small forwards able to pressure the opposition's back line; don't keep our forwards forward of the ball carrier (or deliberately let ourselves become outnumbered forward of the ball carrier); don't run hard two-ways; play like this every week without accounting for our opponent (e.g. this is not a good game plan to take to Perth to play West Coast given their A-grade intercept defenders). But if we play more like we did in 2018, with better two-way running, better small forwards and slightly smarter entries inside 50, our list is capable of winning games, and scoring heavily, doing this. IMO the concept of forward half dominance doesn't need to be scrapped entirely, it just needs to be modified.

To me, the most revealing part of what Mahoney said was the bit where he talked about teams winning when they keep the ball in their forward 50/half. IMO it's confirmation that the FD wants us to play a style of game where our focus is time in forward half, so the focus (in training) has not necessarily been on hitting a target when going inside 50 as much as it has been getting there and keeping it there until we score a goal.

This is such a bad take it reads like sarcasm, but I know it isn't. You've literally said "even if the game had no meaning, I think it meant the following". There is a massive asterisk over Round 1 given what the players knew going into it, and we won't know whether what we showed in Round 1 is indicative of what we'll show in any remaining 2020 games until we start playing again.

Not sure that's right. Jones said they haven't had the chance to review it - the players flew home and went straight home, with no next-day recovery session and since they haven't been back to the club since, there's been no chance to review.

Always a pleasure discussing things with you, jnr.

What rubbish. Round 23 2017 was nothing like last weekend. Round 23 2017 was indeed "everything to play for". Round 1 2020 was a maelstrom of stress with potentially nothing to play for, if the season can't get re-started. They ran out there last week with significant job and financial uncertainty. A game that could have had plenty of importance turned into an odd shell of a game that could literally mean nothing when the ink dries on 2020. And I don't buy the "West Coast were switched on" argument as if to say they were on some other level to us. They weren't exactly dominating. The game turned on a 5-minute patch at the end of the first quarter where they kicked 4 quick goals. For the rest of the game it was quite even. Incredibly different to Round 23 2017.

This is a problem in itself. Why are we setting up scoring chains with players like these delivering inside 50? Particularly Hibberd who is a half-back. Why is he galloping up the ground and bombing it 50m repeatedly? We need players delivering the ball inside 50 who know what they're doing. I won't write Langdon off after one game but we all know Hibberd and Viney stink at it so we need to change the way we're setting up and the way we're getting the ball from the back half to the forward half.

If we had a game this weekend I'd be looking at dropping Spargo, ANB, Hibberd and Brown and looking at bringing in Jones and Salem if they were fit. No idea who else would come in. If Goodwin cannot get these players to lower their eyes and deliver the ball at leading forwards without resorting to up and under bombs, then we're going to finish bottom 4 again (if there is a season 2020).

It's hard to know what impact the announcement of the season suspension had on the players. There's a significant degree of uncertainty about what happens next: staff members at the club may lose their jobs, financial position is unclear. I don't think it's fair to say that the players should have been able to put it all behind them and perform at the top of their games. Having said that, there were some extraordinarily disappointing signs that have me more worried than I want to be. The kicking inside 50 looked exactly like 2019. Exactly. Hibberd, Viney, Gawn, Oliver and Brayshaw (all "leaders" to certain extents) were guilty of lazy, thoughtless, up and under bombs. If this is what Hibberd is going to produce in whatever's left of 2020, I don't want it. Langdon's positives are important: his two-way running and link-up down the wing is critical to us improving. But he joins the aforementioned players in being an appalling kick inside 50. Still too many turnovers. 15m kicks under no pressure missing targets. Handballs to the opposition or to our feet. Dropped marks. Fumbles. Missed tackles. I don't know how critical to be of the forwards: TMac kicked 2 but was nowhere for most of the game, Brown was woeful, Melksham largely ineffectual. The commentary on Fox suggested that at times TMac and Brown were leading to the ball carrier but being ignored, so I suspect part of their struggles was the poor delivery. The defensive unit held up well I thought. Credit to Oscar, Lever and May for working together well to quell their tall forwards. Loved what I saw of Pickett, Viney's game (inside 50 kicking aside) was excellent, Brayshaw got better as it went on, Bedford got involved in the fourth. Otherwise, incredibly disappointing.