titan_uranus

If you think the colour of our jumper is relevant to our form in any way, you’ve got absolutely NFI. For the record, Collingwood wore their clash jumper on Queen’s Birthday last year. First time I can recall either side in a Melb-Coll game wearing a clash jumper.

We have three major problems IMO. The first is the gameplan. It’s been tweaked (we keep more forwards deeper than we used to) but it’s not working, and so long as it’s not working it hurts our confidence as we see fast break after fast break turn into opposition goals. The second is the forward line. Whether injured or not, TMac shouldn’t be playing. He’s a complete shadow of his 2018 self and is a liability offensively and defensively. But it doesn’t stop there. Our forwards are low skilled, lacking confidence across the board, slow and weak defensively. Even a modicum of scoreboard pressure would make us a better side but we continually miss easy shots and either fail to put our opponent under pressure (eg today) or we keep the door open (eg last week). The third is our co-captains. Would Viney or Jones be playing on this form if they weren’t captains? IMO, they wouldn’t. I loved seeing May and Lever, and Gawn was unbelievable against a superstar opponent. Harmes and Brayshaw were strong all day and I thought Weideman got better as the day went on. But we’ll finish bottom 4 this year and we need to address all three of the above issues to move forward.

On paper, this is undoubtedly the best 22 we've fielded in 2019. But we have to be realistic. The backline isn't going to immediately gel and I expect it's going to get exposed more than once today. Other than the obvious interest in seeing the backline playing together (indeed, playing at all), I'm really keen to see how our midfield goes. If Oliver is out, I expect to see Brayshaw getting more stoppage minutes and that could be a good thing for him. Either way, their midfield is excellent and if we can't compete there then it won't matter that we've got a better backline.

I think Weideman signing on is great news. I think @Matsuo Basho's posts on Weideman's comments, personality and ability to succeed in the AFL are terrible. The idea that there is a one size fits all approach to "mental toughness" is a classic example of what is wrong with society (and in particular older white men).

How many sides lose a game where they have a 31 point lead and from then on have more scoring shots than their opponent? How many sides lose a game where they lead at all three changes, twice in one season? The frustration is somehow getting more severe. Luckily I haven't seen the second half. To be fair, we were missing five first-choice defenders (Lever, May, Salem, Jetta, Hore), which doesn't help. The stats and commentary suggest they started scoring too easily in the second half (in the first half they were struggling to convert their inside 50s). But we still generated enough shots on goal to win the match and should have even with their scoring. The story of MFC 2019 (and indeed MFC 2017 and 2018 too). The players need to be better but we can't keep playing football like this and that's on the coaches.

Garlett should have 3 goals this quarter. His misses have been shots he should be kicking. 8 scoring shots to 4 but only a 9 point lead, too.

This is our best first quarter this year, with 6 minutes to spare. First time we've kicked 5 goals in the opening quarter.

We've scored 7 times from 11 inside 50s. This is anti-MFC-2019.

Infuriating mistake from Fritsch.

How was that not HTB, but the one on Viney was earlier? This is the best Garlett has looked in years.

So with those late changes, the changes from last week are now: In: Hibberd, Hannan, Kennedy-Harris, Weideman Out: Hore, C Wagner, Lockhart, Petty The two late changes suck but the team is better off overall with these four changes. C Wagner and Petty were superfluous to our needs and we get two better marking forward options in Hannan and Weideman. JKH improves Lockhart, Hibberd replaces Hore adequately enough (less defensive stalwart-ness but more offensive drive).

Good post. There's more to our problems than just the injury list, and our list depth should be better than it has been, but our injury list has had both breadth and depth, if that makes sense, and it's cut us much deeper than Richmond or Collingwood, who are at ay rate better-placed to cope. Welcome(?) back?

I have no problem with the three outs, nor with the three ins, but I am amazed that both Spargo and Stretch have remained in the side. Hopefully both of them put int marked improvements on last week. You know Gibbs and Jenkins were out of the side because they'd been dropped for poor form, don't you? And you know that Jenkins is possibly in the top 5 most over-rated AFL players?

The injury list thing is interesting, although of course not the entire picture. One thing that it doesn't mention and which I'd like to know is the number of best 22 players out. We've constantly had 5-10 best 22 players missing from any given team we've fielded. There's just too many missing players, IMO, for cohesion or continuity to build in our 22. I don't know if that's backed up by evidence, it's just a feeling. You're not allowed to bag Pert for our on-field performances unless you can suggest a rational reason why he might be influencing our on-field performances. He's the CEO. He's here to run the MFC business. If you have a suggestion as to what he's done that has impacted the on-field performance, go ahead.

More unnecessary pessimism. "Frost is a better bet than May" is not a sentence that is backed up by any evidence. It's just your way of whinging about May's start to his time here. Saying that Goodwin is only going play May over Frost to "justify his recruitment" is more whinging. We will play May when he is fit and ready and he will be an improvement on Frost or Oscar or Petty.

He's excellent. But he wouldn't commit to the club long-term. He wanted to play in Perth. We 100% made the right call. Our problem isn't trading Hogan, it's the complete lack of form of TMac and Weideman combined with the ineptitude of those kicking it to them. Agree. The non-shepherd of TMac's shot at the start of the second killed us. We had a modicum of momentum at that point and could have got the crowd up with an early goal. TMac not making the distance is bad enough, but no one in the goal square to shepherd it through is unforgivable. Absolutely unforgivable.

I'm not sure what your point is. Our side was the second youngest of the 18 sides to play Round 10. It was also the second most inexperienced. What part of that is misleading? The stats aren't posted in absolute terms - the average age was 24 so we're clearly not a side full of teenagers. They're posted in relative terms - whatever age we had, 16 sides were, on average, older. If you want to have concern over list profile, it's where you're old but inexperienced. That wasn't us this weekend (not on average, anyway).

These are two major issues that need to be worked on. How often did a GWS player take a mark inside 50 on a lead, with our defender trailing them? And how often did it feel like our forwards could get no separation on their GWS defenders? Only Hunt was regularly getting away from his opponent and he took three or four good leading grabs. But is it chicken or egg - are we seeing lack of separation from forwards because they are having the ball delivered behind them or above their head, as opposed to out in front of them to their advantage? Our kicking going inside 50 isn't improving. Agree to an extent. GWS' superior foot speed was evident today - so many times players like Kelly and Whitfield were able to break free from stoppages and get clearance on our mids. But generally, we looked much quicker last week with 20 of the same players playing this week. The game was much more on our terms last week - we were winning CPs and clearances. Today GWS beat us in the middle and, as is too often the case with us, if you beat us in CPs/clearances the rest of our game falls apart. You mean the same Jesse Hogan who played all four quarters today against Brisbane and didn't get a single kick? Meanwhile Dean Kent had 14 touches and zero tackles.

It's probably too early to get this thread going but whatever. In an ideal world, we'd get back Salem and maybe Hannan too. I'd be looking for replacements for Petty, Spargo, C Wagner and T Smith. So maybe that's Salem, Hannan, Weideman and ANB?

6 - Gawn 5 - Hore 4 - J Wagner 3 - Harmes 2 - Baker 1 - Hunt

Jon Ralph (FWIW) tweeted that it's a rolled ankle and apparently "potentially puts his AFL return back a week".

I've always wanted to see Stretch get a run at it and maybe he will get more games with our injuries, but I'm at the point where I feel like we can call time on him. His decision making isn't improving (he continually looks like he sh*ts his pants in traffic and he picks terrible options downfield too often) and his contested work isn't improving (he squibbed one contest and dropped his head when marking late in the game). He is a good runner but that isn't anywhere near enough to overcome these two major deficiencies. Source for any of that Petracca stuff? IMO Petracca wasn't that bad today. He was doing a lot right but the way our midfielders delivered the ball to our forwards (i.e. almost never to advantage) he wasn't able to get into the game.

Did anyone else hear Phil Davis as he ran to the bench mid-way into the first quarter? He yelled out "they're f**king sh*t! No pressure!". Ostensibly to give his team a rev-up but largely directed at our bench. Arrogant? Maybe. Accurate? You bet. When you have this many VFL-level players in the 22, you have to start with the non-negotiables - chasing, tackling, effort and intensity. We had about five players bring the required level in the first half. On a 9-day break, there is no excuse for being so insipid so early. In terms of our skill, yes, other sides have had injuries too, and some have done well despite those injuries, but that doesn't mean every club is expected to be fine when they have a 17-man injury list and have had a major portion of the club in rehab since December. Today's side had Stretch, Spargo, C Wagner, J Wagner, Petty, T Smith and Lockhart. Of those, only J Wagner and, briefly, Lockhart played respectably. I'd drop the other five immediately if I could. But it's not just our injuries. We have too many best 22 players who are out of form and/or underperforming - Brayshaw might be at the head of this list. He was ineffectual all day. Then add Jones and Viney, who are struggling, and when Oliver gets tagged out of it our midfield was essentially Gawn and Harmes. On the flipside, we've found a gem in Hore, Baker's shown enough in his two games to suggest he can make it at this level, and Lockhart shows flashes of brilliance (I think fitness is his big problem so a pre-season will hopefully do him wonders). We need to spend the rest of this year re-integrating key players on the injury list into the best 22 - Salem, Hibberd, Melksham, Lever, May, Hannan, vandenBerg, J Smith, Jetta (and, IMO, Weideman). And we need to demand that Oliver, Brayshaw, VIney, TMac, Petracca and Jones (so long as we keep playing him) lift their games.

Anyone who thinks MFCSS is some sort of joke, read this post. Only on Demonland could we have someone post something this negative about players finally returning from injury.

Same as asking why we wore our red-backed jumper on Friday night. We played West Coast in Perth twice last year and wore our normal jumper with white shorts both times. There's no clash at all between their royal blue/yellow and our navy blue.