titan_uranus

Is it only Melbourne supporters who think that if someone finds a positive in a loss then they're "happy" with it? Three of the clubs you've then picked out to apparently contrast with us (Carlton, St Kilda, the Dogs) lost. Sounds to me like you're suggesting they might be "happy with supposedly honourable losses". I also love the comment that the final margin flattered us. Of course, when the final margin flatters our opponent (e.g. because we're horrendously inaccurate, or down to one on the bench), that argument never goes the other way. And 39 tackles is pathetic, but Richmond's 45 isn't? That's barely one more tackle per quarter than us. None of this is to say I'm "happy" with losing. I'm not. I hate 2019. I hate the promise that we were given after 2018 and having had all the excitement for this year get ripped out from under me. I hate that I'm back to going to a near-empty MCG to watch low-quality football. I hate that we've been thinking about the draft since Queen's Birthday. But that doesn't mean I can't look at a game and analyse where things are maybe working well, or improving, or even just changing from week to week in a way that suggests the FD is trying to change us for 2020. Agree wholeheartedly. Of course, that makes us one of the dreaded "apologists" (FWIW, I detest the phrase "wrist-slasher" as much as "apologist").

Did he say that? Far out.

I didn't say you did. It's just a trend that pops up from posters who are down about 2019 and are trying to make 2018 sound like less than it actually was.

There's a really good pinned thread at the top of the board.

What a ridiculous and unfair thing to say. You don't like the Lever deal. Fine. I did, and still do, so apparently I accept mediocrity? I hope he plays incredible football for us, because it will make us a significantly better side and because I will remember this post of yours.

A bit like the revisionism that says we "fluked" making it to a prelim because we hit a "purple patch" over Rounds 22-23 and the first two finals.

Some stats which catch my eye: 2nd for inside 50s 4th for inside 50 differential (i.e. only three clubs get more ball inside their forward 50 compared to their opponent than we do) 4th for clearance differential 14th for rebound 50s 17th in opposition rebound 50s 17th in rebound 50s differential Validates what we're seeing on the ground. Too many entries inside 50 are wasted - they're not marked (TMac, Weideman struggling, Melksham and J Smith not playing, Fritsch not playing forward) and when they hit the ground we can't lock it in (Spargo, Garlett and ANB all struggling, Lockhart playing in fits and starts). I am of the view that the stats relating to rebound 50s derive significantly from the stats relating to inside 50s - I would like to see a stat showing how often our opponents' scoring chains start from within our forward 50 or forward half. Interestingly though, this is not how we lost vs St Kilda. Though I've still not seen the game, we had fewer inside 50s than the Saints and I understand we were turning it over a lot in our back half, rather than our forward half. Not sure if that signifies a change in how we tried to play (which we obviously failed at) or not.

We've been doing this all year. It doesn't work unless the forwards actually pressure the defenders (and it requires forwards to be forward of the ball carrier at all times, another problem we've had too often). Not sure why we need Frost to do what we're already doing with our current mids. I can't believe this is being advocated as a solution to our woes following what we've seen this year. If anything, we need to move away from this.

It's an interesting debate. I personally would maybe make one or two changes - I'm not against dropping Brayshaw, and I'm quite in favour of "resting" Viney (i.e. dropping him without having to say it). I'm not sure about giving JKH another go - are we going to give him another contract based on 1-4 games at the end of a dead season? I would, though, stop playing players who have no future - C Wagner looks to be one of those, I'm not sold on J Wagner, and I'm increasingly of the view that ANB now falls into this category. Would rather we keep putting games into Baker, Lockhart and Hore if we can. And you know this how? There's plenty of stuff to get stuck into about the club at the moment. Why do you feel the need to invent some extra tripe to go on top? Lever's not playing well but maybe you could put that into some context, given his long-lay off and having only played four games this year (and the fact that he's only 23).

I have no idea, haven't seen anything, just saw some stats. I'm personally not a fan of Preuss and wouldn't necessarily be advocating for him to come back into the seniors, but I was struck by those numbers as I don't think of Preuss as a high-numbers sort of player.

Just had a quick look at the stats. Preuss has 25 disposals (23 kicks and 2 handballs), plus 7 marks and a goal, all to go with 52 hit outs. Not a bad response to being dropped.

One of our overarching problems all year is a lack of cohesion across the group. Players routinely chopping/changing, positional changes, no consistency anywhere. I understand your frustration and your desire to "shake things up" but I think that has to come from the coaches in some other way, not selection. In saying that, maybe dropping one of our "core" players (e.g. Brayshaw) might be warranted. But I'd be restricting the changes and trying to keep the players that we need to improve out there, as a group.

When Melbourne plays well but doesn't score - we're crap, it doesn't matter how much you dominate general play if you miss/don't score. When our opponent plays well but doesn't score - they were so much better than us, the scoreboard flattered us, we should have lost by 10 goals.

I was at that RIchmond v Port game and this was the most noticeable difference. Riewoldt and Lynch marking it far more often than TMac/Weideman have been, and small forwards making things happen when it hits the ground.

But didn't we lose last night in a different manner? i.e. our opponent had far more inside 50s than us? I'm not saying that's a good thing, and I haven't seen the game either. But surely this was a different sort of loss, and at face value maybe a by-product of some changes to the way we're playing (which clearly didn't work)?

I haven't seen last night's game but even if it was a career worst game from Frost I still wouldn't understand that part of this thread. He's one of maybe three players who have improved this year compared to last year. The Fritsch bit we already know. Whether "necessitated" by injury or not, we kept Fritsch in the backline for too long. He's a forward, or he's in the VFL.

The only clip from the game that I've seen is that free against Petracca in the fourth quarter. Seems like there isn't much point to watching the rest of it. Agreed. We might only have won one or two more games, but there's a clear pattern of fourth quarter fade outs that is hurting us significantly right now. Yes, he is. But he's worse than Lever at everything else associated with football.

Gotta love Demonland. Articles mention we beat out other clubs/leagues to get him and the pessimists start asking whether we've overpaid. I look forward to those posters blaming Burgess as soon as our first injury under his watch strikes. FWIW, I have no idea how good Burgess is, nor how good Misson was supposed to be before we hired him, nor do I know how Misson in particular might have contributed to our bad run of injuries and struggles with running out games this year. If Misson played a role in either of those things then I'm just interested to see what difference, if any, comes next year.

I don't get the hysteria. May is out. We want a KPD to replace him, hence OMac. Lockahrt is out. We want a runner to replace him, hence Baker. Preuss is out. We want a KPF to replace him, hence T Smith. The article says Weideman and Hore are named as emergencies but returning via the VFL for match fitness. I suppose the only point to that is to have them available as genuine "emergencies" if needed, but otherwise the message on both of them is they need a game through the VFL. I'm not really a fan of OMac or of T Smith and would rather not have either of them in the side but in the context of the above, I completely understand why they've been picked.

Problem is they got the first one (ladder position last year) wrong. It says we finished 3rd last year but we finished 4th overall (losing prelim but Richmond were higher on the ladder so finish 3rd), or 5th on H&A ladder position (which is the position the articles gives Fremantle for 2015, when it finished top of the ladder).

Far out praha. In your previous post you said that it's not arguable that 2019 is an aberration. You absolutely are manipulating stats and history to suit your argument. I'm not just talking W-L, either. You're the one who started the embarrassing records thread in (IIRC) 2015. Over the 2015-2018 period we struck almost every single one of those records off the book (except, yes, the big one). We grew our membership, we gained stability and at least a degree of professionalism off-field, we continue to sign up our young A-grade (or possible A-grade) players and we've attracted at least some good talent from other clubs. This year has been shocking in almost all respects, but until we see what 2020 brings I do not agree with your assessment that it's not possible this year was an aberration, and I do not agree with your argument that 2018 being the only season of finals since 2006 indicates it was an aberration given the above context. I can tell you that it's certainly not the latter. I enjoy reading your contributions when you talk about football. The two posts you went on to quote were from last year. Forgive me if I either can't recall them or didn't see them at the time. Unfortunately the overwhelming attitude that comes from you is swipes at people, like the below post, and adoption of a "holier than thou" attitude. It's annoying mainly because your thoughts on the club are interesting, engaging and well-reasoned. But it feels like 95% of your posts are sassy one-liners. I think the phrase "happy-go-luckies" is as objectionable as the phrase "wrist-slashers". Just because I'm less pessimistic than some people doesn't mean I'm "happy" with 2019, nor that I think we're all good to go for 2020. My view on our forward half inefficiency is that it's strongly dependent on two key things: lack of marking forwards (meaning our kicks inside 50 aren't getting retained through a mark) and lack of defensive pressure when the ball too often hits the ground (meaning those dropped marks then slingshot straight back out of our forward line). As to the former, I think we've been badly hurt by TMac's lack of form and I think Goodwin waited too long hoping he'd come good. A similar issue with Weideman. We've then put faith in Hannan to get back to 2018 levels of output and he hasn't either, whether that's a fitness issue or not. We've also been hurt, I suspect, with J Smith's injury - it looked over the pre-season like we were planning on him playing a third tall role and then that couldn't eventuate. Getting Fritsch into the forward line was done too late but really should be a standard selection from Goodwin (i.e. it's either forward or the VFL for Fritsch). As to pressure, we've been badly let down by Spargo and Garlett when each have been in the side and I'm not sure we've done enough to fix that problem. In terms of preparing for 2020 I want to see us focus on these two things. I want to see a forward line that gets better at marking the ball, with players on proper leads at the ball carrier providing options to our mids (who need to subsequently hit those targets). And I want to see small forwards willing and able to create more opportunities when the ball hits the deck. IMO, even a relatively small improvement in that area will improve our overall form significantly. It will increase shots on goal, increase the percentage of the game spent in our forward half, and decrease the number of pressure-free rebound 50s that our opponents get, which in turn decreases the pressure on our defence (although the acquisition of May, the reintegration of Lever, the improvement of Frost and the removal of OMac from the backline are helping there anyway).

Pot kettle? When was the last time you went into depth about anything? Huh? If we've got one thing going for us it's our effort. Collingwood's injuries have made them play worse than they could, which is sort of what's happened to us. Collingwood's done a better job of it though, but I don't subscribe to the argument that because one club is capable of adjusting to injuries then all clubs should be able to. However, I also don't subscribe to the argument that we can put our 2019 down to injuries and nothing else. Based on the football we're playing. There isn't that much between us and the sides above us. Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. It's been argued by a number of posters in this thread, convincingly, fairly and with reason and statistics. You just don't like it. It's possible that 2018 was the peak of our growth. It's also possible that 2019 is an aberration. Both are arguable. Based on the four previous years of linear growth, I'm more than happy to back in the latter argument against yours. But of course, we won't know for sure until we see 2020.

We've been over this in one of the many other threads in which you post your grandiose statement about how bad things actually are. We got better every year from 2014 to 2018. Averaging out our ladder position over that time is unrealistic, unfair and hides that truth.

As @La Dee-vina Comedia said, it's really only meaningless if you don't want to put any stock in it. Of course, you're right about context, but that sort of makes my point. At the moment we have four years of improvement I'm more than happy to see what 2020 brings. If we're playing like this in the opening month or two next year, that will provide sufficient "context" to see that this season was more than just an aberration. But without that context, I'm happy to back us on the available evidence, which at this stage is four years of improvement.

Following on from @Lucifer's Hero's earlier post looking at what we're doing and where we've changed our game, from watching us post-bye it certainly feels to me like we are trying to play differently, with less playing on at all costs, more kick-mark and trying to be less reliant on winning CPs and stoppages. These are things I've been wanting to see us do and I feel we've been doing them since the Fremantle game, so I think it's fair to say they're deliberate changes at coaching and playing level to try to change our game plan. We still have forward half issues but those are to an extent understandable with a few key forward players missing. Massive work still needs to be done in that area though.