titan_uranus

I understand we're all desperate to change things up in our forward half to get something going, but I really think this is a terrible idea. Our backline is the only part of the ground right now where we're playing at least mid-table competitive AFL-level football. Both last week and this week we've defended the G much better and most of our opponents' goals have been from turnovers, rather than from breakdowns in the back half.

It's both, bing. It's both poor coaching and poorly skilled players. Goodwin can't kick the ball for them, but he holds responsibility for poor decision-making and our inability to compose ourselves under pressure. Not full responsibility, but some responsibility.

What disappoints me the most about you, and others like you, is your genuine enjoyment at being "proven right". The easier option is to be negative. 17/18 clubs fail to win the flag each year so the odds are in your favour. Last year in particular, a number of us tried to keep our hopes up. I maintain that being optimistic is much harder to do. So it's always deflating when there are people like you who label the optimists "pollyannas" just for having that hope. Now here we are, in a thread where everyone is admitting they're losing hope. I am too. As every week goes by that we make the same mistakes and exhibit little to no improvement, I question whether and when it will turn, and whether we'll be able to make something of a list which should be playing better football than it is currently. I'm rapidly losing faith in Goodwin, I'm rapidly losing faith in Mahoney, in a number of players who should be "core". It sucks. But I wish people wouldn't gloat about it when things go poorly.

Bringing May in at the end of 2018 was the right call. We'd just come off a year of being the highest scoring side with a shocking defence. The problem wasn't bringing in May, it's that we knew we needed to make TMac and Weideman work and we've failed, so much so that we're not even playing Weideman despite crying out for him.

I agree with the general problem (kicking to the wrong spot) but IMO a second tall forward helps structure us up and should, if we do it right, ensure that there's someone in the 50 who can lead up at the ball carrier and take a mark, or bring it to ground. It will also take some pressure off Fritsch.

Agree. We also have forwards who don't engender much trust, partly their fault (no repeat leads, poor leads, dropping marks), but partly our structural fault (not playing a second tall, asking Fritsch to be the second tall, not structuring the side properly).

The rule is clear: if you've had a prior opportunity to dispose of the ball, and you're tackled, you must dispose of it legally or it's HTB. If you haven't had a prior opportunity to dispose of the ball, and you're tackled, you don't have to dispose of it provided that you make a genuine attempt to. In Petracca's case, he fell into the latter. The umpire thought he didn't make any genuine attempt to get rid of it. He didn't. It was technically correct. It's just that it rarely gets paid like that these days (which was Clarkson's point last week). The Martin one is a bigger problem for the league. The league is happier with players who get it, arguably have prior opportunity, but when they're tackled just drop it. That's a "better look" than players holding onto it in congestion, so it doesn't get focus. As with everything you post about, you have no idea what's going on. You have no idea what's driving those decisions, who's going and who's staying, any of the reasoning at all. You have no idea what other clubs are doing. You have no idea what costs, if any, are involved in these decisions.

ANB kicked two goals vs Carlton but got dropped because the rest of his game was poor. The same standards should be applied to Melksham.

I reckon this does take a bit away from Richmond. Their intensity was much higher than it's been for the past few weeks. They did force some mistakes out of us, they weren't all our own fault.

Why are you having a go at him in a thread all about him immediately after the game? Why is the focus on him at all, given what we saw today?

I don't want to drop TMac until we've seen how he goes with proper support. At least one of Melksham, vandenBerg and Hunt has to go, preferably two. At least one of Weideman and Brown has to come in. Bennell, Jones and ANB could also get a gig. I think one of Rivers and Lockhart has to go as well, I don't think we can carry both. Maybe opens a spot up for Jetta to return. But even with these key changes, we won't improve until our midfield improves its kicking and decision-making and our forwards lead into space, hold marks, create opportunities, and work better together.

I have no idea how Smith is in anyone's votes. I feel he gets the positive bias on here to the same extent Lever gets the negative. Like Lever, he wasn't the problem, or even a significant part of the problem, but like Lever, he wasn't in our top 6. 6 - Hibberd 5 - Gawn 4 - Petracca 3 - May 2 - Hannan 1 - Fritsch (just a vote for the effort of continuing to butter up for contested marks and getting crunched. The kicking was really bad)

I don't know if lazy is the right word, but there was a Richmond goal in the second quarter where Oliver and Castagna were contesting the ball on the wing, it went into Richmond's forward line, Castagna went after it and Oliver didn't chase hard enough. Castagna duly got involved in their forward 50 and they kicked a goal. Oliver has had problems his whole career with defensive running. Agree that he's had disposal issues previously, but he's rarely performed like he did today, where the negatives outweigh the positives. Far out, picket. Gawn was one of our top 3 today and Oliver's turnovers were one of the key reasons we lost. I'm all for not throwing babies out with bathwater, and as I said earlier, this is really just one awful game from Oliver where his positives failed to outweigh his negatives, but this is an insane statement.

A perfect example of prejudice. Lever can do better, but blaming our performances on him, or on bringing him to the club, is off the mark and incorrect.

You have a habit, dazzle, of taking your anger out on previous drafting/trading decisions. If you watched today's game and thought "we lost because Lever was poor", you don't understand the fundamental problems we're having through the middle and forward of centre. His role, like every other defender's role, is to defend. Our defensive set up wasn't our problem. Like most weeks, we put our defenders under insane pressure with our repeat turnovers across half-forward. I'm not suggesting Lever stood out in a positive way, but there are obvious, glaring problems in the other two thirds of the ground that are vastly more problematic than whatever you don't like about Lever.

His inability to hit a target by foot is a massive reason we're struggling. Massive, massive problem. We're not going to drop him, not after one bad game, so like the majority of our players, our future depends on him working hard to improve his mistakes.

Of [censored] course this thread shows up. The anti-Lever bias is insane on this board. If you think Lever was the problem today, or even a top 10 problem, you don't get it. Why the [censored] should we care about Lever only having two disposals. He's not in the side to get disposals.

That's rubbish, bing. It's not all on his shoulders, but our lack of improvement in the key areas that need improving is a shared responsibility between coaches and players. He's coached instinct out of some players, he's yet to find a way to teach them when to play on or when to stop, he's yet to find a way to teach them when to go long or when to look short, he backs in the wrong players and selects the wrong players, and he can't get us to play four quarters. It's not all his fault, but it is certainly partly his fault.

It's unbearable watching us make the same mistakes every week. The two key issues we've had since Goodwin took over are poor remain. We can't hit targets and we turn it over at crucial times. The negative comments about Lever in this thread only serve to highlight the almighty prejudice Demonland has against the obvious whipping boy of the club. If you're focusing on our defensive structure/setup as our problem, you don't get it. This is all about turnovers in the middle and, worse, across half forward. This is about playing all of Melksham, Hannan, vandenBerg and Fritsch and having only two of them (the latter two) show up (and even then, Fritsch's kicking was appalling). This is about Oliver failing to chase and turning over all of his kicks. This is about Viney showing us he's most likely incapable of changing how he plays and continuing to bomb the ball without looking. This is about Tomlinson kicking to Langdon on a tight angle when the game was there to be won. Hibberd was excellent, right back to his best and with good kicking to boot. Gawn was, again, good, as was Petracca, but we say that almost every week. Gawn plays well, one of the mids plays well, we generate a stack of inside 50s, but we can't score. We need a second tall forward to give us something to aim at. And then we need 90% of our side to improve their kicking. Until those things happen, we won't win games of football. And that is on both the players and the coaches, together. It's not one or the other. It's both.

This is classic Melbourne under Goodwin. We’ve had more disposals, more CPs, more clearances, more tackles, more inside 50s, but fewer shots on goal and we’re losing. That quarter was 9 inside 50s each. If you’re blaming the defenders you don’t get it. It’s all about our turnovers. They have 7 goals, 5 are from turnovers. Most of them are awful kicks inside 50 which don’t get marked. Fritsch has missed about 6 kicks. Oliver too. VDB in the first quarter under no pressure missed TMac in a paddock. We are moronic for not picking a second tall forward. Fritsch is getting belted and will be physically destroyed if we don’t get another body down there to help, because TMac is being blanketed. Instead, we picked all of Hannan, Melksham and VDB. It’s not working.

Oh dazzle would you give it the [censored] up. At the end of 2018, when we were the highest scoring side but couldn't stop big forwards to save ourselves, when Weideman had just taken two finals by storm, we should have ignored the key defender who wanted to play for us and instead taken a skinny forward in the draft who was unlikely to be in a physical position to assist us in 2019, the year we were ideally going to challenge for the flag?

If we assume 6-6-6 has played a role, and I think it has, I think there are two reasons why. One is what you mention - a lack of run from behind the centre square, meaning that as we get our hands on the ball at the centre stoppage, we likely don't have a runner to feed it to so we go with a quick kick. The other is the trade-off - we have two more players in our forward 50, but they're not generating marks from those quick kicks. That's in part because they're undersized, in part because they're out of form (TMac), and in part because we don't have a good forward set up. We don't leave forwards deep to lead up to the ball carrier (last year, when I was at games, we would have many of our six forwards sit up near the 50 to push up into the square and, presumably, to start defending if we lost the centre clearance).

Having a set number of players in the forward/defensive 50s at each stoppage might work, but it might not. If it's, say, 4 from each team, that's 10 from each team in the middle who can, and most likely will, follow the ball around. Another issue to consider is how the rule is enforced. When does the rule kick in? At the time the whistle is blown to call a bounce/throw in? At the time of the bounce/throw in? And who polices it? Do the umpires stop and wait for players to go back into their 50s? Do we have extra umpires watching (can we afford more umpires)? Do we have a video umpire? I'm not saying it can't work, but I'm not convinced it will, and I'm not convinced it's logistically simple.

That could be it - although it wasn't wet last week.

No second tall forward again. I'm not convinced that's the right call. I seriously hope Sunday shows me that this can work.