titan_uranus

Can't drop Langford. He does all the right things, even if he fatigued late. Our best last week, had a good first half tonight, is the future. I certainly wouldn't be dropping or even resting him if the replacement in your list there is Laurie.

Petty has to be dropped for Lever. Spargo and Sharp both have to be dropped. They are both absolutely useless right now. Both need to go find some VFL form. I doubt Lindsay will be fit so we'll have to find two replacements and I don't want Billings to be one of them. Laurie maybe, but IMO he's in the same basket as Sharp, Spargo and Billings. Too early for Culley? He didn't just "do his job", he did a great job. The anti-Sparrow bias on here is embarrassing right now.

6 - May 5 - Sparrow 4 - Gawn 3 - McDonald 2 - Chandler 1 - Petracca

This wasn't as bad as some on here are making out. Fritsch kicks that goal at the start of the fourth and it's a 10 point game with us having kicked 6 out of the last 8 goals or something like that, with genuine momentum and for the first time in ages, perhaps a lick of confidence/hope. But he misses, and like the rest of the last three weeks, what was left of our confidence disappeared. We did a lot right IMO. We clearly tried to move it quicker. We applied much better pressure, for much longer than the last two weeks. We actually even got a few coaching moves right (Sparrow to Holmes was a good move and to his credit Sparrow did his job excellently). But there's still so much we're bad at. Fitness. How the [censored] were we being out-run by an older side off a six (but really five and a half) day break coming off a game played in humid Brisbane? We have got our fitness all wrong I've been a JVR defender but he's going nowhere fast. He insists on playing back shoulder and running towards goal, when he does actually lead up he cannot take a mark, and he is a liability if the ball hits the deck. Right now, I'm very much in favour of sending him back to Casey to find some form. It's no wonder Trac's frustrated. Look at who he's got for company down there. Sharp and Spargo wouldn't be getting a game for any other side in the comp right now. Fritsch can't kick straight to save his life. Turner and Henderson can do good things but both are still learning how to be forwards at AFL level. We are so devoid of talent in our forward half. And then of course our skills. We are just so, so terrible by foot. I lost count of the number of times we had space in our forward line and kicked to a player's feet, or over his head, or straight to a Geelong player, or to the Geelong player's advantage. It's embarrassing at this point. May was unbelievable, Langford's first half was great but he faded badly, Chandler on a wing and half-back worked well I thought, I've already mentioned Sparrow's great tagging game, and hopefully Pickett's better for the run next week.

I can't get around the Spargo selection, but well done to him on 100 games. The other changes make us better. Not "we're going to beat Geelong" better, but better. I get that people want to see big names get dropped. They've been put on notice by Goodwin, so if the same players are listless (I'm looking at you, Salem, Fritsch and Viney), and if we get pumped again, the public notice to me signals they're on their last chances.

I’m on phone and it’s also the first day I’ve seen the red box with “3 viewers” next to each thread on the main forum page.

There’s no use being a good kick if you can’t get the ball in the first place. Our foot skills are horrendous but so is our run and spread, and unfortunately neither Laurie nor Spargo can run or spread to AFL standard.

Gee Culley’s come from the clouds. In the video Selwyn says he’ll play modified minutes in the VFL this week. The way our midfield’s going, we may want to call on him sooner rather than later… Kentfield and Tholstrup on the brink of doing the same next week.

As has already been said, there’s nothing sneaky about Viney’s poor start. He is arguably the headline of why we are so bad right now. As for your changes, I just can’t get around dropping Henderson when he’s cracking in as much as possible and can actually kick. I’d be dropping Billings instead.

It doesn’t look like we’re running well, so I think calling our fitness into question is fair. If it’s intentional, as you say, I think that’s moronic given the year and off-season we were coming off. Hitting the ground running (pardon the pun) should have been our core focus. If it’s not intentional, that’s just as bad. Why are we not fit? And if we are fit, then our lack of running is a lack of effort, which is just as bad again.

They’re beatable this week. Maybe not by us, but they’re beatable. Playing in fits and starts, off a six day break after a game in Brisbane humidity, with a question mark over Tom Stewart. I’d have a moderate degree of confidence if I hadn’t watched our last two games.

Then they’re not “bad” contracts. They’re just what we’re left with on the other side of 2022-24. They should be who we rebuild/reset around.

The Trac and Oliver contracts are only bad with hindsight. All clubs sign their elite talent to long contracts. We are no exception, and at the time they were both top 10 players in the league with no reasonable sign of either deteriorating (and Trac was in AA form prior to his injury last year). IMO, both were the right call at the time. I’m happy to debate the Viney contract though.

That’s not his fault, nor does it make the pick a blunder. He’s also been far from our worst.

He was pick 68. The fact he’s played at all means the pick wasn’t a “blunder”.

Almost none of this has anything to do with what I was saying, but ok. On the last para - I can guarantee you that if Green avoided answering a question about whether we still views finals as the expectation, he’d cop it on here for “accepting mediocrity” or not having a “winner’s attitude” etc.

Yeah this Mansell suspension is disgraceful. If it had happened to an MFC player this thread would be going bonkers right now. This wasn’t punishable conduct in the pre-season but is now? The MRO system is beyond a joke.

What exactly would you have expected to hear Green say? “Yeah look he’s on thin ice tbh, a loss today and I reckon the board’s going to have a real think about it all”? FFS, every president is going to back their coach. Also, Green if anything suggested the use of the word “love” wasn’t something he personally gets around but explained that it’s about a concept - whether we use the word “love” or “connection” or just the club’s motto of “true”, that was the focus.

I might be wrong, but on my brief check just now we haven't lost two games by 58+ points since Rounds 21-22, 2014 (we lost Round 21 to GWS by 64 and then Round 22 to West Coast by 66). I had expected it to have happened in 2019 but was surprised to find that we only lost one game that year by more than 53, and only two by more than 41. Closest I could find was Rounds 4 and 5 in 2018, when we lost to Hawthorn by 67 and backed it up by losing to Richmond by 46. We then won our next 6, scoring over 100 each week...

You ask are talls relevant in the same post you talk about Adelaide playing a corridor game with fast delivery. Adelaide play Walker, Fogarty, Thilthorp and Curtain in the same side (plus O'Brien). Those four combined for 11 goals today.

Whilst some of this might be true, it doesn't explain our annihilations in back to back weeks in CPs/clearances. I can accept we're trying to move the ball differently, and failing. That's in part due to personnel issues and in part due to old dogs being unable to learn new tricks. But how we try to move the ball is irrelevant to what we're doing at stoppage. Also, IMO we can't play Trac forward unless and until we sort ourselves out in the middle.

It shows you where we're at right now that probably the only two good things to come out of this weekend were Langford's game, and this news that Lindsay's injury isn't major.

I like AJ, I just think he’s nowhere near fit enough. His work rate and second efforts are always there but as the game wore on he became increasingly ineffectual. I’m not against going with Jeffo, Turner and JVR, but I’m nowhere near sold on JVR rucking and I think we’ll risk continued stoppage annihilation with him in the ruck.

There’s no way I’d drop Henderson for Spargo. The other changes are fine but what is the plan for May, Lever, TMac and Petty?

Goodwin presser: Goodwin still believes Melbourne can recover from a winless start to 2025, but acknowledged the Demons have to fix their fundamentals after being soundly beaten in the contest (-18), clearance (-16) and in territory, losing the inside 50 count by 25. "We are three weeks in and we acknowledge where we sit right now isn't where we want to be. It's not the level. We need to fix it," Goodwin said. "We've got to get to work. We acknowledge that we've got too many players at the moment that aren't in the form they need to be in. "As coaches we need to fix that. We need to help them. We need to get them in form. That's the first step to fixing your fundamentals. You could see the basics of the game weren't to the standard required. "We got punished by a team playing really strong footy. They look like they are full of confidence and are playing the right way. That's where we want to be. I certainly feel we have the potential to be there."