titan_uranus

Cracking game so far, Dogs doing almost everything right. West Coast's only looked like scoring when the Dogs have turned it over, otherwise little fluency with their ball movement. Those early misses from the Dogs could come back to haunt them though, should be 5 goals up already.

That's because you can't help but think ridiculous thoughts.

My only issue is his wild inconsistency. He can dominate a game and precisely the type of midfielder we need (strong, fast, long and accurate kick) or he can go missing out on the park for entire games. Agreed. GC has something like 5 or 6 picks inside the top 30. If I were them I'd be spreading them out over 2016 and 2017 (and/or cashing some in for players) so I suspect they'll be doing some deals.

In the current PJ administration, IIRC, we have had next to no leaks. I don't necessarily believe that, if you're not hearing our name out there, it means we're not interested. I also don't agree that every player chased by every club better than us is necessarily someone we should be interested in. As such, the fact that Hawthorn is interested in Vickery does not tell me we necessarily should also be interested.

Why is that? We had a higher percentage than them but won 2 fewer games. Indeed, we could have lost to Geelong by 60 and our percentage would have stayed over 100. So I don't think that's right. I am wholly confident that if we had finished with St Kilda's record you would have called the season a fail: no finals, percentage under 100, 0-5 on the road, three blowout losses.

Given San Fran is probably the worst side in it this year, my main interest is in watching some of the traditionally weaker sides improve and push for playoffs - I'm thinking Jets, Jaguars and Bills.

So what about St Kilda? 12-10 record but a percentage well below 100 and they didn't make finals. In your black/white world, is that a pass or a fail? The answer is that things aren't as simple as pass/fail. In some respects the year was a pass, in others a fail. Overall, given we improved, we won more games with a much higher percentage, only one non-competitive loss (meaning we were in every other loss for the year until at least three quarter time), we were a legitimate finals chance until the second last week and we did all that with a young list (not an old one, like Carlton for example), I think those who want to argue the season was a pass have a pretty good case.

If I could only have one wish it would be for a home Friday night game, in the first month, against Richmond, Carlton, Essendon or Hawthorn. I don't see it happening, though. I hope we still get a Friday night game, even if it's an away game, but after the last fortnight I'm not that confident. I also hope to see no home game at Etihad but, again, can't see that happening, so the next best alternative is that we host an interstate side instead of St Kilda. Would be nice for us to avoid going to Geelong, too. If we go, though, I hope to see Carlton, Richmond, Collingwood or Essendon sent down there with us.

The debate in this thread is part of the reason why I am so disappointed with the result. It's this sort of myopic thinking which I expect from the media and non-MFC supporters who will only see the last game or two games and use that to review our entire season. Young and inexperienced teams nearly always have at least one game per year where everything just goes to sh*t. St Kilda lost to West Coast by 103 points (and only kicked 3 goals for the entire game). Collingwood (not as young or as inexperienced as us) had three 60+ point losses including the one to Port Adelaide, on the MCG, which had their supporters calling for Buckley's head. They also lost to Richmond just 4 weeks ago. Port Adelaide, with their finals spot on the line, flew the white flag against Sydney (did they score in the first quarter?). The only difference is that our horrendous off week came in the final round so it stays in the memory. So I now fully expect a crappy fixture next year and plenty of 2016 reviews and 2017 previews which suggest we're no good, that Roos achieved little/nothing etc.

We were always going to finish 11th with a loss yesterday. Our percentage falling below 100% disappoints me greatly, though.

AFL website currently says "Thrashing hands spoon to Lions". Is that wrong? Edit: clearly, given the heading just below it says "Lions avoid the spoon". Good old AFL website.

The last fortnight is a reminder that there is a significant amount of improvement still to be made at the club. The season in total, though, shows that we have made significant improvement regardless. When you look at the things we were able to do this year that we have consistently failed to do in the last 10 years (win 3 consecutive games, go through a year never losing 3 games in a row, win in Adelaide, win in Darwin, win in Queensland, beat Hawthorn, get within 50 points of West Coast in Perth, win more games interstate than we lose) you can see that this side is much more capable than any side we've had since 2006. Next year is about taking the platform we have built and adding a key rung to it - winning when we are expected to, and should, win. Whilst every club has upset losses, we can't afford five of them (Essendon, Carlton, Port, and two to St Kilda). We need to deal with the pressure of expectation. Nope, you don't get to write off wins because they don't suit your argument. GC might not be a good side but that was a close game and we won it. I'd like to see us do it more than once a year, but we won it. As for the "what if Lynch had kicked it?" comment, what if Stretch had kicked his goal against North? A pointless exercise.

CP5 addresses this well earlier but this some pretty weak thinking. Wasn't yesterday's 22 close to the same 22 we beat Hawthorn with, too? The issue isn't ability, which your post suggests.

I continue to be amazed by the "arguments" you make on this site.

As I said in the gameday thread, it is possible for this season to be a success and for today to be disgraceful on all levels. There is unfortunately a lot more to these performances than the players seem to think. We may well have done ourselves out of a Friday night game next year (you can easily imagine the fixturing team at the AFL just saying to themselves "but Melbourne just lost by 100" whilst they pencil the 12-10 Saints and the "resurgent" Bombers in for Friday night games instead). Then there's the whole "destination club" effect - again, you can imagine players wondering how far we have come (I dispute any suggestion we haven't improved this year but not everyone watches Melbourne as closely as we do). Finally, there's the fact that we can't even get ourselves going for the final game for a coach we actually like. First coach we haven't been forced to fire since...who? I don't even remember. And that is how we respond? 2016 was a success. We are streets ahead as a club of where we were at in 2013 and, IMO, better placed than 2010. We have a promising list and a bright future. But we've inexcusably let ourselves down today and we as supporters have every right to be disgusted.

So why is this the litmus? Why not say the Hawthorn game was the litmus? No one game is definitive of the season, the season is the litmus and the season has been a success. It would just have been more successful if we hadn't turned in a disgrace of a performance today.

This shouldn't be that disappointing, given the circumstances of both sides and what is on the line for each. But it is. Prior to today we were able to say we had only lost one game by 50+ points and only two games by 40+ points, with no 10-goal losses. We'd also not played a single game where we were totally uncompetitive and our percentage has been over 100% for almost all year (if not literally every week of the year). After today, we'll have that uncompetitive loss, our percentage will likely go below 100% (need to bring the margin down below 64 points) and we'll have that 60+ point loss. I wish the players and FD cared about these things as much as I do.

You wrote this 13 days ago: It is possible for today to be pathetic (it is) and the 2016 season to be successful (it has been).

As much as we have improved this year, one of the selling points was that we had no had one of these complete beltings like every other bottom 10 side. For that reason, as trivial as it may be, this perfomance disappoints me. Also, the FD and players don't get to pin it on the fact that Geelong has something to play for and we don't. After losing to Carlton last week despite finals being a distinct possibility, we don't get to say that.

We haven't had a non-competitive belting all year. I don't want one now.

"No way Melbourne drops this with top 8 on the horizon" Melbourne by 10.

Winning consecutive games was a big one, given how embarrassing it is that we went so long without doing it. But the fact we've gone through the season without losing any more than two games in a row is IMO the best.

2013, when we beat GWS (and only just, thanks to our best ever quarter). That's pretty sad, isn't it.

One of the main reasons we failed to score from clearances is that our forward structures were nowhere to be seen. That was, in no small part, because Weideman wasn't capable of contesting. Pedersen would have at least given us a second option to aim for when going forward.

Sorry I meant more the tackles comment. The fact he laid 0 tackles does not mean he didn't work hard all day, which he did.