titan_uranus

St Kilda's comeback is not good for our PR. Add them to the list of clubs people will say we should be around the level of but have 'gone past us'. Of course, such comments are based on one win, against another side in the group of clubs who have supposedly 'gone past us' but couldn't beat St Kilda. I'd personally put it down to the ups and downs of being a lesser club, but I guess 'gone past us' also works.

Very surprised to see Jamar dropped. Not that it's without all merit, but I just did not see it coming. This is huge for Spencer, he can't keep getting chances at AFL level and doing nothing with them. Needs to take this opportunity. A bit surprised to see Grimes dropped. Neither him nor Jetta in the side means we'll need someone else to play as a small defender...maybe Toumpas will get a new role? I thought Michie did enough against Richmond to get more than two games. Not surprised at all that McKenzie was dropped. Sometimes you make bad calls at the selection table; Jordie being picked last week was one of those.

This did not need a new thread.

I can't stand how the system allows this to happen. May's punishment is for a bad attempt at a legal, football move (i.e. the bump). Hodge's punishment is for a dog act that has nothing to do with football whatsoever (i.e. a punch). The AFL's problem is that wants to take a stance on concussion but won't take a similarly hard stance on brutality. If May was worth 3 weeks, Hodge was worth 6. The two cannot be the same.

They've got a lot of talent but there appear to be significant cultural issues at the moment. Eade has made comments about how the players seem to think they're the greatest bunch of players to ever grace the field and that wins will just happen for them. That's the last kind of attitude a player at Melbourne could afford to have.

IMO comparisons to the Bulldogs are quite misguided. It's not hard to get swept up in what they're achieving so far but Essendon beat Hawthorn in Round 2 and has gone markedly backwards since - the Sydney win doesn't necessarily mean the Bulldogs are going to finish top 4, or even top 8, or have a stellar year. Meanwhile this so-called 'basket case' won 7 games in 2014, 8 in 2013, 5 in 2012 and 9 in 2011 (having played in a preliminary final in each of 2008-2010). That isn't remotely close to the kind of rock bottom we went to in 2012-2013 (off the back of the previous rock bottom in 2008-2009). McCartney laid a whole lot of groundwork in his time there which Beveridge has tweaked - and tweaked well mind you - to reap the rewards of. Neeld didn't lay that kind of platform for Roos, on the contrary he took out the entire foundation of the club. Good on the Dogs for exceeding expectations, I'd love us to be doing what they're doing now, but I'm not sure it's fair to be assuming we should be doing what they're doing.

I've liked Newton's start to the year and I think he adds a valuable dimension to the midfield when he's up and about, but he needs to work a lot harder on his contested efforts. Slipping weekly, approaching the point where he can't hold his spot in the side as a midfielder.

Agree with most of this. I would say that as much as it was Fremantle having players behind the ball, it was our forwards being too deep in defence which stifled us. I know we were being well beaten in the clearances but just having forwards standing around in the defensive 50 doesn't solve that. We then were totally out of structures for the times when we did work hard enough to get the clearance. You don't help yourself re: people such as me using phrases like 'agenda' when you only post these sorts of views after losses. That thread you've linked to, the same message posted, funnily enough, just after the Adelaide loss. After the Richmond win? Nothing. You also seem to work into your posts elements of 'you all should have listened to me' (e.g. 'I posted this some time ago and it hardly got a reply'), which also doesn't help. That to one side, I agree more with rjay and ProDee. If Roos went the other way and sounded more like Hardwick and Malthouse, he'd sound just as delusional as they do. And on McDonald's response - the fact that he rejects the notion that they're inherently better than us and says we could have beaten them, doesn't that go against your argument? You say Roos' message must be having a negative impact on the players' mindset, but obviously that's not the case for TMac.

That's a perfect example of how pointless the DE stat is. One of McKenzie's so-called 'efficient' disposals was his handpass to Jamar in the centre square. When Jamar was flat footed, standing still, and not calling for it. The result of that handpass was Jamar having to shovel it away to whoever was near him, causing a turnover and a Fremantle goal. I don't care what McKenzie's DE was (nor anyone else's, for that matter). Watching the game, he provided nothing to the side at all. That's the same trend he's been on for the last few years, nothing today indicated any change from that (we only need to go back one week to see a sub come on and show improvement on the previous year).

Good observation. It's frustrating when we stumble and at the same time a side we should be even with has a strong victory (and good on them too), but we just need to focus on ourselves and work on rebounding from the loss like they did to beat Adelaide the week after.

Our overall accuracy this year is 50.59. 29 of the 50 goals have been in two games, meaning we've scored 21 goals in the three losses (including 7.13 against Adelaide, which didn't help our cause there, and 1.5 in the second half against GWS).

For the record, Watts had 3 tackles today. For context, Michie and McKenzie had 0, Pedersen, Cross, Tyson, Hogan and Dunn had just 1, Salem, Vince and Garland and 2. With McDonald, Howe, Jones and Grimes on 3, that puts Watts in our top half for tacklers. There is plenty to dislike about Watts right now, but tackling at least isn't one of them. I'd be wondering why Michie, Cross, Tyson and Vince laid just 4 between them.

In what way do the players have 'very little' to do with our situation? Roos' message to players is...we don't really know. We aren't the players. We're the public, and we get what he gives the public. Instead of what he's currently saying, what would you prefer he say? To go down the Malthouse route and say 'I can't see where we're going to lose this year' and then be pilloried every time the team loses? His way of instilling confidence is to remind everyone that Rome wasn't built in a day and that it is going to take time (therefore, don't lose sight of the end goal when we lose). It's really not that bad, and if your comment about the players having 'very little' to do with the situation is your way of saying you think Roos' public statements are the real problem, then you need to reconsider your perception of the side. You're welcome to your view; I was calling you out on the way in which you post it only after losses.

6 - McDonald 5 - Brayshaw 4 - Garlett 3 - Cross 2 - Garland 1 - Jamar (more for effort than anything else).

Agree entirely.

Ummm, what does that have to do with what I said? Leaving the loose man back meant their loose man killed off any rare centre clearances we could muster, which increased the amount of ball Fremantle had to work with. As for the forward structure, it was absolutely an issue, especially through the middle two quarters of the game when things were relatively more even than the other two quarters. What worked so well for us against GC and Richmond was our ability to move quickly in transition. We were hesitant in doing that today because we would look up and see no one in front of us. Hogan was pushing up into the backline instead of staying at FF like he did last week (he gives us something to aim for and keeps us from stopping and starting across half back).

I think to be fair, the game was much more even from halfway through the first until about 5 minutes into the last. Between that period the margin hovered repeatedly around the 20-25 point mark, and there were critical times where we had a bit of momentum or we were holding them at bay, and then a massive free to us was missed or a soft one to them wasn't paid, which really hurts when you're pushing the proverbial up the hill to keep in touch with the premiership favourites.

I'm pretty sure they scored a goal when Fyfe grabbed Garland and threw him to the ground, but no free kick for holding the man. I gave Dunn all the credit in the world last year for his work, he was a much improved player and a vital cog in our backline for 2015. He wasn't 'fine' today at all. He was led to the ball by whoever he was playing on (which included Taberner, who is the only member of that 22 I don't rate), didn't zone properly and didn't work hard enough in transition. He's losing a lot more contests, a strong suit of his last year. It's a drop off in form for him so far this year and we're worse for it. What's that got to do with continuing to persist with a loose man in defence and not working on keeping our forward structure intact?

It's quite funny (read: tiresome) how you avoid commenting on the team's performance after a win, but the second we lose you're right back in the thick of your agenda. As I said above, Roos was outcoached today, but that's an on-field, game day problem. Not some sort of persistent, underlying issue that you seem to think exists.

Our midfield is terrible and Fremantle's is possibly the best in the competition. We aren't capable of going with sides who have midfields that much better than ours. We were also thoroughly outcoached today. Doesn't mean Roos isn't doing wonders for the club, but two key structural issues were rampant all game and he did nothing to fix them - firstly, we continued to have our forwards too far up the ground, which meant any time we got the ball off them, we'd look up, try to take the game on and move fast, but see nothing but Fremantle players; secondly, the loose man in defence - as a low-skilled side we gain nothing from putting someone behind the ball. It allows the more talent opposition loose man the opportunity to clean up our untidy forward entries and they just go around/over/past our hapless loose man. Terrible coaching from Roos today. Salem getting injured doesn't help at all, but surely we can find someone at Casey who is better than McKenzie? He's so devoid of confidence and ability in kicking the ball that he thought the best option at one point in the fourth was to handpass to Jamar, who was standing still and not calling for it. To be clear, no one player can cause a 68 point loss, but it's an indictment on our depth that McKenzie was considered the best option to replace Kent. He did absolutely nothing to show he has improved one iota, so what does that say about Riley, Bail, M Jones and Terlich? Dunn is also in terrible form. He has been next to useless so far this year. I thought Jamar battled well in the ruck, McDonald did his part again in defence, and Brayshaw is really going to be a great player. Garlett continues to do a fine job, especially with far less to work with today than last week.

That's the second week in a row the Dogs have been smashed in the ruck but won the game. Last week it was Jacobs, this week Pyke. Despite what Mumford did to us in Round 2, it is entirely possible to break even through the middle and win games of football even if you're being beaten in the ruck. Our mids need to work as hard as the Dogs' mids did.

Surprised GWS was that badly beaten. Don't read anything into in on West Coast's part though. Flat track bullies. Watch them roll over and be belted by Port (in Adelaide) next week.

With the Dogs, GWS and Collingwood all improving this year beyond what was expected, our draw has unfortunately become a lot harder than we would have thought. Suddenly of our five repeat games, only St Kilda is no chance of playing finals. It's a pity we only get Gold Coast, Carlton, Brisbane, Richmond, West Coast and Geelong once each. Hopefully we make the most of those games when they roll around (2/2 so far with GC and Richmond).

Hopefully we can draw some confidence from the Dogs beating Sydney today - it is possible to beat the top 4 sides if you hit them hard and work all day. Dawes out is another huge loss, we've lost three really important structural players despite them not all being high possession players. We're clearly worse off with Grimes, McKenzie and Pedersen in place of Dawes, Kent and Jetta, but so be it. At least the three coming in aren't in abysmal VFL form. Our midfield is intact which is important against Fremantle - and if our defensive pressure is where it was last week, we will make them earn it.

I agree they're performing better than we all expected, but we do need to keep perspective over who they've beaten: Brisbane, Carlton and St Kilda are the three worst sides in the competition. The fourth win was against Essendon which is a good win but the Bombers didn't show up at all on ANZAC day. I'm still wary on declaring Collingwood a genuine finals threat. It's great for the competition that the Dogs and GWS are now able to push the better sides. If we can do the same tomorrow, then I'll be happy with adding us to that list of up and coming sides, and the AFL can further be ridiculed for its appallingly biased scheduling. Meanwhile, pre-season we thought we had it easy with our repeat games, partly because we rated the Dogs as bottom 4 and GWS and Collingwood not far in front. Turns out we have three clubs who could all be 4-1 after 5 rounds, plus Fremantle who could be 5-0, as our repeat games (plus St Kilda, which is handy). We actually could have a really difficult fixture as it turns out.