titan_uranus

You never saw a future im Howe, Grimes or Trengove? Toumpas also hasn't been bad enough to warrant the crap he cops. There are worse players and more pressing problems than Toumpas. A lot more.

Let's leave Toumpas alone for just 5 minutes - how was Howe? Fitzpatrick? Spencer? Trengove? Grimes? Pedersen? Bail? Players who have had more than 15 months in the AFL system.

We've had more disposals than them, but I expected us to have had lots of handpasses as we flip the ball around when in danger. Turns out we're kicking it a lot (and marking it too). What are we doing, then? Ridiculous short kicks? Hopeless long kicks? Backwards/sideways movement? And why? Last week we seemed to show evidence of a purposeful game plan - where has that gone?

I notice we've had 19 inside 50s, only two fewer than WC. Is our lack of forwards the main issue here?

Not watching, which appears to be a good thing today. Do we look like we did last year, lacking effort? Or is it more of a skill thing?

Wasn't just Cameron though, they missed a stack of simple shots late. You're right though. Port dominated Round 1 last year. Total dominance. This year, St Kilda struggled. For periods we were unquestionably better. Overall, we had no polish in front of goal, but if we had we'd have won. Major difference, poor comparison.

I don't rate Sydney this year. Slow, forward structure not functioning. Tippett coming back will help of course but I'm not seeing the same energy they've had the last two years. Hawthorn, Fremantle, Essendon have shown great football this year. Reserve judgment on West Coast until we see them play decent teams, and travel.

MFCSS classic. Other bad team wins. To make MFC look worse, make other bad team sound a lot better than they actually are, leaving us behimd them. St Kilda are crap. Their wins have been against us and GWS FFS, hardly finals form. They were dominated for extended periods in both games and could easily (and should, today) have lost both. Ridiculous statement.

So are you complaining about talent or spirit? St Kilda is 2-0 because of spirit/effort and luck. Not talent. Some accuracy in front of goal and they'd be 0-2. I don't think they're any more talented than we are.

St Kilda has done well to have taken its chances, but they would be 0-2 if their opponents had kicked straight. IMO, one of the worst sides to be 2-0 that I can remember. But, you take your wins however they come, so good on them. GWS has a lot of talent but their inexperience and lack of polish killed them today.

You don't think we did on the weekend? Or you just don't trust us against better opposition?

There are two sides to the issue. The first is whether or not people like the white jumper. It's actually quite a nice jumper, though white isn't everyone's favourite colour. The second is the instances in which we wear it. Clearly, wearing it against St Kilda doesn't do a lot for anyone, and probably makes things worse. The reason why it happens is the AFL deems clubs to have 'dark' and 'light' jumpers, and when two sides are both 'dark' or 'light', they make the away team change. That's fine when the home jumper is purely dark (e.g. when Carlton is the home team and Melbourne is away; our white jumper clearly is distinct from theirs), but is a stupid rule for the clubs whose 'dark' jumper has white in it (e.g. St Kilda). It's a simplistic plan from the AFL that doesn't work in its application. However, changing it will not get rid of the white - we will still be asked to have the 'light' option and a red jumper, as we've said about 10192830192831 times before on Demonland, won't cut it (by AFL standards) when we play clubs with red in their 'dark' jumper (e.g. Adelaide, Essendon, St Kilda, Bulldogs). We could have three jumpers (seems like the Bulldogs do, and we used to a few years ago), but the white will persist.

Can't blame him for failing to be the number 1 target when he's hardly even suited to being the third tall, let alone first. Nonetheless, still wasn't good enough and I thought he could have provided us with more of an effort. Consistency has always been an issue of Howe's. A corky would explain the effort.

We need talls. Pedersen is not good enough. This creates a dilemma. I want to drop Pedersen, but I also know that we can't really afford to. What will make Pedersen better, hopefully, is Howe giving us something as a forward. JKH wasn't ready and shouldn't play. Whether that's a promotion to Blease, or whether Viney can take his spot, I'm not sure.

I only saw bits and pieces, but to have had more disposals, more inside 50s and the same number of scoring shots is at least a difference from last year. But no forward line has killed us (Pedersen is awful. Howe is not good enough for his level of talent). Nonetheless, St Kilda might not win another game this year (unless they play us again). If we are going to have a shot at winning, this was going to be it.

Don't understand the complaining/disappointment. We don't have a choice. We have clearly picked the best 22 that we have available at the moment (you could argue for Blease but he has a while to go to build his tank). Our team isn't great. It's bottom-4 standard. But St Kilda's is just as bad, if not worse. It hasn't been often in the last 8 years that we've looked better on paper, but we do this weekend. Bail has a few qualities that we know Roos loves. He gut runs, both ways. He is courageous and will put his head over the ball (sometimes to his detriment, as we know, but it's a trait nonetheless). He can play a decent defensive-forward role. He's had a decent pre-season, too. Not su

I'm skipping a lot of posts in this thread, they're all the same anyway, but this one stood out. I'm sorry, but to say we had an 'elementary need' at all, let alone it being grunt, is just silly. We needed everything (and we still need a lot of things). We needed skill just as much as we needed grunt, and we needed pace, and good contested marking, and a long-term ruckman, and half-back flankers, and fitness. The list was enormous. Of course, another scenario that many don't think about is if we had indeed taken Wines (along with Viney), improved in our 'grunt', and then watched as Wines and Viney and Jones and Grimes and Trengove struggled for assistance outside. Then some would have said 'hey, look at Toumpas, gee he's got a great kick and awareness on him. We should have taken him!'.

Any weekend in which Collingwood, Richmond and Carlton all lose is a pretty decent weekend. Something the AFL has to take notice of, though, is the awful crowds. Only 37,500 for the season opener featuring Collingwood. AFL expected 42,000, Collingwood expected 45,000. Carlton v Port drew only 27,000. Those are very small numbers. I'd guess one reason for the lack of attendance is the (too) early start to the year. Dump this half-baked split round for Round 1 and open the season with a bang. The AFL also needs to work out how to satisfy both the AFLPA with this extra week off and Cricket Victoria - we all want to see the season start at the MCG, but either the extra week or the end of the cricket season needs to move to get that. This suggests to me you don't watch a lot of Fremantle, and you just go off what the media/people think about Ross Lyon teams. Yes, Fremantle are very good at defence. But they are not a boring football side. They have flair and attack (Hill, Fyfe, Walters, Pavlich) and they have improved their forward structure and movement of the ball over the off-season. Let's not forget, as many seem to do, that in the GF they had more scoring shots than Hawthorn did. That doesn't say a huge amount, but it does put paid to the theory that the Dockers simply don't generate enough attack. Fremantle plays high-quality pressure football which most teams can't deal with. If Melbourne could do what they could do, we'd be a very happy bunch on here.

GWS beats Sydney, then GC beats Richmond. The two baby sides beating two top 4 contenders. Let's hope this starts off a new era of sorts for the entire AFL (fingers crossed).

Conditions no excuse, Cameron kicked 4 and Patton 3. Franklin and Sydney can eat it, to be frank. No sympathy for them at all.

MFC statement here - http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2014-03-15/clark-to-take-extended-leave Hopefully, whatever ails Mitch now, he is able to overcome it and return.

Shattering to hear the rumours (which I guess they still are at the moment, with no confirmed news from the club) that Clark's suffered another soft tissue injury. IMO he's one of the 5-10 best forwards in the game when he's up and going, so every match he's not playing for us is a big loss, but I'll reserve my worry until we hear something more official.

To compare to another industry (not the easiest thing to do when talking about sport), consider a graduate in law, fresh out of law school, top of the class. Imagine the best law firm in Melbourne wanting him, amongst others, including Joe Bloggs in the outer suburbs. At which firm is our fresh graduate most likely to succeed? Surely not with Joe Bloggs and his below-industry-standard training. Melbourne has been, for the last 8 years, the Joe Bloggs of the outer suburbs of the AFL. I'm on the other side of the spectrum to you, as you may well know, and I don't buy a lot of your arguments. For example, on Cale Morton, part of the reason why he didn't bulk up at West Coast, aside from the fact he had one pre-season with them (what were you expecting in one pre-season? No one, in any sport, anywhere, magically transforms in four months), is that football players grow more, and are prone to develop more muscle, in their youth. It's the phase from 18 to 24 that provides players with great scope to develop physically. Morton spent those years, crucial years, with Melbourne, and yes, I would say that, based on the fact that skinny players at other clubs tend to develop at a faster rate than skinny players at Melbourne, he would have ended up bigger at a more proficient club. I'm not sure how you know what Misson is doing to Watts and how that compares to Barry Hall, but again, Watts' most important and formative years were before Misson. Nonetheless, I've seen development in Watts' body in the last two years. Your last sentence is a lot more prescient - we've brought in a wealth of talent over the last 8 years, but we have failed at developing that raw junior-level talent into what it could, and should, have become (not just physically, but in all senses of the concept of development).

What is going on with Shaun Marsh? His First Class form reads like this - 148, 44, 0, 0, 0, 113.

I can't believe the number of people who've posted along the lines of 'it's pretty much just been poor drafting'. The concept of development (yes, a pretty nebulous word) is so much more than just sitting around a table and picking good players. You can bring in as much junior talent as you want. If there is no leadership, no genuine culture about the club, no setting of standards, and (comparatively) poor coaching, you are not going to reach whatever potential you have. We haven't had a feel, a culture, whatever word you've wanted, since, well, who knows. We haven't had genuine leaders, either on or off the field, since Neitz and McDonald (one of whom we kicked out the door). We haven't had players who set examples on the training track until recently. We haven't had coaches who are were industry-standard. We've pushed players into retirement when we shouldn't have, we've asked players to play so many positions they become a jack of all trades but master of absolutely nothing (Dunn is a perfect example, Cale Morton too). We reportedly went from being far too lenient on players to being far too tough on some players. We also put our players through the 'tanking phase' (whether you think we tanked or not, or whatever, that period was nothing other than a negative for the club). There are so many things that have been below 'par', if you will, with this club. Drafting was one of them, but there is so much more. It's just crazy that so many people on here, who you would think would appreciate the situation we've been in (and are still in) could wave it all away and put it down to drafting alone.