titan_uranus

It's been pretty clear to most of us (sorry @binman) all year that our midfield has been down. I don't agree though with anyone who tries to argue that there's one singular reason for it. IMO, as things almost always are, it's multi-faceted. I'd argue the following have all contributed: We intended to see some of the OP quoted stats decrease this year by changing the way we play. For example, we intended to see a decrease in our inside 50 differential, our time in forward half differential, and probably our clearance and CP numbers, because we wanted to focus more on scoring from turnover and from our defensive half and less on generating repeat inside 50s from which we struggled to generate good scoring shots. Brayshaw's retirement. Oliver's lack of pre-season. Viney's drop off in form. Sparrow's failure to take the next step in his development. Our various forward line woes which have required us to play Petracca forward more than previously. Salem training as a mid over the pre-season but then getting injured and failing to reintegrate into the middle on his return. Previous list management - we do not have enough midfielders on our list and have not brought enough in, by draft, trade or FA, over the last few years In my view, the top 3 contribute the majority of the decline. We were happy to cop moderate reductions in some of these stats but losing Brayshaw late and Oliver not being able to reach his best form have exacerbated those reductions significantly.

We have been the subject of intense media scrutiny all year. We are as relevant now as any other club in the competition. If we weren't, no one would bother writing article after article about our form drop off.

I find it interesting that these comments from Malthouse get so much attention on here, but the following quote from Grundy’s interview with the ABC this weekend hasn’t had similar attention: “Despite the move to Melbourne not panning out as Grundy had hoped, with premiership glory, he doesn't hold any ill-will towards the Demons. "The culture that Melbourne has is really high-performing in terms of the standards they set, the work ethic, and I'm really grateful to have gotten a glimpse of what it's like in that side," he said.”

Pretty sure @Colm said May, not Max.

Walsh missed large portions of last year and at no stage were Carlton at full strength. Not the point though because the purpose of me raising the comparison was just to show that a side under extreme pressure and failing to respond repeatedly turned it around mid-season. So many different variables obviously, but I don’t want our players or coaches assuming the season is done when last year three sides refused to give up from worse W-L records than us right now and two of them made prelims.

Was just thinking about Carlton last year too. They were bottom 4 this time last year, and as they kept losing each week the acid was poured on them and they didn’t respond. But they got a soft kill vs Gold Coast and then found their passion and identity again. I know plenty on here will say it’s pointless to compare with other sides in previous seasons but I do use them last year as an example of how, with the right application, terrible form can be turned around (and we have 3 more wins at this point of the season than they did).

I agree, but I fear this will fall on deaf ears. Obviously we're playing badly right now but withholding attendance or membership as a form of protest is unhelpful in so many ways.

Not sure either of these are confirmed, certainly not the first one. From the news reports I've seen on X, Dr Larkins thinks it's a six-week minimum injury but he has no specific knowledge.

Nobody will ever convince you of anything though.

I agree with this, and your entire post, except that I wouldn’t say it was hitting the panic button. The majority view on here after last year’s finals was that we needed to change the way we play because the repeat inside 50 forward half press wasn’t going to get us a flag. I don’t think the FD panicked. I think they correctly identified that some changes would make us better. Unfortunately, it just hasn’t worked and, as you say, we’ve stripped our players of their identity in the process.

This has been our biggest problem all year. Our list and game plan revolve around the midfield. Under Goodwin we’ve never been good when beaten in the midfield. In 2021-23 it didn’t happen much. This year it’s happened most weeks and we cannot compete when it happens.

Confirmed by the club: https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/1576080/injury-update-christian-petracca

Are you a doctor? If not, you’re not qualified to make this comment. Players go back on with rib pain regularly from my experience. And Burgo isn’t and wasn’t a doctor. Regardless of all that, hopefully Trac is OK and recovers well. In the meantime, for any game he misses, we get a good opportunity to try someone new, but we’re also [censored].

A classic MFC tale.

Which one is it? FWIW, it's not the former. This is not a "Ferrari" list. We've been extracting consistent and largely excellent football from the bones of this list for four years. But with the drop off from Viney, Oliver and May, the absence of Lever and the need to throw Petracca forward more than we'd like, the list around them isn't good enough to keep us in contention. Compare that with Collingwood who today covered for De Goey, Mitchell, Pendlebury, Elliott, Cox and Mihocek with players like Kreuger, Noble, Harrison, Macrae, Sullivan and Dean.

Not really though, last week was all about the annihilation we received in contest, clearance and territory. Just looking at the stats, we only fixed part of that today. +22 in CPs is improvement but -10 in clearance to a side missing De Goey, Mitchell and Pendlebury is bad, and -3 inside 50s is just as bad given we know we spent the week focusing on contest, clearance and territory.

Still overseas, so haven't watched this game either, but we're completely done for the year if we can't do better than a 38 point loss to a Collingwood side missing De Goey, Mitchell, Pendlebury, Mihocek, Elliott and Cox (plus McStay). To be that far off a side with 6-7 best 23 players missing the week after the bake we deservedly received is arguably more concerning than the Fremantle loss.

He wasn’t “outstanding”, he was fine against bottom 4 opposition. No good last week vs Fremantle and Collingwood’s forward line is short at the best of times, let alone with their current injury list.

Am I the only one not happy about Woewodin being dropped?

No it’s not. How many more times do we need to go back to the stats from Sunday: when we are embarrassingly uncompetitive in clearance, contest and territory, how is a 19 year old non-AFL fit debutant going to go, really? If he’s got ability, let’s give him the chance to develop into a player, not be rushed.

In all seriousness though he does say the changes aren’t working. So aligning that with Lever’s comments, I expect to see us play much more like 2022-23 on Monday.

[censored] these posts are tiresome. Do you say this in response to every word uttered by an MFC person after a loss? Goodwin’s fronted up to a pre-arranged interview and has answered a bunch of questions more thoroughly than he usually would. Including what may be the concession many needed to hear - that the changes we’ve made aren’t working and have robbed us of our identity. Literally no one reads these articles and goes “OK all is fine now”. We all wait to see what actually happens on game day. So FFS do we have to run the “talk is cheap” thing every [censored] time?

Meanwhile if we picked Kentfield this week you’d probably call us “desperate”.

Part of that is because they play 4 games a year in Launceston. The data shows though that we’re 2nd only to Fremantle in the percentage of members we draw to our games. That has to remain the case even if our form drops. At a time when Tasmania is gearing up to take members off the other clubs, Carlton and Essendon are going well and want to transfer home games to the G, and the AFL has to find a use for Marvel, we cannot afford (almost literally) to see our crowd numbers disintegrate. Too many MFC members stop going to games as a form of protest against bad form. Please don’t do that. It will make the club worse off.

I sort of agree. Certainly right now it’s almost all on the midfield and backline. But our forwards don’t lead well, don’t block well, the tall forwards don’t all pressure well, and aren’t all good at ground balls. At least part of our struggles comes from the forwards.