titan_uranus

Shaping up for a big Day 5. I think all four results are possible. If we bowl well and their lead is under 200, and we get about 2 sessions to chase it, we'll certainly give it a crack, with Warner and Watson at the top of the order. Not sure what our limit is on runs, but I would have thought, if we do in fact bowl them out halfway into the day, we wouldn't want much more than 200.

It's not a bad article, because it does touch on some valid points. However, he focuses too much on Melbourne vs West Coast, a comparison which, as I've said many times before, is close enough to a fallacy. West Coast always had a core group of talented senior players. In 2008-9-10, when they fell apart, it was a lack of drive from those senior players, caused primarily through injury. Cox, Kerr, Embley, Glass, Lynch and LeCras were all missing for various parts. But they were always there. We, on the other hand, have a bunch of hopeless spuds to play the same leadership roles. That's the key difference, something which turns the comparison between the clubs into a waste of time.

Agree with your logic here - the best way for us to attract players is under this idea, that we can give them the star billing where at their current club they are the understudy. This strategy has paid dividends for Sydney. Look at Josh Kennedy, Ben McGlynn, Rhyce Shaw and Marty Mattner. I'm not sure exactly who, if anyone, will be these kinds of options at the end of the year, but instead of going for the out and out stars, we should look to these kinds of players. As for what we have now: Grimes and Tapscott should move into the midfield. Bail needs to play predominantly on the wing.

Pity England won that Test. They remain number 1. But they play South Africa in our winter, so that should be a good contest. As for our match, we're not inspiring much with the ball at the moment. Chanderpaul and Bravo are both class batsmen. We're going to have to lift if we want to bowl them out. Surprised we didn't play Pattinson.

Your point is valid, in that we have drafted soft players like Morton, Bennell and Blease. However, explain to me how this is the recruiters' fault. If it was obvious (or even knowable at all) that these players wouldn't have the required work ethic, hunger, strength, desire or whatever that intangible quality is, why wasn't there some sort of uproar or at least questioning of our choices? Simply put, there isn't any way our recruiters can look into the future. We did the best we could do with the common knowledge that was available to recruiters back in the years we drafted these players. It's severely frustrating that we've ended up with a bunch of players who don't come across as having that unyielding work ethic, but I still maintain that it's too easy to just dump that on the recruiters.

I'm talking about the mindset. Eventually, we will stop saying 'it will come, give it time' (or words to that effect) and start saying 'this isn't good enough for the present'. I like thinking about when that moment will come.

The next person who compares us to West Coast is going to get a personal visit from me and my chainsaw. FFS. West Coast is totally different. In the year they won the spoon, the fell apart at the seams, had injuries to all their senior players, and then blatantly tanked. One of the main reasons they climbed up to the top 4 in the next year is because they had Cox, Kerr, Glass, Embley and Lynch all fit and playing at their capacity (which, in the case of all of them except Lynch, is as an A grader). We don't have anyone on our list resembling that group. We don't have that core group of stars who can lead and lift us. So stop suggesting we might just magically find them and then rise from the depths of the ladder to the top 4. West Coast was the exception, not the norm. Agreed. Our midfield is terrible, and it comes from having one-dimensional players. Swan, Pendlebury, Thomas, Judd, Murphy, Hodge, Mitchell, Sewell, Priddis, Kerr, Shuey, Selwood, Bartel, Kelly - they are all able of both getting their own ball and then using it with skill. At Melbourne, you are either capable of doing one, or the other. Not good enough, and part of that has to come down to bad coaching. That we've been unable to teach Jones how to kick in 6 years, or to teach Bennell how to win a contested possession, has to come, in some part, from bad coaches. What do you want our defenders to do when the West Coast midfielders are streaming towards the 50 under no pressure? With their amount of time and lack of pressure, they are able to do whatever they want, and no defence in the league can stop that kind of dominance.

Good post. The bolded bit is the bit that gets me, though. That concept of time. That if we wait, we will get there. There has to come a point when we can no longer simply point to 'time' and say 'with time, we will be OK'. We said the same thing in 2008 when we won three games. Four years later, we're still saying 'give it time'. You see what I mean? Surely, at some point, the focus has to shift from what we might become in the future to what we ought to be now.

I cannot imagine a more positive spin on what was, in essence, utter tripe. It is, of course, welcome to note that the world is not ending, that the MFC is not about to disappear, and that there is still every chance Neeld and this list will get to a premiership. But in reality, that is a long, long way off, and there is a lot of work to do, much more than just 'wait, with time we'll get there'.

Also true. In the end, though, I feel the majority of the problem comes down to how we've developed/dealt with our players since they've been on our list, more than it has been the actual players we've brought on. We've seen Green, Davey, Jones, Bartram, and even Bate and Dunn play some decent football. Most of it was at the start of their careers. But they haven't kicked on like they should have. Jones, Bartram, Bate and Dunn have not gone very far since their debut years. Davey's best football was in his first 3 years, not his last 3-4.

Or maybe not. With that midfield, against ours, we're in for a tough afternoon.

Development. It's too easy to blame recruiters. I have said this many times before: I will not stand here and blame recruiters for poor players if there is no evidence to suggest they did something to draft a player that was out of the blue, unexpected, or against the knowledge. Morton is a dud. But in 2007, he was considered a clear top 5 pick. Right now, Naitanui is better than Watts. But in 2008, there was no doubt in anyone's minds that Watts was a top 2 pick. Watts is not even close to being able to be classed as a failure. Too many people have no idea what they're talking about when they talk about Watts. Sure, we could have taken Darling over Cook. But we don't know what Cook will be like. Sure, we could have taken Hurley over Watts. But if that decision was so obvious, why didn't Hurley's name ever pop up in the discussions of who to take? Fact is, whilst recruiters should be best placed to know who will work at AFL and who will not, if there is a groundswell of support from all the clubs saying that a decision is valid, then I'll take it. And I'll place blame for subsequent poor performances on the player, for not adapting, and the coaches (mainly), for not doing a good enough job. The general ideas here are correct. Development is a problem. Impatience is also a problem (e.g. Watts, Cook). But there has to come a point where we stop saying 'give it time, it will work'. There is only so much 'time' we can give coaches and players. Fact is, we've had a lot of these players for 3-5 years. By now, we should be seeing so much more improvement than we are. Moreover, we are seeing similar mistakes which are rectifiable regardless of how well we're implementing the game plan. The non-negotiables - tackling, chasing, looking like you give a s--t. If we lose repeatedly but we look like we're trying, then we can pull out the 'time' card.

Changing the 22 is not going to solve the inherent, underlying problems at this football club. Whichever 22 we pick, we are going to have the same lack of leadership, the same lack of skill, the same lack of speed, the same lack of fitness, the same inability to react under pressure, the same unresponsive coach, the same undersized midfield, the same lazy players, and the same two or three to whom too much is left. Our list is utter tripe.

I'm all for accepting the argument that Neeld is a new coach with a new game plan. And that it will take time to get it right. But there are non-negotiables in football that we didn't meet in 2011 and we should be meeting in 2012. And we're not. Unless our game plan is the dumbest thing ever thought of, it will involve chasing. And intent. And hunger. And desire. And effort. Those things are lacking. I don't care if we look like we're trying but we keep losing. That's fine, and that's acceptable. But I can't stand the fact that we still don't look like we give a rat's tossbag. And that's what kills me most. Too many players don't look like they're leaving it all on the field.

LOL. We've just erased 150 years of progress. I know there's not much more he can say, so I'm not criticising. But maybe we should return to playing amateurs instead of professionals.

The decision had to be made; it was the right one. Maybe we'll get new sponsors out of pure sympathy? I assume they'll tape over the logo. I'm pretty sure of one thing though: you won't see the words 'EnergyWatch' anywhere on our apparel from here on. Lots of tape.

Fair points. Except the bold bit. Are you suggesting Polis' remarks are, in the context of things, unimportant? Because the are not. He has made racist, sexist, abusive and denigrating remarks about multiple people and multiple groups. Our relationship with him and his company must now be viewed as untenable. We cannot be seen to be affiliated in any way with this. You are right to point out the other similarly worrying issues wrt sponsors. But let's start by dealing with us first.

We were without a doubt the most disappointing team of the round. The other two who were disappointing were St Kilda and the Gold Coast. I thought GC would be more competitive this year, but the way they played against Adelaide was not good at all.

I don't care what the stats say. Jamar was crap. He was lethargic and disinterested at times, his hit outs, whether he got more or not, were ineffectual, whereas Leuenberger and Hudson tapped to advantage. I'm not denying our mids were beaten by theirs, but Jamar was also beaten by their rucks. Bail was fine. Also I'm unsure as to how you can decide who is having trouble with the gamestyle. 1) What is it? 2) How can you differentiate between those who knew what they were doing and those who didn't, given almost all of them looked like they were struggling.

Agree on both of these. Howe was still good today, but I'm not a fan of the attempted speccy every time he goes near it. He dropped about 6 marks today. Frustrating stuff. Jamar was terrible. Slow, out of it, like the Jamar of pre-2010. I hate the way he gets the ball and immediately looks to dish it off (e.g. third quarter in the 50, when, on his left, he should have kicked for goal, but he chose to handball it away). But the biggest worry was his ruckwork. Completely dominated by Hudson and Leuenberger, which is part of the reason why we struggled in the clearances.

I'm just making it up. It's fun. No, I was being serious. I don't care, really, but I just don't care about Bate any more. Kinda useless saying he's improved over the pre-season. We heard the same thing about the team in general.

I don't know exactly why this annoys me more than anything, but it does. Why, after all these years, do we still not have any idea how to bring the ball back in when kicking out from a behind? We continually kick to the 50 metre line on the boundary, where we'll have Jamar/Martin/Clark waiting for an up-and-under kick, with plenty of opponents around him ready to knock it out. I just feel like this is symptomatic of our club.

He's been on our list for 6 years or so, and he hasn't improved at all. I can't see a future for him. Don't see the benefit of playing him at all. 10 possessions in the last quarter means nothing. At least three of them were bombs into the forward line to no one.

These kinds of reactions are usually welcome after losses. But not today's loss. In Round 1 of a new year, with a new coach and coaching team, new captains, up against a side who wasn't very good last year and who cannot claim to be any better than us, at home, with great home crowd support, and with as much motivation as you can ask for, we played as badly as we have in our entire period of mediocrity. In context, this is inexcusable, and it's not an appropriate response for us, nor for the club, to simply say 'let's wait and play some more matches before we criticise'. Supporters are perfectly entitled to feel like we are utter rubbish after today.

Clark awful? How ridiculous. Clark never stopped presenting, was constantly outnumbered because, as per Bailey, Neeld was content to have our forwards move up the ground, and continually brought the ball to ground. Terrible call. There were far worse than Clark (probably about 20 other players)