titan_uranus

You two are, sorry to say, idiots. This is still one of the stupidest and most illogical arguments that has been presented on this site. And that is saying something. Why the f--k does it matter that we've only beaten two Victorian sides? For the last f--king time, let's think about the state of the competition since 2008. Geelong, St Kilda, Collingwood, Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs have all been their fair share of dominant. Carlton and Essendon have been better than us almost every year (and we have to play Essendon at Etihad anyway. Plus we've beaten them). We've beaten Richmond plenty of times. That leaves North, the one club who we are reasonably on par with but fail to beat. Try to understand: the fact we have not beaten Victorian sides is a direct result of Victorian sides being better than us.

Absolutely no way they were going to make this many changes. Just three players from the Ashes side? Far too radical. Bailey isn't good enough. Nor is O'Keefe. Cowan is OK but Marsh is better. Siddle is better than Pattinson and Johnson is still our best option when he isn't shot mentally.

Case in point: Riewoldt. I cannot believe that got 3 weeks, reduced to 1 via a good record and a guilty plea. Effectively the same thing as Ottens who raised an elbow to the head behind play. Riewoldt's bump, to me, looked completely innocent.

Sri Lankan tour squad has been announced: Shane Watson, Phillip Hughes, Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke (capt), Michael Hussey, Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Brad Haddin (wk), Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle, Trent Copeland, James Pattinson, Nathan Lyon, Michael Beer Good squad IMO. Smith dropped is the single most pleasing thing about it. He is so incredibly over-rated, but it seems the NSP has woken up and realised he is neither a number 6, nor a spin bowler, nor good enough at either to be an all-rounder batting at 7. He simply isn't a long-form player at the moment. No Bollinger and Hilfenhaus are also positives, as is the inclusion of Marsh. I'd go with this as the team for the first test: Watson Hughes Ponting Clarke Hussey Khawaja Haddin Johnson Harris Siddle Beer Might as well keep Beer there and try to give one guy an extended run at it for once. Lyon is probably a more promising bowler but I feel we need some consistency. There will of course be a potential need for a second spinner in Sri Lanka. We can get spin out of Clarke, but then again we can get another seamer in Watson, which would give us the option to drop a paceman for Lyon. That would probably be Harris. Khawaja moves to 6 to allow Ponting back at 3, where he may well flourish without the captaincy. Edges out Marsh, but he is the incumbent and both have the Shield form. If Khawaja stinks in Sri Lanka Marsh might take that spot in South Africa.

If he was running towards goal but looking over his shoulder at the ball it's entirely possible he wasn't sure exactly of where he was and took the mark just to be sure. It's not like he was standing in the goal square, had time, and chose to mark a certain goal.

I'm pretty sure Green lost his orientation and feared he was running towards the behinds, not the goals. That may be giving him the benefit of the doubt, though. Rivers' decision to tie his bootlaces up would be coming under intense scrutiny if it had happened when the game was tight (or if we had a chance of winning).

One swallow doesn't make a summer (although he did surprise me with that pace on that one occasion). Agree with the second point though. If that pace is in there, it never, ever, comes out when he doesn't have the ball. At times he was walking to position. Pathetic.

Maric was insipid. Don't give him any credit for his game against Port, Port are rubbish. Maric has no redeeming features. I don't know what his strengths are, I only see weaknesses, and lots of them at that. Jurrah comes straight back in. Scully too, if fit. Nicholson stays, we need someone to at least try taking the game on with some run off half back. He needs to learn to shepherd properly though. Bate and Dunn can make way too, even though they (surprisingly, to me, anyway) weren't our worst two players.

No. It's something that has been commonplace in Maric's game. Lack of work rate, slow running, laziness, it's been there for his entire career. Based on what?

Maric is awful. His career at Melbourne will not continue into 2012. He offers little, and cannot develop any consistency. And the biggest myth in the world right now is that Maric is a good kick. He. Is. Not.

Honestly fail to see how no one else thought Jamar played well. He out-rucked Bailey and Hale completely. It wasn't his fault that we were losing the clearances, it was the combined strength and skill of Hodge, Mitchell, Sewell etc. that outdid our guys. He was also gut-running till the end, unlike some.

Looked fine on the replay. Shook Savage, but it didn't seem to hit him high. Just hard.

I felt the umpiring today was shocking. No bias, it didn't hurt us, it was just shocking in general. The holding the ball decision on Sewell (which gave us a goal IIRC) was terrible.

Agree with the sentiment, but it wasn't his fault he was moved into the midfield even though he looked OK on the lead as a FF. Fair point.

Agreed. In the end, Bate and Dunn are limited footballers who are not good enough, and for that alone, should not be playing. Same goes for Warnock, Newton and Maric.

Wow, I can't believe some of the crap in this thread. I'd love to elaborate. 1) We resorted to the loose man in defence. Again. It has never, and will never, work. Moreover, we don't even use the loose man in an appropriate way, we just stick an extra player at CHB and that's that. It's a pathetic tactic, but a predictable one from Bailey who always resorts to it when the other side gets a run of goals on. Time to think of something new Dean. 2) Green was kicking goals. He kicked all three of our third-quarter goals. Yet he was continually sent into the midfield, where he was ineffectual. No idea why. 3) We defended from too far back. Again. 4) Garland was left on Rioli for far too long. 5) Watts was flicked between forward and defence without getting a chance to settle either way. 6) We kept sending third men up at ruck contests even though we were killing it in the ruck, thereby making us have one less member on the ground for the clearance work. Bailey's match day coaching leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, the turnovers hurt us big time, but we could have mitigated the damage if Bailey had had a better day.

Bate and Dunn performed better than I expected them to. Which is easy, given I expected them to play horrendously. Instead they played mediocrely. They both had a couple of moments, but in general I'm still unconvinced on both counts and I don't like that they're in the side. However, the first player to go is Maric. He was utterly woeful today. His defensive work is non-existent, he doesn't run hard enough (more than once I sighted him merely ambling into position; this kind of attitude is why any attempt at a forward press falls apart for us) and he doesn't get enough of the ball, nor do anything special with it. I'm done with him, he's not good enough. Goodbye. Bennell isn't much better, Strauss isn't having much of an influence offensively, and Gysberts turns it over every time he gets it. As for replacements, well who is there? Davey? MacDonald? Evans? Bartram? Blease? Scully? I have no idea who is fit and/or ready to come in, but there are spots available, that's for sure.

Disappointing crowd, no doubt about that. Less than 40,000 for two Melbourne-based, MCG-based, MCC-rich clubs. About 10,000 lower than what we ought to be pulling. Yes, there was some rain around early in the day, and yes, we're not in the best form, but we're vying for a spot in the 8, and Hawthorn are vying for a spot in the 4.

It's patently obvious to me, and plenty of my MFC supporting friends, that our gameplan, if you want to call it that, is flawed, in that we defend from too far back. Bailey has chosen to use a style of play that involves numbers behind the ball and moving it forward via run and carry. To be honest, I feel that he has the players at a stage where they are actually able to implement this quite well. We're good at it. The problem is that it doesn't work against sides who use the forward press effectively. This is why we beat teams below us on the ladder but lose to those above us. The teams above us are the good teams in the competition, and they, almost completely invariably, use a strong forward press. The ones below us try to use the press, but aren't as good at it. Thus when we play Port, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Adelaide, Fremantle, Essendon and Richmond, we beat them, as we're good enough to do what Bailey wants and they're not good enough to use a strong press. But when we play Collingwood, Carlton, Hawthorn, West Coast, St Kilda and the Dogs (the Dogs might be below us but they use a press), we lose (and lose badly) because we're unable to get through the press. Statistically, when we lose we don't go inside 50 enough. That happens because the ball spends too long in the defensive half with a team pressing it in there, whilst we play into their hands by pushing numbers behind the ball. To me, it seems that Bailey is unable to get our style to work through a decent forward press. For me, that's enough to seal his fate.

Can't believe anyone would put Martin at 6. He only gets votes by default. 6 - Jamar 5 - Rivers 4 - Howe 3 - Petterd 2 - Green 1 - Martin

Oh dear lord.... He didn't run away from Lade. The camera shot didn't show it, but the ball was in the area, so he was simply following the ball. Maturely. FFS, if I hear one more person say that Morton fled the scene, I'll kill them.

I only had two names in mind, to be honest, MacDonald and Bennell. Not that Bennell really deserves a spot either, but there is at least the possibility of a future for Bennell, but in my mind there's no future in Bate or Dunn. Actually, I'd prefer to see TMac getting a run than Bate. Point is (and I think this is clear lol), I don't like Bate and Dunn.

Vomit-worthy ins. Hate them. Of course, I'd love to see them play well and help us put in a good performance, but I can't see it happening, and I can't see them being parts of our future, so I don't like the fact that they're in there now whilst others miss out. Oh well. Bate to be the sub.

Plays his role, probably better now than ever. Still is an iffy kick.

Chicken or egg?