titan_uranus

If this is correct, why the [censored] would any other club take him? If your answer is "leadership", think about how players like Rory Atkins to GC or Hugh Greenwood to North have gone. And if you think we'd only get a 3rd round pick for him, that only confirms how silly this proposal is.

May out, I vote Petty to take his place. Get a three-game head start on what should happen in pre-season, which is that Petty returns to defence.

Did you read anything else I wrote?

I don't agree. It's obviously uncontroversial that we didn't know we were going to lose Brayshaw. But the rest is precisely what good list management is supposed to cover for. During our "up" period over the last four years, we have IMO relied too heavily (both in our list management and on game day) on Gawn, Oliver, Petracca and Viney being fit and able to carry us through seasons. The list needed more attention to the midfield over the last few years, not just last year, to ensure that with the inevitable injuries (long term or short) and fluctuations in form/fitness, we wouldn't be caught out like we have been this year. Of course, list management isn't the only reason for our current predicament. Injuries have played their role. But I feel the problem with the position you take on here is that you put injuries as the far and away biggest determinant/factor, almost to the point of disregarding other factors. Obviously no Trac/Gus and Oliver/Viney/Gawn injured/unfit makes us worse, but Collingwood are closer to finals than we are and have had a much worse spate of injuries this year than we have.

If Goodwin had a 1-3 GF record having had Buddy Franklin for those 3 losses, and was coaching a side with Heeney, Warner and Gulden in it which trailed 71-0 in the second quarter, this thread would still exist. The double standards on Demonland are profound. Watch any of the spineless drivel Sydney served up in that first 1.5 quarters and ask yourself whether that was any better than anything you’ve seen from us this year. And then remind yourself that their opponent is a side whose crowd booed their coach off the field a month ago.

Thanks @WheeloRatings . An absolute disaster for us. We are, right now at least, not able to play good football when the ball is stuck in our back half.

@WheeloRatings when was the last time we had such a low percentage in our forward half?

Thanks @WheeloRatings. -12 total clearance at HT and -8 to 3QT. Junk time clearances evened up the figures but the damage had been done.

Good post, sorry to cherry pick this bit (in answer to your broader question, personnel is a huge point - the list is just too bare of midfielders and the good ones are injured). But this is an important point IMO. It’s become a bit of a Demonland myth that if the oppo doesn’t score heaps from stoppage, that means the midfield wasn’t that bad. Part of the reason we concede heaps from turnover is because we are turning it over under the pressure of repeat entries into our D50, and that is coming off the back of being beaten at stoppage. The midfield has been our biggest issue all year and it’s showing now more than ever.

That’s what I said - May out injured, Petty goes back, Jefferson comes in.

Rivers has shown more than enough to suggest he'll make it as a midfielder. Particularly if we give him a pre-season to work on it, rather than thrusting him in there mid-year without warning. Agree otherwise though.

Wouldn't mind a breakdown of the stoppage stats (maybe @WheeloRatings can do that?). I thought at one stage early we were down in clearances something like 14-3 or something bad like that?

May obviously injured, feels like Gawn, Oliver and Viney are too. TMac's form has disintegrated in a fortnight. We've spent all year trying to force the square peg that is Petty into the round hole that is our forward line. I think that experiment can end. With May going out, put Petty back and accept that from now on he's a defender. He will have TMac's spot next year, most likely. If that means it's time to play Jefferson in the forward line, so be it.

Getting Grundy wasn't all that bad. It didn't work but that was in equal parts on Grundy himself, Gawn and the FD overall. The idea wasn't a shocker. But otherwise yes, our list management is a far more significant reason for why we're where we are right now. The conventional wisdom for years from those who don't like Goody has been that our list has masked his poor coaching. I continue to believe it's actually the opposite - we'd have been worse under a lesser coach. Our fortunes in 2025 turn on what we can achieve this off-season beyond the draft.

All the way as far back as two weeks ago. Hawthorn 20.13.133 def. Collingwood 9.13.67. Collingwood completely annihilated all game. I mean, the Dogs a month ago lost to Port by 48, 27 scoring shots to 14, with a goalless first quarter. Most sides this year have had a game where they've been flogged. Our problem is we've had five (Fremantle twice, West Coast, Collingwood, and tonight).

The chickens of what has clearly been inadequate list management have come home to roost. The running theme in our poor performances this year has been our uncompetitiveness in the midfield. We weren't to know what was going to happen with Gus, but as soon as that happened, we had insufficient depth to cover. It only got worse once it became clear that Oliver was nowhere near what we need him to be. The sooner we accept that our midfield is the core of all of our problems, the better. We can add to this a fitness program that has failed us, too. Being completely outworked by a side off a 5-day break at this time of year, when we're supposed to be running over the ground, is all the proof we need. Whatever we're doing isn't working. So much of what made us good for three years has evaporated this year. For three and a bit years I had confidence that, even when down in general play, we could turn games around. I had confidence that we could hold up behind the ball. I had confidence that we'd see consistent effort most quarters and most weeks. Sadly, I've lost a lot of that confidence. The future doesn't have to be as bleak as this season though. We now have a chance this off-season to address the problems that are staring us in the face. If we can get the off-season right, there's plenty to work with for 2025. But we're not good enough to get it wrong. And the chance for redemption in 2025 shouldn't be offered to everyone. Too many mistakes in list management and line coaching mean that some are going to have to depart and fresh faces/voices will be needed.

I'm with @Binmans PA on this. As much as a player like Waterman would be a good addition, IMO he's not "the one name we should be throwing everything we can at". I'd even argue that a lesser forward who can properly relief ruck is more important than Waterman. Improving our midfield and finding a forward/ruck will IMO help solve the problems that Waterman would also solve.

Last chance saloon for us. Their 5 day break, after an interstate trip, after being in Geelong the week prior, gives us some sort of edge, but on current form this doesn’t look great. If we lapse in the middle two quarters like we did last week, we’re no chance.

I’m not one for buying into OTT “we lost it at selection” stuff, but dropping Laurie after what was surely his best game yet doesn’t feel right.

I'm no Laurie fan but I'll be pretty upset if he's been dropped at all, let alone for Hunter.

We're on 13 games played with three to come, so we'll end up on 16 games against this group of 12 (GC is excluded from the group). Collingwood will end up with 17, whilst GWS, Sydney and the Dogs will join us on 16. Meanwhile Essendon only get to 13 whilst Hawthorn, Brisbane, Geelong and Port only get to 14. Those variations in the fixture make a difference - Essendon are where they are because they've had more games against the bottom 6 than the rest of the contenders. Reality is of course that most of the season's true contenders (Sydney, Fremantle, Brisbane, the Dogs) have either positive W-L in this group or positive percentage. We are neither of those, when I expect we would have been in both in 2021-23.

Not necessarily. The article provides our average age across the entire season. It says our average has been 25.9. On the weekend we were 25y10m (maths equivalent to 25.8). Against Fremantle, 25.67. Against Essendon, 25.33. Against Brisbane, 25.25. Meanwhile we were 26 or over in Rounds 1-4, hitting 26.4 against Hawthorn in Round 2. So the average spits out in the middle, but post-bye we have been fielding a much younger side than we were fielding at the start of the season. We've had the younger 23 in four of six games post-bye (the only two where we've been older were vs North and GWS).

Logic says we're no chance this week against the Dogs. They're one of a few sides who are, on form and paper, beyond us right now (Fremantle, Brisbane, probably still Sydney too). The small window of opportunity is that they're on a 5-day break, and under Beveridge have had a habit of losing easier games in the final month when top 4 has beckoned. If we do somehow win this week, get some confidence up, who knows what happens against Port, but we've only played one genuinely bad game since the bye (Fremantle) so we're not that far off.

Yes, we have had three close losses, and are 1-3 in games decided by under a goal. We know from the 2022-23 Collingwood debate that winning close games is part skill, part luck. Luck has been against us in most of those four close games, but skill has been lacking clearly. And for every close loss where we say "but if we'd just won that game we'd be X on the ladder", every other side has a similar story. The other points are all fair. The hope for 2025 is that we don't miss Trac for half a year or Melksham for half a year, we get Oliver through a proper pre-season with no hand injury, we don't have a top 10 player suddenly forced to retire a week before the season starts, and we get perhaps a slightly easier draw which doesn't require us to play four of the best 6-8 sides in the competition twice). The issue with fixturing is that it is done based on the previous season. Our double-up games this year included Collingwood and Brisbane, last year's GF teams, and Port, a top 4 but out in straight sets side just like us. So we were given the three best sides other than us from last year's H&A season. But we also got Fremantle and the Dogs, who didn't make finals last year but are now two of the best handful of sides in 2024. Carlton got Richmond, North, Collingwood, Geelong, Port and GWS. They got lucky to avoid Sydney, Brisbane, Fremantle and the Dogs, but to be fair they were given last year's premier, a PF loser, a H&A top 4 side, and Geelong. Richmond are also much worse than they were last year too.

Well, here we are again. I probably don't need to post on this topic after mouthing off in the aftermath of the North game. But I will anyway. Going to games is expensive at the best of times, significantly more so when you have children. There are, unfortunately, too many Melbourne fans (and indeed, fans of all 18 clubs) who simply can't go because they can't afford it. Similarly, there are sadly those of us who can't go due to health reasons. Then there are those who can't go because they live too far away, whether that's in the regions, interstate or overseas. And there are those who can't go due to personal commitments, or because they have kids and night games are near-impossible, or because they have something else on, etc. And it's completely fair to note that with train lines down, the ability for some to get to the game was borderline non-existent. So let's ease off on broad-based "what's your excuse" style posting. And focus instead on the real issue: the disappointingly, and embarrassingly, high proportion of MFC "supporters" who are able to go, but don't, because they want to "send a message" to the club about how we play, or similar. You're killing this club from the inside. If you choose not to go because you don't like how we play, or you're still upset about us being belted in the first quarter of last year's QF, or you don't like Petty playing forward, etc., don't then post on here about how disappointed you are in player effort which appears to wax and wane. If you can't make the effort to go, you don't get to attack the players on effort. (Presumably some will say "well they're paid to perform every week" - if it were that simple, there would be no home ground advantage against travelling clubs, because the vocal home crowd wouldn't impact performance. We know that isn't how it works. Players aren't robots.) And don't complain when our fixture in 2025 is littered with timeslots you don't like, or a lack of prime time games from which we can make money. And then don't complain when Roffey and Pert can't get stellar sponsorship deals. And don't complain about us continuing to sell a game each year to the NT. And don't complain when eventually the AFL starts moving some of our home games to Marvel to allow for Carlton, Essendon and Hawthorn to get more access to the MCG. Our history isn't going to override your lack of current day investment in the club. Whilst this particular game and timeslot was never going to pull a massive crowd (MCG games in winter should be in the day unless they are between Victorian clubs), when we're in finals contention against a fellow finals contender and have 65,000 members, we shouldn't be sub-20,000 to any game. If you can go, but don't, you're not "smart". You're ruining it for the rest of us, and particularly for those of us who can't go.