titan_uranus

He started in the forward 50 but I don't think he really played as a forward. He was kind of drifting around a bit. Certainly didn't play FP.

Yep, that's a good list there. Warnock played the worst game he's played for 2 years. Last year he was reliable at FB. I'm going to hope it was an aberration, and that the Warnock of 2009 returns, but if that's what we're going to get from him this year then that's trouble. Miller has been done to death. Moloney and Davey were, and still are, two of our best players. Obviously not suprisingly, both played really poorly on Saturday. I couldn't work out where Davey was playing. He often started in the forward 50 but seemed to drift all over the ground. I'm not sure where he's best suited yet. Moloney I have confidence in, and I expect a much better showing this weekend. Rivers is a weird one. Some groups over-rate him, others under-rate him. Personally I probably fall into the over-rate category, but I thought he was definitely one of our better players and is getting lambasted unfairly. Rivers has what a lot of other players in our team don't have, and that's the ability to read the play and act accordingly. His footskills aren't great, and that lets him down, but IMO he gives plenty to our defence. Jamar was a big disappointment for mine. He should have dominated Renouf. He also didn't look comfortable when he went forward, which is odd given that he had such a good game in the forward line last year, kicking 5 vs Carlton. As for MacDonald, that was the first time I'd ever seen him play live (or at least paid any attention to him), and I was less than impressed. However, I have no idea if that is the norm for him or if he has more to offer than that. But he was slow and his skills weren't great.

You ought to try dropping the 'I'm holier than thou' approach to posting KS. It seems to me that you're more concerned with pointing out why your opinion is more correct than others'. So you believe we're OK, or at least not in as bad shape as others. Fine. But stop telling people that you, and those like you, are correct, and that anyone who disagrees with you is wrong, pessimistic, or pandering to the masses. Connolly's article, if nothing else, at least directs some pressure at the club. Pressure that hadn't been applied previously. I particularly like this quote: The danger in doing so is of creating a climate so completely geared towards a still-distant future that it forgives too easily the insipid dross Demon fans were served up. It seems to me that, both at the club, and on this site, too many people have it ingrained in their minds that the future will be a certain success, and thus the present is of no concern. I disagree.

Saturday's result doesn't change my opinion of what will happen vs Collingwood. Nor does their win vs Bulldogs. They are a much better team than we are, and they will thrash us, just as I suspected they would before Round 1.

Barlow = DT superstar. Also a handy pick for Fremantle.

You poor, poor thing. I don't know how you do it.

What, so since I've never played AFL nor coached it I must forever more refrain from judging players and coaches?

The sentiment of the OP is clear, but it would be unfair to say we're not allowed to talk about poor on-field performances at all. I remember someone (Hannibal maybe?) doing a poll/thread last year about what the purpose of a football club's existence was. IMO it's about delivering on-field success to members and supporters. So I believe every Melbourne supporter has a right to be frustrated and to criticise poor performances. Criticism and helping the club out off the field are not mutually exclusive though.

Definitely a chicken/egg thing going on here, as I would say that it's the way they're playing that's causing them to lose confidence, rather than their loss of confidence making them play the way they are. But whichever way you look at it, it's the same problem at heart.

The bolded bit is very true. This is how I felt last year. And the year before that. But this year, I and most others expect improvement, and what we showed yesterday was not improvement. The fact remains that I cannot think of one match where I have been impressed with Bailey's tactics.

I really rate Brereton as a tactician. So I'm not surprised at this bit. Seriously, can anyone think of an instance in which Bailey's gameday tactics were good? I can't.

Martin just gives me no confidence as a forward. At all. I'm sure he'd do as well as Miller, but long-term I don't think he'll ever do the job. Much better as a defender. If Warnock continues to play like he did yesterday (and I say this despite having been a massive Warnock fan last year) then I'd be switching those two. Warnock yesterday was slow, outpositioned and was pushed around by Roughead far too easily. And looked somewhat disinterested at times. This is true. Had to laugh at the HUN today. Rod Nicholson had Frawley and Bruce in our best. Clearly he didn't pay any attention to the match and simply chose the two names at the top of the possessions list.

Article with a few quotes from the press conference: http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/91164/default.aspx We basically all predicted what he was going to say. Agree entirely. 2009 - we won 8 first quarters and 8 second quarters 2008 - 5 first quarters and 2 second quarters 2007 - 7 first quarters and 7 second quarters 2006 - 10 first quarters and 13 second quarters Don't forget we made the finals in 2006. 2007 we played better than our win/loss ratio showed. The past 2 years we've been clearly not good enough in the first half.

Don't agree that Hawthorn's forward push up the ground, and if they do, they don't push as far. I didn't see at any time yesterday the entire 36 in Hawthorn's defensive half of the ground. That happened to us at least 3 different times. I agree, though, that we'd be better off kicking to a contest than handballing in circles. I've always believed that, if you're going to turn it over, do it at half forward, not half back. If a player's in trouble, I'd prefer a long kick to a contest, or even to no-one, rather than an attempt to get out of jail by handpassing to a flat-footed teammate.

I think this could be an easy chicken and egg debate. Do the forwards push up because we fumble around with it in the middle, or we fumble around with it in the middle because the forwards push up (thus meaning we can't move forward easily)? I can't think of any other team that combines both. So I guess the answer is both (i.e. we suck in the middle and we suck at positioning). But I'd like to see us at least try to get our forwards to hold their position.

Vanlo is right on this one. Nothing frustrates me more than sitting in the MCC and hearing everyone around me screaming 'Kick the bloody thing!'. They would if they had someone to kick it to. But they don't. The answer isn't just to ditch the handpass and kick the ball at every opportunity. It is to ensure that we have targets to aim for in the forward line, even if they're not great AFL players. But leaving some players forward, and getting them to start far enough away from the ball carrier to allow them to lead towards said ball carrier, will mean our players will naturally begin to kick more.

What I was trying to get at was that Petterd needs to work on his kicking for goal. The last thing we need is to have the only guy on our list who is a competent and constently good mark taking marks 10 metres out, then, when we badly need a goal, spraying the shot. But he's a much better forward than most of the other players on our list, and he plays forward better than defence. Don't mind that forward line. So long as Green stays down there. Disagree, but I know where you're coming from. I thought he was OK yesterday, better than Frawley and Warnock (but Frawley is a much better player overall). If we're going to play a loose man in defence (and we shouldn't), it should be Rivers, as he can read the play and be effective. Using Dunn as a loose man in defence is borderline useless, as Dunn had no idea where to position himself or what to do. 'Typically gutsy' does not equal 'good'. Jones cannot continue to try to take on 3-4 players every time he gets the ball. That's his major downfall. But he has to be commended for running all day, and he wasn't as bad as a lot of our other players yesterday.

Not only that, but for $5 you get a 'Record' that fails to acknowledge Brad Johnson's 350th game, and numbers Strauss as 46, not 47. How they missed Johnson, who's one of the 10 best players of the last decade, is beyond me. And they have the nerve to up the price too.

Scully, Trengove, Grimes, Green, McDonald, McKenzie. Sorry to ruin the positives, but Jones has tried to be more than he is for 3 years now. He can't continue to play football thinking he is Gary Ablett. He isn't, and either he or the coaches need to drill that into his brain. But at least he runs.

Massively under-rated player is young Tom. Deserves a go next week. Preferably as a forward. Can't do any worse than Miller.

All out 231. North 9. Hussey 22. Lots of starts but only Katich looked settled, but he got done on 88 by Vettori.

He showed today that he should play FF this year. Or at least as a lead-up forward. He has the nous that most of our other forwards don't have. Great effort from him, especially after what I thought was a bad injury (I have no idea what happened there. He was punching the ground in frustration so I thought it was a knee, but he had a neck-brace on, and obviously returned).

Yes, dropping our captain and our best player from today should help. Garland and Watts won't be fit, but once they are they will come straight in. Bennell showed a bit when he was able to run out of defence but too often he ran into trouble and turned it over. He also isn't strong enough overhead.

Sad that after all this time, we enter Bailey's third year, after 3 pre-seasons with the club, and we are asking the same questions as we were 2 years ago. We cannot continue to allow our forwards to push up the ground. It hasn't worked once in 3 years, and it didn't work again today. We don't score enough goals and we don't go inside 50 enough. We need to leave 2-3 forwards well forward of the centre at all times. Players like Green or Petterd who can take a mark on a lead. Too often we push a man behind the ball when the opposition gets on a roll. Again today we saw it happen as early as the first quarter. It seems to be Bailey's go-to plan, and it doesn't help us at all. At centre bounces, we start with Bate, Dunn, Davey and others standing on the 50, and running in. All that does is clog up the midfield and cause our quick kick forward (when we get one) to end up becoming a turnover. Our forwards aren't deep enough, and don't lead towards the ball carrier. And our skills aren't good enough. We've been in pre-season training since October and we're still making basic skill errors. Dropping uncontested marks. Missing handpasses. Missing kicks. Not being able to bounce the ball (e.g. Bate). Edit: I should add that our positioning, at all times, is woeful. From Hawthorn kick-ins, we have no plan. From our own kick-ins, we have no plan. At stoppages we don't look like we have a plan. It's very, very sad.

In: McNamara, Martin, Sylvia, (if fit), Jetta (if fit) (if neither fit then Maric) Out: Dunn, Miller, Warnock, Bate McNamara to play forward alongside Green, who plays so well as a lead-up forward. I'm harsh on Warnock but I think Martin can do a lot better at full back than Warnock did today. There aren't a lot of options outside of who we played today so we desperately need improvement from the majority of our current 22 who just weren't good enough today. Edit: Forgot Bate. Bad, bad game.