titan_uranus

Nah, I also think that the 3 emergencies come from the bench. Bate on the bench, Frawley in the forward line...what is the world coming to?

I like these two points, they seem fair to me. Would probably mean the end of 'rivalry round', unless it was round 1. Not that anyone actually cares.

I think now being a tagger is Dunn's last chance, but I am not holding my breath.

It's about time we had some decent prospects in defence for the future, but each week I get increasingly worried about the future of our forward line. Hopefully DB can develop Zomer or someone else just like he has developed these two.

I thought the umpiring was better than some other weeks, but not flawless (never is, probably never could be anyway). I can't stand the free kicks against the guy with the ball for a fend-off, we seemed to give a few of those away yesterday.

Hehe, good one.

You make some valid points deanox. However, I think the best way to fix some of these would be to give him a run with Sandy where the pressure isn't as intense and making a mistake isn't so costly. He'll be able to regain some long-lost confidence and hopefully work on his handballing and decision making.

Good idea jacey, that should satisfy most. However where are the other 2 wins going to come from?

You're right Nasher, Malthouse was just stating the obvious in regards to our inability to play well each week. However, it's not his job to say this. But that's kinda beside the point. I guess the more pressing issue is that Malthouse is complaining about having 'too many blockbusters'. I wonder what he would have said if they'd lost again, whether he'd blame the loss on the fact that Collingwood didn't get up for the game like we did. He should think for a moment as to whether he'd prefer to play to large crowds week in week out in the high-drawing timeslots or play to much smaller crowds at smaller venues in less fancy timeslots.

Yeah, he's right about our inability to fire up week in week out. Last night on Footy Classified he spoke for a while about motivation, and was basically hinting that he thinks Melbourne players need some source of external motivation in order to play well. He mentioned that Davey was talking about QB 2 weeks ago, whilst we still had yet to play St. Kilda. On the one hand, he's right because we need to focus each week on the team we're playing and concentrate on being motivated enough to win. On the other hand, he coaches Collingwood, where each week's a blockbuster. Melbourne players are entitled to look forward to QB because it's the biggest crowd we're gonna get this year and with the 150th celebrations this year it is a big match.

I think Richmond going winless for the rest of the year is a real possibility, but I still want to beat them this week.

IN: Davey, Johnson, Whelan, Valenti OUT: Rivers (inj), Moloney (inj), Bell, Bode Garland or Warnock will go to Richo. As far as I know Richmond has no real tall key forwards (maybe Polak but he might be dropped) so I don't think we need to replace Rivers with another tall. Bell has to go now, and if there's a late withdrawal he shouldn't get back in. Bartram I thought was OK yesterday, he puts his head over the ball and attacks contests hard.

Exactly! He's coached the two most powerful clubs in the leage (the filth and WCE) over the past 15 years or so, which means he has become accustomed to coaching in front of large crowds. He should try coaching a struggling team in front of 20,000 or less. I'm pretty sure Dean Laidley, Dean Bailey and Rodney Eade would happily take a season involving only 4 matches interstate and 18 matches in Melbourne in front of 40,000 or more.

This is a real problem IMO: he was never once able to break away from O'Brien.

Ah, that's good. That means he'll never get suspended...

There was an article in the HUN today about Rivers and he said he was fit and ready to go, so I don't know if it was a recurrance of an old injury or a new one.

Can someone tell me where Garry Lyon was? He didn't call the game on MMM (or so I heard), but that shouldn't have prevented him from being there anyway.

We need to play to win. We need to field the best team possible. At the same time we need to develop younger players and look forward. Whether we achieve all those goals or not, we will still finish bottom 2 at best.

You observe well Mono. Davey > Pendlebury in terms of influence, and Rocca's horrible, so we did just as bad there. Our ruckwork was not good today. I'd like to know the number of hitouts we had (especially PJ) that were to advantage. Not many I suspect. Morton really saddened me today. I love him, but he put in a shocker.

He has got to go. Bring Whelan back. If not Whelan then CJ. Anyone really. He was awful today, and hasn't played a good game this year. He didn't show too much good form last year. He isn't improving, which is a real worry. Frawley should be ahead of him.

I agree grazman, that deserved 2 weeks. He wasn't looking at the ball, this is the exact situation the AFL wants to get rid of.

No way mate, Bell was worst, Bode second, daylight to third. Bate had a shocker too, but Sylvia was definitely not in the 3 worst.

Well at least we get Davey back next week. I reckon with him today we would have been in with a real chance.

I reckon this was the first game agains the filth that I've ever been to where Melbourne supporters haven't been outnumbered vastly, so I guess Demetriou's comments had the desired effect of getting Melbourne people to the game. Problem was that the filth supporters assumed we would be pushovers and they assumed they'd win, and with the weather this morning they probably decided not to go.

I feel sorry for both you and your son. Maybe these jokes can cheer you up: Q. You're trapped in a room with a tiger, a rattlesnake and a Collingwood fan. You have a gun with two bullets. What do you do? A. Shoot the Collingwood fan - twice. Q. How many Collingwood fans does it take to change a light bulb? A. Seven - one to change it, five to moan about it and make excuses and Mick Malthouse to say that if the umpire had done his job in the first place the light bulb would never have gone out. Q. What's the difference between a female Collingwood fan and a Pit bull? A. Lipstick