titan_uranus

Is it just me or are these stats somewhat underwhelming (except for hitouts)?

Yeh good point, when I said plenty I guess I meant 2, but then again Freo probably couldn't find more than 2 players on our list who would worry them

Ummm, shouldn't there be another possible choice?

I wouldn't put Josh Carr at the top of Melbourne's list of worries. There are plenty of other players at Fremantle who will pose much more of a problem.

Well thats 2 weeks more than I expected so now W.C. are genuine contenders.

I wanted to compare this horror start to the year with how we did in 1997, another horror year: 1997 Round 1: Melbourne def Nth Melb 70 to 55 Round 2: Melbourne lost to Collingwood 56 to 163 Round 3: Melbourne lost to Sydney 91 to 99 Round 4: Melbourne lost to Bulldogs 87 to 89 Round 5: Melbourne lost to West Coast 78 126 Round 6: Melbourne lost to St Kilda 35 to 121 After 6 rounds: Average PF: 69.5 Average PA: 108.8 Average Losing margin: 50.2 2008 Round 1: Melbourne lost to Hawthorn 50 to 154 Round 2: Melbourne lost to Bulldogs 66 to 161 Round 3: Melbourne lost to Geelong 82 to 112 Round 4: Melbourne lost to Nth Melb 79 to 127 Round 5: Melbourne lost to Carlton 68 to 101 Round 6: Melbourne lost to Brisbane 85 to 137 After 6 rounds Average PF: 71.7 Average PA: 132.0 Average Losing margin: 60.3 We are scoring more than in 1997 on average but are conceding 4 more goals per game. Both years no scores over 100. However there was a win in 1997 and 2 losses of less than 10 points. So we've started off worse in every respect except points for, which I find quite amazing.

I saw this on TV too, he really was shocking to be honest. I know its early days yet, but unfortunately I think this experiment is unlikely to pay off. Hopefully though PJ gets himself right soon, Jake Spencer develops at Sandy/Sandy reserves and then next year maybe add Naitanui to the list. I haven't seen much of Newton, is he playing well in Sandy, because if he's not then he doesn't deserve a spot in the team.

I like it. However I think Robertson needs to go, if only to give him the message that his position is not safe regardless of his crap performances. He needs to know that mediocrity will result in playing for Sandy. So drop Robbo, and play Dunn out of the goalsquare.

Last year, Round 4 at the MCG Melb vs Fremantle (by the way at that point both clubs were 0 and 3) attracted a crowd of 16,654. So I'll predict 16,654.

I'm scared about the likely smallness of the crowd this sunday.

The annoying thing is that if the priority pick rules hadn't been changed from how they were in 2005 when Carlton, Collingwood and Hawthorn shared the first 6 picks, then we would be in with a real chance to get both. We may well win 2, 1 or even 0 games all year, and in return we get a relatively meek pick no. 17 or something.

Missed the start - why was Garland out? Injured? I thought Sylvia improved towards the end, but I was only listening. Apparantly Jamar started well... can't decide whether to be happy or not.

I'm young, but I've seen a lot of footy and we're playing the worst of any team I can recall ever seeing. Having said that I don't think we're too far away from turning it around. We have to remember that most teams go through a crap phase at some point, its part of the cycle. Hopefully all our crap years have come at once, so that we'll only spend 1 or 2 years more down the bottom before we return to finals footy. It happens to everyone, it just so happens that we're really, really bad at the moment.

I would think that one of Essendon or West Coast will get pick 2. Theres no way either will part ways with it, especially considering we've got nothing to offer. Also if W.C. get it and Kerr wants to leave they'll need it for Rich as a replacement.

OMG we've had 20 more disposals than them. Thats horrible

Maybe you should have responded to the ad in the paper for the coaching job, because now I am a Bailey disbeliever. I previously had faith in him, thought his pre-season was OK, but I am now so incredibly frustrated listening to our absolute insipidness (though apparantly we tried a bit harder in the 3rd quarter). We've gotta try one on one, because there's no way this game plan is going to succeed. 6 attempts to get something right, and we can't. Btw, we haven't scored 100 points yet this year have we? I think the best we've done is 12 goals. This is our problem. I think our defence is actually not as bad as it looks.

At least we've got Jones and Wona...

I hate this decision, really think the club needed to make its mind up on one or the other. Love it how the article says 'the leadership group 'strongly agreed'', makes it sound like they were polled in a survey.

Same for me.

Seems a pretty positive report there, but as stated above, pretty much the only one to get a sort of negative comment was Weetra, which I guess is a bit of a worry. To slide from being worthy of AFL selection to hardly having an impact in VFL reserves is not a good thing. Poor guy, but I don't think he will make it.

Well I would first see how well he improves at W.C. this year coping with a heavy tag, but nonetheless of course we would take him if available. Though we all know that he either won't leave, or if he does will probably want to go somewhere where he returns to being no 2. So he would really have to want to come here for us to get him. Btw, who did he support in his youth? Wasn't us was it?

Exactly. No need to do something stupid. He could well have stuffed it up.

Well they've got the majority of their team on the field, save for Priddis and Hansen (whose overrated anyway), and they're not really putting up much of a fight. Kerr can't cope with being no. 1 instead of 2 or 3, Lynch is starved of opportunity now that the midfield is worse... sometimes clubs just have bad years so i think W.C. will do pretty bad. Not bad enough to win 4 or less, but they won't make finals

Ah good point I didn't think about a lap of honour. Maybe this would suffice.

Many people have Yze retiring either during or at the end of 2008. There is much talk of Neitz getting a send-off game or whatever, yet no one seems to want to see Yze back in the team this year. Firstly, should he be played again this year, and secondly, if not, does he deserve to come back for a farewell considering he's been a fine servant of the MFC?