titan_uranus

It doesn’t look like we’re running well, so I think calling our fitness into question is fair. If it’s intentional, as you say, I think that’s moronic given the year and off-season we were coming off. Hitting the ground running (pardon the pun) should have been our core focus. If it’s not intentional, that’s just as bad. Why are we not fit? And if we are fit, then our lack of running is a lack of effort, which is just as bad again.

They’re beatable this week. Maybe not by us, but they’re beatable. Playing in fits and starts, off a six day break after a game in Brisbane humidity, with a question mark over Tom Stewart. I’d have a moderate degree of confidence if I hadn’t watched our last two games.

Then they’re not “bad” contracts. They’re just what we’re left with on the other side of 2022-24. They should be who we rebuild/reset around.

The Trac and Oliver contracts are only bad with hindsight. All clubs sign their elite talent to long contracts. We are no exception, and at the time they were both top 10 players in the league with no reasonable sign of either deteriorating (and Trac was in AA form prior to his injury last year). IMO, both were the right call at the time. I’m happy to debate the Viney contract though.

That’s not his fault, nor does it make the pick a blunder. He’s also been far from our worst.

He was pick 68. The fact he’s played at all means the pick wasn’t a “blunder”.

Almost none of this has anything to do with what I was saying, but ok. On the last para - I can guarantee you that if Green avoided answering a question about whether we still views finals as the expectation, he’d cop it on here for “accepting mediocrity” or not having a “winner’s attitude” etc.

Yeah this Mansell suspension is disgraceful. If it had happened to an MFC player this thread would be going bonkers right now. This wasn’t punishable conduct in the pre-season but is now? The MRO system is beyond a joke.

What exactly would you have expected to hear Green say? “Yeah look he’s on thin ice tbh, a loss today and I reckon the board’s going to have a real think about it all”? FFS, every president is going to back their coach. Also, Green if anything suggested the use of the word “love” wasn’t something he personally gets around but explained that it’s about a concept - whether we use the word “love” or “connection” or just the club’s motto of “true”, that was the focus.

I might be wrong, but on my brief check just now we haven't lost two games by 58+ points since Rounds 21-22, 2014 (we lost Round 21 to GWS by 64 and then Round 22 to West Coast by 66). I had expected it to have happened in 2019 but was surprised to find that we only lost one game that year by more than 53, and only two by more than 41. Closest I could find was Rounds 4 and 5 in 2018, when we lost to Hawthorn by 67 and backed it up by losing to Richmond by 46. We then won our next 6, scoring over 100 each week...

You ask are talls relevant in the same post you talk about Adelaide playing a corridor game with fast delivery. Adelaide play Walker, Fogarty, Thilthorp and Curtain in the same side (plus O'Brien). Those four combined for 11 goals today.

Whilst some of this might be true, it doesn't explain our annihilations in back to back weeks in CPs/clearances. I can accept we're trying to move the ball differently, and failing. That's in part due to personnel issues and in part due to old dogs being unable to learn new tricks. But how we try to move the ball is irrelevant to what we're doing at stoppage. Also, IMO we can't play Trac forward unless and until we sort ourselves out in the middle.

It shows you where we're at right now that probably the only two good things to come out of this weekend were Langford's game, and this news that Lindsay's injury isn't major.

I like AJ, I just think he’s nowhere near fit enough. His work rate and second efforts are always there but as the game wore on he became increasingly ineffectual. I’m not against going with Jeffo, Turner and JVR, but I’m nowhere near sold on JVR rucking and I think we’ll risk continued stoppage annihilation with him in the ruck.

There’s no way I’d drop Henderson for Spargo. The other changes are fine but what is the plan for May, Lever, TMac and Petty?

Goodwin presser: Goodwin still believes Melbourne can recover from a winless start to 2025, but acknowledged the Demons have to fix their fundamentals after being soundly beaten in the contest (-18), clearance (-16) and in territory, losing the inside 50 count by 25. "We are three weeks in and we acknowledge where we sit right now isn't where we want to be. It's not the level. We need to fix it," Goodwin said. "We've got to get to work. We acknowledge that we've got too many players at the moment that aren't in the form they need to be in. "As coaches we need to fix that. We need to help them. We need to get them in form. That's the first step to fixing your fundamentals. You could see the basics of the game weren't to the standard required. "We got punished by a team playing really strong footy. They look like they are full of confidence and are playing the right way. That's where we want to be. I certainly feel we have the potential to be there."

I agree the problem is much more than Fritsch’s forward pressure. But he’s generally disinterested and his base skills (uncontested marking and goal kicking) are way, way off. Petty’s just going. I liked his Round 1 game but he can be better. The hard call will come as we can’t play all of May, Petty, TMac and Lever.

No idea why there’s such a turn against Trac. We waste him at FF whilst the ball spends 65%+ of the time at the other end of the ground. But we have hard calls to make on Viney, Salem, Petty and Fritsch. Rivers too if he doesn’t sort his form out.

Is it a suspected PCL, or similar? From a marking contest? Fingers crossed it’s nothing serious. It’s grim how much we’re missing him already, but such is life for us right now.

It’s now two bad games @Adam The God @binman , it’s not overreacting anymore, it’s just reacting. Trac majority forward doesn’t work because our midfield depth outside of him isn’t good enough. We have major personnel issues but we also have best 23 “locks” who are too far below acceptable standard (Viney, Fritsch, JVR, Petty, Rivers, Salem).

It’s also stoppage dominance. -18 in CPs and -16 in clearances this week. Last week -19 in CPs and -12 in clearances. At our peak we rarely lost these stats, which prevented quick breaks against our defence. How often did North and Gold Coast run out the front of stoppages? No defence can compete against that.

Pickett straight back. Turner gets rewarded. Windsor only if he’s 100% fit - don’t rush him back, as tempting as it would be. Lever will come back. Lindsay out injured. One of Petty and TMac has to be dropped for Lever (I can’t stand TMac’s clangers but Petty isn’t in form either). I’d drop Fritsch to wake him up but I’m not expecting that to ever happen. Pickett helps heaps but ultimately if we continue to be massacred at stoppage, we will continue to lose by 60+ points.

We do have to acknowledge that Pickett, McVee, Windsor and Lindsay being out all at once is a disaster. We are so devoid of pace and skill and almost all of it on our list sits with these four. But again, that says as much about our list management as anything. With them out, we’re running with Howes and Billings (neither are good enough), AJ and Sharp (really honest goers but not really at the level, at least not yet), and are carrying players horrendously out of form/confidence in Fritsch, JVR, Rivers and Viney. And calling on Spargo, Woewodin and Laurie isn’t going to help.

6 - Langford 5 - Bowey 4 - Langdon 3 - Chandler 2 - Henderson 1 - Sharp

To cop a flogging in the middle once is bad, but can be explained away and redeemed by what comes next. To be - somehow - worse the following week tells us everything we need to know. We are a mile off. A mile. Almost nothing that we do is acceptable, let alone good. Our skills are deplorable. Our tackling is genuinely weak. Our confidence is shot, our midfield is at sea, and our fitness is unbelievably poor. I reckon Gold Coast are going to belt a few sides this year, but look at their list and midfield depth. It’s so much better than ours it’s not funny. And when we rob Peter to pay Paul by standing Trac in the goal square whilst our mids get creamed at stoppage, we shoot ourselves in the foot. Langford has a bright future, Bowey was very good and I thought Langdon was good too. But we had at least 8 players you’d be comfortable dropping, and that level of uncompetitiveness will see us land in the bottom 4 if it doesn’t improve, and quickly.