Engorged Onion

I understand your desire to see Melbourne keep 'building' and attract top talent. It's definitely a key to success, like how Richmond rose to dominance through strong internal development. To be honest though.. I'm not sure explicitly what you mean by' keep building...' You and I both know that winning the premiership every year is impossible and so is the feted dynasty once you've won one. Melbourne's been a top 4 team for several years now, building a strong foundation. However, the AFL is cyclical. The draft and equalisation measures ensure a competitive balance, making sustained dominance very challenging. And players and coaches know that... (that' you'll be up for a max of 4 years and then drop) With Geelong's (perhaps Sydney and Brisvegas) unique situation, their success isn't solely based on attracting top-tier talent from elsewhere. They've nurtured their own young players brilliantly, similar to what Richmond achieved. Melbourne has a talented young core too. Focusing on their development alongside strategic acquisitions, not just a rigid "build" mentality and keep winning is the path to longer sustained success or at least competitiveness (see Geelong). However, the AFL landscape is complex. While recruiting from within the top 4 is ideal, it's not always feasible. Salary caps, player loyalty, and a limited player pool, especially for Melbourne teams, make it tougher. Geelong's position is unique, their strong culture and geographic location can be very attractive to players, creating a situation most Melbourne teams can't replicate. So, essentially, focusing solely on "building" can be restrictive. Sometimes, strategic acquisitions from outside the top tier can be the missing piece. Melbourne should prioritize getting the most value out of their draft picks and develop them. They seem to do that well... and like all clubs, some are hit and miss (and how much falls on the selection policy, vs the player or development structures remains to be seen)... Ultimately, the right player will want to be at Melbourne, regardless of their current team's position. Building a strong culture and competitive environment attracts talent (that it exclusive to premierships) pps... your demands on the recruitment staff... it's a bit old school don't you think??

I imagine we have already done our 'very best' - merely general exposure daily to our culture, the people and the relationships. If he still needs convincing, he is not the right person for the club - and that in of itself - is absolutely fine, when we as a club (or us as people) meet someone where they actually are 'at' for all the valid emotional decisions they make at any given point in time. I'm a lover of Ange - here is a recent link to a press conference - a few days old, about the perceived need for Tottenham to make the Champions League (coming at least 4th, potentially 5th overall in the premier league) and how that allows a cash injection, as well as signals to potential athletes that Tottenham are now worthy of being recruited to. It's about the players wanting to be at the club, irrespective of where the club is at position wise... I'd have the same approach to any athlete pondering coming or not coming (or staying) at the MFC...

Bobo, presumably you are a fan of Radiohead. I assume you have a critical lens when you look at the world. I think you know the answer to your question 😊 On a side note - this morning, I was reading about the death of 'music videos' and the art the goes into making them. I'd suggest that the music videos for the OK Computer singles were some of the best of all time as a combination.

It's interesting, I thought he took short steps too, but to be honest - 5 years a go, I would have thought 'he heard footsteps' - now as far as I am concerned - it's just duty of care these days. But you know... a narrative is just a narrative. You can't stop water from being wet, and nor can you stop Dermot from being...

Reading this thread, I feel there is an undercurrent of understanding how much supporters are acclimatizing to the notion of a 'squad' mentality for the entire season, rather than weekly putting out your best and allowing certain players to reset depending on where they are (and the context of the season and injuries) in their personalised program. It's a great cultural shift, and also helps supporters makes sense of 'potentially' some FD decision making.

Except when it's Melbourne and you'd interpret it as an easy kill and in no way useful for the following weeks match-up...🤷‍♂️

Demon Fans Watching All Remaining Matches of Gather Round...

And yet we still engage with it 😎

I'm on school holidays and now have a cold as well... who'd take their kids on an interstate road trip when you've got work? 🫠 *connected culture outweighs any illness

Is a 5 goal win considered an appropriate win - or considering that they are 0-3 will some supporters only be satisfied with a minimum 8 goal win? Just bank the win lads and ladies 😃

Pain is absolutely fascinating... particularly in the context of sport and performance and the reasons why at times you feel pain when there is NO tissue damage and while you feel no (or minimal) when there is significant tissue damage. Context and meaning (as interpreted by the brain) means everything... One way to think about it, is that it is all about DIMSIMS - :) ie: what the brain interprets as Danger(ous) or Safe I love to think about how violinists feel more pain in the finger from a paper cut than a footballer... because of what it means for their capacity to play, and their career... Here's a great video to get your head around how much the brain influences the experience of pain...

Harbour Lights? 😇

Wouldn't a team at 0-1, 0-2 and on 0-4 come out firing? How many rounds in on '0 wins' does it become a non danger game and you can see a team for who they are, that is, just a bit off the pace overall for the leauge? Or are they all danger games for the team that you support when they come up against that sort of team because, well you know... MFCSS? What about the Gold Coast. do they ever cop it in the media, perhaps the Gold Coast Bulletin doesn't care to really report on them, thus doesn't influence the GC Suns performance? So many questions 😃 Anyway, I'm being a little provocative. It's such a tight league due to the spread of athletes, that all opposition are respected..except maybe WCE... Your last sentence feels about right though!!

Fascinating how certain players are key to teams fortunes (structural integrity) and are overshadowed by the glamour of goals and high possession gatherers. They used to be called ‘workman like’ or ‘agricultural’ and now ‘role players’, yet even (to my mind) that is underselling them. ANB’s career has been encapsulated by what he does defensively which is ultimately unheralded unless you are a key back man. It’s not just the last 3 years, and I get that people see his last match as a version of a ‘break out’ - but he’s been consistently consistent for years with the attributes that he has. I loved hearing that someone from the Hawthorn FD flagged that people should sit down and watch what ANB does with the down the ground footage. They watch it knowing how subtly yet significantly influential he is. For a thoroughly obscure reference - he is the Claude Makelele of Melbourne.

Someone will get the specifics right... andeffectively out of each teams scoring shots in each game - you have a slightly higher percentage that is goals than points - ie: 60% of your scoring shots are goals. Then they've added in, where those shots are taken... that is my understanding. So for last night - Ports - 13.11 becomes 15.9 Mebs - 15.6 becomes 12.9 and then

Well, observing whether Harry Petty stays with Melbourne or not for the next 7 months is like peeking into Schroedinger's box - he's simultaneously both a Demon and not a Demon. And we know human's dislike uncertainty immensely...

Apologies if this has already been put forward. It's probably more of a general comment of team selection... but. Can we have a discussion on the non selection of Thommo, in the sense that most people agree he was stiff to be dropped. Was he dropped because he had a poor game? That seems unlikely Was he dropped because he is behind TMAC in the pecking order - potentially. Was he dropped because he failed(s) to meet certain internal KPI's - potentially as well. What I think also needs to be considered is that over the course of the season, certain teams, have certain preferred match ups, and all things considered some of the players in the picked 20-27 range will be in and out of the side based on that weeks opponents, and non selction is not an indicator of a binary, are you good or are you poor.

I wonder if it's a prelude to publicly consider shortening matches...

Typical week on Demonland after a loss eh... How lucky are they AFL as a junket organisation, that the majority fans are so emotionally attached to meaning of one single game and the fortunes of the club, that they spend thousand of dollars of membership each year and 10's of millions on punting annually. They've curated it well.

An overall comment on language of calling that game style 'chaos'. I really dislike the language of chaos/chaotic use of the ball when it is clearly a preferred game style of breaking down defensive structures by certain teams. That game style is planned, and it's a deliberate strategy around willingness to risk, and wear the fall out if it comes unstuck. It's a territory at all costs game plan. And I think it infers that the decision to play like that is not bound by strategic thinking. However maybe I'm just a bit sensitive and that's all my [censored] interpretation of the word. Probably a comment directed to the overall media as residual from the Tigers 3 premierships really, rather than you @binman or anyone else that uses it.

the narrative that there are cultural problems will only get louder in the media... and then chuckle at the inanity of linking those two things together.

@Six6Six I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for your dedication and effort in documenting the history of the Melbourne Football Club. over the last decade. Your work is an invaluable tool for acknowledging just how far we have come as a club. The Melbourne Football Club has a rich and storied history, filled with triumphs, challenges, and moments that define our identity. By documenting this journey, visually, you preserve the legacy. It's not how I would ever dream of spending my time, so thank you for spending yours in this way.

yes, good guy, knows his stuff, Stephen Rendell.

Probably useful to post this here - it's a universal truth of all codes. " Ange Postecoglou’s mature response to referee decisions shows up Mikel Arteta’s immaturity Spurs manager's post-Chelsea comments were a rarity – like Arteta, he is not a fan of Var but was still able to swallow officials' mistakes There was, all told, nothing much that Ange Postecoglou could argue with when it came to the decisions of Michael Oliver and his team of officials on Monday night in one of the great Premier League games of the season so far, although his post-match analysis was welcome nonetheless. There is a great interview with Brian Clough from his 1970s heyday when an anxious looking John Motson gets taken apart by the great man over television’s treatment of referees. Motson points out that the pundits in the studio with the benefit of replays do not always criticise the officials – sometimes they praise them too. “I’m not interested whether it proves him [the referee] right occasionally,” Clough says. “The point is that he [the referee] makes his decisions in five seconds, or two seconds, or one second, in the heat of the moment with 22 players and 30,000 people shouting and bellowing. All I’m saying is that you don’t make that point strongly enough. It should be over-emphasised how hard it is to referee a match.” It does take people in football of stature to stand up for referees because, simply said, they cannot do it for themselves. They have no militant fanbase upon which to fall back upon, and no scope to do interviews because, as Clough rightly pointed out 50 years ago, the only interest in them would be when they foul it up. And it is a hard job – so hard that more than 48 hours on from Mikel Arteta’s tantrum on Saturday night he was still not prepared to say which of the three possible infringements on offer he thought should have stood against Anthony Gordon’s goal. Even when managers are not sure why they think the referee might be wrong – or indeed if he is – they still have the confidence to embark on these remarkable diatribes, and none more so than Arteta this weekend. Football has been diminishing the authority of its referees and assistants for so long that Postecoglou’s intervention was vanishingly rare. He said what so many of his managerial brethren must know in their hearts but find so difficult to articulate. That the referee’s job is made almost impossible by the pressures of players and managers. Not to mention an expectation that Var can solve everything. What is it about these managers – Jürgen Klopp, Jose Mourinho, Arteta, and many others over the years – that makes them do it? One suspects that it is often reluctant, prompted by an irrational fear that if they do not do so then it might beget more decisions against them. A notion that the only way to control fate is to rail against the day’s referee to ensure the next one is more compliant. What is it about the club issuing statements in support of their managers in meltdown, as Liverpool and Woolwich have this season? Again, one suspects it is not a task they relish but feel obliged to do. Doing nothing would leave some kind of awkward misalignment between them and the man on the touchline so they take the path of least resistance. One presumes that then someone is deputed to email a list of complaints, or conspiracy theories, to Howard Webb, and he is in turn obliged to make a solemn phone call to “discuss” it. So the whole dismal dance plays out. ‘You have to accept the referee’s decision’ – Postecoglou It took Postecoglou – who was himself booked on Monday night for leaving his technical area – to break that cycle. “You have to accept the referee’s decision,” he said. “That is how I grew up. This constant erosion of the referee’s authority is where the game is going to get – they are not going to have any authority. We are going to be under the control of someone with a TV screen a few miles away.” Easy to say of course, when one is, for instance, in a pre-match press conference ahead of a big game against Manchester City on a good run of domestic results. Just as Arteta did on October 6 when, in the aftermath of the Var errors in Tottenham’s win over Liverpool, he said of referees, “we need to give support and understand that mistakes happen”. Those principles did not survive their first contact with a referee’s decision he did not like the smell of. Postecoglou, by contrast, swallowed it after a 4-1 defeat at home to one of his club’s biggest rivals. Perhaps he considered himself fortunate that Destiny Udogie was not given a red card for what turned out to be his first yellow card – that tackle on Raheem Sterling. Postecoglou is not a fan of Var, as he has said many times since he arrived in the Premier League this summer, although he tends not to blame the people whose job it is to operate an imperfect system. In case it needs repeating, Var was brought in as a response to television’s coverage of football, not to the game itself. Referees and their assistants had been getting decisions right and wrong since the ball had laces in it and the half-time norm was a restorative Woodbine. The difference in the 21st century was technology that could prove the case within seconds to a global audience who were consequently better informed than the men running the game on the pitch. That was why Var came in, and of course because television loves a new gimmick to sell its package all over again to subscribers. Either way, the spirit of what Postecoglou said was pure Clough – the kind of stern good sense that will stand the test of time, and there is a good chance that others will be quoting it in 50 years. Although hopefully by then, someone will have got Var to a point where we can all tolerate its existence. *read VAR for ARC, or any slow mo replay in the AFL context.

My views are, I feel so surprised that supporters get upset, when someone (only ever of value) wants to change their lifestyle for reasons they chose not to publicise. At least he has had the decency to let the club know in advance so they can plan for it. Of course, in the end he may stay - and that benefits us. But I'd argue he is one leg/foot injury away from having a career severely compromised by injury, conversely he is one non injury away from having a very very good career. This is the dice to be rolled.