Gawn's Beard

I agree, but the players have media commitments. The players / coaches get asked the stock standard questions each week. If they're coming up against a struggling team: "How are you preparing for a team who is coming off a bad loss / who you are expected to beat". If they're one of the better sides: "It is a good challenge for you guys coming up against one of the form sides of the competition". There's not much you can say to answer these questions other than "we're preparing for their best" or "it will be a good challenge". Frustrating to constantly hear it (particularly when we lose) but the players / coaches can't do much about it.

There was another passage of play where Oliver was at the bottom of the pack and Hodge was on top of him. Hodge was giving him a ribbing and Oliver was just lying there with a massive grin on his face. Clearly loves that stuff.

I think Weiderman will play for Hogan. If you remember back to the Richmond game (and to some extent the Essendon game) Rance absolutely killed us when we were a KPF short. He was 3rd man up and flew almost uncontested. Weiderman can (hopefully at the very least) take a key defender and make them accountable. If we need the dump kick into 50, we need someone to try and halve contests and let our smaller forwards do their work. It will all come down to our ball movement and outside run.

Only sensible I guess to look at the ladder leaders as the current benchmark. I'd argue that a consistent 4 quarter effort is much harder to achieve than what we might be demanding. As to why, I'm not sure. That being said, regarding Adelaide: Round 1 - down by 14 at quarter time (won by 56) Round 2 - down by 24 at quarter time (won by 24) Round 3 - down by 9 at quarter time (won by 17) Round 4 - clicked for 4 quarters and smashed Essendon Round 5 - similar to above and smashed Gold Coast Round 6 - down by 9 at quarter time (won by 76) Round 7 - down by 64 at quarter time (lost by 59)

Yep I agree. The fact that we'd be putting him up for trade, or willing to listen to offers, would scare teams off given his history of head knocks.

The VFL tribunal actually seemed to use common sense in some respects and took the VFL byes into account. They said it's worthy of a 5 week penalty, so let's make it 5 weeks and not 7. The Melbourne medical report looks horrid - Maynard suffering from amnesia as well as sever concussion. TBH I think 5 weeks (with or without the byes) is very fortunate.

While I sympathise with all long suffering Dees supporters (I myself am one, but tip my hat to those who have been suffering a lot longer than I have), I would encourage them to look at the club in its present state. While it might feel like we're in the midst of the 8th version of a rebuild, looking at the club right not it's hard to argue we're not on the right track. Competitive - yes Playing exciting football - yes (well for 50-75% of a game) Retaining our key players - yes Attracting quality players - yes Increased membership - yes Try and draw a line in the sand pre & post Roos/PJ era. It's hard to do I know, but you can't overlook the significant strides we've taken over the last 3.5 years as a club, and only dare to dream what the next 3.5 years might hold.

100% agree. And you know what, I wouldn't be surprised for Goodwin to back JKH and to play him this week, just to give him a chance to respond to this nonsense from a "supporter".

You can't deny that compared to 10 years, or even 4 years ago, we as a club have come a long way. Due to unfortunate circumstances (I'm not trying to make excuses, although I think we can point to these as being a big reason why we've lost some games), we've lost more than we've won this year. The fact that we're unhappy with purely being competitive is a good thing, shows that honourable losses are a thing of the past for this club, and shows that we have higher expectations of the list and the club. Thankfully, the National Draft is no longer the highlight of the MFC calendar of the year!

"I'm not proud of this club and the excuses and promises after every loss". As a supporter, I am not proud that one of our so called supporters would jump ship 7 games into the season (and chop up his membership), and blame the loss squarely at the feet of a coach 7 games into his tenure. After the last 10 years we've endured, and comparing where we are now as a club to then, I hardly think now is the time to be chucking a tantrum!

Looks like Linsday Thomas is going to be spending quite a few weeks on the sidelines. The Dees doctors report won't do him any favours: "Corey had a really significant head knock and he spent the night in hospital," Misson told melbournefc.com.au. "He's already been ruled out this week and we'll just have to see how he progresses for next week, but it was a significant concussion." Sounds like Maynard might struggle to get up for the week after this which doesn't bode well at all for Thomas

Respectfully disagree old dee. I think his game against the Saints shows he still has it. I think it's just about finding the right role for him. A high half forward might be his best position if he lowers his eyes in delivering it inside 50. I don't mind him off half back (not deep), but only if we have the run and spread to give him the targets. Watching him try and force things is where I think he gets found out / turns it over.

I think that was Harmes who had an issue with his eye wasn't it? Hopefully Maynard is out of hospital. No room for acts like that in our game.

Goodwin pretty much flagged a change mid-game when he moved Hunt down to the forward line to try and put some pressure on the Hawks back 6. I would be surprised if Kent didn't come back in this week

Good to see. Suggests that Kent was applying forward pressure, which was really lacking at times against the Hawks on Saturday. Not sure where I see Trengove fitting in within our team - he's obviously not an outside runner, and I wonder whether he could apply the forward pressure in a AVB type role. He's best almost as the link man around stoppages (we have Oliver/Viney & co in the trenches), but there are too many ahead of him for me to see him sneaking in.

I agree with you re having 3-4 players up. I don't mind it as much if they're killing the contest and the ball is going 15-20 metres away from the contest. However too many times we're having 3-4 men up, the ball stays within 5 metres of the marking contest (or out the back, which happened at least 2-3 times) and it results in an easy goal to the opposition.

Would be interested in hearing someone's reports from the Casey game. Looked at the best this morning and Melksham was BOG for Casey. Disappointing that no other MFC listed player was named in the best. I'm a massive fan of Kent, but doesn't seem to be banging the door down which is disappointing. Unless his performance warrants the selection, I think we need to persevere with Hannan. Our forward pressure was however horrible in the first quarter in particular, so I'd expect at least one change down there (maybe ANB).

I don't think the overuse of the handball is necessarily the problem. I think it's a by-product of our effort (or lack thereof) at times during games. Our game plan is to run the ball, get the ball to the outside runners and break the lines. This is what worked so well in the third quarter (think Frost with the run out of the defensive 50). The problem in the first quarter, and when we're not playing well, is the lack of outside runners. The midfielders keep handballing to try and find the outside runners but when they're not there the ball goes around in circles. The lack of spread and run both ways in the first quarter made them look good, and us look like we were over possessing.