Mel Bourne

Have been pumping up Lockhart, but now that he’s fully inflated I’m noticing some factory defects.

They create/find targets. A basic tenet of the game which we simply suck at. Every possession has felt like a fluke today.

Game over

Yep. Her earlier suggestion about keeping Petracca in the forward line was a good one too.

We would be creaming this match if we had any viable forward targets. Hunt doing his best, but seldom able to finish. TMac clomping about, not taking marks a better player would and Fritsch, disappointingly not proving to be the surprise package we hoped for. Until we have a genuine class forward, this will always be the story.

That Kozzie leap got me excited about future Kozzie leaps.

As front-on as front-on gets. Befuddling.

Hence the term “overt”. I know what you’re getting at but some things are less nebulous than others.

I dunno, I think bringing him in as soon as we did would've helped him psychologically. The more anticipation for his first match, the more pressure he would've felt along the way. He's now got those first game nerves out of the way, and the next time he laces up the unwanted attention and scrutiny will be considerably lessened. But yes, we were fortunate to get away with it.

Wasn't always an entirely benevolent force, mind you. A lot of black artists were victims of overt plagiarism without receiving the appropriate compensation. Led Zep in particular were shockers in this regard, but there were many, many more white artists who exploited the lack of legal protection behind the early blues artists' work.

Have to agree with this. Yes, there will always be a contingency who wear their bigotry with a bewildering pride, but there is an enormous chunk of the troll-market who would immediately vanish if faced with actual accountability. The only time I could see an avatar as worthwhile would be for forums where people need to discuss highly personal problems (such as whether or not to play Harmes in defence).

Maybe he is being himself?

Cue the scene in The Club with Geoff Hayward staring at the seagull, mid-game.

Oh no, never would suggest the loss was on him. But the focus of attention was well and truly (and unfairly) on him at the end of that game. The camera glued on him in the rooms (when he was visibly upset) while commentators picked over the moment, was pretty rough on him. And if you want to put moments and games like that behind you, you have to bury them with dominant, undeniably good performances. He has yet to have that game since. I hope he does. It would do him and us the world of good.

Ah, gotcha. Thanks.

Is it significant beyond the fact his cousin used to play for the Saints? Not being rude. Genuinely curious.

I too wouldn’t mind seeing that, but not so keen on swapping for TMac. I just don’t think he’s got the necessary foot-speed to keep up with young gun forwards all day.

I think that missed goal against the Crows in Darwin last year really rattled him. The media made a stupidly big deal of it - cameras capturing his emotional state in the rooms, opinion pieces by journalists saying the club showed him too much empathy. It was a bit much considering his was just one mistake of plenty at the hands of his teammates through the night. But I can’t recall a game since where his performance well and truly left that night in the dust. Possibly nothing in that observation. But it’s also possible that it’s another example of our inadequacies when it comes to managing the psychological aspects of the game.

Yes, he has the *potential* to be a star. Why would you suggest otherwise? For somebody who made their debut last year (and came through the ranks quickly), he showed a lot of class and composure in some big moments. I’m excited to see what he can offer the club with his first full pre-season behind him.

Agreed, they aren’t. But he’s not going to become that star by watching from the sidelines.

Lockhart is far from a fringe player. He has the potential to be a star player. Jones is taking up his spot in the team these days.

Some fairly intense Demonlanding going on here.

With all due respect, the claim that players are coming to play for Melbourne because of Goodwin needs to be substantiated. I have never heard that reason mentioned by any player in public before, and I’m struggling to think of why any player would actively seek to be coached by somebody without any major (coaching) achievements to their name, and who’s team is not exactly setting the league on fire. I’m not saying that he’s necessarily repelling players, but attracting them? Nah.

Yes, I watched that genuinely hoping that I’d see a side of SG that was at odds with the public persona. It wasn’t really there, was it.

It would have to weighed up between the cost of paying out Goodwin vs the cost of a mass exodus of members. If we have two non appearances in finals 20/21 I honestly don't know if I'd bother anymore. Tough thing to admit to after close to fifty years of being a supporter. In the final few minutes of last night's game I had a brutal reckoning.... I really do love the club, but we have consistently been the worst Australian Rules team I've witnessed in my time on earth, and that [censored] gets genuinely tiresome.