Mel Bourne

Is it nuts to send Cam Pedersen into a defensive role? He’s a quiet achiever and keeps a cool head out there. Hes 31 and only contracted till the end of the year and because of this, I reckon he’d be up for playing out of his skin and earning a place in this particularly special Demons outfit.

It's a It's a real factor though, isn't it. If I was a recruit from.....anywhere else, and looked to the crowd for inspiration and saw Sir Joffrey Toffrey and Lady Implanté cheering me on I'd be tempted to throw the f$&king game.

Yep. Personally I don't fit the stereotypical image of a Melbourne supporter. I come from a huge Pies family, but as a kid I got interested in the Dees because "Melbourne" made a lot of sense to support, and even a five-year old I wanted to ruffle some magpie feathers (how I'm cursing my flawed, childlike logic this weekend). The Tigers/Pies/Dogs/Blues/Roos/Bombers/Saints supporters among my mates are almost interchangeable and it's harder and harder to see a specific "type" attached to any specific team. It's a changed game, and a lot of the financial/social advantages some teams had over others have greatly diminished over time. It's a much more level playing field, which is great. But does Melbourne still promote their elitist bullshite to younger players? Does anybody here have any access/insight to the general attitude at the club? Is that Range Rover malarkey is still a thing? I would hope that given how egalitarian the league has become, that shite would have been phased out. If not, is it possible the "Toff Factor" at the club is doing untold damage? Does the club need to start metaphorically eating the rich? Keep Sir Basil Caviar out of the f$&king change rooms? Hard to feel like a street fighter when people keep giving you manicures.

Of course. Here's hoping he has a restorative off-season. I think he's crucial to the club's success next year.

As an aside from the general horror, what happened to Garlett in the back half of the season? I was confident he was going to have a huge season, but he looked generally depressed in the past weeks. Did he not fully recover from injury?

Jack Watts must go. He is a failed experiment. People say he was "solid" yesterday. Well f&*k "solid". He needed to be outstanding, and the reason he wasn't is because he is an average player who never puts his head over the ball and who looks like he's playing his first nervous game of AFL every time he plays. In his early days I got sick of defending him, then I became sick of keeping my mouth shut about how much he pisses me off. No more. He pisses me off. And he won't get better. But the biggest issue we have is a very deep, somewhat mysterious but very real and damaging psychology within the club. There is no heart or soul to be found anywhere. When Jim Stynes passed, we lost more than a great footballer and human being. We lost our sense of our history. Tell me who are the past stars of the club who still rally around the players? Garry Lyon is too busy being a media [censored]. David Neitz or David Schwarz? Ever see them around? The list really does go on. So many of the other clubs have benefitted from it's sense of history and worth. But Melbourne to me seems to be a cold and quiet club in this regard. This is just one aspect of a club that perpetually disappoints on the big stages. That makes it's supporters eternally frustrated, nervous, doubtful and ultimately faithless. To unpack the other reasons why Melbourne are such a mentally weak outfit would take way too long. I don't say any of this lightly. I have been a supporter all of my 42 years and a member for many, many years now. And today I can honestly say that I've never been more disillusioned by the club and the game in general. I might regret venting like this later, but today the feeling is very real.

I hope we don't make the finals. We don't deserve it.

Supporting this team is a one-way street.

The Pies might run out of legs. Christ knows we haven't used ours yet.

Hmmm, taking two weeks off after this upcoming match isn't exactly ideal though. I'd like to see Viney rested for one more week. The risk of us not making the final eight seeeeems to be lower than the risk of Viney pulling up too sore for an elimination final post what is bound to be a very hard-fought match this weekend. And I can't see Adelaide just lying down against WC this weekend. After last weekend's result, individuals will be playing for finals selection and the team for restored dominance. Hopefully, anyway.

Indeed JJC, this was a personal waiting-time reference! Born in 75. Just glad it wasn't 65.

Cheers Skuit! My understanding of disposal efficiency is the percentage of disposals that find their intended target, or at least works to the team's advantage. Basically it's the amount of times you make that pained, frustrated groan when one of your team's disposals lands in the hands of the other's.

G'day all, Long-time reader, first-time poster. I know stats aren't something to get bogged down in, but after watching recent games and noticing certain patterns emerging, I decided to investigate some specific stats. Namely disposals vs disposal efficiency. We currently No. 1 in disposals (great to be at the top of something!) yet 14th in disposal efficiency. To me that says "doing everything the hard way". The handball-at-all-costs thing is sometimes very effective, but it seems to be the default mode of play, even when it is so painfully obvious that it isn't the right option. I know yelling "kick it" at the TV often flies in the face of what the team should actually be doing at the time (maintaining possession). It's an amateur piece of advice. But man, I'm yelling it a lot lately. Oh and what I said about it being good to be No.1 at something, unfortunately we're also No.1 in clangers at present ? And languishing at 16th for contested marks. We are sorely lacking in mid-field targets. I can't help but feel these are the things holding us back from being a league-conquering team. That, and just being a bit [censored] sometimes (sorry boys, I love ya. 43 years is a long freakin time to wait for a flag though, so I'm allowed to give you some [censored], right?)