lucifer

Yep 100% - let's just hope we keep winning right? If we do you'd expect this to take care of itself

Yep, thought he had a real chance to put it to bed and kept repeating a rehearsed response "I'm contracted for two years and the club is 3-0 and playing good footy", which is funny when I type it it reads positively. He then gave a relatively weak response to "do you want to be a one club player?". Which he replied with something along the lines of "yes, of course I do". I certainly feel worse from seeing that, than I did reading Shaw's comments on the weekend. Trac had a real chance to put it to bed eg "don't be ridiculous, I love the club, i'm not leaving" kind of statement and he didn't go there. It's a new era...who knows?

MFC predictions Ladder position at the end of the H&A season: 6th Position at the end of the season (e.g. stage of finals):4th B&F top 5 (1 point for correct inclusion, 1 point for correct place): 1.Petracca 2.May 3.Oliver 4.Gawn 5.Brayshaw Leading goalkicker: B Brown Most marks: Gawn Best first year player: F Rosman Most improved player: Trent Rivers All Australian 40-man squad selections (1 point each): Oliver May Petracca Gawn All Australian final 22 selections (1 point each): Gawn Petracca May Big Ben Brown will kick his biggest goal tally against: Adelaide Biggest winning margin (exact guess is 5 points, within 1 point margin is 4 points etc): 73 Biggest MFC story of the year (5 points): Oliver knocks back multi-million dollar offer from Carlton to re-sign with Dees Other MFC predictions (1 point each): Tom McDonald unexpectedly plays over half the games and reestablishes himself as best 22. Brayshaw cements his place in the starting midfield. Hunt plays all 22 games (plus finals). Calls for Viney to be dropped throughout the year. AFL predictions Premier: Geelong Runner-up: Brisbane Wooden spoon :North Melbourne Biggest improver: Carlton Biggest slider: West Coast Brownlow medal: Trac Coleman medal: Jeremy Cameron Rising star: Rowell

Surely we need to bring in a tall forward, and Melksham has got to be moved to a HFF instead of deep forward, he can actually deliver the ball in an 2018 was ranked towards the top for goal assists. Lockhart, Smith & Hunt have to go. AVB needs run in his legs, but we have enough of his type, we need some skill. The issue for me is Lever. Whatever money he is on, he isn't earning it. He's been as badly beaten as Lockhart /Smith and I couldn't tell you the last time he took an intercept mark. Time to turn up the heat on him. Can't believe I'm saying bring back OMac...god help us al. In - Jetta, OMac, Weideman, Bennell, Out - Lockhart, Smith, Hunt, AVB B: Jetta May. Lever HB: Salem OMac Hibberd C. Langdon Oliver. Tomlinson HF. Melksham. Weideman. Bennell F. Pickett T Mac. Fritsch Foll: Gawn. Petracca. Brayshaw I. Harmes, Viney, Hannan, Rivers I'd like to see Jones back in if his body's right.

I would imagine that Weid would have been training all summer with the forwards up until Max went down, maybe with longer stints with the mid group afters Preuss went down. He's being played out of position and not where he has presumably been training for the majority of the pre-season. Give him a break.

I'm not thrilled about this like many other posters. I think he is good one on one, takes a good mark. Granted, he has massive brains fades and at times makes poor decisions. The two when weighed against each other make him an average player - but he's an average player I would rather keep. I think the club is banking on May being fit all year (when was the last time this happened), Lever regaining pre ACL form and Marty Hore filling a gap too. Lots of what ifs there and I think that is the main reason why a lot of posters are anxious about letting a know quantity - despite his limitations - go. Particularly if the outcome leads to O McDonald getting games.

Agree with all this except Oscar. Surely Josh Wagner comes in before him.

I reckon that's a fair point too. I think though, when fit AVB, Hannah, J Smith in particular give our forward line a different look. And you would imagine would be in front of C Wagner, Spargo, Lockhart, Garlett

I'm not sure if this or something similar has already been posted, apologies if I have missed it. The reality is, I challenge any team to have almost half or just over of their best 22 out and to be competitive. Yes, we had half a team of players who aren't AFL standard and it showed. It has also given us an opportunity to see what some players are made of when we are missing all these players. I, like everyone, entered this season hopeful and optimistic. I was furious when I left today, angry that the team had AGAIN dished up complete rubbish. After having time to calm down, I had a think and have come to the conclusion that yes, we are lacking leadership, but we are also lacking a hell of a lot of mature AFL bodies. But I would say the following are best 22 players (or are at least on the cusp) and they were all missing or have just come back into VFL footy: Salem, ANB, Lewis, Lever, May, KK, Jetta, Hibberd, Melksham, Hannah, AVB, Weideman, J Smith, JKH - that's 14 players. I reckon of that 14, you would say all of them with maybe the exception of JKH, Lewis (age catching up) and maybe ANB are not best 22. So that leaves 11. Literally half our team. Not to mention, the majority of our backline. Some of the above we only have ourselves to blame for their absence - eg J Smith being sent back on with a groin injury in a JLT match. The rest is a result of bad luck. When you swap out the following players: C Wagner, Spargo, Petty, Stretch, Garlett, O McDonald, Fritsch and potentially J Wagner, Lockhart, O Baker (who I think will keep his spot) our team looks a hell of a lot better. Every team gets injuries, sure. But if I hear about how badly hit Richmond have been without a word in the media really about ours injury list and the level of player we're missing i'll spew. I acknowledge the lack of form of Brayshaw, Viney, Jones, TMac etc hasn't helped. Things that I think are interesting out of our injury plight are - Hunt as a forward, Frost potentially keeping his spot when the defenders are back, seeing Lockhart and Baker with more mature and more highly skilled players around them, seeing if these players have any impact at all. If they don't then we can presume that last year was the anomaly, not this year. I'm also not usually the one for positivity. I don't think the above is being an optimist, I think it's just a reason.

God, it's like shuffling deck chairs. I cannot believe I'm about to write this but here goes... In - O McDonald (for Reiwoldt or Lunch hahaha) Garlett, Lockhart Out - Spargo, C Wagner, J Wagner or J Lewis

I have to disagree re Hore. I think he is absolutely up to it.

Long time reader - rare poster. I go to every game in Melbourne (except Geelong because f that). I've been there through the all the highs and lows, I sat through every week of the Neeld years (god help us all). I'm almost as disappointed with where we are now as I was then. At least in those years you expected to lose every week because our list was a shambles. How does a team go from a PF to third bottom after 5 rounds? I've been a massive critic of Oscar McDonald (and to a lesser extent Frost). It doesn't matter what defenders you have back there at the moment, the mid-field is diabolically lazy and slow and makes their job impossible. There is no outside run. They are one dimensional plodders. There is no plan B. The ball comes out of our forward line in waves and stays in our backline like we are moving in quicksand. What the hell has happened to Hibberd? His run and carry is non-existent or on the odd occasion he decides to take off, he looks like he's running on the spot and bombs it to the wrong option. I don't mind the Hunt up forward experiment, but he struggled today and doesn't chase hard enough when he doesn't have the ball. The lack of support from our mid-field to help the defence is embarrassing as is the forward line pressure (don't even get me started on T Mac. It's not worth it, he's just horribly out of form). But if the purpose of playing Spargo and C Wagner is their forward pressure (which is presumably the point, otherwise i'm not sure) then Goodwin is kidding himself. Delivery into the forward line is a disgrace and has been since round 1. It is beyond me how Spargo kept his spot - even though we won last week. Corey Wagner isn't AFL standard, and instead of playing Garlett for one of these two or even Lockhart, we go with Spargo and C Wagner. It's like Goodwin has stamped Garlett's papers, and don't get me wrong, he doesn't win us today's game, but regardless he makes the opposition nervous because of his pace. Spargo looks lost. You could add another 10 paragraphs slamming the players but what's the point? We're all shaking our heads about how we can go backwards so far. Does it seem to anyone else that as a team we are just terribly unfit? What does that say about a) the preseason and the application of the players, particularly those not on modified programs and b) our fitness staff? Goodwin has just said in his press conference we have players in form in the VFL...who are they? They got beaten by a team of under 18's today. My final note - gees the recruiting of May & KK is looking like a massive error at this stage. Injuries are unfortunate, but when May turns up to training out of shape, builds his load too quickly, injures himself, comes back, get suspended, comes back again and injures his groin and is out for how long...it's gone from a 2-3 weeks injury to still another 2-4 according to the MFC website. If it is worst case another 4 weeks he will have missed 7 games with a groin injury. How do we pay pick 5 for a bloke whose level of professionalism is to turn up in that state, and why was the club not clear on expectations? And if the club was clear on expectations why wasn't there a club imposed sanction for his lack of condition. It's all good for Goodwin, Lewis etc to come out in the media and say it's unacceptable, but where's the accountability? KK has concussion issues, gets a late knock in the Essendon game and what we're fed from the club varies depending on the week. Ok, maybe a week to week proposition, it just seems odd. When he did play he seemed unfit and out of touch. I am genuinely unsure if he was in the team for the GC Suns at the end of 2018 or not, so apologies if he hasn't played for an extended period of time and I've missed it. But, gees, it looks a massive fail at this stage. Did the club not sit down with May and make the expectations clear about what shape he was to come back in? Again, sorry if I've missed this on another thread. We will get beaten by 100 points next week. Reiwoldt will be back and probably Cotchin. Can you imagine Lynch and Reiwoldt working in a forward line with the lack of defensive pressure we apply. God help us.

I would move Petracca back to a half forward role, with no midfield time and put Tyson back in. Probably at the expense of Hannan. Spargo went missing for the entire first quarter and isn't hitting the scoreboard. I'd bring Garlett back and give him a crack. And...I can't believe I am about ti write this. Frost has to come in. We are too think down back to handle Dixon, Westhoff & Watts. Frost to Dixon, O Mac to Westhoff, J Smith to Watts. In - Tyson, Garlett & Frost Out - Hannan, Spargo, Pedersen.

Without stating the obvious, we need to knock off a Pt Adelaide or a Sydney otherwise even if we do make it, we are just going to be Pt Adelaide circa 2017 who were just making up numbers. Would I rather be making up numbers than 10th? Absolutely, but our worry is clearly that we haven't beaten a quality team all year (Adelaide and North Melbourne don't count IMO)

6. Gawn 5. Hibberd 4. Jones 3. O Mac 2. Jetta 1. Melksham