Mental Demons

"I picked this"

I would rather lose blooding a couple of recruits with mobility than guarantee a loss with the slowest backline in the league. The only chance we have is if the ball never goes into their forward line. Richmond had one of their worst teams in for the year against us too.

A back line with Lewis, Hibberd, and Oscar is not quick enough to play a zone let alone be accountable 1 on 1 defenders. All they will see is the ball going over their heads for scores.

Hawthorn is going to kill us. They don't have anybody in their forward line slow enough for Oscar to play on. Sparrow should have been brought in to replace Viney. It will be like playing two men down.

which games? I could only find at best four for the rest of the year.

No the people who signed him for 4 years do. I am just making a prediction. How many games do you think we can realistically win?

I can't see Melbourne improving under Goodwin. The bad news is coaches don't get fired anymore, it is too expensive. I can only see us winning 3-4 games this year. Goodwin is a crap gameday coach. We have a coach who speaks well in the media but has the team going backward and we are stuck with it.

May was contracted to play footy. Not being able to should have him in breach of a performance-based contract. I don't think he will have a long career, he seems a bit lazy and fragile.

Frost has got Omac's job and made a better fist of it. He is not a key position player but has done a good job on Buddy & Hawkins and most of the jobs that Omac could not make contests of. Frost and Salem have been our best backs. Frost has been developed as an intercept halfback and encouraged to use his run at every opportunity. He has got better at choosing when to use his run. Oscar Is too slow to be very useful.

Patton is ordinary and will be another Daws. No thanks.

I agree, both have been poor forward but at least Tom has another string to his bow. It is easier to play in defense because it is all in front of you and you only need to run one way. Tom has proved to be good at that job. I don't know what point you are trying to make?

Still shallow because Tom has the versatility and can play a few positions. Sam has not convinced that he can play one. So far Sam has been a liability Tom moved behind the ball and looked much better. It is much easier to play good defense, it's just that this team has forgotten what defense looks like. Sam panics when forward would you want to put him down back?

Very shallow stats you are quoting. Tom has been in the top ten of The Demons best and fairest for nearly every year of his career. Sam is yet to do that and I don't think he ever will. Do you really think Sam has been more effective than Tom? Tom was drafted at 53 and has performed above his draft potential. Sam was drafted at 9th pick and has performed at much less than his draft potential. I am sure that we would get much more for Tom in a trade than Sam because over a number of years Tom has proved his performance and versatility. Sam has played 26 games and not proved a career yet.

Tmac has proved he can play well in a couple of positions and has played much better than Weid this year. Weid has proved he can string a couple of good games together but go missing most of the time and not be a reliable target. I did not say we should trade him but rather we should see what we could get for him. We need players who can have an impact now.

The standard he has been playing he won't be hard to replace. I don't think it matters who gets a go at doing the job. The reality is Viney is no longer reliable and on the park enough to not require an understudy or two. Another bad coaching decision to not have a plan B for him. It is about the only thing stopping Jones from getting dropped. I remember saying to someone a couple of years ago that I did not think he had a lot of footy in him because of the way he plays and his body not holding up. That said, his desire and determination will be hard to replace.

Is there any evidence that he has not peaked already? We may have seen all he is capable of and he would be a very expensive Casey player waiting for him to come good. He is not top forward of his draft class. The only thing he has done well is to be a Third tall who makes a hard match. We need a couple of good key positions forwards while we are waiting for him to possibly come good. It was an idiotic decision to draft him before Curnow, he was never a hard player and drafting him was misjudged potential talent speculation. We should see if there is any interest, he is not going to do the job we need anytime soon. How close to a flag were we last year and you think to wait another 5 years is not idiotic? He is part of the reason we have gone backward.

I have heard this discussed in other forums. It is an estimation from seeing how professional clubs manage their talent and finance. There was overconfidence that we could do without him and would risk losing him for nothing next year. Unfortunately, there was nobody of his caliber to replace him with. It is the worst trade under Goodwin's stint and it may not have even been his decision. Either way, Hogan is gone now and we struggle to be competitive. I did not make that up. Hogan provided a reliable target and was a hard match that made 2nd tall Tmac and 3rd tall Weeds better in their positions. Now he is gone and we have lost the best key position player on our list and struggle to kick a goal.

We had better team play and more forward support. We also misread Hogans value and importance and thought we could do without his expensive next contract and would get more for him now than if we let him walk then.

I don't give a stuff if you think being here longer means you are not talking crap. 5000+ posts of your quality? You think Goodwin is a good coach. I have as much right as you to make observations as someone who does not have much of a life.

I think he only wanted a trade because he was not wanted here. I heard we were keen to get rid of him rather than have the cost of his next contract. We had him and if he stayed and we had a successful year he may have stayed longer and if not we could have traded him for someone who was fit and could get on the park. We did get overs but so far he has proved he is worth it.

It may be better to see what we can get for him. He does not seem able to do the job we need him to do. I think he tries hard but not enough to hide his liabilities, unco and does not think on his feet. You are right though he is young and may be better in 4-5 years. The question is, can we afford to carry him that long. I don't think he has shown enough to have a queue waiting to grab him. Perhaps the pies could use him, he could be a third tall there if he is able to get a game. I would swap him for just about any current pie forward in their seniors.

It would be against the run of play. I do not think we would lose much dropping him and giving someone else the chance of showing what they could do.

I think he was more confident and had nothing to lose and Tmac playing well helped. The delivery and team play up the ground helped too. I also think other teams not rating him helped.

The more I read your posts, the more thankful I am you are not picking the team.

So what, he was injured. Fans are in denial about how valuable Hogan was to the team to justify bringing players who are struggling to get on the park. Worst trade decision so far under Goodwin.