BDA

Bring in either Tmac or Brown for Preuss. I’m not fussed which one. Don’t care about other changes tbh. It’s just shuffling the deck chairs. But for the love of God can we bring some intensity and urgency.

Granted its too early to tell but they have played a lot better over the last 12 months. Percentage over a hundred compared to sixty last year reflects that. I guess we’ll see whether he’s ultimately successful.

are you aware that there is a pandemic??

If I recall correctly Roos wanted to take Stuart Dew from Sydney to groom him for the head coach role before he decided on Goodwin. I often wonder where we’d be if he had arrived. I’ve watched the Gold Coast a few times this year. They compete hard for a young group, they’re organised, play for each other and have bags of talent (Tell me who’s a more exciting young player in the league than Izak Rankine). They are definitely on the right track. Of course if he’s successful on the Gold Coast the AFL would never let him leave for another club.

A vaccine. Failing that the Smiths to reform. It would be a real tonic to see Morrissey and Johnny Marr together again playing all the old hits.

I tend to agree with you. Different players deal with disappointment in different ways. You would need to see the entire segment from once they entered the dressing room until they left to get a proper read on what happened.

Tmac is our biggest list management problem. It has been painful to watch his decline. Weids has shown improvement this year but has reverted to type over the last few games, lazy and ineffectual. He does not have the mantle to be our no.1 forward. If we can move TMac on and negotiate a trade for Hogan I think we should do it. I could be reading way too much into it, but when I watched the footage from the Freo dressing room last night, when Longmuir was addressing the group, Hogan was stood to side looking sheepish. The other players were seated and chatting to each other. I didn’t see Hogan speak to anyone else. He looks lost to me. Getting him for a 3rd round pick would be a cheap solution to our biggest need imv. I think we’re as good a chance as any other club to pick him up. Having Hogan in the forward line with Weids takes the pressure off Jackson so he can develop in his own time. The worst thing we can do for his development is put him in a forward line with just a flaky Weids for company. As a second year player he is not ready to beat the best defenders in the league and expecting him to do so would be very poor management. We have form mis-managing players careers (Tmac, Watts, Trengrove) and it would be criminal if we did the same thing to Jackson. Bring in Hogan and manufacture a trade for Williams (package up Brayshaw, picks, multi-club if needs be) and suddenly our list will have a much better look and balance to it.

A new coach hopefully. Watch Jackson, Rivers and Pickett's (although worrying signs recently) development. see who we select in the draft.

Bennell is a punt. The club haven’t risked a whole lot but there’s plenty of upside if he comes right. There are a few others on the list who have hit their ceiling and should be let go before Bennell. Worth persevering with for another year imv.

Brown unlucky. Lockhart still in the doghouse for some reason. The other changes are fair. Really looking forward to seeing Baker and Bedford. The plan must be to rotate Max and Pruess forward. If nothing else Pruess will provide a presence up top that we lacked against the Swans.

Yep. it was a beauty.

The point was to start a discussion. Have a debate, pass the time. That’s usually the point of fan forums. Unfortunately you get people who take on the role of moral arbiter or enforcer, who believe they know better than everyone else and try to get people to conform. People like you who talk about some “Melbourne Way”. All due respect Wiseblood, I don't have to explain to you or anyone why i make a comment. If you don’t like the thread don’t comment.

What’s wrong with ranking losses? Where is the policy that says talking about losses is taboo? You’re free to give your opinion and I’m free to give mine. Keep the name calling to yourself and in return I’ll keep it civil.

I’m happy to hear some constructive comments but labelling people losers is just juvenile.

Why?

Home and away losses. I agree the prelim is the worst defeat overall but it did come on the back of 2 phenomenal finals at the 'G

I refuse to accept the notion that we are destined to fail. That it’s in our DNA. It’s not. That’s just a fatalistic excuse. There is absolutely no reason why Melbourne can’t be successful. If we believe otherwise we may as well fold up the club now and we all go our separate ways. I don’t want to do that. The single most important quality required to succeed is belief. It’s non-negotiable. If you don’t believe you can win you won’t. It’s that simple. Work ethic and effort. It’s why we lost to Sydney. If you want to succeed you can’t pick and choose. You have to bring it every game. Perseverance. All teams have off days but great teams find a way to win. They keep going no matter the odds. I don’t think our talent is too bad. I believe we can be top 4 (although we badly need a key forward, Weid is a No.2) Systems wise I think we fall down because players just don’t work hard enough. So what’s to be done? Find a leader. Somebody who embodies the above and inspires others to follow. Someone like Alastair Clarkson. There may be others out there. I don’t know. We need to find more leaders on the pitch. Max and May seem to be the only 2 that can consistently impose themselves on games and make demands of others. Viney at times. Maybe Oliver. Its slim pickings after that. Maybe some of the youngsters but it’s too early to tell. And if people insist on talking about DNA why not talk about 6 premierships in 8 years, Norm Smith, Ron Barassi, the great teams of the past. How about trying to instill some of that DNA?

I think our No.1 list problem is TMac. He still has 2 years left on a $600k to $800k per annum contract. That’s a lot of wasted cap. I don’t see him returning to the form of 2018, his mobility and confidence are shot. A trade would be a tough sell. Could we tempt a club? Would Hawthorn be foolish enough to think they could rehabilitate him? Imv the best we can hope for is unloading him and paying a chunk of his wages. Otherwise I think we need to cut our losses, pay him out and delist. As hard as that is to swallow I think giving his spot to a young developing player is preferable than hoping against hope that he will turn it around. A real shame but at least we can look back fondly at 2018.

Gone to the next level this year. Well done young man. P.S. Honourable mention to St Kilda

You're welcome

I think i would delist TMac before Brown. At least Brown can move.

Another learning to add to the long list of learnings

There’s a great selection to choose from I know but that Sydney loss has to rank right up there with the worst of them. Sydney, a bottom 4 side playing only for pride, were merely competent playing the conditions while we could have taken a big step towards finals but completely blew it. Collingwood in 2017 tops the list for mine given what was at stake. No. 2 is the Hawthorn loss in Rd4 2018 which was a real shocker and harbinger of things to come as it turned out. Port rd1 2019 was very deflating because my hopes were so high coming into the season so its no. 3. I reckon that Sydney loss is no.4 because it probably ends our finals hopes. I don’t have a stand out no.5. Perhaps the 2019 loss v Geelong for pure comical value where we had more I50’s and still managed to lose by 80 points.

I think we’ll beat Freo because we tend to play well after a poor performance. GWS is a lottery. They’ve been very ordinary at times this year and should have been beaten by Carlton. Beat Essendon to secure finals? We’ve been there before in 2017 and we all know how that turned out. I can’t see us winning all 3 because you just cannot trust this group to deliver consistent performances. We might win 2 and get lucky with percentage or other teams doing us a favour. But even if we do scrape into the 8 we’ll just be making up the numbers. An elimination final against WC at Optus fills me with dread. I’m still traumatised by the last time we played a final there!

You could be onto something but they did improve in the second half and finished the stronger of the 2 teams. Is one half of footy enough time to acclimatise?