NeveroddoreveN

Like Melksham, Jones, Jetta, Tmac, Harmes, Brayshaw, Hunt? I think we are too readily blaming our least experienced. It is our mid tier players that need to really just get better. Seems Lever has really improved so this year, we need more guys in their mid 20's realising their potential and playing with consistency.

He played rubbish on the weekend but apparently has improved this year, at training anyway. He is not slow, nor soft and is actually one of our better kicks. Needs more time to really believe he belongs at the level, he deserves the time to develop though. You will get plenty of chances to love or hate him as he will play a lot over next few years. He will become really important player for us.

He may be insurance for BB, Weid and Tmac also. I am not sure it is purely ruck insurance. With BB and Weid down Tmac has become our focal point again. Daw chases, and can take a mark and kick a goal. Always thought he has had great presence about him, would like to see him forward early in the season myself. Small stints in the ruck with Max switching occasionally to Forward could really help our cause especially before BB/Weid return.

Or just continue to play Tmac for another 8 weeks until he gains some form! We are severely undermanned up forward, get him in ASAP!

Why they would not even get Storm players down there to help us learn how to tackle has always befuddled me. i would like Bellamy type as coach. He does not accept mediocrity and does often get angry at his players. Be great to see that type emotion from our box and a team that clearly fought every battle to the best of their ability. Nearly all of their players improve, their development makes me envious. They are a great team with culture and class. Really, we should be learning from them, a lot of this type stuff translates across codes.

I think this actually starts address why we have been so average at times. Last year we had Melksham/AVB/Jetta all nowhere near their best....you can add Harmes/Brayshaw/Tmac to this list of underperforming players. All senior players... that is 6 out of your best 22 and we cry that our bottom 6 need to get better. These all are guys that should be driving standards i find it ridiculous that that seasoned footballers can be out of form for so long and the coach just continues to pick them. This year i hope horribly out of form players are dropped after a week or two at most. The younger, less experienced guys seem to always be the ones dropped, even though we have senior players regularly below the standard required. It has to change otherwise Goodwin will be gone fairly quickly before he does any more damage to the MFC through his ridiculous selections.

It starts with a hug! :P As long as they are banding together and ultra committed for the one cause, i would hope they as a bunch of individuals all have the freedom to express themselves freely. They only need to represent the jumper with pride. The system will obviously require discipline and trust whatever values they choose to adhere to as a club. I'd be happy with two steps forward, one step back. Keep it simple, just keep forging forward and getting better as individuals but more importantly as a team.

Your parents waited til you were 12 that is sooooo brutal! Yeah i think these days there would be a lot of questions asked whether this is at all neccessary, and definitely with your consent you poor bugger! Wishing Jay a speedy recovery for sure. The whole topic make me grimace a bit, and giggle.

It was reported in the Herald Sun few days back he required surgery. Luckily my testicles are still intact, but my father split his urethra playing footy back in his day and said it was one the most painful injuries he ever sustained and kept him out for weeks. It was a joke the first part, but the him requiring surgery was not. I am sure you will hear something official over the next week or so from the club. It is safe to say he will not be playing early rounds, he'll barely be able to run with the soreness.

He was the only player to literally bust his nut. Sorry for the that, was totally below the belt. Hope he is recovering well. He required surgery so will definitely be out for at least few rounds!

If Gawn released anything so honest i think you would find Melbourne supporters might actually believe change is happening from within. Melbourne just don't play like a team that is hurting at the best of times. Some brutal honestly from either our captain or coach would be well received by most. It would be something new and fresh...instead of the same platitudes with no action behind them. It is words like "learnings" that are thrown around too easily. Do they actually learn? They seem to lose in similar manners, are these learnings getting ingrained? Give me May or Petracca talking at end of games. At least they are honest and seem to really feel hurt by the loss.

I think he means to STFU! :P

If VDB is not laying crunching tackles he should not be in the team imo. When he is up and about creating pressure he makes our team walk taller. When he is not he adds very little. Having to manage training loads means he can't do the running required on game day. Honestly it is like local suburban footy, where a gun player does not have to train but is picked in the 1's regardless. But this is the AFL....if you can't train properly you actually can't practice properly, nor run out games without extreme player management. I don't think VDB is near good enough to be automatic in our team. VDB has been like a barometer for us at times. We can't depend on him to get us up and about these days though, we need to find the next guys ready to step up!

I hope that our whole team plays on the edge of angry. How many times have we seen midgets bullying Max by hitting him all day. How about get angry and fight back Max? Or maybe team mates protecting our own? The only one i seen that really stands up for others on our team atm is May...and probably one of the few to give advice or a much needed bake to a team mate too. Insipid performances are the opposite of playing angry, or even being slightly angry from previous failures. The proof comes when the real stuff starts. Are we actually going to get angry and uncompromising to play against, or just continue to go through the highs and lows and just expect it all comes together at some stage. Every game is a war to be won. If i see insipid performances or drinking of bathwater which leads to more insipid performances i will vomit. Our team needs to turn up on a regular basis, have their head in the game, get involved in the game and stop putting in substandard performances. Am sure we are all sick to death of it!

He is one of the harshest critics of Carlton. We need to not be so precious when we get scrutanised by the media. We either take it on as constructive feedback or put it in the Fugazi category. Personally i think we need to take this stuff on board. We have very little respect from other teams let alone the media. Our insipid performances are the reason we have a target on our back. Stop being a flaky side that puts in 100% effort for 100% of game and opinions will slowly change. Why do we need to keep ego's in check? Is it possible some of our team are happy getting big sums of money and just happy being AFL footballers where pretty girls just throw themselves at them? They seem happy to just run around and get a kick at times to me. Over last few years i can't think of one game we have lost where we have busted our guts for 4 quarters. We have a long way to go to reach Finals, let alone winning a GF. We simply do not work as hard as other teams for as long. It is a shame, we have the talent.

It does seem a bit of a scattergun approach to recruiting. I tend to agree we probably rate internally our guys too high on blind faith. Salem is a great player but not sure has the pace required for wing to work up and back down the field. Bowey for the wing seems a better fit. Another option i think worth testing would be Bowey to HBF, and release Salem into HFF effectively taking Melkshams spot. I find it concerning we have forward and back groups that seem to have their cards stamped that they can't play at other end of ground. We have flexibility within our list but seem very gun shy on trying them in other positions. i don't believe Goodwin has a clear plan ultimately. Watching players like Hunt get switched from back to forward, to back and forward, then back again really makes me think we are not developing a lot of our list at all appropriately.

Watching the game vs the Doggies he actually found space quite a few times on the outside but was not seen or used as the outlet. He does seem to have the tank and looks a decent kick. Hope to see a lot more of him this during the year. Seems to have the ability to play inside or out. He could be a point of difference to our other on ballers. Really hope he gains confidence and gives us options going forward!

Really not sure about this one. For mine he gets lost ball watching a lot of the time. It is why he did not work at HBF and probably won't on the wing. He needs to constantly make decisions whether to attack or defend and has extremely low footy IQ for anything but a follow role imo.

How about Bedford? He has big tank and came high in time trials last year. Extremely fast, not sure what his best position is currently as have not seen enough of him. Probably deserves a chance if we are just going to roll through a heap of players in this position throughout the year.

Hard to disagree with much he says. I actually think we need these type articles to actually put some fuel in our belly. It usually takes either the media, or the president to fire us up. We play better when unsociable. After a few wins the media start some feel good articles and way too often we put in an insipid performance vs a team we should be beating. They did not allow us to play "Our" way is a load of bollocks that happens too much also. Win ugly, win pretty, put in 100% and try and win every contest. Tackle with intent, trust you teammates, shepherd/block, stop blazing away and kick to advantage. We have a few guys who give a 100% on any given day. We don't hold each other accountable for anything less than 100% effort, nor does our coach. Thinking Melksham/Harmes/Brayshaw/Tmac for starters last year. They should have all been dropped multiple times. They were too lazy to chase and that is 100% lack of effort....it happened too often. These are senior players showing an example to the young guys coming through. It is disgusting to me, but it does come down to culture and not many other teams would accept the lack of effort, and not being prepared to do the basics. We don't seem to be able to play very smart football. In 2018 we had almost the perfect game to scare anyone. Why have we gone so far away from this?? We have tried to add layers to the game and they forgot the basics of football....it is ridiculous. We have played football like an under 12 team all hunting the ball, with no discipline. We tried stacking our backline to stop the bleeding. We quite often don't pressure the ball carrier, most of the team are frantically running backwards to catch their man. Opposition just loops around, or gets out the back and we tend to not pressure the ball carrier for much of the field. We give ground for free. This is game plan, lack of effort, or low footy IQ, quite likely all three. We have the players to really start setting the standards. They need to get angry, like us supporters that are starved of success and can do nothing but vent, or hope. They have control of the narrative by virtue of their actions. I hope they all are reading this thread and getting thoroughly angry at many of the comments and make a pact to never give anything less than 100%, for any reason. If you think one of your teammates is not putting in, ffs tell them. Demand more of each other. Supporters want nothing more than success. We probably want it more than the players do. This needs to flip. They control the narrative for good, bad, and everywhere inbetween. Get angry Demons. McClure would have.

Played wing myself a few times and it was definitely easier to rack up possessions than sitting in the forward line. The issue i found is that i blew up rather quickly as the running required was extreme compared to playing forward. Whoever plays the role is going to need to have a fair sized tank unless we plan on just rotating players through there.

I think the reality is that you can't just keep putting Jones/Sparrow/Harmes rotating through a position of huge importance. None have remotely the right skillset for the role. When suggesting both Fritsch and Petracca, i realise it not ideal as we do not have other players with their skillsets and they are valuable in other positions, but something has to give, we need to find a solution here from our list. ANB could be an option, he definitely has the tank and runs hard both ways. Part that makes this sound appealing is that the HFF role he would vacate could be filled by quite a few others on our list. Another option may be Rivers....has a lot of the attributes needed and a fast learner from what i seen so far. Has the kicking skills required to be a decent option anyway!

I would say the real issue was Tmac on 750K+ and nobody even showed interest for half that money. We move him on i am sure we'd have Phillips. As it stands we are stuck with Tmac for another year, no real wing and to make it all worse we are trying to play Tmac into form for over 2 seasons now. I would expect Goodwin will pick him for most of this season, just hoping he comes good again. Unfortunately we have another year of underwhelming McDonalds. Will be rapt if he finds form again fwiw, he is that important to us. Just can't see it eventuating where he reverts to 2018 form, it has been awhile now!

Add Bontempelli to that mix too. After seeing how much better his kicking has gotten put a few on him to win the Brownlow, he was scintillating yesterday. Last few times we played WB both Daniel and Bont destroyed us. We can't be serious without tagging these 2 at least. Next time i would be lining up Kozzie on Daniels and saying just stick with him and pressure him relentlessly. Harmes should be playing tight tag on Bont, or put VDB on him for brief period and just tell him to smash his body. Amazing we did not try and tag any of their major ball magnets. We need to put much more thought into curbing other teams and the way they want to play, we are far too sociable and let them do as they please. It is on the coaches to have a plan....vs EVERY opponent. We can't just play our way, the other teams simply will not allow this! We need to do similar and be much harder to play against. Need many more selfless role players prepared to just stopping their playmakers getting any easy kicks, won't be holding my breath though. We want to play our way 100% of time. It is flawed, every team puts thought into opposition, not sure we do honestly. We seem to get beaten in same manner by same oppositions too often. Groundhog Day !!

i did consider VDB briefly but like you mentioned he can barely cope with training and playing. His loads are constantly being monitored. I like the idea of Kossie for leftfield option. It is not like we can't do without him forward at this stage of his career. A few runs he did from half back breaking lines was exciting enough to see that he could be used in other areas of the ground perhaps like a Liam Ryan type. He would need to learn the role but could be the answer. Be nice having Langdon/Kossie pace on either side of ground. The more i think about it, we need to try him there to find out what he has got. You know he would have the required pressure and speed for the role.