NeveroddoreveN

Sends a clear message. I would expect their whole team to come out breathing fire this week. We choose not to drop Tom Mc for a season and a half, Melksham should have been dropped many times this year. We tried to send a message last week by making 7 changes but did not drop the guys who deserved to be dropped. Brayshaw/Harmes to name a few more of players that should have clearly been dropped at stages. Cameron has sent out a wake up call and no one is safe. Simon does not seem to have the balls to drop anyone but fringe players. They might just roll us by 10 goals this week with bit of extra fire in the belly. I would prefer they did not drop Coniglio. This is a club or coach being ruthless. No player is above the club. Good luck Demons, come out ready for war!

If Melbourne had put up a performance like that vs West Coast. We would be disappointed but proud for the most part. Sometimes it is the manner that you win/lose. West Coast showed huge character, as did St Kilda If we lost playing like Saints last night it would easily be the best we played all year....with tough opposotion.

Brian Taylor.

They will miss McGovern badly for finals. He was killing it til he pulled that hammy. Over last few weeks i reckon Geelong is the team to beat, they look in brutal form. They are suffocating their oppositions with extreme pressure. Should be great final series, teams are starting to flex.

Watching the last 7 minutes in particular both Nic Nat and Kelly were heroic. Both these blokes ooze leadership. Makes me bit jealous actually.

All in with a bluff. Playing it like they got the nuts though. Everything you say there seems a pretty reasonable deduction. I fear for our club if this is what is actually happening. The internal review continues to make me shudder. I hope for [censored] sake they get this right.

I would presume with his father no longer at the club, a kid to think about, and not to mention the professionalism of Geelong. It could be the best decision he ever made. Players are here to win Premierships. Love Jack but would not blame him if he wanted the change. That Geelong team always look happy.

The 26-year-old would command a deal worth over $650,000 per year, which could trigger a first-round compensation pick. That in itself in a year we don't have any/many high draft picks. Both parties would seriously need to consider, both MFC and Viney.

Not fussed at all who they choose to select. Vs St Kilda we had one of our worst looking teams of the year on paper, last week perhaps worse again. In the St Kilda game we had a game plan and even with less talent on paper than Saints they stuck to the task and prevailed against all odds. (Thanks May/Petracca) but lesser lights also did what was asked/required of them. Vs Sydney we expected to beat them and played accordingly. We did not have a discernable game plan. Vs Freo we had our worst team of year, on paper anyway. Against the breeze we got lucky they did not kick straight in 1st qtr or it would have been all over. It actually took us well into the last quarter before we scrapped the gameplan and went one on one. Finally the players showed intensity. We lost by not much. Had we played man on man all day we would have won by 6 goals. For this round and next, regardless of selection changes i would just like to see what this team can do man on man, without Simon's gameplan holding them back. They are fit enough, apparently, Release the shackles, let them loose. My gut feeling is our players are not nearly as bad as we are seeing. The gameplan is [censored] all of them up. New game plan, man on mon, have fun boys, lets end this season in style!

An exorcism?

Haha when you still see Oscar in 2026 and he is playing his 200th for us it will all become clear. We seem to have $hitload of excuses and reasons!

Buddy actually needed a round the clock minder. He was high risk with lot of his party activities. Saw him out there few times high as a kite. Not sure if we need to molly coddle stars but all players need to be developed....even the stars !

Yeah i remember now lol....Is that the only other chance we had, i have feeling we another chance to cement it

It is all a fog now. Prior to the WC Home and Away match didn't we have a few chances before that to cement our spot?

Hopefully formulating a Plan A,B,C & D! No real point in saying too much in public before our season is officially over. Doubt he is running away from the tough questions. Answering with a cool head with overall perspective is probably smarter than being reactionary like most of us here on Demonland.

You are probably right. Most contracts have clauses within them, i am sure Simons would be no different. Has he performed adequately? If we don't rate our list then sure! Covid may save him for another crack, you are right on here. I can't see us waiting the entirety of next year to make a move in this space. Same lack of gameplan or tenacity from the playing group and players not developing he will not make it to the end of the season. Contracts don't mean a lot if you are not ticking off KPI's. I wonder how Simon is going in this regard?

i would not rule anything out atm. We have 2 games to go. Say we get beaten by 40+ points margins in both those games. You really think he stays?? i know what i suggested is not ideal. Not much is with the mess we currently are in! We need to get creative if we are to dig our way out of it. 4 years, 5 years, 6 years when is enough? We simply must change tact greatly or we can expect similar results going forward. Goodwin is a massive part of the problem, unless he is prepared to change massively he will be dead man walking for next year. The players will have a get out of jail free card to underperform then pin it all on the coach. We lose too many games by midseason and the jungle drums will get too much for the board not to act. I can't see the point of setting us up to fail once again. 2019 we were full of hope that we had turned a new leaf. We showed very little that season. 2020 has been bizarre circumstances but i don't believe we have shown enough consistently. 4 years to see some semblance of a gameplan...i don't see it. Flooding the backline and having nobody to kick it to, i see that! If he is coach so much has to change about Simon, i am not sure he has it in him. Hopefully i get to eat humble pie at some stage because ultimately i want nothing more than the MFC to succeed. Maybe we just need to have Bartlett for pregame rev ups and all our problems will be solved. The players clearly need to be revved up often to perform at any sort of adequate level. We always seem to come out flat, only exception was game vs Carlton. We then stunk it up for 3 quarters! Not sure Parliament runs anything like an AFL club. I do know that they all need to be in it together to get any sort of results though! We seem rather fractured in that space.

He has already had his own bunch of assistants and that did not work! They recruited another bunch for similar results. It looks and feels like he does not listen particularly to any of them...or listens to the wrong ones. If he stays he must be basically told how to run the ship because he definitely has no clue. Why would it be a disaster say if Goodwin was put into player development with a match day boundary/bench role to pass on messages to the players, or something similar? Definition of insanity rings true with MFC, they need to get creative and work out viable solutions. Getting whole new batch of assistant coaches is useless if we have a head coach that chooses to ignore their views i reckon. He changes or he is moved sideways imo....or paid out.

Have a feeling part of Richardsons role is overseeing the whole football operations and report back to the board. Coach director? Does any other club have this role?? Richardson being new to Melbourne and an astute observer, would have a view of the big picture. i would be amazed if part of his job is not to relay his "learnings" to the board. The big issue in getting rid of Goodwin is that Pert/Bartlett & Mahoney all ratified the decision. Getting rid of him entirely is pretty much an admission of ineptitude. Thinking laterally what do they do? Happy with Goodwin and direction we are going? Resounding No. Happy with our assistants and their output? Mostly No, Burgess gets a tick, but he'll be moving onto greener pastures. So left with some major decisions, clean out the assistants and get the best ones for starters. The tough decision here is what to do with Goodwin, my guess is they will move him sideways and Richardson will be head coach next year. Really can't see any way the board can admit guilt and all fall on their sword, but they can decide Simon is not the way forward for a multitude of reasons. If something like this was implemented i wonder whether Goodwin would want to stay? He would still be on ridiculous money for a diminished role. Personally i can't wait til the end of this season to see what we choose to do in this space!

Crazy amount of work to create this from week to week. You deserve a medal! %change vs 2019....am i correct to assume from these stats that 4 players have improved and the rest have gone backwards? Really felt development has been an issue but this paints even more of the picture! Hannan has improved marginally. Sparrow barely played in 2019 so presume his increase is expected. Steven May a slight increase. Petracca improved dramatically. We had such a crappy year in 2019 and we have 4 players in total to improve on that. Ahhh actually just saw the % change with -20% time adjustment. This actually paints another picture. Most have improved from last year which feels marginal but more true. 2019 was awful! 10 senior players have got worse....Salem, Harmes, Fritch, T Mac, ANB, Jones, Melksham, Weideman, Jetta and Hunt. What is going on with this lot haha?!

You are right in that part, we will never really know! I think all supporters just want to see the rot stop at some point, stop making excuses and choose to be great. Most of us realise that improvement is far from a linear equation. I would love to see a dozen+ players improve 10% in the offseason. We'd have reason to get excited if we were seeing more of them develop. Think we have enough unharnessed talent with room for improvement. They have to want it much more than us supporters though. We can sit back and analyse with our eyes, read statistics and extrapolate our own ideas as to what happens at club level. The "vibe" i get is quite a bit is NQR currently. My eyes tell me that part easily, the stats verify that our gameplan is flawed. Not sure who drives the standards but they are not up to scratch. Hopefully next year we get a lot more right! As Demon supporters we live in hope!

Lol most likely! Stay in your protected zone but be daring and take the game even if you have nobody to kick it to! Don't overcommit to the tackle in case you get stepped! Kick it to Max he can mark everything even if he is 5v1. Send in more players at the stoppage and ignore the outsides. Be predictable in all areas of the ground, your teammates will know what you are upto! They are mentally fatiguing to watch let alone passionately support haha!

Just not so sure it is all this clear cut. Petracca got angry after last season and used it to fuel his preseason and the season proper. He was not satisfied with an improved season personally, he "chose" to be better and make a real difference. He goes on to thank Darren Burgess mainly for getting even more out of him. Did Goodwin get through to Gus? Iirc viney got injured and he got a good run at being an on baller for a change. I wonder whether this was Goodwin, as the same guy looked completely disinterested when he was playing a half back/half forward/ or wing. So Maxy transformed himself, Petracca transformed himself...I bet both of these players will admit they were not mature enough to realise what it took to become elite/ fully committed to the cause with outstanding growth. Main point is without leaders driving standards for the next bunch coming through it is much harder to attain these levels no matter how talented. Still believe we need teachers of standards. We accept mediocrity far too easily. We demand too little across our entire playing list. The players drive the standards more than the coaches in well drilled teams. Currently we don't have enough real leaders to convey this message across the entire playing list. No Melbourne player has had any real success. Tomlinson probably has the most finals experience. We really need experienced coaches teaching new standards so badly. Waiting for the penny to drop individually across the team just seems whimsical without guidance.

Development is key to all these guys. We badly need a Luke Hodge or Mitchell type to teach them how to be true leaders, to work on their craft, to stay humble, to teach the next group of talent coming through. Amazing that Petracca seems to have just taken it upon himself to improve with no "true" leaders around him. Langdon seems another willing to get the best out of himself. Max has tapered off imo and does very little damage and adds to our predictability. Gus i am pretty sure after low fiving Razor Ray got most of those votes gifted to him in the latter of 2018 and has not been close to the same levels since. Clarry is an exceptional talent but could really use a gun mentor. It took 12+ games this season before someone suggested he take 5 quick steps once he had the ball. We are not going anywhere without some real tutelage to our whole list. Would be gunning for a player like Selwood for a season or two with transition into coaching as soon as career is over. We lack true leadership and i doubt any of these players "demand" higher standards of the players around them. Geelong are a perfect example, recall them saying that Gary Ablett did not work hard enough. Who is going to tell Gawn or Clarry that they are not working hard enough??

Totally agree! By the spirit of performance i would say 8-10 of them would be totally gutted. Another 6 really disappointed. The last 6-8 players are probably glad the season is over and they can start planning their end of season trips. Generally i think we fluff over the losses and give way too much credit when they win. These blokes are generally too easily satisfied and they rarely seem to back up a spirited performance with another. Seeing Goodwin looking smug after each win says a lot.