rpfc

Yeeesh…

8 minutes ago, demon3165 said:

Can never understand why people get their knickers in a knot when outside people the club comment on Melbourne after all that's what this forum does.

Yes, and no one gets upset on here when a poster comments on the state of the club…

Can we just take the L on this and move on? Arguing the point or ruminating on the detail is rather pointless. 

We screwed up, take the licks, get better, and move on.

We won a flag, it kind of began…

Its like the flag window was open and we did get the jump out the window… (hey it’s not my metaphor is it?!)

So yeah, ‘24 is done but yeah, we all have to look on the bright side yeah…

1 hour ago, dazzledavey36 said:

I'm a big believer that 2023 is up there with 1998 as the biggest missed opportunity of a flag.

All the stats in the land had us pretty much the number 1 ranked team of the competition. 

This is controversial from my end but losing Melksham from our forward line was a bigger loss then Brayshaw. When he went down our forward line lost all its system and leadership. He was the captain we needed up forward to galvanise our set up and then it's he's ability to engage with the number 1 defender to not only take him out of the game but hurt on the scoreboard just completely hurt us.

No one will ever change my mind, but absolutely 2023 was the biggest missed opportunity for a flag from our end.

I agree. I am on record saying I don’t mind this move to change how inert we are off half back but obviously more structural flaws, form and depth are coming into play now. 

I really think 2022 was a terrible flirtation with our form the way the FD changed our gameplan and restricted it even further from ‘defence first’ to ‘defence only’…

Players en masse develop habits especially when you are winning that are impossible to break - so when we needed to be daring and when needed to calm down and pick our spots and connect (2023) - we couldn’t do it.

While I think that ‘the vault’ is already open, I would prefer we use the rest of this year to prolong the careers of Gawn, May, and Viney. 

There is no point flogging these guys when we just don’t have it.

We are the ones playing him off no pre-season. We are the ones playing him forward as opposed to back. We are the ones chasing another tall back supposedly from St Kilda.

At some point this may be a sunk cost we may have to move on from but his form is entirely predictable and are options are obviously barren. 

We persist, not because we want to but because it is our only option.

1 hour ago, praha said:

Really don't care who replaces him but if McAdam plays I'm boycotting the rest of the season.

WOW, didn’t know Shane had such an impact on us losing by 15 goals. 

What a neat excuse for everyone else in the team and on the staff…

On 02/06/2024 at 16:32, Jaded No More said:

It’s no secret that I’ve been pretty much dead inside when it comes to football since the last time we played this pile of dog [censored] club. I don’t even carry anger or disappointment when we lose anymore. I get over it fairly quickly and my passion for the game will probably never be the same again. 
Having said all that, I would take not winning another game for the rest of the year, so long as we obliterate this bunch of ****heads next week!

Are you ‘Jaded’ again?

Our midfield is not 15 goals worse than Freos…

That was a whole team debacle. I don’t think we are that good this year. We lost depth, we are changing how we play in the defensive half when we have the ball, we still don’t have a reliable tall, our best midfielder was absent for preseason, some core players are out of form, and we spent the last two years trying to eke out another ‘prelim or better’ performance through dour dumping of the ball to protect the mids (2022) and focussing entirely on a front half game where we were dominated ‘territory’ except in crucial moments (2023).

We are rectifying some past mistakes with our onfield style of play and I hope we can rebalance our list and plug some easily foreseeable gaps.

For me, 2025 is a better show but we are running out of time.

47 minutes ago, bluey said:

In J.T we trust, good luck with that, players on multi year contracts are who clearly not up to AFL level.

“Good luck with that”

What a sediment

Darcy should rock up to Maynard’s house 

8 hours ago, Gawndy the Great said:

Pickett definitely has the speed and agility but his disposal under pressure is not elite. I have seen him butcher the ball several times.

Im also not yet convinced in his ability to hit the right targets - WIP and something we should definitely persist with.

I think McVee has the composure and the vision to make for an elite ball user moving forward. Reminds me a lot of McCluggage. Having him play in defensive will give him time to build his tank but all develop his defensive game. 
 

Would be a perfect rotation at some stage. 

Or he can stay in defence and excel.

And he holds the ball like he is cracking an emu egg… just sayin

4 hours ago, demon3165 said:

Yeah a one paced midfield with a lack of outside run and carry, name our midfielder who can pass like Bont, Reid etc and under pressure?

And you think McVee is that??

Give me a break. 

Pickett is the skill set we need in there; excellent skills and speed. 

And our ‘midfield’ isn’t the problem right now - it is the team driving a predictable transition off half back. McVee can impact that where he is right now. No need to love him.

You know, being a midfielder isn’t like a milestone of maturity and achievement.

You need players in other positions to be a rounded team. Pickett has been great in there because he provides something we have been missing. 

But it is not the only answer available to the open questions for this team.

The backline needs all the help it can get to transition positively. Taking out the soul of that change is not the decision I would advise.

We’re fine through the middle anyway.

12 minutes ago, JJJ said:

I was at a function last week where I was told that while Goody wants to move the ball more aggressively he will not budge on the defence first mantra. Hence it’s at times ugly and the players look lost but ultimately as long as we are moving the ball well and maintaining our defence by mid August, he will be happy. 
 

Expect more ugliness.

I expect it, it’s others that need to check their expectations. And we shouldn’t budge from being defence first. That is our identity until Lever and May cease to be what they are (and while we don’t have good enough tall forwards).

I can see what they are trying to do and where we are coming from. I’m comfortable at the moment because I know it takes a while and at least we have taken our first step.

I have been bleating about how boring we have been since halfway through ‘22 when we were kicking to the pocket to save the mids legs.

At least this year we are trying to play footy again off halfback. Work in progress but at least it’s getting back to what we think of when we rummage through the sepia toned memory banks of eras that live on through highlight packages and not the dour slog of a full game with amateurs and part timers and sporadic talents.

McAdam is in our best 7 forwards on exposed talent and historical performance. He is coming from an interrupted pre-season and season. We need him as we need to evolve toward our medium forwards which are far more effective than our taller forwards and also more impactful in our new gameplan of quick transitional movement off the backline to short options across half forward.

1 minute ago, COOLX said:

May kicked a goal !!! Who took his place at full back ?

No one. Ball was down the other end.

8 minutes ago, IRW said:

To say nothing of the rubbish they served up last week.

 

Glad we have you around to say something then.

Who for?

Drop the kids to play the kids?

This was always going to happen - a completely inert performance from a bunch of blokes playing a new way off defensive transition.

Progress isn’t linear. 

51 minutes ago, Fromgotowoewodin said:

He should probably assume the bloke coming straight at him is going to bump him. Maybe he can also think “he shouldn’t really bump me here” but he’s gonna get bumped. 

Maybe he thought he was going to the effing bench?

Either we have rules against the nonsense off the ball or we don’t, but just because you may play footy to snipe blokes when you might get away with it - doesn’t mean the rest of us should put up with it.

15 hours ago, Fork 'em said:

He was near stationary.
Both feet planted.
In this new world he might get a couple weeks cause the bloke was KO'd but the Karens calling for his head need to get a grip.
Play on I say.

You say ‘play on’…

Sometimes the dim require things to be personalised for things to make sense; your son/brother/friend is playing footy and someone 15m off the ball makes a beeline for someone you give a s$&@ about and lifts their shoulder into the jaw and breaks it.

You’re umpiring, you see it clearly, and you say ‘play on.’

Hmmm. Ok, sure…