old55

And while we're on that theme I was very disappointed N.Jones missed the captain's goal sealer too.

That's not what I said.

Little league error that directly resulted in a goal. Rule #1: don't fall over - see BenKen. I picture players like Salem on GF day - that's not acceptable.

Fall over chasing Varcoe was very poor. Would not like to see a repeat. Frankly if Matt Jones had done that this place would have burned him at the stake.

I have no problems with this article: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-season-2016-alastair-clarkson-talks-with-hawthorn-drag-on-20160418-go9eg7.html

Puzzling recruitment by Collingwood. IMO they don't need his type of medium marking forward when they've already got Elliot and Fasolo, and Swan was going to play forward as well.

Good to see Max King playing. There's a clear role for him in the MFC 22 if he's good enough.

Roos will ask the players to man up but they'll refuse apparently.

My reading of the VFL report is that it's pretty clear he's some way off. Christian Petracca: Christian was solid again. He’s come back from a long layoff and it was his second game back. He increased his game time. We’re just letting him feel his way, as the most important thing for him is to build his tank, game time and his conditioning. He’s been able to do that the past two weeks. He’s got some things to work on, but in regards to playing his role, his ball-winning efforts and his ability to get out of tight situations, particularly around the footy – his game was a highlight. He also finished off his work well and pushed forward to kick three goals, so he was one of our better players.

Pedersen or Frost or Dawes - fwd/ruck. None of them are up to it and are just a bridge to one of the Kings or maybe the Weed (although not clear he could ruck). It's a big set-back that Mitch did his knee - he may have got a taste later this year. I'm not sure where Max is up to but it is his 3rd year. Spencil is purely Gawn back-up - 1st ruck. The FD would have known this in the last recruiting cycle but it's not easy to get a better bridge than those guys. Lewis Jetta for Callum Sinclair is the going market, we don't have a exact equivalent to Jetta but think Salem for Sinclair (who is "adequate") and you get my drift. We need to manage the pain until a King is ready and if neither of them make it then we will need to pay the trade price.

Calling Webber

In Sidebottom Out Vince. Not helpful.

$7 bottle of whiskey?

Tremendous news that Trenners seems to have pulled up well after the match and is in full-training: I reckon that's another real milestone and now I'm starting to believe! Go Jack!

Essendon did play well IMO and but for conversion - particularly Joe Daniher 2.4 and at least one out of bounds - deserved to win by a lot more.

As disappointing as MFC was on Saturday. Essendon were very impressive. They'll win more games this year and are not the basket case that people forecast. I think they will really start to struggle in the 2nd half of the year when their veterans and youth tire.

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/afl-season-2016-christian-petracca-dominates-in-vfl-nears-melbourne-debut-20160405-gnz3di.html

Any word from training watchers how Trenners has pulled up after the weekend VFL practice outing? That's really the critical test. It is pretty predictable that a player of his capability will dominate that level. It's his foot recovery that matters.

I realised I didn't understand modern footy in R1 2007 - no coincidence that it was the first match Ross Lyon coached. I probably didn't understand it for a while before that, but that is when the truth hit me. I couldn't understand why or how we lost to St.Kilda after initially leading. Saturday's debacle was either gameplan failure or gameplan implementation failure. No big surprise that Roos likes explanation #2 better. Players were "tired", "big-headed", "didn't come to play" and therefore failed to implement the gameplan. That's better than "I'm out of touch". On the day it looked like gameplan failure to me. But I do know what I don't know and that is this: all players have specific roles and set positions in the structure for specific plays. If even one player doesn't play their role or fulfill the structure then the whole plan will unravel. So if we've got "tired players" who can't get to position or play their role then it's feasible that the disgraceful performance on Saturday could happen. In hindsight, I'm hoping that is the explanation, because like for Roos, the alternative is unpalatable. It IS hard to reconcile that the coaching group allowed this to persist all day - but I guess the players "were tired" all day. I would have liked to see us try something different like go man-on-man when we were down by 100+ uncontested. The Giants did that to us quite effectively after the first quarter last week. I'm still at a loss to explain how we actually won that game. Anyway the proof will out about whether it was gameplan failure or gameplan implementation failure over the coming weeks.

We scored totally against the run of play. I can't bring myself to watch it again. We were extremely lucky to be in touch with Essendon all day - so comprehensively outplayed were we. When we were 2 goals up in the 2nd and a goal up in the last I was absolutely certain that it was temporary because their dominant pattern was repeated all day. My 18yo daughter who goes to the footy rarely was calling the play ahead of it happening. Quite frankly it was on a par with the initial Neeld days against Brisbane when we'd go down the line, force a throw in and they'd kill us in the contest. Different pattern but just as predictable.

Yeah I read it but it wasn't special enough to warrant a new thread, particularly when your claimed reason was no player potting. Post game thread would've been fine, plenty of non player potting posts in there eg praha, baghdad bob.

Out: Roos In: Goodwin

I'm no game plan expert but praha is on the right track - we lost because of gamestyle. Contested footy was about break even but they absolutely smashed us on the outside. We were lucky 13 points wasn't 13 goals. When we win the contest we handball inside or kick blindly to an outnumbered contest. All credit to Worsfold and Essendon, when they won the contest they swarmed on the outside from behind it with aggressive handball to get free and then kicked to open players who exploited our "zone" mercilessly between the arcs. Essendon's handball and kicking skills were very ambitious and very good. We were static, failed to honour free players in tight space and repeatedly kicked to a contest. Roos has improved confidence and culture over Neeld's neanderthal man management but fundamentally we still play the same dinosaur footy. When you're getting smashed in uncontested by 50 at half-time against a side that we should have better personnel than - how about going man-on-man for an extended period? I admit this is not a long term gameplan solution but it could have stemmed the haemorrhaging today. We continued on the same path to destruction all day. GWS was clearly the better side last week and it was their lack of conversion that kept us in it. If Cameron played we would have been pantsed. I was happy to win ugly but the signs of today's outcome were all there in hindsight. It was just whether the Bombers could exploit them and again but for some poor finishing by Daniher they definitely did.

I'm often thinking about it but that has no bearing on whether I get it ... (cue Benny Hill music)