Go Ds

They still have some cattle - certainly enough to not lose by 90 at home

Wow! It's always so worrying when both the seniors and reserves get thrashed. What the F happened to the runaway ladder leader from last year?

Honestly if someone like Hardwicke had instead started his senior coaching career in Neeld's place, even with assistants he'd brought with him, he might have done almost as badly. The coach is just one factor and we'll probably never know Neeld's true ability.

@Demonland why was my post rejected here? It wasn't defamatory, violent, obscene or full-on nasty. So what happened?

http://demonwiki.org/Coaches I had forgotten Yze coached for one game. Believe it or not Barrassi and Chubby Checker Hughes are on that list. (The format of the list is a little off. The "C's" are in the far right column.)

A couple of years ago a contestant did something like Melbourne 2015-20

Interesting piece of trivia: remember the darkest scene in Pulp Fiction? Bruce Willis's boxer character and the big bad gangster Marcellus Wallace are taken at gunpoint mid-fight when they stumble into a pawn shop and are imprisoned in a dungeon. Then the shop owner calls his friend, Zed, so they can torture (and do other very criminal things) the prisoners together. Anyone wanna guess the name of the evil shop owner?

Trivia is trivia for a reason. It wouldn't surprise me if I'm the biggest trivia lover on here. Nonetheless insight is more important than many piddly details that poor trivia questions get bogged down in. The main thing I remember about the 2000 GF is that we improved out of sight in the second half of the season but Essendon were too good all year -and also were dirty in the final. (No one's gonna try and burn into their memory who started on the bench or the number of Brad Green or Leoncelli, or which round we played Richmond.)

Yep, it was Powell, Geelong and, well, who can remember numbers but Daniher's last game was an infuriating one where Essendon kicked late goals to just get up (I'm sure one could deduce the the answer looking at the results of 2007 somewhere and it was around 9 games). The question itself suggested Daniher resigned. I too thought he was sacked.

Obviously it'll be on SBS on Demand.

A lot of teams didn't take him. If he were the standout wouldn't he have been pick #1?

I still think 13 wins is a probable Finals berth. In the last 2 years 14 wins has easily been enough. I always felt that in the 22-game seasons that 12 was the magic number. Most years it was enough and adjusting to now 12.5 to 13 looks about right. Most #8 teams are average , so usually 14 wins 9 losses is a big ask. There'll be sides that improve from here and ones that will go backwards. Usually form, fitness, injuries , confidence etc will cause surprises later in the season. We will need some luck. But sometimes this will happen.

Yep, this was a guy's specialist subject on Mastermind tonight. Most of the questions I got right. I missed the ones about the team we drew with in 2006, our first goalscorer in the 2000 GF and how many games Mark Riley coached as caretaker in 2007. I reckon a lot of you would have done well.

That one of those teams is struggling and that we're an ok side.

Oh wow. I'm not gonna go overboard about our chances for the rest of the year but this season the amount of bovine excrement I've heard and read just on Melbourne and its individuals alone could fertilise every garden in the southern hemisphere!

BTW often the most recent episode of Front Bar is on YouTube for a few days. But often they get removed so you'd need to catch it soon (or stream on ch7 with ads)

If Kosi plays well and is pleasant it really doesn't matter if he's quiet or can barely express himself in any language. Yes, teams need leaders but not every player has to be. Kosi's fine as he is.

I meant specifically suicides of AFL players. You wrote a good post though.

It's a midfielder's award. There'll be a few that'll get lots of votes where if you looked back at the specific games where it's obvious the umps have overrated their efforts.

How did this happen?! Neither twin had suffered brain-altering concussions, or had they? Anyway this is heartbreaking and I agree with just about everything said here BTW Selwood, Tuck, Frawley... is that a disproportionate number of football families with these tragedies?

Yeah, possibly too far back. I think our best chance to scrape in is win 9 more games and with 13 wins and a poorish percentage leapfrog all the teams with better percentages but 12 wins. We've just beaten the reigning premiers on their home turf, who started the round on top of the ladder, yes. That standard will net more wins. Whether we'll consistently play that well from here on is the big factor.

It's way better than the threads talking about Goody's replacement coach after 3 losses . 🙄

Good. But instead let's focus on whatever's left of the season. 12th next week? Off the top of your head can you remember last year's round 11 ladder or Melbourne's exact position at that stage year in year out?

Laurie was pick 22 in 2020 Tholstrup pick 13 , 2023 Laurie averaged 9 disposals last year Tholstrup 11.7 Laurie's not hopeless. But right now Tholstrup is still an unknown quantity and could well be a much better player. Why should be Laurie be selected first?

It's difficult predicting past the current year (and even then there'll be surprises if come October you look at the Round 9 ladder). If we have, say, pick 39 at the end of the year and surprises everyone winning next year's Rising Star and his second Brownlow a few years after clearly our future will be a lot more pleasantly surprising. Of course I hope every staff member is trying their best to improve the team short and long-term. But as fans there's no point worrying too much about it. We may be better than you think. Who knows? At best we're making educated guesses.