Go Ds

Were you being serious? Nothing wrong with different opinions, but please not illogical ones. Do you think it's a good look whingeing about a teammate's verdict given the bias and potential backlash , and the fact that many e former players (and even Paddy Cripps) are much more effectively championing May's case for acquittal? How about Gawn's son? Don't make out Dad went out of his way to teach and coerce his son into singing the Carlton theme song. It's fluff that gets a quick, harmless laugh and not even remotely a black mark on Gawn. So what was illogical? Melbourne having any interaction with fans and viewers? The whole team not whipping themselves as per the villain in The Da Vinci Code? No! And while I agree with concerns of you and @poita it is what it is. We lost Bradshaw. We almost lost Trac. The likes of May, Lever, Viney and Oliver are getting older and slower and well, the next captain choice hinges a lot of whether it happens in 2027 or 2029. If it's the latter every current player has at least 4 years under their belt and possibly a player from another team comes across and after 2 or 3 yrs is the unanimous choice for Max's replacement. Honestly you may as well be having big discussions with your spouse about which high school your newborn should be going to.

The Essendon player delisted after he couldn't get a game in their 11th-place team? 🤣🤣🤣

It's possible that we wouldn't even have won the flag in 21 if Gawn weren't captain. Do you really think it's helpful for everyone to be desperately miserable their every waking minute while we flounder?! Your post is dreadful!

Yep! In 100 minutes of play you just can't lose due to umpiring alone. Our season/season and a half drop-off is not due to umpires. Maybe we really would have won 3 more games this year and one more last, with less umpire howlers. Regardless that doesn't get us into finals or excuse much. Anyway I know the team will at least try and address our issues in September while many of 'em will feel that these two inactive Septembers shouldn't have happened.

Okay. I see your point. Admittedly I notice player mistakes too. In the best game ever played I bet the successful team still made mistakes. I really don't know what to make of umpiring. It's impossible for it to be perfect and often the public should just shut up and not use it as a cop out for most of their team's losses. But if a player misses a shot from the goal square or an umpire does as bad with a dreadful decision it's fair enough for me to comment - even blame both in a close loss.. For both of them I'd hope there are coaches and supervisors to iron this stuff out, especially if attitude, poor technique or strategy or bias are to blame. (Oh, and I bet no coach and few players totally dismiss their part in a loss - even if they're cursing the umpire(s) and brooding on what might have been.)

Sorry, do you mean a decision in the last minute is no more important than ones in the other 100 something 100 minutes? I still can't agree with you. Do the umpire bosses review the umpiring of entire games. I bet there are times where there's a few howlers and team A should have had 3 frees awarded 25 metres out and / or team B should have less frees at similar spots at the other end. Given plenty of margins are under a goal it can be all of one mistake which has the wrong team win.

As easy as it is speculate on a lot of this stuff we really don't know though. There differently needs to be change. I expect movement , probably at least one dismissal, among the coaching staff, obviously some delistings and quite realistically some surprise ones or trades. Anyway I hope all these judgements are based on what is or probably is rather than based on supposition from even the loyalest supporter (who nonetheless would be still in the dark .... AND I am grateful of all our loyal fans)

It sounds like a lot of mind-reading there. Have you heard Goody actually say the above or seen incredibly obvious behaviour of premiership players, say, now arriving late/leaving early from training regularly? Yes, there's a drop-off. Players are older or have left, too many recruits either haven't made it or are a work in progress and we've had injuries. We arguably had the best midfield circa 2021. But Oliver had challenges and lost a whole pre-season and Petracca was incapacitated for months a year ago. None of this is a 'get out jail free card' but it probably explains a lot. It's so easy to get stuck in a moment. But who knows what happens in the next year or two. Some good recruits, more natural improvement from the younger players and perhaps revivals from senior players with injury-free passages or possibly attitude improvements, some new coaches, stability in the administration etc etc could make us improve markedly. No guarantees but we do have plenty of good to great players and ****, imagine how much better we'd be if both Trac and Clarry fully get back to near Brownlow-medallist level again.

Umm, no! I promise you we don't go down this road. You know in cricket that it is/was possible to bet on whether the next ball would be a no-ball? The two teams score about 300 runs each; who cares about an extra run here or there, right? But suddenly there's 3 of them or batter is called back because of a bribed bowler's "slight' indiscretion and goes on to have the match winning innings ...... and both the supporters and punters would disillusioned later if the dodgy no-ball was revealed. I don't know the footy equivalent of a no-ball but I'm sure a dropped mark, slightly errant ruck tap, a rushed handball or a poor ball drop for a set shot could be kind of disguised. I won't mention who as I in no way, shape or form believe this but recently a player rushed a shot at goal ... a defender marked it in the goal square. Because the forwards hadn't had time to set up the ball was slingshot back the other for goal and the "two-goal turnaround". From this one original miskick the opposition gained all the momentum and kicked maybe 5 goals in 10 minutes which was the difference for the day. I'd hate to see a player pocket a nice sum for what they hoped would be an insignificant mistake. (BTW what would be enough of a bribe if it risks a team loss, the player playing reserves the rest of the year or the respect of his teammates? Unless the guy's a complete mor0n it better be a lot to commit this felony.) Anyway, as much I support some AFL betting I don't want the game's integrity among other things ruined by it.

Umm, I get a lot of what you're saying and also are not totally happy with the AFL. But.... Richmond will play 6 teams twice AND the worse West Coast will too. A lot - maybe 10 - teams will get one of these bonus games, and maybe 2 will re-play both. Do we get rid of free agency? Clearly players that have played years for basket case are gonna prefer an equal deal with a new team that's on the up rather push **** uphill for another 4 or 5 years. AND while the finals race is exciting as a carpet commercial if anything the AFL would have tried to help get a few of the also-rans over the line in close games since May, say with dodgy late-game umpiring (and it's debatable whether that ever deliberately happens)

Did we? Many of our players are noticeably below their best this year. Should we have expected that?

Umm, so just come out and say we were aiming at 11th? Wouldn't even West Coast have been aiming for the flag this year? Of course they wouldn't admit it but if out of nowhere they had had Adelaide's year they'd still be aiming for the highest and never have been telling their players to aim low. Maybe nothing should have been said ( though then there's complaints the club doesn't engage with supporters). But I'd hope we started the year aiming to go deep and I'd expect every team to adjust their goals as the year progresses. (BTW I hope even when teams go into games as huge underdogs that the coaches and players haven't already decided they'll lose. I'm not sure how it's different for seasons, except between them when list management needs to factor in where the team sits)

Who knows? Maybe he's overrated (or not). But it does my head in when [censored] claim he fluked his flag and anyone could have coached such high-end talent to win it all in 2021.

This really hinges on whether you want to be an optimist or pessimist. I reckon it's more fun to be positive but otherwise none of this might be relevant. Teams' form fluctuate. Obviously staff and players can have their positions on the line so a good end of the season is highly recommended. But otherwise whether we end up a few places on the below our true level on the ladder almost doesn't matter. No one will care by May next year. Assuming there's no panic with rash sackings and trades there's much bigger factors that will see us wherever we are next May or so.

Surely there are players in the leadership group and best 22 who are in the right age range. Gawn will probably happily captain for a few more years. In the meantime some more players might reach an appropriate age and others might establish themselves in the best 22. I'm not sure why anyone is worrying about this yet.

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.