Go Ds

How about that he played his first game in over 9 months and then second-up was a real grind?

You wouldn't happen to be over 50? 😂

Technically. Maybe a computer program could check this but I suspect a team that wins one or less of their first three games and then wins its next three would have done worse historically than ones that instead started 3-0 and went to 3-3 or 4-1. I can't help but think chasing your tail during the season or individual games is more stressful and more draining. Maybe it's only a bit worse. The main thing for Melbourne is to follow the processes they've decided on and hopefully start chalking up some wins.

True. But he who laughs last laughs ......

yeah, it's still uncharted/unchartered territory how to handle these longer seasons. The above examples are probably not all coincidences. Instead of having 3 or 4 preseason games and then having round 1 late March now there's 1 'match simulation' and only 1 practice match for each team and teams need to be match-ready 2 or 3 weeks earleir yet also not 'too' fit. People shouldn't take this for granted. I doubt coaches are. Back in the 80s and 90s teams would often try to win all their pre-season games as they aimed to win the pre-season competition. I'm guessing back then because many players would stay within 70m of their official position on the field all day they could easily get to Septmber with plenty left in the tank.... and often the pre-season premier would go well into September. But even by the noughties suddenly some pre-season premiers fell away badly including one or two ending up winning the wooden spoon. I'm guess even by then there was more running in games and more tired legs come September. I doubt we'll do what Hawthorn did last year. But we may be one of the teams that will improve as some other teams lose their early-season fitness advantage. Fingers crossed.

i agree with most of that. Apart from the non-comment about Gawn's personal life what else shouldn't have been said recently? I'm happy to hear that the players had good morale over summer and that they had what they felt to be a wonderful camp at Bright. Maybe the love stuff was too much (and maybe moreso after tonight). But after last year's horror season it sounded encouraging to hear that and maybe increased membership sales. It's also interesting that I've heard fans also complain about Goody only providing boring info.

There's just too much. Of course there's plenty of nonsense mixed in with what's worthwhile. Also so much stuff is irrelevant so bloody quickly I'm reminded of the saying about yesterday's papers being tomorrow's fish and chips wrappers.

I think he's on that too, probably round 6.50 tonight.

Did you leave out a question mark? What do you mean by expose? That sounds pretty serious. We have out-of-form players. Many players keep making the same mistakes. Maybe also the talent isn't (or is no longer) there. But is there some big secret that needs to be exposed?

Umm, doesn't every team/coach have to engage somewhat with the media? Every coach has to do their press conferences, at least after games. Regardless of how reluctant he is each coach has to front up to them. No one wants the equivalent of Chemical Ali as coach feeding the press BS about success while week after week they're playing like Melbourne just did. But I do like to hear what our coach thought of our games, especially when we lose and especially to see if there are hints that things will get better (and i suspect many other fans like this too). Also every team needs publicity. There can be too much but if there's more engagement with the fans themn probably there's more ticket sales, club memberships and new fans. Anyway are we really 'talking more than other teams? Or is it just that Melbourne supporters mainly focus on ..... Melbourne? There needs to be a balance and while that slip-up by Goody was silly I'm really not sure a little publicity per week vs hundreds of hours put in weekly by the whole club suggests they have the wrong focus (or they are any worse than other clubs with this.)

Especially if we have another bad game this weekend and one then watches this I get the feeling Goody talking about healing will look quite odd. This show should have been aired pre-season.

That's a stretch , yes? I'm sure sometimes a club ask some of the players' opinion. But I doubt players are actively spending their spare time doing recruiting work. At most a captain or a player friendly with the potential recruit may have a chat. But that's hardly recruiting.

Yeah, all the footy media .... some stuff will be right, some will be wrong. But really time will ultimately decide the truth. It's all well and good to hear your new draft pick is gonna win the Brownlow one day or your side is about to become a powerhouse or conversely they're hopeless. But watching next weekend, and all the weekends till October, when actual games take place suddenly all that matters are the final scores, regardless of all the predictions and appraisals beforehand .

In all honesty no team should be thinking finals yet. It's a good way of letting complacency seep in. As hypercliched as it is 'one game at a time' should be the credo for every team. Do that and a team probably achieves as much as it can, including Melbourne, however slowly we chalk up win number one.

FFS, do we need to be? While it would be great to emulate the Lions this year it has never been the pass mark .

This is the world now, people. Yes, there were pre-match and post-match footy discussions, mainly on the radio, and you could read match reports in the paper, watch World of Sport on Sunday morning and maybe even buy something like Inside Football at the newsagent. But after a bad loss it was very easy to just cop a bit of rubbing on Monday morning and then forget the footy for the rest of the week. As well coach press conferences - honestly did they even exist 40 years ago - would provide a 'soundbite' which would add an extra paragraph in newspaper articles, but rarely add more news from the weekend. Now it's so hard to hear all the noise every day about almost any [censored] the media and social media want to turn into content. We can opt out of it - try to opt out of it. But it's so hard to avoid. It's a curse and a blessing having so many footy details and avenues out there

You didn't answer my question: who were all these missing stars from Brisbane? I look forward to watching the new tactic of teams resting their best players a lot because it doesn't actually matter who they have out on the field.

Can you write?! Why write the above contradictions? They don't cancel each other out. Do you think a newspaper could say a PM is a murderer followed by "maybe he isn't" and be immune from a defamation lawsuit? Quite simply you can't say "they haven't" yet.

Absolute mayhem with two top four finishes?! Who were the 4 best missing from Brisbane? The only person missing from the previous 2 years best and fairest top 10 in their winning GF were Rich (retired) and Oscar Mac (injured in prelim). Who apart from the promising Kiddy Coleman? You're kidding if you think losing Petracca, Brayshaw the whole year plus having a compromised Oliver would not debilitate other teams if they had been as badly hit.

Umm, 666 came in 2019 and the stand rule in 2021. We won our flag after these. What are you talking about?

Huh?!!! You've decided that after 2 games?! Petracca had his first game for 9 months last week is it possible he'll be fitter later on?

How are you sure after 2 games North is still a bottom 4 side?!

Yeah, the AFL knew about today's result when they made the fixture 4 months ago. 🙄

Sorry, are you saying we should have got a 32yo Darling who averaged one goal a game last year? Even "shell of a player" Roo had averaged that this year and he's 11 years younger! 🤣🤣🤣 Fans are already complaining about recent years trades. How do you think they'd take an old player getting one goal a game especially if also by next year he's too old and spends it in the reserves? 🙄

Probably not. Sometimes teams just believe they'll beat a supposedly lesser team and have the wrong attitude. It's too simplistic to just forgive Melbourne today - they'd already lost their only game and it was never going to be a shock that a team with a brilliant coach and full of high draft picks would improve with another pre-season under their belt - and such a capitulation in the 4th quarter was not regulation-disgraceful. But we really don't know what today means medium to long term.