Gibberish

Fair point. There were more changes last week from memory, switching around the magnets. Throwing Langford forward for example. Our entries in to the forward 50 has been our biggest shortfall, no leading patterns, not rewarding leads and bombing it in long. It's not something that is going to be changed dramatically in 3 rounds however much we wish it could.

Nice to see Wilbur in the wild (terrible pun I know). It was before my time but I recognise Jane Clifton, quite a voice, I had no idea she was a singer. One of the record groups I subscribe to mentioned Dutch Tilders, again a bit before my time, but then again so much good music was. This is a more recent song. I don't think I was fortunate enough to have access to the wealth of artists you may have seen, but I was regularly exposed to live music. I think as time goes on it is becoming more of a rarity, unfortunately, well maybe just less accessible. The last outing was being dragged along to the Red Hot Summer Tour. Jimmy Barnes, Bird of Tokyo and The Living End being the acts I was looking forward to seeing. Then along came Kasey Chambers and lifted the bar so high it felt like we peaked too early in the day (actually Mahalia Barnes + The Soulmates put on a great show).

I too agree that we have overpaid to trade up but you can't highlight a player going at 31 to prove a point. How many other teams and picks passed on them before he was picked up? There's always going to be some gems in later rounds, it's more about the success rate the lower the pick (in theory). Our player development has dropped off in the last few years, so having extra picks may be a moot point.

You say motivation but I would counter with accountability within the playing group, to the club and to their teammates. Our standards have dropped dramatically. I recall a post game interview from Gawn after one of our finals exits saying that they were cooked after maintaining such a high level of defensive effort for so long that they need the extra time off (or something to that effect). I can understand the burn out and not getting the reward for effort, but when I watch them play it almost looks like some of them are silently protesting. Houston was put off by the reports coming out of Melbourne, so it's no stretch to think that there were other players reluctant to sign on.

I think Verrall has to either be delisted or elevated to the primary list after 3 years on the rookie list. I suspect delisting which is a bit of a shame, I thought he could have been a better option as the second ruck but hasn't been given the chance. Doesn't seem to effect the game enough outside of the ruck contest for Casey.

We've lost a year or two of development because we haven't tried players in different positions. We have been so inflexible that it makes it easier for the opposition as we're so predictable. I don't think we are in the position to get any value out of Petracca or Oliver (no that I want to see them leave) but we needed more experimentation for what has largely been a lost season.

My guess is the two points are probably linked. The significant deals being given out to existing players have us hamstrung with the talent we are able to bring in. Although, now that I think about it, I'm not sure how we could have brought in Houston, but maybe Kossie got some of that cap. I don't know what Trac and Oliver's contracts are, but it seems that they are being paid so much that it does not come close to their output of late. I'd hate to see them traded and us paying some of their salary for years to come. I hope that they can improve under a new coach. We have certainly lost a lot of depth without adequate replacement.

I was listening to the Port v Carlton game and the discussion was the lack of leadership at Port. They were under pressure and they had no leaders talking up and directing their team. I do wonder if we are in the same boat where we are lacking on field leadership. Plenty of good players, but missing that on field direction. Or maybe the players have just given up on the season?

I think that's a bit unfair on Chaplin. How much change do expect him to effect on the team in 3 weeks. The forward 50 disconnect has been symptomatic for 4 seasons at least.

You mentioned stability and prematurely sacking coaches, but maybe I misunderstood your point. I agree that sacking a coach won't necessarily improve struggling teams, their plight is more often having enough talent (I see us more as having an under performing team, there is enough talent there). Ultimate success, yes, but there are more measures for evaluating success.

Are you suggesting Essendon should not have sacked Sheedy and that they would have been more successful if he had stayed on? St Kilda didn't sack Lyon, he left for more money at Freo. So I'm not sure that's comparable. I don't think anyone is saying that sacking the coach is a magic bullet. I think the consensus being that a change was required. Stability is probably one of many things the board would have considered along with performances, membership and sponsorship impact etc etc. And success is subjective. I would consider winning finals 2 out of 9 seasons not a success. But each to their own.

The board didn't have to wait until 2024, they just needed to see out the finals. Melbourne is the only team to finish top 4 in consecutive regular season and lose all finals games. The knock on the contract isn't the length per se but that it was a guaranteed contract.

I was under the impression that Jones is one of two midfield coaches and he was more focused on stoppages?

If we have Buckley, or anyone for that matter, already locked and loaded then I will lose any semblance of sanity that is left. We need a deep dive on the available candidates and a considered decision, to have it locked up already would be a joke. From my understanding of the Football Department spending, there's no front ending or back ending of contracts. Hawks and Clarkson did negotiate spreading his final year over multiple years to minimise the effect on the cap, approved by AFL (another hurdle for MFC).

How do you know he wasn't given that opportunity? Maybe SG wanted a clean break. Nothing has been announced by the club yet, I'm not saying I disbelieve the reports, but we're speculating a lot when there's not much real information in front of us.

Disrespectful would be not telling him when we had made a decision.

Are we hoping Norf can break our record from last week?

I hope we don't see the father son rule removed. I know the Pies and Lions have been gifted talented players recently but I think the points system is the problem and not the father son rule. It's too easy to get a billion 8th round picks to add up to pick 1, no-one is making that deal. And to get a discount on top of that is just insulting. The academy picks should be looked at too. But just like the biased fixture, rules won't be changed if it's going to effect their cash cows.

I think you may have missed a year, it's 1,408 as at today. Getting a talent like Darcy in our forward line would have helped our fortunes this year. Not a Beveridge fan but he's had them in the finals most years.

Richardson is out of contract so I would at least expect someone to have started a process of evaluating his position and made some inquiries as to the availability of possible replacements. If we're waiting for the CEO and President to arrive first then we may have missed opportunities.

I think you missed his other platitude, not wasting another session, not wasting another game. Goodwin and the FD must think that they know this is how it's going to work, so any experimentation is just wasting valuable time. It would certainly explain their stubbornness to make any significant changes.

Whilst I am not disagreeing with any of your points, I am concerned that we need to make so many changes and wonder if anyone within our organisation has the capacity to make the right changes and appointments. There's only a few weeks left in the season, we have some time between then and trade period but it is still not far away? When do we start making changes? Who is going to start reviewing our personnel? I think the head of the football department needs an immediate review. There needs to be some urgency in our plans for change (improvement).