CHF

Just checked on google maps and from my front door to the 'G' is 16,607.31kms. I did watch the whole bloody lot on my live stream. .... And have watched the replay a couple of times to work out what I saw. Is that a good enough excuse?

As William Wallace was once heard to remark.......

I've given up trying to predict selection and picking a team and giving my compelling reasons why I am 100% right and they should leave team selection to me. Having said that, the team this week, given the unavailables and injured, is about as good as we could put together.

It is not a matter of being pleased or displeased with the selections over the last two weeks. It was just a reflection of the reality of the results. Additionally, with regard to team selection, I do not believe that it is possible to please ALL of the people at any time.

Last week we gambled on selection and had a win... this week we also rolled the dice and lost. I think to walk (or fly) away from these last two games with 4 points given the loss of Petracca and Gawn is not a bad result. A few observations... a. It is foolish in hindsight to go into the season with no recognised back up ruck. We have bought in a couple of NQR talls/forward/rucks (?) that we wanted to develop and that has not worked out. Bad list management or bad luck? b. I would still like to have seen one of the talls given a run on Sunday so that we could have a look at them in context. c. With Brayshaw's medical retirement, Oliver's lack of a pre-season and Petracca's long term injury our midfield is very underpowered and badly structured. It looked like we did not do any research into the setup of Fremantle's mids at the bounce or stoppages. d. Given the lack of midfield cohesion and structure I find it difficult to be critical of either our Defence or Attack on Sunday. With no defensive pressure between the arcs from boundary to boundary, it was impossible for the defence to hold up. Similar for the forwards. No attacking structure through the middle gives the forwards, no clue as to where to lead or where the ball is going to arrive. e. One other observation. Our defensive team lead by May and Lever is still one of the best in the game not only during the game but also off field in driving the standards and culture of the club. Some of this might be down to Troy Chaplin, I am not certain to what degree. One thing I do find interesting is the way the players from the defence are finding their feet in other roles within the team. Petty and Turner in the forwards, Rivers and Salem as mid rotations. This development of role flexibility is critical to our future success and I hope that it continues. I am at an age where I have a hell of a lot more long and winding road behind me than open road in front. When I survey my journey as a MFC supporter over the years a couple of things stand out. Win the midfield and you win the game. Players that play with imagination and a smile are always my favorites. Anyway.... onward and upward to the next game.

the mousetrap worked to perfection.... well done Goodwin and co.

The mousetrap is working. so far... so good.

so far..... so good.

Goodwin and the selectors have come up with a cunning plan and believe they have built a better mousetrap. All we need now is for essendon to chase the cheese. Dees by a couple of goals.

Well, this selection has made the game a hell of a lot more interesting to watch. A lot of pressure on the midfield to step up and force turnovers. I feel that is going to be the key for us. Mildly confident about a win on Saturday evening. Go Dees!

Looking forward to seeing how we cover Max's absence. I don't see us changing our setup very much after the good pressure we showed last game. It will also be a bit of an unknown for the Bombers as they, along with all the other teams in the comp set up to Max's taps most of the time and accept a negative, covering attitude at the center bounces and, to a lesser extent at stoppages around the ground. Without Max there they will need to adjust to their ruck winning more taps and their mids will need to be more aggressive at the ball rather than trying to negate our mids. It may open up the work around the stoppages for us a little. I am sure we are doing a lot of work on all of their possible rucks to put in place a few options as to setup to ensure we get some good clearance numbers. Around the ground I think we can cover them. It will again require a lot of thought and planning to work our way around this but the basic nonnegotiable is that we bring the pressure for 4 quarters and force the turnovers. Force the turnovers and nail the transition with speed and being clean by hand and foot. B: Lever, May, Bowey HB: AM-W, TMac, McVee C: Langdon, Oliver, Windsor HF: ANB, JVR, Pickett F: Melksham, Fristch, Chandler Fol: Fullerton, Viney, Rivers IC: Salem, Sparrow, Tholstrup, Turner, Verrall - sub Yep... I know no Petty, and Verrall as sub. The forward setup last week worked as good as it has all year and I think it would be a good thing to give it another run. Petty at Casey for mine. We do not seem to use the sub as an aggressive move at all. It may be an evolving role for all teams but I think this may work for us. Fullerton as main ruck with Turner as back up. Those two can rotate between ruck and forward as required. As long as we do not have any injuries we bring on Verrall half way through the 3rd quarter for either of them. We get to see what he has at this stage and a fresh set of legs to run the oppo ruck around a bit more.

Agree with this. Noticed it at the time and was surprised by the warmness.

Unbelievable. I had to check and make sure that we were actually playing the lions tonight.

Ok. I put my hand up and admit it. It is all my fault..... the lack of form for some players..... The injuries to key players..... the dodgy selections... the match day coaching and even Oliver's hard tags.....All my fault. I have been travelling over the last 4 weeks or so and have just not been attentive and able to give the team the benefit of my sage advice. I apologise. All down to me. The good news is that I am back in home base, rested and well and ready to watch the team respond to my online presence. I am sure that they will be able to hear me yelling advice from 15,000kms away. The wonders of modern technology. Lever back. Defensive tighter and better structured. Oliver to shake the tag and have a blinder in support of Viney and The Mighty Mississippi (Rivers) Forward line to to perform a smooth as a cat pi**ing on ice. All good and puuuuuuuurfect. Go Dees! A win for the Goodies by 5 goals.

As with the majority of others on here, I see this as a very difficult game to win. However, I do not see it as impossible. Against North we prevailed with a large number of our players underperforming, out of sorts or just plain not looking fit for the task. (why is it that we never look good after a spell?) Defence. Looks as if we will welcome back Lever this week which is a good thing. The defensive structures have looked like a car with a flat tyre while he has been out. It will be good to get the Lever/May partnership back pointing and arguing. I would keep Tomlinson in the team and drop Howes for Lever at this stage. AM-W to debut is a good thing. He has flexibility to fill roles at both ends of the ground and he can cover medium/small defence or Small forward. Interestingly we have three tall defenders that were in the team as forwards last week and we may well need two of them in the team this week to give us tall defensive cover and flexibility. Brisbane have a lot of tall forward players that could bother us. While I believe that our defence will be the key to our chances of an upset, it is the midfield where we need more polish and grunt. If they can work their arses off to pressure at HF and in the middle it will help the defence immeasurably. Midfield. Max needs to lead. Sounds like a strange thing to say, I know. However, last week against North he looked distracted to me. there looked to be a lot going on with him off the ball and it seemed to get to him. Viney always seems to step up when either Oliver or Petracca is out. Last year it was Oliver out. He relishes the responsibility and was great last week. He need a few mates in there. I understand Oliver being tightly tagged and I also hear the voices critical of him and calling for him to be dropped. I have to say that those asking for him to be dropped are judging him by his champion standards of past seasons and not on his contributions for this season which are still of an excellent level. He stays in. I liked Rivers getting a run there and have always thought he should get more of an opportunity in there. Sparrow has to be challenged to step up his game. Ask him to take on more responsibility, use his strength and power a bit more. Salem, ANB, Tholstrup and Woewodin are options to run through there as well depending on the team makeup. With AM-W in the team is there a possibility for Pickett to get more minutes in the middle? If he can be effective in there he may take some of the pressure off the Oliver tag and give him a bit more space to work. We have a lot of flexibilty and options in this area but we need to coaching staff to come up with effective structures and plans to work through both in offense and defense. Forwards.... Hmmm... yes, forwards.... What to say? JVR? Petty? Turner? TMac forward or back? Fristch, Where has he been the last few weeks? Chandler? Kossie more midfield minutes to shore up our stacks there or have him front and center at the drop pf the ball in the forward 50? All questions and not a lot of answers. My thoughts for this week? Persist with JVR and Petty as the two main tall targets and try to work out a way of getting more effective work out of Fristch. TMac in the side as cover forward and back. If Oliver is not effective with a hard tag I would look to play him forward for a bit as long a we get the work out of the rest of the mids. Chandler stays in and is asked to work hard on the pressure in the forward 50. The team? B: Lever, May McVee HB: Bowey, Tomlinson, Salem C: Langdon, Oliver, Windsor HF: Sparrow, JVR, Pickett F: Chandler, Petty, Fristch R: Gawn, Viney, Rivers IC: ANB,TMac, AM-W, Tholstrup, Brown (one of the last two to be sub)

I will take 4 points week in week out any time rather than a loss. I do not care who they are or their ladder position. Anyone, anywhere, any time.give me 4 points. Move on to next week and build on a win.

I do hope that the match committee sit down with a clean sheet of paper and talk and think through the selection strategy for the North game with a clear eye to medium term and long term futures as to what we want to get out of the rest of the season and the next season. I don't believe that we will shelve this season at this stage of the season but will look at the results over the next three games to define a direction for the rest of the season. A possible team for North: B: McVee May McDonald HB: Rivers Tomlinson/Lever Bowey (dependent upon Lever's fitness) C: Langdon Viney Windsor HF: ANB Fullarton Chandler F: Pickett van Rooyen Fritsch R: Gawn Oliver Sparrow Int: Tholstrup/Sestan Jefferson Salem Woewodin Sub: Sestan/Tholstrup Three debutants, Fulleraton, Sestan, Jefferson. Back six select themselves pretty much. No Petty he gets to have a run, back or forward, with Casey. If Lever does not get up, bring in Tomlinson. The guy deserves a game or three. Salem to be a cover for the defence. Langdon and Windsor run the wings. In the middle we have Viney, Oliver and Sparrow as the grunt. In the absence of Petracca I expect Viney to step up. He did last season when Oliver was out. We need him to do the same now. ANB, Pickett, Woewodin and Salem to cover some minutes in the middle. Sestan/ Tholstrup to also rotate through there. With one of them starting as Sub with a view to slotting one in for the other as the game progresses if injuries allow. With the forwards I would bring in both Fullarton and Jefferson. If they kick a couple of goals between them we are ahead of the game. Barring injuries, I would try to keep an unchanged team for the next two matches after that a well. Minimal changes. That is my 2 cents worth.

From Goodwin's presser after the last game I take it that he is admitting that the adjustments that were made to our game plan during the off season have been to the detriment of the team performance. As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, the team look to be over coached and hesitant in their play. This may be because they are thinking too much about what they have to do rather than responding to the situation intuitively. Therefore, they do not look to be enjoying their work and positive results are not forthcoming. We now have a break and I hope to hell that the coaching staff are looking to reset the season. Injuries are what they are and we have to work around availability. Team game plans, structures and individual performance and form are all thangs that a coaching panel can have a positive effect on if they are doing their jobs properly. I am sure that they are working on these things. I hope they are successful. Now comes the fun part. I get to harp on about what I think is best and what I would do. as with others on this site, I am working from the outside with limited/no real knowledge except what I have observed. Starting with team selection I would look to play players in positions where they have performed best. Petty/Turner in defence, TMac in the forwards. Turner looks lost in the forward 50 and Petty has just not performed or contributed at all this season as a forward. TMac has looked good in defence but when moved forward, where we have serious deficiencies, kicked a couple of goals and looked to as if he knew what he was doing. The midfield that was our main strength in seasons past is much depleted with the retirement of Brayshaw, the injury to Petracca and the dip in form of Oliver. Viney's form is also not what it was. Viney and Oliver may be victims of the adjustments in game plan. Different roles and priorities at the stoppages? Prior to Petracca's injury we had robbed the midfield by playing him in the forward 50 to try and strengthen and area where we had problems. Another example of playing a player out of their strongest position. The midfield to take the ground against North? Put the wood on Viney and Oliver to step up into driving leadership positions in there and work out ways to benefit from Gawn's dominance at the stoppages. Give Sparrow the opportunity to work more around the ball. I feel he is one that has more to offer in there if given the chance and the confidence. ANB to tag and rotate through there along with Pickett. Both used sparingly as required. With midfield injuries and form the way they are I would look to try a couple of others through there. I would also give Woewodin a run there. I know I have argued to play players in their best performed positions but I would also look to experiment and be prepared to make the moves if the experiments are not working. If the defence is holding up during a match I would look at using Rivers, Salem and possibly McVee through the middle to see if that changes things up. Rivers and McVee are young players that we can develop and both, in my opinion, have attributes that could be worked with to to develop in the midfield. Of the players at Casey I think that over time Tholstrup may become a player but this may not be the time to step him up. might be a bit too much pressure to put on him at this stage. I would be tempted to give Sestan a run. He has been on the list a while and we need to see what he might bring I just don't see Laurie making it. In the games he has played I have just not seen anything to get excited about. We have options and opportunities in the middle of the ground we need to make the best of them. The forward cupboard is still look bare. JVR, a youngster developing his game in the top league. Fristch, as our mainstay scoring opportunity. Pickett needs to work closer to goal and at the feet of he talls where he is really effective. After those three there is SFW as effective forward/goal scorers go. We could try K. Brown, too young?. B. Brown, Knees, too slow? AMW, being played in defence at Casey? We need to get a different look and feel about the team and, above all, we need an effective game plan that will get the players enjoying playing the game once agin.

What was that sound???..... What was it? Sounded a bit like a window closing and being locked...... And that tinkle at the end???... key being thrown away?

We really are a mess. Seems like we dug a hole for ourselves pre-season with the adjustments to the game plan that do not appear to be working. We also persist in playing players out of their position and players get chances even though they are woefully out of form. Bad training, bad selections, bad coaching.... all of that equals bad results. Looking back I do not see one game that we have played well. Recent games have been the worst run of games we have had in the last 5 years or so. There are no excuses, only reasons for the way we play. See above. There had better be some clear thinking and straight talking over the bye. Disgraceful display today.

As I turned the game off at 3/4 times I wondered to myself “How can Melbourne serve up this garbage in a game?” ThenI thought to myself “That is very harsh on Garbage.” In this day and age of Wokefulness I have to express myself more correctly. So, let me be clear. That was the worst performance I have seen in the last 20 years. No qualifications, no excuses.THE worst performance in the last 20 years. That includes the infamous 186 game. At least at that time we had the excuse that we were sh**. I hope the whole club is embarrassed and hurting having served this up. I see this game as the nail in the coffin of the ‘tweaks’ we made to the game plan over the pre-season. It is clear that, either, the adjustments that were made are not working or we do not have the players to execute. If it is the former then we need to revert to our game plan of last season. If it is the later then adjust the structures and plan to the players strengths. I have said this before and I will say it again...... play the players where they are best suited. Petracca in the midfield, Pickett as a forward, TMac as a forward.... Petty in the defensive 50. Goodwin talks of the ability to reset. He and the coaching team need to drive a major reset of the team and the game plan right now. Whatever the present game plan is, it is not working. We have a list with individual talent, skill and footy smarts, it is clear to me that we are not getting the teamwork that is required to drive consistent confidence. I am a supporter of Goodwin but he and his coaching team need to respond. Take responsibility and take the lead. This is looking like a wasted season unless we can turn it around immediately.

Game starts at the ungodly hour of 5am my time so I will most likely be watching later at breakfast and coffee. People coming for lunch so I will celebrate/drown sorrows with some excellent wine and food. Dees to win in AFS by 5 goals and move into 3rd on the ladder.

I would think that one of Brown or Turner on the IC along with Sparrow, Hunter, McVee and Woewodin and Laurie as Sub. I would go with Turner as a forward rather than Brown.

I have not given up on Season '24 as yet. There is till a long way to go. The team need to re-group and re-focus. There was very little teamwork on display over in Perth and we need to get back to running hard in support and to get to position in transition BOTH ways. To me this was the biggest problem. With Lever we lost one of our finger pointers (organisers) early and it seemed to unsettle the defensive 50 big time. The team I would like to see against the Saints is the following: B: Rivers, May, Petty HB: McVee, TMac, Bowey C: Langdon, Petracca, Windsor HF: Mc Adam, JVR, Sparrow FF: Fristch, Fullarton, Pickett Fol: Gawn, Oliver, Viney IC: Chandler, Woewodin, Salem, ANB, Howe Midfield to have Petracca, Oliver, Viney and Sparrow as the main drivers with Petracca to play a majority in the middle. The link between himself and Oliver needs to be re-built. It has been missing this season so far. Guest spots in the middle for Pickett, ANB, Salem, Woewodin and I would like to see Rives given a couple of chances there. Move Petty back into the defensive 50 to partner with May and TMac. he has been ineffectual as a forward so far. Fullarton to get a chance to fill a role. Laurie has had his chances and has not taken them. I would like him to work out but I really doubt he will make it. Jefferson looks too lightweight at this stage and might need a season or two to get the build to make an impact. At some stage I would like to see Sestan, K. Brown and Tholstrup get a run. Hunter and Billings I am not impressed with. Spargo and Melksham to come back from injury to boost the list at some stage.

A tough loss to accept. Once again and has it has been for the last few years, our problem is the forward 50. You might tell me that we have to get the ball in there to know how good/bad the forwards are and that we are just not doing that. I would argue that we are robbing our defence and midfield to patch up the forwards troops. This is to the detriment to 2 out of the three areas of the field. Petty moved into the forward line and, so far in his games this season has done nothing of note. Turner from defence gets a run there and kicks three in his first game there and then nothing. Petracca gets a run up there from an already depleted midfield through the loss of Brayshaw and the depleted midfield is flat and slow and second to the ball. An old adage, but none the less true, it is won and lost in the midfield. We were proud of our ability to reset during games but we have lost our ability to do that. I would like to see a team reset driven by the coaches and selectors. Lever is out next week. Move Petty back there to partner with May. Howe, Rivers, Bowey and McVee to cover the rest. TMac forward with JVR, Frisch, McAdam, Chandler, Pickett. Rest a mid there when required. Midfield, now we get to the nub of the matter. Petracca, Oliver and Viney the main drivers. Two out of the three at each centre bounce. ANB, Sparrow, Salem to get runs there along with Pickett and Rivers as required tactically. I would give Woewodin a chance in there as well and Tholstrup needs to show what he can bring. back to basics....play players where they excell...... and use their positional flexibility as plans B, C and D. play to our strengths in defence and midfield and let the goals arrive from good team structures and play. The ‘tweaks’ we have made this season have not been effective. no rebuild... the building blocks are there..... use them wisely.