drdrake

It is going to be an interesting selection. Changed opinion since last night Jetta has always been slow but was able to use his body and read the ball just seems to be a mile off at the moment. Bennell or Pickett(it might be Pickett to pay in Adelaide the following week)will miss, we want both cherry ripe for North and Collingwood. Our last 6 games are all winnable games V dogs, Freo, Essendon, St Kilda, Sydney, GWS we need to hopefully come out of the current 5 game block with 3 wins leaving as at 6 wins then win 4 out of our last 6. One off Brayshaw or Harmes will be dropped. Still think Tmac comes in and we play 3 talls. Out Jetta, Pickett, Brayshaw In Tmac, Sparrow, Tomlinson Give Harmes a job on Robbie Gray, Harmes needs a job it keeps him focused and the good players lead him to the ball, I reckon he gets lost trying to find the right spot.

Out Brayshaw, Jetta, Harmes In Rivers, Tmac, Tomlinson Jones got better as the game went on

Weiderman A fine line He kicks 2 or 3 goals and its a great game, absolutely shanked all 3 shots

6 Viney 5 May 4 Lever 3 Oliver 2 Petracca 1 Langdon

The last 30 seconds sums our game up, just smarts, the smarts to man up with a minute to go, the smarts to hit the top of the square instead of kicking out on the full, the smarts not to give away 50m. Angus needs a spell, harmes the same. Jones built into the game. We need to play Tmac we need another tall option ad a hit up outside of Gawn. Jackson and weiderman are playing well deep but we need another marking tall to present for that kick outside defensive 50

Bad kicking, story of all our loses

With the forecast of rain Id bring in Tomlinson, keep Tmac fresh for next Thursday. It is heavy rain forecast all week end the oval will be chopped up badly. Bring in a big runner that can play big minutes so we can ease workload on others

I think our 1998 team was the best team I've seen play for Melbourne, that forward line that contained Neitz, Schwarz, Lyon, Farmer, Yze then add in Smith or Robertson. You had Stynes and White as your rucks a great balance of experience and new mids and backline was good. We smashed the premier in the finals, we just struggled against North Melbourne. Sliding door moment, we beat North in the prelim we would have beaten Adelaide in the GF, I wonder what our club looks like now

The big one for us is how we manage Max Gawn, most other areas we can cover. Preuss hasn't played this year, not sure if he has even had a run in the scratch matches. All other clubs will also have a bye after this block of games we don't so we need to manage our players.

Melksham is basically playing as a marking forward at the moment and offering very little defensively or when the ball hits the ground. I think TMac comes in for him. That gives us Weiderman as deep forward and two hit up mobile talls in Jackson and Mcdonald.

It was a good win but Hawthorn were witches hats, that is the first time in a very long time that we just bullied a team, broke tackles took contested marks, Hawthorn was just dis-interested. The last 2 weeks our set up has been better, we don't seem to be pushing forwards into the midfield as much and we seem to have 1-2 deep options that are getting a crack at it one on one rather than 3 on 1. Still work to do, we are making silly turnovers, got away this this yesterday but this week we will get hurt.

Thought Brayshaw really struggled by foot, the other 3 agree. Could Tmac replace Melksham

The game this year is faster running game, Jackson is a better option than Brown and with the likelihood of a big block of games we need a legitimate second ruckman playing.

Had to happen, Gawn needs a break, expect to see Weiderman up the ground a bit with Jackson and Gawn playing deep when forward.

Jackson comes in we need a ruck to play 30 odd percent of game time, max can't keep doing what he is especially with the upcoming schedule.

Great to get the win, we did keep them in the game though. Good to see us hit targets inside our forward 50m arc but there should have been 5-6 more with players still missing a lot of easy options. Take the win but we still have massive room for improvement, tidy the turnovers going inside 50 up we win that game by 5-6 goals.

This is gearing up for 4-5 day back ups, you are going to need to manage players. We really need to bring in a second ruck that can play 40% of time to give Max a spell or we will break him

Would like to see Salem on the Wing. Funny we made the statement last year that we tried 20 odd players on the wing and had no one this is why we drafted Langdon and Tomlinson. They won't have the courage to move Salem off half back so the Wings will be AVB/Brayshaw/Harmes

Because we don't back our skill to hit a 20-30m target. We default to kicking it as long as we can and hope we can lock it in deep. We miss the shallow entry kick and it comes out real quick, with little chance of us defending. Jennings has just said what we have all be highlighting for 2 years, if not longer. I wonder if he had differing game plans that Goodwin shut down, this guy was our main assistant coach all off the sudden fell out of favour sent to the VFL and then gone.

You are clutching at straws if you think Hannan is setting world on fire. It all stems from our game plan and disposal though, not many forwards in the competition would be on fire playing for Melbourne

We only play at best a 4 man forward line, until we even this up our forwards will struggle. The hole idea is we win the ball at the contest maintain possession until we can get enough players forward to even up the out number. The issue is we win the ball handball, handball, handball and handball, each handball creates more pressure that either leads to a turnover at the contest or a bomb to the outnumbered forward line. Play forwards forward and element 2-3 of the handballs and if we are forced to bomb it long it isn't to an out numbered forward line, then have your forwards working hard to compete and locking the ball inside 50m or scoring, the issue is we don't do either at the moment, ball goes in comes out with speed and over lap that leads to our back 6 and mids having no chance to defend. That is our No1 issue and until we fix this we are stuffed

The issue with the point about going to fast, when we try to slow the game down and keep the footy we turn it over. We go inside 50 enough to win games, the issue is we always go in to a massive out number, we don't have a side way or short option as all our loose players are with in 5m of the contest, that is our game style. In 2018 we played the same way but we controlled the ball from the contest our spread was a great, no we just have 3-4 handballs with in the 5m of the contest we don't seem to be able to find that over lap space. We then bomb long the the waiting out number. Every team knows how to beat us, it is easy, your back 6 stay across Half Back and rebound quick once we turn the footy over, do something different hold your forward 6, back your mids to win the footy and at least make our forward 50 entries a contest and even more so give us a chance to keep the ball in there.

At the time No, we had Hogan and Tmac plus a developing Weiderman when we got Lever, we come off a successful season with Tmac and Weiderman standing up in finals, our biggest gap was key defenders. Now we have no Key forwards that can impact a game.

I think we all need to understand the financial position of the club, we can't afford to sack a coach and the AFL doesn't have the money to give us to do so. We are stuck with Goodwin, we need to surround him with high quality assistant coaches.

We can't compare our forward line to St Kilda or GWS, they have genuine talls forwards and high quality small forwards. The reason why we over handball is that is were our free players are, we push so many players to the contest with in 3-5m that when we get the ball the kick option is 3-4 opposition player sitting back waiting. This is our number 1 issue our game plan that was a carry on from Roos is to get players around the contest. We essentially don't play HFF's they push into the midfield, that leaves 2 defenders just sitting back waiting for the kick into our forward 50m arc. We need to maintain the ball until our players push from the contest forward, unfortunately we aren't good enough to maintain the ball we turn it over and our opponent has loose players everywhere as our guys are working hard forward to be an option, the opposition just holds a zone and waits for us to turn the ball over. Simple solution, have your forward 6 maintain position at least make it a contest when we go inside our forward 50m arc. Make teams beat you in your midfield and not beat you attacking of their Half Back Line. Every team knows the game we are going to play and are happy to let us do this as they know they can attack with speed of Half back. The last quarter the first 4 minutes, 3 intercept marks to Richmond in our forward 50m arc. When we are outnumbered like we are Richmond used the spare players to block and protect. The one's that frustrated me though was when we would win the centre clearance and our forwards were so far behind their opponent, the opposition should never take a uncontested mark inside you 50m arc after a centre clearance. Goodwin has a choice, keep playing the same way or make a change, I can't believe he didn't change our game style after 2019. It worked in 2018 because TMac was grabbing everything or at least bringing it to ground, add in Weidermans 4-5 game cameo we looked like a million dollars as our tall forwards were creating a contest. This hasn't happened in 18 months and the fact we don't play 2 tall forwards with the game style we play is a massive selection error. We play mid size forwards for run and defensive pressure, they offer little of both. At least Pickett has show he is willing to chase hard to put pressure on. If we don't maintain our 6 forwards nothing will change.