bush demon

9 hours ago, Pickett2Jackson said:

Absolutely right , it is in the Demon DNA.

How to fix it?  Well its been over 50 years and nobody has come up with a solution.

This is spot on. We have had good enough teams since our last flag and if this team got photoshopped into other club colours our fade outs and underachievement would vanish. So are our AFL players just journeymen on fat contracts? Look at the players after the games, they are all best mates.  If Clarkson had coached Melbourne the last ten years he would no doubt have been consigned to the scrapheap, so it's not just about the coach.  We just seem to rise to a certain level of achievement and then blancmange back into our previous state of mediocrity. Get sick of it after a few decades because the cycle of failure is so routine.

Keep your eye on the red and the blue.

How many A grade footballers did Melbourne recruit between their 1960 flag and their collapse in 1965? Bourke and Townsend? Now compare with the champions the other clubs were accumulating during that period. 

2 minutes ago, Clintosaurus said:

Mate in Brisbane texted me that Gawn won't play again this year. Not sure where he got that from.

Cliff from Clematis.

Heroic efforts by Barassi, see his courage spoiling a mark, and marking under pressure.

1 hour ago, Whispering_Jack said:

Erm, well actually ... beating Collingwood twice in the same season is better and it also happened in 1964.

Errrm, thrice.

22 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

I have serious concerns you quoted Justin Bieber..

this: 

13 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Imagine being Tom Scully.

You play at 3 clubs where you're remotely never going to be welcomed back for any future player functions, or part of any 100 game club where you receive life membership at the club..

You'll always be a loner Scully.

That's a bit personal. To quote Justin Bieber, "Who cares who the haters hate".

There are a select few clubs who can get to the big dance these days. Stupendous amount of funds redirected to no-supporter clubs in rugby states, pole position TV slots monopolized  for the Hawthorns and Richmonds to push their branding/recruitment, Orwellian lies told about how AFL is better than the widely loved state competitions, and once  in a millenium get- lucky flags, cos the feeder teams just know they can win Powerball if they keep buying tickets.

On 7/5/2020 at 10:31 PM, dazzledavey36 said:

Yeah look i am ready to pack it i to be honest. Not just the Dee's, but AFL in general. 

I got howled down on here back in March by the likes drysdale demon for refusing to buy a membership due to financial strain, and my brother battling cancer. We've had to do so many round trips each week to Melbourne from Albury just to see him. Now we are barred from seeing him unfortunately. This is on top of my Mrs losing her job over covid and trying to support a young 7 month old as well.

I eventually bought a membership just to at least have some form of hope but also give back to the club during the difficult time.

A part of me wishes I didn't buy a membership now... I'm beginning to lose interest in the game itself. I have other new hobbies that I'd like to invest more time and money into just to keep me sane.

Bit sad to read all the comments to be honest. I only post on here because we are like one big family. We argue, we laugh, and we all love this club. But it's getting to the point where you do ask we'll we ever see success. I've always been someone to at least have some hope, but even now it's just slowly fading away.

I personally also think footy will never be the same again.. the world itself will not be the same also. It scares me to think where will be in 5 years time.

 

That's a tough story to read.

9 minutes ago, BW511 said:

Richmond and Collingwood both have very good field kicks at their disposal.

It can work if you have the players for that style, we simply don't

 

Field kicking is a function of having marking forwards (Riewoldt, Tom Lynch). If we could get Weidemann/McDonald/Tomlinson functioning delivery would improve as well. Just do it Melbourne, you know it's right.

2 hours ago, picket fence said:

Greg Parke says HI!! Once held the record for number of marks in a VFL Game

One other thing .. I saw Rob Flower playing CHF in a State game,towell up Ross Glendinning playing CHB I think it was 83? Vs W.A I think he kicked 4 or 5 that day!

Just digressing, the memories did bring a momentary smile to my dial! Just for an instant!

Hi Picket fence. I only could only fit Parke on the extended bench due to his poor set shots. FWIW  His first game is/was on YouTube, he dominated.

Someone to clunk marks, it's as simple as that. If Bob Johnstone, Ross Dillon, Jako or Darren Bennett not available, then try something, try anything. We tried to climb the ladder with incrementalism, Barassi 'five year plan' - Roos, 'the handover', Goodwin, ((who got us to a prelim by the way) and now we are week by week stuck with manufacturing goals under pressure. Disposals will always disappoint in this environment. I'm old school, and I can remember Biffen going forward, Sean Wight in the '88 Elim. saved us. When forwards are clunking that's when opposition's get fearful and our mids come into play, not to mention our Picketts and Bennells. Step forward May, Weidemann. If you can't Mark it bring it down to our runners. 

1 hour ago, tiers said:

Good kicking to advantage is a function of both the kicker and receiver.

If the kicker can't kick reliably well to advantage, that's bad enough. If the receivers can't, or won't, run to receive to advantage, then that's worse. When both kicker and receiver don't play the game as they should, then you get the dees.

Jesse knew how to receive but we couldn't deliver. No wonder he got frustrated and wanted to leave. Same with Jack Watts. How often was he stranded on a lead. Too often for the good of our team. They were two natural forwards who knew where to run to receive and could convert but they were ignored and we lost the opportunity to score and have success.

The writing has been on the wall for years - how many times can we have many more forwards entries and still be outscored and lose? And nothing changes. The time to fix it is NOW. If its too expensive to replace Goodwon, then get better assistants who can help.

But just do something. Resurrecting kanga might be a good starting point.

Jack Watts would endlessly lead into space and endlessly be ignored, bombing high into a contested situation being the preferred option.

Just watching a bit of the '66 SANFL grand final when our game was called Aussie rules. How sad the pale imitation AFL is in this era. Behold the passion of the SA crowd, the intensity of the opening exchanges and the magnificent hulk, John Tilbrook. If only we had preserved the state codes in that form with perhaps a championship of Australia to be played at the end of state GF week. The drop kick would be returned with 9 pointers on offer for goals outside the 50 metre arc. State teams could be composed of 9 players from each GF team. Week 1 would be a qualifier betw. SA and WA states and the final played the following week on the MCG versus The Big V. The Australian cricket captain could toss the coin. The rugby states could play the two curtain raisers.

Wait, it's Saturday morning in June 2020 and football is on again this afternoon.

Was it around this time that both Carlton and Richmond were secretly courting Norm Smith/Barassi?

On 6/15/2020 at 5:12 PM, MyFavouriteMartian said:

I haven't pulled it to pieces to dissect it, but I have noticed it time and time again.

The teams under Northey played with much more aggression,  which elevated us to a higher level.  And with that heightened awareness, came more hunger.

 

That was the basic difference between Northey's and Barass's teams;  although the kids had started to come thru from Barass's sides,  into the era of Northey's coached teams;  so there was a unity,  a brotherhood,  that knitted everything together. 

And there where AJohnson and Hughes SWight, BLovett, were in the teams;  and '87 saw Viney,  Spalding  and WDean arrive,  with Koopy,  and others Mumbles Bailey was already there,  so the team/club,  lost its timidity of the physical world of AFL.  And Strawbs and Stynes, Tingay, Yeater, and others,  we had a no-nonsense team with a winning mindset.

 

That team was a bit like,  Aussie Golf & Greg Norman.   Aussie golf rode on Normans coat-tails,  as he forged and slashed a pathway thru world golfs jungles.  And since many have trodden that path with less expended mental energy to get thru. and so they have more to use when they got there and they did indeed, grab success.

 

Now with the Northey teams;  our USA of Golf were the Hawks...  and we got pummeled a few times,  just like Norman did in the US majors.

What Melbourne really needed was to continue developing youth in a healthy cultural environment.  But that environment eroded,  the learning and disciplined environment of growth eroded.  And went sour.

Became more about individuals,  than about the team and club.   This is when the tail grows large,  and wags the dog.  

And the rest is now history.  And that lasted past a few coaches,  until the club and list was stripped right back to bones. 

And Roosy came onboard to rebuild,  onto a few remaining players,  who had hand-me-down attitudes and culture.  And a hangover of sorts,  from 2 decades of ware and tare and generally an undertone of self interest.

This is why talented teams without the right attitude and hunger,  still fail.

With Northey we would drop 5-6 games on the trot before we got our intensity/ white line fever back. This cost us high finishes in several years meaning we had to play interstate finals.

I just wanted to say that Australia have Yorkshire in trouble at Sheffield, with Yorkshire sitting at 5/85 on the second day after Aus. had declared at 8/295. Garth McKenzie has picked up two.

13 hours ago, Whispering_Jack said:

Given the number of times in recent years that others have done to us what we did to Carlton, I’ll take the money and run. They’re a better team than what they’re being credit for and I think we’ve lost the fitness edge we had earlier in the season.

It’s already clear that this is going to be a different year - one that’s going to involve changes from weeks to week, experimentation and creativity. We don’t look like we’re in the race based on the first two rounds but history tells us that you can’t judge your fortunes on one or two games. I remember us in 2018 suffering a bad loss early against Hawthorn and thinking we were no hope for the season ahead. But we turned it around, won a couple of games and gathered momentum to finish in a prelim final. We have 15 rounds left and there’s still time to do the same again.

This must be the worst wrist-slashing after a win I've ever heard. A 30-40 pt lead is nothing these days, we did shut them down when it counted. Once we get someone to clunk marks in the forward half we won't be so vulnerable on the rebound.

3 hours ago, CYB said:

I agree but he is mfc supporter and it must take great resolve to hold back as much as he does. If it was me...

You obviously don't listen to the Coodabeens champions in QB weekends.

I remember Crosswell and Carmen taking some big speccies in the red and blue, they were absolute dominators for their clubs. I think Carmen played a few blinders for us. Seemed to be able to take big pack marks at will when he was on.

21 hours ago, binman said:

The big if is will his calves hold up. If he does remain injury free fit he will be a gun week in and week out.

And totally agree he could really change our fortunes. I have followed the club a long time. In term of recruits probably only Peter Moore comes close in terms of potential impact on our team. 

I think Kelvin Templeton was the triple A excitement factor, until it was realised he could no longer kick further than 35M.

On 5/27/2020 at 11:06 AM, TeamPlayedFine39 said:

It is becoming more and more common in the AFL for clubs to move away from cities and 'spiritual homes' in order to find space.

Six months ago, I didn't love the idea of Casey, but, as we all know, a lot can change in six months.

GFC taught us that governments will put money into projects that are ready to go and get people on the tools as quickly as possible... Perhaps instead of viewing diving into a Casey Fields development as a rushed decision, we see it as an opportunity to grab stimulus funding for a growth corridor amongst marginal seats.

(whilst also throwing our weight behind the Cranbourne bypass)

It is a colossal amount of space with virtually identical dimensions to the MCG, neighbouring running track, swimming pool across the road, plenty of additional ovals...  
 

Interesting fun fact that Casey is the demographic centre of Melbourne; or as Norm Smith once said, "I am Melbourne".

2 hours ago, whatwhatsaywhat said:

what i'm finding interesting about this is that - unlike a lot of clubs who were successful from the 50s to the mid-00s - is that we really didn't seem to have a regular key forward target

it would seem to me that we played more of a 'modern' style game of football where the goals were shared around and it was more about the overall contribution of the team as opposed to have a clear 'target' up forward?

I think part of it was that we didn't have a big marking full forward like Peck, Wade, Waters, Ken Fraser etc so had to play a fast, swarming style game.

Lots more professional coaching now, but kids in the old days learnt their art in primary school, in the backyard and in the street hence the magnificent kicking of footballers in the 60s. The 1973 YouTube game between Carlton and Hawthorn and the '65 GF also on youtube shows much we have devolved into a boring system-based game.