Lord Travis

On form, he's the worst of the 3 listed. Due to injury and form, we haven't seen him impact a game since 2018. He, like Melksham and others, shouldn't be given a free ride. It's poor culture. If he's not ready to play, then don't play him. We have a fit list and plenty of better performing and more deserving players. AVB is hardly a superstar. At his peak, he's a battering ram. At present, he's a waste of a rotation and a liability. Strong culture dictates you perform or you're out. Look at successful clubs like Hawthorn dropping players like Roughhead, Burgoyne, Bruest, Puopolo, Birchall etc when they didn't perform. It doesn't matter what your name or draft pick number was, you need to perform. On form none of AVB, Smith, Melksham, Hunt, Lever, Pickett, Tmac, Tomlinson deserve a game at present.

Right TYPE of player. Wrong player though. He's got the right attributes, he just doesn't show intensity or competitiveness. He's not very "Melbourne" in that regard. If there's nothing else of worth available, then he may be the right option at the right price though.

That was a memorable match for multiple reasons. Nicholson was rubbish that day. Travis stepped up in finals as usual. It had my favorite price of play ever - Whelan bump laying out golden boy Hird and then Travis kicking a goal from boundary line 50 on the run. Beautiful few moments of football. Umpiring cost us that match at the end! As for this weekend, I think it’ll be a close match but still have little hope we’ll find form and win. Gold Coast are competent ball winners and cleaner users. Will depend on if our mids can be smarter for once! Hopefully Weid in provides us better structure. Definitely the right In structurally at least.

Fair call. Everything’s a blur these days. So many years of failure and so few champions or great years. I still remember Nicholson getting toweled up by Matthew Lloyd in the early 2000s. How about Issac Weetra dominating?!

Happy with Smith out. He was horrible as a back men. His game against Carlton was probably the worst I can remember from a Melbourne player. He either needs to make it as a forward now or he’s an easy delist option with us having to reduce list size due to corona fallout.

Cats showing that kicking skills reign supreme. They barely handball, always looking for short kick options. Interestingly 4 of the top 5 teams have the lowest play on percentage. They mark, stop and create uncontested marking chains with short kicks. Conversely we have the highest play on percentage in the league and are the worst team in the league over the last 18 months. Basically proof our gameplan is completely wrong and we need to slow down and hit a [censored] target.

Question paraphrased: Can the issues be fixed and can they be fixed quickly? Jennings answer: It's a 30 second fix. That's just pure strategy and match day coaching. Pretty damning assessment of Goodwin right there!

Interesting to hear a previous coach pointing out these issues and that the club still haven't addressed it years on. Also interesting that teams actively target Oliver and Petracca as weak links defensively and try to launch offensive attacks through the players they're on. Also suggest Oliver be played more forward for his own development. Too many players go at the footy, opposition just wait on the outside. If Melbourne do win the ball, they're surrounded and make poor decisions as a result. Coaches do this on loop to nullify the amount of contests we win. When the opposition get the ball they maintain possession and play keepings off, and we have no way to combat that. They're two obvious strategic things that have brought us unstuck for years now. We are outcoached on a weekly basis. Until we change gamestyle, we can give 110% effort as much as we like, but we will not be a competitor.

His gut running and speed mean he's one of the few players we have covering the required ground and creating offensive opportunities. He'd be tearing his hair out most weeks as he busts his [censored] working into space on the wing, only to watch his teammates blindly bomb the ball long inside 50 directly to opposition instead of using him. Same thing used to happen to Jack Watts. He's also one of the few mids we have working back hard enough to fill gaps defensively. He's having a good season IMO and right now would be top 5 in our BnF behind Petracca and Gawn. Least of our problems and good value trade.

We're statistically the worst converting team in history (since stats were kept). Unless our forwardline and midfield do a complete 180 form-wise, there's no chance of us winning the flag this year. It's getting to the stage where we'd basically need to win 8-9 matches in a row, something we couldn't even do when in ripping form in the 2nd half of 2018. That's not to say we don't have the building blocks to win within a few years, but it's not going to happen this year.

I have unfortunately. Even in their limp pathetic form they have scored better than us, just not defended as well. Real possibility we'll be battling them for the wooden spoon.

For the record, Tomlinson played forward for the second half on the weekend and was ineffective. I agree with most of the article though and it is damning. We're the worst team in the league and some serious changes need to be made because we're a mile off the pace and going backwards.

I'd wager once Clarry passes that age mark in a yers time, that number would close to 0 and we'd have the worst crop of youngsters going round. As an indicator, we haven't had a Rising Star nomination since 2016 and the only player who came close was Spargo in 2018.

Could possibly wind up handing over pick 1. That would be disaster.

This season is so poor that there's a very real possibility we will be handing over Pick 1 in the draft to North Melbourne. That would be the ultimate embarrassment and clearest possible evidence of a stuff up. FWIW, from sources within and close to the club, I'm also hearing plenty about board changes. Board and leaders are unsure if issue is coaches or players. Also hearing that the coaches are unhappy with a certain "clique" of players who appear to be embedding poor behaviors into other more impressionable team mates. We are legitimately back to Neeld era culture of division. Things are not good internally at the moment. I admire positivity of some supporters, but fact is we are a long way off the pace and have issues as a club we need to address before we can ever dream of becoming successful onfield again.

I've been banging on about the midfield on here, saying it's unbalanced and we have too many see ball get ball types who completely lack poise and effective disposal skills. I also recommended trading Viney or Brayshaw out for a more rounded midfielder to achieve better balance. There are plenty of clubs like Essendon who desperately need contested inside ball winners and would pay for them. It would be hard to say goodbye to loved players, but tough calls need to be made. If they're not, then we continue to be a bottom four side and sit through another rebuild.

Not sure if Lyon is the man for us, but at this stage anyone would be better than what we've got. My only concern with him is can he implement a modern gamestyle that isn't so defensive. Lyon has at least coached teams to sustained finals runs. He got both the Saints and Freo competitive for blocks of 4-5 years and into grand finals. He's done more than any Melbourne coach in my lifetime! What other coaching options are available? Obviously Clarkson or someone of that ilk would be brilliant, but realistically who is out of contract or looking to move?

That free kick was pathetic and handed them a crucial goal to get a break on us. The umpire even admitted no prior opportunity, but "didn't try hard enough to get rid of it" despite it being held to his body underneath his arms where it was physically impossible to handball it. That umpire should get the sack and a curb stomping for good measure. Trac is singlehandedly keeping this team afloat. He lead our goal kicking last year, and is the main reason we won vs Carlton a few weeks back. He's been brilliant this year. Hopefully he doesn't waste the good years of his career playing in a bottom four team for years on end. Nothing would be more frustrating as a player than being dragged down by no hopers around you and answering to a dimwit coach. Here's hoping he doesn't leave!

[censored] you Clarry learn to kick you [censored]!?!

Not that it would make a difference, but the umpiring today has been ducking terrible. Haven’t noticed it be bad for a few weeks, but today has been poor. Frees incorrectly paid and not paid repeatedly. I wish I could repeatedly [censored] up at my job and have no repercussions!

Don’t blame them. He’s a stat accumulator with poor disposal and doesn’t impact games. Going backwards.

Richmond are just taking the [censored] now. We were a bottom four team all of last year and we have potentially gone backward. We’re handing North Melbourne pick 1 at the end of the year. Someone needs to be held accountable for this.

Scary thought, we might be handing North Melbourne pick 1 at this rate. Absolute shambles.

Yep. Was very noticeable and shows where our team is at. No comradery and cliques formed again. We’re dangerously close to hitting Neeld era levels.

What coaches are available? Ross Lyon? Goodwin is clearly not taking us where we need to go.