mauriesy

Funny, Magner got 6 votes in The Age this morning. Maybe they confused him with Bate, but there you go.

I don't understand with modern football, where there's effectively a couple of backs, a couple of forwards, and 18 midfielders, where the game is full of transition plays and defence to the same, where you build 'structures' around the contested ball and stoppages, where you can forward press and conversely flood, where players have to have endurance and spread and run to space ... how you can actually just stick players anywhere.

The Bulldogs don't have a great forward line, nor a particularly strong defence. But if someone offered to transplant Griffen, Boyd, Cooney, Hargrave, Cross and Murphy into our midfield, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

Bit hard on Tom McDonald. The only way he'll become an AFL footballer is getting him up to the speed of the game and its wrong for anyone to blame him for our 'backline problems'. He's played a total of five games. Sending him back to Casey will just give him an easier time without learning the pace of AFL and what's required.

It's easy to pick on some players wthout understanding their role. And it's sloppy analysis to just pick on the usual whipping boys. I thought the positives today were contested ball, tackling and the way that for quite long passages of time they successfully locked the ball in the forward line with a good press, especially in the third quarter. The negatives were skill errors by hand and foot, and consequently turnovers. The Western Bulldogs had only two players with disposal efficiency below 60%. We had 11. That means half our team is either turning the ball over or sending it to a contested situation nearly one out of every two times they get the ball.

Can we all get in there at half time?

It doesn't beg the question, it raises the question. Sheesh.

That's what annoys me about these threads. You make two unproven assertions and come to a definite conclusion.

You'd have to leave in McKenzie to tag Boyd or Cooney. Think I'd drop Martin before McDonald. McDonald wasn't the worst on Saturday, at least he was better than Martin who looked like he played injured. However, the Bulldogs don't have many talls, so both Martin and McDonald might not get a gig. Have we got any runners to bring in?

I would be surprised if he wasn't teaching that.

He said that a couple of weeks ago. I don't necessarily agree. Matthews talked about our structural and ball use problems directly after the game yesterday.

Melbourne has existed for 150 years. The club has been down a lot over nearly fifty years since the last premiership, somethimes a struggle i know, but it has survived. It will survive for the next 150 years. The only danger to its eventual survival is supporters throwing in the towel. You are as proud of your club as you allow yourself to be.

"Culture", "losing mentality", "lack of heart", "lack of leadership" ... all "nothing" terms and easy, sloppy analysis, used by unthinking supporters to vent their anger. As Leigh Matthews said after yesterday, "Melbourne need to get proper structure around the stoppages, win the contested ball, use it well and spread". Then we'll get somewhere. Throwing out half the side, demoting players "forever", sacking coaches and blaming assistants without any real evidence are knee-jerk reactions that just make you feel good.

I'll have to ruminate on that one.

That's the trouble with Melbourne supporters. Wool pulled over their eyes and no fibre.

Trying to work out wether this thread is a load of old footrot.

That easy, eh?

Goals in "186"?

I can only imagine that Davey has been included for either forward crumbing and pressure, or some around-the-ground ball use and pace. Who else would provide these attributes that isn't either injured (Gysberts, Jetta, Strauss, Evans) or playing worse than Davey (Blease, Bennell)? Not an ideal situation, but the best of a bad bunch.

Good that a warning system is working and that people are taking precautions. Better a few hours sitting on a hill than dying. But a large magnitude earthquake doesn't always mean a large tsunami. If the plate shift is along the ocean floor, nothing too much will happen. If it causes the ocean floor to thrust upwards, like it did in 2004, that's when there's trouble.

It's not recruiting since 2007 that is an issue with any "change in the game". It's the core 25+ year-old players. Compare players born in 1987 or earlier (i.e. aged 25 or older after this year) Hawthorn Bateman, Guerra, Mitchell, Osborne, Burgoyne, Hodge, Sewell, Roughead, Gibson, Franklin Geelong Scarlett, Podsiadly, Enright, Chapman, Corey, Hunt, Johnson, Bartel, Kelly, Lonergan, Mackie, Stokes, Taylor Melbourne Green, Davey, Jamar, Moloney, Macdonald, Rivers, Sylvia, Martin, Dunn, Bate, Clark There's a huge difference in quality and/or experience.

Billy, I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your actual position, but you made two statements: "The main issue (from what I can understand) is that the MFC didn't do appropriate background checks ..." You used the word "that", implying fact. It's not "that", it's "whether" i.e. "The main issue is whether the MFC did appropriate background checks ...". The different meaning ought to be obvious. In another statement, you said: "Melbourne Victory, like the Melbourne Football Club, I would've thought would have done appropriate background checks. Both should be professional enough to ensure this won't happen again in the future." Again, there's the acceptance that they didn't, when we just don't know. Hence my conclusion that it seemed to be your position. If you want your position to be interpreted differently, be more careful with the words you use.

Here's your quote exactly:

So the facts you are presenting about the correct draft choice are what the players say about themselves? Gosh.

A sponsorship coordinator is not an investigator. There are three possibilities: 1. Due diligence was done and nothing was found at the time, harmful issues arose later 2. Due diligence was done, some issues were found but a decision was made that they were not harmful enough. 3. Due diligence wasn't done sufficiently well, significant harmful issues should have been found or were ignored. You (and Billy) are jumping to conclusion No. 3 based purely on the EW outcome, in hindsight. At present, we simply do not have the facts to determine whether the problem is 1, 2 or 3. Anything else is mere supposition masquerading as fact, and you are just guessing.