Nasher

I assume Josh’s “lack of awareness” was the hospital handpass he received and was flattened by Buddy the instant he laid a finger on the ball? Hopefully you’re not not using one single isolated incident, that wasn’t really an incident, and applying it to a player as a whole of quarter issue, because I didn’t see any others.

I know this is a stupid comparison, but it reminds me back to a quote from Jake Spencer when he was drafted that he chose footy over basketball because he loves hurting people. Preuss must be the same, but also good at football.

I didn’t have many angry moments at all personally. Only one I can remember was the Heeney mark in their forward pocket that two of our defenders stood and watched him take.

I’m reserving judgement on Preuss the forward. One goal was plucked out of his arse on the boundary from the ruck, the other a long kick that a competent defence would have touched. Don’t get me wrong, quite happy to take two goals and enjoyed his physical play, just not quite ready to crow yet.

Prior to about the two Jones goals in the second term, it all looked as leaky and off the mark as it had previously. We were also behind on contested possessions at half time. The second half was unrecognisable from anything we’ve seen this year to date.

The teammate to his right was Charlie Spargo. Probably didn’t see the point in putting his arm around fresh air.

Loved seeing the Wagner brothers able to share it together. Without meaning to be disparaging, they’re both fringe players and you wouldn’t expect that they’ll get to play a huge amount together over time. Must be such a great feeling. Thought they both play well for a second week in a row too.

That’s a price I’m willing to pay.

It’s the HTFU herbs that what make this stuff work.

Been sick all week and seriously doubtful my body is up to the stress and anxiety footy causes it. I suppose I’m about to find out!

And others might hold off on the declarations of career ending concussions for that very reason - that was my smarmily sarcastic point.

I assume Kade Kolodjashnij’s career is over, just like Angus Brayshaw’s was.

I ignore the match day threads for the MFC games. I might post the odd thing in the half time break to pass the time and soothe my anxiety that makes the break feel like it goes for 6 hours, but other than that I can’t bear the over the top moaning and player bagging that fills the threads. When we’re playing poorly I generate more than enough anger and frustration of my own without needing to feed off others. Plus I prefer to actually focus on the game, not my phone. But yeah, was hoping for a neat summary of the Casey game from someone not over the top. If you know what page it’s on that’d be great, I read page 7-10 and didn’t find one.

If anyone thinks this is an issue, have a read of his response to Lyon. It’s exactly what others have been saying: he didn’t understand the required standard, he saw how behind he was and worked his arse off to catch up (and probably overdid it, ergo the first injury), and knows better for next year. With an “I didn’t see Garry at training much”, which gave me a chuckle. Like I said in another thread, if he turns up out of condition next pre-season it’s a different issue. For now, cut the guy some damn slack and stop looking for reasons to be upset. There’s enough actual reasons without inventing them.

Grrr. I prefer it when the Casey games aren’t televised, so we can get the great reports from the handful of die-hards that go. The manic hyperbolic rambling of the match-day thread types drowns out all the actual proper information.

Where has all this stuff about the players not understanding the coaches coming from? It’s basically the same players as last year, with the same coaches as last year. I doubt Goody decided to start talking to them in Mandarin over the pre-season. We greatly overcomplicate things around here when things aren’t going well.

I feel like I don’t have any choice but to trust. The only thing that happens if I’m distrustful is I spend more time frustrated and anxious about what’s going to happen, which affects nobody but myself and definitely doesn’t help anything. This is a relationship I have absolutely no power in, other than to exit it, which I have no intention of doing.

The guy’s played at the Gold Coast his whole career. It’s no different to how our players from 2008-2012 went to other clubs and went “I didn’t know how fit you had to be to play AFL LULZ”. It’s why I think he gets the benefit of the doubt *once*. If he turns up unfit next year, I’ll be right there with you with pitchfork and burning torch in hand. We invested a lot in Clarry too, and he turned up fat in the 17-18 preseason. He worked his arse off to fix it, had a great year, and turned up this year in good nick despite having had surgery on both shoulders. Benefit of the doubt, once.

The gist of the message was that he’d been working his butt off to get in shape since arriving. I reckon “public bake” is overselling it; it’s more “we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but only once”.

I’m not going to try and establish the root cause of our current malaise - I worked out a long time ago that the view from TV (or the stands, sorry guys) without knowing the strategic context is too narrow to be able to do that. Nor will I pick out scapegoats (be it players or coaches). I understand why people like to single out the likes of ANB - I doubt there’s a more unclean player on our list and that dropped mark gave me flashbacks to the Dan Nicholson era. But he was also in our team last year when we were flying, so the idea that replacing him in the side is magically going to fix everything is fanciful. He’s the sort of player who will always look worse when the team sucks and better when it’s flying. The current problem is deeper and system-wide. I will say though that I’m deeply disappointed and hurting over this start to the season. I hate that flat, almost hungover feeling on Saturday/Sunday morning following a disappointing performance. We’re all feeling it and we all thought after last year that this was behind us. The odds are stacked against us now even for making finals. That’s obvious even to the greatest optimist. I’m still hopeful we will turn it around though. I think we’ve got a leader in Goodwin who can and a playing list who are up to it. It’s just a bloody shame that we’re talking about “turning it around” three weeks in to what was meant to be a promising season. I hate footy.

Loving the game of both Wagners tonight but especially Corey. Not hard to see why Goodwin liked him - he definitely plays the Goodwin brand. Hopefully that quarter is the moment we officially “click”. First one I’ve genuinely enjoyed so far this year.

When Melbourne are called upon for the media work their healthy salaries require them to perform, I’d prefer they just responded with stone silence. Better yet, take a footy in with them, so they can let their footy do the talking.

They’re just the names he dropped off the top of his head in the press conference. Indicative at best.

The old “he has a neat haircut so he mustn’t be tough enough” argument. I wonder if anyone under the age of 40 still thinks “mongrel” is a key ingredient for a football player.

Yep. The trade is a bust because we haven’t had much value in the first two games.