sue

Unfortunately I fear you are correct. Roos now has to scratch around for a solution, eg Frawley and Dunn up forward and pray for a ruckman to appear. As for your question in bold, the answer is yes. That is why I try to limit my reading of Demonland.

I doubt anyone is saying that a number of our problems were not self-induced, though I think you are wrong that many of the others could have easily been mitigated against. But the point is we have had a series of issues over several years, the cumulative effect must make it more and more difficult to get back on our feet. Self-flagellation doesn't help.

How do they do it? Is it simply that they don't wait to see if their teammates will get the ball, they just assume they will and run into space. Risky, but if they do get it then they are away.

Yeah, just like the decided the team which is being laughed about didn't need a PP last year.

I think we have a different definition of the word 'lazy'. You seem to mix skill and laziness as if they are interchangeable. I should have added to my earlier mail that I'm not saying that we have the skills of say Hawthorn whose kicking is scary, just that the problem of poorer skills is compounded by the mind.

I reckon it has to be a mixture of skill and mindset. Ask most VFL level players to show the same skills as are reported as being on display at our training sessions and they will probably not do as well. There must be a basic level of skill in our players but they can't handle the pressure, both physical and mental. And once the confidence goes and players start second guessing everything they do, disaster follows. To say Watts' dropped chest-mark is laziness is silly. How is that lazy? He got there and tried to catch the damn thing which he has done a million times. Either it was a freak accident or much more likely it was all in his mind, wondering how bad he'll look if he drops it, first chance of a goal for a team under the pump, mind in a spin, etc. Mental pressure that destroys concentration. There are many sports where people stuff up by doing exactly what they are telling themselves to avoid doing. Coaches say concentrate on doing it, not what could go wrong, because if you do the latter, it will. Footy is no different with dropped marks, bad short passes etc.

This in the guardian may be of interest: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/apr/03/afl-what-to-look-out-for-this-weekend This quote probably says it all: What’s also ridiculous is the thought that Melbourne’s struggling playing list can achieve very much at all in the absence of a forward target while also adapting to the gameplan and idiosyncrasies of a new coach. There is no escaping the brutal truth that Melbourne has a bottom-three list. Vince Lombardi couldn’t motivate them to any greater heights.

While I doubt that it is affecting him, he may be feeling a bit lonely whereas at Essendon the heap of guys involved would support each other against the world.

Salary cap, private arrangement, what a joke. With China Southern Airlines as a sponsor, Jones should expect his own private plane shorly.

trouble is many on this forum forget to take them.

I just thought you lived a long way from the MCG.

Not really Redleg. Given our position relative to WCE I don't think there would be much point in us trying to deceive them. We'd do better to bring more able bodies into the squad (assuming we still had some).

And would you have a good feeling by a wave of changes instead? I wouldn't be surprised by some last minute changes either, but the club has more confidence than you. If McDonald 'clearly cannot run' I'm surprised that no one noticed at the club. Maybe you know we are trying to trick WCE?

Those who rubbished any chance of Fitz and McDonald playing didn't either. Let's hope they get through.

It is clear there are two schools of thought on this and agreement is unlikely. I maintain that the information you so desperately want is of far less interest to the majority of members and potential members whom PJ is courting rather than us Demonland tragics. You either believe that is wrong or don't consider it relevant. Fair enough.

Those 50/50s for McDonald and Fitz seem to be 100/0 for both according to the final team listed for us. Or are they lying to us again? http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2014-03-28/dees-make-no-change-for-round-two

Doesn't lessen your frustration, but why expect us to be 'better' than other clubs? I'm just saying your frustration is magnified by the overall position we are in. On Hogan's injury, I think you are being a bit harsh. If they thought he had an injury he wouldn't have played in the Geelong game. So it is not an outrageous lie or even deliberately misleading/disingenuous to say he was injured in the game, even if he inflamed a pre-existing problem. There are probably things any club wants to hide, but I doubt that this is an example.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I was trying to address your point. We have copped is a high rate of injuries and combined with the frustration about the the effect on the 'new start' has led to the perception that we are copping excessive spin compared to other clubs. At any time we feel things when it affects the MFC, and particularly now. We naturally take less notice when it is the other clubs.

Just watched it and as interesting as it was to hear him speak, what did he really say that hadn't previously been said by the hated spin machine at the club?

No it is not a cop out. They all do it and presumably for the reasons which a number of posters have mentioned. We just feel particularly aggrieved and frustrated about it at our club now because about our hopes for immediate progress with a new 'star' coach, new admin, stronger mid-field etc have been railroaded by a spate of injuries to our tall players. They'd be far less concern about the spin if we were winning games.

Having only a small handful of reliable players in our club our doomsayers have the 'luxury' of redefining who the good players are all the time. They are the ones who are injured. Hence we have the worst injury record. Point 1 - no not surprising. Just need to not let emotion rule us. Point 2 - fine, as long as people don't complain about us being worse than or spinning more than the other clubs. We are all frustrated that the hoped for new start for the club under Roos with a new midfield, a decent backline and 3 serious forwards has possibly been derailed by injury. Just need to bear it and hope for better times as the the year goes on.

Didn't say there was no link. Just that one thing has a much much bigger effect than the other. IMO, most of us obsessive supporters who lurk about this forum are far more emotionally involved than the average supporter. I think nutbean has nailed it.

Good to see a post about the actual training. But surely you were just being fed spin by the players.

The performance on the field will matter about 1000 times more than any amount of anger supporters feel about being fed spin. Put it the other way around - do you think that if by some miracle we won a lot of games, those supporters would give a tinker's curse about the spin? As for me mistakenly judging the supporters - that may well be. But then so are all the spin masters at the clubs.

I really don't think the average supporter follows all this so closely that they will feel lied to when things slip by a few weeks. How many really followed Hogan's, Mitch's etc injuries day by day over the pre-season? They are closer to the 'blind lemming' than you think. I don't mean that in a disparaging way, they just aren't interested in the details to the extent people here are. All the clubs spin, it just hurts us more because of our performance over recent years. Since all clubs do it, I'm assuming the 18+ marketing gurus at the clubs know more about this sort of crud than understandably disappointed and frustrated zealous supporters posting here do. Looks like we won't agree. Complain to the club.