RalphiusMaximus

An awesome little quote from the VFL review:

Mate, I'd kill to see us beating up on interstate sides o the 'G.

Not so. We have Pedersen as a LTI and I'm pretty sure there's a free rookie promotion halfway through the year.

Fitzy had his number until he went off.

Have a look at those stats! That is the most complete game he's ever played. HE racked up disposals, he hurt the opposition with them, he had multiple rebound 50's and forward 50 entries. He even took 6 marks, the second most for the side. HE has well and truly earned a chance to show that he's improved at AFL level. The question is whether Roos is going to follow through on his oft-repeated claims that he'll promote players who force their way in or whether he's already put a line through Jordie's name and won't bother playing him no matter what he does at VFL level.

That basically sums up where Melbourne is right now. Scary.

Surely McKenzie has earned a call-up based on his numbers from the last month or two? I know people have already written him off (coaches included) but he's done everything asked of him. Once again this is a chance for Roos & Co. to stand by their word and reward the players who are breaking down the door to get into the senior side.

The Bullfrogs have drafted mids, mids and more mids for as far back as I can recall. There has been the odd tall thrown in, Stringer being the most notable, but basically they have gone for fast skillful mids at every turn, and when they had too many to use they farmed the extras out for more mid-range picks. They've traded for a FF, and now they're looking like they've got enough talent in the middle to carry them to finals.

The issue is that while we are tackling and defending more and perhaps better, we are still seeing the same fundamental problems that we saw back then. They still panic and overuse the hand pass. They still refuse to block or shepherd for teammates. They still see the high long bomb as the preferred method of entering the forward 50. They still utterly fail to see, much less kick to, the player leading into space. They still give their direct opponents too much space and as a result concede long chains of uncontested marks. Quite frankly, I would be happy to see bigger losses if I were also seeing these issues rectified. Of course, if these issues were rectified we wouldn't be losing so often, so that sentence is more or less meaningless in context.

The specialist commentators also universally condemn Roos for refusing to send an extra man forward to cover this "+1," and in at least one case credit this with costing us the game. Roos' match-day coaching has been badly shown up this year and his inability to cope with such a simple and common tactic is making him look very poor.

Doesn't make stupid mistakes, doesn't miss easy targets, doesn't flinch and give up an easy contested possession... Michie is solid. He doesn't do anything to an extraordinary level, but he does everything reasonably well and right now that is a hell of a lot better than most of our list. He is always where he's supposed to be, he works hard, he won't nail a 60m bullet pass but you can trust him to spot an obvious 30-40m pass and hit that player on the chest. Quite frankly, I don't understand how he's been out of the side at all this season.

Dawes' natural position is sitting behind a desk. Roos needs to put his money where his mouth has been all season. He tells us that he wants players to earn their spots, that it's all about building culture, then he refuses to drop players who are killing us week in week out and in no way earning their place in the side. Dawes has to go out. Jamar has been terrific at Casey for weeks now and has more than earned his spot in the senior side. That is an obvious change, like for like and will give us more impact in the ruck. THe resting ruck can play FF freeing Hogan to play CHF and use his running capacity to maximum effect. I love Gus, but he's hit the wall and needs a week off. I say drop him for a round, no game at Casey at all just rest and see if they can't recharge him for the final stretch. Viv Michie gets his spot in the starting side, while one of the better mids from Casey can take the subsititute spot, even if that means Jones, Bail or McKenzie gets the nod. Once again, Roos has to stick to his word and promote the players who have earned a call-up.

Michie doesn't deserve to be dropped. HE had 9 disposals, 2 tackles, a mark and a behind in one quarter. There are plenty of other candidates for dropping ahead of him. If anything he should be given a spot in the starting side on those numbers.

Cloke is probably out for Collingwood next week. That gives us a bit of room to mix things up. Dawes is out. TMac to the forward line to work with Hogan. We can bring in either Jamar who has been huge for us at Casey or else one of the in-form smalls. I'd love to give Hunt a shot, but I doubt hes ready.

Current players only?

Gee, it's nice and warm up here.

Much as I would love to see that, I think in the long run we'd be better off holding them back until next year. Well, except for Riley who should probably have been in the side today. It Is awesome that White is managing to have an impact and Hunt fought back from what sounds like a pretty dirty first half to have an impact. Those two I have really high hopes for.

So what exactly is wrong with our game at the moment? Let's start at the bounce. While we have a pretty decent ruck who gets hitouts, we have no system in place to extract the ball once he's done his bit. There seems to be little understanding between Max and his mids, or between the mids. Nobody blocks to clear a passage for a designated clearance player. This is all made worse by the poor hands displayed by many of our mids who can't seem to pick up the ball on the first grab. Having failed to break cleanly from the stoppage, we attempt to create space by running a criss-cross handball pattern behind the pack. This might work if the players releasing the ball followed up by blocking as they should, but they seem to think that their job is one hand-pass and then run like hell and hope someone else does the hard work. This of course results in more hand-passing as nobody has worked to create space for the player with the ball to spot up a decent kick. The issue is worsened by the fact that nobody is leading into space downfield, so there is no clear target to pass to from the stoppage. On the odd occasion where we have managed to move the ball to half forward despite the above issues, we get to the forward 50 entry. In most teams, this would be a rapid movement involving a couple of well-timed blocks leading to a forward leading into space and an accurate kick in front of them, or if they are covered into the space behind them where a space has now been created. Sadly, Roos seems determined to rely on a high ball to the top of the goalsqaure where our three tall targets will all try to take a contested mark in the same space, or possibly cause a spillage for a crumbing player to score from. The reality is that our opponents have caught on to this tactic very quickly and set up with a spare man. Each defender simply blocks their man away from the ball and lets the spare take an uncontested mark. The predictable nature of our entries and the long flight time are ideal for this tactic, making it extremely simple for opposing defenders to accumulate marks more or less at will. While the first of these points may be a matter at least partially the responsibility of the players, the majority of the blame lies squarely with the coaching. We have no system in the midfield and our forward line plan is unworkable. Roos has to address these issues.

Honestly, I agree that a lot of the players are trying. The problem is that the coach isn't. He had to be convinced to take on the job and it's pretty clear his heart isn't really in it. He's giving us nothing on match day. He continues to allow the spare man in defence and refuses to change his "bomb it long to the square" gameplan despite the fact that this plays directly into the hands of an opponent who knows how to set up that spare defender. It's as if he's deliberately trying to sabotage our forwards.

6 - Viney. Rapidly becoming an elite mid. 5 - Gawn. Rapidly becoming a real ruck. 4 - Nev. If nothing else for that monumentally late hit and then claiming that the ball had been touched. Genius. 3 - Vince. Was involved and was one of the few who did something productive when they had the chance to hit a forward. 2 - Garland. Had his work cut out against Saint Nick. Was beaten but not shamed. 1 - Brayshaw. I was amazed that he was listed as having only two tackles until I remembered that most would have been listed as effective (non) disposals or frees against due to the most influential player on the ground. Speaking of which... Most influential Player: Umpire Wallace, closely followed by Mollison. Couldn't give votes to Hogan Because he missed an absolute sitter and in a low-scoring game that kills us. Likewise Garlett. Dawes both missed a sitter and shanked passes to open forwards twice in the first quarter, so he's out. Tyson cost Harmes a chance at his first AFL goal by passing behind him. Cross and Dunn ruled themselves out with loose marking which cost us goals. Jones played on when he shouldn't have repeatedly, cost us multiple goals. Watts kept trying to pinpoint passes into the corridor and missing. Once I got through all the players I couldn't vote for it was getting really hard to find someone I could.

That was a pass worthy of a Melbourne player. Went behind the target, turned an almost certain goal into a goal for the opposition. I don't know that we could have done that so effectively.

Bombers-Port is a good game apart from the three idiots with whistles.

Looking at google maps satellite view, there appears to be parking around three sides of the ground, plus a dirt area that might be doable on the west side. There also appears to b a train stop right outside the ground, so that could be a better option.

I hope we get Motlop and absolutely shaft the cats in doing so. They've treated us like a spare development side, it's time we hit back.