praha

And so it begins.

Getting rid of JKH but keeping the likes of ANB in the side would be absolute insanity. JKH actually impacts a contest, wins the ball and doesn't panic with the ball, which is an area he has improved in significantly. https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_player_compare?playerStatus1=A&tid1=12&pid1=4067&fid1=S&playerStatus2=A&tid2=12&pid2=3957&fid2=S&type=A Granted they play slightly different roles but JKH has given us more in 2 games than ANB has all season. ANB is and should be trade bait this offseason.

Blues looking good vs Eagles. If Carlton snag a flag before we do I'll be done with football.

he really wasn't.

This is a terrible meme.

Extremely lucky to be within 5 goals. Richmond was in second gear and toyed with us. Dry conditions and they'd have run away in the second half even more than they did.

We are very lucky tonight. Richmond has been a 10 goal better side. Not that it would have mattered.

they won't escape that this week. the true downside is that we might have to listen to Viney speak.

Richmond isn't scoring from free kicks. we are gifting richmond passage through the corridor because of under-12s errors, often by our "leaders" in Viney, Jones, Hibberd.

How did you all not see that coming? Skills are pathetic.

Defending grass. Fmd.

Lever knee. Down to rooms.

There is something tragically Melbourne about Preuss so badly being beaten then, leading to a turnover, leading to Lever seemingly doing his knee. Fmd.

Viney's handball to Max along the boundary would have seen him dragged and benched for a quarter in the old days. He wins the ground ball, panics, and handballs to Gawn, who is on his wrong side, and has to kick a checkside on his right side, into traffic, leading to the ball dribbling out of bounds. Melksham rightly lost his [censored]. Does anyone else notice how often our players find themselves on their wrong side? What are we doing wrong? The turnovers almost always follow over-use, one or two handballs too many in traffic, leading to a quick kick almost directly to an opposition player. Nothing changes. That was an okay first quarter but Richmond is playing in first gear. Once they put the foot down they are going to absolutely [censored] this in. They don't even try and they waltz through the corridor. We win the ball back, have space, but no one utilises it. We flood to our own disadvantage.

These turnovers are all avoidable. It is infuriating.

Jesus christ.... is there any defensive pressure in the corridor?

Our kicking is on point today...fmd

Petty is the only player with any sort of aerial marking game

Disgusting crowd. This is what seasons like this do. Brand killing. Club killing. Coach killing. Years of hard work, we get two matches against Richmond and Collingwood and this is where we sit. Let's see if this loser club can stand up for something tonight.

Richmond is going to smash us by 12 goals. You wait and see. We'll stay within striking distance for 2.5 quarters, it'll stretch out to 28-30 points by three-quarter time, and then the Toiges will slam on 7-8 goals in the last. You just wait and see. You can predict this [censored] down to the behinds scored.

At the start of the season whenever I would tell people I go for Melbourne, it was: "Oh you guys are going to have a great season" Now it's reverted back to the awkward silence before the, "I'm sorry". People pity us and it's pathetic.

Show yourself out.

I am not talking about going in and writing "vision" and "brand" on a whiteboard. People take it quite literally and like we saw with Schwab and co when you do that you turn a philosophical approach to vision into a literal one that is difficult to articulate. But know what you stand for, who you want to be. What you want to achieve. Setting realistic goals around a centralised vision is a viable and successful mantra. Besides, it is not up to the players to create this vision. This is why we have a head coach. His messaging should underline this philosophy to drive success. You would be surprised how many talented people there are in the world that simply "phone it in": if you're getting paid regardless for achieving personal goals and targets then what does it matter if the team succeeds or not? I've no doubt a large cross section of the AFL playing community falls into that basket. If you can't build a team of players that buy into the same vision of winning, and are simply satisfied with a nice paycheck, then you are going through the motions. I've no doubt players get disappointed and frustrated at losing. But you can separate the winners, from those phoning it in, and the perennial losers. Find a middle ground and a vision those players can buy into. you might think it's all rubbish but the psychology of team success is nothing new. players may laugh when they run someone through it, the messaging delivery may be wrong but the idea of vision and brand is inherently embedded in successful teams. If you can't separate yourself from your competitors then you will never succeed. A "brand" is a way of playing football is a metaphor for "what about their playstyle differentiates them?" What is the one element of their game that propels them above others? If you can't answer that then your brand is [censored]. And your vision is failing. what's to say that team that laughed, has not changed its approach based on that idea of vision?

"Brand" is a vision. A "vision" is a direction. Where are you now? Where are you going? How will you get there? Strong and successful teams regardless of the working environment always have a strong vision with buyin. Many of you think "Brand" is meaningless. You're thinking too one dimensionally. Think of Brand as an idea: What do we want to represent and will it help us in our vision? Our "brand" is *supposed* to be that we are ruthless, we battle hard for the ball and we win it the hard way. But if that brand is unsuccessful then you need to change your vision because you're going to the wrong destination. Yes it is all corporate gobbledygook, but it has weight. When people thinking of Hawthorn of the past decade, or Geelong, or even Brisbane this year, we know what their "brand" is: it is to win at all costs. Not just on the field. Off the field too. Make sacrifices and win. win win win. I am not saying we are not trying to make that our brand but our current branding is not working or doesn't exist. what do we stand for? what do we represent? Can anyone answer these questions? If you can't then you're in no position to mock the idea of "brand".

My issue with seeing this year as an aberration is that it doesn't prompt change. We need to see it as a trend that requires change otherwise we won't improve. We have the arrogance of Hawthorn yet the record of a minnow. We can't afford to "hope" this year was an aberration. You don't finish 17th by chance. We need to make big changes this offseason. Otherwise I can't see us making finals.