praha

Hannan has been average since 2017. Let's be honest. He had a good finals series and like a few others appears to be running on fumes this year.

I agree but I'm really just setting expectations for fellow supporters. finals aspirations should be over. The club should be looking to use the next 10 weeks as the start of an extended pre-season. Pivital we win at least 6 of our remaining 9 games.

Nah it's over. Not only are we looking at having to win 10 straight to end the year, we need 6-7 upsets, including 2-3 HUGE ones, to go our way at the right time. PLUS %. The best we can do now is finish as strong as possible and get some momentum going. Big scalps wouldn't hurt either. All of Eagles, Pies and Tigers would be great.

round 1 tends to draw big crowds regardless. i remember we got 30k round 1 vs GC in 2015. After ending 2014 with 10 straight losses and equal last.

Honestly I thought we had evolved past golf clapping "trying". At least I thought we left that in 2014. Like, no one would have said anything about his game had people not actually started overrating it. Our season is so far down the gurgler that we've actually started applauding simple "effort" and "trying hard". fmd. Okay, he brought the ball down, and got to the contest. Hooray for the professional tall forward who can get to marking contests! Seriously, we're cuddling this kid now ever since his choke against Adelaide. I'm sure he'll be a decent player but he's entering year 4 and is still distinctively average. We only do well as a club when the player is a ready-made, bonafide star. Schwartz, Lyon, Jakovich, Neitz, Hogan, Oliver. If it's simply "talent" that needs nursing and development, they either take 3-4 years longer than other clubs (Gawn, Jetta), or we screw them up so much that we're guilted into keeping them past their used by date (Watts). We still can't develop raw talent for [censored].

Hinkley is still coach on the back of getting them to finals when everyone expected them to finish last or thereabours in 2013. Then in 2014 they made the Prelim. Since then they have been middle of the road at best. Yet consistent. They've had a stack of talent over the years, Port. He's either grossly underachieved, or broke even, depending on how you rate their players over the years. But he seems to be running on the fumes of 2014.

Last year we played GWS at the MCG in front of 40k. This year we barely scrapped 20k. This is what bad football does. It is to branding and growth as cancer is to the human body. For the sake of this club I hope 2019 is the outlier in a new era. If 2018 were the outliner in a common trend, then we're in trouble. Lots of pressure now on the football department and players to deliver. We can't afford another Bailey-Neeld era. It would absolutely devastate the club.

Location of your base has an influence. Good luck attracting free agents who will be forced to live out Casey way. What presence if at all will branding in Casey have on the growth of the club? We've been there for a decade and battle to see minuscule incremental growth. Centralise the base. It's not even so much about the logistical challenges. Casey is almost a "out of sight out of mind" location. Can we really afford to fall off the radar and base ourselves that far away from the city? Think of the bigger picture. Casey is a cesspool.

I wouldn't drop Baker. ANB, Hannan, Petty, are all way ahead. Even Jones.

Casey is rubbish. Long term goal should be inner city. If Casey is even an option then we should look to stay where we are.

Just watched the replay. ANB, Wagner, Jones and Mcdonald fumble the ball so much, often leading to turnover. Mcdonald got better as the day went on. But ANB is a serial fumbler. He really needs to iron that [censored] out of his game.

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Mathematically.

I still have concerns. Our lack of pace was on display, and Freo still scored mostly from turnovers across our half forward and easy transition. Would we have won had Freo not been two down? Maybe not but Hill and co. played out the game and had the pace and fitness to make up that lack of rotations. One thing I really liked was Frost and Hore reading off one another. Frost can be a massive liability but he plays with confidence. Hore is Febey 2.0. Salem is all class. I thought our defensive 50 did very well today. Overall it was a solid albeit frustrating performance. We can match it with top teams no doubt but we still have a lot of bad habits and structural issues that need ironing out.

We just don't seem likely to win. At all. They've been down 2 all game and we still can't get a break.

Can't justify a loss here. Freo down 2 all game.

I can't see Goodwin lasting another 12 months. This is more than a slump now. This is the poorest, least cohesive Melbourne team I've ever seen.

It's astonishing. They said Melbourne were in control half way through that quarter. Based on what? We never really looked like scoring.

Right now, we are playing as poorly as we were in 2007-2009. Just seriously average, uninspiring, chaotic, structureless football.

We are seriously average.

If we turn the ball over again across half back, I'm going out to buy a microwave.

Gifted them 2 of their 3 goals. Absolutely gifted them. Me consistently control play and then play teams back into the contest.

We are breaking down.

Massive downhill skier. At best. TBH I'd rather Spargo in the team.

He's already had his breakout game. Like most of his teammates he's just had an average start to the season. But he stepped up in finals. That gives him runs on the board.