praha

Completely pointless comparing Hawthorn's or anyone else's performances to ours. Lool at the context. 1. It's not that we lost, but rather how we lost. 2. We've beaten Hawthorn once in a decade. 3. We should be well beyond those sorts of performances. There's nothing wrong with losing. It's how we lost.

Those teams including the Melbourne 2000 team had runs on the board. We knew that those loses would be merely a blimp on the radar for those teams. Carlton lost to St Kilda and Sydney in 1995 -- two perennial loses at the time -- by 10+ goals, their only two loses for the year on the way to the flag. Melbourne has yet to demonstrate that big loses are just that: a bad day at the office. The reality is that these loses have proven to be part of and are arguably the catalyst towards the wheels falling off for an entire year. We have got to stop finding a means to justify these loses until they became just as they are for the aforemention teams: aberrations. There is absolutely nothing to suggest last week's loss was just a bump in the road. Much has been said of this playing group just "expecting" things to happen. If we fall into the trap of saying, "Oh well richmond lost by 80 points last year and won the flag, no stress!" then we're feeding into what is already a soft culture. I fully expect them to bounce back this week if we're any hope of playing finals.

Shhh we're not allowed to admit failure or talk about the past. Too negative. We might trigger the playing group's PTSD.

IN: Weeds, Tyson, Hunt OUT: Lewis, Vince, Bugg

Hawthorn is not great. They are well coached, but they made a point of making a mockery of us last week. Clarkson toyed with us, and our players gave up.

North is a finals smokey. They play good team football at times and have a smart albeit arrogant coach. They would respond quickly after a loss like we went through last week. We won't. we're set for a 6-7 goal loss.

So Sydney, Adelaide, GWS, and Richmond are probably the only sure things. Geelong, WC, Port are likely. That leaves Pies, Melbourne, Hawthorn, Essendon, Freo vying for the last spot. Then you have smokies in North, Bulldogs, Saints also pushing. After last week, and seeing the way North is destroying Hawthorn, I think we're a 30% chance of making finals right now. After this round, likely we'll be 14th after 5 rounds. I am so disheartened after last week's game. It was 2011-esque in the team's revolt against the fundamentals. We won't get within 6-7 goals of Richmond. I think we should prepare ourselves for a very tough 4-5 game losing streak now. The wheels were loose during the pre-season. They're set to fall off now. I seriously think we're set for a 6-8 win season ala Richmond in 2016.

This severely understates his contribution and improvement imo. He stood out in a very poor team on Sunday. He's been a consistent performer since mid 2016 and many supporters refuse to or just can't see it. His performance on Sunday was as solid and consistent as we've seen from him over the past 20 or so months. Every defender has a "shocker". Rance has one once a month. Oscar has been as consistent and as influential a player as we could hope for from a developing key defender.

Would LOVE if Carlton win.

Nah. Not in those circumstances. Maybe in the first quarter. He should have taken it at the first grab anyway.

They didn't, but they did play finals.

I actually think the best way to counter Dusty is to not tackle him at all. Defend the space ahead of him and force him to the boundary

He's always been a great contested mark. No stress with bringing him in to contest. It's the chase and defensive side that is the issue.

I lol'd

http://m.afl.com.au/news/2018-04-21/demons-drill-down-on-dustys-dont-argue aka. The Dusty Rules. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Rules

I swear I've read this before: http://m.melbournefc.com.au/news/2018-04-20/keep-the-faith-says-melksham “I think you’ve just got to stick behind us. It’s early on in the season and there is still a lot of footy to be played,” “We didn’t play the way that we wanted to and the education around that was really helpful,”

who isn't playing lol

6-7 goal loss seems reasonable at this stage. Clearly in a form slump and given the modern game I'm not convinced we can turn it around in a week. It's one thing to have an "off" week and go down by 4-5 goals. To get pumped by 70 as we did on the weekend is indicative of a form slump. In round 4. lol only Melbourne.

He was a good get, a nice decoy that actually allowed us to play a more consistent brand of footy going forward. We could use a player like him now actually.

You should see some of the comments on the facebool groups. nauseating. every week you have nuffies calling for him to be dropped.

I think we'll lose, not because we're Melbourne, but because Richmond is just better than us atm. I'll be ecstatic if we win but I just can't see it. We were so far off it last week. I'm not angry anymore, just disappointed. I don't think Richmond will lose games like these anymore for a while.

Actually we won plenty of the ball. The problem was rebound 50s and Hawthorn's transition. Which is an ongoing issue.

75-80K. AFL Members was sold out a week or so ago, GA will be packed, as will MCC. Last week's result has little bearing. It would have been 75-80 regardless. I'm predicting around 25k Melbourne 40-45k Richmond and the rest neutrals and corporates.

Except we missed the finals but the smallest of margins, stamp out those in game brain fades and we're undoubtedly in the mix.

Unlike what many here think, I believe the media is active in its positive support for us, as evident in its talking up of Melbourne throughout the pre-season. When Melbourne goes bad it's a story because we've been so bad for so long, and I think people do genuinely want to see us do well. The expectation now is that we should not be performing still as we did on the weekend. It's a story because even people that don't support Melbourne are sick and tired of the rubbish they give up. Media folk are just as quick to talk us up and praise us as the next best thing as they are to talk us down. IMO, the scrutiny we have faced this week is completely justified. It was as bad a performance by a team as we've seen this year. Carlton hasn't had anywhere near as much AFL assistance as us, and didn't have a Paul Roos or Peter Jackson brought it to right the ship. It's a non-story when they don't perform. Essendon is building back from 4 years of excessive media scrutiny that goes far beyond any on-field ineptness. I don't think Essendon performing badly is interesting. Like Carlton, it's a bit of a non-story. The public is just exhausted of anything Essendon. For all the complaining Melbourne fans make of us not getting coverage in the media, we actually get a hell of a lot. St Kilda didn't get anywhere near as much coverage about its performance as we have after one bad performance. I get that the media are merchants of negativity, but even as one of the league's so-called "smaller" clubs, we have always seemed to get coverage akin to that of the powerhouses. This may be due to the club's "friends" in high places, and the weird number of people in the media industry that are Melbourne supporters (we probably have more former Melbourne players, and supporters working in the media than any other club). We're scrutinised because people expect (and want) so much from the club. That's not a bad thing. Besides, none of the coverage this week has been unjustified. We deserved to be hounded. That wasn't just a 67-point loss. It was -- as they say -- a football lesson.