praha

We've handed them almost all of their entries. Thank God for Frost.

This will be like the GWS game in 2014. No urgency. Utterly pathetic.

Skills are horrid. Suns have three inside 50s for 2.1. We have five inside 50s for 0.1

lel of course Lynch gets the first.

Oh god. Suns by 6 goals.

Shocking crowd. 13k so far.

Were they a top 8 side in round 1? It was a fantastic win but what does a Round 1 win against a potential finals side mean if we lose to an Essendon team a week later to gift them their only win of the year? It counts as a win, nothing more, not a win against a top 8 side.

lol love your work! What troubles me is that we're having our best season injuries wise in decades, have a better squad than last year yet still seem to struggle to turn the corner and win the games we should. At near-full strength and still struggle to win games against teams around us on the ladder. Rather telling. I fear the curse of "186" still plagues the team. It's definitely *another* rebuild of a rebuild. We still have A LOT of list turnover to go. Would not be surprised if the Suns pump us today. It smells of Freo circa 1999 at the MCG. Lynch will probably kick 10.0 like Modra did that night.

The supercoach team was for players with a high average score per round. Neitz obviously didn't score highly.

As it stands, we're giving up pick 7 in the draft. Losing to GC, the team with that pick, would be embarrassing. Not bitterly disappointing.

Tbh with Prestia going under the knife again, it seems more likely he'll stay at GC. GC wants to keep the nature of the injury silent so they get more for him. Prestia wants to keep it silent so he gets more of he leaves. Stay clear imo.

Well we beat GWS but yeah that doesn't count. We should have won at least 6 in 2014. Last year should have won at least 8. We should be on 9 wins at this stage. I like what Roos has brought to this club but ultimately, leadership has let us down during games we should be winning, and he and the coaching staff have all too often gone against their mantra during selection. I am still filthy about the Essendon loss and the Saints a few weeks ago. I can let the first Saints loss pass because it was a quick turnaround after the Sunday night game. 8 was my pass last year, and 10 is my pass this year. If we don't reach 10 this year (spoiler: we won't) then it'll be an asterix next to Roos tenure that would only be removed if the talent he has brought in leads us to finals in 2017. I still think it's a between-the-ears issue. We should smash GC tomorrow but I suspect a close game. A loss would undoubtedly mark Roos' tenure as a failure on most supporters eyes. Really, we haven't made any more progress in three years than Bailey did in three. Granted we were coming from further back, and I still think Roos has been a better coach than Bailey, but we haven't "turned the corner". Roos and his team have two chances to do that. Vs Hawthorn, and vs Geelong. Tough ask, but we continue to struggle at Etihad, continue to struggle away from home, continue to struggle against Saints, North, Hawks, can't win in Perth, can't play consistently good football. So it's now down to two matches for Roos and his team to prove their worth, and it's two of the hardest tests in footy you could ask for. A win against Hawthorn or Geelong and we're a top 6 side in 2017. Get smashed by both and nothing will change.

They have a lot of support in Sydney. The support is now drawn down class lines. Swans are the upper class, GWS seen as working class. I know a lot of people in Sydney through work, almost all casually support GWS. They'll hit 20,000 members next year. You watch. They might not go to games but for an area that is very rugby and soccer, the crowds are good relative to that. I think they're exceeding expectations tbh. A final at Spotless against a Melbourne team will be a sellout. And if they make the GF there will still be 95k+. Most tickets go to corporates and you'll see a high ratio of GWS members attending. It'll be like when Storm won in 99. All of Sydney said no one cares, but the city of Melbourne was ecstatic.

Good to see OMac keep his place. Sick of know-it-alls who want a drop a young kid and replace him with experienced players who contribute little to the team's development. Club having its best year in a decade and people are calling for the head of a kid who has been a regular player in that side. Anyone who prefers Dunn over OMac needs their brain checked.

This post reminded me of this scene from Seinfeld.

Will have been 100 games for nothing if he bolts and signs elsewhere.

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2016-07-28/next-five-weeks-crucial-for-club Suns by 10. Goals.

We should run away with a 8-9 goal win never coming out of second gear.

Spot on. He went in and out of discussion points and rarely answered any of Mike's questions without diverting to a completely unrelated topic, but he brought up some very valid points. I was particularly fond of his points on personality and goal kicking. Seeing "pure" forwards like Jesse Hogan struggle to kick 40 meters...it's an indictment on the development process of young kids who come into the system. I remember going to the footy in the 90s and seeing players kick set shots post high from the center square at the MCG, and easily make the distance. Carey, Lyon, Salmon, Loewe used to slam them home with no hesitation, be it off one-step, or from a set-shot. You don't see that anymore. The system has failed guys like Cloke, who should have had his kicking issues addressed from a young age. Hogan I fear can head down the same path. With more pressure and closer games, can we rely on him, our only pure forward at the moment, to kick a clutch goal from 50 meters? I think few teams have players that can do that. Fevola was probably the last "pure" set-shot in the game. Franklin is the exception because he's a freak, one-of-a-kind who we may never see again. And his kicking style is hardly "by the book". Imagine a young kid trying to work in that curving run-in to their game? Seemed like a trivial discussion point but when you bundle it together with the deteriorating entertainment value of the sport, it's an important discussion point.

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

It's easy to be an outside player in a great team. Outsider players tend to struggle in poor sides because they don't get the ball enough. Watts being a good example. No surprise that his form has improved as the team's has. By definition, outside runners are downhill skiers. Every good team needs them, and every good team has them.

Almost 2 a game. Averaging about the same as last year. Been a tough 2 month period for not only him, but the team. I think we're like 2-5 or 1-6 in that period. Silly comment, anyway. He's been among our best on many occasions, but has had 2 poor games. http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/pg-melbourne-demons--jesse-hogan

I think this narrative comes from the fear of a repeat of 2008-2011, where we flushed out experience very quickly and were left with no experience that was partly the reason for that rebuild's demise. I think the situation currently is completely different. Guys like Dunn and Garland aren't winners. Trengove and Dawes are clubman and should be retained imo, Pederson might unfortunately be moved on. All of the experience on our team bar Vince, H, Dawes don't have deep finals experience, and as it stands most are list cloggers. We gain no benefit from having them on our list. The "experience" issue was present when we were getting rid of Neitz, Yze, White, McDonald, Bruce all within a 2 year period. That was significant. But our current "experienced" crop wouldn't be missed. Besides, we are far better placed with "leadership" as it stands. Viney, Tyson, Hogan, McDonald, Gawn, Watts are all already leaders of the club and contribute more on game day than guys with 150-200+ games. Dunn, Grimes, Garland and Trengove are all I fear on their last AFL contracts. And I think it's time to move them on.

We can't go in efficiently if their defense is tight. If their defense is tight we can't kick goals. We can't kick goals if we're not going in efficiently. And round it goes. It was always, ALWAYS going to be a battle of the defenses. Theirs simply got on top of us and did the work their midfielders didn't. We found no way around and kept going back to the well. They looked more dangerous going forward and the umpires didn't help, with our defenders walking on eggshells. Ultimately, their defense held up for longer, and ours buckled almost every time they went forward. I think it was less our entries, more their ability to just adapt more efficiently to quick entries.

It's fascinating that North weren't able to build a powerhouse from their 90s successes. Hawthorn's "success" was a little delayed because you had a lot of young kids in the 80s who grew up supporting them now latching onto an incredibly successful decade, and they have kids, who have kids, etc etc. North simply weren't good enough for long enough to build that generational support that a minnow club needs. Hawthorn have never been a heavily-supported club but now have the benefit of the "bandwagon" factor, the rise of social media, Tasmania, and its 80s success to rise up. That's ultimately what they've built their club out of. They've come good at the perfect time, in the same way Melbourne went bad at the worst time. They had a boring brand and simply didn't utilise their immense successes of the 90s like they should have. They played home games in Sydney, dropped "North" and lost a bit of their identity when they should have been looking to expand it. They've made inroads in that regard the last few years. If Melbourne had actually been half-decent between 2007 and 2016, we'd have easily crossed 40k members and would probably be a far more "stable" club. We had a solid 8-9 seasons were we made finals enough to build a fanbase, but as soon as people started to jump on, we hit the ground with a thunderous CLUNK. Had North or the Bulldogs gone through want we've as a club have gone through the past 10 season, I can assure you they simply wouldn't exist today. We've been on the brink a few times but the club's capacity to find a way out is pretty amazing.