praha

McDonald's fault. He handballs to a guy with three Saints players behind him. Zero talk from McDonald.

McDonald kills me.

This is Neeld era football.

Still winnable. However, Saints play like they know they can beat Melbourne. Melbourne plays like they'll probably lose. Against Hawthorn, Geelong last year, we played like we could win. The Saints being on an even level with us, it is clearly a mental thing. They toy with them and know exactly how to do it Inagine what Riewoldt says to the team? "They're nothing. They have no confidence. They can't beat us." They are so confident against us.

Third [censored] time they've kicked out straight to a player coming off the bench. They're laughing at us.

God they're bad. Screaming like they're actually a half decent club.

This is a carbon copy of the other match this year.

Nah, we were better that quarter. Looked about a 3-4 goal better team. Saints rely on the opposition turnover across half-forward. We clean up coming out of defense and they won't have answers. We are smashing them. Let's see how we go this quarter

Getting the same feeling. I think he really wants to make finals. There's been a shift in tone, albeit minimally. Will be hard, but it's possible. If we lose today it's out of the question.

He's not our best ever, but, like Neeld, he recognised a damning rift between the club and the rest of the league. We don't know how other coaches would have delt with it, but don't underestimate just how bad the list and club more broadly was when Roos arrived. Some coaches would have made bandaid moves, others may have just stuck with the current crew. We could have ended up like Richmond where we topped up, finished mid table, made finals and then dropped again. Roos was literally given the flexibility to build from the ground up. Clarkson didn't make the finals until his third season and he had a much better squad in 2005 than Roos did in 2014. We are on the edge of finals and should [censored] it in in 2017. Arguably, Clarkson would have taken just as long to take a team to finals that had a guy like D Terlich finish high in the B&F in the year before he arrived.

Coaching is not merely about win-loss record. If it was, Malthouse, Sheedy, Eade, Williams would still all have a job. The Scott brothers are bordering on unproven because neither have even attempted a rebuild. Longmire inherited Roos' squad and benefited from that. Simpson is overrated. Beveridge again benefited from spectacular drafting and development before him. Roos had none of this. Literally. He came to a club that was arguably the worst list of the past 50 years. How he has turned it over and made it competitive is amazing. His coaching style has at times been at odds with the club P Jackson has wanted to build, and it's clear that Goodwin is driving a lot of it now, but it's working and improving a lot on the pieces he has added. Jetta, Pederson, Hunt, Wagner, Watts, Gawn, M Jones, the way these guys have improved is amazing.. I'm not a massive fan of the Roos "style" of gameplan, but his people skills seem perfectly balanced next to development. He has built-in the perfect team for Goodwin, and started building it before he even knew Goodwin would be involved.

Easily Northey. Danners was a good coach but almosy the extreme version of a "people person". Played players who shouldn't have played because he liked them, wasn't particularly good with development or drafting, in many ways benefited from Balme's era of drafting. Love Danners but his inability to keep the team playing consistently killed me. Should have been let go after 2003. No one comes close to Northey since NSmith. If we beat both of Geelong in Geelong and Hawthorn, Roos would be a close second, followed by Daniher. Balme was underrated. He knew how to coach and how to utilize each player to their skillset. Injuries kill his career, which was a product of bad club management and facilities.

We celebrate this every day. We don't need a round to celebrate it. I just don't get "multiculturalism" and what it means. I understand that those most vocal against it are literally racists, but I'm a first-generation Australia with the most Italian name out there and I just don't understand "multiculturalism". It's condescending, like as if we all have to be open and accept and embrace and engage with different cultures, when we don't. One thing I see about Australia is that we actually lack an identity because we are either embarrassed of Australian language and slang and traditions, or we're too focused on making other people feel comfortable, when the opposite is that many just don't care, and they engage with other cultures daily anyway without really thinking about it. That is not what I meant about issues. These issues persist, the round treats them as being incapable of a fix unless we as a society address them, when the reality is that successful Indigenous stars are walking proof that you can make something of yourself without having people pander and talking and being sensitive about them. Do you really think this round does anything but pander and speak to the already converted? My views on the issues that plague Indigenous communities haven't changed AT ALL because of this round. I just find it fascinating that a sport so ruthless in its competitiveness, as well as both team and individual achievements, can move so far away from actually constructively addressing the issues you mention. The gap is widening, not shrinking, and honestly, I don't think the world of the white man saying, "We recognise you" is going to fix anything. Whether you like it or not, to make it, make noise, be a leader and inspire people, you need to have special qualities in this world. This "progressive" kumbaya pandering is something I find to be condescending. IMO, the fact Adam Goodes won two Brownlows is in and off itself proof that we don't need an Indigenous Round. If you want to help these communities and the youth, we should be propping up those that excel at the highest level, and there are plenty of them.

No, the Indigenous and Multicultural Round amplify issues that don't exist, or which are squashed by individual feats of empowerment (see my comment on that above). What issues does the Indigenous Round attempt to address? It seems very vague to me, with no distinct purpose. Simply saying "recognition" is just trivial, because we already recognise good players irrespective of skin color, but we recognise Indigenous players are generally being very good additions because they tend to be the same sort of player (with some exceptions, obviously). The AFL and its clubs are among the most supportive of those communities and I wouldn't be surprised if the AFL was the country's most prominent employee of Indigenous youth. That's genuine support and recognition. Indigenous Round treats their culture like it's incapable of being amplified or understood on its own accord through the players who make it. I've learned more about that culture from the likes of Goodes than I did from the Round specifically. It's a PR stunt that plays out like the participation ceremony at a primary school swimming carnival. "Oh, thanks for being you! Have a participation medal!" It's condescending. It's really got nothing to do with race for me. I just find it to be pandering to the point of being racist in and of itself, like as if Indigenous culture is incapable of self-managed recognition. What did you learn from multicultural round? How does it change social attitudes? Nothing beats individual accomplishment and the ability to encourage and inspire and empower. Either of those rounds do that. It's the players themselves that are in control of that.

A women's league is the best they are doing in terms of "social justice". They're not pandering: there's talent and public interest. They're servicing that and empowering young women to get involved in the sport and go pro. All other initiatives are PR exercises. Indigenous Round, Multicultural Round, (soon to be) Gay Pride Round. It's all [censored] conjured up to please a minority who think having a branded round does anything. I mean, guys like Eddie Betts, Adam Goodes (love or hate him), Lance Franklin do more for young Indigenous than the Indigenous Round does. Empowerment imo comes from good individual leaders who empower those to better themselves. "Social justice" really just devalues the means and capacity of the individual to influence and drive change, preferring "themes" and collective recognition as a means to make people feel better about themselves. It's pandering, and it's ineffective. That said, things like gambling and violence against women...but your talking directly about changing attitudes around behavior...I think that's different.

We should beat them. Like the Freo match, coming up against a side and coach we can't beat, at a stadium we can't win at. Surely we won't lose to this mob again? They play Etihad very well and this match comes at the worst possible time after a NT trip. IMO we're blitz them in the first and then hold out. Although, a Saints fightback could kill us.

They are beatable, but ultimately they know how to "play the game" better than anyone and they probably play team football better than most. They have experienced bodies and experienced minds who can turn things around very quickly. They also have 4-5 "X factor" players, and you only need one of them to be "on" for the Hawks to be a good chance to win. This is probably the most vulnerable they have been since 2010, and yet they still sit a game clear in first on the ladder. They have won many close games and imo deserve to be flag favourites. We can beat them. I honestly think that on the MCG we are one of only a few teams that can. But of those teams that "can", we probably have the smallest margin for error. We can definitely roll them.

Let me guess, undemocratic whiner who cries when things don't go their way?

No. He's happy with the progress being made, so generally that means he's going to Hawthorn or Collingwood.

We should beat them. They are a 4-5 goal better side at Etihad, but I think we're a 7-8 goal better side, so we should beat them anyway. Once again we face them after a short turnaround: played them on a Saturday afternoon after playing the previous round on a Sunday night, now we play them (at Etihad again!) after a taxing trip to NT. Saints were very average against Adelaide and GC but turned it up against Geelong, and spanked Freo. Should be an interesting game, but it comes at a bad time for us.

Updated.

Good win. Expected it to be closer but we were on top across the ground.

140 Fantasy Points. 32 touches. Might get a Brownlow vote.

Good win. Put them out early. This will Melbourne's first ever victory against a Ross Lyon-coached side.

This is very ugly.