praha

Garlett rolls his ankle at training. He'll have a shocker if he plays. Bookmark it. It's the Melbourne way. Injury "tweaks" tend to ruin a player's season.

I was listening and agreed. We need to turn a corner. Turning a corner doesn't necessarily mean finals or being the best team in the comp. Our corner is simply playing consistently good football for more than one week. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when winning 2 in a row is a gauge of how much you have improved, but it is what it is. We were awful on Saturday and well below best. Part of that goes on the leaders and those that were complacent, the other on the coaches for selecting underdone young blokes, or keeping underdone young blokes in the squad. I suspect a lighter training week went ahead this week.

Just another poor bloke that has been beaten down by the harsh drum of defeat. Plays like a loser. Always will. Harsh reality when you get bombarded week in, week out in the backline for the first 8 years of your career. Might be time to move him on. We need to continue weeding out these Daniher and Bailey-era players out of the club.

Still, you can't understate the influence it has on talent coming in and the feeling around the place. They played finals in recent memory. And consistently.

I am as frustrated as anyone but it's Round 2. After we lost 3 in a row vs Freo, Sydney and Hawthorn, people had us below 2014 and potentially finishing last again. Granted they were three top teams but we've been here before. Let's not forget the Bombers were leading Sydney in Sydney by 40 points in Round 1 last year and lost but almost won...with arguably a worse team than they fielded on Saturday. They then beat Hawthorn in round 2. Like Roos said, this is the AFL, any one team can get up against any opposition irrespective of ladder position if they play to win and stick to the plan. Melbourne did not stick to the plan on Saturday and lost. It's not the end of the world. I am just saying that we are still only a 8-12-win team, and 12 wins may not be enough for 8th this year. You're going to need a very strong percentage and we don't score enough to do that.

Great stuff!

2014. Petracca, Brayshaw, ANB, Stretch. Anyway, these comparisons are useless. The Dogs aren't coming back from anywhere near as far back as we were. They played in three straight Prelims don't forget only a few years ago. Plenty of finals experience and guidance there that Melbourne lacks. I think we are realistically 2-3 years behind where the club *wants* to be. I can't see us turning a corner anytime soon. I think we'll just continue this slow upwards climb until we break through. It won't be the revolutionary breakthrough and change that we saw with the Dogs and Port a few years ago. They were polishing a dusty old antique with a bit left in it yet. We're polishing a turd. Finals in 2016 is a possibility but unlikely. Too tight between 5th and 12th and we're most definitely closer to 12th. 2017 would be a "scrape into finals" year, but even then, we can't understate just how far back we're coming from. I don't think the club wants to admit that. I think they're doing a great job of selling hope and selling our list as being better than what it is.

At least under Bailey we kicked goals. And lots of them. Unfortunately the team didn't run both ways and they also bled goals at the other end. I think that whoever is still at the club from that era is still part of the problem, as these are the "leaders" of the club. No problem with Neeld or Roos' gameplan so long as you run hard in transition and get into space. We don't. Lazy + dumb footballers makes it difficult to execute ANY gameplay, whether it's attacking or defensive. What we've seen under Roos is no different to Bailey or Neeld: complacency, lack of urgency, lack of consistency, inability to run both ways, shocking defensive awareness, shocking peripheral vision, hospital handpasses and kicks to teammates under pressure. Melbourne is the quintessential career-killer.

Not impossible from an adjudication point of view. If you're not controlling the play then you are going to get calls against you, out of frustration and out of constantly being second to the ball and contest. You can most certainly play congested football so long as you have a consistent, two-run attack in transition. Hawthorn does this well but their defensive capabilities are blinded by the fact their midfield and forward like are so prolific. The Dockers struggled were ultimately found out last year not because they played a "defensive" style. It was because they are severely lacking forward options. We've seen this in the first two rounds with their more attacking style: they simply don't have the cattle to kick a winning score. Melbourne's problem is that it doesn't run two ways. This was an issue Neeld highlighted when he arrived, and Roos emphasised. What we have seen against both GWS and Essendon is that, if we attack and don't score, we're not quick enough to get back defensively (although we did a great job of pushing the Giants to the flanks), and if we defend and get the ball out, we're not quick enough on the rebound. I don't think that's lack of speed. I think it's lack of urgency, and certainly complacency which came into play last round. If you

I actually think the North game will be a good contest. Could go either way. They have insane endurance and they tend to close out close matches. If they let this mob push them around again and lose by 10+ goals, I might be done.

More or less, yeah, but we'd have ended up with a higher pick this year to potentially get a better player than Weiderman, so it's a massive risk that really falls down to the club finishing in the 5th-12th range. It would be hard to swallow if the club doesn't improve, finished 18th-14th and has passed up a top 5 pick. Pressure is on everyone right now. The football department is put a lot of faith in itself to deliver with that choice. I like our draft choices but we'll be a laughing stock if we crash and burn and miss out on a pick 3 or pick 4 or pick 5.

I'm not HUN reader but gee whiz, screams of "Murdoch propaganda" are soooo 2012.

I guess the good thing of the finals system then was that someone from 6th could still win the flag. Bit unfair in how it placed teams and how teams in 3rd and 4th were rather but having to play 1st and 2nd in a Prelim if they won the Qualifying and Semi.

2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 aren't much better.

Tom is unfortunately the outcome of starting your career in a mindboggingly bad team and staying in that side at the same level of ineptness for 4-5 years. He plays like a guy who doesn't quite know how to embrace *winning* football: that is, being able to trust your teammates and trust your skills. Roos has mentioned this many times, that the players sometimes seem to not know how good they actually are. We've seen how good McDonald can be after his blinding start to 2015. He's a shadow of that player now. I do think it's a mental thing. He's a competitive beast and I think that in a way he really epitomises the club from over the past decade: not quite sure where it's going, what its place is, why it's here. It also doesn't help that his teammates don't run both ways like they didn't on the weekend. When we went forward and they got it out, it was a stream of Essendon. When they went forward and we got it out, it was a wall of Essendon. We still don't run two ways for long enough during games. I just don't get.

They didn't play well. They absolutely dominated possession and almost lost. Kudos to them for going up another level when the game was there to be won, and they certainly played with gusto and urgency, but Melbourne playing to full potential and it's a 10-goal loss for them. It's just that Melbourne isn't a very good *team*. Playing a team that doesn't know how to win makes it easy to look better than you are. It also didn't help that the coaches killed us at the selection table, and don't know how to keep their own player's expectations in check.

We'd have smashed North in the GF. They were off that day. Not themselves. They outplayed us in the Prelim but they were very flat on GF day. I seriously think Melbourne and Adelaide were the two best teams throughout the GF series. North were unconvincing against the Bombers, and we may have beaten them in the qualifying finals had it been 1 vs 4 instead of 4 vs 5. I suspect that had it been the newer system we'd have played probably Sydney or St Kilda in the Prelim. Adelaide bounced back for three dominating displays leading to the flag. Damn, it was the one that got away. We needed that extra break after week 1. EDIT: We averaged 40,000 at our home games.

I don't think that really means anything, we take a KPP every year, problem is that in the period we've had a top 10 pick there haven't been many KPP in that range, they've generally been in the 20-30 range. I would think If we finish 12th or below this year, I'll be mightily [censored].

Neale would be good. Anyway, the players that have signed recently, they're out of contract, no? Pretty sure they're in a position to sign now and can't risk waiting for the CBA. They might end up uncontracted while the players potentially strike. If Hogan puts off contract talks "until the end of the season" at this time next year, he's gone. At this stage, it is ludicrous to really even contemplate this. But I do think he should just sign and get on with it. This is going to carry on for the next 18 months (hopefully only the next 12).

Anyway, any "under the table" deal is irrelevant if Freo can't offer up anything of substantial value, and if they can't, I highly doubt he'll go into the draft unless one of Freo or WC are last. Boyd was traded to the Bulldogs for Griffen and pick 6. Hogan will have played 60 games and kicked 100+ goals. I don't think Fremantle fans "get" it. If we lose him, we'll most definitely getting something of significant value in return, and I don't think it would be high draft picks. Unless Freo tanks or trades up for other picks or future picks, it'll be very tough for him to get to Freo. No way Melbourne rolls over like GWS and accepts a 30-year-old and pick 6. I know I'm biased but you'd think it's in Hogan's best interests to re-sign, and re-sign as soon as possible. Starting to think the CBA has nothing to do with it. He could sign now and score himself $800k a year from 2018.

I would think they would, they'd be crazy not to be on top of fan feedback. This forum is essentially free research for them, to get an idea what their most engaged fans think of the club. I know schwab read these forums and I think he even posted a few times.

Probably good that we got this loss out of the way, in past years we left bad loses to weaker opponents to later in the year (GWS in 2014, Carlton last year). Still, I can't see us getting within 5-6 goals of North after last week. I'd actually be really [censored] off if they win. But they won't. These funks tend to last 2-3 weeks. I seriously would not be surprised if it's 80+ point loss. Anyway, what will I do if they win? Probably nothing. I don't trust them after a win anymore. It would seriously infuriate me.

Every second week suggests consistency. There's nothing consistent about this team. It is completely and utterly random. Like the creation of life in the universe. Dare I say Melbourne is less like intelligent life and more like a black hole, sucking in anything and everything that gets close to it.

I was in Bali last May and Australia Plus had live AFL games.

Haha I knew you'd typed that as soon as the notification popped up