praha

This is what I'm most worried about. Jackson said after the Brisbane game how important it was for us to say to sponsors, "we have more wins, we have improved." Membership is nice for revenue but it's a small part of the pie. Anyone that didn't think this game was big for the club needs to think about the bigger picture. The club needs a better product going into the off-season. The players are effectively killing the club's sustainability. Fitzroy fans boycotted the club because they thought the playing group didn't try. They simply didn't have the cattle, but they fought till the end. Melbourne has the talent but a rotten culture and stigma attached to the brand. We smell like a burning Fitzroy but we taste different.

I think that after a decade we are in a position to walk away justifiably.

Jones, Dunn, Watts, Garland, Dawes all need to continue their careers elsewhere. They are far too influential on the narrative of a match and they dictate the tone. They are losers and should either be allowed to leave, or traded. Our rebuilds will stay in neutral until the players part of 186 and 148 are gone. McDonald is the exception. Bailey and Daniher era players should not be part of our future. They are part of an era that we need to eradicate from the club mantra.

He should have been traded last year.

I actually think the league is obliged to give us a priority pick and help us land a star. We are an indictment on the league. We have the arguably one of the best off-field teams in the league. PJ, Roos. We have coaches, facilities, and someone, profit. We have a great young squad. We have talent, stacks of it. But pulling on the Melbourne jumper has a stigma attached to it.

Guys, when you're second to the ball, when you play soft and lazy, you give away bad free kicks. Poor teams tend to get the rough end of the stick from umps for this reason. We are just a bad team.

Does anyone know if they trained hard this week?

I'm done. I'm not buying a membership again until there is a consistent, week on week quality. I'll buy one mid-season if that's the case. I feel sorry for people working off-field. My purchasing options now are performance based: perform, and I buy a membership. I deserve being able to make that choice. I deserve being able to jump on the bandwagon. We all do.

Best in what regard? Intent? Simon Godfrey had intent. He is our Ritchie Vandenberg.

He epitomises the losing culture.

Booooooooooooooo

Jones, Dunn, Garland should all be put up for trade. They set the tone and epitomise the worst of Melbourne as a club, even when they're among the best. We need to rid this club of losers.

I'm following updated stats on the AFL app. Carlton players dominating by the looks of it. Melbourne players make up the bottom of the list.

Eh, I disagree tbh. If we have improved we should value games like this as a means to fuel confidence going into the off-season and build up momentum going into 2016. I know there is a big gap there during the pre-season but I don't think we should undervalue wins, no matter who they're against or what there is to gain from the match. I don't think Carlton wants to win its 4th spoon in 13 years after having 0 spoons in 100+ years prior. Barker also has something to coach for. Every win for this club at this stage is important. We can't undervalue that. We diehards don't value this as much as the casual or neutral fan trying to weigh up whether to invest in the club in 2016. We should smash them by 10 goals. Winning games and winning games well when they should is just one of many corners the club has to turn. They haven't done that for years. Coming out and giving Carlton and sniff would undermine a lot of what Roos wants to do, a lot of the narrative coming from the players, and, really, the salary we're paying Roos. This is a pretty big game insofar as it's a match we should win and win well.

No issues with him. He threw in the towel after 186 and clearly had his mind elsewhere. Best thing for both parties was that he left. Wasn't a huge loss. Appreciate his efforts 2004-2010.

"Viv" is a cool name.

...make some popcorn and spend the night on Demonland.

You're missing the bigger picture. Of course they won't go up for one day. But penalty on any given public holiday tend to lead into a rise in costs over time. Penalty rates generally come hand in hand with rising minimum wages which create that rise.

Living costs rise alongside wage increases. They are mutually exclusive. The more you pay someone the more the product or service costs. A living wage is high because the cost to provide basic services is so high.

I'm excited as well by our best. Roos said yesterday that we need to "play like maniacs" against Carlton. It took losing by 100 points to come out and drive that sort of narrative. I just want to see more of that.

Granted, although Essendon isn't nearly as bad as they're playing though. We all know what its like to support a club with off field issues and we see what it does to the playing group. The 96 merger The 99 salary cap Off field issues in 2001, 2003, 2011. Carlton is different. They're just [censored].

What has that got to do with anything?

Gee, we won with Terlich,Bail,Jones, McKenzie, Grimes, Spencer and Evans in the side. If we don't smash them by 10 goals on the weekend, there's no saving this club.

3/4 of businesses surveyed said they would not open. Most cafes in the city service office workers. Have you been to the city on GF Parade Day? As opposed to a public holiday? Parade Day is alive because stores are open, people are in the city as normal. Lunch in the city on a normal day, the sidewalks are packed. You can barely move around Bourke, Collins, Elizabeth and Flinders. Arguing that no office workers won't have a bearing on the city's vibe on the day is hogwash. You will have fans of competing teams there, and that's it, and half of that crowd would have already been in the city. The city will be dead. I hope I'm wrong.

This is the most Demonland post ever.