praha

Fair to say that if Melbourne Football Club were a pitch, it would be the MCG's in its current form. Sorry.

Kidding, surely? Hogan is a pure forward. He needs space and he needs his teammates to hit a bloody target. As I mentioned in another thread, we play indirect football. His leads are ignored because we instead play the possession game, which is the easy option. After he's lead, the opposition gets numbers back, and he's stuck in a hole. Why else does he get most of his possessions up the ground? I'd rather he kick 3 goals and get 5 possessions than kick nothing and end up with 12 possessions up the ground. I mean, obviously right? He's frustrated because his teammates ignore him too often, or play silly, indirect, selfish football that leads to poor, erratic entries.

He did not have a better list. He simply coached the team he had to its advantages. There weren't anywhere near as many changes after 2009 leading into 2010 as there has been at Melbourne in two pre-seasons under Roos. Yes, there was a lot of experience lost, but the turnover wasn't anywhere near as big. Bailey and to a lesser extent Neeld were scapegoats of what was a toxic work environment. I think it's pretty evident now that Roos' attempt to build an ultra-defensive squad is futile when the team dynamics are as bad as they are. If this were a Collingwood or an Essendon or a Hawthorn, they could afford to offer such a turd of a product for a few years. We simply can't afford that anymore. After 10 years, we are now in our third rebuild and now we offer a different turd to the one we were offering 3-4 years ago. It's a different product, but it's still a turd. We need to attract people to games. We can't afford this anymore. How many times on the weekend did we have the ball at half-back with a clear pathway forward, only to look sideways and kick to a contest? St Kilda left the middle open ALL. AFTERNOON and we never took advantage of it. Is it a structural thing? A coaching thing? Are the players just dumb? Five minutes into the last quarter was the final straw for me. Grimes had the ball at half-back, no one had kicked a goal yet, and the game was still up for grabs. He had no one ahead of him for 50 meters. He completely ignored the direct option. He went sideways, fluffed the kick, and there was another stoppage. I have never been so infuriated at a match before. I slammed the chair, got up and walked out. There is a reason why Hogan, Garlett, Dawes struggle in matches like yesterday. We play indirect, stoppage-based football, so when there is a clear passage forward and Hogan leads, the ball never gets to him. There's a stoppage, and he can't double-back because the opposition has gotten numbers behind the ball. It's happened time and time again this year. Evidently, we kick the ball out, directly over our forwards, and the opposition takes an uncontested mark. I have never seen a team give away so many uncontested marks to defenders in the forward 50. It boggles the mind. It must be a directive. Maintain possession and work the ball forward slowly. It seems to fit the Roos mantra. The problem is that the players play like they hate playing with one another, they over-posses the ball, miss handball targets, fluff kicks, drop marks and miss tackles. How many times did St Kilda walk away from a stoppage? We have way too much talent to be playing like this.

Dawes will not get dropped. I see no point in playing the likes of Grimes or Michie over Stretch and ANB. Stretch is solidifying his position with disciplined, hard work. Reminds me a little of Viney in his early days.

"Musings on two years in the wilderness" I thought this was going to be a thread about work experience at MFC.

The season will snowball now. Petrified about our Carlton game, more than the 100 point loss against Freo that's sure to happen. Three weeks that were always going to be season defining. Well, the season has been summed up. Who will we beat? Carlton? Yay! *sigh*

Correct. Improvement thus far is normalisation. You'd expect it with more talent.

Eh, are you basing that on the Melbourne Football Club Logic On How To Rebuild A List? There's nothing to suggest that losing those players would make them worse. The Bulldogs have lost plenty of experience and have managed to lock themselves into the 8. Their young players play confidently, with attack, poise and urgency. Ours do as well, to a degree, but our experienced players provide nothing in the way of genuine leadership and empowerment. When those blokes leave the Saints, they'll have helped establish a core. Don't look at Melbourne's breakdown after losing experience as an example to demonstrate how the Saints will buckle when they lose theirs. They play for one another and that culture will remain intact once those guys move on. We have now lost three times in the past two years to a team that finished last in 2014, and has since leapfrogged us in 2015. They have six wins in 2015, 2 against us. We're in no position to suggest we'll eventually leapfrog them, because history shows that every team that has been rebuilding alongside us, has leapfrogged us.

Grimes was okay. You could tell he was playing for his career. Problem is that we have too many blokes that just go through the motions, do what they need to do. No one goes above and beyond what is expected of them, at least not on a consistent basis. Blokes like Grimes, the club's leaders, need to empower those around them. Certainly one of our best today, but that's kind of like picking out the best turd after a long dump.

[censored]. The Swans played for their coach. He built on a strong culture established by Barrassi and turned a solid team into a Premiership-winning one. That Swans team had half the talent of the current one, and no where near as many match-winners as the Eagles. But they played a disciplined style of team football, and often won games they should have lost. I am not suggesting Roos isn't to shoulder some of the blame here, but he brought a flag to a club that hadn't won one in 70 years. I think respect where it's due.

Probably the same as his cousins. "Wow...Melbourne's pretty [censored]."

Updated.

Jones - Pay check game Dunn - Reliable and confident Hogan - A football lesson Watts - Buckled under pressure Dawes - Presented but fumbled Viney - Just like daddy Lumumba - Erratic and indecisive Brayshaw - Superior work rate Gawn - Solid ruck work Tyson - Out of form Stretch - Promising but tired Cross - Slow but required Garland - Soundly, empathically beaten Michie - Another Michie classic Vince - Tries but fades McDonald - Out of position Grimes - Dear God no Garlett - Lacked defensive urgency Howe - Went through motions Jetta - Constantly missed targets vandenBerg - Out of touch Harmes - Promising yet uninspiring

We have improved under Roos, yet somehow with more talent, better recruiting, and a young core with far more potential, we allow sides that were once below us control the tempo and beat us. St Kilda is ahead of us after one year of a rebuild with a 2nd-year coach. We have blokes with 9, 10 years experience that simply go through the motions, collect a pay check, some B&F votes, and then tell the media, "We're disappointed with our effort". I'd name names, but I always get hounded here when I do. It makes me sick that I trust guys with 10, 15 games of experience more than I do blokes with 150+ games experience. How long until Brayshaw, VB, Billy start playing "through the motions" and simply show up to just show up? That's what defines this club: making up the numbers.

186 had nothing to do with Bailey, and you know it. It was a playing group protesting against a micromanaging off-field team that undermined the progress Bailey, the coaching staff and the on-field leaders were having. In 2010 and 2011, the club was look very, very good. We played attractive football, smashed teams, and had a great young core. We might have remained mid-range under Bailey but at least we knew what we were going to get. We lost by 186, but we also flogged a few sides by 70-100 points. Roos has been shockingly outcoached multiple times by coaches with more than half the experience at AFL level than him. Buckley, Hird, Cameron, Richardson (twice), they have all out-coached him. Let's not forget that this group of players plays like they hate each other. But it's a two-way street, and the team's structures are horrid. Is any team with this much talent break down so badly across half-forward like Melbourne? There is no trust in the style, no trust in one another. We let average backlines push our forward line around like ragdolls, and it's because we permit them freedom to control the tempo, week in, week out. The buck stops with Roos here. We have the cattle. We have drafted well. Something is amiss.

Roos will be under the pump this week. The structures are horrid.

Without a doubt, we are the worst team in the league. Carlton and Brisbane don't have the cattle. We have a stack of talent that have no team dynamics. They breakdown on team fundamentals. I can't see us turning a corner next year and playing finals. We absolutely suck as a team. Comical then when we finally draft well, we put together a bunch of blokes that look like they hate each other.

Done with this club. Done. Done. Done.

Aren't these deadbeats sick of losing?

Game over. I'm done with this club for the year. I don't care anymoe.

The game is up for grabs. TAKE THE GAME ON!

How do we even get people to our games anymore?

I don't think it matters who we draft. There is a stigma attached to pulling on the Melbourne jumper.

Kicking at 76% efficiency apparently.

I swear to God I age 20 years every week watching this mob. I'm pushing 1,000,000 years old now.