praha

Yep, we play dumb, dumb football at times. Well if our wins are good and our loses are horrible, I imagine our wins would be boring, horrible wins that are tough to watch, and our losses are good, acceptable contests

Well firstly, if you watch the Geelong game, it had nothing to do with them being "one of the best teams ever". It was clearly a protest game by the players. They didn't play. It was a protest. I occasionally go back to watch it and am gobsmacked at how they played. It wasn't that they were "bad": they just didn't care. They were outplayed only because they *literally* let themselves be outplayed. We say they get outplayed often, but to actually *let* the team do it to you, it was on purpose. Bailey was a scapegoat but ultimately the players wanted change. They got a man sacked. I think it's to be expected that we'd be a better team now than we were under Neeld. It's normalisation. There's no way we could still be that bad. But Neeld didn't really do anything different to what Roos is doing. In fact there are a lot of similarities in the rhetoric about "effort", list changes, defensive structures etc. We've replaced one guy with another who has essentially the same mantra, albeit one with more experience in executing it. Last year imo was worse than 2012. Our second half of the year completely undid everything achieved in the first half. In 2012 we were smashed often but there was still optimism. 2013 broke down and we went back a step. Roos took us forward a step and we were back to 2012 quality. This year we're playing worse footy when we lose than we ever did in the first or second half of 2014. Maybe we're back to 2010 and 2011 levels: great wins, horrible losses. I just pray to God that the next generation of Melbourne players is different to the one introduced between 2008 and 2011, players that can perform more consistently and with a higher urgency to win. Brayshaw, Hogan look great, but so did Trengove, Jurrah, Watts, Wonna in their early years. In three-four years time, I want some consistent AA's, and more than one player in the league's top 100, as opposed to one guy who can barely crack it (N. Jones).

No where. He's still playing schoolboy footy.

Refuse to get excited about "improvement" this year until I see it on a consistent basis. The bigger picture about last year is that we weren't much better than we were in 2012 (2013 was by far much worse): beat Essendon, good win away against Adelaide but then wins against Richmond and Carlton don't really paint me excited. 71% is still horrid. If we lose this week by 5+ goals it'll drop to under 70 and we'll be behind where we were last year, because our percentage was quite solid at the half-way point (I think it hit 80% at one point).

Would be disappointed if Spencer gets the chop. Been rucking quite well and has contributed more in fewer games than Jamar did. I have no idea what the expect on Monday. Actually, I do: a loss.

Couple of quotes from Roos from today's press conference: " Clearly against the four best teams (when we're down on form) it's a problem." "My hope at this stage is that there'll be a lot more consistency - we've improved a lot at the top end." "It's just in those moments of pressure when players don't have trust in their coaches and teammates that we lose that consistency." "That "us vs them" mentality of giving players a spray is 30 years old now." "Every game's important, every game's an important experience... good teams play well every week - it's an opportunity to get better." "It gets back to us as a team playing good team footy... we've got to play well as a team to give our forwards the best chance." "The best way (to stop teams getting a run-on) is to score yourself and get the ball around the stoppages." "We were disappointed with our performance last week and clearly we're going to need to respond to that." "Most players are playing for their careers through the course of the season - it's not something that needs to be dramatised."

Downhill skier, always was. He's a massive liability when we're losing, but when we're winning he's an asset. Another "cherry on top" player like Watts.

N. Jones Watts Howe Garland Trengove Viney

Frawley gave us some good games last year, led hard and worked harder when playing forward. Comparing his 2014 output to Howe's 2015 output is hyperbolic.

Garland is hit and miss. I really like the bloke, and he earned my respect for how he kept his head high and kept trying in 2012 and 2013, undoubtedly the hardest time to be a Melbourne player in the past 50 years. I respect him for that. But at the same time, like steve said, he's part of a problem that persists at the club, and that's inconsistent performance, and an inability to consistently assist in helping the team perform at the same high level every week. I'm not saying I want to see him go, but at the same time I think him moving on would help us rid the club of a certain mentality that continues to plague us. If he can turn it around and help us to some wins this year on a consistent basis, I'd be happy to see him get a 2-3 year contract at 350-400k a year. But I've lost confidence in players like him, Dunn, Watts, Howe to rid themselves of that ugly approach to games the team is expected to lose. It's a losers mentality we can no longer accommodate.

Garland of 2015 is Dunn of 2014.

Would you be stoked? Currently, we're at the same point this year (3-6) as we were after 9 games last year. After Round 13 last year we were 4-8. We were looking good. 8-9 wins was a strong possibility. Completely viable that we'll win 1 of the next 3 games to put us at the same point. How we close out the year is another metric. All it takes for this team is 1 or 2 really bad loses for things to just spiral. We saw it in 2011, 2012, 2013 and last year. We haven't seen it yet in 2015. Freo and Sydney were disappointing loses by Hawthorn was horrific. They bounced back against the Bulldogs. But the fragility is a major concern. There are a lot of things we should be expecting of this team now. Dead weight on the list or not, finishing the season with anything less than 8 wins -- and no consistency -- would be a failure, and quite damning for the likes of Jones, Dunn, Watts, Garland, Vince, H, Dawes and Cross, because they should be leading us around the corner, and then pushing the likes of Hogan, Brayshaw etc further.

I think some of that is just normalisation in effect, though. You'd expect there to be improvement with more talent coming into the side. Being more "competitive" isn't really a metric for improvement imo, because it's to be expected in a competitive competition. Consistently good football over 2-4 weeks is a metric I am looking for. I don't expect them to win every game. Expecting them to be competitive is a given: expecting them to be competitive, consistently, because we *literally* haven't seen that since 2011. It's hard to really gauge where this team is, really, because they don't give us an accurate reading. You have to double-back to make sure you got the right numbers, then you realise your wrote the measurement down completely wrong...only for it to change back to what it initially was. fml.

It might hit 60k. It'll be 20k Melbourne and 40k Pies.

The win was very good. But imo it loses value if we can't follow it up. I mean, as a club we need to think of the bigger picture as well. A good showing against Port even if it were a loss would have added 5-10k to the crowd on Monday. We shoot ourselves in the foot as a club at the worst possible moments. My sister for one who is admittedly a little fickle is not interested in coming this week after last week's game. I suspect she's not alone. Casual fans just don't give a [censored] like we do. Consistency ups the entertainment amp a bit and you build momentum. This week is massive, and if we pull it off, the following week is even bigger, even if it is against the Saints. If we beat the Pies but lose to the Saints (again) at Etihad (again), then what's the point, really?

I really take no pleasure in us having a "weak" fixture to close out the year. Anything less than a good effort against Collingwood, Geelong, West Coast, North and the Saints, all teams that constantly out-muscle and push us around and have for a decade, then I will be very disappointed. Yeah, I know, I should be expecting wins but that's unrealistic. If we'd pushed any of Hawthorn, Sydney, Freo or Port I'd have been slightly more optimistic but the way we've bent over was something I thought this club left behind when Neeld left. We have been shocking over 5 weeks. We're lucky we played the Bulldogs two weeks ago and not the Eagles in Perth otherwise our percentage would probably be 40%. Turning a corner is consistent football over two weeks against good opposition. That's it. Two weeks of good football against teams placed 18th and 17th isn't turning the corner. Are we are the corner yet? I think we are. But the team hasn't shown me that it knows how to.

Some blokes take longer. Imagine if we'd parted ways with Jetta when he was one of this forum's whipping boys?

He is looking bad these days. You'd think someone with their gob on screen so much would take more of an effort with their appearance. Like most of his work though apart from that.

Well by that logic, mere improvement would be "turning the corner". We improved last year over 2013 but we're still a bottom 4 side. What I mean is that we need to turn that corner into becoming a middle-tier side. You can't make the leap from bottom 4 to top 8 like you used to be able to do in the 90s. If you can't turn the corner after 4 seasons, you have to start again. We've seen Richmond go through this about 5 times since 1995. Have the Bulldogs "turned a corner"? In some respects they have. GWS have turned a corner. We are not faltering, we aren't falling, we're just stuck in neutral. As I mentioned in another thread, we have the keys to the house but we keep breaking through the window. Turning the corner for mine is playing consistently good football for more than 1 week. We haven't played good, enjoyable-to-watch football over the course of a few weeks since mid-2011. That means that when we *have* played well, we have played poorly the following week. We are consistently inconsistent lol. Turning the corner doesn't necessarily mean beating a good side. It's finding consistency.

Our midfield is not even that bad. Nathan Jones, Bernie Vince, Cross, Viney, Tyson, all competent midfielders, and far from the worst combination. IMO it's something a lot deeper. I don't know what it is. But the capitulations starts in the middle and granted that makes it a midfield problem but as we saw against the Bulldogs -- in which we out-muscled and out-tackled them as well as smashed them in the middle -- our midfield is entirely capable. Roos' calls of it being a psychological thing I think has merit.

I'm just not convinced. Our draw to end last year was quite hard -- North twice, Freo, West Coast away, Geelong, Port away, which made up 7 of our last 10 games, but we still buckled against lower teams. Dare I say our capitulations this year have been Neeld-esque, albeit against very tough opposition. We didn't work anywhere near as hard against Port, Sydney and Hawthorn this year than we did last year. We've probably had one of the hardest draws to start the season. Anyone would think we'd finished top 4. Great work by the AFL scheduling Freo, Sydney, Hawthorn and Port over a five-week period... that said the team hasn't played with great conviction in any of its losses, whereas last year we gave a whelp, even against top teams. I'm just worried that we're going to end up in a spiral. To be frank if they can't get up for this week's game and instead end up getting smashed it'll be very disappointing. It's comical that we're back here after saying the same stuff before the Footscray game. "If they don't give it a go this week they never will," people said. Fact remains is that we haven't won 2 in a row for 5 years, haven't beaten Collingwood for 10 years, not to mention a few other teams, and so for me, having an "easy" draw does nothing to me. I want the team to turn a corner, not get garbage-time wins against crap sides. We should expect as much.

We haven't beaten St Kilda in 10 years. We lost to them last year and they are arguably player better footy this year. Brisbane is hit and miss. The Dogs are hit and miss. We can't expect to beat bottom teams only because if we lose to them then the season is a complete waste, as we saw last season in the final 10 rounds. I didn't expect to beat any of Freo, Sydney, Hawthorn or Port but I expected effort. We just didn't see it. We capitulated in short bursts and that's what's been most disappointing, particularly in that our most experienced players were our worst players in those patches. That's not going to help us get off the bottom. When are we going to turn a corner? Beating Brisbane, GC, Bulldogs, Saints, Carlton doesn't constitute turning a corner imo. We need to beat a good team, and hopefully it starts this week against Collingwood. I expected 8 wins. I still do. But realistically I can't see us winning more than 5. If we can get 6 I'll be very surprised. My main concern is not that we get smashed by top teams. It's that we capitulate and crumble so easily. What happens if the Saints score the first 3-4 goals against us? We'll lose by 10 goals.

Above all else, we needed Nathan Jones to go to another level. He hasn't done it and evidently we're stuck in Neutral. We need two more good midfielders. They don't even need to be great. We just need more damage out of the middle.

Stop reading Green Left Weekly.

1990 was really the same sort of season as 2004 and 2005: poor mid-year showing that ruined our placing in the finals.