praha

It might... My point is that...well...I'm unsure as to how having an extra target would improve delivery. I am certain it would enhance our capacity to score goals when the ball eventually goes there -- two tall targets is something most teams dream of -- but I am unsure how you're going to address the issue of our midfield's inability to mark zones in the middle of the ground and rebound off the defensive 50 fast enough for damaging delivery. In every game this year (and most of Neeld's coaching career) our forwards are dragged up the ground because our midfield is unintentionally flooding the defensive 50 -- they are dragged in because the ball goes in there so frequently. When you're flooding unintentionally, you have no purpose, no position, which is why the opposition looks continuously free and spaced out in comparison to our midfielders. Do you watch our games or just snap at people you disagree with? Maybe I'm going crazy?

Sylvia and Watts, and soon Blease, are downhill skiers. Put them in a crap side and they'll crash and burn along with their teammates. Put them in a finals side and they're Brownlow-vote getters. We haven't seen the best of Watts because he's been in consistently crap sides. He needs a good team around him. Not sure they're ideal people to have around a club that is struggling for leadership, because they've both failed to lead.

I watched some of the Melbourne v Sydney game from 2010 the other night. I was in Greece atm so I missed what many say was Melbourne's most dominate win of the past 6 years. A quote from Bruce: "Oh they're gonna be something! The Dees are gonna be something!" The team was unstoppable that day. They players' attack at the ball, confidence in one another, overall effort and competitiveness is something I don't think we've seen since. I don't get the whole, "it's a culture thing", but it clearly is, that players can't perform when the team collectively isn't performing, that "leaders" and experienced players can't lead from the front when the team folds. I question Neeld because he says so much was wrong, but yet there's more wrong with his team then there was before he arrived, or while Bailey was coach. It's not that I don't have faith, I just think we need to hold him more accountable to what he says. "Give it time" is something you say when you're sure there will be outcomes. In the mean time, if you're not reaching goals that bring you closer to your end goal -- the "time" -- then there is something wrong.

I think that both Grimes and Trengove encapsulate this football team atm: they're great blokes with outstanding endeavour, but they're not Brownlow winners, or potential superstars. They're the kind of guys every Premiership team has, though. Best to have a champion team, then a team of champions.

Would be even better if we could get the ball forward...

lol funny you say that. Melbourne seems like the new Fitzroy, support wise. I think the contemporary Fitzroy crew are adopting it as their team. I went to Melbourne Uni in 2012, trust me, I've seen it. It's an "underdog" thing. The club should DEFINITELY invest in the Fitzroy Brunswick Street area imo. Have a shop on Brunswick Street. Makes sense considering the proximity to East Melbourne and that it's basically a directly line from the street to the MCG. But I wouldn't expect the club to invest in the city of ... Melbourne. Casey makes much more sense. /sarcasm

Games against interstate clubs always sound loud ... at least for the small crowd. Good that Melbourne fans sit so close together in one half of the ground. From AFL Members it sounds very loud.

Kind of getting sick of these, "I know the club isn't performing better but let's get out there and support the boys" threads. Most people have already made up their minds. The pity and sympathy around here is getting too much to handle.

No, I'm crying too.

Oh wow, I just listened to that. Shocking that people here are still being so apologetic for this club and the players. Long way off. [censored] of Frawley, Watts, Sylvia, all these "experienced" boys that think they're God's gift to the league.

Offensive styles in ANY sport are far too vulnerable. Whether it's AFL, soccer, basketball, whatever, if you're playing an offensive style, you risk being absolutely smashed in transition if the opposition manages to get it out of defense. This was the problem with Bailey's gameplan: his team tried to play a fast, quick brand of football, and sometimes it worked wonderfully, but other times it led to the ball going out even FASTER than it did going in, which created bottlenecks and eventually the entire team found itself in the defensive half in what could only be described as unintentional flooding. Remember that Hawthorn game where they had a record-number of inside-50s in a quarter? It's because whenever we ran it out, they would just keep pushing down on the offensive flow and eventually the ball would get deeper and deeper into their forward line, and Melbourne's players would have to push deeper and deeper back. It's the same in basketball: if you play a fast, offensive-minded game, you'll have amazing games where you're in a shoot-out with your opposition. But if you start missing shots, or hit a brick wall against the opposition, they'll score even FASTER on the fast break. They will smash the offensive team in transition. Offensive football can very easily lead to unaccountable football, which is exactly what was Bailey's team's issue. Neeld is trying to instill accountable and individual responsibility on the field, and the players can't make the transition yet. I am all for going all-out offensive but imo it wouldn't help in the long-term: when/if this team gets up and running with any said style, it won't have the capacity to compete against defensive-minded teams like Sydney, or Geelong. It can't compete against them now, but at least, at the very least, the team is being taught a defensive style. Everyone knows how to kick goals. But not everyone can defend. This, imo, is the philosophy behind Neeld's plan.

"Maybe it can be traced back to his very first game in the AFL, round 11 2009. Having quarantined Watts from the pressures of the big-time for the first half of the season, Melbourne officials abandoned the cotton-wool approach and, putting its own public relations requirements ahead of Watts, unveiled him in front of 61,000 spectators in the Queen¹s Birthday game against Collingwood." He's not wrong about that. That entire thing was embarrassing for the club and Watts. They actually made an announcement as the team ran out: "Ladies and gentlement, No.1 draft pick Jack Watts, and the Melbourne Football Club." God awful.

Funny how you equate no priority pick and league handouts to being "unregulated". Teams lost on purpose to benefit from a welfare system. Shockingly, people still struggle to recognise the issue with that and the system. EPL is the way it is because there is no salary cap, and all the leagues abide by the same wide reaching set of regulations (or lack thereof). I was referring more to the competitiveness of the league, where it's every club for itself. The AFL still has a salary cap, and has no demotion system. It's like the NBA...only with extra rewards of ineptness...and even in the NBA you're not assured a top pick if you have the worst record. Melbourne hasn't struggled for decades because of a lack of resources, or because financially it's worse off than other clubs: it's struggled because it's been run so ineptly as to not have those benefits in the first place. There were no external forces compromises the club's ability to be at the top with the likes of Collingwood. The club has only itself to blame. The way I see it, and I understand that you disagree, is that Melbourne has constantly, consistently been lacking the ruthless competitiveness that is needed to win in this league, both on and off the field. You can have the most amazing vision in the world, the most spectacular understanding of the game, but if you lack the drive and capacity to thrive in a competitive environment, you won't ever fulfil the prophecy. I am still reeling from the fact that even jokingly there were people of authority at the club considering putting the club in a position to benefit from league welfare, to lose on purpose. Another priority pick is not a good thing. It's an act of pity. Many of you embrace as "yay another top pick", but it's not going to change a damn thing: it won't change our prospects, the culture, the earning capacity of the club. Nothing.

They should beat GWS by 10-12 goals. There is too much class up forward and too much experience down back for GWS to really challenge this squad. There are no excuses if they lose this week. Brisbane, on the other hand, will run rings around Melbourne at the GABBA. You can bookmark that.

Why don't we want to go the way of the EPL? The EPL encourages teams to strive to be the absolute best they can be: the PP has led to teams losing on PURPOSE to reap the benefits of a "socialised sport". I think you're mixing up "deserving of" and "entitled to". A premiership-winning side is "deserving" of financial growth, prime-time games and television spots: they earn what they deserve, based on their performance. A losing team is "entitled" to help only if it is incapable of building a team on its own ... as it stands in the AFL's current system. I am "deserving" of wealth. I am not "entitled" to it (I am sure some here will disagree with that...) We do not "deserve" an extra pick. No one "deserves" socialism, because you're not technically "earning" what you're given. The club "deserves" to suffer financially through its own failures. That's not an opinion. It's earned a bad reputation.

How exactly has socialism helped the club thus far? It hurts competitiveness. It's very clear. Clear as day.

Are you talking about Jack Watts or Toumpas?

They should try the opposite of what they're already doing.

"We're losing by so much because we have a plan." "But the team is just awf...." "WE HAVE A PLAN!" *slams fist on table*

You mean play [censored] football for 30 years and make the finals sparingly? Yeah Melbourne's already taking a leaf out of their book.

Top 20 pick so yes.

Watts is done. He'll be gone at year's end.

What's Neeld's average losing margin? Must be 60+. I feel the club is trying to remain stable even in the face of needed change. They play awful, awful football. The team shows absolutely NO promise. I am just bewildered as to how a young, finals-fringe side from 2010, 2011, can break down so badly. Need says they're building the club from the ground up. It seems like they've turned the ignition off but are struggling to get it going again. Is Neeld driving the cultural changes at the club? We really need to start scrutinising his vision rather than just sit back and take it as the gospel. It's just astonishing that a team falls so far below AFL standard. Neither GC nor GWS are as convincingly smashed in certain important areas. Melbourne hasn't lost this man consecutive quarters for 99 years. It's suffered it's worse loss at he MCG in its history. I'm sorry, but "rebuild" should not equate to accepted ineptness. You don't maintain stability when said stability doesn't exist. The club is trying to justify its stubbornness by talking a lot of garbage about stability. It's a get-out-jail-free card for Neeld and the board. I am happy to give Neeld the year...but not with a consistent stream of 100-point beatings and records. No rebuild, no established club, no competitive environment - as minnow as said competitive environment at the club might be - can justify the brand of football this club is playing. Its vision is bold and ambitious. And I get that. But my family has been going to the MCG for half a century. I'm a very competitive individual, and I can handle losses -- "we succeed because we fail," as Michael Jordan famously said -- but such ineptness, excused as the downtime before a promised period of "sustained success" does not sit well with me. No club that loses games by 186, 140 points turns it around in less than a decade to win a flag. We thought the club culture was toxic? It's the losing culture that fuels it. Neeld wants to change this club, but he's regressing it back further than its ever been in the process. I am seriously concerned about this club's welfare.

We will [censored] GWS. If we don't the club will have earnt the honours of being one of the AFL worst teams if all time, if it hasn't already.

When you're second to the ball you're going to get calls against, good or bad. This team gets a lot of calls against it, many bad, because it plays lazy, reckless football. The Eagles were always going to run away.