praha

Catch-22. Taking initiative can work very well in your favour a lot of the time, but at the same time, you're defeating the purpose of having a head coach.

...July 8, 2006. Round 16 vs. Brisbane @ The Gabba. Melbourne: 14.14.98 Brisbane: 13.12.90

99,000+ will never be reached, mainly because of the MCC. The MCC is mostly responsible for games never being full houses.

I like going to Geelong to watch the Dees. I love Geelong, and I can at least handle their supporters. I don't feel anywhere near as intimidated as I have at AAMI or Subiaco. Probably won't go this year though.

Because West Coast kept kicking points?

I just threw up in my mouth a bit. Rivers is an extra man in defense-type player. Put him one-on-one and he's no good. He will throw his body on the line, and can blast through the defense with precision and skill. MacDonald is mistake-prone; Brisbane got rid of him for a reason. Rivers is a general. I think you are all forgetting his role in the team.

Eh. No excuses for today. I can accept a loss like that against a finals side, but to allow another bottom-half team to come in and outplay us on OUR ground in front of a sea of red and blue is not right and is unacceptable. I am sick of the young excuse when we have loses like these. I can handle them after a loss like last week or the Collingwood loss, but not today. Not good enough. We should have won easily today. And this club cannot counter the zone. All five of our losses have essentially come at the hands of zoning. If it happens next week and we still struggle to get the ball past the center-line for 10-20 minutes at a time, I'm going to kill a puppy.

We'll beat Collingwood. Mark my words.

Harsh, except for PJ. Considering our current forward stocks, Hughes and Bennell must stay in the team imo. Danny Hughes did enough.

He was easily one of our bests, but that's nothing to write home about in today's performance. Had 15 possessions (8 handballs), 2 goal assists, 5 marks (3 contested).

Did more around the ground, yes. Took a few strong marks, gave off some slick handballs and got some nice pick-ups around the half-forward line. Probably in our top 5 today I'd say. And he wasn't even that good. Says a lot about the team.

I was actually thinking on the way home that he would have been a handy inclusion today. I think one of the areas that let us down was the entry from the half-forward line. Miller typically plays along the flanks and wings and that's where he gets a lot of his possessions. Could have potentially been a 2-3 goal better side today if he was in imo.

I don't think it will happen. The logistics are not possible. When has a professional sporting league anywhere in the world EVER played a regular-season match so far from home? The turn-over is not possible, ESPECIALLY with a fast game like football. I can't imagine either team being particularly excited about it from the players point of view. From a marketing perspective, both teams are probably salivating at the prospect, though. And you watch The Footy Show? *gag*

So someone who has NOTHING to do with the club says a young player that has played 3 games has the wrong attitude? David Parkin is an old [censored]. I've noticed a lot of these older football commentators commenting on how his attitude must not be right if he isn't playing. Back in the days, school and body didn't matter; if you had the skills, you played in the seniors. Isn't like that anymore. If Watts' attitude wasn't right, why would he be picked to play? It's just this mentality running through the minds of the old codgers that if someone isn't playing, there must be something wrong. It's not always the case. There was nothing ever wrong with Jack Watts, it was just a matter of him being prepared to play AFL footy. David Parkin is a [censored] that is decreasing in worth in football circles. I can't believe the man still has a job in the media. He's worse than Leigh Matthews with some of the pretentious and outrageous dribble that comes out of his hole.

They've changed it.

Actually, I voted 9-12, I'd want to change that to 13-16. Tough run home, AAMI, Subi and Geelong trip (probably automatic losses), plus games against Saints, Blues, Sydney, Brisbane IN Brisbane. On paper that's probably max 7 max losses, and maybe 5 min. Still a very young, learning team. Might hit a real bump in the road midway. Or 3/4 way through. We're not there yet.

The 70s and 80s really did bring this club down, didn't they?

To be quiet honest, I think it's an AWESOME thing to see him drop off. It means things are tougher around him and he might not be the best anymore. But because he was AWESOME at his best last year, that makes it AMAZING that there are some BETTER than him. If not, he's still playing good footy, and would easily be top 7-8 of B&F.

The demon only really has religious connotations in one area the MFC seems to care about, and that's within the Chinese community. If they really want to infiltrate the large number of Chinese students coming to our shores, they will have to promote the club as Melbourne FC and keep the Demons on the down low, which is essentially what they've been doing for the past 3 years.

These are the kind of things players will learn. Consider Sylvia broke his jaw not long ago. I don't think he is the kind of player to back out of a contest. We're still growing as a team, and players are still learning. Pretty harsh to criticise, especially considering the performance of the team and specific players (namely Bennell).

I think it has the potential to work incredibly in our favour, marketing wise.

sigh Every sport evolves. I'm just curious: how old are you? It seems like the older generations can never really grasp the concept of evolution when it comes to anything. Watch basketball, rubgy, tennis 20-30 years ago. All differently played to the way they're played now. With improved technology, better monitoring, smarter coaches, better medical expertise, comes change. If you watch football 20 years ago, it's different to the way it is now, but there is a sense of an amateurish-nature to it; no tactics, just mindless contests, as you said. There is no way this sport could grow and be known on a global scale if it didn't evolve. Also, that evolution runs far deeper than you think. If the game had stayed the way it was 20 years ago, it could be argued that so would sponsorship, crowd figures, player payments etc. The league would be in the dark ages, with no prospect for growth outside of Australia. I'm confident that if you showed an overseas video a game from last weekend and then a game from 20 years ago, they'd be able to grasp the rules more from watching the match from last weekend. As for it moving to soccer; football is a contact sport, soccer is not. Every sport has tactics. That ex-Socceroo is an idiot.

Even taking those facts into consideration, I can already tell you that we were a better team in 2008 then what Richmond will be in 2010. After two annihilation in rounds 1 and 2, 2008, we played well against the Cats in round 3 and put in some decent efforts throughout the season. Richmond haven't even come remotely close in 6 rounds.

The reason we actually changed from Melbourne Demons to Melbourne FC and changed our logo was because Gardner and co. were attempting to push into China. Remember, about 3-4 years ago?

I think that, potentially, had Judd came to Melbourne, it would have put us back 2-3 years in development. We wouldn't have Scully, Trengove, Watts, or any other of the young guns from the last two years, and players like Miller, White, Yze, Robertson would still be in the team. Then, when they'd retire, we would be up [censored] creek.