Adam The God

Potentially, although Goodwin was a big fan of ANB in 2018 and when Roos had him yoyoing in and out of the side in 2016, Goodwin backed him the following years.

Abso-[censored]-lutely. I also think this year is mostly exceptionally poor, because our team, despite the obvious holes, is playing nowhere near its potential.

We had a forward coach last year (Rooke in the first part of the season and Rawlings in the second half) and neither fixed the connection issue between mids and forwards. Part of it is the way the overall team (mostly from the midfield and backs) is being coached to play fast and/or simply long. The other part of it is the lack of a decent forward coach and how this impacts on the forwards' learnings. But I think there must be a forward coach this year, because they all break off in line groups at the breaks.

As I've said elsewhere, Ross Lyon would be an ordinary move for our club. A dour coach with a 2005 game plan is not going to get us anywhere. It's Clarkson, Yze or even Beveridge for mine.

It's not a new tactic at all. Higgins and others have been doing that to multiple teams for a while. As for Lever being stationary, you can't clear out your entire defence and I wouldn't blame that incident on him. The golden rule for juniors is never kick short in defensive 50 unless the player you are kicking to is absolutely free. That was entirely Max's fault. He's a terrible kick as a rule and should be looking for a longer target or someone completely free.

Yep, Petracca was very good when he got it. I think the lambasting of Oliver is overplayed. Sure, he could improve his disposal, but for my liking, the players around him need to improve their disposal more so. Oliver is the extractor and constantly wins contested possessions. If he was giving to a Harley Bennell it'd be a different story.

We've tried that before and chose incorrectly and got the old boys club mentality. I don't care about MFC blood as long as the incumbents are good at their jobs. And that last bit is now questionable.

On this point I agree to an extent, but still think that this is so much in the way the players are being directed to play. They are clearly being told to go long down the line and try and get a contested mark or reset for stoppage. Problem is it bounces back too easily. Our spread and work rate has always been a problem. I would have thought that being allegedly fitter this year, we'd be able to push into space and use the width of the ground to find holes like most teams do and Collingwood perfected in 2018. But we don't do this. We simply go long down the line to a contest. So do Richmond mind you, but their fast crumbers are perfectly positioned every time. In fact, those Richmond kicks are often up and unders in order (I presume) to ensure players have a chance to get positioned, but they also have two clear KPFs that bring the ball to ground or are dangerous enough to take contested marks. I'd love to coach against Melbourne. We have absolutely no idea what to do when the game is slowed. As soon as the tempo is slowed, the only way we can possibly score is for the opposition to make an horrendous turn over. One of my football clubs has finally won something and that is Liverpool. If you watch the way Klopp and even Man City play, it's actually a very similar style to Collingwood's and it uses the width of the pitch to ensure it eventually out positions players in the zone and creates space in dangerous areas. I think you're a Liverpool supporter too, so I won't patronise you, but it's a very pervasive tactic that much of the AFL plays now, but that Melbourne don't seem to.

My understanding is we no longer own the Bentleigh Club, so that might explain it...

I really think boiling it down to just kicking is a complete oversimplification of what is going on. I think @tiers summed it up best in that it is a combination of poor leading and poor kicking, but I'd also add that confidence plays into it as well (which Tiers might be alluding to as well). What I found frustrating upon reflection about yesterday is that when we play fast, and we can play fast (as we showed at times yesterday), we can replicate 2018. Ironically, Richmond play fast and it's won them two flags. They play a different style, but it's all about moving the ball quickly forward and not enabling zonal defence to set up properly. This is why Lever kept being caught out of position. Not very many teams can constantly set up defensively and quickly to cover fast ball movement, so we'd beat most teams, most weeks with fast ball movement. What's happened I think is that we've slowly lost confidence due to a lack of poor leading and poor kicking, which has increased the problem, but that the players don't seem to have a blueprint for if/when the opposition makes us play slow. It seems to be long down the line to Max or that's it. Yesterday, Tom played further up the ground and I think that's his go. He has to 'out-motor' his opponent between backward of centre, all the way into deep forward 50. As for Jetts, although I love him, he's only got a high DE by foot because he barely kicks over 20 metres. We need to attack more with our kicking, which given our low confidence is going to be unlikely.

He's had a large say in our list recruitment and strategy over a number of years. I don't think he gets to lay the blame on the list either. I suspect he's out of ideas though.

What a disappointing and pathetic post.

Skills come when there's confidence at this level.

Hope your brother and your wider family are doing okay mate. There are more important things in life than footy and I wouldn't begrudge any MFC supporter for dipping in and out when their mental health can/can't handle it. It's important to recognise when it's a good time to step away. The footy club just doesn't give back enough. I was quite happy for the AFL not to come back this year. I've said a few times recently that maybe it'd be better if the AFL as an industry folded, but I know that if the MFC were playing well, I'd probably think differently. But as someone who goes every week to see it with my family, COVID has put into perspective what's important in life. My wife is pregnant, I'm spending as much time with my family as possible (non-football time which is great), zooming with friends and realising that there's more to life than disappointment every weekend. We've ultimately got to look towards the positives as much as possible, and I, like you (it seems), do have many fears for the world, but we have to find positivity where we can and your new hobbies sound like a good direction. We need more things that bring us together and less that divide. I hope that the MFC can bring us all together again soon, but for now, we're a mile off.

Have to agree. There's such inconsistency with the messaging in the press. I hope internally it's better sorted, but you've got to wonder. Bennell needs to play. Simple as that. I think our systems are shot and the ones that work aren't being aided by poor decision making/skill execution.

Terrible kick from Oliver before but he's not the problem. The commentators on Fox and 7 have gunned for him all day. He's won a heap of contested possessions.

Every time Petracca gets it we get a goal.

BTW. Viney has been truly horrible in this game. Has he had an effective disposal?

We've been terrible but the umpiring is so inconsistent and one sided. The down field before from Rivers and the throw from Martin earlier. So inconsistent.

Was this always the case though?

The MCC is very little help to the MFC. My understanding is that the MFC is not seen particularly as a part of the MCC, when I thought it was. These payments are good news, but I hope we've got strategy around dealing with the MCC going forward. The less MFC people on the board, the less they care about MFC.

I welcome the positivity in the OP but disagree with the sentiment that the midfield is the strength when the OP also acknowledges the difference between our inside 50s and the opposition's. Our midfield doesn't defend and our disorganisation is as much a coaching flaw as personnel.

Just want to remind people our completely disorganised defence and zone is the responsibility of Troy Chaplin. May and Lever haven't played enough football together and will gel more with more football, but positionally we're still lost. Smith looks a lot better this week and May is very good at killing the contest. Kozzie looks completely lost when we're in defensive mode. I'll watch closely in this second half for his positioning. Think he'll be a beauty though. Cannot understand why commentators continually pump up Petracca but criticise Oliver. King said Oliver was probably our second or third best player. Max is a great ruckman but Oliver is our best player by so far it's not even funny.

I don't think so. The long kicking to contests and crumbing is the Richmond style with pressure. We don't have enough leg speed. I want us to be bold and play to our strengths. (see below). I agree. That was playing to our strengths.

It's an interesting one this, because I think Saad is exactly the type of player that is only good if you want to play a certain system. I thought we were going for an Adelaide zone system (circa 2017), but we seem to have drifted away from this and more towards territory with a pressing zone. This makes sense given our stoppage and contest work, but I think we need more strings to our bow. I'd support us targeting Saad if the coaching team were convinced we wanted to play a complimentary style to his gun and run game.