Adam The God

Indeed. I meant let him walk as a RFA. I wouldn't bother going to the draft with a compo pick. I would trade it for Ben King give him most of Jack's salary.

I'd go with Tomlinson as TU says. Preuss' big issue last year was his ability to get to stoppages and his fitness. I'm sure he's improved that, but Tomlinson for mine.

Don't get me wrong. I love Max, but we can win without him.

Remember 2017 without Max. We're less predictable as a clearance team. I think we'll win either way. I remember we beat Adelaide in Adelaide without Max and Jacobs was rucking against McDonald from memory.

Hi all. If one of the mods thinks this might be better in one of the other threads, feel free to merge. It feels like it needs its own thread though to me. I want to discuss what people's preferred midfield mix is given IMV, we haven't been able to get the balance right now for at least 3 years or longer. Everyone talks about the need for outside pace and delivery, better ball users, better structures or whatever. But I want to talk purely about personnel here, because if we think back to the only time our midfield has truly clicked under Goodwin (outside of a patch in 2017 when we didn't have Gawn and became less predictable in a good way...), and we saw exponential growth in a number of players, was the middle of 2018. The starting mids at that time were a mixture of Oliver, Gus and Harmes. Jones had moved to the half back flank by then. So had Lewis. Viney was out injured and we saw Harmes' growth as a run with mid. Gus worked nicely as an inside/outside mid that would often receive handballs from Oliver and then clear with reasonable accuracy and distance. It was a predictable mixture for our forwards too. By the time the finals series came, Viney was back and played midfield minutes and was brilliant in the finals series, I thought. Our pressure was the highest it's been from the forwards and the mids, and the system was implementable for two weeks IMV. There are a multitude of factors as to why 2019 was an unacceptable shambles, however we began the reset this year and let alone the forward delivery being a carbon copy of the issues experienced in 2019, it's pretty clear we haven't got the midfield mix right this year either. Even in the 3.5 quarters that we played against Hawthorn, easily our best match, we wasted, IMV, Gus and Harmes, who were probably easily in the bottom 5 for me in that game. The other element that has thrown out our midfield mix is the rise of Petracca this year in particular. Last year the stats said he was playing 30/70% mid/forward, this year, those stats are reversed and rightly so. He's an impact player in the mould of Dustin Martin. So how to get the best of out of our midfield? I've read multiple posts calling for Oliver to move forward, because Viney can't play anywhere else, because Petracca is so dominant you need him in the middle etc, and I've argued you fix the systems to better utilise the talents you have, not move the magnets. However, IMV, our most balanced and damaging midfield combination is Oliver, Petracca and Gus, with Harmes filling in their midfield minutes when off or forward. Langdon has been a good recruit, despite what some think, and will become a very important player for us. Particularly, on the expanses of the MCG in years to come. He needs to fix up his disposal, but he'll get there. I'd also be playing Tomlinson on the other wing. Use his aerobic power and abilities to stretch the opposition and their zones. So where does that leave Viney? Someone posted the other day, I can't remember who (sorry), that Viney throws out our midfield mix. I think it was you @rjay? I tend to agree. And whilst he loves the club and is a bull, he's too see ball get ball, but if he doesn't win the ball, often it's going down the other end. This isn't a case of Viney improving his defensive accountability. He's not necessarily bad in that department, it's just his style bashes and crashes the midfield mix to a point where he upsets Oliver and Petracca's cleaner clearances and the makes our midfield less predictable to our forwards. This impacts on forward connection IMO. At the end of last year, I wrote here that I'd be trading either Gus or Viney, because both players have difficulty slotting in anywhere else. And despite Jack having a very solid season, he's the one I'd be trading. Not to mention, we'd probably be well compensated for him (and could look to trade it for Ben King), I think we had an A grade midfield for the majority of 2018 and we've never recaptured that since Viney has returned to the mix. In the meantime, I'd be playing Viney at half forward in AVB's pressure role, but I'd take the majority of his midfield minutes away from him. A tough, bold call, but we need to need recapture the 2018 form and the common denominator of success that season was the midfield mix I've described above. It's quite possible that the circuit-breaker of a new coach is needed to implement this, otherwise Goodwin, in order to save his job, must reshuffle. Discuss.

Heppell is inconsistent, but when he's on, a much better decision maker and ball user than Jones has ever been.

Come on mate. If anything it was the other way round. Tommy Mac clearly wasn't fit. If we were going to try 3 talls, we should have played Brown or someone fit. Mind you, I don't think 3 talls works when we have Melksham, Fritsch and Hannan too.

Pathetic from the Demon Army. Absolutely pathetic. Why make it personal if you agree with his comments in this situation? It just smacks of settling old scores.

Complrtely agree. A bizarre selection. I thought we'd play him back, but he said prior to the match he'd play midfield and a bit forward. If he was manning Boak in the middle did he follow Boak to half back as well? We've already got Gus and Harmes being played out of position because we can't fit them in the midfield and we bring in yet another mid? Did they want to use Harmes on Gray and Gus on a wing, therefore neither could play on Boak? I just don't understand the thinking. Can anyone constructively illuminate me on this?

Pretty defeatist attitude. Who's not resilient?

Yeah, they're similar and have always been joined in my head as they both came out of the SANFL as highly touted outside youngsters. I think Aish is softer, but has a better temperament to succeed, which has enabled him to get onto three AFL lists. Or maybe he's just luckier that he didn't land at Melbourne first and have his confidence shot?

Aish's ball use at under 18 level was okay, but it doesn't stand up in the big time. He's also as soft as they come.

I really like the sound of that. I've been impressed with our commercial wins this year, particularly off the back of our horrendous 2019. Furphy is a good signature, and to get the gin company 78 Degrees on board, as a fundraiser myself, I know how difficult it is in the current environment. I also like that he seems to be working quietly but diligently behind the scenes. Anyway, well done @Jack Russell on getting these sponsors over the line.

I wasn't bagging Pert...

I was about to like this post. I was thinking, jeepers, Elegt's actually written something positive. And then you threw in the Tom McDonald barb. Ah well.

I don't mind Pert and you're probably right about Pert, RE: the media machine he's come from. Your last two posts have been interesting to me though. One canning Jackson as a CEO and another championing Pert. Is that you, Gary?

Let's stop mentioning his age, then hey?

If I was part of the marketing department, I would definitely being advising a no BS approach. I'm sure that's what's been advised. I doubt Pert has too much say on that stuff, but maybe.

Why would you not just simply post this in the Post Match thread? Anyway, interesting that Mahoney is speaking and not the coach or one of the players. I think he sounds reasonable for the most part, but "you've gotta be careful sometimes to look at one game and throw everything out"... well, I don't think it's one game though, is it? The sample size is much larger than that. It's a pattern that's been replicated on and off since early in 2018. We are too easy to coach against. Okay, so we managed to slow our bombastic, play on at all costs ball movement down over a fortnight's period, but when sides prevent us from getting easy stoppages, we have no answer. I get we don't want to be too reactionary and ultimately the rest of this year will prove whether or not Goodwin will remain, not the Port game just been, but I think we will look back on last night's performance and say it was the beginning of the end. We might even look back further than that as the beginning of the rot (yes, I know, SWYL, the prelim, the prelim). I also found it interesting that Ben was so direct with his questions around Goodwin's future. I liked that. There was a time at this club where the Melbourne media department was only a sugar coating propaganda machine. At least the elephant in the room was addressed, but of course what else was Mahoney going to say? Finally, I also liked how Ben's questions seem to reflect how the fanbase is feeling after that one. As I said yesterday, I really like Ben and I like the tact that Melbourne Media are taking. I'm not going to watch you if you sit around skirting the issues, so you may as well confront the issues and make your case as to why the club is still on the right path.

So is the plan too difficult to execute consistently? (I don't want to sound like too much of a broken record, but...)

That's because Port's tackling and frontal pressure across their half forward completely breaks down here. And then the zone is too slow to roll back to protect the middle of the ground and leaves the defence wide open, and space in our forwardline. It does show that the modern game is very much one of percentages. Drop your guard for a few seconds and it can be up the other end for a score against you.

Do you post when we win? Serious question. I don't recall reading much of you when we win.

Appreciate what you're passing on mate, that said I pretty much the exact same thing on how to beat us in the post match thread, of which I am not the first to do so. To use a bit of a footy cliche, Blind Freddie could tell us this. The point I disagree on is that our mids fall into double grabbers, poor kills or poor decision makers, at least anymore than most other inside mids in the competition. Notwithstanding last night, Oliver is a one grab player whose decision making is usually pretty sound (he's being made to kick more to take him to the next level - talks of trading him are the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard), Petracca has clearly improved his skill execution and therefore his decision making is looking better. Viney? Maybe, but on his night he is elite and has done it in big finals games, so I reckon the criticism of our midfield is rubbish. So I will be one of the voices of dissidence here, because I still believe in this midfield. What they turned in last night was pathetic, but the forwards weren't much better either. But what has become increasingly clear over time is that the system Goodwin wants us to play is unsustainable and the team has never been able to master any level of consistency of it over 3 years and almost half a season.

Well, there's the nail in the coffin, @Elegt. You're on the same page as the mighty O. Time to pack up shop. In terms of constructive criticism. I think Taylor's done a pretty good job, particularly with our earlier picks.

I tell my old man this all the time and he apologises profusely. My wife is pregnant and we've had an agreement for years that our children will support Melbourne, not her Hawthorn. So I'm sure it will be a cyclical event unless we finally win a flag.