Adam The God

I think everyone has worked us out. I don't think Port are a particularly good side. We fumbled and fumbled early in the peace last night (never seen Oliver so sloppy - I'm not talking about his kicking, I'm talking about his fumbling of the ball) when the game was still absolutely there for the taking. Oliver kicks that one at quarter time and we're two goals down after being pathetic all quarter. But we made Port look like a top side. I think in the wash up, they'll end up being the equivalent of a top 6 team, but who knows, in a year when there are no stand out teams, maybe they'll make a prelim or a grand final. I doubt it though. As for us, we haven't tweaked enough since 2018. Yeah, we've brought in May and now Lever is fit, but what game style changes have we made in two years? At a point, you've gotta go, nope, this plan isn't working, let's try something else. There's no doubt Goodwin is coaching for his career here, but what other ideas does he have to implement other than let's win contested footy and convert that into scoreboard pressure?

I'd agree with this if I'd seen us slingshotting backwards and forwards. We didn't. With the exception of Langdon, no one worked into space all night. So we can't then blame the hard gut running we're doing forward of the ball when we turn it over. I think what you point out could be more applicable to us losing to Richmond or Geelong, but last night, we didn't slingshot either way. Agree with the dumbness of our play last night. Bringing McDonald into the side along with still playing Jackson and Weideman, I'm sure our FD were hoping our guys would use those taller guys as outlets more often than simply kicking to Max every time down the line. Absolutely agree with this. I've no sure way of knowing this other than results and what I see with my eyes on game day, but our guys seem to be comfortable with a couple of weeks of effort in a row and then they'll have a week or two off. This has been a Melbourne cultural thing for as long as I can remember and to me, it speaks to the vacuum of leadership at the club.

There are certainly more ways teams can beat us than ways we can beat them, that's for sure.

I reckon we have 2 plans. One is fully formed but one dimensional and the other is half baked and inconsistent. Plan A is contested, clearance footy as we all know. The half baked plan B is where we go long down the line to a contest with crumbers at the foot of the pack (see Richmond’s ball movement), with a wave of support runners or we look to hit up short passes from centre wing towards half forward. It is very rare that we get that last part right, i.e. short passes from centre wing towards half forward. We don't work hard enough or take the game on enough. Teams know this is an area of weakness and if they play 1v1 in a cluster, we won’t look to switch or use the ground to its full width. We were big on angles a few seasons ago, but we’ve never been good on width and we also (for mine) lose patience too quickly. Our kicking over 20-30m is also too inconsistent to play the chipping game Clarkson made so famous and successful. I do think Collingwood showed you don’t have to have brilliant kickers if you’ve got players who are prepared to work hard into space though. The problem with our brand is it is so labour-intensive in winning the ball in the first place, when we do then we don’t have the legs to work into space, with the exception of Langdon. It’s a massive problem and I think we got too cute with selection. Tomlinson’s running power is absolutely needed for the modern game and particularly our game style. I don’t think teams worked us out in the prelim, I think teams knew how to beat us prior to that game, we just managed to bring the pressure in the games we won (those finals against Geelong and Hawthorn, our pressure was excellent). But as soon as our pressure drops even 10%, we’re in trouble. If it drops off even more and we fail to lay tackles like last night, we get mauled. I think it’s too simplistic to say we have no plan B, but I reckon Plan A is too flawed and one dimensional.

This is a systems fault thing IMO. The system is too labour-intensive. Even with our alleged fitness increase, there's not enough room for error. It's all well and good to play the forward territory battle, but I just don't think the plan being sold is sustainable over four quarters, for 22 games a season. Even in our most dominant performance this year, we couldn't sustain it for all 4 quarters. Some of this is concentration, some of it is stupid errors leaving our defence open, and we do go into our shells too easily, but this is year 4 of Goodwin and he's still tinkering with the best side and trying to implement the tempo game to very limited success. Last night was mostly on the players, but for me it simply highlights the deficiencies within Goodwin's game plan and his communication.

You wouldn't. It was poor.

That's clearly not a comment on coaching then is it? He's talking about the players refusing to take the game on.

Wow, poor effort this post. So patronising and gendered. Would you dismiss Saty by calling him dad?

I spent the breaks watching Simpsons season 9 as I couldn't bear to listen to the commentary, but I've just seen the article and accompanying video in the Herald Sun that has Gary rightly giving the club at a whack at half time. It also has Jonathan Brown's comments about Round 1 2019 and that the players wanted to show something, instead Brown said we served up 'crap'. He's spot on and the blow torch needs to fire up. How could Melbourne players accept their vice captain last year being whacked repeatedly to the ground and roughed up without anyone flying the flag and then in the return game the following year, we don't come out amd hit them. We serve up arguably our worst performance since the 2018 prelim. It speaks to a worrying lack of leadership and that old soft under belly returning again. And I tell you what, there's no way a Clarkson side would let that happen.

Yep, thought that play was horrendous and is an example of when May panics. This is something that I've been pointing out for a few weeks now. He needs to get better under pressure. Having now watched that video with him post match, I like seeing him [censored] off. We need our guys showing a little bit of profession pride. Let's hope it's on the bloody football field next time.

I missed it too, because I'd turned off the train wreck, but if someone could let me know what was said, it would be much appreciated.

It was interesting seeing Jones very obviously decide not to handball to Viney when he was free on the outside at one point tonight. It was very noticeable.

I reckon Clarkson could get our midfield playing like his '08 midfield. They're similar in many respects. I'm not convinced Alastair has any new tricks left, but his current list is ordinary. I don't think comparing his current list with our list is that apt and that if he had a better list, he'd get more out of them. See Hawthorn's ordinary list in 2018.

You're having a big night, aren't you? Might be time to pop off to bed. Langdon wasn't our worst tonight. Reckon he was probably in our top 5 or 6.

I reckon we'll end up doing both if this continues.

I reckon it's a systems thing. Our system makes things tougher for our entire team. When our pressure drops below a certain point our defenders cop it. When our mids and backs fail to deliver the ball to the advantage of forwards, our forwards look hopeless. It's as I said in the post match thread, there's too much that can go wrong with Goodwin's system and it makes players look worse than they are IMO. I'm happy with our defence as a unit. I don't think we missed Nev tonight. Lockhart showed some good flashes in the first half and then faded as the team was overawed. Sure, our defenders panicked, but I think because our midfield was so sloppy and our they put in so little effort, our defence was made to look much worse. In terms of mechanisms for generating scores, I think Goodwin has one game. It's quick decisive ball movement from one end of the ground to the other. We've also developed an ability to go a bit slower when held up. But our biggest problem, which everyone bangs on about, is our inability to capitalise on the hit outs and use this to generate scores. It used to be that if you won the clearance, you'd get a chance at a score. But then somewhere either in 2011 or post 2011, teams like Geelong decided you could win games by giving up the clearance, provided it was a pressured clearance. I think the likes of Geelong and even Hawthorn, have reverted to the clearance concession because they know they don't have the cattle to win contested possession from centre clearance, but we do, and Goodwin hasn't devised a system that will enable us to capitalise on this. It's a massive inditement on him. The very good backmen in the comp still look ordinary when there's little midfield pressure and they're exposed. Oscar isn't great, but he's slowly improving.

I reckon members might be more inclined to start giving to a Clarkson fund...

I think it's safe to say we're already looking, mate. But agree with the rest of your post though.

And they played that slow tall in front of Weideman and Jackson also played forward. Utterly gobsmacked by that. This was of course complimented by Fritsch, the guy whose lack of toughness wouldn't stop my cat. And then the commentators were wondering why our forwardline weren't laying tackles. And playing Sparrow in the midfield for most of the night. I... it's very hard to understand.

I reckon there's too much that can go wrong with our system and too much that needs to go right for it to click consistently within game. We're very easy to coach against. Crowd our mids at stoppage so that either there's a stoppage or it spills out for a clearance the other way. At best, we get a rushed kicked out of the stoppage. Exhibit A, last week, exhibit B, this week. If our mids fail to defend, we get slaughtered. If our mids fail to capitalise on Gawn's dominance, we get slaughtered. If teams get the ball on the outside against us, we get slaughtered. Yes, we've improve our defensive running (notwithstanding tonight's performance), but the formula to beat us is so simple. If you bring stoppage pressure and ensure you're set up behind the ball, you completely leave us without answers. Our contested style is made redundant and we end up giving it back to them. If we lose next game, I reckon Goodwin's done.

I was at 186. It was embarrassing. The score wasn't as bad today, but after half time, I said to my wife, 'I can't help myself, I need to turn this back on, but I don't know why'. And then continued to watch and cringe my way through the rest of the match with an utterly hollow feeling. The club can't keep doing this to its supporters, otherwise there'll be none left.

The tackling efforts tonight, particularly by our forwards and mostly by our mids, has been the worst I can recall. Maybe similar to the prelim, but that was mostly a case of us not having the ball. We've had the ball a bit in this game, but as soon as we give it up they run through us.

Hibbo's tried. Langdon runs hard. Lockhart was good in the first half. The rest...? They've been utterly atrocious.

Haven't looked to do it all night. Complete lack of work rate the entire game. The most hollow I've felt since the West Coast game. Thank goodness I've got Demonland for my mental health.

I don't think anyone's been good in the midfield tonight. I'm a massive Clayton fan, but I can't remember him fumbling as much in a single game before. Still, look at the midfield as a whole. They've been a hot mess tonight, including our captain.