Adam The God

You can't help but think we've got a few on the ground and in the coaches box that drank a few litres of bathwater over summer.

Because Tom McDonald isn't a good backman. In fact, he's ordinary. With ball in hand in the back half, he more than not [censored] it up. I'm certainly lost as to why they keep playing a clearly injured McDonald. I can only think they're trying to protest Weideman.

Lol. Go and pop up another best 22, fella.

[censored] call. Continues to try his heart out and is creating assists for his team mates every week. Playing in our forwardline would be pretty horrible the way we bomb it in long to Preuss every time.

Another thing, half way through quarters we seem to shut up shop. That said, Gawn looked shot ten minutes into the first and couldn't run. Then there's McDonald, who can barely raise both arms and Jetta, who looks like he's carrying something (at least I hope so). Our fitness is pathetic.

Fritsch is weak in the contest, poor 1v1, a poor reader of the play, lacks positional awareness and now even his decision making by foot is beginning to fail him due to confidence. He might be able to play on a wing or play a forward role, but he's got no idea in defence and was a liability last year as well.

Great post. Post more regularly, please. I'm as despondent as you are. I was saying today that I'd liken this year more to 2012 under Neeld. We're so [censored] predictable, we play an outdated game style (chaos is dead) and our players are now completely bereft of confidence. Yes, our midfield is poor defensively, but our defence is so messy and poorly set up. We [censored] ourselves whenever the ball is on the deck; we fail to spoil; we're positionally poor in most contests; and we rarely even halve contests. Not to mention, our defence has close to no run and carry, except for an occasional run by from Hibberd (who kicks it high and long to no one) or Salem, who is one of our better players these days, but feels wasted off a half back to me.

And those two defenders we've paid a high price for can't get on the park. I hope 2020 is our year, because we've paid a lot of Jake and Steven, and they've still never played with each other.

Agree with all of this, except when it comes to trading. Do not trade out first rounders this off season, but if we can get some quick role players into our side, that could make a big difference. Isn't it ridiculous that we play in a prelim final one year and then by Round 5 we're already talking about the next season. [censored] Melbourne Football Club.

Gawn is very Melbourne too. Up one year, down the next. He's been terrible this year and was one of our worst today. He's also one of the loudest talkers off field.

Yep, I dread to think what Richmond and Hawthorn will do to us the next two weeks.

I agree it's system based and almost all about our coaching. Our forwards don't lead up at the ball and we don't lower our eyes enough entering forward 50. Collingwood are showing the way a dominant midfield (which we possess too) can play control football and wipe sides off the park. I find it staggering that we still haven't worked out how to play the G or against control footy. Our aggressive press is still just as ridiculous as it was last year and must go. I love Hibbo but he's done. I don't think we've got a dumber footballer on our list. He can't win 1v1s anymore and he literally has one game: bomb it high and long. Lewis and Jones were both done last year too. The missing ingredient to this side, as has been discussed ad nauseum, is pace. We need pace off our back flanks, on our wings and in our forward half. I think we might need some fresh ideas in the coaching ranks too. Hold onto your first bloody draft pick this time because it'll be another top 5 pick. We're not getting off the foot of the ladder this year.

Game style is done. Time to change tact. We don't have the personnel or coaching nous to make chaos footy work on the most important ground in the game. 2019 is done and dusted. Start trying some things for 2020 and play man on man, throw the press out and start again. I'll back Goodwin to turn it around, but if he sticks with the game style we won't be getting off the bottom of the ladder. The forward 50 efficiency was disgraceful today.

Oscar should not have been beaten either. Is your point Oscar and Jones are both ordinary? If so, I'd agree with you. It was the ease with which he was pushed off the contest that is what's concerning.

Just watching the replay again. Gets muscled off it by Heeney and the ball slingshots back for a Sydney goal to Ronke. He'll be too slow to play forward on the 'G too.

He brought that in Round 2 and 3 as well...

I hope so. I'm one of them, but he was very good tonight. Well done, Marty.

That was bloody great. We kicked some really clutch goals tonight (Jones, Melksham, Viney and Hunt). Our intensity was really up too and we played proper 'control' style at times in the last quarter. We still try to play too quickly at times unnecessarily, but hopefully we can start to add this switch to our game. Preuss at full forward won't work very often on the 'G, because he doesn't lay any tackles and could barely move by the end of it tonight, but two nice goals from him. I thought Hore held up well, as did Frost (despite some usual brain fades), but Oscar McDonald was outmuscled so many times in the first half, Hibberd still can't win 1v1s and against a better forwardline, we're still going to struggle unless we continue to improve our defensive transition. I still think Jeff Garlett would add a bit to this forwardline, but Petracca's intensity was really good again, for a third week in a row and he's getting better with each week. Spargo was neat and handy in the first half and faded a bit (that fitness problem again) and Hunt is untidy at times, but his hand tonight was crucial in converting our inside 50 entries and applying much needed chase and defensive pace in our forwardline. Ultimately, I think he's probably a wingman or half backer, but he'll keep getting games if he continues to chase and harass like he has the last 2-3 weeks. I think our focus on defence throughout the week meant that it took us a while to play our natural game, which we started to see come through in the second half once we had laid the foundation of defence. Harmes has become a proper player. He holds his own alongside Clarry, Gus and Viney. If we can get our two-way running right, I think those four will make the best midfield in the comp. I hope we have set the standard for ourselves this week that we can build on for the next few weeks and maybe, just maybe, things can turn around. Given many of our other likely competitors for the top 8 are only sitting on 1 win, we haven't lost as much ground as we could have. And hold your horses on Jones. It's a bit like Facebook on here. You can't ever criticise him or you're sacrilegious. Nathan did kick three goals, the last of them being a really important one, however outside of those goals, the rest of his game was embarrassing. Do people actually watch the game? He was fumbly and a poor user. What's more, for a guy who's close to playing 300 games, I've never seen such a panicker. Florent's goal in the third, for example, was from a direct Jones panic turnover. But, as I say, excited to get the win and we'll see whether we can back it up next week.

Really worried about our ability to lock the ball inside our forward 50, let alone how it gets there in the first place. At least, there's not a great deal of pace in the Sydney midfield and McVeigh out is a big one given the drive he gives them. I expect Buddy to kick a minimum of 3, but it could be an 8 or 9 goal showing the way our defence have been playing in 1v1s. The season was done last week, but if we get smacked tomorrow, I fear we won't be able to get out of the bottom 4 this year.

We shouldn't have made him captain again. It was plain as day he was finished last year and yet not only did he go around again, we made him captain. I think we've got to drop him if he's not performing or there's not a role. Call it 'soreness' or whatever you like, but internally, drop him. And he never carried us for the record. He was one of the only players who took pride in his own performance. Even in those days he played selfish football, as evidenced by Roos banging on about it when he came to the club.

Fritsch is also a big problem in our back 6. He started playing sweeper off the wing and he just doesn't read the play well enough and often gets caught in no man's land. I don't think we can boil it down to one or two factors or players. I think it's coaching, forward and midfield work rate, and defenders not being able to halve contests.

I disagree. He's a KPF who's played less than 25 games. He's a beautiful set shot kick and has a nice pair of hands. I agree with the forwardline being a major weakness, but the midfield is also a weakness to our defence. It's not just the forwards role to lock the ball inside our attacking 50.

Things can change very quickly. Richmond showed that you don't need more than 4 or 5 guns and the rest, simple role players. We have built a core group of guns (Gawn, Oliver, Brayshaw, Viney, Lever, May and Harmes, with an emerging KPF in Weideman) and over one simple off season, Geelong have shown that by injecting pace into areas like the forwardline, you can turn things around pretty quickly. I partly agree with your comments about VFL level talents (Oscar, Frost, Josh Wagner and possibly Fritsch) and those over the hill (Jones and probably Lewis), but our core is still just as strong as any other side in the comp on their day. It's just getting to their day that's the problem and with fitness not on our side, and our pathetic defence, we need to go back to the drawing board, RE: game style.

My uncle came across a Melbourne player during the week who said Brendan McCartney was rubbing some of the players up the wrong way, because he was pushing them so hard. It's mere speculation, but I presume that McCartney, like the rest of the FD, realise how low our fitness base is and that therefore we need to push a little harder than you usually would in Rounds 1-3. The biggest concern for me isn't McCartney in this instance, it's the fact that a player would say this to a random stranger. It's very un-Melbourne-like under the stewardship of Peter Jackson. The reason I post this is because I know the club read this forum and so I hope we have some internal conversations about loose lips sinking ships. Keep any internal rumblings to a minimum from now on. Thank you.

I think it was always a case of deciding whether we'd continue to back in our system (and that maybe we just had an off day in the Prelim) or it was about making some tweaks to the system to ensure that the control style wouldn't win out against us. Unfortunately, it seems we haven't made any adjustments and that's pretty incredible when you think of what the FD are paid and the professionalism required in the AFL. It was interesting seeing even Essendon try the control style / keepings off a bit tonight and actually, usually it came unstuck due to their own terrible disposal, but it's pretty clear that the league has worked out that control over chaos football will eventually win out. And certainly, this is the key to beating us, because our defence is so poor, we have very little ability to properly counter-attack. I think the answer to short to mid term success is a mixture of both styles. I liked that we started going backwards and sideways off some of our centre clearances. This showed a greater value for possession, which I called for at the end of last week, but we simply didn't do it enough. I'm thinking we need to do this more, not all the time, but where appropriate, we need to use the wings or the increased space afforded in the centre square due to the 6-6-6 rule, to ensure we get the most value for our midfield dominance and from our centre clearances in general. If we start playing more tempo and control off some clearances, I think we'll get better conversion and it'll mean the opposition has less time to impact on the scoreboard going the other way. So there's a bit of a twofold improvement possibility there. It's also pretty clear that the zone defence and aggressive press is a double-edged sword. We're not quick enough to play the bombing it long and crumbing chaos style that Richmond made so successful across 2017 and 2018, but we're also too slow not to play at least a soft zone defence to cover for runners out the back. Defensively, I'm at a loss as to how to solve the lack of 1v1 wins, but if we tidy up our offence, that will become a form of defence, because teams won't be able to slingshot on us as easily. I'm wondering where the inventive mind of Craig Jennings has gone.