Adam The God

You're absolutely delusional. He was finished 2 years ago, when he was almost immediately surpassed by younger players. He's too slow for a wing, he offers very little leadership and still goes around aimlessly bombing it when there are better options in front of him. He can no longer win the inside possession with as much skill as any of our mids (his mode of clearance was always Brent Moloney-like anyway - long bombs), so he's finished. We need to accept that, thank him for his years of loyal service and move on. How he was made captain again this year is absolutely beyond me, but anyway, I've long held the view that he's a limited player (at his best, a solid B grader), with little, to no onfield leadership. It speaks volumes for the rest of the leadership stocks on our list that he was made captain again.

Not entirely sure I agree with this. We tried something new tonight. We had players short for the kick in as (usually) decoys. We'd then go to Max, Tom or Weid 60 out. Those short players (usually a Hibberd or Wagner) would then either guard space or come up to the next contest to be the front and centre. I actually like the thinking and it showed that at least we have worked on something with that new rule.

Wow, mate. You're human. Everyone has a breaking point. And completely agree.

That's not true at all. We were worse for longer. Hardly played in the first quarter, particularly in the second part of the quarter and then were completely absent and insipid everywhere in the third. They played a poor second quarter, but otherwise were patchy but played the better football for longer. It is finals over now, so in effect, season over. I think we did a lot right at times. We finally used the ball better from back to front and even from some centre stoppages, we used the ball backwards and then went sideways in order not to bomb it to an outnumber. Our biggest issue is we don't do any of it for long enough. We're playing in patches. It really is hopeless and I still think fitness related. What is so embarrassing and frustrating is that many media pundits tipped us for the flag. We'll finish in the bottom 6 at this stage. The inability to win 1v1s early on and then the inability to win clearances in the third sealed the game. Frost and Oscar look like conceding goals every time the ball is kicked in there, and they usually do. Even when our system and press was working a bit, every time it went forward, Frost would drop a mark or Oscar would get outmuscled or either of them would be pushed under the ball. The goal that Frost conceded on the much smaller man in Baguley was unforgivable. Baguley for the record is a scrubber, bog ordinary player. Particularly playing forward. We also made McKernan, who is a VFL standard forward, look A grade. Typical Melbourne. There was another crucial play at the end of the second. Frost marked the ball on the wing and banged it in centrally to about the 45 metre mark to Max (in a 4 on 1), instead of going to the boundary side of our forward fifty. Essendon brought it to ground, ran it out and scored a goal. Their first for the entire term. In the second term, our midfielders and Max looked really angry and they seemed to channel that really well into winning ferocious clearances. But for the majority of the third quarter, we let simple transition happen and failed to defend clearances. Our defence in the second term started to resemble our defence of 2018 (in a good way), but I think generally Oscar and Frost (given their finals experience now) haven't improved their games. In some ways, they've become worse - at least they won some 1v1s in 2018! Fritsch was playing the interceptor off the wing, but constantly turns it over or chews off more than he should, but more worryingly, like last year, looks completely lost in defence. The goal that Parish kicked from the right forward pocket is a perfect example of Fritsch's inabilities. Firstly, he left his man to try and impact on the contest where we already had a 2v1, so 3 Melbourne players go to the single Essendon player, who chips it over the top to a free player. Fritsch then has time to get back and block up space after not impacting on the contest at all, but he leaves it to Wagner, who is completely out of position, trying to cover 2 other Essendon players. Can we take Fritsch down off the banner yet? I have no idea why he's up there in the first place. Turn over merchant. Statistically, ANB laid some tackles tonight, but he is cusp AFL when playing at his absolute best. Right now, he's playing incredibly poorly and he too is clearly low on confidence, but his basic errors just kill us. Petracca showed some more tonight. He made some seriously bad errors too, but he stayed involved and set up a lot of scoring chains. I think he'll get there this season. We just need to keep backing him. I'm glad KK got some more metres into the legs. He's silk and I think if he can stay on the park, his outside run will be really good for our transition. Love his goal kicking action too. So relaxed. Lockhart did enough to keep his spot as did Hunt, despite rarely (if ever) laying a tackle. In fact, Hunt's tackle attempts routinely slipped, but he, like Petracca, stayed involved and in the game. His pressure on Merrett(?) to bring the ball to ground and then spot up Gus, was a great example of his doggedness tonight. Tommy Mac doesn't look fit and looked sore after a corky or two. Can barely put his arms up either. We wondered whether he was carrying a shoulder injury. He's close to useless at the moment. I wonder if it's worth playing a more mobile forwardline and giving Tom a week off? I was impressed with the majority of Weideman's game. Particularly, after quarter time. I thought he was arguably our best forward, along with Petracca and Melksham. He laid tackles, took at least one good contested mark and brought the ball to ground importantly a couple of times. He went at one contest in the first really softly and with the one hand, but after that moment he really lifted his game. He's another one with a beautiful, relaxed kicking action. Overall though, I don't think these set of defenders can play the zone defence. They get caught out of position far too easily (McKernan marking on Hibberd early on; Frost being outmarked by Baguley - just a few examples) and they almost always all go up together to defend. This has been happening, literally, for years. Why has it not been corrected? I sense Chaplain may well be out of his depth. It'll be interesting to see what they do with him at the end of this year. I've just read a quote from Goody that says 'we're too easy to score against' and this pretty much sums it up. We dominate possession against most teams and then they get a few inside 50s and basically, almost every time they score a goal. This is no longer merely about 'getting the ball out the back' against us. This is failing to win 1v1s, failing to rush the ball through when we have the numbers, failing to defend dangerous areas inside forward 50. There are holes everywhere in our defence. Wagner, Frost and McDonald are constantly out of position in the zone and Hibberd has been bog ordinary since 2017 now. Even Jetta at times goes up in those big pack situations when he should be staying down. It seems to me as though the directive is just get the ball to the front of the contest in those pack situations and ensure it doesn't get out the back (although it almost always does), and in our haste and anxiety to ensure the ball doesn't get out the back, we all go up, leaving opposition crumbers to waltz off with the ball. I'm at a loss as to what defensive system the coaches can implement though, given we can't go man-on-man if we rarely win 1v1s and the zone doesn't work because the majority of the defence constantly get lost in it. However, without another obvious system, I would say that going 1v1 more often would help us. It lessens the complexity to a group of players that either aren't gelling or are rarely positioned where they should be due to a lack of game awareness. It's all well and good to say we need May and Lever in there, because that's true, but it fails to take into account the inability of the rest of the defence. One of Frost or McDonald will still play, even when May and Lever are fit, so if it's broken, we may need to rebuild it. And already, start planning for 2020 with a new system. Hard to implement mid-season, I know. I dread to think about Franklin next week. You watch. He'll kick a minimum of 4, probably 5 or 6. And I think we have to play Jeff Garlett, because we desperately lack crumbers. A thoroughly disappointing night and the only supporter base more smug than the Essendon supporter base is Hawthorn's. Painful sitting through it.

Interesting that Wellman and West are the two that are probably the most compelling bits of testimony, and both of those guys are outsiders, with allegiances at other clubs.

If he can't get a game this year, I'd say he'll be delisted. We desperately need outside run, so it'll say everything if he can't get into the team.

Look, I think both of those articles have a bit to do with it. It's very heartening to read Clarkson discuss it in 2009 and how injuries curtailed their premiership defence. What I find frustrating about this is we didn't even make a Grand Final. In that sense, we probably resemble Geelong a little closer, although situations are always a little different. I was thinking last night as another easy Geelong goal flew through in front of us that Geelong's 2007 was relatively similar to the start of our 2019 campaign. Big things were expected of them and they came out and lost their first game to the Bulldogs by a similar margin to our Port defeat. The next week they came out and buried a weakened Carlton and started their great run, and the rest is history. Absolutely our list needs work, but even when you've filled all your holes, you can never stand still in a professional environment like the AFL. It must be about constant improvement and Clarkson has shown the way here. Having watched our first two rounds now, I think we should be mixing the control game style with less chaos. We have KK and Salem, Hibberd and May, who are all good kicks of the football. Even Oscar isn't terrible. We need to use the athletic attributes of your favourite Frost, Hunt, Hibberd and KK to spread the opposition and make them work to get the ball back off us. Short of going backwards from centre stoppages, we need to value possession a lot more. If we can spread the opposition more, we can drastically improve our forward entries when the time is right in the play, instead of allowing teams to sit back in the holes like Geelong did last night. Problem is, we haven't really played the control game style since Roos and I wonder if it goes against Goodwin's DNA.

My concern now is 1) We don't have focal targets and 2) our forward entries are so chaotic they're more unpredictable to our own forwards and we therefore become more predictable to the opposition. Our game plan always breaks down in the wet. That's unsustainable. I can't remember when we last won a game in the wet. If you look at what we've done over the off season in terms of tweaks, you wonder if we've changed our game style at all. I'm disappointed in the coaching group at this stage. Tonight's scoreline was the most embarrassing scoreline since 2017 or potentially even the final round of 2016.

Migrants won't go for average teams for long. They might support Melbourne when they initially choose but people are easily poisoned into following the big successful clubs. Without flags, we have a ceiling IMO. We need to brush off the lack of respect tag and for 50 years we've been at the bottom. That can change with a flag or two.

Yep. We'll finish on 52 or 53k I reckon. And next year we aim for 70k again and all being well, we'll get past 55k and maybe even 60k. I think that's our ceiling until we win some flags.

I'd look at 2 or 3 small forwards. Bedford will be interesting to see this year. I'd also debate your point @Diamond_Jim that we haven't drafted in any superstars. Oliver will be one. He's already a star. In twelve months, Brayshaw will join him.

Kids bash Weideman for Christmas?

I reckon it's clear as day RE: Preuss. He couldn't get through more than a half in JLT1. He's a mile off, fitness-wise. I find it hard to believe given he's had more time than anyone to get his fitness up to scratch. To see that he couldn't even run out 3.5 quarters in a single match was deeply troubling and I suspect the FD feel the same way. I don't think he'll get a look in for a while and if he does, it'll say everything about Max.

I'm not sure it's an overreaction. I said a couple of weeks ago that we'd go 0-2. Going by the fitness of our best 22 on Saturday, I'd say it's highly likely we'll struggle to run out games for at least the first 3 or 4 weeks and if that's the case, we can kiss the finals goodbye. I'm usually pretty optimistic on my season outlook and have predicted (as many of us have), our incremental rise over the past 3-4 seasons. I hope we can make the 8, because with Rance going down, I reckon anyone can win it this season. The problem is we don't want to give our fellow competitors for those top 8 spots a month headstart. We were so far off the pace in JLT 2 and Round 1 that I'm not sure it's likely we'll turn it around within a week. It would be very Melbourne if we did, but I can't see it happening this time, simply due to the clear fitness issue. I'm still making the trip down to that hole this Saturday, but unlike last year, I'm not expecting a win. I'm very worried. I only hope the dimensions of the ground will help us and that Round 1 is the wake up call we needed.

Bizzell was okay, but geez, we overrate our own. And this thread is yet another excuse for Werridee to do another best 22. It's Round 2. Do we really need to be doing future best 22s? It's far too early to tell on 3 or 4 of those guys.

I completely agree. I can never hear our cheer squad and our members in the pockets were very quiet. The MCC were up and about at times, but not enough. It was certainly a horrible way to start the year after all the talk over the off season of making the MCG a cauldron (NO) and winning the flag (with that sort of performance - NO).

I know you've never rated him, but just as now, you've never known the ins and outs of our medical team, in order to back up those opinions.

My point was your post implied Misson was doing an ordinary job ("shouldn't be hard to find an upgrade"), so that link doesn't help you or me.

How would you know, HH? Targeting Misson when you've no idea what goes on behind the scenes is a little foolhardy.

Yep, I remember Gary looking a bit hampered, but nowhere near what Jack looked like on Saturday. It's also far more noticeable in the midfield.

I've never seen a player play under such duress. He could barely move. As I mentioned in the post game thread, he could barely move in the warm up that I watched on Instagram. It was bloody evident on Instagram pre-game! I don't know the ins and outs but WTF is going on?

The way Tom grabbed some of those contested marks in the finals last year against good opposition, shows that IMO the 666 shouldn't limit his ability to take those contested marks. I just don't think he's hit his straps this year.

Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw, Harmes being fed by Max is enough to salivate over. All of the first 4 are under 25 (Viney turns 25 in April). At the top of their game, they have the perfect blend of ball-winning ability, pace and hardness that goes past any other midfield in the comp. Collingwood's is comparable, but it's a lot older. Take Pendles and Sidebottom out in 2-3 years time and they become decidedly suspect. Oh, and Clarry is only behind Martin and Dangerfield for mine. I think he'll go past Dangerfield this year and if he can add more goals, he'll become more effective than Martin, because unlike Martin, he's a great disposer of the ball by hand and foot.

It won't if they up their prices. I pay $15 a month for Optus Sports (EPL, UCL and cricket). I understand there's more sport on Kayo, but it's not a competitive good enough price at $25 a month. I pay basically $10 each for Stan, Netflix and Prime. They're competitive. FOXTEL is not competitive as we know. I pay $80+ a month and barely even watch it.

There are many people in my industry who are never wrong either. Fortunately, I surround myself with good people these days. If a football club fails to acknowledge its failures it's doomed to repeat them, unless those running the football club are replaced. We have good people in all areas of the club now, who are good people managers and that's so vital. So maybe I should be saying well done MFC, as well as Jake. He said as much in his interview too.