Adam The God

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.

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.

I'm on record as being very negative when we recruited him. He was a turnover merchant at Essendon, but he's matured and is now arguably our most important player for connecting midfield to forwardline. Well done, Jake. I was wrong.

Of course. But nevertheless, it was a bad look. I'm glad we've sorted it prior to Round 1.

Lol. Is this the first time you and PD have ever agreed on something? You guys should stick to car talk.