Adam The God

Well, he played off half back for much of the game, so those saying he was tagged, not sure about that one. Thought he was ordinary and made some really poor decisions at crucial moments. He is the captain. I love him, but he needs to do better. Good post. I'd forgotten Salem. He bounced back pretty well too. Got involved more consistently than he has in the past and it was a good comeback after last week's poor performance. Still think they should be trying him for ten minutes a quarter in the midfield. But maybe that plays too much with our defensive structures? We have to be malleable though. Surely, this is what Roos and co are trying to create? Versatile players. Thought Stretch looked weak at the contest today as well. A couple of contests he was involved in lead to him falling to ground or being pushed off the ball too easily. I think Stretch'll be alright and his outside run is definitely valuable, but he needs to be stronger in the contest and one-on-one.

Disagree. Thought he did a couple of nice things on debut.

Oliver is going to be an absolute star. Had seven clearances two thirds of the way into the first quarter. Incredible. Been a long time since we've had such a big clearance player. First time in my lifetime certainly. Cannot wait until he's got 40 games under his belt. Set to become such an important player for us. Viney pushed hard in the last quarter, for another solid game. He's a beauty. That goal on the run to finish Jetta's courageous and brilliant play was terrific. There's team improvement right there in that play. Kent was horrendous in the first half. Blew chances, made a number of basic errors and demonstrated poor decision making. However, as the game wore on, he began to hit the scoreboard and got involved more. He laid tackles this week and got the ball. His kicking 50% of the time is still criminal, but I hope this will give him confidence to bake me some humble pie. Four goals is ultimately almost always a good day. Kent's mate Harmes laid a staggering team-high tackle count of ten, the third most on the ground. He's rough around the edges and not a particularly good decision maker, but if he brings that kind of work-rate he'll be worth his spot and those decisions will hopefully improve with more experience. Glad to see Hogan hit the scoreboard this week, but he still needs to work a lot harder. His opponents continue to run off him. Will be really intrigued to see how Hogan goes next week. That first goal was class though. Still agree with those who said he should be played at CHF though. And just on this, I have no idea what the FD are doing with Frost. He did a couple of clever things, but also made some really costly errors. Why was he not played on Waite - who kicked 4? Gawn was one of the key reasons why we got back in the game, but at the end of the day, his opponent kicked five (admittedly most of them from free kicks). He still has the odd brainfade. He really needs to get this out of his game. Otherwise, he showed he can take it up to the best. Lumumba was terrific today. He was the other really important player in the second quarter. As I predicted after last week's game, I think he'll be a lot better in a team that works hard as we did for three quarters today. His rebound and creativity off half back was incredibly damaging. Looking forward to seeing him get one over his old team mates next week. Nathan Jones was ordinary today. Some really dumb decisions a couple of times and some laziness has crept into his game this year. It was the young guys in Gawn, Viney and Oliver who were really leading the way in the leadership stakes. Jack Watts did a couple of really good things and showed flashes of leadership, but ever since the first round, he's dropped back into his old ways of softness at the contest and laconic body language. Finally, our tackling is lazy. I'm sorry, but we need to start channelling our energy and attack on the man into effective tackles. So many times already this season we've let the opposition off the hook by falling in someone's back or grabbing someone's head. And often, we give up these stupid free kicks in dangerous scoring positions inside defensive 50. Overall, thought we'd do better today. Was embarrassed by quarter time and quietly confident at half time. We should have won it in the end, but we just didn't take our chances. Hogan's miss; Watts' brainfade; Jones giving off that handball that resulted in a turnover; Dunn completely misjudging the flight of the ball, resulting in a Harvey goal; and Frost's dropped mark when we had all the momentum off half back. Not to mention, the umpires murdered us today. There were definitely some free kicks there, but at least four or five weren't and these all resulted in goals to the opposition. I reckon we win that game later this year or early next year.

At the GWS game I wasn't absolutely convinced Omac had played a good game, but if you watch the replay on TV I think he was really solid. I'd be getting him in for next week. He and his brother and Frost to play on Moore, Howe and Cloke respectively. Frost on Cloke will be an interesting matchup, while Tommy can run off Howe, who won't chase him and Omac can stay with Moore, who I rate. PS. Great post.

The Saints have some promising forwards and flankers, but not convinced they've got the depth of young midfield talent we have. Gee, that sounds ridiculous saying that about our mob after last week...

Gee, the St Kilda forward line is gonna be good. Where I think they'll break down a bit unless they keep adding talent, is their midfield and backline.

Let's see if they even do that. I am more confident about tomorrow's game than I was going into last week. I may look stupid after this, but I reckon we're a chance.

But the blokes who are their leaders consistently faltered at the second last hurdle too. In some ways that could work against them in a stronger way than our lack of experience in failed finals campaigns. EDIT. I hope that makes sense. It is getting late now though.

Hawthorn were ordinary in the 50s. A long time ago.

As far as I'm aware, the club can make this change during the week (ie Friday) without injury, but just can't change it on the day.

Haha, you're right. I don't have a specific example to point to. I shall keep an eye on this for the rest of the season.

Nothing less should be, mate. These players embarrassed our football club last week. They owe the club and supporters a solid showing. Anything else is simply not good enough. So do I. Pedersen out of his forwardline, as predicted, should help this. Providing, of course, we don't play Frost in his way. He implied Jeffy wasn't an absolute certainty to train on Friday, but somehow managed to ensure Matt Burgan that he'd definitely play on the weekend. It always seemed a little weird, because if he wasn't going to train properly at full strength, surely you wouldn't risk him. Anyway, Misson and the FD have a bit of a track record of pretty much just lying on what was DeeTV, now MelbourneTV. I seriously don't know what the FD are thinking if he lines up anywhere else but full back. Interesting that ANB made the emergencies after all that.

No, not at all. It's happened before where a player listed to line up on the ground hasn't made the team on the day. In fact, it happened at least once or twice last year.

That's how I remembered it, but I may have blocked it out.

Just as a side note, I like how [censored] off some of us are. That's passion. There are still those Demons pedalling pathetic excuses, but this really is edge of the cliff stuff and it implores me to quote the oft-used and overused Network: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!" Bloody hell, how sweet it'll be when things finally start [censored] turning.

Wow. That was that game? I wonder how different things would have been. I'm still waiting for someone of Roos' stature to come in and really transform the culture at the club. He might have done a bit, but Saturday proved there's still a pitiful underbelly residing at our club.

I was 5 in 1992, so probably only just starting to attend matches. I'm glad I don't recall that loss. Urgh. 47 points up in the last quarter? This club. Seriously.

You can't seriously think that losing to an undermanned Essendon, the team that would be winless this season, won't impact negatively upon membership. I'd say it will have a disastrous effect. As I said shortly after the game, any slim chance we had of reaching 40,000 members went up in smoke last Saturday. It was demoralising. Essendon were our [censored] (minus 148 ). They were a club that couldn't even beat one of the worst teams we've ever fielded. Conversely, our team couldn't beat one of the weakest teams they've probably ever fielded. Hopeless. I spent last week bemoaning those bandwagon supporters coming back, but a week later, I wouldn't begrudge any of them for staying home for the rest of the season. Frankly, our players and coaches don't deserve to have any of us attending. Seeing Essendon predictably smashed tonight and Toumpas gathering 28 disposals has only drawn out and amplified the disgracefulness of last Saturday's performance. It'd be comical if I was a supporter of any other club.

Interesting post this, mate. Whilst I completely agree, to me it implies that the Essendon loss has to be the line in the sand moment and in retrospect would become almost 'the loss we had to have'. Of course, I don't believe this now as last weekend was in the top five most pitiful MFC performances (186, 148 and then that game), but I wouldn't have believed we'd win the first 5-6 games anyway, however if that loss causes something to stir in the bellies of these players and gets them on the right track, then fantastic. But a part of me still wants blood for last week, no matter what we do for the rest of the season. This group hadn't even earned my trust fully and now they're coming from a long way back. The FD that I did trust has a lot of work to do to regain my trust. The selections, the comments by Misson saying Garlett would 'definitely' play etc. If we don't start to see improvement soon, PJ will need to make some big calls, just like in any other business.

I'd hope they wouldn't be tolerated by the Board, but who knows. I certainly wouldn't think they'd be tolerated by PJ. At least, that performance wouldn't have been tolerated twelve months ago. This Board may well have some tough decisions to make in the next 24 months.

Frost.

This is not the same team that Neeld coached and it's certainly not the same team that Bailey coached. But I'd be as [censored] off as the next bloke if there were an ounce of truth to that post. It's not the first time I've read it on Demonland though.

Hang on, mate. So you're saying because Col hasn't chosen who he's played on, it wasn't his fault that his opponents beat him? You're either good enough or you're not. Maybe Col doesn't read the play well enough? Maybe he's not tall enough to be a KPD and if so, what exactly is he offering? Because it's certainly not rebound. Look, don't get me wrong. Col seems like a great bloke. The time I spoke to him he seemed like a really down to earth, 'real' person. If there was a bloke on our list who I wished would be a part of our future it'd be Col, but he's played nine seasons now and maybe that's the end of the road?

At the very least, he needs to get involved in the play more. If I was one of the coaches, I'd be saying keep it simple, aim for a target of tackles each week. I'm talking between 5-8 tackles. Do that and you earn your spot next week. If you can cap it off with a goal (or two), brilliant. That's all I'd be saying to Kent. If he does those basics right and his work rate is up, he'll find himself getting involved in the play more and hitting the scoreboard more. Having said all that, I'm just not convinced he'll make it. My cousin has me on video at our family Xmas do saying as much. I hope he does make it and the video can be thrown back in my face, but I'm pretty confident I've got this one right. Seriously? When? They've pretty much done bugger all.

I did say that Kent wouldn't get dropped. He's got pace. He doesn't use it, but good on him. Glad to see Frost in again. Almost a certainty to line up at full back. I don't mind the ANB non-selection. Make him really hungry. Back it up and he'll be in the team next week. We've gotta keep the bar high for these young guys. Who does he come in for anyway? Harmes maybe? Not sure he has the same leg speed to play the press as Harmes does. That said, I'm not Harmes' biggest fan either. Hoping he can clunk a few this week and get some confidence. I like the Garland omission. IMO he seems to have been named in the leadership group to give him a bit of aspiration. It hasn't worked. If Frost and Dunn defend well enough and offer some rebound, Col won't get back in. I like the Stretch inclusion. Be interested to see how he goes against the bigger bodies. His zip certainly adds something to the team if he can get it enough. I wonder if he'll play at half back or simply on the wing? Little confused on Gus. So they played him underdone last week. But he's played now, so he's got some miles in the legs. Why drop him? I guess they might want him to dominate the VFL before getting a game again. Competition for places and all. He's a slightly different type of player, but I certainly agree with your sentiment, mate. I can see Pedo going out against his former club. It means Frost probably has to provide Max with a chop out, but it also declutters Hogan's forwardline a bit. That's not why Garland was dropped, although I'm sure it didn't help. He offers nothing going the other way. At least Tommy and Dunn do. It'll be interesting to see how Frost goes (if he plays).