Adam The God

What a load of crap. We have one of the most resilient supporter bases given our history. If Collingwood, Essendon, Hawthorn, Richmond or Carlton had gone through our dour last decade there'd be very few of them left, yet we still manage to get mid 30,000 members. Given how pathetic we've been as a football club for too long, I don't blame anyone for being negative and it's pretty bloody rich to simply say harden up and stick fat. WTF do you think we've been doing for the past decade? Sticking fat. The only part of your post I agree with is that we're a chance next week.

School holidays.

And he needs to impose himself more around the ground. He was playing on a reject yesterday.

Well done, Jack. But you better make sure you back that social media stuff up. This is exactly the problem at the moment. If you're gonna take to medias, ensure you walk the talk.

He definitely went down to the rooms at one of the short breaks. Was it quarter time? I presume everything is not rosy body wise.

Jetta. I know they're young, but where was their leadership yesterday? Viney was blanketed, no doubt, but I still didn't see a lot of marshalling from him either.

Roos has had three draft periods now to address this. I know the midfield issue was more pressing, but the bloke is being paid $1.5 million a year. The buck stops with him on this. I haven't been very critical of Roosy throughout the journey. I think he's done a lot of good for our club, but this is his responsibility. If Garland can't get the job done, play Frost. I was told that's why we recruited him. To play full back. It was obviously someone else's idea to play him as a defensive forward or they don't think he's ready. I'd say to Frost, "keep it very simple, stick to your assigned man when in transition and allow Tommy Mac to rebound". Frost has some attributes that could make him a really, really good defender, namely his height and his speed. But he needs simple instruction and some work experience down back, followed by constructive feedback on how he goes about it. I'd play him on Petrie this week.

Yeah, good post, TU. The test is consistency. Can we find it? That's what this season has always been about. We've already failed it once. I hope we can find it come the bye.

They played well, but Redleg's right. Roos'/coaches box refusal to man up loose players makes us so predictable and not in a good way.

I actually thought your post was brilliant. I have already reached my like quota for the day (100 posts). I think it perfectly illustrates Garland's flaws.

Then you get someone else who can play their role consistently. Garland is 28 this month. If he can't find consistency in his game by now (or even two years ago), he never will. Instead, they've given him a leadership position. I can only assume this is to motivate him into an aggressive player that takes the game on more on game day. Either way, it certainly hasn't worked.

He's pretty much done this all the way through though. He has rarely used 'we' when discussing the players. Not saying it's right, but to say that's changed drastically, I'd disagree. It has usually come when we've lost.

Don't let Essendon's poor kicking (read Daniher) wallpaper their complete dominance of yesterday's game. We were smashed in the uncontested possessions. There's always a way to spin a positive, but we can't keep doing that if we want to become a successful club again. We did manage to step up in the final quarter last week, but that wallpapered the inconsistency earlier in the match. We need to find and demand consistency from our players 22 years and above, and we need to do it fast.

I remember Tommy Mac having a good game last week (some great spoils and high kicking efficiency), but I don't remember Garland offering any rebound or dominating his opponent.

I think our FD has identified we have quite a few liabilities in our back six, hence Salem and Vince, and even Jones playing back there this year. I thought Lumumba was poor yesterday. If he wasn't skying kicks, he was kicking them along the ground and this was under little pressure. I think he'll be a more important player and more damaging when our team delivers some consistent work rate, but he looks useless when our blokes are standing still or refuse to run. I don't think Grimes is the answer. His kicking is just as bad, his decision making worse and he's slower. He's old Melbourne. Every time he takes a mark he'll take fifteen steps backwards and assess his options. At least Lumumba tries to move it on. That's what our side needs to do, but if there's no work rate, it means there's no one to kick or handball it to. Steve has been right for about two season on Garland too. I thought Col was solid and probably one of our best in 2013. He would try to take the game on, but he just doesn't anymore and he consistently loses one-on-one battles. He offers no rebound and I too struggle to see what he is bringing to the table.

What is Goodwin's role at the moment if it isn't to instruct and motivate too? I'm just not convinced it's as simple as Goodwin into the hot-seat, Roos onto the bench. But the players certainly do need a consistency of message and game plan, which I'm not entirely sure they're being given adequately at the moment.

No doubt Hawthorn have better ball users and decision makers than us. I think the Bulldogs are very well coached and were well developed. They are also becoming a consistent side. This means they become predictable to their team mates, which enables them to really take the game on, because they know they'll have support. I absolutely agree we weren't switched on yesterday. I believe we went to sleep for vast portions of the previous week too. It is simply not good enough and we still lack two or three elite ball users. Do we have them on our list already? Maybe. I still think we're one or two short even if Salem and Oliver come on with experience.

Aside from Murphy at the Bulldogs I don't think they have a slew of elite ball users either. They just work harder to give their team mates options and they also look to move the ball on as quickly as possible. You knew pretty early yesterday that we weren't looking to move the ball quickly. It was as if we thought we'd have mismatches that would allow us to kick to contests and we'd still come out on top. We've seen now that our game plan falls down sharply when we don't move the ball quickly.

I reckon it's more about players not being switched on and the coaches failing. Goodwin was in the box though, mate. You mean we should give Goodwin the reigns over delivery of messages and game style.

Thanks mate. I don't think our disposal is necessarily the problem. Tommy Mac is a great example of this. In the game last week we worked harder for longer, so blokes like Tommy had options to kick to (as BB pointed out before). If the work rate is there to provide an option, the kick or handball for Tommy is a lot easier and he has less to bite off. That first goal he gave away yesterday was exactly that. He tried a ridiculously ambitious 50-55m kick across half back and ended up turning it over. When we're playing good footy (and Tommy is playing good footy - usually the two are aligned) players like him have less risk involved, because the risk has been taken by the running player to get into space. But that hard running will pay off, because it means Tommy only has to hit a 25m target instead of a 55m one.

You're right, PD. We never hear these sorts of pathetic responses from other clubs. Just STFU and concentrate on being consistent and the results will follow.

Good post, mate. I know micro-managing isn't his job (and has been at the root of past poorly run administrations), but I just wonder if PJ should be putting a lock down on some of this FD speak? I get that the club has to run somewhat of a PR machine to entice supporters to sign up, but some of the chatter coming out of the FD on MelbourneTV was bordering on amateur, given we only stumbled over the line the previous week playing a quarter and a bit of footy. Particularly, as no one seems to able to back up their talk whenever we do have a win. I'd be saying to Mahoney, "get your people in line. Make sure they concentrate on the game and prepare our players and ensure they win a couple in a row, before saying we're over our problems." To some extent, last week's final quarters wallpapered a lack of work rate in the second and third quarters, which is why I was quite negative after our first win on the season. Thrilled that we got the win, but I certainly didn't feel we'd turned the corner just yet. The fact that our FD seemed to think we had, shows they were either asleep at the wheel or their messages to vastly improve our performance from round 1 fell on deaf ears. Either way, it's not good enough. Someone else said last night on this thread that we've basically played two quarters of footy this year. Staggeringly, they were right. It's quite possible we've played even less than that. The fourth quarter last week was how we want to play our footy. Take the game on with quick, divisive ball movement, coupled with hard contested footy and a top work rate. That combination will have us going close most weeks. But we were on and off in the first quarter last week, despite managing to play some hard-nosed contested, attacking footy. Ultimately though, it could be argued we've only played one solid, consistent quarter of footy in eight quarters. That is not good enough. Not only is that an indictment on the playing group, it's an indictment on the coaching team and the wider FD. If the players are getting confused by the conflicting game styles we want played, it's up to Mahoney and to a lesser extent PJ, to find a solution that enables this team to play how they want to play. For example, some of the instruction and communication I've heard from McCartney is fantastic. It sounds as though he keeps things really simple for the players. That's what we need right now as we try to balance attack with defence. But it's as if the players are overawed by the amount that they are required to do. Now it was always going to take a little while for our team to find the balance between hard-nosed, team-orientated defensive accountability and hard-running, bold, fast footy, but it's beginning to become evident that perhaps our players are not being coached in a way where communication is simple and they understand their roles. To summarise, I think there are two glaring issues at play here and there is some complexity to them. 1) the communication from the coaching team is not good enough. 2) the lack of work rate from the playing group. The second issue either stems from a lack of confidence in seeing their plan come off or a lack of belief in their team mates to win the footy. This could mean that they don't work hard to get into space, because they don't believe their team mates will win the contests and get the ball to them, allowing their opponent to hurt them on the rebound. Finally, I want to use Geelong as an example again. When Geelong first started to play good footy under Bomber Thompson in 2004, they exhibited good team structures and a willingness to take the game on. They stumbled at the last few hurdles in the finals series. But in 2007, things really clicked. They had seen that the game plan worked and it was a matter of simply believing in each other and the game plan. It would work if they stayed the course. It had got them deep into the finals, but they'd lacked one or two elements on their list to take them on whole way (Ottens for one and they added Selwood in 07 and Taylor in 08). We know what happened in 2007 and in the years to come. The one thing that was a constant of the great Geelong sides were a knowledge of where their team mates would be and a belief that their team mates would win the footy. Occasionally they got hurt on the counter, but their belief in the game plan working was so strong that they would play bold attacking footy at all costs. This is what we need to do. We've got a strong defensive mind-set now established by Roos. Now we need to take this discipline and combine it with bold, running play. I'm not saying we're at Geelong's level, but I think there's an apt comparison in there somewhere. Where we have to get to is consistently exhibiting solid team structures and a willingness to take the game on at all costs. When we get to this step, with good coaching, the next steps will naturally follow. My concern is though that we are struggling to believe at the moment and this is resulting in a lack of work rate that is being hindered by perhaps poor communication from the coaching group.

I get what you're saying, but it's a pretty insensitive post.

Bugger. Didn't notice that. I figured they were trying to manage his loads again. So he's a possible out then.

We still don't have the respect of the footballing community. As far as they're concerned this is just another typical Melbourne capitulation. And they'd be right.