Adam The God

Please...

This is a completely different comparison. You're referencing blokes that are in the early 20s in Gawn and Watts. Garland is 27 and his scope for improvement is limited.

Yeah, not surprised at all, mate.

You lasted four days, HH?

I'm happy to hear this, but I don't recall him making noises indicting he wouldn't hang around. In fact, I only heard the opposite.

Poor Brendan. Just trying to do his shopping. Still, go on him for chatting.

They've probably got the most promising midfield in the competition. I'm really not sure which game you've been watching the last 12 months.

What's the thinking behind this, mate?

The game is actually pretty cyclical. The great teams bounce between being ultra defensive or ultra attacking. The best coaches are the ones that constantly updating and tweaking things. This is where progress comes from. Malthouse went about ridding the Carlton list of the trouble makers, but these blokes also happened to be some of their better players (Betts, Garlett and even Waite). At the end of the day, he and the board overestimated the quality of the list.Roos has brought a hard edged defensive brand to Melbourne, qualities that will alwats be in vogue and if tweaked to incorporate attacking flair, it is a style that can beat 14 of the 18 teams in this competition. That's just the game style. You then have to account for natural improvement and development. The best coaches should be able to 'teach' and then hone their game plan and style.

Melksham is a horrible decision maker with very poor disposal. What game have you been watching?

He is the whipping boy at Essendon. Hopeless player.

There was fighting? What, between MFC supporters?

Yeah, we were in the forward pocket relatively close to them. I couldn't work out if it was our cheer squad or a pack of Bulldog supporters singing it ironically.

The silver lining will actually be a slightly easier draw next year than it could have been. Well, we surrendered the corridor in the opening moments of the game and then didn't bother shutting the door until the third quarter. I think there's a combination of things at play here. Often, I think our coaching team coaches to minimise the defeat, rather than win the game. Our stoppage work is evidence of this. I also wonder if the coaches are trying to get the players to work their way around certain situations and get them to lower their eyes in offensive play. This is probably evidenced in allowing a spare man in defence against so many oppositions. It's as if our coaches want our players to learn their way through these plays, but unfortunately, at the same time, it means our tactics don't necessarily suit many of the below standard AFL players on our list. I wonder if that bold move was a Roos one or a Goodwin one. Great post. Nailed it. The gap between our best and worst is far too great, which Roos has lamented for most of the year. The positive for me and the sure sign of tangible improvement is that we actually have a 'best' now. Under Neeld we only had one gear and it was hopeless week in, week out. Our 'best' can beat 14 other sides in the competition. Our 'bad' will see us lose to everyone, including Brisbane and Carlton.

I don't care what it's doing for you. I care how the players react to it. At this point, it seems progress is slow, but nevertheless, present.

Agreed, it's not always like for like, but Lumumba has been taking the third best forward. In fact, last week didn't he take the second best? I'm not saying he shouldn't be dropped by the way, just that it matters who we replace him with, IMO. Newton doesn't do enough and is in trouble. I guess it would be between Toumpas or Stretch then. We need pace off half back. I'm gonna say it'd have to be Stretch.

I reckon I've seen that before against us too. Earlier in the year in fact. Utterly atrocious umpiring. If you recall, the exact same decision was paid against us last year at the Dome, against the Dogs.

We have to learn to get through this though. If our players learn how to spread (they need to practice bloody invasion games like I do with the year 5s and 6s!), the overuse deteriorates and the ball movement quickens. Our players don't play together as a team and so they don't trust each other. This means that they won't bother even gut-running hard to space, because they know their team mates will turn it over. It's a bit of a catch-22, but until we have team trust, it won't improve. I can see Brayshaw, Vanders and ANB breaking out of this, I just hope it happens soon or they'll begin to be lost to it like the rest of their older team mates. See you next weekend, HH. I wouldn't say overwhelmingly, but we're still on track. Overwhelmingly would be not losing multiple games by essentially 100 points. Harmes did cost us 3 or 4 goals yesterday, but at least he was finding the ball. His turn overs were under pressure, they weren't unforced errors like most of Matt Jones and Bail's are. This holds him in good stead if he continues to receive good coaching from the sidelines. We counted 8 goals from free kicks. It really was a horrible display of umpiring. Some of the decisions were bewilderingly bad. Was Wallace being paid off? I would legitimately question his ability to be able to umpire a Bulldogs game without bias, particularly against Melbourne.

I actually think this will start to turn. Completely agree at the moment. We don't seem to be learning from our victories, but my feeling is that it's a big concentration thing for a lot of our players. I don't want to make excuses, I'm sick of reading them, but we will start to string three quarters of football together consistently and then four. When we do this, we'll make the finals. It'll happen in the next 12 to 24 months. The blokes from the Bailey/Neeld era are so slow to think. That's their problem. The only quick thinker out of the lot is Watts. Tommy Mac is one of the slowest thinkers. At least, he seems to be nutting out his flaws and I thought he was near terrific yesterday. Particularly, in the second half. That's the most disappointing thing for me. This season we should not have been beaten by anywhere near 100. We're trying to create a football brand based on defence and twice this year we've coughed up 100 point losses. Not good enough. We desperately need to attract an A grader that will say enough is enough and lead the rest of his team mates out of the mire. I know it's not ideal and I know it's not going to happen if we get belted by 100, but this is what we lack. Jones, Dunn and Vince are trying as leaders, but ultimately, they're swimming against a very strong rip. Exactly. We never block, talk to each other, spread for each other, shepherd for each other etc. 1%s are very, very rarely in a Melbourne jumper. Blokes like Vanders and Salem are great at this. Even Garlett, but our midfielders very rarely possess these traits and it's why we always look second-rate from stoppages against half-decent sides. He's a line-breaker. You either play him off half back or on the wing or you don't play him at all. We have to persist with him, because we've no better options. And who would you suggest in his place? Salem will come in for Matt Jones. I'd prefer H in than Dean Terlich or Stretch being thrown to the wolves as a half back.

Watts is our best disposer. It's very rare that he turns it over. The last two weeks he has been very poor. It was the wrong option to handball. He needed to kick inside 50, where our forwards had space on their opponents. He'd usually do this. I'm no Watts basher, but there's a line. It is okay to demand more of Jack in these instances. No player is defendable the entire time. Call a spade a spade. Just as Vince and Jones have been near pathetic the last two weeks. I mentioned Watts because you implied it was the umpires that swung the momentum in the last and that's just completely untrue. It was two really poor decisions from Watts, but we move on, hope he improves next week and that the entire team delivers to a satisfactory level. In other news, I'm happy for the club to low-ball Garland and I think it's what they'll do. Actually, at that point, we were seven goals down, not 14 goals. We'd had a massive run on and there was no need to do it. Spot on. I mentioned the lack of cohesion between our players at one point yesterday. Gawn would tap out the back to space, but our guys had no idea he was going to do that, so the Bulldogs would shark it and whisk it away. Gawn and our midfielders need to be cleverer.

ANB is so cool under pressure and manages to find space where there appears to be none. He reminds me very much of Sam Mitchell, except his foot skills aren't as good. What did people think of Gawn's game? I thought he was very, very ordinary for the most part. He still doesn't know how to use his massive frame.

Hogan gave it up with an extremely poor look-away handball that was turned over, but he shouldn't have been in the position he was. If Watts hadn't missed the target, he wouldn't have. In a good team, Watts will be very damaging. He played a string of very good games in the middle of the year, where I thought he'd arrived. Last week he was terrible. Today, he wasn't good. I hope he bounces back strongly next week, otherwise a lot of his good work will be undone, IMO.

It was good to see Michie get a bit more of the ball today, but half his possessions seemed to miss the target. It'll be interesting to see next week.

Watts' two crucial turn overs that lead directly to the first two goals of the final term killed off the game actually. Then they got a run on and we stopped.

Okay, so it's the 100 point loss I was talking about.