Age

A couple of things: skills - improve our kicking yesterday by about 10% and we win that game. So many times we miss a kick, not just by a step but by 10m or so or we give a handball that just causes a bit of a fumble and that is enough to stop the play You can even see it in the warm up. When we were going well, their first kick at goal after running through the banner, I reckon maybe 90% of them kicked the goal, come to now and it would be lucky to get half the team kicking that goal. It is a little thing but shows the drop off. If we do end up with Buckley, just have him spending his whole time teaching us how to kick Put at least one person with speed in the midfield. When we had either Windsor or Pickett in the middle yesterday we either won or halved the centre clearance. Every time they went back to 'big 3' of Petracca, Oliver and Viney I reckon we lost it. As someone else said, as soon as we had those 3 at the final centre bounce I knew we couldn't at least draw it Tell our forwards to constantly move. The amount of time we have the ball 70m out and we all just stand there pointing to a spot. If we move, we can then have options or at the very least, we draw some defenders away from where we are about to bomb it!

Does anyone else (or probably just me) think that one of Goodwin's strengths also became one of his bigger weaknesses? It seems to be pretty universal that he loved the players and they seemed to love him back but as he was so close to the players and looked on them so 'lovingly' that he was almost not then seeing their flaws and kept maybe viewing them at their best, such as they were in 2021. This to me explains why some players always came straight back after injury or that he didn't really move them around. He just kept looking at them thinking of their best and not what they were actually presenting now. Even hearing that thought we were going to contend again next year has me thinking this, thinking that everyone would get back to their maximum and that 2021 would just happen again. Just my 2c

These articles are part of the 'big club' narrative that we are not part of. Moving Trac and/or Oliver to either Collingwood/Geelong/Hawthorn ticks off what the press needs nowadays a story that gets more clicks as it is a big club a big club staying successful which means that ratings/clicks are maintained It is completely irrelevant that the big clubs probably don't have the cap space or draft capital to make the deal go through. If they were being realistic you would suggest that they go to clubs like North as they have the cap space, potential draft picks and have never landed a 'big fish' What also doesn't help our cause is that we generally play a boring brand of football which the press/TV don't like. If we played exciting footy but still lost, we wouldn't be so on the nose to them. This is why Essendon stayed with the prime time for so long, they had no idea how to defend so their games were high scoring, unfortunately for them, they don't know how to attack anymore so their games are even more boring.

I would keep them both if we have a coach for next year. If we continue with our current setup then we should offload them both as we are basically giving up on the season already

here is your answer per ChatGPT Snapshot: where Melbourne sit in 2025 Metric (to Rd 18) Figure League rank Wins–losses 6 – 12 13th of 18 clubs Points for / against 61 pts F – 101 pts A (-40 ppg) 17th (attack), 15th (defence) Average inside-50 efficiency 38 % Bottom 4 They started 0-5 for the first time since 2012 and have spent the year scrambling to recover. Why the Demons “look so bad” 1. A broken forward game Melbourne score just 61 points a game, second-worst in the AFL. They seldom attack through the corridor and convert only 38 % of inside-50s into scores. Bayley Fritsch (foot) missed 10 matches; Jacob van Rooyen is only 21; Tom McDonald’s form has fallen away. Without a reliable key target the mids often bomb long and lose the ball in transition. 2. Injury pile-ups in key posts Player Issue Games missed Max Gawn Fractured larynx & knee niggles 5 Jake Lever Recurring ankle/foot irritation 7 Christian Salem Quad & calf strains 6 Harrison Petty Concussion 4 The club’s own injury report shows Lever, Sparrow and others still in rehab, hampering stability down back and at the contest. 3. Tactical staleness Opposition coaches now target Melbourne’s once-elite defensive web: Slow ball movement: sides slice through with overlap run (Essendon recorded 448 disposals, a seven-year high) Out-numbering Steven May & Lever by forcing them to defend higher, then exploiting space behind. Predictable stoppage structure: when Clayton Oliver or Christian Petracca are contained, clearances drop sharply and the transition defence is exposed. 4. Off-field turbulence and confidence hit A public 0-5 start triggered an open letter from president Kate Roffey apologising for “not performing to the standard”. A social-media threat towards coach Simon Goodwin (no action taken) underscored growing external heat. Post-game friction—e.g. the Max Gawn-Steven May shove after the Collingwood loss—feeds the “fractured” narrative. Morale stories do not directly lose games, but they sap belief and amplify every on-field wobble. 5. List churn and ageing pillars Since the 2021 flag Melbourne have lost Luke Jackson, James Harmes and key assistants (e.g. Adam Yze). Core leaders—Gawn (33), May (33 in Jan 26), Viney (31)–are entering the back-nine of their careers. The next wave (van Rooyen, Caleb Windsor) is talented but green, so performance yo-yoes week-to-week. What can actually turn it around? Lever Immediate action Reasoning Refresh forward craft Recruit a mature key forward (FA/trade) or repurpose Petty/Jefferson full-time inside 50; invest in specialist forward coach. Game-style tweak Empower mids to attack central corridor earlier; copy Brisbane’s fast hand-ball chains to shift defensive web. High-performance review Soft-tissue injuries have spiked—independent audit of training loads and medical protocols. Cultural circuit-breaker Off-site leadership retreat; rebuild agreed standards after the Gawn-May incident. Gradual list hand-over Increase minutes for Windsor, Howes, Laurie late-season to accelerate development without tanking competitiveness. Bottom line Melbourne aren’t “bad” in talent—they still field Petracca, Oliver, May, Gawn—but a cocktail of scoring dysfunction, strategic predictability, injuries and rising external noise has dragged them to the lower rungs of the ladder. Fix the forward connection and re-inject speed through the corridor, and the Demons can rebound as quickly as 2026. Until then, expect turbulence.

I cannot fathom why people would want Goodwin sacked. We should be thanking him every day for getting us the flag in 21 and let him coach for as long as he has a desire to do so! All of you people are so greedy. If You want a coach who can actually coach, someone who makes match day changes, has good tactical nous, doesn’t play his favorites every week, gives the younger players a chance, implements a current game plan, gets improvement from his players year on year, has a team that plays exciting football that brings in the fans and gives exciting press conferences that are not the same dribble every week then I suggest you look elsewhere as this type of coach is not currently wanted by the club. We want a coach that the players love and someone who will have fun with them no matter what the result. Stop being so needy, he is our coach for life.

Let's look at this objectively. Current players saying they don't know what else May should have done. Past players saying the same thing, although there are a couple who think there should be a suspension. Article today saying it is the most important case in 10 years. General feel that May should get off. AFL happy with and only ask for 3 weeks to say they have protected the head. Melbourne will present their defence tonight, completely stuff it up as usual...May gets deregistered.

I think something we should be worried about is how quickly the game changes. Looking at how long it supposedly takes us to learn a new gameplan, by the time it is inbedded in the group, the game will have changed and we will be back to square one!

The colours. I like red and blue

Has anyone looked at the damage petracca had from heeney in the Colgate ad? He has not been the same since he put his knee into the ribs for his speccy

I’m worried about this game. We seemed to have struggled this year when playing against teams that have a coach. Surely the afl has got to step in seeing as we are going into each game without an actual afl level coach. It’s just not fair.

Very difficult to win when we play without a midfield

Just crystal balling here but Collingwood, by going for the now, may be a masterstroke. If they give Tassie a heap of picks but make them trade a bunch of them for established players, the Pies, after having had their run, then ship off a bunch of these older players for a heap of early picks, letting them rebuild really quickly. It is almost like that would be perfect for the AFL, the pies maybe winning another flag or two but then not really having to bottom out. I would never accuse the AFL of letting the pies know of their plans for Tassie beforehand as we all know that if there is one 100% ethical organisation in the land, it is the AFL! Just my thoughts. I hope that clubs burns to the ground but I'm never that lucky.

I'm hearing that we will be playing the cats twice next year with one of our sold home games being us playing them down there also.

Ok, I've got some more mail on all of this. Melbourne is now looking to package up Oliver and Petracca to Geelong for a future 4th rounder and we pay $2m of their contract each year till they die. Apparently Trac got on board once he was shown that he could be the new face of a Farm to Plate cooking show with all produce being produced on his new farm that he has apparently been given by some guy on Instagram with the handle of #cottononcosta Oliver is happy to go now too as he's been shown that any off field indiscretions are only in the news for a maximum of 15 minutes. Plus, with Geelong being close to the water, he will be able to directly fish his taped up packages from Mexico directly from his seafront property.