Akum

... and Clarrie will end up a better player than every single one of them.

It amounts to the same thing. We're giving him the arse.

Thanks, yeah, just wondering why he wasn't selected.

What happened to Wagner?

... though not by his own choice, but by ours.

A fitting end to a "near-enough-is-good-enough" season. We nearly did so many things this year, and that seemed to be enough for the boys.

This is the question. What bothers me is that without Dawes, our current tall forward stocks are Hogan, Watts, Pedersen, Weideman & Hulett. We only need 2 injuries and we're hitting the bottom of the barrel. Unless we trade someone in or draft someone, who would have to offer us more than Dawes from next year. We've already got plenty of tall forwards for the future so we don't need another one. But we do need another one to cover us as depth for next year and possibly the year after, and if it's not Dawes, it will need to be someone as good (i.e. not the likes of Vickery). If Dawes does stay with us, he'd have to accept that he's depth only, and 5th or 6th in line, and be paid accordingly. As another example, Spencer prob won't ever get a game unless Gawn is injured, but if Gawn ever IS injured, we're really going to need him. For Dawes, we'll prob only need him if any two out of Hogan, Watts & Pedersen are injured, but if that ever happens, we'll really need him. Actually, come to think of it, I think we'll keep Pedersen, plus one only out of Garland, Dunn & Dawes.

Maybe, though I doubt that Firrito & Petrie are on all that much, and perhaps Del Santo too. I'm a bit surprised that, if their aim was to open up four spots on their list for younger recruits, they've dumped Boomer but held on to Waite. By all means clear out their geriatric ward, but they've dumped their best performer - the one who could actually contribute something worthwhile in a much younger team next year - and missed the guy who can't get out of the wheelchair.

Tyson & Viney complement each other really well. Both very effective, but very different from each other.

OK, I get it, you're just wanting to draw attention to yourself, not discuss the issue. Carry on.

Yeah right. Consistently dropping games we should win, no matter how much we improve, means nothing, even if we continue to do it in the next few years like we have in the past. No idea why it would concern "some" supporters.

Yes, it does not.

Swapping one group of "17-22" players for another isn't going to make the slightest difference.

Players shouldn't be expected to make coaching moves during a game. If Kade Simpson is the spare man in their defence, it's not up to the players on the ground to make the decisions about whether to cover him, who covers him, and what other adjustments need to be made. These are all decisions that should be made by coaches, not players. On the other hand, nothing wrong with these decisions being decided in advance - "if they play a spare man in defence, this is who covers him and these are the other adjustments" - and then it's up to the players to work out when that predetermined plan needs to be activated.

There's a really interesting shot during the 2nd quarter (at about 2:25) of the highlights package on the AFL website. A large pile of moulded-sole boots lying near the Carlton bench. Seems they had other sets of boots ready (I'm assuming with long studs), they came prepared to use them if the conditions demanded, and they took the initiative to change them at quarter time. There could have been a similar pile next to the Melbourne bench, but I wouldn't put my house on it. We don't prepare to that extent against teams below us. So if you're looking for a pair of wet-weather boots for your nephew, maybe you could ask Carlton FC.

This loss certainly seems to have sucked all of the positivity about us out of the commentariat. I've heard a couple of discussions of "who's the best side out of the eight" and "who's the most promising side for 2017". Nobody's talking Melbourne any more. It's St.Kilda, Port or even Carlton; someone mentioned Essendon when they get their suspended players back. The groupthink is that we won't be good enough to make finals in 2017, but we may be a chance in 2018. Sure, it's only footy talk. But among our peers, the feeling is that we've reverted to type, and if we phone in the effort next Sunday & get smashed, it will just confirm these feelings. We may have achieved our goals this year, but we were never in danger of having over-achieved. Is everybody OK about that?

And there's a perfectly logical reason for that. The teams below us plan against us, by nullifying our strengths, which is startlingly easy to do, especially as we never make any attempt to counter their strategy. For the best teams, their primary concern is to make sure their "normal" unaltered game stands up against all challengers. if they can't beat the 10th or 11th team without having o make specific plans, it's an admission that they're pretty weak. If they can't beat us without double-teaming on Gawn and putting a spare man in defence, that's just telling their finals opponents that their normal game isn't up to much. So they try to beat us on their merits, and we run them pretty close. However, you're right that as we rise up the ladder, more teams will use specific plans to beat us, and we need to be able to counter it if they do. Roos prefers not to make coaching moves but to leave it up to the players to work it out - that's fine if you're Hawks or Swans, but when you're the youngest & least experienced side and you're in the other half of the ladder, you need the coach sitting on the sidelines to give you some help.

Really good balanced reply, total agreement here.

Someone on the radio said that Carlton were one of the worst clearance sides in the comp this season.

Is there a record for the lowest number of free kicks awarded to a whole side in a game? Or the largest free kick differential between the two sides? I know we had something like 20-2 at half time against WCE in Perth a few years back, but IIRC the maggots gave us the last 6 frees of the game to even it up a little.

We certainly were smashed physically by both Port and Hawthorn, both of whom targeted our younger players with absolute impunity. Looks like that's something we're going to have to get used to, though perhaps another reason for picking bigger & more mature bodies in the first place. We're much too polite physically. With most other teams, if you get rid of the ball just before being tackled, they'll go through with the physical impact (though not the grab - that would be penalised!) and crunch you to the ground then fall on top of you. When someone we're about to tackle gets rid of the ball just before, we seem to try to pull up or not go through with the hit. We need to know how to dish out the physical stuff when necessary.

So you seem to believe that a game like today is the true form, and the games against Hawks, North, WCE etc were the aberration? You're looking at this not as "the loss we had to have", but more like "the loss that changes everything". Picking out imperfections in players is an easy game, but ultimately it doesn't mean much. It's a fallacy that we'll only be any good once we replace our imperfect players with stars. I'm more concerned about how good our midfield can be if Gawn doesn't dominate. And how well we move the ball if the space we like to create to run into at CHF gets closed up. It's how we meet challenges like this - as a team, and as a club - that will determine how far we go.

They nullified Viney not Gawn.

The foolproof way to beat Melbourne: Nullify Gawn and you'll win the clearances. Put a spare man in defence and you'll totally stop their run through the middle. We have yet to beat a team that does this.

Good pick-up - the shift in terminology is very important here.