Dr. Gonzo

People are allowed to be upset, angry, [censored] off with the result. I am too. But I'm not gonna throw the team under the bus and resort to cliched "typical Melbourne" rubbish. North played well today, it's an even comp and we will have ups and downs. For Christ's sake were missing two of our key players, were down to our 3rd string ruck (who isn't really a ruck) and a skinny 8 game player as our key forward. The team is trying, this isn't the Neeld era where they don't even belong on the same field as the opposition. Viney tried hard today, Frost was good, Hunt tried to provide a spark, Hannan had his best game, Oliver was tagged out of the game and needs to learn how to cope with that. Effectively the Roos did to us today what we did to the Crows last week. Their pressure was exceptional, they targeted our best mid and exploited our weaknesses (ruck and isolating Brown in the goal square). But sure, if you feel better about kicking the club for being a bottom of the ladder feeder don't let me stop you wallowing in your misery.

Why do you reckon our mids were "off"? Last week we nullified Jacobs and had the ball drop to his feet creating a contested game. This week Goldstein kept tapping into space for their mids to work in and there wasn't a hell of a lot we could do about it.

The competition is so even this year anyone can beat anyone on their day (other than Brisbane). I hoped we would win today and thought we were in with a good showing but I didn't "expect" us to win. And that's not because I thought "typical Melbourne" or any other self loathing neurotic crap either

That was the most disappointing part of the game for me. Others calling the team losers, mentally fragile etc get a grip. North came out with a clear plan and it worked. They targeted Oliver and our other young mids and bombed the ball up to Brown who had been isolated one out in the goal square, often against OMac. The team had a crack our momentum was continually stunted by the maggots. I don't generally complain about the umps but the amount of one way umpiring was inexcusable today. How did Bugg not get 50 on 3/4 time? How was the ball up after we got back within 8 points not called back? Just two of a litany of borderline corrupt decision making. Three things I wasn't happy about today (besides the maggots) 1) OMac on Brown, put Frost on him 2) not helping out Oliver 3) Weideman completely ineffectual. We're basically a man down with him out there. Not his fault he's young and should be developing in the 2s, but we don't have any other options at the moment. Actually 4) Watts has been poor for a few games now, no urgency at the end when we desperately needed to score.

Reamed. Absolutely reamed

He was tackled to the ground after marking the ball!! Umps have been horrible all day but that is just blatant

Waite, Brown and Goldstein are the threats for me

I don't know about MLB but in the NFL the top 2 teams in each conference get a bye and only 12 of 32 teams make playoffs

If we win we'll be 6th (if Carlton win) or 7th (if Freo win) above Tigers, Dogs and Saints. Get it done and get it done early Demons, don't disappoint.

They did have to do something - but what they've done is nothing. They should do something about situations like Melbourne never hosting Essendon as the home game or always travelling to Geelong every year or Collingwood Essendon and Carlton playing each other twice every year (granted this has changed somewhat but it's only at the edges - they'll only play 2 of the 3 twice now instead of all 3).

The only problem I have with the conference system is rivals always come from the same conference - so you will never have rivals playing off in a GF and teams can't develop a rivalry based on GFs

10 or 12 teams making finals in an 18 team comp renders most of the home and away season pointless. Just do enough to qualify then prime your players for a 5 week assault at the flag.

Like the form of Watts over the years though, 1, 2 or 3 games does not a season make. It wasn't until a good block of games and then a full season of consistent performances was put together that supporters, his teammates and the coaches started to trust him. The same with the team. Until they show it over a large block of games or a season supporters will still question their mental fortitude. I'd say they are actually on the way to doing that with their performances this year, the only problem is we haven't got the points on enough occasions and have had lapses during games that cost us (particularly the Hawks and Freo games).

Please delete your post lest Big Col gets wind of it and feeds these ideas up to his superiors as his own

He really should go back to polo and leave the footy to us

Hamish is easy to spot goes by the name rompingwins

17-5 is terrible, resetting the draw/ladder midway through a season is unworkable. Just have a rolling fixture or have teams play twice based on last year's ladder (1/4/7/10/13/16 play twice etc) alternating home and away every time you play. Simple. 17-5, 18-4, wildcards all ridiculous concepts that will hurt the competition in the long run

I pray you're right about GWS and I see elements of what you're saying - but I still see them forging a dynasty once their list matures, especially as they trade out players for top 20 picks and get priority academy picks

There's a difference between "we're the best and only need to show up to win" and "we could be a contender/why not us?/anything is possible"

The team is going to lose because a group of supporters dare speculate about the potential for the rest of the season in an online forum. Now I've heard it all.

North were blown away by WCE in the 2nd half, lost by 7 goals to both the Giants and Swans. That's 3 of 8 games they've lost by 7 goals.

It's extremely unlikely OD but history is littered with young talented teams getting on a roll and pinching a flag before their time. No team has done much so far this year and our best (shown last week) is as good as anyone's to date. Of course teams like GWS and the Dogs are likely to find another cog come September but at this stage they haven't shown it

NFL makes $4 billion A YEAR from TV networks ($1b a year for Monday night football alone - 16 games!) and doesn't compromise it's competition anywhere near the extent the AFL does. It's because the AFL executive/board are all incompetent fools who mostly got in on the basis of their mates in the game. The TV networks NEED the AFL it's what the AFL is still yet to figure out.

Well said

No and the sooner he goes the better. So the AFL creates a working group to figure out how to make the fixture fairer, and this is the end result? How does this make the fixture fairer?? Why do they need a working group to figure out what is a basic idea?? There are a couple of logical and simple ways to even out the fixture, extra elimination finals and the 17-5 abortion are NOT it