Supermercado

Trying to blame umpires for this is so one-eyed we should be sponsored by the Fred Hollows Foundation.

Lever hasn't been great since he came back but it's not really playing to his strengths letting teams rocket the ball from one end to the other at warp speed. Remember when teams would get the ball at half back and have NFI what to do next? Now they may as well have runway lighting guiding them to spare players inside 50.

The missed shots (and dud forward entries) wouldn't look as bad if we went back to stopping the ball from immediately rocketing down the other end at warp speed. Having the worst conversion in the league is a bad thing, but keeping the ball at our end and the opposition under pressure would be nice too.

"A dozen matches in the past three years have turned a dynasty team into a rubble." Somebody's spell check refused to accept 'rabble'. Spoiler alert - the whole article is based on expected score which is a lame way of judging something like this. Whatever we were meant to score the 2022 QF against Sydney was the big miss. We were in front, May thrashed Franklin, and a win there off the back of thumping Brisbane the previous week would've sent us to a prelim on a high. Bah.

Immediately after this game - "what number do you want on your jumper?" "54 please". Nobody thought to tell me that either Heaver would get a new number or never be heard from again.

I hated him as a forward last year (and it's not his fault that they kept playing him there when it obviously wasn't working) but this season I've started to think if we had a decent full forward he'd be a handy part of the attack. He gets the ball up the ground and is our best chance of intercept possessions at that end, we just can't rely on him to kick bulk goals. Problem is we can't rely on anyone to do that either.

Theory back from the grave!

The goalkicking is pox, but other than Pickett we also lack players who can pluck goals out of thin air, and I'd be surprised if we weren't in the bottom few sides for set shots from within 15 metres. Edit - I usually don't take expected score seriously, but this has our set shots as the four easiest in the competition so there (seemingly) goes that theory.

Good, means there's a gap in the market for a 2008-2014 misery session.

By default I know Ben Beams started on the bench because he might not have ever come off it. I'd like to follow on from this contestant's work and do the Bailey/Neeld years as a subject. SBS has shown a lot of sad, depressing shows over the years but they'll have to put a warning up before this one.

Without looking the 2006 draw was against Geelong. As for the Grand Final all I remember is Neitz having the first shot and thinking we might have a chance. I'll say 10 for Riley as a guess. We won two in a row, then had that putrid loss to Richmond before Daniher quit when they asked him to reapply for his job. Edit - Just watched segment, he did well but I'm surprised there weren't more stitch-up questions about obscure players.

The VFL is a joke of a competition, you can't take games like this seriously.

There would be two if Melbourne didn't sell a game interstate so we're implicated in this as well.

Extended management

At this stage of his career it would have been polite to call McDonald 'managed'.

Great day, I'd missed the 2004 landslide over Carlton so hadn't seen us win by 100+ since Richmond '93. Was present for enough losses between 100 and 186, so it was nice to get one the other way.

We're deader than Kelsey's nuts, now I just want to ruin the value of our traded draft pick.

Basing any life decision on Quinton Narkle remaining at a club for longer than a couple of seasons seems fraught with danger.

Whoever has to replace Max is on a hiding to nothing, may as well be somebody we've got happy memories of.

Ironically after his ruck skills were defamed last year, Fullarton wasn't bad doing that. Unfortunately for him, he's nowhere near it as a forward.

Not sure Jacinta would be bothered, but it would be funny if they had to use the sub before 3/4 time and were left one short due to the ankle bracelet going off.

It's peak upset interstate fan to think the same people who gave Melbourne opening home games against GWS, Gold Coast and Freo could care less about us.

If we're lucky it will help us lose 40-60 instead of 60-90.

Why can't they just roll-in some filler players and keep going during the state game week? It's mad that the AFL teams propping the competition up lose a week of player development for semi-professional State Of Origin.

For those who are interested the vom came with exactly 1.00 left in the half but Ben Brown kicked a goal afterwards so he is the official holder of the high watermark.