DirtyDees DDC

We were only down by 12 on contested possessions, but we trailed them by 141 in uncontested possessions.

The main culprits were Davey, Garland, Bartram, Sellar, Magner, Tapscott, Bail and Clark. All finished with 10 disposals or less.

It's unfair to pick on a rookie but Magner's quiet day was probably the main reason we got belted in the middle. He had only 9 possessions, well down on 30+ from last week. Did he have a tagger?

On the plus side - Jeremy Howe finished with 130 dream team points. He could become one of the top 20 in the comp. I loved his work rate, and his brilliant marking.

We also suffered because Magner had a poor match - only 9 disposals for the game.

What we need in my opinion.

- Davey to retire. I'm sorry Aaron. You do the things you used to. Ever since you did your leg though, you've lost a yard and a half and just get caught. The things you used to do just don't work for you anymore and that's it.

- Neeld to be sitting with a list and a big black texta, slowly but steadily crossing off names.

- Midfield awareness. It's getting better, but our mids still continue to handball into traffic.

Genuinely, I think the forward line and the midfield are close to set. We need a small forward, but apart from that it's okay. The midfield though...I think the only two whose places I would guarantee right now (from today) are Jones and Trengove - and the latter is because he's only 20.

Yes....Why?

Sunday April 3, 2011:

3rd Qtr, 'a quarter that will live in infamy':

Hawks 8.11

Dees 1.1

Deju vu. And not for the first time. When we get smashed, we really go out of our way.

It's bad enough to lose every centre clearance for the 3rd quarter, but once they get the ball into their forward line and then apply a forward press, we are stuffed.

One possible solution- let's try tackling them. We got thrashed on a number of stats today and a killer was the disposals - I think they were up by 150 odd possessions by three quarter time. But they ALSO won the tackle count. How is that possible?

If they have the ball 150 more times, surely that means that we are doing more of the chasing, and therefore more of the tackling!!! But they had 14 more tackles.

We are not working hard enough off the ball.

I thought we played with a little more freedom today. Unlike the Brisbane match, we didn't limit our game plan to a high kick around the boundary line. Instead we tried to transfer play on a few occasions to set up a different path out of defence or into attack. Admittedly it didn't always work - Grimes did a shocker in the first, whereas Watts did a terrific cross-field pass in the second to set up a goal.

I was disappointed in the way we started with a loose man in defence at the start of the 3rd. We were only 8 points down and we'd won the second quarter- why oh why start the vital 3rd quarter with a negative mind-set?

Did Richmond win EVERY centre clearance in the 3rd quarter? I think they won 10 zip. That's awful.

I felt sorry for our defence - they had no hope.

Arrange a date with Jessica Rowe?

I'd love to think that Green, Petterd, Bennell and Macdonald just had to make way for 4 gun in-form players, but that's not what's happening here.

Davey and Martin struggled against Brisbane; Morton has battled injury and loss of confidence for the past 2 years, and Tapscott has had a very restricted pre-season.

Good luck to them, but there has to be a dramatic improvement from the remaining 18 first teamers if we are to beat Richmond this Saturday.

two very nasty broken legs help this arguement, but somehow he forgot to meantion this

That's a key omission in the article. Blease lost two years of football getting over his broken ankle, while Strauss had other serious injuries prior to his broken leg last year.

It's not just Strauss and Blease. Every new recruit we've picked b/w 10 and 20 since 2007 has suffered long spells on the sideline (Grimes - pick 14 2007, Blease and Strauss in 2008, Gysberts and Tapscott in 2009, and Cook in 2010). Strauss, Grimes, Tapscott and Cook all spent time in rehab over the Summer. These guys aren't developing because we cannot get them to play enough football.

It's not recruiting since 2007 that is an issue with any "change in the game". It's the core 25+ year-old players.

Melbourne

Green, Davey, Jamar, Moloney, Macdonald, Rivers, Sylvia, Martin.

Here's our other main problem. Where have all our seniors gone? There has been a huge drop in performance from our senior list.

I'm not sure if there's a curse on our best and fairest award, but the last 5 guys to win the Bluey Truscott are all on senior lists, and none are starring for the MFC. These guys may not have been superstars, but they were key players and we are missing them big time. Even Jamar is well down on his form in 2010, and Sylvia may be injured, but he had just one kick before being injured in the last quarter against Port.

In a successful club, good older players can get moved aside by younger better players. I think of Mooney and Hawkins or Medhurst and Jarryd Blair. That's not happening at Melbourne because of the injuries to our younger players. We have been trying to develop kids by playing them in the firsts, even though they are not physically ready, and that has weakened the culture of the club. They should only get a game when they deserve their spot.

The other thing that stuffs us at the moment, is that lack of 'big game time'. Geelong and Hawthorn get better because they regularily play top class games against each other. What are we going to learn from a match where West Coast beat us by 108 points? How to chase and tackle and hit targets under pressure? Well we didn't do any of that on Saturday, and we certainly aren't learning how to win. Maybe this is why the gap b/w top and bottom is getter bigger each year.

Eleven out of the squad of 46 are on the injury list - that's nearly 25% of our squad. At the moment we haven't got enough suitable players at Casey to replace all the out-of-form players in the Firsts.

That contested possession differential stat is a poor one, considering it was our focus for the pre-season.

Can you also do one for tackles? David King has this theory that if you win the tackle count, the contested possessions and the disposal efficiency,

you win 96% of your matches.

Is it possible to arrange a trade deal?

Assume GWS and GC finish below us on the ladder.

In return for GWS and GC not bidding for Viney, we agree to trade someone like Watts, Garland, Morton or Tapscott for a 5th round draft pick.

They still get their top 2 draft picks. We can also throw in Sylvia, Davey or Moloney. Maybe Jamar too.

There are certain players named here that I don't want to lose, but we have to take risks. We will make wholesale changes anyway at the end of the year.

Beat me to the punch Redman.

From Wikipedia:

Current Rule

In 2007 the AFL made an important amendment for the father-son rule, establishing a bidding system to determine which draft pick a club must give up to secure the potential recruit. The current system works as follows:^[2][3][4]

• 1. Individual clubs are free to nominate potential father-son recruits within the above eligibility guidelines.
  
• 2. A meeting is held on the Monday before the start of trade week where clubs can bid for the nominated players. Each club has the option to bid, in reverse ladder order, for the nominated players.
  
• 3. If a bid is made, the club that nominated the father-son player must use its next available selection if it wishes to retain its hold on that player. If a club nominating the father-son player declines to match the selection nominated, the club with the successful bid must use that selection at the Draft to select the player.
  
• 4. Any club that makes a successful bid on a father-son selection must commit to pick the player they nominate.
  
• 5. If no bid is made by another club, the club that nominated the father-son eligible player will forfeit its last selection in the draft to select the player.
  

For example in 2008 the Western Bulldogs had to use their 1st round selection, #14, to secure Ayce Cordy after St Kilda bid their 1st round selection for him. Ayce's father, Brian, played 124 games for theBulldogs in the 1980s.^[5]

Possible scenario: If we finish 16th ahead of GWS and GFC, they will have to bid for Viney to force us to match their bid, and we select him at pick 3. I believe the club will certainly honour their commitment to pick jack under the father-son rule.

If they don't, and another club bids for him with their first round pick, we can wait till round 2 to use our selection. Is this correct?

That would give us 3 first round selections, plus the opportunity to get a top grade draft pick between selections 21 and 30. Based on our current form, we will make every effort to win as many games as possible this year, and still finish 16th.

I know it's going to be a tough day at the office. I hope can come away with something from this afternoon's match - maybe we can match our contested possessions from last week and finish in the positive against the Eagles, and we also up our workrate off the ball and get a big boost in our uncontested possessions.

We got thrashed from the first minute in the corresponding match at Subiaco last year. Let's see if we can stay in the contest till at least 1/2 time.

Given a choice i would prefer to start a season badly and end well, rather than the reverse. Go dees.

I'm taking a note of everyone who has given it to me in the past week. That includes a number of Hawthorn, Carlton and St. Kilda supporters who laughing at us, or just saying how %$#@ed up we are at the moment.

I have their mobile numbers. I have their addresses. I am collecting MFC scarfs and I should have quite a few by the time we finally win a flag.

And then i will pay them a visit. I promise to be very tired and emotional when they see me.

I don't plan to do anything illegal, but I'm open to suggestions as to what I can do with the scarfs.

Nice montage. It reminds me of 'Guernica' - Picasso's famous painting of the place that was decimated during the Spanish civil war.

Things aren't that bad at Melbourne...but please, can we just have one week where we can have some good news about the club.

Oh yeah, football. Forgot about that.

LOL at Moloney's "injury". Soft. Wish they had just said "omitted for playing like garbage".

The sad thing is, our midfield just went from bad to worse!

I'm not sure if our midfield is totally to blame. We won 54% of the contested possessions - higher than any other club's average.

We just didn't run and spread and offer targets once we had the ball, and i don't think we did a good job of manning up.

The mystery is how we won the contested possessions last week, but got done at the clearances. Please explain MFC!!!

We also have to increase our uncontested possessions. We are really getting smashed each week.

Stuff Talia. The big miss in the 2009 draft was Nat Fyfe. He is already a star.

I think someone fed us some dodgy figures too. The stats have Gysberts at 188cm and 83kg, and Fyfe at 186 and 73kg.

Love to know what they feed them in Freo.

Just read the HS over my coffee and was interested to see that 52.8% of our possessions were contested. Last year the cats went at 39% and the kings of contested foot, the Swans went at 44%.

This tells us that we are taking the message to heart of getting our hands dirty (The contested footy must have been everywhere except at the clearances).

What we arent doing is working hard enough off the ball. Run and spread, give and go, presenting options, hard leading. And we saw the end result of that with lots of long bombing.

In addition to our work with the ball, we have to come up with a defensive game plan that works with a contested possession game.

Why oh why do we stick so rigidly to a zone defence, and consistently allow our opponents 10-15 metres of free space? It's not too bad if we get the ball, but we have super duper problems when we lose possession.

We were watching the way players lined up when they were 60 -70 metres off the ball, and you could tell which Brisbane players were going to receive the ball.

Surely some version of man-to-man coverage is needed here.

And this is the really strange bit..... the same tactics were used under Bailey.

Let's see if i can understand our game plan.

If we get the ball (?) we then kick it as quickly as possible away from their goals and towards the boundary line. We take the quick option and we don't try to hit a target, so no one offers a lead.

Even if we are bombing the ball into our forward line, we still aim for the pocket rather than in front of the goal square. We also play a zone defence which means we must stay at least 5 metres away from an opposition player.

The problem is that everyone knows our plan, so they play man-on-man and bottle us up. We have to hope that someone like Howe or Clark can take a hanger over the pack, and that's a very low percentage game.

Now this plan might be OK if we win the majority of the stoppages and clearances, but not today - we got smashed.

So they get the ball, and they instantly have oodles of free targets. All they have to do is hit the targets and away they go.

And this mob was crap last year - we beat them!! Why have they suddenly become a 50 points better side than us?

Same with the game against Port two weeks ago. We watched this game plan in the NAB Cup. The MFC had the same tactics this afternoon, and it's a game plan that's been superseded by the great ball use of Geelong, Carlton and Hawthorn. Our guys are playing in fear of not following the plan, with no-one willing to take the game on.

It looks awful and it breaks my heart to watch it happen.

It always astounds me that 'supporters' on this board will continually denigrate the ability of the MFC players.

This is even before we have kicked a ball in earnest for the new season.

I will wait to see tomorrow, even then I find it hard to 'have a go' as I have never played at that level, so wouldn't know how difficult it is.

As long as a player give 100%, I don't care, just have a crack

Also the obsession with comparing with other teams or other players, why?.....just go along and enjoy the game,.footy is a game, it's enjoyable, I love watching Joel Macdonald coz I have no idea what he is going to do, I would love him to catch a nice simple mark, but that would take away the enjoyment of watching him take on 3 opposition players to get the ball back

We get to have another go next week, no matter what we do this week

........if the performance gets to you, you only have to head south after the game..a nice slow one in the river or on the railway tracks.....

I can only say God speed to the players

Point taken with the negative attitude, and that's what happens when we watch such a poor performance against the top teams like we did last year.

But not comparing our list and our game to other teams?... that's a folly.

This is an 18 team competition and at least half the other teams are doing things much better than us, and we want to know how and why.

So we compare our list with their list, as you do when you watch 36 players on the ground.

If you just watch the MFC, you might think we have pretty good speed and skills. Then you watch Carlton, or Hawthorn or Pendleberry and compare, and you realise we have a very very long way to go.

I seriously don't get the obsession with "pace." Apart from the ability to apply defensive pressure in the form of being right up your opponent's clacker, "pace" comes from fast ball movement, not runs and curry. With the number of times we'll be winning contested ball then immediately slamming it on the boot (for better or for worse), I don't think pace will be all that relevant. Nice to have, but not as essential as the ability to kick the ball well (which we can't do either).

Richmond certainly found out about Carlton's pace last night. They must have 6-7 guys in the Blues lineup that can break the lines with sheer speed.

Even a guy like Armfield was able to carry for 20m and kick for 40-50m, and he's not even in their top dozen players. We may only have 2 guys who can do the same; a newcomer in Sam Blease and another nearer the end of his career in Davey, whereas all their guys are in the peak of their careers. They tell me Jack Watts is quick over 20m - i'd like to see that.

As for the other comment about our ability to kick the ball - I think that's a little unfair. There's the old saying about the player that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

Well I've looked at tomorrows starting line-up for our backline, and i reckon most of them could hit the broad side of a barn.... a fairly large barn...and probably do it at least 4 out of 6 times. Except for maybe last week when it was a bit windy. That will bring the average down a bit.

I hope the Dees are comfortably in front by the time sub Josh Tynan runs onto the ground for his well deserved first game.

I'm reading the article on Dave Misson in 'Heartbeat' the club's season guide.

Says Dave on his initial assessment of the club - 'i did a bit of research and had a look at their fourth quarters. They were the worst fourth quarter team in the competition'.

No wonder he drove them into the ground in the first two months. No all we need is someone to teach them how to hit targets.

He has done that role in the past for the club, and i don't think it works.

You want four of your best guys lining up at the centre bounce. I just can't see Bartram consistently as one of our four best. His stats indicate he's not a ball magnet, and his disposal is not going to cut oppositions apart.

He's trained with the backline - keep him there as a stopper.

When I first heard the news this morning, i thought it was sad, but not unexpected. I felt sorry for his family and went back to work.

Later on someone came up and said they were sorry to hear about Jim - and i choked back tears.

Maybe that's like Jimmy's career - a bit slow at first and not many people gave him a chance to succeed in the VFL, but he just got better and better. The work he did after football was probably more significant than all the highlights of his magnificent career with the MFC.

I met him once - briefly. i shook his hand. I'll never forget him.