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It must be time for the coaching staff to reassess Bruce's role in the team game plan.

When he showed his best form, it was probably when the Demons were peaking under Daniher. Bruce was calm, well balanced, creative and a pretty good finisher most of the time. He was ( and potentially still is ) a great defensive player. Bruce could accurately pass by hand or foot to runners, like Walsh, Whelan, etc who would cut through the lines and set up great attacking moves. He could come up with a couple of match-turning goals in bursts.

His decline in form has occurred, funnily enough, with the decline in the team's form.

Bruce passes to stationary targets. Turnover. His misses targets, sometimes because the targets are not moving quickly enough. He misses critical goals.

He must play deep in the forward line where the options when he gets possession are simpler.

Kick the goal! Handball to the crumber who kicks the goal! Tackle the defender and get possession of the ball again!

Don't agree. I think he is most effective as a run with stopper who is quick on the counter attack. That is where he plays his best football where he can use his great skills as well as exploit his big engine. And that was where he was quietly effective on Saturday.

I too remember 87 well. It was the most exciting time for the club since 64. Northey took over when the club was a rabble at its lowest and it took him half a season to get the players to play tough disciplined accountable footy. But it all came to nothing although Melbourne became regular finals contenders. If they did beat Hawthorn in 87 they would have faced a firing and fresh Carlton side who eventually crushed Hawthorn. I doubt they could have beaten Carlton. Melbourne's best player Robbie Flower would have missed the GF due to injury if they made it. They were considered over achievers at the time due to lack of star players. IMO they had their best chance in 1990 when they were widely considered flag favorites at the start o the finals but blew it against West Coast and were eliminated.

Another example is Brisbane who started 2001 in average fashion after a lowly few years but then surged and won I think the last 14 games of the season to kick start their great premiership run. But they had star players to make good on their claims.

If Bailey can get Melbourne to play disciplined accountable footy and get his game plan going then there is hope but it a big call for this year. At least this time the Dee's have potential star quality in their line up. The big plus about yesterday was that they played the committed disciplined footy required to build confidence. I loved the way they moved the ball around. Skills still lacking but it is surprising how skills improve once there is confidence.

Agree, and the skills will further improve once we get a lot of our full list back. In addition it will create real competition for place which can never be a bad thing.

I too felt the most heartening thing about Saturday was seeing a young and inexperienced side, by no means our best 22, play a quick moving, skilled brand of football which with further injection of skilled players can only get better and more consistent, with a consequent reductions in mistakes.

The brand of football was very exciting.

Happy to hear PJ played a half, I was expecting at least another 2 weeks out. On last years efforts he is probably not even best 22 but there will be a few games where he will get picked just to help the Russian out and be a decoy forward! How nice would it be if he showed improvement such as Jamar has this year! Not impossible.

Agree he has the ability, and is a better option than either Martin or Spencer IMO. If we did that though, I hope we give the Russian a key marking role in the pocket up forward - I think he shows great promise as a key forward, and would greatly add to his terrific form on the ball, and would require the other team to put either their number one defender on him, or rest another ruckman down back. An exciting prospect.

It was an excellent match up. Medhurst is an excellent mark for his size and really needs a tall to run with him- other sides will need to make a similar adjustment with Ricky Petterd and Col Sylvia - smalls won't have the reach to stop them over head. That match up and Grimes on Didak went a significant way to curtailing their scoring opportunities. I think Warnock and Bruce were tag teaming on Cloke and Anthony. The match ups were pretty good I thought.

Bate didn't get a lot of the ball, but he was a lot better than many of the Bater Haters out there are saying. I doubt that either he or Bruce will be dropped.

If you look at the stats, Bruce was 7th in possessions with 19 and Bate 11th with 16. Neither of them disgraceful as some would have us believe on this site. I thought Cam Bruce did a useful stopping role down back and Bate provided a running target. Not his best game i admit, but serviceable nevertheless inspite of the fact that he does not look fully fit. Either does Aaron Davey by the way, but he played a blinder.

I understand both Watts and Garland were "no shows" for Casey against De La Salle the other night. I thought the club announced they would play in this game. Are the injuries worse than has been revealed?

Cameron Schwab said on ABC Radio yesterday that they are expecting between 10 and 15 games out of Watts this year. Why is the progress so painfully slow in his rehabilitation?

Actually, I have concerns about the effort. It was great and everything, but does anyone seriously think this list can put in that much heart week-in-week-out? My concern is that we will bring that A-game of man-on-man footy to the top sides, and go to sleep the week after in the winnable games.

I'm desperate to see us get off the bottom of the ladder, and to do that we're going to need to sneak a couple of wins against good/very good sides. Yesterday would have been one we could cross of the shopping list early on.

If we go into next week all bruised and battered, and drop our heads as we did in round 1... then another wooden spoon is on the cards. Adelaide at the G in the state they're in... this is a VERY winnable game.

I see us having one HUGE tangible priority this year. To avoid the indignity of back-to-back-to-back wooden spoons. Obviously improvement is a big thing too, but that's in the eye of the beholder.

This coming weekend is huge for this year.

Agree this is important.

Selection will be critical this week, although it is arguable whether the dissappointment of not winning, OR the comaplacency from winning, is the more difficult to manage on such a young group.

I think the effect this will have mostly will be on the group's self respect and the confidence that will flow from that. It will be important this week to bring in some fresh experienced bodies such as Sylvia, Rivers and maybe Garland to supplement that confidence.

It will require careful management, but I think that is probably one of Dean Bailey's strengths

No, I don't agree. Although I did think the umpring in general was below par yesterday.

Scully gave away a couple of undsciplined free kicks in front of goal yesterday, holding the man and push in the back

type free kicks which he was suckered into. All part of the learning curve for him.

Overall though I thought the two of them were good contributors.

Yes, you can see why the officianados love the look of Trengove. Everything he does is class, and is a very quick tackling machine. Very much in the Chris Judd mode IMO.

I thought this thread was suggesting THIS year was the year.

But yes, if the Hawks are anything to go by a climb up the ladder is likely to come all at once. Eg, if we won 8 this season, we'd only have to win 4-5 more to be in with a real shot at top 4. Fits and starts.

No, I meant a surge into the finals may be possible this year on yesterday's performance. To go past the first week into the finals though would certainly be a bridge too far at this stage.

Watching them try though over the next six months or so though will be very exciting, and make for a very enjoyable football future.

I agree all the way. Far too many grizzle guts and doomsday posters in Demonland. After ONE round they had written us off!!!!!! Now look at them jump on the bandwagon and salute our great performance today. Next week we lose, maybe, and they will get out their little hatchets and once again will chop up the team they are supposed to BARRACK for!!!!! I saw a big , clear picture of our FUTURE today and it looked BLOODY GOOD. Young guns starting to fire supported by the old heads in the team. Talking to supporters of other clubs today, we gained a hell of a lot of RESPECT. Come on Dees we are ready to roll.

And because we were the only game in town on an easter saturday all the true football supporters would have been watching or listening to the game. These days too, the Dees seem to be everyone's second team. Our performance today in terms of gaining respect from the wider football community should not be underestimated, a very important factor in terms of making our club attractive for both fans and players. Pity it was not on free to air television. Why wasn't it by the way? Anyone know?

Did anyone else notice that both Tom Scully and Jack Trengove seemed to be targetted for soft penalties? On at least six occasions they were penalised for what looked like very dubious reasons. I wonder whether they are noticed more by the umps because of all the publicity surrounding their arrival on the AFL scene. It seems to me they were got at.

Anyone agree?

Bennels effort. not good enough

soft as butter

we do not want to promote that

I think we should all take a cold shower on this issue. Sure it looked as though the kid withdrew from a crucial marking contest in the third quarter when a goal was begging, and dropped another crucial mark in the last quarter, but he also took a very courageous mark running into the goal post in that same third quarter.

Jamie Bennell is one of our potential teenage stars, and they do take time to learn and develop. He needs to be given space and time. Before today I wondered why we played him, but after today I understand better.

As the coach says we need to put gametime into these kids, and crucifying them in the process when they make mistakes doesn't help any of them.

Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, today’s match reminded me of the Demons last dramatic surge into the finals in 1987, when we got into the final 5 after a hard fought 15 point win at the Whitten Oval in the last round, but only after an after the siren goal by Jason Dunstall for Hawthorn over Geelong. It was our first final series for 23 years. A very young side painstakingly built by Barassi over the previous six years ran on adrenalin to easily defeat North, the Swans in the first two finals, and then to be cruelly denied a grand final appearance by a mistake by a first year player by the name of Jim Stynes when he ran though the mark after the siren to go over to his Irish parents in the stands to celebrate victory with them, which allowed Gary Buchanara a 15 metre penalty to bring him within 45 metres of goal. One of the most famous incidents in AFL history. The Hawks won by 3 points. This set us up for a Grand final appearance in 1988, and brought consistent finals action for the Demons for almost the next 20 years save the short lived Neil Balm era in the mid 1990s. The AFL drama of yesterday was the closest I had seen to those years. There is nothing like a young side playing on adrenalin for excitement and drama.

I believe that is what we will see here, maybe not this year, but certainly in the near future, although if we play with the same passion and, yes, skill as we played yesterday, you never know. Remember, we have at least 7 first pick players out which will make a huge difference when they return and if we can consistently play now the gameplan, instensity and skill we showed yesterday we all might be pleasantly surprised.

IMO Dean Baily is at least as skilled a coach as John Northey, and we have an order of magnitude better administration as that era.

Go Dees!

Wrong. As well as the lead, mark and goal, he created a couple of contests for small forwards to try to feed off and created some defensive pressure in our forward 50.

Did not do much in the second half, but warrants another crack.

Dunn was better. Bate will improve with time. I know a few want to bag Bate but his use of the ball in midfield (when he kicked it) was good. I know he made a goose of himself once (again) but when he uses it, he finds targets. Will be better for the run .

To his credit, Newton was quite effective at the centre bounce a couple of times when he is clearly not a ruckman. The Rusian was outstanding today but the Juice did provide good back up - all power to him.

Hardness?

How about the weak effort of a thread criticizing a kid in his second year for hearing footsteps.

Michael Voss openly admits to shirking the issue a few times as a youngster.

I'll worry once he gets a few seasons into him.

Even then, not every player is Brett Kirk or Nick Riewoldt.

Bennell was one of our best today, and certainly provided some spark in the forward line. He will learn from his obvious weakness in the clinches, and he is clearly a very skilled young player. He is an adequate replacement for Wonna, but in my opinion not in his class.

What I found so encouraging today is that we were competitive without most of our preferred forward set up. It was a great effort, and very encouraging

6. Jamar

5. Petterd

4. Green

3. Davey

2. Grimes

1. MacDonald

Spot on. These guys were terrific today. When you consider who we had out of our preferred 22. It was fantastic. Well done guys.

Any doubters about our future should preserve their judgement.

Great stuff

OK then... tell us all about our current circumstances... tell us all how you, as an AFL footballer, would rather be involved with the MFC, drive to Cranbourne all pre-season to a facility without a gym, come back to Melbourne to do your weights session, making sure it fits in with other professional sporing clubs schedule so that you can become a grand final winning team...

Or would you rather join Carlton, drive a few minutes down the road to a cushy 20 milllion dollar facility of your own, with large photographic tributes to players from your own club staring over you... who have graced the hallowed playing fields of the AFL/VFL for the last century... Oh no, our unfinished shared 'home' at the Olympic Park precinct and as yet unfinished 'home' at Casey Fields are much better... in fact, so good that we are already looking at a new Docklands 'home' for the future... because we have the best facilities in the state...

Not saying I'm 100% right. In fact would love to be proven wrong... But please give us a bit more than your assertion that I have given a "Shocking misrepresentation of our circumstances grounded in no informed knowledge of the true state of affairs." Happy to be proven incorrect if you have the inside scoop an Inner Demon would have.

I'm just not yet convinced that we have solved the problem of our biggest disadvantage to training and recruiting. I have personally seen the facilities at carlton, Collingwood and Western Bulldogs. I have also seen Richmond's facilities. We are paupers compared to the first three clubs. We are on par with the Tigers. We are at the same end of the ladder as the Tigers. We are not at the same end of the ladder as the Dogs, Blues and Pies. Discuss...

A question for all......

Why could we not have redeveloped the Junction oval with Governement money in the same way as the Cats redeveloped Skilled Stadium, Bulldogs Whitten Oval, North Arden Street, Dons Windy Hill, Hawks Waverley, Tigers Punt Road. I know the facilities at Junction Oval were shocking, but no worse than Tigers, North or Bulldogs facilities before renovation. The other advantage of Junction oval is that it is right in the middle of one of the most lively social areas of Melbourne, and therefore perfect for an trendy (and money making) social club and even lease out part of the facility for an upmarket restaurant. This seems to me a lot better than a fragmented facilities, one in inner melbourne, difficult to park, and to get to, and no substantial social club you can call your own, a so called social club in Bentleigh, and training facilities in Casey which is way out of town. Casey to me will not do it. You either go out there whole-heartedly (like the hawks did at Waverley), or you find a facility which you can call your own.

I'd be interested in others comments.

effectively we didnt use the draft after 1999 till about 2006 where we have frawley, petterd and garland

these are the blokes taken in the various drafts that remain on our list (ie, these blokes are the pick of the picks in a sense), only mclean i think is not on the list is of any value at other clubs.

2005 12 Nathan Jones Melbourne

2005 60 Clint Bartram Melbourne

2004 13 Matthew Bate Melbourne

2004 15 Lynden Dunn Melbourne

2004 Matthew Warnock Rookie Melbourne

2003 3 Colin Sylvia Melbourne

2003 Aaron Davey Rookie Melbourne

2002 14 Daniel Bell Melbourne

2002 26 Jared Rivers Melbourne

2001 55 Brad Miller Melbourne

2001 Mark Jamar Rookie Melbourne

these blokes should form the backbone of our club, but there isnt much there to be honest. 2000, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05. 6 years of drafting and probably sylvia and davey are of any note. that is the black hole of the melbourne football club. not the 2008-10 bailey years.

Thank you for this. This tells me more about our disastrous current state than any other post. We need say no more, and also appreciate DB's and the Club's board and senior management's current challenges. All we can do is wait and hope.

We need tho now to concentrate our focus on getting our recruiting and list management right. It is the only way forward

Has anyone done this matrix on our list. I would be interested in seeing it if they have. I'm sure it would create a lot of debate. I'm in the middle of mine now

Miller plays best as a lead up forward creating space behind him - something Robbo & Neitz took full advantage of. Thats his big trick; and any side with quality deep forwards would love him in their side. The "dish off" to a running midfielder with good foot skills only enhanced this.

Unfortunately Melbourne "currently", no longer has the forward structure or running midfielders to take advantage of this asset. Till we do (it may be weeks, or months or years away - think of the return/development of Jurrah, Watts, Trengove, Scully, Gysberts, Grimes); I would like to see him play with more aggression, be the protector/enforcer presence supporting our young kids (Their confidence will multiply 10 fold with this type of onfield support). I would also like to see him practice the Jonathon Brown "Mark, wheel and kick" to a one on one - obviously when he's not lining up for goal.

Spot on. Good post. Thoroughly agree. My thoughts entirely

The difference is the game plan. Simple. Miller was a focal point of Daniher's plan where we would kick long out of defence to the leading CHF and he would dish off quickly to a running mid who could either take a shot himself or hit one of Robbo, Neitz or Schwartz (before he retired). Miller's deficiencies were hidden because he very rarely kicked the ball, almost never took a shot on goal and because of the rapid transit from the back 50 rarely had to take a contested mark.

Now we have a different coach, different plans and no dominant target in the forward 50. Suddenly Miller is the only experienced KPF we have left and every weakness in his game is being exposed. We discover that he can't hold his ground, is weak in contested marking and obviously can't kick a goal to save himself.

Agree with the analysis, not the conclusion.

My point in the original post is we should be able to use him more effectively. Right now, we are getting nothing out of him. Even if we move him down back and bring Garland forward, at least we might get more out of both of them. Miller is NOT the worst player in our side. We are not getting out of him what he is capable of. We can do better.

that is my point

I think the last possible chance Brad Miller has for an AFL career is to swing him down back, and just let him run straight at the ball for a while. Allah Chris Tarrant. I'm not totally convinced that this will work, but i am convinced he does not deserve to be up forward. I love the guy to death, and his missus even more, but he is employed to do a job and he just cant quite cut the mustard...

There is no way he would have got a game if Jurrah and Watts had got through pre-season. Makes me wonder now why we didnt draft another key position player. Time will tell. Maybe Garland is the missing piece, and Jamar could spend more time up forward? Anyone got any better ideas?

Agree we could use him better though not convinced about full back. I think he can play forward well if we can get him back with the hard running and leading he used to do with Neita. I think he has been poorly coached, and we are not getting out of him what he is capable of. He is no superstar, but he is better than he is showing at the moment.

Also agree with your comment re Garland, Watts and Jurrah, particularly Garland. I think he would complement Bate well. At the moment Bate is getting the first or second opposition back, he should be getting the third, when he would be a totally different type of player than what he is being asked to do today.

Miller for Garland in the backline might work, with Garland providing a target at CHF. Better kick, better mark, more mobile. Seems like a good gameplan. If we also rested the Russian in the pocket that would be even better. Miller also might provide a bit of mongrel in the backline, something that was sorely lacking on Saturday when several of our younger brigade were badly manhandled down back and none of our senior players protected them. He has in the past had a "hard man" reputation. We seem to have lost that as well under Bailey.

Great post Bob

Geelong were a rabble not that long ago when trying to implement a very similar gameplan to the one Bailey has in mind.

Here's a selection of quotes from Ben Jensen who wrote for 'The Cattery' throughout the 2006 season:

"A week after being the Saints, Geelong was comprehensively thrashed by Collingwood at the MCG tonight, in what was universally described as a 'disgrace'."

"While some fans in the Brownlow stand cheered off the Cats, the mood in most other parts of the ground was palpable."

"Skills also let the Cats down. Dropped chest marks when free were the order of the day. Next on the list was poor hand-passing, particularly when under the slightest pressure. And finally kicking, both field and goal, were atrocious."

"It was a very poor display in what should have been a tribute to coach Mark 'Bomber' Thompson."

"Geelong now has very little realistic hope of qualifying for the finals, and even if it did manage to scrape through into seventh or eighth position, what good would it do?"

"WHAT CAN the Cast achieve in the final thirteen rounds of the season? They could improve their skills and anticipation that's for sure; too often handballs and short passes fell short of the target; other times opponents are allowed to slip up and drop the ball only for no Geelong player to be within range to make them pay."

"MORE THAN 600 disgruntled Geelong members turned out at the club's headquarters Wednesday night to demand answers for the team's poor AFL season, but were left disappointed. Members who questioned the club's business plan which predicted a premiership by 2006 were instead told `we will win eventually'."

"The Cats, Brisbane Lions, Essendon, Hawthorn and the Kangaroos had no representatives."

(in reference to All-Australian selection)

The worm can turn very quickly. When confidence is low, skills and workrate drop off very quickly even in an experienced team.

Spot on "Goodvibes", in another of my post's today, my point entirely. Bomber was continually under the cosh in the first half of 2006, and he very nearly lost his job along with the then chairman. The Cats supporters were feral.

We are in almost an identical position, except from my memory they (the Cats) had nothing like our injury woes at the beginning of the season.

We will improve over the season - it will just take time, and the return of more of our skilled players. Then I think there will be room to criticise if we do not take the chance to drop some of our more senior players who either have lost some of their skills (eg Miller) or who never had any in the first place (eg Jones). I wonder whether we will have the spine?

Hey, I know, have any of you heard of this guy called Dean Bailey? He's supposed to be a little-known former Port Adelaide assistant highly regarded for his teaching ability. Better yet, he's also had senior coaching experience at a club that's rebuilding. I just know that if we gave him a few years, he might just surprise the football world. And he doesn't cost too much, either.

Doesn't anyone remember several years ago when the blue and white hoops were in a weekly crisis and the Cats supporters were continuously calling for Bomber's head, and they very nearly got it. Two years later they were premiers. People have short memories.

We have got to give the club time, but that does not mean they are above criticism, and I for one thought the weekend's performance showed no redeeming features at all, except perhaps for our new recruits' performances. At the moment though I believe constructive criticism is more appropriate.

We WILL see continuous improvement throughout the season, it will just not be as quick as we all had hoped for.

I think we all agree on here it is not our new recruits or young players who are the problem at the moment, it's the experienced brigade.

Take Brad Miller. When we were playing finals football consistently in the early part of this decade, Miller was a very valuable player. He continually provided a fast leading target and was well known for his hard work. Sure we had a problem with his kicking for goal, but complemented Neita very well and I think was for two or three years regarded as a high value late pick.

What has gone wrong? First, think his work rate has dropped off. He no longer seems to do the hard running needed as a good CHF. Secondly, the delivery forward is just shocking.In this i am not blaming Trengove or Scully, both of whom played serviceable first up games, i'm more pointing the finger at our experienced on-ballers: Jones (who i think is seriously underskilled for such a senior player), Davey who clearly is not fit yet, Maloney who just seems to blaze away with little thought as to team system, and to a lessor extent Junior and Brad Green, although i thought he was the best of the snior brigade on Saturday.

What if anything can we do about this. I think it comes down to our gameplan (or lack of it), and the individual coaching of the player and his group. Surely Miller could be coached to go back to what worked in the past,but that will also mean a plan about fast moving football - something we singualrly lack at the moment IMO. If we can harness BM as we have in the past, we have a valuable player and one who could complement Jack Watts when he gets up and going.

We need to put more coaching time into the older brigade to get the best out of them. We do not seem to be doing that,otherwise why are they all performing so badly?

The display was pretty awful I must say, but I agree with others on here that we do need to keep things in perspective. Can I make the following points:

1. I do think we fool ourselves on this site with our assessments of our current list. The most common comment here is that we have a gun backline. Well I certainly didn't see it yesterday. although the ball came in very quickly, we were constantly outmarked, the pressure was almost non existant, and finding targets further up the ground was awful. Further, some of the Hawks goals were very very soft from fundamental skill errors,

2. We are currently bottom of the list and have been for several years. We went into this match with an injury list as long as I can remember for this time of the year, which left it very difficult for us to be competitive. The hawks were premiers two years ago which naturally means they have much greater depth than us. It is understandable we got done.

3. Many of our senior players were clearly underdone, and some of them are not up to it at all (eg jones, miller). We will need to keep playing them for the time being, but we will have to face reality about this sooner rather than later,

4. The forward line will be good once we get back the cattle. Not many from yesterday's lot will survive.

5. Jamar was dominant but strangely ineffective. It was only in the last quarter that he started knocking the ball clear of the packs from the tapouts that wegot the ball in the open, and then started to out score the opposition. He will be better for that run,

6. The kids were a bit overwhelmed but you can definitely see "green shoots" there. Scully was better the longer the gamewent on. Trengrove was competitive but a bit outgunned but I'm sure will be excellent. Strauss was outgunned as is not yet up to it, Mackenzie has some get up and go,

In summary althoughit was dissappointing I think there were good reasons for it and it will improve, but perhaps not as fast as we all had fooled ourselves it would in the pre-season. I predict by the second half of the season we will see substantial improvement.

Keep the faith