bing181

This. Can't be emphasised enough. And if we sack the coach it'll become even more true. Not having a CEO isn't helping either.

People have to stop believing in the tooth fairy. There is no circuit breaker, there is no knight in shining armour. Going to be a rough ride, buckle up. Go Dees.

Given that Griffiths was hand-picked by Burgess as his successor and then had a year under his wing to learn the ropes, they did and they are. (I know that's not the answer you were looking for.) It's not fitness, not in a physiological sense anyway. Psychological having an impact on physical performance is something else. You're always less fit when you're losing and vice versa.

Also loss of Gus (especially) and ANB. Add to that loss of Lever on-field.

Fox SportsDees’ ex-CEO opens up on moment he knew Simon Goodwin was...Melbourne’s ex-CEO knew Goodwin was ‘the one’. It led to a ‘what the f**k’ moment

Peter Jackson who appointed Goodwin? That Peter Jackson?

Mark Bickley: “If things were really easy to fix, smart people like Simon Goodwin would fix them but they are clearly not easy. What I saw last night was Christian Petracca down on confidence. There were times he went to put the foot down, but he just got caught, he doesn’t have that explosiveness that perhaps he once had. (Jack) Viney wasn’t impactful at all, Max Gawn didn’t look like the player he’s been to be an eight-time All Australian, so whether they’ve shouldered a fair bit of the load for a long time. Is that now? Is that the psychological burden that they’ve carried for the last three or four years where they’ve tried to get themselves out of this hole? What I do see is a team that looks like they are burdened with something. How do you release that burden? That’s the challenge I’m sure Simon Goodwin is talking to his assistant coaches about."

Ox on SEN: “It’s not a Simon Goodwin thing, and I don’t care what you say, it’s not about the coach. By all accounts, the players are playing for him. I think it’s a holistic part with the club, where the club have just got a lot of things wrong over the last 12 months and its playing catch up with them now. It starts with culture, and it starts from the top down. We know that Melbourne have had massive problems with their board. They were in a legal dispute for many years… they’ve got no CEO, they’ve had all new line coaches, so all the players are dealing with new coaches. That is some sort of adjustment. They are professional players, but they have got a lot wrong over the last couple of years and its now coming to smack them.” "Groundhog Day": Where to now fo..."Groundhog Day": Where to now for the winless Dees?"My advice would be to find out who wants to be there."

Of course we do. We need another one, and then another one, until we get a result that matches our agenda. Confirmation bias on steroids.

We just had an independent review of the football department, and have apparently implemented its recommendations.

Don't disagree with all you're saying, though there's some serious cherry-picking going on there. But this for me is the crux of it and a point I'd disagree with. Our list has massive holes in it. Massive. And until that's addressed, the rest is just window dressing and deck-chair-moving.

Some damning figures. We can go on about team selection, coaching, game plans and yadda yadda all we want, but if the players don't bring pressure and contest then it's all moot. Perhaps the hard-at-it contest contest contest style that we've been hammering away at for years is taking its toll. As I posted elsewhere, starting to feel that losing Gus Brayshaw has cut the heart out of the club.

We've lost Gus, ANB and for the moment, Lever. And as if that in itself isn't a body blow, we then have the remaining leaders struggling on field - May, Viney, Gawn, to some extent Petracca. It shouldn't be for players like Langdon and Bowey to carry the load, but there we are. Increasingly seems like losing Gus Brayshaw cut the heart of the club.

If Goodwin goes (one way or another) Pickett will be next out the door. And won't be alone I imagine.

The only one of those who sacked their coach was Gold Coast (Stuart Dew). Not sure they'll be winning a flag this year, or any year soon for that matter - though they are improving.

Buckley wasn't sacked. "NATHAN Buckley has stepped down as Collingwood coach, saying it is time for change and it is the right decision."

Indeed, the big question. And as always with big questions, no simple answer. Confidence? Trust? Leadership for me is a big one, especially when the ship looks rudderless : lost ANB, there's still a Gus-shaped hole in the balance of the team, Lever out long-term, not any real leaders coming through amongst the mid-age group, etc. All they can do is work through it.

Yep, sacking Bailey really set us on a path to success. As for where we were at the end of Roos run, what we had in comparison to the Neeld era was not so much a new coach but a list that had turned over so many players it was barely recognisable as the same club.

Yes we did. Balme was replaced by Hutchinson, who continued to lose matches. Craig replaced Neeld and proceeded to lose even more matches than Neeld had been doing, even though you'd hardly think that was possible. As for making a prelim the year after sacking Balme, if that's evidence that sacking coaches leads to making finals the following year, you need to cite ALL the years we've sacked coaches and what happened the following year. It's no accident you had to go back nearly 20 years to find the one outlier, how many prelims did we get to after sacking Bailey and Neeld? It's not just about Melbourne either, these patterns are repeated across multiple teams in multiple competitions. You sack a coach, you generally go backwards - which isn't surprising because the reason you're losing matches isn't so much the coach but the players/list, and when a new coach comes in they're stuck with the same players. Only solution is list change which Paul Roos understood, regardless of his abilities as a coach.

Not incorrect. Have a looked at what happened in the seasons when we sacked Bailey, Neeld etc. And not just Melbourne for that matter. You lose more matches than what you were losing under the sacked coach. As for the rest of your post ... bizarre. Lions sacked Leppitsch in 2016. Fagan (finally!) won a premiership in 2024, 8 years later. As much to do with list turnover as anything. McRae eventually took Collingwood to a flag after Buckley stepped down. Scott took Geelong to 2 flags in nearly 15 years (!) after Thompson stood down. Goodwin won a flag after replacing Roos who stood down. Hardwick replaced Wallace who stood down mid-season. Even then, it took Hardwick 7 years to win a flag. Simpson took over at WCE after Worsfold stepped down. etc. etc. If your claim is that sacking coaches leads to premierships, there's zero evidence of that, the only recent premiership that went to a club that sacked a coach is the Lions (after 8 years ...). Meanwhile, across all this period, the clubs that have sacked coaches haven't won any premierships.

Not only that, but we lost more matches (%) with the stand-in coaches. Sacking a coach sends a club backwards. Fact.

Of course he is.

Sure. Which only goes to show how little it takes to really fall off the pace. Oh for an in-form Ben Brown as a forward focus, and the duo of doom in Lever and May (who was clearly playing injured tonight?) down back, and a Gus Brayshaw holding everyone and everything together. Yet alone a 2021 Clayton Oliver, or a Jack Viney playing in a game style that suits him. Then there's Jackson, who not only held the fort when Max was off but effectively gave us extra midfielder. Them's big losses, and we're paying the price.

A few good signs, probably all we can expect for the moment. Decent performance across the ground, marred by a few costly errors (May and Gawn dropped marks), the younger players struggling a bit, Windsor hasn't been himself since returning, Langford can't handball to save himself, Lindsay getting too easily out-bodied, etc. etc. But tackles, clearances, contested possessions all trending in the right direction. However: This was supposed to be the breakout year for JVR, unfortunately it's close to his worst. Add the injury to Jefferson, Johnson not there yet (if he'll ever be?), and Fullarton improving but ???, and we have a forward line that is a long way off kicking enough goals.

Not sure astonishing is the right word, but damning all the same. The figures for Oliver confirm what the eyes are saying, which apart from anything is sad to see. Regardless of whatever else is going on, lower tackle and contested possession count is rarely going to be a positive.