Lost Highway

Very good post. The five star men are highly unlikely to be available, but of them I would rate Roos the most likely, with a lot of persuasion, and the best fit for Melbourne. He would be my number 1 choice and the MFC should be pulling out all stops to persuade him to return to coaching. I voted for Laidley, but only because the list was unsatisfactory, and in the case of 'Current AFL assistant' too vague and not helped by my ignorance of who they are. I would not opt for a coach who has just been sacked or has fallen on his sword. The side needs a person with only positivity attached to his name, no matter the depth of his experience. That seems to contradict my choice of Laidley, but he chose himself by default from that not very confidence-inspiring list. Matthews is an absurd idea; been out of the game too long and almost certainly out of touch. I'm not even sure his success with the Lions should be rated anywhere near as highly as Roos' with Sydney, a team of honest battlers by comparison. Jimmi C's post and a few others here have made me think that some of the untried-at-senior-level coaches might be where MFC will find its man. Someone will say that Bailey was that man too, once, but I think some soft-headed people were too heavily influenced by the power of Powerpoint, with him. The main question to ask any potential coach is 'What is wrong with the way the Melbourne team plays football?'. The answer should be fairly simple and straightforward, because it's the simple things of football that the Melbourne players have forgotten how to do, in their apparent and worsening confusion as to what a game of football is all about. Any applicant who starts up a Powerpoint or makes a maiden speech to Parliament to answer that one should be shown the door. Of those mentioned and from what I've read here, I think Neeld and Sanderson look very interesting. Assuming they're interested, a question which has been begged throughout the discussion. But the coach won't have a chance if the assistants aren't improved. You wouldn't think they existed, from watching the way Melbourne have played in the last few weeks. There is simply no sense of there being any (for want of a better word) 'structure' in either defence or attack. The loss of Wellman was as big as the loss of Junior in the larger scheme of things.

I thought Green would make a good captain, but I was wrong. Only good for the occasional tug on his own jumper when he kicks a goal and we're ahead. His ignoring of Bate, useless as he might be, in that nearly-a-handball incident, and even a mark he took on the line to stop another player's kick going through a couple of weeks ago, really sum him up. Much too slow for the mid-field, but at FF he is still the best grab in the team and takes contested marks. He might kick more accurately if he isn't captain. Jones has come up for discussion. I always see him like this: one moment I'm tearing my hair out as he makes his slow motion decisions and gets tackled or muffs a kick; next I'm thinking he's our best player. And that is the tragedy of the Melbourne team. As a real trier, he belongs, but shouldn't be captain or even in a leadership group. Seriously, young or not, the next leaders must be Trengove, McKenzie, Grimes, Watts. Three Jacks and a Jordie. Not only do they have character, guts and ability, but they won't be dropped. We need men of substance, ability and integrity to stand for the Melbourne team, not tweeting, clubbing, inarticulate, front-running yahoos. I suppose I'm assuming they haven't caught the yahoo bug. Trengove will be captain of the club at some time, and will end up being one of our greats. Might as well be now. The times demand radical action, not nursing and dithering; he should be made captain next year. And let's drop the namby-pamby idea of having more than one captain.

The clumsy, childish irony doesn't hide the fool behind it. The original point made by billy2803 is spot-on. The real problem may well be that too many of the players have the same frivolous attitude as the poster, and the MFC has let it go. And the real irony, of course, the dramatic irony, is that neither the club nor Jordie_tackles can see that. This 'boys will be boys' stuff hints at the important difference between having a good time and having a history. Players tweeting themselves silly about every silly thing, going out on the town after a drubbing, and so on - all harmless young men's hijinx, eh - do not a football team make; but a laughing stock, yes.

Somehow, it's you who has missed the point. It's not about 'ra ra', it's about the immediate problem of making the team actually 'battle' honestly. An incompetent coaching staff have failed to achieve that by not instilling a system of play, even a simple one, that will give the players confidence. Our team is an embarrassment, and not because it's 'poor'. The megabucks stuff may come later if the team proves successful. It's not going to materialise out of thin air, so you are really preaching a kind of pessimism. There's no point in lamenting that we are not Collingwood. Melbourne supporters on this and other forums love to heap it on North, but they are crapping on us out on the field, and I dare say we are much better placed in the $$$$$$ department.

Gosh, they're rich! The Dogs and Kangas battle a whole lot better than us. This arrogant putting down of honest, struggling teams that beat us all the time is part of the same self-delusory twaddle that has seen so many forum posters in a swoon over the impending and inevitable 'premiership window' just a few years away. If you think we are not a 'battler' team you are living in lala land. In fact, if you think we ARE a 'battler' team you are living in lala land, because 'battling' is so far from what this team does that it's not funny. Just mouthing the millions that will go through Collingwood is saying nothing of any relevance to the Melbourne team NOW. Awestruck by megabucks; just like Eddie. You can hand $85m and some big-shots AND Malthouse to MFC right now, but we won't become Collingwood. I can't believe a whole thread on $$$$$$$$ when it's not the lack of them which has brought us to this point. It's a whole group of incompetent coaching staff, a couple of people who have too much sway in the consequent vacuum, and one or two ex-player big mouths in the media who give both a running commentary and imagine themselves part of the process they're commenting on. Worry about the $$$$$ later, when the coaches and players have actually earned them. Do our players get paid? Do we have good training facilities? In the meantime, I hope to see the MFC do some real battling out on the field, where NOTHING is stopping them.

This thread's a stinker. $$$$$ are not the answer. Not even $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$+++ are the answer. Not to the real and only question today. What I want to know is why teams like North and the Dogs can battle away with pride each week, and thrash us with nonchalant ease and contempt. They don't take us seriously, and it's not because we're poorer than them. Imagine all the Geelong players had been switched into the MFC-world five years ago. Would they still be the world-beating super-team they are? If the $$$$$$$ gap were getting wider, it wouldn't mean the gap in application, on-field organisation and sheer spirit had to be getting wider too; it's not as if the players look at the spreadsheets of the clubs' FD expenditures and as a consequence get all glum, miserable, weak, confused and lazy when it comes to match day. There's something quite illogical about the OP. The basic necessities, and quite a lot more too, were there to put a well-drilled, determined team of players on the field this year. The expectations were great but reasonable given the names on the list. The only things lacking were some sensible, organised well-inculcated system of play - nothing fancy - and a commitment to maxiumum effective effort even when the team was behind on the scoreboard. Some inculcation, some instilling, some drilling, some discipline, some lacerating motivational addresses were required, not more $$$$$$. Thirty or forty footballers can't ALL be 'no-bruise' types of people, surely, or the types that won't play unless more $$$$$ are floating around in the FD. But those things were missing, obviously, and $$$$$$$ won't buy them.

I think this is a good post. Bailey showed little capacity to 'understand systems', as you say, and the players went out each week without either a plan A or a plan B. They played without organisation, even on a simple level like manning up when necessary (like when you're losing badly) and/or running harder into space. Not having a clue what to do, how to arrange themselves, when good opposition got on a bit of a roll meant the players ended up thinking what observers would think: that Melbourne were going to get a caning. This intellectual deficiency led to a deficiency in the heart department; the players found themselves able to rationalise a meek surrender to a superior organisation. A good 'macro' coach as you call it, would also move the pieces around on the board a bit more than we've seen at Melbourne, have the vision to make a decisive move or change in the structure or at least to try one. I think neither Daniher nor Bailey were any good at this, except when Bailey was tanking. Watts' being moved around all over the place is the one apparent exception, but I think that developed out of a desperation to develop him rather than any tactical or strategic considerations. A good 'macro' coach would also not have named spent, has-been players like Bate and Dunn for the last two matches, and would have rested Nicholson after a few good games rather than allow him to become lamb to the slaughter possibly to be dropped when his confidence had been shattered. One manifestation of 'macro' failings is the number of times one sees Melbourne attempting to move the ball forward across the centre line with absolutely no one in position to deliver it to. Trouble is, Bailey also had very poor company in his assistants; the loss of Wellman was fatal, and if Mahony knows anything about setting up a forward line I'll be a monkey's uncle. I suspect West was one of those very good, instinctive mid-field players who can't communicate to other players how he did it. Who knows if Hird is a good coach? Fact is, he doesn't even need to be at the moment since he has such formidable assistants. The MFC has had nobody capable of instilling a sense of system and organisation into the team. A coach with the 'macro' abilities would also have seen how important it would have been to keep Junior this season. The rot started right there for 2011.

First, DB has had long enough. On many occasions this year the team has looked plain disorganised, confused, and to be going backwards. There's no plan A of any substance, and definitely no plan B. The best part of the last two seasons has gone by and the appearance of system in the team's play is accidental, sporadic. System, organisation, discipline - even on a simple level, like manning up or running hard - has not been inculcated to the point where it no longer needs thinking about. Anyone could see from the previous week's effort that they were facing a caning at Geelong. This very prospect had almost certainly permeated the minds of the players themselves. In other words, they were going into the match, and most of the preceding matches against top opposition, with a detachment that makes it impossible to play with any natural talent or even instinct; each player had intellectualised the problem, and realised quite consciously that there was no plan as an individual or a group to cope with even the first moment when some piece of play went wrong, where the opposition got 6 goals ahead in the first quarter. The submission of the team is the rational, logical result of having no system, of knowing that there is no system. Not even any tactics. Take exactly the same level of play as demonstrated the week before, combine it with the opposition of a super-team on their difficult home ground, and the magnitude of the loss seems quite inevitable and predictable. The alienation of the players' minds from the hurly-burly of the game was complete, and in those minds they were no doubt able to find lots of rationalisations for their surrender. DB is ultimately to blame for that. Second, in thinking about where DB went wrong, apart from not having a system or any apparent discipline, I've come to the conclusion that perhaps his biggest mistake, symbolically and practically, was 'letting go' (as they say about sacking some poor sap in England) of Junior. This has bloomed in significance with the passing of time and the benefit of hindsight. A good leader, a very good player - still one of the team's best - and a leader with real integrity who inspired the younger players. Madness. The effect of this on the other players has been cumulative, as they have lost a gentleman to the very organisation that has come to be seen as the devil incarnate in its alleged wooing of Scully. How ironic. They must have been wondering just what the 'brains trust' were on when they tapped Junior on the shoulder. DB should have realised just how important he was and how damaging his 'retirement' would be. The affair still festers, even if it's not on everyone's lips these days. This shows very pointedly and poignantly DB's lack of sound judgment, something you can see compounded in the recall of players like Bate and Dunn, neither of whom, as players, are fit to tie Junior's laces. As soon as I saw their names for the Hawthorn match I knew the writing was on the wall. Anyway, those who lament DB's sacking should also remember Junior's. Third, despite my talking about the lack of organisation and system in the way the team plays, the irony is that the result of this is a team that appears to play without any heart. So, I think DB has failed on two fronts. Fourth, I think the Scully business, of which we are all sick and tired, has affected the players, the administration, the coach. I suspect that they suspect that a big offer is being made or will be made to him by MFC. This is destabilising and no doubt causes resentment, particularly when people are talking in the media about massive counter-offers from MFC that other players don't even dare dream about, despite having more 'runs on the board' than TS. The club hasn't handled this well; nor has Scully if you ask me. The media have just toyed with MFC over this. He should have been advised to nip the whole thing in the bud. Perhaps he should have been dropped for the rest of the year from the team for which he plays only occasionally; now he can take those alleged preposterous offers from GWS if he likes, and do what the players do on the field - rationalise it all away. Junior would have been far more helpful to the team this year than Tom! It's horrible to see a coach removed like this, at this point in the season, in such circumstances as to make him seem like a sacrificial offering, a scapegoat, and I think DB has conducted himself with dignity and been articulate throughout his time at the club. He no doubt has his qualities, even as a coach. But he had failed abysmally at the most important things by the time of the Eagles debacle, or even earlier - that game against Brisbane at the 'G for instance. Forget about the comebacks after that drubbing or the one by Carlton; they were against interstate teams, one of which is worse than Melbourne and the other a traditional loser at the MCG. I've read in this huge thread lots of comments about how he should have been able to see out the season. That would be the very worst thing for the club - more toleration of failure - and DB himself should know that. Some have blamed the players, which is a just thing to do; they're wimps alright. But it's simple maths. You can't sack a whole team. You certainly can't do it for failing to make Bailey look like a good coach! No, the right thing has been done, coach wise. I thought he was lucky the watershed hadn't already been passed in the Eagles and Carlton games, when I was sure I had never seen more embarrassing performances by a Demons side. Well, not since Neil Balme's time, anyway. Since then, they have become even worse. A couple of good wins, but the look at the trend line. At least a kind of collective paralysis may have been treated by a very unpleasant cure.

No one's mentioned the weasel phrase which is at the absolute top of the heap of lexical landfill. I've heard the most linguistically restricted footballers using it when making those unutterably banal prognostications about their own my-life-as-a-project careers. Inject this phrase willy nilly into your footballing declamations if you have a yen to make plain ol' footy sound businesslike. 'Going forward' Yep, not going backward.

Don't forget DB's team was not trying for two years as the team was churned. You also have to consider the status of teams played there over the last several years. Tigers and Bombers are the appropriate measuring sticks at the moment. We were very undermanned in several games, notably NM and StK, which were winnable games at Jihad Stadium with better line-ups. I thought we were competitive against StK nonetheless. The fade against NM was worrying but even more injuries occurred during the match. The team has not been in a better position to win against a side like WB, and at Jihad, and has not been in this position for years. With the right mind-set this should be a handsome victory.

For several years this was not far off our normal loss:win ratio, and deviation from that could be easily explained by examination of the teams we played there, as the OP has suggested. How many of the the teams that defeated MFC were below us or at the same level on the ladder?

I have the same attitude as you about the stadium. But we have to win there eventually. I think I want to be there on that day. Or night. Or even bloody twilight. I have a feeling this week will be it.

Some weeks ago I drew the proverbial - and ever-shifting - line in the sand at the Richmond match, and after the win over Fremantle I saw there were two reasons why yesterday's match ought to be a watershed for Bailey, and for the club admin. First, we were playing the team most like Melbourne in terms of their stage of development; second, we had the opportunity - no, the imperative - to win a second consecutive match after a huge win. If we'd lost, I'd have wanted the club to say the roller coaster trajectory was just not good enough and to give Bailey an ultimatum of some kind for the remainder of the season. Of course, now that that challenge has been answered I feel another line in the sand coming up, but I'm not sure where it's going to be drawn. After next Friday night I'll have a better idea, but right now I think Bailey might need another four wins to justify another crack. On the other hand, consistent committed play from the team and respectable defeats against the top sides, when or if they occur, will probably suffice for the MFC.

Well said. Since I made my comment above, some more of the same lame excuses have appeared. Don't like Docklands? Nor do I. But I can tell you that over many years of following the Demons I followed them to every decrepit suburban ground and had to endure far worse than that soulless TV studio that changes its name every few years. Some of you seem to be making a stand against going there as a matter of principal! Absurd. I know that Vlad the Impaler has been paid like a Wall Street bankster to change football into an electronic entertainment for couch-potatoes and betting agencies, but this is ridiculous on a forum that's surely meant to be for hard-core Demons.

What a depressing thread; wish I'd never clicked on it. Miserable and puerile collection of pessimism and excuses. The comments here in themselves explain the poor attendance of MFC supporters at Jihad Stadium.

Best contribution to this thread. As for Ox, I vaguely remember that the great personal crisis, a profound and addictive weakness in fact, which he has had to face in life stems from a propensity to make very poor prognostications. No doubt he felt '98% sure' just about every time he laid down the cash. The fact it's being given pride of place in the tabloid online version of The Age today, alongside all the other celebrity guff and idle speculation, just tells you everything you need to know about the MSM, where fantasy has become more real for the bewildered herd than reality. The mere fact that a well-known 'footy identity' has made an unsupported prediction reported widely in the MSM means it must be right. That so many people can believe so readily that money is the only motivation, one which no one in his right mind would pass by, and a genuine and blame-free one which would leave an individual untarnished after what he has said so explicitly, tells us about the values of our society. Some may rise above this almost universal cynicism.

I think you could be right; if so, we'll be thankful in the end that it's the North match he's missing.

Isn't this a straw man? Have MFC indeed been already making excuses? I haven't heard any. Truth is that our team has also had injured players since the start of the year, but rather than use that as an excuse the MFC has blamed those who took to the field for any poor showings. There's a suggestion in Scott's bleating of a very shallow individual who is, in effect, making excuses.

Agree about both of those - some new blood would help to overcome the bleakness of this week.

A fantastic OP from Redleg and numerous brilliant contributions. However, it has been clear as day for years now that in every single aspect - no matter how minute (and there are many minutiae) - of the organisation and running of the game, the AFL from Vlad down to the umpires, make the rules up as they go along. That is the very essence, the absolute essence, of the modern Australian Football game in which nothing is fair and transparent, free of favouritism and patronage and sheer stupidity, not even the so-called 'Draw' and least of all the 'Tribunal', and is what we see happening here. I'm not confident of Jack getting off completely, or even partially, as a lot of face-saving will have to be built into whatever decision is made, but I hope the club pursues it just as far as laws, money and evidence permit; nothing less than the impugning of a fine young man's character, his very ethics as a respected professional footballer, is being arranged here by these bombastic fools.

I like the idea of providing a bit of something 'new' for our side, especially in a black week. Nicholson is ready for AFL. Evans is the best of the other new boys, at this stage. If Grimes and Trengove are both to be replaced by similar sized players then I advocate the new blood. Morton is a no-no, Bennell has only played once since being dropped, although I wouldn't object mightily to seeing him play this week, and Jetta doesn't seem to have set Casey afire as much as Evans by the sound of things. I'd rather see a bit of excitement in the form of new players, as I think it might have a positive psychological effect, especially if they shine. I have a feeling one of them might get a guernsey, and I suppose it's more likely to be the more mature of the two.

Bate is mobile in the same way that the Ford Edsel was mobile. He played his best football early on, when he could run in a straight line through the midfield. Since turning his body into a muscle-ball he's lost whatever skills and finesse he might have had. I wish I were wrong about him.

I can't understand the impression given by some in this thread that Warnock is no good, but Bate 'deserves' another chance. Warnock did well enough for his first match, Bate did not. Dunn, despite limitations and inconsistency and a big mouth under that mo, is a more menacing player than Bate who has only one gear and can't hold the ball when it falls into his hands. I think that's why Green wouldn't handball it to him in the goal square after having shaped up to do so. I don't mind giving Bate another week to show something, anything at all, but would prefer to see a fleeter player in the side. My changes would be Martin and Bennell for Grimes and Bate. And Martin only to give Jamar some rest and because NM have some heavy talls. Martin's a better defender than attacker.

Why do some still keep seeing potential in Martin that he hasn't got? Defence and spare ruck is his limited forte, not crashing packs, getting his own ball and turning with it in the forward line. He hasn't shown he can take marks in attack. Dunn, despite his 'frustrations', limitations and inconsistency, can play a role that provides some danger for the opposition defence; in this respect he is a much more menacing player than either Martin or Bate, who has become a one-trick pony. And not a very dazzling trick that is.

Weird logic, this, leading to a preposterous conclusion. The better player to be dropped, just so the worse may 'prove himself'? Is this team trying to win football matches? May I humbly suggest that if Dunn has not had a great year, Bate has had an even less great year, and continued in this fashion today?