Lost Highway

Mostly very sensible comments. I agree about Dunn, but if he is in the selected 22, that 'run with' stuff is probably what he's best at. Trouble with 'stemming the bleeding' is that if you have an extra man in defence, the ball is going to come down there many more times on the rebound. And if your extra man is not able to read the play very well he'll be of little use, especially if one of your other back-men is potentially brilliant but already as 'loose' as my bowels on Boxing Day. If Bennell were as good at reading the play off the pack and disposing of the ball as, say, Alan Johnson, a bit of looseness man on man would not be such a great problem. I think in this regard, Lyon is right about the 'loose' man in defence. In reality, for this Melbourne side he's actually a 'lost' man.

I'm not so sure that he's 'very astute', although he makes some good points about the forward line having to make the opposition defenders more 'accountable'. He might make a good game day coach, too, but he hasn't mentioned the main defect of Melbourne's 'game'. As numerous members, including myself, have noted, the Melbourne players don't run hard enough, either ahead of the ball carrier to make position or around the ball carrier to support and protect. Too often the ball carrier has too few options in the form of players already on the run, or downfield making themselves targets, leading their opponents. What is the point of all those players in the forward 50, except to occupy defenders, if they are not making or finding space? He's probably right about Dunn's position on match day, although I think his mere position in the team is more questionable. Perhaps he's right about Davey, also. The points headed 'Be in it at quarter time' and 'No cheap free kicks' seem statements of the bleeding obvious and more like mere exhortations than practical suggestions about how to achieve these things. Focusing on two C'wood players in Shaw and Maxwell seems to me pointless when it is really the shape - for want of a better word - of Melbourne's play that is lacking; improving it would automatically place pressure on opposition players. Focusing like this on specific players is the sort of thing you would do in a Grand Final, when it could be assumed that the team already knew how to play bloody well.

In that game, we held them for half a game, and could have done so for longer had the coach not switched into tanking mode - players shifted all over the place, and the emphasis clearly on whether the retiring threesome could score some goals for the last time. It was almost comic, light-hearted in the second half. Riewoldt's goals were as soft as you'll ever see, as were some of his frees. It was almost as if there had been a decision to try to show St.K. we could play but not to win. As other posters have noted, the team was weakened by injury, but really took it up to the Saints, who I think were genuinely surprised by the efficiency of our play. Frawley gave Riewoldt a towelling equal to that Jurrah gave his opponents, but after that they were moved around. The performance in that game is one of the reasons I've been so disappointed in things this year; they appear to have gone backwards.

I think perhaps I might just about see my way clear to agreeing with that, in time. Not sure about Healy, haven't seen him play; nor have I seen Hughes. No, on second thoughts, I agree with you right away. Those blokes are just filling in time while we wait. Jones and Moloney give their all, in their way, but their all is not skilled or damaging enough to be considered for a place in a team that should have Scully, Trengove, McKenzie, Blease, Gysberts and Tapscott all firing towards the end of the season, injury permitting. Nor are Bruce or Junior, to be honest. I'd rate Jetta and even Maric ahead of them. Junior's an honest toiler who can win the ball but can't do any damage with it. Bruce has lost it. Moloney just blazes away. Jones can't get a kick or handball away without being grabbed first. And Dunn...? But that's still in the future; for the time being let's just hope for a lot more spirit and endeavour on the day, and some more perceptive tactics and moves by Bailey when or if the need arises. We haven't had a coach who could pull a stunning move since Northey, who was prepared to take risks to turn the tide. If we get a few goals behind in the first 15 minutes and the heads start dropping, I'll want to go home. I won't, though. I'll stay and fume, with the army of b/w pond-life around me.

Thoughtful and sensible in the main. Illuminating, even. However, there's one consideration lacking from your analysis: The team did not appear to play with the necessary spirit and determination. If you ask me, there was 'soul' missing. The other team gets a few goals in front in the first 15 minutes and it's goodnight nurse. The team surrenders and Bailey makes no good tactical changes or revives their spirit. Even a couple of wild-card - but not too wild - moves like Rivers to CHF, Scully and Trengove into the very middle, Jamar to FP or whatever - anything at all that isn't on the loony side of adventurous - might suddenly discombobulate their opponents and rally the players. But no, you can see the team positively wither (if that's not an oxymoron) in the face of what it sees as a quickly growing mountain of goals. Under Bailey the side all floods back, and then floods forward to create a crowded forward line if the ball does happen to pass the centre line, several players going up for it and none crumbing. So, OK, the closest players we've had to 'elite' in the past few years were Neita, Yze, White and Johnston (and probably Ox, in his cut-down way - you could see the A-grade player inside trying to get out of the knee-limited body, maybe Robbo for a couple of years). We actually had a competitive team there for a while. The current leadership don't measure up to those I've listed. But it's the absence of determination and the meek acceptance of fatal mistakes that gets me apoplectic. I can agree with everything you say, but still find there's something else amiss with this side. Even B-graders are supposed to run hard and bust their guts; did you really see that happening last Saturday? Only Green and Junior of the older players showed any real grit, and Junior just does no damage. My guess is, not having seen the NAB farces, that the players performed last Saturday like the same wet biscuits they have been through the pre-season. And the last two years. There's been NO SIGN OF CHANGE. It's just a fluke if Melbourne play differently - like that second half against Fremantle in 2008, or the first half of the last match against the Saints in 2009. It's up to Bailey to turn 'flukes' into regularities, whatever the quality of the players on his list.

In fact, we play nearly as badly as in the darkest days of Balme - remember that dismal day against the Crows, when we kicked about 5 goals and Gutnick mercifully pulled Balme's plug out of the socket? I sometimes think there is a misunderstanding about the rules of the game in our side. They seem to have the impression that the opposition must always be allowed to score the first five goals.

Well, there's your problem, if he used the word 'chasing', even if he implied it. The tackling wasn't too bad. Yes, intensity is a relevant concept. But instead of 'chasing' the emphasis should be on 'hard running'; the opposition should be doing the chasing. Our players have to run hard and often into space ahead of the ball-carrier. I agree; these things shouldn't be buzz words at all. They are the most fundamental tactics in the often haphazard game of Australian football. The crux of the game is to reduce the haphazard nature of the play (and of the umpiring, it must be said) by escaping from your opponent, kicking it cleanly, preventing the ball from entering a scrimmage situation as often as possible, maximising your chance of marking by being in front, not relying on a lucky bounce when your opponent is in front of you in a chase, and so on.

Those things ARE tactics. It's what we need, rather than strategy ie. 'game-plan'. I agree with you about not looking at the scoreboard, but I would place as much emphasis on looking for your team-mate as on looking for the ball - the ball's much easier to find than the man running past. If you play for Melbourne, the man may not be running past at all and you'll have to turn around a few times to find a bunny to give it to. I think you are on to the idea of running in packs, and I agree with the basic idea. The word 'pack', though suggests mob-like chaos. I know, it's my word, not yours. But the vital thing is that the players maintain their relative positions rather than all of them charge in to do the talking, shepherding and so on. Maybe running in waves is a better term for it. On Saturday, on the few occasions the ball was delivered to a marking contest in our forward line, two or even three players would go up, none stay down to crumb. Hawthorn moved the ball away with ease because they would have up to three unmarked men just waiting for the spillage. Our unmarked men were either falling in a heap after the marking debacle or too far away from their opponents to have any effect. It drove one to despair repeatedly watching that.

I think the stuff in this thread is well intentioned but useless. Far too detailed - it's the type of stuff the match committee might discuss long into the night on the eve of a grand final. We are so far short of this kind of discussion, it's not funny. Many of the players mentioned as being possible stoppers ought to be out of the side - too slow, too sloppy, too slack. Bruce, Jones, Dunn, Moloney for a start. They've either had it and lost it or never had it. I don't want to read about how muscular they are when they can't play football. It's really irrelevant whom we play next; every other team just at the moment looks too good for us, THE WAY WE PLAY! Rather than focus on individual opposition players, the club must focus on drilling the basics into its own men. The only way to even compete with a top 6 team is to run hard all day, make good position ahead of the ball and ahead of your opponent, and apply maximum pressure whenever the opposition have it. The tackling was not bad during long stretches of the match against Hawthorn, but the running to position was hopeless - maybe a couple of forwards got away from their men during the last quarter when someone of Green's calibre managed to kick it penetratingly beyond the 50 line. But how often did this happen compared to the opposition. I'm not concerned about BEATING Collingwood, I just want to see the team play with directness, a bit of panache and a lot of gut-running. Make Collingwood pay for their errors, which will come, surely, if they're put under pressure. Don't forget - this Collingwood team should have been whipped out of the finals by Adelaide last year.

I'd drop most of the players you have mentioned. The only one I think did enough to hold his place in a thrashed side is Junior. This is all a bit ridiculous, all this focus on stopping one or two players. The emphasis should be on MELBOURNE'S GAME. Our side has to dramatically improve the way it plays football; we don't have to beat Collingwood or stop certain players. We just have to play solid, hard-running, adventurous football - to earn credibility. Let them worry about stopping the Melbourne blokes who are playing really well, if they like.

I seriously can't believe it either, so I won't agree with it. Nor with your observations about Spencer. I'd give him another go or three before even mouthing the name 'n-e-w-t-o-n'. The players to drop first would be Dunn, Jones, Bate and Bruce. You could give Bate the benefit of an injury-related doubt, but I'd rather see him regain some form in the Casey team. Bruce is useless. The team should be Bruce-less. Whatever mojo he had, he's lost it; this has to be faced up to. I won't even begin to can Dunny. Horrible, just horrible. Jones tries, but I've never seen him deliver the ball without an opponent holding him. He can only play OK when running in a straight line towards goal. But the main requirement, ahead of any changes to the team, is that the whole side must run much harder, more often, and together. Someone has suggested it's lack of fitness, but I doubt this very much. It's a failure of endeavour, really, and an absence of disciplined coaching and drilling. 1. Ahead of the ball and the play, RUN hard to make position. Note, run does not mean jog. It means getting decisively ahead of your opponent, which is, at present, much more difficult for a Melbourne player than ANY other AFL player with a Melbourne opponent. But it has to be done or the team will never be any good no matter how many 'young guns' it claims to have gained. 2. The player with the ball has to RUN hard and deliver it neatly to a player in a better position, either by foot or hand. Melbourne players look like spot-lit rabbits when they get the pill, and immediately hand off to someone, anyone, who is usually in worse position. Jones has made this an art form. The only players who seemed at all likely to break the opposition lines last Saturday were Scully, Trengove, Grimes and Davey on occasion. 3. The players near or around the ball-carrier have to RUN with him or past him and be ready to support, protect and shepherd. Melbourne players have for years stood still to receive handballs. It's going to be really hard for Scully to excel with his lightning vision and handball skills if the players are not where he expects them to be. When playing Melbourne, any side, no matter how mediocre and regardless of their ladder position, seems to be doing these things; they have loose players everywhere. Absence of RUN in the Melbourne team makes any opposition look good. These simple tactics, above, require hard running, gut running. This has to be kept up even if or when the opposition has kicked maybe three goals to zilch in the first quarter - our usual point of capitulation. Without it, no 'game-plan' in the world is going to make a scrap of difference. We need tactics rather than a strategy at this stage. Unless Bailey realises this and has already begun to drum it into the players, his promise won't be worth a pinch of whatever, and we'll get another thrashing. A few suggestions for player placements now: 1. Green to FF 2. Bennell to the wing 3. Trengrove, Grimes and Scully in the middle; they can RUN. 4. Davey to HFF Let's hope Sylvia comes back. I'd try him, plus Maric, Cheney and Jetta if fit, in place of the four I mentioned earlier for the guillotine. But, really, it's up to Bailey to make his promise seem less than hollow, and the players to bust their guts.

Same here. Well, first sentence anyway - he looked a gonner; I'll pass on your second, with its strange spelling and sentiment. I think more people are starting to see that he is our best bet as FF or at least FP. Even after - no, especially after - he came back on the ground, he showed he can straighten the side up; he's one player that combines guts with terrific balance and skill. Just a pity he hasn't a bit more leg speed. But he's played some very gritty games in the last very dim few years, and to my mind looks like the captain. I was idly glancing at some threads on demonology, where the intelligence and courtesy quotients are down somewhat, and some prat had remarked in his post that Green was no good, that he'd 'gone missing' on Saturday!!!! Wonder if that cretin was at the game or relying on Rex.

Dead right. Agree with most of your comment - my own was heading in the same direction. But Johnson, mentioned earlier, has shown no ability or inclination to take marks overhead, nor to use his considerable body weight purposefully. Miller merely lacks the ability.

There's a fair bit of Bailey-defending here and some seeming wisdom about the cash-and-carry 'game-plan'. Handball. There's too much of it, relative to total possessions. It's starting to remind me of the very black period of Balme's coaching time, which Gutnick brought suddenly to an end after a game in Adelaide that was, admittedly, far worse than last Saturday. Some are saying hand-balling IS the game-plan. They are also calling it 'run-and-carry'. I'm not convinced. I think it can equally be argued that hand-ball is a symptom of a total lack of confidence and a desperate need to rid oneself of responsibility as well as the ball. Hand-ball is to get the ball out of a tight situation as quickly as possible to someone, eventually, who is going full tilt towards goal and can kick the ball accurately. I don't see how one can use terms like 'hand-ball' and 'run-and-carry' in the same breath, actually. Carrying the ball is not hand-balling it. Most of our hand-balling is done when the players, both giving and receiving, are dancing in circles or standing still. Not running. The other thing that sticks in my craw. 'Wait till our exciting young list gets games under their belts'. Bailey's 'coaching' a lot of these players for the third season now. They still play (and I use the term loosely) like they did in early 2008. OK, they are not as good as Scully, Trengove, etc. But they can be drilled. And they haven't been. The team does not play as if it has been 'coached'. When a team plays like Melbourne, mere chance ensures that there will be the occasional apparently incisive passage of play. At these times someone will say that the 'game-plan' is starting to work! Rubbish. Any good passage of play looks in retrospect like it was 'planned'. Six months on from the grand final and you would be forgiven for thinking that Melbourne was still playing the 2009 season. None of the posters making excuses for Bailey have explained plausibly WHY that is so.

Smith and Hardeman had more coordination and skill than Miller, much more. Miller's game is to lead out quickly - he has good acceleration over a short distance. The ball has to be delivered in front of him, not above him. And he needs players of the class, speed and skill of Yze, Johnston, Rigoni and nowadays Davey, Scully and Trengove, maybe Bennell or Jetta, to be going past him in the opposite direction to take his quick handpass. None of Jones, Moloney, Bate, Dunn, Junior, Bruce etc, can do this AND deliver the ball with precision well inside the 50. No, Miller will not be a good defender. He was not the worst on Saturday; at least he tried, arms and legs tangled as they were, hands clawing clumsily at the ball as they were. Bruce, Dunn and Bate were equally bad if not worse. I'd drop all three and THEN drop Miller, but I wouldn't drop him ahead of them. Newton is a no-no, and we'll be waiting a few more weeks for Watts.

I'll just add that his best play was usually well out from goal where he'd mark at full tilt and handball very quickly to a player going the other way. BUT... we had players of the calibre of Yze, Johnston, even Rigoni, who could take it cleanly and deliver very well over the 50 line where Neita would mark or contest strongly. The only players capable of taking this kind of quick sideways handpass now and making good use of the ball are, believe it or not, Trengove, Scully and Davey. Forget the rest. Miller looked OK in a decent team before his confidence went south never to return.

Agree. I have argued in several threads that Green should be captain. He's the only older player who's got a clue and can deliver the ball properly. He's got guts and can take an overhead mark. If there was any doubt that he is the best of our older brigade, yesterday should have put that to rest. But he's a bit slow for the mid-field. Who knows what the club will do for next week? But they could do a lot worse than recast the forward line around Green and Petterd. Dunn, Miller, Bruce and Bate should go; bring in Maric and Sylvia, and try Warnock as a tall forward, with Jamar down there at least 50% of the game. If Jetta is ready, give him a trot, or Hughes. The attack needs to be completely recast and given new instructions. How often did two blokes go up, not one crumbing? How often was the forward line crowded around the fall of the ball? I just gave up counting the number of times about 4 Hawk defenders would have all the time and space in the world to move the ball, unchallenged, out of the 50.

You are right about Bate. He looked a total spud yesterday - hopeless. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, but only just. He has been injured and was probably a week or two off being ready for a match. But, jeez, his delivery was execrable and he couldn't mark the ball at all. Scully is fantastic. Trengove all class. Grimes very solid and would look a champion in a good team. McKenzie has guts and even Strauss did a few nice things. Bennell can be exciting but is probably too loose for defence. The only young one I have doubts about is Spencer - just not sure if he has 'it'. These are incapable of improvement in my opinion - Jones, Bruce, Junior, Moloney, Miller, Dunn. Green is the only older player who has a clue and he got a bad knock. And Jamar - he can ruck and take a mark, and kicks OK. Davey is good but not 100%.

Good thread and you are right. But there is one too many words in your thread title. 'Up'?

OK, what is it? WTF IS IT? You are having a lend of us, surely. All I saw was Hawthorn taking it easy and the ball getting kicked over their half-back line's heads a couple of times. Is this the second coming?

Agreed, but I do think Grimes played pretty well, considering the mostly second rate no-hopers around him. The irony of the situation, the irony that knocks all that 'give the kids time to get 50 or 60 games under their belts' stuff, is that the best players yesterday WERE the kids. Grimes, Scully, Trengove, and at times Bennell and Mckenzie. Strauss not disgraced at all in his first. Our best players, and they haven't got 60 games BETWEEN THEM! It's not the kids who are the problem - it's the lack of a leadership group who can direct play with some real authority and flair, and a shameful lack of a sense of purpose in the team generally - they just don't look like they've been 'coached'.

Brilliant, Absolutely correct. I can't understand all this 'we've got to get 50 games into the kids stuff'. These things are so basic, and have been missing for the last three years. In the first game of 2007, after appearing in the finals the year before with one good win against St-K. after 15 minutes of the first quarter I said to my fellow masochist, 'This team is physically and mentally unprepared for AFL football.' Nothing has changed. I hoped it would have, yesterday, even if we lost. But it hasn't. Cameron's excuses and all the others about getting games into them have worn very thin. The way they played yesterday was shameful. It was the ones with the least games under their belts, who played the best, showed the most! That's the irony, the paradox, which undermines the usual excuse.

That is a remarkable statement! If 'most' of them are actually pretty good, why aren't we a top 4 side? Well, I can see what you're getting at. We are not a top-4 TEAM. Our boys have not been coached or drilled to play as a TEAM. But, I would still disagree with the word 'most'. On the strength of yesterday's match, the following will never 'look very different': Miller, Jones, Junior, Bruce, Spencer, Moloney, Dunn. Some respected names there - but Junior and Bruce are simply not doing anywhere near enough with the ball; they treat it like a wet biscuit, afraid it'll fall apart if they kick it too hard or hand-ball it above waist height. Or something. I don't know, they just don't seem to kick with any penetration. No value. Jones hardly ever gets a touch without being grabbed by an opponent. Spencer is a bit lumbering; maybe he'll improve, I could be a bit harsh. Moloney blazes away. Miller and Dunn left me speechless. These I'll reserve judgement on for different reasons: Joel Mc, Petterd, Warnock, Strauss, Bennell, McKenzie, Bate. Either new, young, returning from injury, look good at times, showed a bit yesterday etc. These WOULD look very different in a top-4 side, or already look good: Grimes, Scully, Trengove, Davey, Green, Jamar. Maybe Frawley and Rivers. Perhaps there are another few including Sylvia and Morton, Jurrah if he bulks up, who would fit nicely into a top-4 side. The most disappointing players yesterday, if any can be singled out, were Miller, Dunn and Bate. I'll give the Master the benefit of the doubt after having been injured; I think he was under-done. Lynden is just over-Dunn and over-rated, Miller was terrible. I gave up counting the number of times Dunn and Miller dropped marks. But, the worst thing of all is the lack of intensity, hard running, position-making, backing up, a sense of purpose. Our boys are always second to the ball. They are simply not decisive in any of their actions. It's not 'game-plan', it's just failure to do the most basic things. I think this is the coach's fault. As I said in another thread - 6 months of training, and what has changed? Again, Melbourne were the first to start training, a fortnight after the grand final, and what is there to show for it in terms of HOW THEY PLAY AS A TEAM?

After watching yesterday's match, I have another proposition: Put the Melbourne team on the field in their positions as selected, at 2pm, without any opposition. Give the ball to the full-back and instruct the team to get the ball through the goalposts (by foot!) at the other end by hand-passing and kicking alternately, with no more than 5 paces including one bounce to be taken by any player with the ball before disposing of it. Every player must have one possession. Any missed or dropped marks, fluffed kicks, out of bounds or simply the ball hitting the grass except when legitimately bounced results in the team having to start again. What are the odds against a successful scoring of a goal between 2pm and 4.30pm? I know this sounds like a simple training exercise, but for whom? I sincerely doubt the team on the field yesterday could do this. For a start, at least one mark or hand-ball receive would be dropped and one player at least would fall over. The last player to get the ball after a successful passage of the ball - if such were to occur - to within 15 metres of the goal at a slight angle would surely miss with his kick. And so on. I don't hold with those who say they could coach as well as Bailey, nor do I hold with those who think he should have been given another year before showing his worth this season. But, after 6 months of training, having started before anyone else yet again, a fortnight after the grand final, there is NO SIGN of anything different. Forget the 'game plan', if such a thing exists. I think the concept is pretty pretentious anyway - you've got flooding, zoning, man-on-man, run and carry and a couple of other ideas floating around, but I doubt if footballers run around during a match thinking of all this shite. What they do think about, the well drilled ones is this: 1. If you are around or near the player with the ball you support him and protect him, talk to him, fill him with the confidence that he can handpass and know a team-mate will be actually running past, towards the goals, to collect it, not standing still like a rabbit in the spotlight. 2. If you are ahead of the ball/the play, you run hard and fast to make position in a space; you make sure you do this ahead of your opponent. 3. If you have the ball, you deliver it with some penetration to the space that you have been drilled to know your team-mate will be running into. These things would be a wondrous sight in a Melbourne team; they are commonplace in our opponents, who always look good no matter their position on the ladder. To me, there are 5 players who look capable of doing these things: Grimes, Trengove, Scully, Davey, Green. Maybe Frawley. Maybe Moloney on occasion. Some players who can't/won't/don't or whatever, and these are the most conspicuous: Bruce, Junior, Bate, Dunn, Jones, Miller. Competent leadership by the experienced players is missing. After 6 months, the coach still seems to have a lot of homework to do. The side does not look as though it is 'coached'.

Poseidon, the back line was considered fairly 'stable' last year, and pretty often Martin was in it. If one were really going to trial a defender to play as a forward, Rivers would be a better bet than Martin; I'm not suggesting he actually play there on Saturday! Garland is unavailable and we don't know when he may return or to what position on the field. The simple fact is that Martin does not strike me (and some other posters, apparently) as having the natural gifts to get the ball for himself on the forward line, nor to make creative and damaging use of it. But he has shown he can hold down a spot in a fairly cohesive defence. I do take your point about Morton and Dunn. This degree of mis-matching and experimentation I would not have condoned at that stage of the season (when I was overseas), when the tank was not decisively 'on'.