Mad_Melbourne

the free kick category is very important which i find annoying,although this week my frees against are lower as franklin didnt play haha

dude stop being so dramatic, nothing was said about not allowing them to have a social life, just wish they would focus on more pertinent things

i was being sarcastic, let them have twitter, we arent china, no censorship here, sure if he was twittering during the match i would be very worried, unless of course he wasnt playing, but what he does when he has his spare time is his choice?

i think aswell the age of the fellas is something that opens them to a lot of social media, for communication between one another aswell

i dont know why i went into this match with expectations, i mean we have showed zero form, and have been just lucky with how the draw has panned out for us, imagine if we had matches like geelong, western bulldogs, collingwood, freo, we would be in an even worse position that we are now, at least we know that they are all to look forward too.

Grimes, out of the backline, into the midfield, it was a good idea, and he can do some good things, but he is always comprehensively beaten by his opponent.

Morton, into the magoos, he needs a 40 disposal match, to get his mits on the ball, could put morton into the backline, swap him for grimes, although this could lead to drastic turnovers aswell.

Frawley back to basics, use the ball well, think about positioning against opponent

Davey, push deep forawrd, real deep, like at the feet of dunn/jamar/martin/jurrah, so that he crumbs, he will get free kicks and burn his opponent for speed through this, let him get tagged there, when his tagger leaves, throw him in the guts, roate this.

i feel bad labelling a few players in a tihs team performance but this is my major concern

we need to work ridiculously on our moving through zones, and our running into space, the point of this running is to drag a man from the zone, we just seem to let one person do the running, but the thing is to get through a zone, you need to run, draw an opponent, short kick to the following teammate, handball and go, or turn and go, not stop, wait, kick 40 - 50 m where the ruckmen, and taller players of the oppositions zone are.

we need to go back to basics, we are trying presses and zones, can it, just because collingwood did it and do it effectively doesnt mean it is the absolute be all and end all, play one on one football, if every player beats his opponent, this means we will more often than not win the match.

defensively go back to square one, play on your man, and play on him well, when we have the ball if you run hard forwards you better run hard back to your man, this caught grimes out plenty on nickoski (however you spell it)

take our time with disposal.

STICK YOUR TACKLES, i know when i play footy there is few better feelings than tackling an opponent well, and sticking it to them, we need a bit of menace about us, and it doesnt seem to happen, i want to see a bit of passion, not necessarily a punch on, but i wouldnt mind to see a few melbourne players throwing their body around, bruising a few opponents.

SET SHOT PRACTICE!

Why did we tag priddis, clearly it is pointless tagging the person who handballs it out, its like tagging lenny hayes or scott west in the day, it couldnt work, you need to tag the outside running player, thus tagging embley would have worked, and this is why davey gets tagged, if moloney was tagged he would still get 30 disposals through hard ball gets it would just mean he would give it to a free davey which would clearly be damaging

get them off facebook aswell, i dont know how many players have facebook, but i think that we will have a much larger amount than most clubs, so really ban that, ban all forms of internet communication and interaction, also, we should ban them doing interviews and articles on the melbourne fc site as we are getting too much information from these players, we should make an in club rule, those who are on twitter/facebook/myspace/any social media, should suffer an automatic club suspension and a $950 dollar fine. If they play for the mfc, they are not allowed a social life, or anything that resembles a personality and must be seen on the footy field and not heard.

Lecras - Frawley/bartram

Lynch - Rivers/rivers

Kennedy - Garland/frawley

Darling - Tapscott/garland

is how i think the match ups may go, but darling could give tappy the run around, will be interesting to see, bartram could line up on lecras which could change the line ups, definately have a tall forward line which is suited to our defence i believe.

people are running, i think we have one of the fittest squads, the only problem especially with kick outs is the zones make it look as though they are all standing still, but there is lots of unrewarded running going on, watch jack watts and you will see it

rohan bail

nathan jones

clint bartram

jack trengove

brad green

really name the whole team i think

I might be slightly high on lots of drugs (of the pain killer variety!), but even in this state I can understand why Petterd and Watts have nothing to do with each others' place in the side. They are not competing for the same position. Petterd is a third tall, he is not a CHF. If anything, Watts' competition is Bate, possibly Newton (yes that made me lol!).

If you want Petterd in the team, you need to drop Dunn. He has been in average form, and only his defensive game is saving him for now. I'd suggest that another ordinary game from him and Petterd will be back in the team.

agree with the bold, but i keep that with dunn too, dunn is a different player to petterd aswell, who is much smaller than dunn

Dunn and Watts: competition from Bate, Newton, Cook, Howe

petterd is more a small forward and competes more with wonna, bennell, jurrah, green, and maric and jetta out of the team.

im looking for an accumulating defender, anybody up for a swapsies, will look at all reasonable offers :D

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/video/tabid/8667/contentid/349717/default.aspx

pretty cool to see steven stretch was down at the clu, has a bit of a chat about billy

I've always thought the Weagles had a very young team and midfield but i just had a look and their midfield is pretty seasoned.

Priddis, Kerr, Embley, Adam Selwood, Matt Rosa, Sam Butler/Bradd Dalziell been around for a few years.

Gaff And Shuey are nice additions though. Like Scott Selwood too.

agreed but i dont see them beating a midfield of

Moloney, Sylvia, Davey, Jones, Trengove, Bail, Gysberts, With Morton/Bennell running through!

this week is watts week i think, that is if he plays, i am looking forward to seeing him do well, and i think he has a real good chance this week

in strife this week, basically playing my twos :|

sure, west coast have improved, which was to be expected, yet i cannot see us losing this match even if it is up there.

i think their forward line nearly matches up perfectly with our backline, as we have 3 good tall defenders, and it is ideal as they do not have the speed in their forwardline to trouble us as much, it is like our matchup last year with brisbane, although they had fevola, brown and clark up forward, we had the match ups for them and we beat them by 50 points, all be it at the g.

i also think our forward line is too flexible for their defence, and that with them not having Beau waters it is a massive loss.

and i think our midfield is stronger, and use the ball better.

jamar vs cox } cox will struggle against a proper ruckman.

martin vs naitanui } could be our worst match up but even still if it is only one match up over the field i am not too stressed.

the main advantage they have is the crowd, if we can get up early, and take them out of the game, i can see us running away with a 5-6 goal win, having said that, we will need a solid 4 qtr effort, but our best football is streets ahead of their best, and our worst football is below their average, so we will need to be on!

your post makes me somewhat

but yes, it is understandable that with hindsight we may have picked other players, just like every other team, at least we didnt pick up tambling!

You're than one laughing at your future CHF...

bate, surely not, watts, cook, dunn, howe, will hopefully be all ahead of him in 2 years time, and watts and dunn are surely ahead of bate now

all i thought when watching him agiainst the suns was

Jack Trengove = Jimmy Bartel

no way should dunn be dropped for petterd, or should dunn be dropped at all, he is important for our structure up front and takes the bigger defender, and he has not played a poor game. Also i think the Dunn is one of our best users of the footy, after he has taken a mark, and more often that not chooses the right decision, with very good efficiency.

secondly, no way should bartram be dropped, in a defence with tappy and grimes, both being rebounding defenders and players who are more offensive defenders than negatory defenders, bartram is a consistent defenders defender. he does all the little things right, his pressure work is second to none, and he rarely loses a 1 on 1. Those who question his disposal, sure it isn't a 50m dart, but it is much improved, and i dont think he has made many turnovers which have resulted in opposition goals at all. if he was replaced with strauss or blease, sure we may have more attack out of the defence, but it would lead to 2 or 3 more goals conceded, and i dont think that is something we can afford.

Difficult for the coaching panel to make changes this week, as from what i heard petterd and jetta played well, macdonald, blease and strauss played well and maric played well in his last vfl outing and was the emergency, and we had no really poor performers on the day, which was to be expected, but we have players who are at the ready to play afl, and this depth is a great problem to be faced with.

Changes this week: none

don't really see the coaches cutting players after a win, and a weeks break.

Melbourne were pathetic today. I felt sick in the guts as people sang the song and looked happy around me.

a win is a win, wether we played good football or not, getting the first set of four points for our season is always worth singing the song and being happy about.

also on a note related to bailey, good to see him give a rev up on the field at half time, he looked agro, and had a bit of mennace about him, and gave a few words to the boys before running off to the bench.

VFL compared to AFL intensity, major difference.

NAB cup compared to AFL premiership season intensity, major difference.

Maybe Marric is a good average player that excels when the heat at the contest is not as fierce as it at the top level.

sure, he hasnt really proved it at the top level yet, but that doesnt mean you dont select him for a top performance in the vfl, i do not doubt wonna as a player but rather think that he is a little underdone, which is to be expected due to the fact he missed 7 weeks of pre season.

thank god you are a lounge room selector. i know this is a forum for personal opinions, but that is a ridiculous selection

Wonna has a presence, work rate, understanding of where to be and when to be there......Marric has none of that

from reports from casey, admitedly i didnt see it, but he was very good, chasing, setting up goals and kicking a couple, and was best on? so therefore you dont suggest we reward him.

secondly i think it was a bit rough that he was dropped in the first place seeing as he didnt play that poor in the sydney match, and barely got a run in the second match.

thirdly, from watching the match i thought wonna looked a bit underdone, and his fitness didnt look up to where it should be, no doubt he adds something, but i dont think he should just be played to gain fitness if maric or jetta who both were unluckily dropped and had full preseasons are playing well, and it just so happened that maric did.

morton did look bigger in the chest today, not so much the arms though, which i was pretty happy with, but he definately needs game time, and a few games at casey would probably do some good for him.

i personally think wonna looked a bit underdone, but mind you next week is gold coast so he would probably stay in, but having said that i want to see maric getting a gig being rewarded for a good performance in the magoos.

morton will be better for the run, but looked like a player that had played zero matches in the pre season.

watts copped a spray from bailey and was subbed off so possibly could be rested, but again against the gold coast would be a perfect time for him to impose himself

Dunn was quite poor so newton could be rewarded for 11 goals in two matches.

with all that said, having problems for selection is a great thing, can't wait til mckenzie and scully are both available.

OUT: Wonaeamirri

IN: Maric

From watching the match against hawthorn, and the preseason matches which we have lost, i have developed a pretty strong opinion about the issues that i think we are lacking at the moment, and where when we do get beaten, the areas that really do stand out to me.

Firstly:

My biggest worry at the moment is the speed in our backline. When i think of our players with burst of speed, i think of Bartram, Bennell, Sylvia, Bail, Blease, Davey, Scully, Wonna, Maric, and arguably Garland, Martin and Watts. Now with that said, Garland and Bartram are the two players on the weekend who spent a considerable amount of time down back, yet they were both more worried about their opponents not getting the ball, than running it out, which for most of the posters on here is a blessing, as seeing Bartram gallop out of defense could be painful to most, and if Garland was to run off his opponent (buddy and goodes) and a turnover happened, a goal would be a likely result. Bennell and Bail are the two other players who can play in the backline, yet this season are both having a bit more of a run around the ball, with Bail being used as a tagger (and a very good one, i reckon) and Bennell playing forward flank/wing roles. With this being said, Blease is the only other player being groomed as a defender, and i doubt he will play this season in our defense. This speed in the back line is an issue when the opponents implement a smaller forward line, also seen with the hawks twice, the essendon and brisbane matches, in the preseason when the hawks removed Roughead and played a small forward line we were killed, when they removed Renouf, thus playing hale and Roughead in the ruck and having a smaller forward line, we were beaten, brisbane had clark as the only tall target we were beaten and essendon used many smaller forwards and we were beaten, this could be explained by frawley not playing as he can play on both a tall and a small, but i think it is more to do with the speed of our back line, with grimes and Tapscott going to be the defender who are taking the small/medium quicker forwards and neither really have blistering foot speed. Our lack of foot speed out of defense is also an issue with the modern day football, and the full press zones. Speed is almost a necessity out of the back line, as this will break the lines, and push the zones further back, leading to play opening up and zones being broken, and with a back line of Rivers, Frawley, Grimes, Tapscott, Garland and Bartram, the speed to break the lines is not so much there, so instead we attempt to kick the ball out of defense, which when it works, works really well, and often leads to a full field transition, but when it doesn't often leads to an immediate turnover and scoring shot, or immense pressure back on our defenders. It looks like it is something we shall stick with, the disposal out of the back line, and when it works we will play really good footy, think 10 minutes of the second quarter with hawthorn, but when it doesn't we shall struggle, think first 5 minutes of the hawthorn match, and then the third quarter.

The fix that i see is hard running by davey, sylvia bennell and bail, to try and push back into our 50, get the handball receive and break the line, which we have been trying to do and it worked against sydney but not so much against hawks, so really the only thing we can do is wait, and wait, and wait for it to be almost perfected, and work a treat.

Secondly:

We are missing that extra big body, that enforcer in the forward line, which i have no doubt that in a few seasons could be Watts when he stacks on a few more kilos, this is a problem as both Lynden Dunn and Jack Watts can't outbody a big defender and will often get taken out of games due to it, but it is also a problem as when we boot it long we can only really kick it to Jamar or Martin, leading to predictability out of our defensive 50, and thus the ball is often returned quickly. i say this because when we look to boot it long out of 50, to a 1 on 1 or a 2 on 2 we often lose it and have been beaten to the ground ball on most occasions leading to a quick turnover and immediate pressure on our back line again. This is something we can only really wait for or poach a bodied player, but with gws and gold coast with lots of cash it will be hard. So again, we have to wait, and wait, until Watts comes of age, and becomes the player we know he can be.

Thirdly:

Clearances and hardball, we did it pretty well against sydney, but in most other preseason, and against hawthorn we were annihilated, which to me doesnt make sense as Jamar killed it out of the ruck, and dominated the hit outs. So this means we wither do not know where he is going to hit it, or we are in poor position, or the opposition just wants it more than us. With that being said obviously not every hit out is going to be to advantage, but with sundays result out of the middle, it looked like we could not get a sniff of the ball, and as we almost doubled the hit outs, it is hard to believe. In my opinion the difference is clear, no McKenzie, he is often the person with his hands on the ball first from hit outs or the person who is tackling one of their midfielders as they break, beamer played this role superbly against sydney, but dropped away against the hawks, nathan jones needs to be harder at the ball, because if we lose the hardball and the clearances, and we cannot work it out of our backline, then i guess we are in strife.

So the fix is players like nathan jones and beamer having competition for their spots, they need to work harder and perform consistently, and they need to know that if they have a string of poor games that players like Gysberts and McKenzie will jump straight into the starting line up. Scully playing aswell will make a difference.

They are my key issues, where we come into strife, and all of these issues are fixable, i do not see any problems with our forward line and competition for forward line positions is deep, and really our defense is probably in the top 5 in players ability in the afl, we just need to be patient, i am confident that everything will eventually come together, sorry this post is long, and is my opinion from what i have seen so i am sure people will disagree, but none the less i thought id post it and see where people are on the issue.

What does everyone else think? Where do we need to work on? Is there any quick fix to stop a quarter like our third quarter on sunday, (having said that hawthorn did just play some really good football aswell, and i dont think that we are in a position with our team to be controlling for four quarters of an afl match, but we should not have a 70 odd point turn around ever again)

it was not our forwardline that was poor, they couldnt do anything with the amount of i50s they got, ridiculous, but rather our midfield, no one was first to the ball, and thus we need a shake up in our midfield.

but there will not be many changes,

Garland for Macdonald

maybe Jetta or Maric for Wonna

but if maric gets dropped id be a little disappointed, he wasnt too far off it, just a very poor choice of sub in my opinion.

our defensive match ups

chippa to roughie

garland to franklin,

rivers to hale, but he will have to make a mennace of himself backing back to take marks and help with spoils

grimes to shiels

bartram to cyril

bail to burgoyne

midfield

hodge to be tagged by jones.

let the rest of the midfield play one on ones, but not really worry, as you cant be tagging a whole team, and really we need to have aggressive play aswell.

the sub

the substitute will be interesting to see as bailey said alot about how it is good for substitutes to have flexibility, this leads me to believe, jetta and petterd are the two likely sub options, but based on form it should be one of jetta or maric, i hope jetta, as i would like to see maric get some more good game time, he was our most dangerous forward over the pre season and hopefully he can continue this.