binman

I reckon the biggest part of the problem. A situation exacerbated by the facts that: Many opposition teams have adopted WC's spread strategy that requires speed to cover free players (and those that haven't look to do so against us to expose our lack of pace) Our woeful turnovers from missed kicks expose and exacerbate our lack of pace as everyone is out of position when we turn it over You can't kick goals if you continually butcher the ball going inside 50 and when you do actually get a shot hit the behind post from 30 direct in front or fail to make the distance from 35 When we do butcher the ball going inside 50 we don't have single player who pick the ball off the ground and turn a crap kick into an opportunity (by the by if i hear the stupid expression ground ball one more time my head will explode)

I'll tell you why. As i have said on any number of occasions across multiple threads - and at the real risk of repeating myself and boring posters to death - our communication at the club is appalling. There are any number of examples from big to small. PJ made it clear that our focus in terms of our resourcing had to be the football department as you are going nowhere if not winning. And hard to argue against that. Implicit though in that focus was that once winning began other aspects of the club would get attention. I can only assume that has not occurred because our communication and membership engagement is not up to scratch and is a black eye on the club. And on Gary Pert i reckon. Maybe the last point is bit tough on Pert, but he has had enough time at the club to sort things and communication and membership engagement must be among his KPIs. Our messaging (or more accurately mixed messaging), our website, our social media, how we respond to membership queries (not blaming the staff by the way on this - it is clearly a system issue and reflects a lack of investment) and our members engagement strategies are all poor.

And people knock misso. Anyone who can bring a fella back from the dead is ok by me. That is high performance. I heard he helped get that star j. Christ back on his feet as well.

Bobbing!

Hadn't checked the other best bets before posting, but was going to pick dubhe too Macca. Unusually for me I've done my selection At randwick based on a swoopers track. I just think randwick struggles to come up week to week, particularly after rain, and the track will be hard to lead on. Two races in and seems to be the right play with horses getting home from tbe rear. Makes for a tough tough day with value winners

Last getting day of the Autumn for me fellas. My best is Tonsor at eagle farm. Race 9 no 7. Shooting for 4 in a row and will get the chockies

He has what we need.

Yes, true. Good point. A worry for supposedly one of the best mid fields. I reckon a factor is oppositions have worked out strategies to nullify max. How many center clearances have we had this year. SFA. The 666 was supposed to advantage not hinder us.

Puff piece? Disgraceful article? Spare me. A good article with solid reasoning supporting its central contention that our lack of defensive running from mids 'who have begun to play like millionares' is the cause of our defensive woes. Hard to argue with that contention. Though it won't convince those that see the game in a much less nuanced fashion. You know the 'the opposition is scoring too easily so must be the defenders fault' brigade. Luckily goody is not one of those people.

Hogan is a gun. And goals is just one aspect of why he is gun. We sorely miss him and in particular his work rate, abilty to get up sand down the ground, offer an outlet target and rack up posesions . I have a lot of time for Weed but if he is not kicking goals he doesn't impact the game

You'll have to deal with Oscar for a few more seasons. Yay.

On a treacherous day my best bet is at Morphetville fellas - race 6 no 6, Equal love. Will keep on his winning ways (couldn't find one a caulfield but i do like Flying Krupt and Helloev Street. Not one at Randwick, where i have gone for some very long shots)

On Joel Smith: “Joel’s still settling down. He’s been progressing pretty well, but he hasn’t started running yet. We’ll probably give him another week or so before he does that, then he’ll need probably two to three weeks at least to reload, but again, his rehab plans and return to play plans are still a bit up in the air.” So assuming no further set backs that looks like a minimum of four weeks before he is even ready to resume full training. So say another 2-3 weeks of training and then you'd think he's come back via the VFL. Best case scenario is he's available for the seniors in rounds 10-11. That's with everything going well. Any hiccups and we may not see him until rounds 12-13 or later. Great. Just great.

G'day fellas. Way too late i know. I haven't been able to get on DL today. My best is once again Avilius. unbeaten in Sydney. Loves the heavy. The Oz cup was an aberation and will be too good. Short enough but still overs. Particularly on the tote as i suspect you will get close to easy money. I really liked Mosh Music too, which i see DZ picked. very impressive win

Speed and good skills. There's the answer as to why he has made such a rapid rise.

No i meant reveled.

Vanderburg is Jack's father. Little known fact. It will get reveled in season 3.

On what is an extremely tough day i'm making Thunder Cloud my best. Mornington race 6 no 6

Mix one part gun recruit with anxiety issues, one part new general manager with small man complex, one part unbalanced CEO, one part gun recruit with dodgy calves and links to bikies and a coach with anger management issues. Mix and stir. A recipie for success.

Makes our comms team look like Pulitzer prize winners!

Good post. Speed of movement is absolutely the key to our game plan. Good to hear they are practicing another mode of entry. It is is important to remember they are still a team putting all of the pieces together and need to get each piece right before adding another. I agree on the need for a good crumber. Would make bombs in much, much more dangerous. I'm not sold yet spargo is that crumber. Really we need Jeffy to get back to his best but that is a long way from a certainty. Could Sparrow play that role?

1. That's partly true. I think though teams have to do more than match us in contested ball to beat us, they have to surpass us in that area, as was the case in the examples you give. But even if we were to employ a modified game plan if we don't bring the 'Melbourne' style we are in trouble. But the reality is teams rarely match us and we back our model in. But for me the answer is not a modified game plan - it is better skills. We waste way too many forward 50 entries because of poor kicks in and poor decisions. Exacerbating this issue is that we turn the ball over too often at HB or through the middle of the ground. A perfect example is the hawks semi. You're right they matched our grunt but we should have been 5 goals up at half time. We weren't because we wasted so many inside 50s and had some howlers where we gave the ball back, trurninbg potential attacks into Hawks shots on goals. 2. Yep you're right. I was probably being a bit hard on Jones. He has absolutely improved his kicking and is now one of our more reliable kicks, though i still think he makes some poor decisions going inside 50 sometimes.

I agree our game plan is relatively one dimensional, though I'm not so sure i agree that it is an issue for us. What i wholeheartedly agree is that we have weakness with our kicking skills. To me it is our biggest weakness. They have absolutely prioritized grunt over skill in their drafting and trading, and i said at the time i was bit surprised they went with say swallow rather than a player with better foot skills (though perhaps one wasn't out there). Our approach of kicking long to 20 metres out from goal , usually to a big pack was on full display in the JLT. This approach doesn't necessarily require brilliant kicks but it does require good decision makers (ie when not to go with that approach and instead hit up a target) and players who can put the ball in a landing spot that advantages our forwards. Which as i have noted before is much underrated skill and we pretty hopeless at it. And yes Gus is one player that struggles with it. So is Jones, ANB, Hunt and several other key players who we rely on for the majority of our inside 50s. Trac on the other hand is really good at it as rule, but often he is inside 50 and Melk is in the same boat.

I hope you get banned again

Not sure I agree LH. I agreee it perhaps could be interpreted in different ways but i dont think Niall's is suggesting we let him down. You highlighted bit can't be read without the next sentence, which taken together imparts a different meaning: If their environment didn't cause Hogan's issues, it didn't shrink them much either That said he could have acknowledged the support we did provide which from the outside was terrific which Jessie said as much on a number of occasions Leaving that adide a pretty good article from a journo i rate.