Fork 'em

15 hours ago, At the break of Gawn said:

Anyone hear the [censored] Jay Clark was talking about earlier about how Melbourne only just recently broke bread with Petracca's parents? It sounded super vague and he was backtracking a bit.

Just saw that.

I dunno why the club needs to be breaking bread with Petraccas parents anyway.
He's 29yr old man FFS.
If a 29yr old was injured at work do you think the company is breaking bread with the employees parents?
Short answer is .... No.

The fact that the other fools at the table were showing their mock outrage just shows how immature footballers in general are.
Petracca even more so it seems after last years carry on.

1 hour ago, Surfer Dee said:

I can forgive that we suck. Ageing players, injuries, getting out coached... I'd have accepted this if the price was a flag 4 years ago.

I just can't accept how boring we are. I'd rather lose 100-150 than the way we play now. It's worse than being bad. It's dull. It's pathetic.

Goodwin's coaching for his life, surely he sees that it's either show something or he's gone? Wouldn't you throw some caution to the wind??

Agree.

I've been bored to tears for the most part of Goodwins tenure.
Always hated watching the Swans under Roo's.
Hated watching the Aints and Dockers under Lyon.
Would often tell people if they were playing in my front yard I'd pull the curtains.
Now I've been stuck watching us.
I remember after the ANZAC game in '22 when we strangled Richmond to death it was either Brayshaw or Langdon who stated in a post game interview "We plan to make these blockbuster games as boring as possible."
I thought then ..... "NO, that's not how you excite kids, get prime time games and build a supporter base for the future."
And now here we are pulling 20k for home games.

We had a huge opportunity to build the club on the back of the flag and we've blown it by being an ugly side to watch.
Even when we were winning.

1 hour ago, DemonWA said:

Not great, but disgusted by the so called fans who are teeing off.

That [censored] from the dee brief needs his head checked

What did he say that wasn't right?

1 hour ago, Demon Dynasty said:

And sadly he has been completely brain washed onto believing that the old method of clearance / contested & bashing ball forward to get as many i50 entries as you can (and trying to get repeat entries through more crash & bash / pressing high etc) is still the way.

Max has had it drilled into his poor bonce so many times and continues to believe that "weight of numbers will win the day and is the Melb way" and that eventually the wheel will turn. "Just take more learnings from losses and work harder each week".

All that this constant (Simon's inability or unwillingness to change things up effectively) has done is, over time, made us the easiest team to plan, train and play against on game day.

Unfortunately we have become an oppo coach's dream fixture. We make most teams look like potential premiership contenders. Even the dud ones like Essington and Norf.

The opposition all know that we're mentally weak and if they keep the pressure on for long enough we'll collapse like a house of cards.

1 hour ago, defuture15 said:

I felt for Tracc as it seemed to effect him the worse.

Maybe if Trac could hit the side of a barn now and then I might have some sympathy.
He's one of the worst culprits of boot it and hope.
Had a hot little patch out've the middle late in the 3rd and sprayed it everywhere.
The true guns of the game can hit the targets and kick the big goals when the team need 'em most.
Trac cannot do either.

13 minutes ago, Bang Bang Bang said:

Would he even get another coaching gig? I'm skeptical.

I remember in the afterglow of the flag Max waxing about Goodwin as a premiership coach now having a job for life.
(Either coaching or in the media)

I'm also skeptical.
Been the subject of various forms of scuttlebutt and now leading the club down the gurgler at an alarming rate.

Ahh yes ... That familiar feeling of utter despair watching this club self destruct.
The veil of negativity is like a warm blanket.

Just now, Deesprate said:

Hat off to Trac in that quarter busted his gut. Lifted the side.

Still sprayed it everywhere.

Gotta laugh.
I recently did 2 weeks in the Demonland clink for stating Mays is a ..... panic merchant.

As far as I'm concerned we keep Lindsay, Langford and Windsor.
The rest we put on the trade table and see what we can get.
As long as Goodwin and his assistants go too.

3 minutes ago, Buzzy said:

We're actually becoming an embarrassment to the AFL.

There's been some ripping games across this round but we are just dragging it down.

I'm sorry to say but history shows that's how we roll.
The club is simply unable to handle or sustain any sort of success.
A true basket case.

Just went out the shed and blew a dart.
Looked up at my '21 GF poster.
15 Premiership players we've got out here tonight.

There's a reason our crowds are poor.
Just awful football to watch.
Even when we were winning.

Ahhh Gary.

We have been "See what happens" going forward since Goodwin took over.

2 hours ago, nextskipclaz said:

If anyone remembers the kind of commentary Nate jones made on channel 7, that should have been enough evidence for him not to get the job. Very basic, very gross and un-nuanced.

Agree.

Always remember seeing these clips.
The difference between Jones and Hodges communication skills is stark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vO1icLm_Zk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl8UeyJDufQ

Here's an idea.
Just change the name.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Nn6H5pv7ky4?feature=share

51 minutes ago, picket fence said:

Lawyers, Guns and Money would disagree Ghosty. I KNOW what ur saying, but let me ask you this? Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, or do the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many? If greater good occurs because of something which is not, is that not a good outcome, depending of course on the long term success of the negative action! Over to you Ghosty!

I want Goodwin gone as much as anyone but this is Essendon.
One of the absolute must win games of the season.
The knives can wait .... For a couple weeks.

4 hours ago, The Swimming Dee said:

I am trying to have a glass half full attitude. Even though his comments received some backlash, SG was correct in saying that last week was an improvement from the previous two weeks.

Clean up some of our basic errors and we may see a quick turnaround. We still have major issues with delivery into the forward 50 but part of that is a lack of confidence in my opinion.

I am hopeful that this week is the start of a positive run of form.

Tough to have a glass half full attitude when we've had forward line entry issues since before Goodwin took over.
How often have we been far ahead in F50 entries and still had our pants pulled down.
As for cleaning up basic errors this has also been an ongoing issue over many years.
Remember Goodwin was all about chaos ball and nothing has changed due largely to none of our players having above mediocre kicking skills.
Can you name one for eg that you are confident when he has the ball will hit a leading player or kick a needed goal?
I'm thinking maybe Harvey Lanford being our best bet and that's damning purely cause he's in his 1st year.

9 minutes ago, doc roet said:

Can someone, in a nutshell,explain to me what this so called game plan of his is ? or is it all secret. Looks like there is no plan to my eyes.

In a nutshell ....
To turn the game into an ugly rugby scrum in order to limit the opposition from scoring heavily against us.
Scoring ourselves is a distant afterthought but it usually involves more rugby scrum till we can get it within' range of a snapshot under pressure from a pocket.
And when in doubt, kick it on Gawns head and hope we can create a stoppage for a ball up so we can start another scrum.

Hope this helps.

10 minutes ago, Jack Vineys Anger Manager said:

Xavier Lindsey is who we got for handing over our first round pick. I'm more than happy with him Fork em.

I'm not even confident we can hold these kids to this basket case of a club.

Just thought I'd pop in and say I been tellin' ya Goodwins gotta go for years.
Had the opportunity to build this club for future generations but blew it by boring us all to tears with his mind numbingly ugly game plan.
And now here we are, about to battle it out for the bottom of the ladder again and due to his delusion hand over our 1st round pick to Essendon.
ESSENDON .... My god.
There isn't even a silver lining.

Skills lettin' us down at crunch times.

Kids the best player we got.

15 hours ago, William said:

The problem with these discussions is that you have to criticise players who are people and have feelings. But then they are on high pay relative to the rest of the workforce and should be accountable.

The senior coach should never have been renewed. He is inflexible in his thinking and after we won the premiership, rival teams started working us out, which is why it has been downhill since until now when we have reached near rock bottom (two 10 goal losses to teams that were below us - particularly North).

He also picks favourites.

He kept playing Spargo who cannot kick further than 30 metres and is slow off the mark and the consequence of that is we lost Jordan and Bedford to other clubs and they have become very good players, much better than Spargo. If Spargo had not been injured, the coach would not have played Chandler who at least can mark and tackles well. So he probably would have been lost.

On the marking issue - the coach keeps playing JVR who has a marking to attempt ratio of close to zero and that is not because Viney bombs it in all the time. He just cannot hold marks and is often out of position anyway. He is similar to Sam Weideman - high draft pick but ultimately not up to it. And he has been around long enough to demonstrate his hyped super talent. We were lucky to have Ben Brown in 2021 but he became injury prone and aged and so that bright spot didn’t last long.

And then there is the most selfish player in the team Fritsch who should be delisted.

How can the coach keep playing these poor performers and hope to improve our prospects.

The reason is that the depth below them has been hollowed out by players leaving and poor recruitment.

But surely the senior coach has to ultimately take the responsibility for the decisions of the football department.

He should resign gracefully and be known as a premiership coach.

Couldn't agree more.
Well I could if you added the overrated Salem and his "elite" 20m lollipop passes.

100% should still have Jordan who he didn't even manage to sub onto the ground during the GF and Bedford who also only managed sub games.
Enticed Grundy to the club and then gave up on him after about 3 games.
Treated all 3 players like garbage.

I don't care what anyone says.
Goodwins gotta go.
Every pre-season he tells us we're gonna play differently and every year we dish up the same god awful garbage.
It's his list he's assembled who cannot hit a target if their life depended on it and his game plan that is just horrendous to watch.
Keep him and we'll die a slow agonising death as a club.
He's a one trick pony and his pony is dead.