Pates

I would liked to see Bedford given another crack but I’m ok with ANB coming in for Kozzie. I think one of the major questions is do we bring back Bennell with the full expectation he won’t play against North? Or hold him back one more game perhaps looking ahead to say we may need him vs North. Also looking even further ahead if almost argue he’s more important to have vs the pies. I have a feeling that Jones is going to survive the chop, it’s tempting to make some wholesale changes but I think we’re going to end up with OUT TMac, Kozzie IN AvB, ANB.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Tom back in against North as a way of managing Jackson’s fitness. It’s interesting you point to Tom getting to more contests because I felt like last Thursday was a real embodiment of what he’d been dishing up for a while, he always seems to get to the contest just that fraction too late which means at best he can spoil it but most of the time he gets out marked. In 2018 his first few steps off the mark were, for a tall forward, actually pretty powerful and quick. Now they just look slow and lumbering.

Not a lot of tackles stuck properly last week, not a problem for AvB!

Tough on our defence, their entries were with very little pressure from our midfields. How often were they streaming towards the forward line with players essentially escorting the player with the ball? Not unlike the forward line, for the defence to function properly it requires the midfield doing their job properly. Instead they turned the ball over with easy kicks and handballs (jeez it really was a horror show).

I couldn’t see us losing to Essendon when they were essentially made up of all VFL top up players and yet we did. I never take anything for granted with Melbourne.

Haha it changes my quote a lot but it’s meant to read “watching Melbourne there hasn’t been one year where you can expect every week we will out in a solid performance.” Sorry, my point actually is that we seem to always put out at least a couple of disgraceful games every year.

It's interesting to see that most of the feelings on here point to Jack as the issue and to a large extent I see where it's coming from. He is a "bull" that busts through doing the classic "see ball get ball" mentality. I think that's still essential to our structure and in recent weeks he has been improving with better decision making (although like many that seemed to go totally out the window on Thursday). I've been a defender of Brayshaw despite is poor year so far and been hopeful he would turn it around, it just doesn't seem to be happening. I'd like to see him given more minutes in the centre and throw Viney into AvB's role (should he not be available vs Adelaide). I feel like that Viney's standing at the club is set, and there's no doubt he has put in performances that have got us over the line, so if it's a choice between him and Gus I think they may look at trading Gus. Brayshaw just looks lost right now, he doesn't seem to know where to be at the contest and I think he's working more as an outside player that every now and then swaps to being inside. Ultimately what was lacking last week was desire at the contests, everyone got their pants pulled down in that capacity. Even Gawn was knocking the ball down to himself every now and then. We lack class on the outside, I really would've liked us to go after Hill, but he's the sort of player we need, hopefully a little younger.

It must be really infuriating for the club (as it is for us fans) that this seems to be a common trend. I mean the Brisbane game would've been a good one to have us prime time even with it being a loss, but of course it had to be our (thus far) worst performance of the year. Not exactly going to grease the wheels on any potential sponsorship deals.

Definitely won't disagree on this point, in my entire time of watching Melbourne there has been one year where you can expect every week we will out in a solid performance. There will always at least one or two matches that utterly embarrass the club and it's fans. Fingers crossed we've had that performance for the year, for me though the response from the players will say a lot about them as a unit. They should be so disgusted by what they put up that they pledge to not let it happen again.

In a sick strange way I'm kind of glad that Max is out, I think the players had started to get lazy with the silver service they were getting from Max. They forgot as ball winners they actually had to have the desire to get the ball. With the ruck contest now going to be a lot more even, dare I say it weighted towards the other teams, they will have to regain their hunger to actually want the ball. This also gives Jackson an opportunity to be our main ruck, I think we need to persist with Weid focusing on being a forward so someone will need to come in to chop out for Jackson. Perhaps Tomlinson, maybe Brown? We are being tested here, the players should be setting themselves the challenge to win just as many clearances as they did with Gawn. In a cheeky way throw at back at Max for saying "well I always give silver service".

I disagree with this statement, beating up bottom 2 sides (and being 5/5) will tells us that at just over the mid-way point of the season we are rated in the middle part of the table with potential to go up and potential to go down. I think you're severely underestimating what wins over teams we "should" beat will have on the team.

Gary made his choice to go into the media, he has the benefit of zero accountability. The moment he did anything that he did have accountability for our club, he gave us Neeld. I would have him as a consultant or part time forward line coach but nothing more.

Not heresy at all, I think he has been tiring a little of late and would probably benefit from a week off. Perhaps though it might be the North game gets his rest. Weid, until Port, had been decent for us. He was taking pack marks, making contests and getting shots on goal. His kicking is a concern, especially since his routine actually looks ok, but if he’d kicked straight against the Lions everyone would be saying he’s in ripper form. I think he’s our key forward for now, Tom’s slowness really worries me, if he doesn’t get the ball immediately his ground work is awful. At least Jackson has speed and athleticism. Again his rest could come against North. I’m genuinely unsure as to how our selection will go this week, I think we’ve got it pretty right since GC but Port wasn’t good.

My guess would be they don’t think he has the leg speed of tank for a wing role, which I would agree with. Structure wise I echo thoughts of others that this scathing analysis came after our worst loss and not after one of our wins or close loss to Brisbane, therefor it’s been looked at our worst and not at our best. I wasn’t against the trial of three tall forwards but you could strongly argue that doing it against the top team was extremely poor timing. In any case I feel that it has been proven to be the wrong approach. Up forward for the rest of the year I think we should be using Weid at FF and Jackson as a roaming HF/ruck, looking towards them building cohesion together. TMac looks done to me, so if there needs to be changing in personnel than I’d give Brown a crack. For me our forward line looks something like this: HF Melksham/Hannan Jackson Bennell/AvB F Fritch Weid Pickett Defence I think you’re being extremely harsh, against Brisbane it held up very well and against Port it had to endure an onslaught of easy balls coming into the 50. I feel like our biggest quandary comes with Nev clearly starting to lose his legs. Lockhart is doing ok for a young player but like many other Melbourne players has very suspect disposal. But our structure has look 100x better since OMac’s return and anyone that doesn’t see that has blinkers on that can only see Oscar as a liability. He’s not a world beater but he is a solid defender that is surrounded by May (who is playing well) and Lever (who until Port was starting to look a lot more like what we got him for. Hibberd had been getting back into form but like others looked awful vs Port. For me our back line looks something like this: HB Salem Lever Hibberd B Lockhart/Nev May Oscar Rivers and Smith provide development in the background, Harmes is going back there but I don’t think that’s his long term position. I won’t go deeply into the centre, I think we know who generally goes in there and most of the time they win the ball. It’s just some god awful disposal that hurts us. Thursday was a disgraceful night, we have Adelaide and North coming up to try to turn things around. It’s now or never.

They actually posted all the goals from the port game? I didn’t think they bothered when it was such an awful defeat that every Melbourne fan would be trying to forget about it.

Then have a listen to what Bennell said needed up to his debut against at Carlton, he spoken about Goody being almost a father figure and being very important to his return to AFL footy. You’re completely dismissive of the connection that he has with the players, I provided you with an example where the player himself has heaped praise on Simon for having that connection. Would Bennell have got back without Goodwin? Maybe. But Goody definitely played a key part once he was at the club.

Not upset, but I would hope he’d be instructed to play within his limitation and honesty if he’s going to turn it over I’d prefer it be 50m down the line than 15m inside the corridor. I like him though and could even be the long term replacement for Nev we’re hoping for.

I really rate Ratten as a coach as well, I would’ve been keen for us to have him but sometimes timing is everything and we just didn’t have that. But infuriating to see them doing so much better than us, that said it won’t surprise me if the they have a later year dip.

Just a thought about the upcoming game and in some ways using North as inspiration (urgh that tastes bad in my mouth). Shaw may have pulled a mini-master stroke here by dropping Brown and Polec which in turn motivated the players, but also gave Polec and Brown extra time to prepare for us. The Adelaide game could be a really good opportunity to drop some underperforming players and hopefully have them in better condition for North. Given Brown’s annual desire to destroy us I’d be shocked if at the very least he didn’t come back for them.

The personal snipes at Goodwin I feel very unwarranted, look at how he has managed to motivate/manage Bennell. You can have the best fitness staff in the world but if the senior coach is a pr!ck then the player isn’t going to want to get up for him. Goodwin and the selection committee have had some grave errors in the past, Thursday they made selection mistakes but he could’ve nailed every one of them and we’d still have lost by a fair margin. You can have a world beating game plan but if players are missing 15m kicks and 1m handballs nothing is going to work. Like many of the players at the club, he needs to lift his game.

If we don’t completely murder the crows (pun intended) I’ll be p-ssed.

Not so much a change but maybe a change of tactic, do we give Oliver a run with role on a leading opposition midfielder to teach him a little bit more about accountability and at the same time give Brayshaw more of an opportunity as an extractor. Just a thought, nothing more.

Doesn't matter if you have a plan A, B, C through to Z, if the players aren't executing dead basic skills the result will be the same. 48 points conceded through turnovers, basic kicks inside 50 completely butchered, even 1-2m handballs missed. These are things will kill teams no matter what plan you go in with.

Really among all our talls you can't name one that did anything decent on the night. Everyone floundered around like headless chooks. You may well be right that Jackson doesn't play but I would expect that would be more to do with management than anything as vs GC and Hawks he definitely contributed positively. If Tom does somehow remain in the team (perhaps they will give him one more chance against weaker opposition) he'd want to pull out a bloody good game because what we saw from him vs Port was up there with Spargo's effort against WC in round one. He looks slow, really really slow, and miss his one chance in the night to contribute positively. I personally wouldn't be against both Jackson and TMac being dropped for Brown and Tomlinson. Tomlinson can return to the wing to get us some outside run (we looked slow as a team on Thursday) and Brown can get his shot to be considered as our second tall option.

That you very much to the friendly Demonlander (who's identity I will keep secret!) for giving me a copy of the article. I guess it's good to hear that Goody was fuming, as he should be. Adelaide will have a short break, and we should be looking to get back some pride so there is no reason why we don't come out super hard against them.