Pates

100%, I'm baffled why of all games when he is clearly tired they didn't give him this one off. Whether he plays against North or not we will be well beaten in the ruck taps because he looked off the boil tonight. Terrible player management, perhaps the first black mark against Burgess.

Even before the match I had this feeling that the game would be tight until we kick away in the final quarter. I haven't been able to see much more than clips and a little bit of live action here and there but what I've seen didn't impress me. Whoever is responsible for our defensive rebound when teams have opportunities to set they need to come up with something better than "long down the line". Tonight it what happens when Max is not in form/underdone and not able to rake in his contested marks that frankly the club expects too much of. By all means have it as a get out kick, but for crying out loud something new needs to be created because most other clubs when a behind is kicked it's a case of "ok we've got the ball in our hands now how do we make them pay?" But for us we just look like we will either turn it back over or at best get a stoppage. The Crows (bottom of the ladder basketcase) were able to get repeat inside 50s against us, that is not good at all. The other really worrying trend is we were losing a lot more of the clearances than I would like given our image is that we are meant to be a clearance winning team. I said this before team selection when there was word that Max might miss, I think they have become a bit lazy and expecting him to just tap it down his throat rather than working for the second and third contests to win the ball away. What I saw of Max told me he shouldn't have played, what a great chance it would've been to give Jackson main rucking duties and perhaps bring in Brown while giving Max a much needed rest. I worry he is going to be toweled up by Goldstein who is in great form. The rest I'll leave to talk about once I've watched the replay and can properly dissect it, but we got the win which is a good thing. On to North now, massive game.

I haven’t seen the incident, most commentary seems to point to it being undisciplined. I hope he gets a grilling for that, take the free kick and kick the goal, then be smug and arrogant. We have nothing to be smug about right now.

Harley has been “handy” most matches he’s played this year, I’d really like tonight to be his breakout match for the year. 2-3 goal, score involvements, clean kicks. Give him confidence for the rest of the year.

They're missing players as well, that's a club that knows how to perform almost every week. No excuses.

And just like that it's all but certain that Tex will kick a bag.

Is it ultimate MFCSS to say I'm starting to get nervous?

I guess what is a little annoying about OMac getting dropped is I kind of feel it's another case of favourites getting passes while Oscar get's one poor game while almost the entire team plays awful but he gets the chop. Seems like the margin for error for him is very small. I will admit I kind of like him, I recognise he has his deficiencies but I really feel that our defence has looked more settled since he came back. He's allowed May and Lever to play their more natural roles, and really I didn't think he's done a hell of a lot wrong considering that against Port there was an onslaught of easy inside 50s.

Oliver has massive upside but he needs a good midfield coach to get the best out of him, he just seems to make decisions really rushed. There's a difference between someone who can make quick decisions and someone who's rushed because what he does puts players in worse positions under more pressure. I feel like Gus has reached his ceiling and is on the decline (that said could get back to being a good footballer), he just doesn't seem to be coming close to hitting his 2018 form. I'd hope for an early to mid second rounder for Gus. First rounder for Oliver but I would be firmly against it.

I’m a little meh about selection this week, I’m worried the match committee have had their good period across GC to Lions and they’ve gone back to form. I feel like they needed to drop one of Melksham, Fritta, or Hannan as collectively they haven’t been great recently. Hannan missed some tackles badly last week so perhaps it’s a bit of a message. I like the INs, they address issues we had last week. Bennell - shocking skills Lack of run - ANB and Tomlinson Appetite for contest - AvB OUTs wise the only eyebrow raiser is Oscar as at least having him in the team provides another option should May not be having a good day or if he gets injured. I feel like we’re being short down back. Ultimately the midfield has to put in a much better showing, they are the lucky ones to have missed out on the chop. Brayshaw, Jones, even Harmes you could’ve quite easily argued for being dropped.

Or possibly Jones for Tomlinson.

It did almost seem to be a procession of Rising Star nominations against us, every week some random newbie would come in and show some players who had been at the club for 5-8 years how to play football. I’d really love to see Jacko get a nomination at some point this year.

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.