Pates

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.

Thinking the exact same thing, I can't help but feel that the game in hand could end up being both clubs chances to scrape into finals.

Wouldn't rule it out Pickett, we have the worst history when it comes to converting talent and potential into a top grade AFL player. Even Petracca has taken longer than what we would've hope for, albeit he is at least showing what he can do on a very regular basis. I feel like Oliver has drunk his own bathwater a little, and might be coming crashing down to earth a little. He's still got attributes that COULD put him up there in the top echelon of the competition but now comes the moment where he has to cop the criticism, and absorb the information that will improve his game.

Anyone with a subscription that can give us a little rundown or a good quote?

I notice this as well, It's intriguing to see that technique. Works well to get the ball where you want quicker but I don't think he's got the efficiency to do that yet.

I will be physically ill if Essendon get the win over Brisbane tonight.

We need clean ball users, who is out there we could potentially trade for? I'd still be on the fence about trading Gus, but I think he struggles to know his place in a midfield featuring Viney, Oliver, Harmes, and Petracca.

I live in the UK so this sometimes does get lost to me but I forgot that this was our rare shot at a prime time slot and we embarrassed ourselves. Back to Fox Footy for us for the rest of the year I'd say.

Wow that is up there with the dumbest thing I've heard, why would you want to trade high in such a compromised draft year? Clarry is still relatively young and we should be seeing the best of him in the next 2-3 seasons. He needs someone to work with him on his disposal (particularly his kicking), but he's not even close to his ceiling yet.

Fat lady is warming up her voice but if we win the next couple of games that we would be expected to win then we are back in the hunt with a game in hand. At best we can scrape into the finals, but we're not in the premiership conversation until we sort out basic issues within the team which include attitude, disposal, and a total lack of composure. I'm not upset that we tried the 3 tall forward line but Tom's mobility has dropped to nothing and we can't play him on the back of "I remember when he was good in 2018". He's now depth behind Weid and Jackson, and if we're to persist with the 3 tall model I'd be keener to give Brown a go over him. There's still plenty of games to be played, last thing we want to do is pack it in and gift North a top pick.

I just had a listen to May's post-match interview, he wasn't talking in cliche's or anything, I'm glad to see he's p-ssed and hopefully that will get a better effort next match. They all need rocket's up their bums leading up to Adelaide, we're going to have a longer break than them and there is no reason at all why we shouldn't be smashing them. They should all be utterly ashamed by what they put up, that's worse than what we saw in 2019.

Less about Lockhart playing a bad game (although his disposal is pretty bad right now), more about management and bringing in Rivers as a good ball user.

Looking at how much time will have passed between the Hawks game and the Adelaide game I'm really hoping that at least Bennell will be ok to return. If he is then I think Jones comes out, sad to say but he just doesn't seem to add anything. The experiment of 3 talls may have worked with different players, if they are keen to try it again don't do it with TMac. He may be dropped for Brown, or perhaps Tomlinson to take us back down to 2 talls and Tomlinson brings back some outside run. Tomlinson could also potentially even fit into a 3 tall system with him being more mobile. If AvB is ok to play, perhaps give Kozzie a spell for both management and a poor game. But he was not alone in the last part. I'd look at dropping one of Sparrow or Lockhart for Rivers as well. So my changes would look something like: Out: Jones, Kozzie, Lockhart, TMac In: Bennell, AvB, Rivers, Tomlinson/Brown EDIT// If AvB still needs time to recover then I say give Nibbler a chance.

I'd say the man in you avatar had at least as bad if not worse not than OMac, the defence was under siege from the opening bounce had very little back up from the midfield. Our defence has looked better since Oscar's return, tonight was an across the board horrible effort from the whole team.