Pates

Has to come in, and we have to drop one of our mid-sized forwards. Probably looking at either Melksham or Hunt (I'm thinking the latter given his last two weeks). Give him 4-5 weeks as a lead up full forward, use TMac/Thommo as the chop out rucks, and give him one hell of a speech that we are backing him in and we believe in him. Because the way he hasn't been played this year with our forward line being completely inept has been baffling.

Kozzie is a good (and important pick) no matter what the cost has been, it's up to the cub and the team to balance out the worth by pulling their collective fingers out. As @Axis of Bob has also said, this year the draft will be heavily compromised because of COVID. It's still going to suck if we finish low but I actually liked the club backing themselves in to make the pick a 10> pick, it's a rare piece of bold strategy. The disaster is the team (and right now the coach), not the trade.

I’m utterly deflated as a fan by how we’ve played since the restart, I really hoped that what happened last year was largely to do with injury, but I think the club made that same ASSUMPTION and haven’t adjusted accordingly. But with a fit list to choose from our efficiency inside 50 is still diabolical. But as a fan and member for 20+ I just don’t think I can cop it anymore, I’ve decided I’m not going to watch next week and I’m going to try to actively avoid it because it breaks me every week. I even had a dream last night that I got fired from my work because I got so angry at Melbourne doing stupid things and losing. I think I dreamed we did 30+ forward entries for nothing and the other team goes up the other end once and kicks a goal. I might as well have just watch previous games.

100% with you. My personal choice would have been to drop Melks, put Fritta/Hannan is his role and have Brown at FF.

When I saw who they brought into the squad I had a feeling no change was possible. I think they’re trying to settle on a team to give them confidence. But I still am really unconvinced about our structure going forward, especially the way that we play. Are we now playing Petracca forward? Wasn’t a big thing about this year going to be seeing Petracca given more time in the middle? I think our forward line is too small/medium, maybe it needs time to click, but I’m running out of patience.

I think we need to bring in Oscar to replace Smith, or as a bit of a crazy idea keep Smith in and experiment with him up forward. The defensive structure actually looked better last week, but yet again (seriously how many times are we going to say this before the club gets it right) our forward structure and entries are diabolical at the moment. Which really makes you question why Bennell isn't the team. I'm really fed up with it, and only one thing is going to change that. A win. Win, and Goody looks like a genius. Lose, and more questions will come. Especially if we lose with more forward entries than Richmond.

I don't think that's playing on him, I was a little annoyed at Gawn nominating him though because Max actually needs to take a couple of things more seriously. Honestly I think he did it because people see him as a character and he enjoys doing silly things. Fritta shouldn't be used as a FF, that's the big issue here. Against medium body players he can do well, against the bigger players unless he gets separation he gets beaten most times. When you talk about pressure on a young player @DeeZee I feel like that's the big mistake we've made, making him as our main forward target.

Tigers must be licking their lips at coming up against us. I hate saying stuff like this as I feeling I'm turning into the prototype MFCSS fan but I feel like we've become the confidence building team, we push teams just enough to give them a run but don't get the job done. Anyway, to the point. One thing that successful teams build is consistency with line up, I don't see them doing major changes to the team or structure. Personally, as a fan not as an expert, I think our forward line looks small. I think the plan almost revolved around it looking small but playing tall, this isn't happening so I think we need a taller player to take the oppositions number one defender to provide a foil for Fritta and co. What that means is that one of Hannan, Melksham, or Hunt has to go. Personally I'd be dropping Melksham, and moving Fritta into the HFF role the Melksham has been doing and bringing in one of Brown or Weiderman. I thought Hannan was solid without being outstanding in his first game back, I think he's deserved another crack. Hunt was very quiet but has been solid in the other two games. He also has pace to him which needs to be used more. Down back I am not a fan of Smith, but he was better against the cats and in fact I thought aside from those 3rd quarter brainfarts that cost us the game, the defence held up quite well. OMac was BOG in the scratch match, does that earn him a recall at Smith's expense? Finally the enigma of Bennell. Supremely skilful but how do we fit him in? AvB was quiet but I think he's best 22. Do we drop Lockhart and move Harmes back into defence? Give Brayshaw more time on the ball in Harmes' place. I've said it before, I think the pieces of the puzzle are there for a successful team. I just don't know how they fit together, and I'm not sure the match committee know either.

I said this to my brother the other day that selection is going to be very difficult because I didn’t think there were a whole lot of players that I’d drop immediately, but there were a number of average performances. Melksham is a tough one to drop because we know what he’s capable of but I also think it’s time we looked at something different. Like a few others here I think we need two talls in the forward line, the way we’re playing doesn’t work with a smaller forward line. If we had players all over the part that could forwards laces out then it would be ok, but we don’t. One of Brown/Weids should come in, tell them their role, back them in to do it. Fritsch should be moved into Melks role, he’s not a FF, stop trying to put a square peg in a round hole! The tough one is Bennell, I think we need him in the team if he can get 60% game time but I just don’t know who gets dropped. Hannan was good enough in his return, Hunt was poor but he’s a different player (and bigger with endurance), AvB wasn’t big but will get better with game time.

Keep giving us silly soft goals, then when it’s our turn we don’t take full advantage of things. Why did Salem wait for every cats player to get back before kicking it?

The forward line is still my main concern, I like someone's earlier suggestion of playing Hunt at FF and move Fritta into a HFF role, keep Tommy Mac as a CHF (please let him clunk some marks this week!). Like so much of course it's dependent on delivery, spot up passes or at least space for players to run into. Hunt has had a good start to the year and looked good in the limited footage from the Intraclub match. Honestly with this year going the way it has I literally don't have a clue what we'll bring to the table this weekend.

I'm no Waleed Aly apologist, frankly I think the guy's a bit of a self-important [censored], but there's a big difference between putting forward a political standpoint, and outright, blatant racism JUST DAYS after Eddie goes up to Goodes and shaking the blokes hand telling him it's not on what happened to him. Eddie makes some big statements almost weekly that have him up the top of tool of the week nominations, but they are mostly self-serving and ego driven. This was making a mockery of a guy who had been devastated by being called an ape by a young girl of the club he's the President of, Darcy was teeing it up to tell him to shut the F up but Eddie is still of the boys club mentality where if "it's all in a bit of fun" it's fine to say anything he wants. He's also been offensive towards women, and while Sam Newman on the Footy Show has been the one doing the disgusting acts such as mocking Nicky Winmar with the blackfacing, Eddie was one of the leading voices behind the show and he never stopped him. TV/Radio channels can decide what kind of values they stand for by who they employ to be their talent, and advertisers can decide what kind of people they want to be connected to their products by paying for air time during those shows. So you ask who arbitrates the cancelling? They do by deciding what kind of people they want representing them. Since you bring up the domestic violence side of things, much like racism it's a cultural and generational change. No not all men are responsible when a woman dies from domestic violence, but there's no doubt that I think as men we need to more accountable for what we say around our friends and likewise what they say. If a mate of mine wants to make a flippant comment about doing something disrespectful or abusive towards their wife/gf/partner I'm going to call him out on it because I think it's our responsibility to push things in the right direction. I usually try not to do big long social topic posts, but I think Eddie has got away with a lot in the past. Maybe Lumumba is a bit of it catching up with him.

Harmes was really good and important in the middle in 2018, his shut down roles were absolutely critical on certain players and he forced them to be accountable on the rebound. I'm not convinced of him in defence but it is still early days in terms of the season, the proof will come at the end of the year.

Urgh, reading that is just cringe worthy. Darcy isn't even subtle about it, that Eddie keeps his job after that and so much more is disgusting.

I started this thread with asking how long do we wait, obviously Essendon may well have put a crimp in that timeline. From the footage they released on the website from the intraclub match it appeared that Tom was playing a higher CHF role almost borderline wing. Which is fine as it gets him into the game. I just really want to see him clunk some marks, I still have faith the ability to be a good forward is in him, I think he's just down on confidence so he doesn't seem to attack the aerial contests with as much force as he did in 2018.

My main question regarding Spargo is what is he? Is he a small forward? Is he a small HFF? Is he an outside midfielder? I just don't see where he fits into the list.

Waiting another round to see Bennell and Kozzie play together feels like such a tease. They should have played together vs Carlton but Kozzie got himself suspended through poor judgement, they should've played together last week but Essendon went and ruined that (they're very good at ruining things), and now I finally thought they were going to get in a game together and they choose to omit Bennell. I fully expect this is just management, there hasn't been any word on him hurting himself so I picture the fitness staff had this worked out in advance. As for who stays on the bench, I feel like they had a plan for the forward line and how they were going to tackle the ruck situation without another tall so Jackson might miss out. At a guess I'm going to say: Pickett, Brayshaw, Jetta, Hibberd. But truthfully I've been pretty out with the selections so I kinda give up now!

In some ways I think if clubs knew of some particular dirty laundry regarding this topic right now now would be the best time to come forward and acknowledge it and apologise. Collingwood have denied it for so long that to admit it now will kind of look hollow, as if they were forced into it.

Throwing up a thought, if hypothetically we could have a full crowd in Alice Springs, and bearing in mind that Tourism NT are one of our key sponsors, would people be keen for us to have a home match up there? My personal thoughts are that in this crazy world of ours if we could have a scenario of having a game with a crowd there vs an empty MCG I would take Alice Springs with both hands.

I would also be interested to know more about this, or at least what era it fell in.

I can't imagine off the back of an intraclub match they will be making many if any changes. The only one I can see happening is Brown in for Hannan. Just on Hannan's selection for last round was there any word in particular as to what had prompted his selections? I do see him being (somehow) squeezed into the best 22 when he's fit but we hadn't really heard much about his progress and then *boom* there he was.

Sorry can someone catch Emma up on something. Is there a suggestion that Essendon allowed him to train AFTER getting the irregular test? If that is the case then that’s disgraceful handling and we should be petitioning for the 4 points. If not I actually feel like they could’ve done a bit of a cheeky and postpone the game until mid week to assess if they could field a team, then make our game against the cats on Monday night. Definitely feels like we’re getting shafted with zero wrong doing in this case.

I like Hannan a lot but I agree, two weeks in a row Brown pulls out some goals, it shouldn’t be ignored. Our forward line looks short without one of Weids or Brown in there as well. I really wanted to see Sam do well in the intra-club but it looks like Brown has the form.

I understand the decision to postpone the game but my question is why couldn’t they pencil the postponement to Monday to establish how many players were in close contact with McKenna? If the AFL rules are clear that they can play if they have a list to choose from and they established those players by now then we could’ve played a Monday night game instead. Would’ve sucked for Essendon but now two other teams benefit and we get royally shafted. To me it seems like the panicked and shut it down before considering other plans.

Dogs have really shot themselves in the foot here, game should be over but they've kept GWS in it.