Maldonboy38

I want Freo to win, but with McPharlin and Johnson out they just can't do it. I am so sick of Geelong and Hawthorn. Passionately despise Essendon and North. Richmond fans are the worst in the comp. After watching the Qualifying final last night, both Geelong or Hawthorn are so beatable. It is Sydney's to lose as far as I can see it.

Quarterback - I would really look at Salem for this role although he is a bit young. But his kicking is very good and he is a monster tackler. Superstar - there don't seem to be many on offer for a move or trade. We could really struggle to get one so we might have to wait for Viney/Salem/JKH/Tyson to become one. Fitness - Misson has had three years, maybe time for a change?? With the exception of N Jones and Cross, our players still cannot offensively AND defensively spread from the midfield for an entire game. Can this be changed in one preseason? Bsically yes. Port Adelaide changed from dumb and slow to quick and attacking in one preseason so there is no reason we can't. Frost to replace Frawley. Skills improvement - where the %#&* is this going to come from? Hogan to be fit. It isn't looking too good that we can improve where we need to in one preseason. And we MUST get this succession plan in place.

Fitness improvement - 20% Skills improvement - 40% A long kicking, quarter-back type player for half back Hogan fit A replacement for Frawley 1 superstar Just typing that makes me depressed - we really are coming from a long way back.

He has the run and carry we need off half back, but he only does 2 things: 1) sprint like buggery and kick it as long as he can to the wing 2) sprint like buggery and do a dinky little 15.1 metre kick to a team mate. Too limited for mine, and his long kicking often is kicked straight back at him by opposition players who read his 2 options really well. No for me.

Like Frost, Frawley was an atrocious kick, and unbelievably poor at ground level in his first 3 seasons and he was able to become very good at both. Frost looks balanced and I reckon his kicking will emerge ok. However, I would like to see more of him before I give a clear cut i.Anyone know if there is a video or Youtube clip available?

I didn't see the interview today but I agree 100% CBF. The list/team will take 3 seasons to become competitive and this is being left to the football dept, recruiters and coaching staff. PJ and the Board have quietly and skilfully done work to make the club strong behind the scenes. This is like electrical conduit - it runs underground and no-one sees it but its just is vital. Landing AHG as a sponsor, getting rid of the cronies and chronic MFC hangers-on, and getting seasoned professionals into senior admin roles has been a difficult and important job. Well done to all involved in this herculean task. And I love the silent way they have got this job done. No press statements, no noise, no "look-at-me". They have simply got the job done.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this season. A lot of players missed huge slabs of the preseason before the season proper started, and the only one of them to produce a decent season was Dom Tyson - and his season was an absolute ripper. Losing Clark, Trengove and Hogan was a huge blow and we never recovered. Recruiting of Vince, Tyson, Cross, Salem, Riley and Michie at least made us competitive in most games. The form of Garland, Viney, Watts and Toumpas was embarrassing at times, at least Viney showed some grunt and tackle pressure at times. Toumpas and Viney can be excused for being young at a club that has struggled with player development. Our skills, whether under pressure or free outside, were deflating, embarrassing, hardly VFL standard, and the reason we lost so many games when we were in front during the last quarter. This has to be a major focus of the post-Christmas training. The form of Dunn, N Jones, Pederson, Jetta, Tyson, Cross was our saving grace. Well done to these boys. The enraging footskills of co-captain Grimes who reads the play as well as anyone in the AFL, gets to contests, has courage and leadership, but is a worst turnover king of any player at MFC in my living memory. Might cost him the captaincy in 2015. I love the strength and consistency of the coaching panel. Even when we were losing games we should have won, they did not change their attitude, their public persona, the message... they just kept on with it believing it will work. Gotta applaud that. Loved having Roos as our coach this year, but thought late in the year he used the "this is a damaged group" line too many times and he needs to remove it from his chosen language for 2015. I am disappointed that a succession plan coach has not be named and added. However, this makes me think that MFC have already chosen and signed their candidate, but he is an assistant coach at another club, waiting for season 2014 to be over at his club prior to coming on over. I predicted 4-6 wins, thinking we would get only 1 in first half of season, and a few more in the second half. I was only partly right. I have to admit to feeling very deflated with just 4 wins, knowing we were in front during the last quarter in 10 games. And lastly, having to watch another finals season with Hawthorn and Geelong in it (I can just hear the commentators stiffening up at the prospect) makes me want to throw up. And now, I have the increasing frustration of a growing hatred for North Melbourne who have made finals ahead of us, and whose coach reminds me a of a incompetent, steriodal meerkat - standing up barking rubbish at all and sundry if they come to near "his precious players". I %&@#*& hate this time of year as a Dees follower.

A very poignant admission that he did not speak to the players after the match because "the players have heard enough negatives and I had nothing positive to say". He looked to be in control of himself but absolutely seething underneath. He now knows that too many of the players can't kick, mark and handpass and after almost a year of his leadership a lot of them have not improved at all. I just cannot see what can be done.

Yep, true. Apologies Moonshadow - just really low tonight and had a gutful. come October of course I'll sign up - hope is a heartless b**ch.

Not for me. No more "helping the poor, little unsuccessful MFC". We find and/or develop from within through determination and a refusal to go under.

A member and a supporter are not interchangeable words. I was a supporter for years before I became a member: went to games, bought a jumper etc... As for "my only real contribution" you are speaking in absolute ignorance of how I support the club. Maybe you just don't have the guts to express how you feel about the club when angry like most of us do.

Absolute bulldust, Moonshadow. I have been a fan/supporter/member for many years but I am very close to not renewing my membership. Many of us follow the Dees for enjoyment and entertainment, not to feel kicked in the cods by half way through every season. If I choose not to renew it is not because I am no longer a supporter, it is because it is my only way of protest.

I get your point Ungarieboy, but we need players who can get to the ball, mark the ball, kick the ball. We have so many people like Viney, Bail, Miche, Riley, McKenzie, Tapscott who run around looking tough and laying tackles who rarely get the ball, and when they do they are embarrassingly poor of hand and foot. Iam sick of players who contest - I want players who can contest AND kick, mark and spread.

People putting Viney in their best!?!?!? You have to be kidding. A player has to do more than get to a contest, get beaten to the ball, look angry, tackle hard and run hard at the next opposition player. He had no effect on the game whatsoever.

Me too. To my 4 kids, I am so sorry. At least I had Flower, Shwartz, the Wiz, Neita, Jurrah. My kids get nothing.

Jetta Jones and Gawn get a pass - everyone else rubbish.

This is not a blow for the 2014 season. This is a knife cutting open the belly of the club. 186 was a deep low. Those 100+ point Neeld losses were infuriating. But this is different. I honestly feel we might not be able to survive after this.

Where do the Hawks win this, and where do the Dees lose it? Ball movement/short kicking with precision. Roos' biggest ongoing complaint is that our defensive running is poor for 15-20 minute patches in a game. During these phases we get 6-8 goals kicked against us. If our defensive running is poor in two patches, we get done by 10+ goals. If our defensive running is switched on, this might be a nil-all draw. Roughead, Gunston, Breust. vs McDonald, Dunn, Howe. Only one of our three has to be beaten for us to get a serious flogging. Their forwards are likely to kill us down back. Speed. Isaac Smith, Hill, Puopolo. vs Bail, Kent, Class. We have Tyson and a raw Kent. They have Mitchell, Hodge, Roughy, Lewis, Hill, Smith One thing we have done well almost all season is play good team footy. Our skils and class are way down but our teamwork has actually been very good. But I can see the Hawks cutting through our teamwork with pace and skill, and winning easily by 50 points.

I reckon the succession coach is already locked in place. I have no idea who it is but there is simply no statements coming from within the club officially or on the quiet to dodgy journalists. What I love about the MFC at the moment is that there are no leaks, unless they are carefully and deliberately managed from within.

I actually think he is an ok footballer, but he is developing very slowly and would probably not be in our starting 22 if still with us. But the way he left the Dees... will never forget him. But with his season ending surgery I am now disappointed that my eldest daughter and I will now miss our annual "Booing Tom Scully Game" which has become such a favourite. I know it sounds petty but I cannot tell you how much I enjoy booing this bloke every time he is near the ball.

Just finished watching the interview, and oh, the footage. Yze kicking to into a forward line with only 6 people in it (very refreshing to see that). And some of the players: Neitz, Ox, Lyon, White. And Jeff Farmer... I was at the MCG for the final versus the Crows in 1998 - I couldn't talk properly for two days after yelling out "Farmer!" about 50 times. If only we could unearth 1 player with half his talent. He is up there with the very best small forwards ever, maybe just behind Bartlett, Matthews and Milne. I hope the father son rule applies if any of his kids show talent.

I wouldn't drop him because he can't kick, but because he is having no impact on most games he plays. He is actually one of the best kicks on our list but he is another good preseason away from impacting games.

I have liked Roos' "trust the players" selection policy for most of the year but enough is enough. Too many big men, a forward line that doesn't kick goals, and too many players who can't kick. We can't drop all the culprits, but some need to go. OUT: Terlich, Gawn, Salem, maybe Bail IN: Jetta, JKH, Blease, maybe Tappy

Three constant issues need to be addressed across the list: 1) We lack class and it shows every time one of our also-rans comes up against a player like Fyfe, Ablett, Pendelbury, Buddy. We are seriously more of a good VFL side than an AFL side trying to combat the likes of Sydney, Fre, Hawks etc... We can do it for 2 quarters, and a few games for 3, but we cannot combat class contest-by-contest for 4 quarters. Players like Watts, Toupas, Salem, JKH need to become our class players but they feel years away. 2) Our kicking skills when under no pressure are deeply flawed. Our really good ball users like Toumpas and Watts just don't play hard enough for long enough to impact a game with their foot skills, especially at critical moments. Grimes, McDonald, Terlich, Tyson, Viney and Bail are simply crap kicks who also happen to be necessary components in our 22. I don't understand the root of the skills problem and I don't know how to fix it, but the big fear is that even Roos so far has not been able to fix it. 3) Once again, we lose due to what WE do when WE have the ball. Our decision making through half-back and half forward, whether it is a defensive push or an attacking one, only works 60% of the time. We decide to slow down when we should run, we decide to handball to a stationary player, we decide not to take the first option, we decide to handball backwards 10 times in a row but never get a free possession out of it. My Demonland experience is feeling like Groundhog Day. After each game I am feeling the same things, typing the same things and yet nothing ever changes. Once again I get to July and my season is basically over.

Limiting the turnovers, and emphasising movement around the stoppages are the keys for the Dees. But like in many games this year, we lack class against Fyfe, Pavlich, Ballantyne, Hill and I am unsure how we will go against Sandilands. Gawn is only a few cms shorter but hasn't got the body size and experience. Freo by about 30.