deejammin'

Sorry to disagree Akum, but should freo win even one of their remaining games by over 7 goals it would be very very close, Saints need all they can get. Playing with the ladder predictor there are still so many possible results that I don't think any team can take anything for granted, there are multiple ways the Saints can miss the 8 purely on percentage.

I thought Blease got to some tackles to affect kicks purely due to his pace yesterday.

How long were all four of them there for? My guess is no more than 2mins, this is modern football, all players spend time on the bench, they all played a major part in the last quarter (Riewolt obviously excepted) so I don't think its "taking the boot off the throat" and percentage is an issue for them should they end up on the same points as Essendon or Fremantle, remember Freo play us round 23 and they could catch the Saints with a reasonable flogging, its too close for any team in contention to not think about percentage. If they had come out and kicked 15 goals in the last term we would be talking about how freshening those stars up for the first couple of minutes of the last quarter allowed them to come home like a train.

I would say that we are finally seeing what happens when Blease, Strauss, Tappscott, Grimes, Trengrove, TMac, Jetta, Howe all play together, add Watts to that mix and we are finally getting all our players together on the park, how often has that actually happened so far in these player's careers? I remember seeing not so long ago that Blease, Watts and Strauss had only had something like 2 games together in the same team, I think we are starting to see something from all three and that if they can all play together consistantly we can see some huge improvement. The same goes for all the others I have listed, Tappy's coming good, TMac is a revelation (despite his brain fades) and Grimes and Trenners are steadily improving (whats happened to Trenners Goalkicking tho?). I know it is an "excuse" but the fact is we have had a terrible run with injuries to some of our most valuable players, (Blease, Strauss, Tapscott and Grimes have missed more than a full year each!) and when they all get out on the park feeling fit and confident we see some much better footy from this side... with some luck hopefully it will continue in a more meaningful way next year.

I agree that they aren't a good team, and as I have stated in other tanking threads, I don't think anyone can be "pulled up for it" as it is a situation created by the AFL's rules. However, I think that if tanking exists that it doesn't matter if its a new team or the oldest in the competition, anyone can do it. I also don't think the GWS team we saw today was anything like the team we saw last week, or the last time they played the suns. Coincidence, maybe, but it looks equally if not more suss than most other 'tanking' incidents, and yet we aren't hearing much about it from a rabid press who can make a story out of nothing (see Mark Neeld's alleged racist remark). Coincidence? I doubt it....

I think junk time goals may actually be good for the place our club is at right now. I know that they are meaningless, but much like we need to play well over the next month to take confidence into the preseason I think running out the game well and kicking almost our most goals in a quarter against a team like St Kilda will inspire far more confidence in our group heading into next week. Certainly beats the hell out of capitulating and getting beaten by a heap!

Melbourne has an injury list of 15 players 5 of whom would be absolute walk up starters (Clark, Frawley, Jamar, Watts, Jurrah), St Kilda has an injury list of 3 players who I am not sure would be in their best 22 right now and had Riewolt off in the first quarter which almost cancels out Clark, thats 4 of our best out as well as another 4 players who if in form would squeeze more players out of our team (Bartram, Davey, Martin, Nicholson). With a huge recruiting, trading, training and development pre-season coming up I'm actually feeling far better about our team. Today we performed well for a large part of the game against a team that not so long ago played off in 2 consecutive Grand Finals and got as close as you can get to winning one (arguably both). Not bad at all for the walking wounded.

I find it unbelievable that Melbourne beats Richmond by 8pts earlier in the 2009 season, then loses by a kick after the siren allegedly as a result of positional experimentation (at least we played our players, a 2 goal turnaround, earth shattering!) but GWS has an almost 60 point turnaround after dropping all their "stars" against a team that until only a few weeks ago couldn't win a game! Yet there is not even a murmur of from the press about tanking. It defies belief, the AFL protection of its new babies obviously runs pretty deep.

And yet which club is the AFL investigating? Hypocrites!

There are so many that will leave the club before Sylv this year. Will get another year but would want to make it a bloody good one. Only way he gets traded is if we get a super good deal.

Thanks for the memories Greeny

Why does anyone think that the comment "if we had played a good side today we would have been belted" is insightful? We have played the top sides, we were belted, we know that. What we didn't know was how we would play against a bad team that managed to beat a team we lost to twice. We won easily and were never challenged, some players played better than they have all year (all career for Spencer), others played just ok, overall we won, great, thats all we can ask for. Essendon beat this team by 5 points, they've beaten some good teams and are in contention for the 8, meant nothing to them. Richmond smashed both of the premiership favourites yet lost to this team, didn't seem to affect their performance against top teams too much. Maybe if we can get winning against bottom teams right the confidence we gain will help us against the top teams, not how we look doing it.

I cheered Magner coming on, nothing to do with Cale, I like Magner, also didn't know Cale was injured, but as I said, my cheering had nothing to do with Cale. I thought we had brought on Magner as we were being smashed in the clearances at the time and I agreed with that descision so I cheered.

Culture has become a buzz word for winning in the afl, thats all it is, consistant success. It doesn't matter if half your team are smashed off their faces on coke, that your captain needs to be replaced as he's far too addicted to drugs to be the face of your club, that a mere 2 years after your success several players OD, one fatally. That is a terrible state of affairs for a club, but you know what, they won so hey great culture. It doesn't matter if one of your star players hangs out with bikie gangs, shoots up cop shops, if members of your leadership group lie to presidents and the police about serious car accidents, if members of your team are telling drug testers "you won't catch me" or if your head coach and assistant hate eachother and are on the brink of a meltdown due to a botched sucession plan. They won so their culture is great! It doesn't matter if your star player cares so little for your club that he leaves the place where he and his father become legends for a shitload of money to get flogged every week, or if your coach at the time abuses aforementioned star player for the same act he then pulls by abondining the club, lying about it and going behind admins back. They won, so you know what their culture is great! It doesn't matter if your team hate eachother because of 2 rape incidents, whilst other members take nude photos of eachother and let them end up on the internet causing major feuds, they still have great players and still win more than they lose, so their culture is far better than ours.... Its a chicken and egg argument, the only common thread I can see is that if you win more than you lose your 'culture' is better, end of story.

I stated in the pre match that this is one of the worst Melbourne teams I have seen on paper and I stand by that statement, as a result I will very happily take an easy win where we were never challenged. Spencer, Sellar, Morton, JMac, Bail, Dunn had all been terrible before this game and all played better than usual, Strauss and Gys are both coming back in after a long time off AFL footy, and Moloney leads a list of players horribly out of form. This was a good win in the context of the match, I can see at least 7 of those players dropping out of our best 22 next year to be replaced with far more quality, given that it was a good win.

GC were never within 5 goals of us after the first quarter, that is an easy beating, we can say it was a poor standard game etc etc but ultimately we got the job done and were never seriously challenged on the scoreboard. Thats good enough for me in a season where we have been so much worse...

It will be nice to see some 'Blues free' finals football

Must resign Blease, Jurrah (pending court case), Green for one year and Rivers. I will reserve judgement on the rest until the end of the season. Upgrade: Nicholson, Magner

This is the worst demons team I have seen for quite a while...

In that situation yes, as 15th season is pretty much over anyway, which is why it should be 14th to 18th raffling the first 4 and the rest in order. 13, 12, 11, 10 etc. For the large majority of any season 13th spot will be in the hunt for finals deep into the season, which makes tanking quite unlikely, any team with a chance of finals won't dream of it, also there is usually such a gulf between 13th and 14th that by the time the team coming 13th realises they aren't making finals tanking won't get them anywhere anyway. I do think its important under this system to reintroduce the priority pick, any team in the bottom 3 teams for three years should get one, no club in its right mind is going to try to be in the bottom three for three years, and if they do, they deserve it.

Wow, what a brave and insightful interview from Mr McLean. It really takes courage to come out and pot your former club when its at its absolute weakest whilst at the same time attempting to justify your own pathetic performance with the "I was forced not to try" argument. If you want to be a whistleblower, do it when you have something to lose, it gives it credibility. Also its only tanking if you had any chance to win in the first place. Its amazing to me that anyone would have a problem with experimentation with our list the year after a pathetic 2008. For those of you who think this tanking argument is legitimate go back and tell me which games we should have won, I was at all of them and I saw nothing to indicate we were capable of winning any game we lost. Trying our absolute hardest against RIchmond earlier in the season we won by 8 points, a goal after the siren 2 goal turnaround is far from giving up, FFS if we were trying to lose we did a bloody bad job of it. Warnock at FF had worked until Jordie Mcmahon had the highlight of his career. What people here seem to forget is that Dean Bailey and Brock McLean have nothing to lose from coming out and claiming tanking. Bailey attempts to justify his pathetic coaching record, McLean attempts to justify his pathetic season and pathetic cash-grab turn-coat move. Go back and read the articles where he goes on about how he 'wanted to play because of his family connection'. What this whole saga should have proved once and for all is that there is no point in whinging about priority picks, as they are not guarenteed success. Cheating means getting an unfair advantage, throwing the members of a pathetic team to different positions because they have been losing all season is not cheating, or tanking, its desperate measures for desperate times. Yet again an over-bloated football media searches for a way to continue to have shocking stories.

So you have us losing to GC and GC beating GWS? I really hope we can get over the suns, I fear the meltdown that may ensue...

How nice to have a competition for all finals spots only a few weeks out from the finals, so heres the thing, what will be the final 8, in order and who's your pick to go all the way? Here's mine: Hawthorn Sydney Adelaide Collingwood West Coast Geelong Essendon North Melbourne Hawthorn to win the lot in a tight Final against Sydney.

The ridiculously overblown love-in for Richmond this year is getting beyond a joke. If we would should model our team on a club that loses to Gold Coast, can't win tight important games, has played in less finals than Fitzroy in the last 30 years and is a front running team with a strong midfield, one kp forward and not a lot else then there is something seriously wrong. Richmond and Hardwick are exactly where we were in 2010, close to the finals, been close but not good enough with top sides, and could easily capitulate horribly with a few unlucky injuries and lack of depth next year.

Alot of talk about floggings in this thread, May well happen but for the record I think people are getting a bit carried away about North. Their performances against Adelaide and St Kilda were impressive, but really, beating half of Carltons best team (who haven't been impressive since early season) and narrowly downing a Richmond team that the week before lost to Gold Coast and was hardly impressive against us isn't the greatest. They did lose to Port as well.... not saying we will even get close, but in terms of who will be going deep in finals I think North has been highly over-rated. If they make it I see them going out week one. Sorry to sound overly vindictive but I am very sick of bandwagon football media where a few wins in a row = quality team.