Jaded No More

Well if he needs surgery, clearly he'll miss games. Wonderful, just wonderful. :(

Correct. Last year, we improved with each passing round. Our loss in Round 3 was very encouraging, and was very nearly a win against a top side. Sunday's loss was the worst of the three. The game plan, the skills and the attitude were vastly different to last year, as is the injury list. Nothing similar about this year and last, except where we are in terms of games won. We can still turn the season around and make the 8, but we'll only be making up numbers yet again. This year was meant to be a step forward, at best we'll remain stagnant.

I don't think you'll find a lot of posters who don't go to games as some sort of punishment to the club. I go every week, and I stay until the final siren even if we are getting our arses handed to us on a plate (like on Sunday). Let me ask you this, do you blindly support every player who pulls on a Melbourne gurnsey, or are you enough of a realist to recognise that some players (if not all) have their downfalls? How is that any different to Daniher? Yes, he's done a great job promoting our football club. He has battled on despite board upheavals, draft penalties, poor finances and facilities and so on, but his primary job (as he said himself) is to win games. As a 10 year coach, he needs to be judged on his performances, not in isolation, but over the whole 10 year period. 7 years ago he got us to a grand final. 4 years ago, we were bottom 4. For the past 3 seasons who scrapped into the top 8 and were extremely disappointing in September. All this while having a relatively good run with injuries. This year we will no doubt struggle because we have significant injuries. Nobody blames Daniher for that, but in the big scheme of things we will again be unsuccessful. Bottom line is, he hasn't got us what we all want, a premiership. Does that make him a bad person? Of course not. Does that make him a bad coach? Not even. Does that make him a candidate for criticism? Absolutely. A lot of supporters, myself included, don't want to get rid of Daniher for the sake of getting rid of him. We want him gone because we can't see a change happening any other way. BTW, I've always maintained that it's not who you criticise, but how you do it.

Lets wait for some sort of official confirmation before we all go slash our wrists. If proven to be correct, I'll be first in line.

The club comes before the individual, any individual, be it a player or a coach. Everyone who posts here has the best interests of the club at heart. Some believe that Daniher's coaching is no longer in our best interests. You can hardly blame Melbourne supporters for being frustrated, fed up and ready for a change. You've been reading these boards long enough to know that the calls for Daniher to be replaced are nothing new. In his 10th year as coach, and still no premiership, time seems to be well and truly ticking. It will be unfortunate if in the end, a long and miserable injury list, is what brings him down. Mind you, our issues run deeper than our injury list. Edit: I hate to shatter your dreams, but we are no chance to finish top 4, which means we are no chance to win a premiership, which makes all the points I made above valid.

Save your money and come to the Queens B'day match. Without a doubt, the most exciting H&A match we play each year. The atmosphere is amazing, and we're every chance to win.

I'm not letting myself entertain the thought of a win. I think that once again a lot will depend on team selection, and who is available. If we lose Moloney, and don't regain at least one of Pickett or Sylvia, we're in serious trouble. Rivers is also a must. I'll be there... I always am. Just hope we get a happy ending this week!

Yes, lets delist a bottom-age recruit in his third season. He is clearly the biggest issue we have. I think the only way to win a flag is if we keep holding onto Godfrey and Brown and Bizzell. Also, lets bring back Woewodin. If only we delisted Johnstone after three seasons...

Yep, or why it took so long to get Brad Green to FF. Or why, despite the fact that our only chance to score would come from a small, mobile, quick forward line, we still went into the side with a surplus of giants who can't run, mark or kick goals. Injuries do not excuse the terrible skills that were on display yesterday, and definitely don't excuse the shocking game plan (or lack thereof)

I agree, it was woeful. Reminded me of being at a funeral... which is indicative of not only the sounds of the trumpet, but also the mood of the crowd. I think they said he'll be there for every home game we play at the G' this year. Heaven help us!

There are some things that I'm not going to say in a public forum. You can take my word for it or not, that's up to you. I don't think I've ever come here and made allegations just for the sake of big-noting myself. As for Judd, I'm not saying we'll get him, hell I'm not saying he'll leave West Coast, but if he does want out I'd hope that like a lot of other clubs, we at least entertain the thought of getting him and make a serious push to gain his services. What would I be prepared to give? Anyone that is not wearing the #5 jumper (and I'd think twice about trading Rivers too). The rest are expendable, especially some of our more fancied senior players. Not saying we should give up an arm and a leg to get him, but he'd be more productive and useful than 3 or 4 of our senior players combined (which probably shows you how interested West Coast will be in our second-rate midfielders).

Can't make a team until we know what's happening with Rivers, Moloney, Sylvia, Dunn and Pickett. If they are all fit and able to play, they all need to come in and you can pick 5 players at random who can go back to Sandy. Choosing who needs to go is the easy part, replacing them with something better is the issue. One thing is certain, we cannot play with all of White, Jamar, PJ, Holland and Ferguson. That's too many one-dimensional (at best), slow talls. I'm sure we'll keep the first 3, and give PJ another go as a defender. Holland will no doubt be back to take on the remaining Rocca brother, or someone similar, very soon. Ferguson is just not up to it. I love his courage and his endavour, but he is too slight to play one-on-one defensive footy. We need to inject this team with some class and some football brains, or else I'm afraid we're competing on a primary school level. Freo may be 0-3, but they can still kick a football, a crucial aspect in today's game I believe Edit: Yes, Wheatley's kicking is ok, but I counted 3 separate incidents yesterday in which he refused to go at the man with the footy. That's always been his issue, looking a million bucks when he has space in front of him, but having absolutely no idea how to apply any sort of pressure going the other way. He'll stay, but gees at least Ward chases and tackles (albeit the fact that he's often chasing his own man, who he got 100m away from).

I think you'll find some people at board level have already started looking to the future. Say what you like about us at the moment, but at least our administration knows what the the hell they're doing. I agree with you RR, we need to start the process as early as we possibly can, especially given the amount of list manipulation a new coach will have to do, and the fact that this trade period may be very important given Judd is out of contract.

Because I rather we persist with young players who one day might actually win us a premiership, than keep promoting players who were not good a few years ago, and are still no good now. If Daniher really thought that CJ was woeful and needed to be dropped, despite not playing him in his rightful position over the last 2 weeks, the least he could have done is brought in a replacement runner. As it was, we were stuck with having too many tall, slow players on the bench, while Geelong ran like Forrest Gump down the middle.

I love you Belly, seriously... I do! It's great when your love- child from way back starts to come good and proves everyone wrong, especially given how much negative comments were made about him since his debut. Every small defender in our side can learn from him at the moment. Getting involved in the play does not mean you have to be unaccountable. Good defenders do both, and Belly is a good defender.

I know it is. I'm hoping like hell that as he matures, so does his body. The foot injury was just a stupid freak accident. The soft tissue injuries on the other hand... But lets not talk about that. He's the only hope I got left

Which is further proof that none of our senior players are capable of taking over the captaincy from Neita. A sad and worrying sign, but one we've known about for a long time. I remember people complaining about a lack of leadership in 03 as well. Thank god for Brock McLean!

It's not just about kicking goals, it's about presenting and giving us a target up forward. Otherwise our players will have even less options to kick to. However, if Dunn is fit and selected, than yes it would be an option. But we need a marking target up forward regardless. In a perfect world, Rivers plays next week and dominates Pavlich, while Miller, Green and Dunn dominate up forward.... *nods off to la la land*

There are two separate issues here: The first is that yes, we are seriously lacking in skills. Kicking is awful, as is handballing to stationary players. The other issue is that nobody, with the exception of Miller, presents or makes the hard lead. A lot of the time, players will stand there and have no clear winner to kick to. So we kick to a one-on-one contest (at the best of times, sometimes three-on-one), and we lose most of those because a lot of our players can't take a contested mark. So that's three issues really, which are further accentuated by this game-plan, that I cannot for the life of me work out. Are we running and carrying? are we kicking long? or are we flooding and playing tempo footy? It's all very confusing and mysterious.

6- Bell (accountable while providing solid drive. Keeps on keeping on) 5- Jones (needs help!) 4- Moloney (he goes and goes, despite being clearly limited by fitness and groin issues) 3- Green (good forward target, the only one) 2- Bruce (his disposal is painful, but at least he gets his hands on the ball) 1- Miller (poor goal kicking lets him down, but not as much as teammates kicking over his head all the time)

I think RR is just being cruel Miller is the only tall marking forward we have left. No way is he playing on Pavlich. I can feel a 10 goal burst coming up from the Pav. Thank god Farmer is still suspended!!!

Yep, but he came back on (despite not looking 100%). I hope he didn't cause further damage. It's not as if we were a chance to win and we needed him out there! :angry:

If Rivers is not right for next week, who lines up on Pavlich? Bruce?

Make that two. I like to suffer. <_<

Ward has something that we desperately need, which is pace. I'm not a fan, and his kicking is woeful, but until Bartram is fit and playing, Ward will get a game. That's just how it is. Yze should have come out breathing fire today. He layed one big tackle, which resulted in a free to Geelong. He used to be a leader, and in the absence of so many leaders, he should have been out there putting his hand up and giving us something. He didn't. RR, I don't care whether Dunn or Pickett were named in the best. I just care that they are fit enough to come back into the side and give us some class and hardness. I assume that Dunn played a full game, given he could still keep up his fitness with the sort of injury he had. As for Bryon, Daniher said during the week he'll get another game for Sandy this week and play seniors in Round 4. I'm just hoping that he's right, because we could use Pickett. CJ was wrongly picked on last week. In a team that had 18 odd passengers, he was the one that paid the price. We could have used his running and his skills today, especially on the wing or up forward (as he is not a defender).