Jaded No More

Grimes in the best again. I command his motivation to keep giving a sh!t

On a positive note- Jayden Hunt!

Super furious about this loss because it was a game we lost as opposed to Adelaide winning. I know that young teams make mistakes but half a season in and we are still overusing the footy and we are still p!ss poor defensively when we lose possession. I thought our small forwards and Watts were good but Dawes is a liability and Hogan is a primadonna. Both were woeful defensively and both suffered a strong case of butter hands. On the other side Adelaide marked everything coming in, often uncontested as every defender in our team seems to be more interested in attacking than defending. I know this is all part of a learning game plan, but we just pulled curtains on our season because we just have not learnt from previous mistakes. Also can we please play Petracca on the ball more often?

Seems to work pretty well for Dawes and Hogan in getting regular games. Every player makes mistakes. We lost that game because we collectively sucked in the last quarter. We failed miserably defensively as we have on many occasion this year.

As I said, win clearances, win game. That quarter we dominated the centre clearances and it showed. I love Hunt. He is a gun!!!

Mark my words, Jayden Hunt will be a star!

Too man passengers. Getting slaughtered in the clearances. Dumb overuse of the footy again. Not manning up. Getting smashed defensively again. Lucky to be just 3 goals down. I'm thinking this could get real ugly real quick unless we start dominating the clearances, which I can't see happening against such a formidable midfield.

Dawes... I can't even!

Pretty peeved that Jones gets a game ahead of Grimes. Poor Grimes.

I can't understand how anyone can be against giving Grimes 2 more games. What, will it stop our very realistic tilt at a premiership this year? Will it take precious games away from kids who just need 2 more games to become elite players? Our playing group is made up of humans, and even if not every player on the list is best friends with Grimes, they must all be acutely aware that they too might find themselves in his position one day. The way we deal with this situation will show our young playing list that we are a club that either cares and looks after its players, or a club that treats its players like property. It might be the difference between a player wanting to stay at the club or go elsewhere. A few weeks ago Jack Watts spoke about how important it was for his career to have a coach like Roos who understands that players are human. We completely underestimate how important it is for these guys to feel like they are in a supportive environment that values them. Just like every one of us wants to work somewhere that we hope will do the right thing by us, so do footballers. I hope we give Grimes 2 more games, and I believe we will.

I'm just glad I don't need to venture outside in this Antarctic weather to watch footy!

Hunch or sauce?

Goddamn VFL fixtures. Casey having a bye really stuffs us, as it doesn't give Brayshaw or Garlett a chance to push for selection.

My biggest worry, as this should have been monitored. Thyroid issues never "go away" so they can't just return. They are always there. It's like having type 1 diabetes, it has to be managed, it doesn't just go away. Salem should be having 6 monthly blood tests, maybe even quarterly given his profession, to check his thyroid levels and adjust his meds if required. Now maybe this was happening already, but such a drastic change in thyroid function which causes weight loss etc... seems odd and concerning. Hopefully a switch of meds will do the trick.

Jetta and Matt Jones were also "cooked" at Melbourne, as was Michie. All got another chance to redeem themselves. Grimes is doing everything he can at VFL level, yet isn't getting a game. I am not sure why, as he is better than Jones and Michie, and has as many credits as Jetta did when dropped to the rookie list. I guess as with everything in life, some people get multiple chances to prove themselves, and others don't. A real shame, as Grimesy probably deserves better.

Fair to say that Bernie is playing with fire, and it is getting too close for comfort. He needs to be careful, we can't afford to lose him from the side.

He had sooky tendencies last year. I pointed them out on this board and got shot down. I think he just feels more comfortable on the field now, so there is perhaps a sense of entitlement to complain more than he did last year. His body language has gotten better the longer the season has gone on, but he is not a perfect player and anyone who refuses to see that is just being blinded by the potential. Is he an amazing talent? Yes. Is he playing beyond his years and experience? Yes. Does he need to do better defensively and watch his body language? Yes.

Not since Travis Johnston have we had a player with so much time. He just finds time and space where there is non. Always been talented but is finally combining talent with hunger for the contest. One of the highlights of this season. Well done to him!

Article needs less Mark Neeld

Hopefully Brayshaw is good to go.

Thyroid problems can't be cured. They can be well managed by medication. An overactive thyroid, which is what it sounds like he has, is harder to manage than an underactive one. We just need to hope they get the medication levels right. It's something you need to keep testing and adjusting as your thyroid functions are never really stable. I'm concerned that this isn't a new issue, but an issue that has resurfaced. Either it wasn't managed properly, or its gotten much worse really quickly.

It feels like we're progressing slower than any other developing team. I guess when you need to rebuild the rebuild of the rebuild, you get that. Maybe I'm just sick of waiting, but we make such tiny incremental inroads only to reverse back 600km every other week.

While selection and coaching isn't solely to blame, today was another example of both of these elements being very poor. We again went in unchanged instead of bringing in a couple of fresh legs. Sydney made a lot of changes, and actually some of their fresher legs had good games. From the get go they had McVeigh playing the sweeping role, and they put Kennedy on him which is a terrible match up! Why didn't they put Bugg up there to play a defensive forward role? Our setup in the centre bounces was atrocious, and did not make any use of having a serious advantage in the ruck with Gawn taking on a spud like Sinclair. Defensively again we tried that idiotic diamond defence, the worst possible day to stick with this structure as monsoonal rain calls for quick kicks up forward, putting our zoning defenders in bad positions. It wasn't under the third quarter that we smartened up, by which point it was too late. Our midfield had a stinker, we needed to tackle hard, and we didn't. We let too many Sydney players run free forward of the ball, and couldn't even win crucial centre clearances. I thought Dawes played good wet weather footy, but Hogan was atrocious. His second efforts were non existent. Only Vince, Petracca and Watts know how to play wet weather footy. The rest made mind boggling decisions with the ball, especially coming off half back. We tend to make dumb decisions even in the dry conditions, but in the wet those decisions were magnified and were super costly. Overall it's not disappointing to lose to Sydney, but it is disappointing to see us not learning from our Hawthorn game experience, and once again making easily rectifiable decisions at the selection table!

What an absolutely pathetic last quarter. Too many passengers today, not working hard enough off the ball, nobody wants to tackle, rubbish defensive efforts all over the ground. And Roos absolutely taking the [censored] not tagging McVeigh. Just goes to show that as a team we are still 10 goals behind decent teams. That is a gap that will take at least 3 years to breach, and lets hope other teams don't go past us like they have previously!

MelbourneFC- making spuds look like triple cooked chips since 2007!