Jaded No More

I agree. He isn't soft in the sense of ducking out of contests. He just lacks serious intensity. Sometimes I wonder if he's fallen into a coma on the field. Then he does things like he did today, chasing the ball on the wing, looking back, seeing he is surrounded by crap, and deliberately taking it over the line. Carlton supporters around me were calling that soft, but it wasn't, it was being smart and knowing you're more likely to get a neutral contest by taking the ball over, then trying to thread the needle to a teammate. It's annoying because he's so damn talented. He just needs a shot of tequila every once in a while.

I wish for us to finish last*. It beats finishing 16th and having to pay a first round pick for Viney. If we're going to suck, and we are, might as well make the most of it. Bring on sweet sweet draft picks and Jack Viney for a second rounder. Let us at least excel at being horrible and get some gun midfielders out of it. Plus first pick in the PSD which is bound to have at least one "free agency case gone horribly wrong". *I do not endorse tanking. Finishing last must be a natural by-product of being crap.

When you are coming off a 101 point loss, anything is an improvement, but after 4 years of list development, you'll forgive me that I look at the scoreboard at the end of the game and I feel sick because I watched 21 players fall apart and kick 1 miserable goal in a half of footy. It's just not enough anymore to be happy about improvement so miniscule and so insignificant, that it doesn't even get us within 4 goals of our opponent. Who BTW played like crap, and had their own supporters booing them at 3/4 time.

I like it because I've been on his bandwagon for ages. Besides meaningless positives is saying we were equal in inside 50's at 3/4 time. Awesome I can hardly contain how happy I am about that!

6- Mckenzie 5- Jones 4- McDonald 3- Magner 2- Blease 1- Grimes Bail and Nicho worked hard but some of their ball use was woeful.

It's exhausting always being so disappointed. We were competitive enough for 2 quarters. But to be happy with that is to concede utter life defeat. I know some smart arses will bang on about meaningless positives, but at the end of the day we lost by a large margin again. We were invisible for a whole quarter. We got thrashed in the clearances. We are 0-9. So forgive me for not giving two shits about the positives because they do nothing to override the sinking feeling that the light at the end of the tunnel is actually an oncoming train carrying horse manure.

We don't even know how to lose with dignity. 3 OK quarters and then garbage. Our midfield makes baby Jesus cry. And if Watts showed any less intensity I'd think he was in a coma.

Joel Selwood. OMG do I love Joel Selwood. Also Jonathan Brown in his glory days. Amazing.

CARLTON CARLTON CARLTON, 100 TIMES CARLTON Please FFS I cannot handle losing to that scumbucket of a club. They sicken me.

I don't mind that we dropped the underperforming players, but FFS could those 'ins' be any less inspiring? We've spent years list managing to end up with so many average players. Depressing.

Yeah but I don't give a crap if Moloney gets shown up, I care if Taggart gets smashed into a pulp by Judd and any steps he made at Casey are shattered along with his confidence. Don't get me wrong, I want these lazy sooks out as much as anyone, but you keep getting rid of Bruce, Robbo, Yze and Junior and you are left with a bunch of kids who can barely run out a game, let alone physically compete. It has to be done gradually and it has to be done right. Neeld can't keep putting players out for public execution. I might not like Davey, but he probably makes Bennell walk taller. I may think that Moloney is a flat track bully, but I'm sure Bail feels safer when he's around. If you think that replacing these senior players with kids on Thursday night will help us get any closer to a win on Sunday, then you are sadly mistaken. We will still lose, by a lot, and damage a whole host of under-cooked kids. Besides, I want to get maximum value out of Sylvia, Moloney and Davey if/when they [censored] off at the end of the year. Playing at Casey won't achieve that.

Except that so far all Neeld seems to have done is further plunge us into the depth of despair. Our players act defeated before the first bounce. Kids who showed promise last year have regressed so far back into their shells, it's frightening. Nobody is doing anything positive on the field, not even the players we know are talented and tough and promising. So yes it is absolutely Neeld's job and I do not envy him, but I also don't think he's gone about it the right way. From the outside looking in, it seems like the players are either not buying what he's selling, or too shell shocked to process the message.

True, but where does the collateral damage stop? What if Frawley and Jones want out too? What if Trengove, Howe, Watts and Blease are sick of playing for a bottom feeding team? What if Clark thinks "well I got my millions and nobody else seems to give a sh*t, so why bother"? You can't throw the baby out with the bath water. There are ways of going about it, and for years now, we've gone about it in the least dignified way.

I am also happy to see them all go, but I am not happy for Trengove to keep getting smashed and lose whatever little confidence he has left, because he is 20 and surrounded by 27 year olds with no leadership skills. I am not happy for McDonald, Grimes and Frawley to see 197 forward entries because our midfield is not even physically mature enough to contest a ball up. I am not happy for Howe , Watts and Blease to keep playing in losing teams. I am not happy for Clark to get injured in the ruck. And I am definitely not happy to lose by 20 goals to Carlscum. There is two sides to every story. We can punish the senior players, and we should, but then we also need to understand that by doing so, we are also punishing the younger players who desperately need the physical support and the experience. We may not see the value in these players, but they do.

Correct. And whether we like to admit it or not, it's not a simple case of "stuff the old players, they are no good anyway". If out of a list of 44 players, the 8 most experienced and better players have had enough, then we are in big trouble. You don't magically replace your best and most senior players, and you certainly do nothing for the younger players by putting those guys out on the sidewalk for the garbage truck to collect. The way we treated Junior impacted a lot of players, not just Junior. If you work for an organisation that doesn't respect or appreciate the loyalty of their employees, you're not likely to work very hard for that business. Jamar and Moloney can say "I gave you the best years of my career and got no success for it, and now you're treating me like yesterday's fish and chips". To us it might be infuriating as supporters, but these players are people and nobody likes a new boss coming in and treating you like you're a worthless idiot. There is a way to implement a new regime and there is a way to just [censored] a whole lot of people off. Neeld's first job should have been to sell these players the dream, and maybe he did, but it's hard to keep believing when you get smashed every week, your leadership title has been taken away from you, and the media thinks you're lazy and undisciplined. And the hardest thing is coming back to that mindset of caring for the organisation, because once you turn against something, it's hard to change back. And please don't think that I am sticking up for our crappy, lazy, spoilt senior players, because I'm not, but at some point we have to acknowledge that we are dealing with dozens of human beings who on some level must just feel like they've wasted their whole career. Yes they are partly to blame, but what sort of football department do we have, if they can't bring the boys back to a good place mentally, so much so, that we are getting demolished before the game even starts. Players not giving anything is a sign of players who don't have anything to give.

Agreed. Pointless statement to appease the peanuts.

It's like thinking you're going to have your leg cut off and then being told you'll only lose a toe. Crappy, but so much better than first thought. Phew! Thanks Rudeboy. God knows we can use some mediocre news, as opposed to really really really shite ones.

I'm waiting for someone to do the Hitler one. Come on computer nerds with a sense of humour, get cracking!

Well I guess we can always find ourselves in the midst of a group sex scandal? Although hard to imagine how that would work when our players are always so soft. OK, now my comedy routine has hit rock bottom too.

Can I make a stand by going to the game and then proceeding to spend the next 3 hours holding back my urges to cry while simultaneously projectile vomiting and swearing, instead?

Both games are as bad as each other and a sad reflection on the deep-seeded incompetence of the club. Difference is, I still gave a crap when we lost by 186. Now it all rolls into a big pile of "meh".

Best. Week. Ever. Who doesn't love being a Melbourne supporter. I know I get heaps of joy and satisfaction out of it.

Just for that I hope you never ever play again Sylvia, you [censored]!

They were taping Jurrah's fingers. It's definitely not his wrist.

No, he seems frustrated and lost for answers.