Jaded No More

Point taken. I should have said that to call a guy holding down a key defensive spot and a leadership role 28 games into his career a liability, is stupid. I mean newsflash, player with less than 30 games experience struggles under attack of 74 balls. Seriously, we should sack him now! And please lets not make fools of ourselves by comparing Grimes to guys who were looking at getting delisted after 20 games or have been dumped and rookied. Grimes definitely has to work on his kicking. I'm sure he knows that and I'm sure he is working on it.

But I thought yelling was the answer to our problems, and Newton. Disappointing.

Also helped that they had an extremely high quality sub and we didn't (says a lot about the quality of their midfield that they can afford to have Lewis sit out half a game. We couldn't do the same with Moloney/Sylvia/Davey). They got so much extra run out of Lewis. It was a huge tactical error to use Maric as a sub. It probably made sense to give him another chance, but he is one of the worst types of players you can use as a sub. He is raw and he is totally one dimensional and unproven. The reason Ricky worked so well last week is because Sydney's sub was a tall, so he gave them little run when he came on, as opposed to Ricky who pushed hard against tiring defenders. We may as well have used Spencer as a sub for all the run and carry that Maric provided us, and that is not at all a knock on Maric. He just isn't the type of player who gives you want you need late in the game.

I agree. I WANT YELLING. I WANT EVERYONE TO YELL LOUDLY ALL THE TIME ABOUT STUFF. YELLING FIXES EVERYTHING. RAAAAAAAAAH

Pretty sure someone (Rivers?) spoke to the umpire in not too many kind words after he awarded that pathetic free against Grimes and that resulted in a 50m, which resulted in Rioli kicking from the goal square. Not that umpiring had anything to do with the result, but any chance of us not getting raped by them for once? Jamar's frees are the worst ones. He gets man handled like a little b*tch at every contest and never ever gets a free. It's stupid.

Our problems can best be summarised by concluding that we see far too much ball action down back and not enough in the sweet spot up front. We are pretty much fumbly teenage boys struggling to score. That supposedly improves with age. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

You know things have hit rock bottom for Melbourne supporters when Newton's name is being floated around repeatedly. I thought it might take us a bit more time than this, but what the hell it's round 2, we haven't won a game yet, Grimes can't kick and Scully is leaving, so BRING BACK NEWTON.

It's pretty much all your fault. You jinxed us with your pretty green stats. GTFO!

There is also a big difference between foot speed and ball movement speed. We can move the ball very quickly and transition into attack quickly, and we don't really have an issue with speed I don't think (remove guys like Jones from the equation and replace with Scully and that's a 50% improvement right there). It's when teams zone off against us that we are extremely slow in moving the ball, and that is something Bailey is no doubt working towards rectifying. When we were on in the second quarter we outran Hawthorn in numbers, but it's when we can't get first use of the footy that we are horrid and it makes us look much slower than we physically are. Our kick outs are too slow and if we win the ball while trying to flood back we take far too long to get numbers forward of the ball. Twice in the last quarter today we won the ball and had nobody to kick it to. I know that plenty of supporters around here cry that it's because we have no forwardline and nobody loves us and the world is ending, but it's pretty much because we haven't nailed that sort of quick transition footy that we need to apply when we enforce a turnover. It's also probably because we rarely enforce a turnover so we don't have a lot of practice

Stupid SEN gave me this.... "Col Garland with a medial ligament". That's it. SEN are dead to me with their crap reporting. That could bloody well mean anything! Edit: should note that I saw him jumping up and down on the boundary and he walked unaided on the field after the game. Still could mean anything.

I don't think your fitness is impacted greatly by a broken finger. He would have kept up his running one would assume, and is generally supremely fit and has great aerobic capacity anyway. If the finger is good, then straight in.

That comes down to our midfield and unfortunately in the past 3 years we've taken two steps back every time we've taken one step forward. We lost Junior, who may not have been our best players anymore, but he was experienced and strong. We gained McKenzie only to lose him to injury. Same with Scully. Same with Gysberts who couldn't get any momentum going last year due to injury. Jones has gotten worse, Davey due to heavy tagging has to play in a variety of roles and Morton spent half of last year out injured and has again missed the first two games of the season. We also lost Bruce this year, although it could be argued that he wasn't a midfielder anymore, nor was he much good. At the end of the day we have drafted plenty of talented midfielders who should, in time, rectify this one-side inside-50 situation... when they can all get on the field! At the moment we are relying on nobody but Moloney to consistently win the clearances, and while he is pretty good at that, he can't do it alone and he does lack a lot of class by hand and foot. I think Bail has been thrown in there and has proven to be quite good, and Grimes can definitely play in the guts if we find a good enough replacement for him down back. It's just very frustrating watching us get smashed at the contest every week, and we are lucky that we have a good backline who save our arse a lot of the time. Imagine us without Frawley, Garland and Grimes

WTF?! Martin has been excellent in the last two games. Great tap work, excellent ground coverage, good contested marking, good use of the footy. When has Newton EVER shown all that at AFL level? And Newton wouldn't have been able to go down back and line up on Hale. Dear god, if that change comes true I'm out.

Come on, if they kicked straight it would have been game over at quarter time. We had some breath taking moments in the second, and showed how good we can be when we win the contested footy, but they dominated in all but that one quarter. They are a far better team, with a far superior midfield and they'll get much further than us this year. If you believed otherwise than you believed the unjustified hype. In fact, I'm going to guess that the team that played them last year was more experienced than the team we had playing tonight.

How bad is the Garland injury? For me Jones continues to struggle in his primary role as an inside midfielder. I'd drop him and bring in Gysberts. We have to start to develop more options in the middle because we clearly don't have enough. Bail has been very good this year in that role, and Gysberts showed glimpses last year. He had a good game in the VFL by all reports, so he's in. If Garland is badly injured then McDonald comes in. We can't afford Rivers and Warnock in the same line up IMO. Maric could get dropped for Aussie, but I suppose he deserves more than 1.5 games to prove his worth. In: Gysberts, McDonald (if needed) Out: Jones, Garland (if injured). Lucky we are playing Brisbane next week! Edit: after reading the above, Morton comes in if fit. Bring in some class!!!

I need a midfield to love

FFS, Grimes is NOT undisciplined and he is NOT getting dropped. Find a new angle to this debate.

To call someone an absolute liability in their 28th match is an absolute joke. Yes, his kicking is sometimes terrible but it's the ones under no pressure that get to me, because 9 out of 10 bad kicks by Grimes is the direct result of having NOBODY to kick to. It looks better when Tapscott does it because he can bomb it 70m and get it further out from goal, but the result is still the same. I don't normally sit behind the goals but I did today, and I saw exactly what Grimes sees when he is kicking the ball.... shite all to kick to. Of course the job of a defender these days is partly to be able to clear opposition zones, but that is always made easier when your midfielders are moving and giving you targets.

6- Tapscott. The kid is awesome, and was better defensively than last week too, which was probably his only downfall in his first match. Gun. 5- Bail. Excellent work in the middle under immense pressure and with little support 4- Martin. An absolute revelation. Ran himself into the ground in all positions and did some excellent things, including good contested marks and good use of the footy. 3- Rivers. Much improved and showed why the coaching staff love him 2- Sylvia. When he is good, he is brilliant. Just wish he could do that for 4 whole quarters. 1- Watts. Definitely our most involved forward. Found a way to get into the game even when the forwardline was a dead zone. Good contested work in packs too.

Calling for his head when we drew one game and lost a game we knew we were going to, is ridiculous. There is no doubt he is under a lot more pressure than in previous years, and there are a few things that really irked me today. For one our lack of ability to stem the tide when Hawthorn got on top in the third, and our inability to clear the Hawthorn forward zone. The other really irritating thing for me and a serious tactical flaw was the use of Maric as a sub. Hawthorn had bloody Jordan Lewis as a sub, and our sub was a forward pocket who has proven little. I completely support Baily giving Maric opportunities after his great pre-season, but he is no sub material. We needed somebody who we know can make serious, immediate impact, the way Ricky did last week. It should have been Wonna given he can turn a game but isn't completely match fit yet. Of course there is also the issue of our midfield being completely and utterly hopeless when under pressure, and the fact that we can go through entire quarters without kicking a single goal. It's all very disappointing and it's all part of the experience. Unfortunately we are not good enough through the center to compete against seasoned, mature bodies. We are very lucky that Hawthorn's kicking at goal is pathetic or we would have been murdered. Bailey does have a lot to answer for after today, but to based his entire future on one game is seriously insane.

Dear god I was going to slit my wrists in the third term with our inability to clear the ball out of defense. Being at the game you could see Hawthorn zoning against us and yet each time we kicked to THE SAME SPOT. wtf??? How do we not have a different plan?! That has definitely been, along with our horrendous midfield, that we haven't been able to improve in 3 years. The coaching staff have a lot to answer for on this issue.

Hopefully it's out McDonald, Maric as sub. Chippa!!!!!

Agreed. Bell's ability to work and earn a living is no doubt now diminished due to the injuries he received while at Melbourne. We were his work place and he is therefore no less entitled to compensation than any other person injured on the job. He does not come across to me as greedy at all. But everyone is entitled to have their view on this issue.

I got quite upset reading that article this morning. As a big Belly fan I remember the amount of crap he copped on this site, so to read how upset he was after playing badly through no fault of his own is heartbreaking. He put his life in danger for our club and still remains one of, if not the bravest player I've ever seen play for us. To think of the horrific consequences he now has to live with as a result, is terrible. I hope he gets the help and compensation he deserves and that he goes on to live a long and healthy life. He deserves nothing less. Oh and while it is not Ben Johnson's fault, the guy is still a dog and I hope he felt sick reading the article today.

Please, what is the point of wasting Frawley's time at Casey? He trained last week and did more than half a pre-season. If he's given the all clear he comes straight in.