Jaded No More

I don't think people actually understand what Plan B is. Plan B is not changing your match ups, throwing a loose man behind the ball, or dropping players. A plan B for Melbourne is playing the wings instead of the corridors, it's moving the ball slowly with long kicks instead of with a chain of handballs and so forth. Even when we are 6 goals down, we still don't retreat to a different style, and we won't, and that's the right thing to do. Fundamentally, we are about moving the ball quickly by hand through the middle of the ground. Sometimes we do that with an extra man down back, sometimes we do it with 4 talls up forward, sometimes with 4 smalls, but nothing ever changes the fundamental rules of how we play. Teams that wildly and chaotically change styles from quarter to quarter and game to game never succeed, which is why very few teams actually have these so called Plan B's. Because if your Plan A fails so badly that you need a Plan B, you're screwed either way.

The game plan is fine, what needs work is our level of experience, our decision making and our execution by foot. Also, a forwardline that contains players that can actually play in the forwardline. All in good time. Having a Plan B in football is having two crap Plan A's. It's an admission of failure.

That's also what I want to know, when it is clear that good backlines win you premierships.

Hard to disagree with that, but I do hope that Strauss takes over from Grimes in the coming years, which will allow Grimes to move into the midfield. This gives us two advantages, one being Strauss' sublime footskills (Grimes is good, but Strauss is something else), and the other is of course having all the goodness that is Grimes running around with Scully, Trengove, McKenzie, Gysberts, Blease, Morton and so forth. Mouthwatering stuff!

This thread is full of fail

The pressure today was completely different to the Power game. Huge crowd, big TV audience and the pressure to perform on the big stage. I'm probably wrong and he just had a stinker of a day in front of goal, but some days I do wish we had more senior players who consistently delivered when it mattered... or more than one at least. We missed Junior today.

Will no doubt get killed for posting this, but his costly misses today highlight to me why we've been so bad for so long, because our senior players always struggle when the pressure is on. Now I love Brad Green, and he is one of our better players and leaders, but his misses today were very very costly for someone who was the second oldest and most experienced player on the ground. He was very quiet in the first half, and then got on top of his opponent in the second, and there should have been no excuses for him to miss three simple shots in perfect conditions. I wonder whether he would have missed if we were 10 goals down. Also, please don't waste your time abusing me, because I love Brad Green and he is awesome and bla bla bla

Stop hating, the world is a much nicer place when you don't see the negatives in everything. Also, if you thought Morton had a shocker today, you probably also hate cute puppies and bunnies, and hence I'm a bit worried that you enjoy reading my posts.

Not every player needs to win contested possessions, but every player needs to go hard when required. Morton does not flinch. He stands his ground and goes hard when required, but what he does best is find SPACE. He either smells really bad, or he has that remarkable ability to run his opponent into the ground and then run away from them to find space in traffic and provide a target. He is also incredibly smart, makes great decisions and is a very good user of the footy (if anyone comes and [censored] about his kicking I'm gonna have to them hurt them). He takes a mean contested mark, and his endurance is up there with the best. He has exactly what it takes to become a truly sensational utility player, or possibly a CHF.

You really didn't get the point of what I posted, did you? Frawley would get lost on the lead, he would get lost in the air, he would get hammered for terrible decision making and terrible disposal. Frawley is now a gun of the highest order. Frawley did not get the external attention that Watts received, despite being very ordinary in his first couple of seasons, because at pick 12 he was able to remain largely anonymous in the media. Watts does not have that luxury, but should be afforded the sort of patience that most supporters did not give Frawley, and likewise Garland. A KPP is NOT a dud just because he doesn't set the world on fire in the first 8 games of his career. Likewise he is not a dud because idiots think he lacks intensity, or has no awareness because he got tackled. One day when Jack Watts kicks a bag, this board will go into meltdown with "OMFG JACK WATTS IZ AWESOME!!!1" and "I told you so" threads. I can hardly wait

Interesting that you gave Scully votes, since you watched the game on TV (I'm assuming?), because when you're at the ground it's very hard to appreciate the sort of work that this kid does in the packs.

Rubbish news. This disease is a f$@%er of the highest order. All the best Jimmy!

You can draw a comparison closer to home too. James Frawley was written off as a complete dud in his first two season. He is now one of our best players, and one of the best young defenders in the competition. He is also a tank. I still remember face-palming myself after reading the rubbish written about Frawley on here. The difference was, he wasn't a first pick and so the external pressure on him wasn't so high. Also, thank you for starting another Jack Watts thread and killing a puppy!

Class always rises to the top. Amazing to think that we had posts here recently calling for both Morton and Garland to be dropped

6. Jamar (I'm not giving Moloney top votes because without Jamar, Moloney would struggle to win so much of the ball) 5. Moloney 4. Morton 3. Garland 2. Frawley 1. Bartram Our backline saved us today. They were on fire!

Agreed. Look at the tackle count, and that should tell you everything you need to know about how lucky we were to get some points out of that match. We were horrible in the first quarter, and are lucky to be blessed with a wonderful backline, and a great ruckman, or we would have lost by 100. Definitely nowhere near good enough today to actually feel shattered about a loss.

robbed? We were lucky not to lose by 10 goals. Today's lesson is once again, play like crap at the start of the game and you will lose. Poor first quarters are killing us and frankly they are becoming a bit of a joke. We were lucky to get 2 points.

Won't somebody please think of the puppies!! Being at the ground you can see that he works hard and he knows how to position himself and where to kick. His were the best two field kicks of the day.

I/C (from): Colin Garland, Cale Morton, Jordan Gysberts, Nathan Jones, Jack Watts, Paul Johnson, Jamie Bennell Doubt they'll risk Jones, and PJ is like the least likely interchange selection of all time (unless Jamar is injured, in which case we are f$%^ked). The final bench spot will come down to Garland and Bennell. I think we need Garland down back, and again Rivers is one lucky bastard to retain his spot after some very very poor performances. On the other hand Bennell has been in decent form, but was disappointing last week. Toss of the coin for me on this one.

Brad Miller called, he's devastated you've taken away his one trophy.

I actually think most posters here don't understand what the process of recovering from a broken bone can be like. The bone may be healed, but there are a lot of associated problems that could occur as a result of a severe break. I can only use myself as an example, but a broken patella 6 months ago has caused severe tendonitis which requires me to have autologous blood injections (that's having your own blood injected back into the body) in the my knee and patella tendon. The tendonitis means the muscle dystrophy in my upper leg and thigh cannot be resolved for now. So you see, one issue can easily lead to another, but that doesn't mean that healing won't eventually occur. I'll make a full recovery and I'm no footballer, and so will Blease. Sometimes, the best thing you can do, is just give the body time.

And IMO Junior will and should play in 2011. Problem solved.

Beamer and Green are short term solutions, because neither are ideal candidates (Green more due to age than anything else), which is why we need to bite the bullet and hand the captaincy to someone who can do the job for the next 10 seasons. That man is Jack Grimes.

God people talk a lot of [censored] on this site.

Very well deserved!