Demon Dynasty

Rnd 15, 2020 Cazaly's Stadium - Demons vs Dockers Pretty much a repeat of the Rnd 3 match vs the Cats with SG effectively giving up the forward half of the ground and keeping a spare behind the ball early, almost as if he had conceded the match from the get go. And that we did, with the Dockers constantly peppering the goals early and probably should have had a bigger lead at quarter time given the breeze and the amount of time in their forward half. IMHO this is a strategy only worth using to ice a quarter, a game or to maybe prevent the opp from scoring further after a 3 to 4 goal run on. This is NOT the way you want to play assuming you want to win games at this level, aside from those reasons listed. I'm not sure why SG believes this is the way to set up at any stage in a match otherwise. That he does so from the get go beggars belief. But, we've seen it before so i guess history repeats when the coach doesn't learn from his past errors. After the monsoon started, we then continued to look to handball more often than not and look for sharp passing up the line. We also left the fat side open much of the time (our forward half robbed to have the spare down back enhancing this insane strat) inviting them to switch much of the time, which they did. All this happened right from the first bounce, allowing Freo to rack up easy possessions out the back. They had the ball, we didn't. Brought many of their players in to touch and they got their tails / confidence up. Terrible terrible coaching on our part at this level. For an ordinary club at VFL level this wouldn't be acceptable for long, let alone AFL level. After nearly 4 seasons i can only assume he is a VERY poor coach with little understanding of the "why/how & the who" that's required to set up the team to win on a regular basis. A great example of this is to leave Lockhart out and bring Pruess in, leaving us short a small defender down back (weather forecast MFC....anyone home!?) and playing Walters in to some long missing form. Awful awful coaching at all levels including match day selection. The MFC has never heard of using a last minute emergency to cater for the conditions? Our worst team score for the season and our 2nd worst bottom 6 score for the year behind Rnd 8 vs the Lions. Rain obviously playing a part so not taking any stats too seriously here but our team score, allowing for this season's 20% less game time, was a massive 22% off the awful 2019 average and 30% lower than 2018's. Against one of the worst performing team's this season. Finals on the line and can't get over the line two weeks in a row against two bog ordinary teams. Amateur hour from the MFC.... yet again. Player Score Rank Christian Petracca 3.600 1 Jack Viney 3.450 2 Max Gawn # 2.825 3 Trent Rivers 2.775 4 Clayton Oliver 2.450 5 Aaron Vandenberg 2.300 6 Bayley Fritsch 2.150 7 Oskar Baker 1.650 8 Ed Langdon 1.550 9 Jake Lever 1.525 10 Steven May 1.525 11 Sam Weideman 1.375 12 Jake Melksham 1.175 13 Michael Hibberd 1.125 14 Adam Tomlinson 1.000 15 Joel Smith 0.950 16 Kysaiah Pickett 0.950 16 Jayden Hunt 0.650 18 Christian Salem 0.650 19 Toby Bedford 0.600 20 Braydon Preuss 0.225 21 Alex N-Bullen 0.000 22 Team Score 34.500 Top 6 17.400 Bottom 6 3.075 # Hit outs to advantage not captured Stats courtesy of footywire.com

There is no point selecting a new coach until you replace the present hierarchy who failed the club by extending SGs contract for an insane 3 years. That decision alone tells me they are not up to getting the next candidate right either. The club (and it's awful willingness to except mediocrity culture) needs fixing from the top down. Barring a few individuals (underlings) who i'm sure have the right intentions and trying their best, the top brass / hierarchy needs replacing before we start the search or you will only get another poor outcome and we'll be back here in 5 years discussing the same conundrum. Just as we did with the late Dean Bailey, just as we did with Neeld, just as we are now doing with Goody. Actually it will be longer than 5 years. 2 more years of failure under SG. Appoint new rookie/inexperienced coach touted by Pert / board as the new messiah. 2 years contract. 1st year promising so they extend for a further 2 years. Fail. Pert and Co. given the boot / walk after failing again. Appoint new CEO / board / FD and running with same coach for part of the next season/then a caretaker coach for the last part....1 year further. That's 7 more years of ineptitude and failure before resetting the top hierarchy (a la PJ era with help of AFL....again) and starting all over again Have to break the never ending cycle (culture) of failure. Fix the head first or be back here again in 7 years with nothing to show and pretty much the entire existing playing list...done and dusted or gone to other clubs.

Not just Mahoney. Pert needs to go as well. He's been a disaster from day one with his first major effort the signing and anointing of SG into a rediculous extension that has committed this club to 3 further years of failing. This club has stuffed up its coaching selections/contracts on plenty of other occasions but this ranks up there with the best of the worst decisions it's witnessed. The fish rots from the head.

I like the idea but why would he bother coming back to the club that treated him so poorly Dazzle?

Saty's brother?

Christmas!

“It’s great for the Club to announce, prior to the season starting, that Simon Goodwin has signed on for the next four years,” Pert told the club’s website. “It is certainly a show of confidence from the Board, Josh Mahoney and myself in Simon as a coach and what he is producing out on field, but also the culture that he is building in our football department. “This is the Board signing off that these are the people, this is the leadership, this is the program and this is the culture that we believe will take the Melbourne Football Club to where we want to go over the next four years. It’s an investment in those people and the program, so that makes it pretty exciting.” It's time for Perty, Mahoney and all other board members who ratified this rubbish extension to pack their bags and walk as well. They were complicit in this whole extension debacle and the signing of such a long extension on a rookie coach was/is negligent and indefensible.

Who should our next board be? These blokes have committed us to two more years, unnecessarily, of this rubbish. Don't blame Goodwin. We need a new coach but the board must go as well. Useless bunch of nuff nuffs.

gotta admire Ed... one of the few that shows he really wants it week in and week out

Yep we always pull everything out when we're well behind. Thid club is so predictable and easy to beat.

Weid clearly held by the jumper at least twice in that forward contest but nothing. Then of course the tiggy touch to Freo straight after. Jokefest. Why THE [censored] are we still zoning in the wet. Find a man you [censored] IDIOTS, with the ball and / or pressure the crap outta them. Allowing FREO to win the ground balls, dish off and run through traffic with virtually no pressure. Goody you've had years to teach this basic stuff. What the [censored] are you teaching them? It took an age for Gawn to wake up there in the back pocket and finally handball to Hibb but by then Freo had set their wall up beautifully. Max you're ok but FCS don't over think it and think you're a great kick. Just look for the quick handball and get on with it. So much dumbness in this group after 3 seasons plus under Goody its incredible. They all need to own this BS method/way/style and skills. It's not AFL worthy.

Fritta's handball ... why. In the wet thats just one extra too many. Dumb dumb dumb footballer on the ground. One trick pony in the air. Learn how to play SMART ground ball footy FFS as that"s where it spends most of its time!

Viney does some good work inside there on the wing. Handballs to Tracc. Why not the shepherd after that to give Tracc some extra space / time??

That high ball to the 30 meters out.... we have how many smalls in this team tonight and not ONE was front & square. Ball spills to the front...Freo run on to it and rebound in a flash.

Viney how the hell do you manage to pick out a Docker on the chest. Too funny. We just have zero ability inside 50. And of course as i say that we hit a forward on the chest with a laser pass ?

Not just down the line. They are looking to hit up targets on the chest as if its a dry game. Crazy. If you wanna win this i agree with Gazza.... man on man in the 3rd. Shut down this ridiculous loose zone switching that we're allowing and beat them one on one. They are able to switch easy or go through the middle most of the time as they're outnumbering us down back. I would rather lose playing man on man where there is NO excuses. The game is there to be won. Beat your man and leave nothing on the park and you probably win the match. Anything else, any other style in this weather (eg Fritta as an extra down back from the get go!!) is a rubbish method that will let players off the hook and give them too many outs and excuses. JUST DO IT GOODY!

Why are we trying to possess and finesse so often around stoppage YEats? Tap/punch/kick the ball forward or in any direction where you can see space and no opp....and run onto it. Its wet weather footy.

Wow are we ever gonna become the hunters here AS A TEAM. Some good individual efforts but start hunting the ball and carrier and sweat on em. Do you wanna play finals or not?? I would put Vanders on Mundy and make him earn every possi. He's way too loose and racking up too many clean possessions.

In this weather anyone can punch from behind against freo's talls. I'd put Pruess down back and bring May to CHF

I remember one of those against the Hawks. It never stopped all day and we had a solid win. I went home soaked but happy as larry (whoever he is).

Name of whatever shiraz you're guzzling pls Uncle

Why are we not holding at least one KF or medium tall back, ie Weid, Pruess or even Vanders, at CHF for a marking option/structure?

Any chance we could stop with the over use of handball and just kick long in the wet?

I would have to agree with you on that one Sue. There are certainly no easy matches, bar possibly the Hawks & Norf but that said, on paper we should have beaten the Swans and should beat Freo this evening. On a mental toughness basis? Who knows. Throw a die with six substantially differing variables and this team could very well land on any one of them.