rufus

Gee wizz didn't see that coming. Well done football department. I want one more but this is a night to have some pride in this football club! Credit to Joel Selwoods comments in the rooms too. To be fair Geelong have been an amazingly consistent team for 15 years and their ability to put themselves in a position to compete every year is something I'd love us to emulate.

Interesting article and it scares me a fair bit the talk I've been hearing about Melbourne being 'the best team in football' and having 'one hand on the cup' this week. Seems a bit disingenuous to me. Whether we like it or not our recent history has seen things get very ugly when it's not on our terms. This years team looks different but Geelong are going to hit every one of them hard tomorrow night...this could be the making of us but there is a lot of history to overcome (186, 148, Essendon VFL side, 2018 prelim for example). There's been lots said by lots of people over the last few weeks but ultimately its going to come down to who can absorb and apply the most pressure over the 120 mins tomorrow night. Not much between these sides if pressure/intensity is taken out of the equation.

I think this is 100% the right call and personally would have done this anyway regardless of the injury. Bowey will be a good player and has done well so far...so it's no knock on him but Hunt is more experienced and a bit bigger and stronger...i think we have to do it given the stakes. Also think Hibberd is just a better defender than Smith and gives us a real 'known quantity'.

I agree with you. And whether people like to admit it or not, the Geelong Football Club has a recent history of knowing how to win...and quite frankly the Melbourne Football Club has had a history of producing results that are worse than they should have been with great regularity. I hope the tide is turning for our club but for me to truly believe will probably take a flag or multiple years of consistently competing right at the pointy end.

I said last week that i think this year is part of a bigger journey for the MFC in trying to change the underlying culture of the club. If we don't win the flag this year, i am ok with it it as long as we have taken effort/intensity out of the equation. If we have a red hot crack and are beaten by a better team on the day, or get stooged by the umpires, or kick poorly for goal or cop injuries in game then so be it. This can happen in a sport where finals are 'best of 1'. Believe it or not, i still go into every game hoping we will 1) kick a goal and not become the first goalless team for the last however many years and 2) stay close enough to not push past our record 190 losing margin and break the 200 barrier. Talk about MFCSS! Either way we should expect to see this group come back better next season based on the age profile. That would be a huge step forward from what we've been served up by players after decent seasons over the last 30 years. If this group maintains the competitiveness, selflessness and intensity that they've shown for most of this season then we will keep presenting in and around the top 4 and eventually we will break through. To me this is how you win flags. And ultimately we will have a club we can trust and be truly proud to be associated with.

Nice. Intro music to the starting lineups for the 1990's Chicago Bulls by the sound of it?

Another AFL final won last night by the team that applied the most pressure and played the the highest intensity. When I really think about it, we haven't actually been playing all that great for 4 quarters recently...even with a little string of wins. It's going to take 12 consistently good quarters from us to get to where we want to go. I still think this year is part of a bigger journey for MFC. We need a block of years where we are perenially competitive and ensure a culture shift among the playing group gets cemented. The more times we put ourselves in the kind of spots we are in now, the more likely we will eventually snag one. Hopefully either way they make us proud tonight.

Great character shown by the players...not sure how much Geelong taking the foot off contributed...but it's still not easy coming from 44 down to win. It takes a certain attitude and hopefully is a sign of a shifting culture for us. Saturday night was one of the best experiences I've had as a Demon fan. As Petracca said, it's a new season now. I believe our success will be dictated by what we get out of our somewhat inconsistent senior players...if we get a decent baseline in the contest and some pressure applied by these guys when they have an 'off day', i believe our top end might just be good enough to have a real crack at it. A huge amount of work is in front of these guys and they've earned the chance to show everyone what they're made of.

I thought I'd completely skip the Gold Coast game a few weeks ago, take the kids to the movies and ignore the scores until the game finished. Avoided footy all day that Saturday. Smugly came out of the movies to check the final scores having avoided all the stress of the game only to find out it'd be postponed to Sunday! Didn't want to follow it last night...didn't want to go to bed wound up and unable to sleep. Thought I'd check the final scores when I stirred during the night. Happened to look at the clock at 11PM...thought beauty I'll check the final scores...only to see the quarter had been going for 45 minutes and looked like it still had time to go. We were 24 points up at the time so I figured it was safe to go turn on the TV and watch the last 7 minutes. Suffice to say I ended up going back to bed wound up. Could only happen with the MFC! While those last 7 minutes of clock time were completely horrendous from us (reckon we must have been beaten in contests 25 to 3 or something like that), it is pretty decent that we came out of our games vs. the Dogs and WCE with 1 win and 1 loss while wearing a minus 26 on the free kick count. We're going to need to be a 5+ goal better side than the Dogs to beat them in September with the artificial assistance.

They beat us by showing pride and being more desperate to win than we were. Something we really have never done against a top team when we've been down the bottom. How they are winning any games with their deplorable list is beyond me. Just an out and out competitive culture. We should still be aspiring to become as good a club as they are.

Great pressure today. When we bring the pressure we can easily brush aside the mid to lower teams and give ourselves a chance against the better teams. Hopefully the weeks we've taken it easy this year don't cost us too much in the end...and even more hopefully one of these pressure driven victories will help it sink in that we need to bring it more consistently.

Brayshaw looking to join the illustrious group (of pretty much every Melbourne player of the last 20 years) to approach the prime age and regress. We just cannot get a baseline of decent output from our experienced players. We continue to get burnt by highly regarded players having absolute stinkers instead of just having a quiet game.

Might be time to start looking at the future. If Weideman is committed to staying at MFC we need to bring him in, preferably at the expense of McDonald. However, we need to try and manage McDonald in a way that we can offload him to someone else at the end of the year. We need to get rid of his salary and we aren't getting anything more than what you can get from a 20 year old anyway (decent one week, missing the next). People believe he has had a good season (comparing it to the last 2 seasons that is understandable) so we might be able to sell while there is some value.

Beaten by a better team, which is fine. Even with all their injuries their players are just better than ours. We've benefited from a great run with the health of our list, especially compared to other teams, so finishing 5th is probably getting closer to a true reflection of where we stand. At least the overall effort was better than that diabolical joke last week. With our health this was a season where we could have stolen a top 2 or 4 berth but the bizarre and unwarranted arrogance of our players when coming up against the likes of Hawthorn (twice), North Melbourne, Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Adelaide, GWS is going to cost us big time. Who knows what the hell this lot will serve up next week. They'll probably be thinking they'll win it easy and let the Suns players just walk out of stoppages like we did in that North game.

You are hitting the nail on the head there. So much of what happened on Saturday was plainly embarrassing. I just want to see the culture of this club evolve so that it can be something you are proud to be associated with. There's no shame in losing to the better team, but there is shame in losing to an inferior opponent who showed more pride than you. Both Hawthorn and Collingwood are proud clubs who took it up to us in a way that we have not done when we've been at the bottom of the ladder (plenty of times) in my lifetime. Those who genuinely believe in the whole 'we only get ourselves up for good quality opponents' rubbish that feels like it's emanating from the players are soon going to realise that when the big boys really come out to play, we still have little to fall back on as a club. I absolutely love this (paraphrased) quote from Giannis Antetokounmpo a few days ago about his ego and how he reflects on the things he has done in the past: "When you focus on your past, that’s your ego. When you focus on your future, that’s your pride. When you focus on the present, that’s humility."

I think I would feel much better about the progress this club is making if our week to week effort was consistent. If we lose to some good sides because they are just better than us on the day, and take care of the sides that we are better than, then so be it. Right now it just feels like we're miles and miles off understanding what it takes to be a consistently good team that can compete for flags.

We're not flag contenders anyway, so top 2/4 is fairly irrelevant. You aren't going to win a flag with key forwards who regularly play at VFL standard...and our key forwards aren't even our biggest problem. Until this cub learns how to consistently allow games to be decided by talent then we're not competing for anything. These guys still regularly seem to think that talent can be the deciding factor without brining any defensive intensity. And it can't happen in this sport. AFL Football is a relatively low skilled sport...good offence can't beat good defence in the AFL...the foundation for winning is making it hard for you opponents to win it themselves...

You'd probably have to just about say May is a bit overrated wouldn't you? Can play great games and then serve up absolute stinkers, which is not what you expect from a bloke approaching 30. Can get very fumbly under pressure too.

Doesn't say a lot about the quality or desire of our players though does it. It's looking very much like the higher ranked teams have tried to play their own game and haven't applied the full on pressure to us, thus opening the door for us to play it on our terms. When lower teams apply pressure, our players look worse than ordinary. In finals, just like in the NBA playoffs, everyone ups their defensive intensity. I can see another Perth 2018 on the cards when the finals come around.

It's also why the free kicks go against us in games like this. When one team is an underdog and having a red hot crack while the highly fancied team is prancing around limiting contact and playing like it's an NBA all star game, it's human nature that the umpires also start looking after the opposition. Our players can just be so insipid that the broader football world just kind of like turning the screws on us at times.

Going to be a very interesting off season. Overall despite likely seeing a first week exit from the finals, it has been a good step forward from the last 2 seasons. And our strong home and away performance might help us to sell high on some guys that don't have what it takes to continue changing the soft culture of the club...hopefully we will be a bit ruthless and try to get ourselves into a window of contention in 5 or so years (may be wishful thinking).

What is it about our experienced players that the gap between their best and worst is absolutely woeful. McDonald on $700K per year is either decent or hopeless. Brayshaw looks good one week then looks like he's wearing 20KG of concrete in his boots and has smoked 5 joints before he goes on the field the next. Maybe we're just an ordinary team who's managed to cop teams at the perfect time throughout the year...we've generally copped teams with heavy injury lists while we've maintained almost none...

Probably the most embarrassing performance outside of 186 and 148 over the last 15 years. And that is saying something because we've had plenty of white flaggers. Our win/loss records flatters us...massive front runners who can't respond when the game is not on our terms. When the Hawks have sat on top of the ladder and we've been at the bottom that game is a flogging every time. No pride at this club...they're not winning any finals this year. We just got physically dominated by what would have to be the worst lineup fielded by any team over the last 5 years. Zero pride to allow that to happen. Is the Goodwin the right guy? Results have shown this year that he has given these guys a formula to be successful....but these lazy show boaters don't seem to get it. We will be waiting another generation of draft talent for a shot at a flag...these guys don't have it.

Agree with this. Also think our forward lines biggest weakness is with our talls. None of them are good in the contest. All look ok when leading into space but pretty much none of them take marks in contested situations, and most don't do a great job of even halving contests and bringing the ball down into dangerous spots. Unless we apply pressure up the ground and let our forwards work in space we have little chance of kicking big enough scores to win it all. This is also exacerbated by the fact that we don't get a lot of goals out of our mids (we do get quite a few points).

This is the reason why we are also struggling to score. Not getting the easy opportunities that come from turnovers driven by intense pressure being applied. It's up to the players now. They've seen what can happen when you commit to pressuring your opponents. But it's not going to be easy to maintain it...will take some sacrifice and competitive spirit and pride from the playing group. History says they'll put it in the too hard basket and give it up. Let's see what this group is made of.