rufus

Outhustled by 14th and 15th on the ladder. Looked to have the requisite intensity for the last 5 minutes. Bizarre. Forget Goodwin...those blokes got beat by a group who wanted it more than them.

Was poor again. Consistently rucking from behind at throw ins. Why? I guess the one time he played in front he let his opponent grab it out of the ruck and kick a goal which was nice. Problem is we have no choice. Look at May, numerous times giving up contested marks in conditions that couldn't be better for a backman.

Maybe if we let them stroll uncontested from one end to the other one more time it might result in something good for us...worth trying i guess because it's an excellent tactic.

If only AFL games were awarded to the team with the most missed one handed tackles...we would be undefeated and headed for a flag

Yeah they are harder at it than us. We like to think we are good at the contest but they look significantly better than us. Gawn having a shocker. Needed skipper to stand up when it counts. Those goal square goals are nothing but a lack of desperation to not conceed...

Getting beat in a lot of 50/50's true to form. 19 tackles in a half of a game where the ball isn't able to flow. About what was expected.

The thing is, in 2018 we were hard in and around the contest. But evidently we weren't competitive enough. We turned up to a prelim final with the can't be bothered's...it was always going to be hard to win and evidently our guys didn't want a part of the required scrap. Soft probably isn't the right word, but winning titles in any sport at almost any level isn't going to be easy. It takes a lot of individual sacrifice (players accepting lesser roles, players missing out on selection on a needs basis but being ready to step in when required, a want to contribute even when having a bad game by providing competitiveness and pressure on your opponents). Our guys look good when the going is good, but when things turn against them there is a real propensity to raise the white flag with this group.

They're right...and it feels like hope is starting to fade for the club to ever change the attitude to competing. I mean, you watch the St Kilda game and yeah it was good to win, but it looks like the players got as carried away with it as Demonland did. When you watch that game back, so much of the way we executed basic skills was lazy. Those saying we might be short on quality and depth may well be right...but we didn't lose on Thursday to the Swans or to the extent we did to Port earlier in the season because of our talent or depth. Those results were born out of a straight up lack of competitive intent. Sitting 18th for tackles is a damning indication of how desperate this group is to be successful. The clear inability for this playing group to drive the change that is required at the club is why I would have no issues with us moving on from almost any player other than probably Gawn and Oliver to bring in new blood and see if new blood can drive the club's future upwards.

I guess we shouldn't complain. There's been plenty of times over the years when we've been a bottom 4 team, with no shot at finals, playing against a team sitting in the top 8 and we've knocked them off with pure grit and grind. Hmmm...actually I don't remember that ever happening (and there's been plenty of times we've been bottom 4 with our season shot at this stage). A sporting club with zero pride.

Lots of blame for Goodwin again. Those gunning for him are going to be really unhappy when our players regularly raise the white flag under whoever the next coach is...just like they did under Roos, Bailey, Daniher and many coaches before them. That loss was on the players (again). A dedicated or proud group wins that game every time.

Maybe we coould lay a tackle and we'd probably win the game by 6 goals. If the stats showing 11 tackles in a half is accurate then that is a disgraceful number no matter how the game is flowing.

We can win this game if we apply enough pressure for long enough. High pressure footy nulifies their speed advantage on the outside. Are our players capable of going hard enough for long enough? History says no. We should be motivated to knock off another team that should be at a similar stage to us. Especially one who's coaching staff in recent years approach games vs MFC with only one basic instruction for preparation: high intensity for long enough and they will give up...they always do. Saints by 40+ for mine.

Exactly. When we apply pressure we look ok (and surprisingly we don't look slow). When we don't, we are a bottom 4 team. Kind of always been bemused as to why we regularly just seem to decide we don't need to apply pressure to the oppo. You'd think the players would have connected the dots by now, but no. Every season the premiership gets won by the team that applies the most pressure for the longest...it's almost without fail. This is not the NBA where good offence beats good defence. The talent level in the AFL is relatively low and defensive intensity can overcome offensive talent. It's obviously cultural and it's hard to see how this club will ever show the requisite intensity for long enough the compete for a flag. It just always seems too hard for our guys.

Spot on. Same with Brayshaw. If they are good footballers they should be able to play good football in any position. It's weird how some of our players just look deplorable when asked to play a role other than their preferred. Could be more an attitude thing than anything else. Having said that, we may also need to accept that some of our guys just aren't that good. The ability to perform at a consistent level is a huge part of how a player should be measured, and Harmes along with all but Oliver and maybe Gawn fail that test badly.

Ultimately we may just have to accept that our list isn't great...and our strength (midfield) is probably somewhere around the 10th to 15th strongest in the comp ( which is where we will finish). Our best players are nowhere near as capable of consistent performance under pressure as the best players on the strong teams. Anyway...thanks to the Port game we won't have to look back at getting taken to the cleaners by big bad bustling Mitch Wallis as the most embarassing thing we served up this season. Small mercies.

Well it was good to see the boys dig in and show some fight when things started going against us. This group is exactly what we know they are...not bad when things are going ok and [censored] terrible when put under some pressure. Failed test. Did not deserve finals after Port debacle and proved today that we are nowhere near up to it anyway.

Probably a poorly written article but the point of yet another wasted season is true. So far we are probably the only playing group to do a 'lay down Sally' on the short break which proves that we would have no chance of achieving anything when the going gets tough at the pointy end.

If so, he joins a group that includes Daniher and Paul Roos of coaches who regularly saw the players serve up soft efforts in weeks where it looked like they just couldn't be bothered. As I said to one of Goodwins friends not long after he took the job...he doesn't know what he's getting himself into. At MFC, a coach can't even rely on the players showing personal pride in their intensity and effort levels consistently. F#$ked if i know how you can develop and implement a gameplan when blokes squib it as regularly as ours do.

I'm usually over the horrendous performances pretty soon after games finish these days. I should be because they have been so regular over my lifetime. But this one is still sitting with me. Just thinking back to some of the 'efforts' we put forward is still getting my goat. The lack of intensity to tackle and kill the ball close to Port's goal was insulting. I keep giving up on this club and just joining in with everyone I talk to about football in just laughing at what the MFC is. Then you occasionally see for a week or two that they can play with intensity and some pride and you think that maybe we have turned a corner and this just might be thee group to deliver something of value to their supporters...and then you get fooled again.

Was a poor defender too. Could drift across and take a few marks when the 3rd defender...but extremely poor at winning or halving 50/50 contests. His spoiling intensity was not much stronger than his brothers.

We got 3 weeks of applying physical pressure to our opponents after the players got called out by the media...which is 1 or 2 more weeks than i expected. So we should be happy really. Funnily enough we managed the kick some goals those weeks. Goes to show just how much passion this group has for the club and the supporters though doesn't it. They'll have a crack for a bit if they get called out publicly...but the idea of giving that sort of effort week in week out is unthinkable.

This thread could not be more symbolic of everything that is wrong with this club. Club as a whole just doesn't seem to value consistency...and players don't deliver consistency.

I feel dirty but I felt sorry for the commentators. When you're supposed to be narrating a contest between 2 opponents and one of them decides it's in the too hard basket from the first bounce it must be very difficult to try to make your way through. Someone like Luke Hodge who spent a career competing should never be made to commentate on that group of pea-hearted non competitors again.

Tom McDonald may have just played the worst individual game of professional sport I have ever seen someone play. Not sure we can carry him anymore. His brother isn't good enough either. Langdon's positioning on the wing was some of the most putrid I've ever seen. Yeah let's continually stand 25 metres from a defender running out of the back line while our opponent stands a further 20 metres behind us with no other player between him and their 50...f%&k me. Skills abysmal mostly caused by the continual fright from the physical pressure. Unfortunately for the players who played physically scared tonight and gave the panic handballs they're all on the video for everyone to see (not that anyone would want to watch that again).

That was easily the softest physical display by any team this year...and possibly other than some of our own performances it may have been one of the softest across the league for the last 5 years. Beaten physically and no f*&ks given. Multiple players $hat themselves at the physical contact and flicked the ball away. An absolutely disgusting performance by every single player who took the field tonight.