rufus

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.

Legitimately seen a couple of our guys fully [censored] themselves at the physical contact today. If we hadn't already set the lowest of low standards then tonight might have been the all time worst!

Last week we applied good pressure to GCS when they got the ball. Better pressure than we have applied for the past season and a half (although our tackling execution still wasn't great). If we apply that sort of pressure to Hawthorn then we give ourselves a good chance to win. If we revert to type and think that our own ability to win in close is enough to win us this game, then we will lose. If only our group start to realise that while they have a great ability to win the ball in close and generate forward entries, the golden forward entries are the ones that come off opposition turnovers. Bring the pressure, watch how our own ability to score increases.

Given our players copped it a bit in the media this week, we might have a better chance of seeing nearer to 4 quarters of decent intensity (historically this is usually what has triggered a bit more from the players at MFC). If we do, guarantee our skills will look much better. If we don't see it this week, then buggered if i know what it's going to take.

Bang on. Most AFL games and in fact most AFL premierships are won by the team that applies the most pressure for the longest time. Its not hard. Its not the NBA where the skill level is so high that good defence can regularly be overcome. It seems too hard for our players to apply pressure for long periods of time...and it always has. And further, our lack of pressure is the reason why our skills look so bad. It's because we rarely force the opposition to give the ball back to us in a way that we can break into space and create more time for ourselves. We applied pressure in Q1 vs. Carlton = we looked like we had some skill. Downhill from there.

We've been here before though. Many times. Remember the week Mitch Robinson accidentally said what every club thinks about us (that we like it bruise free)? The players came out breathing fire the next week. Smashed the Bombers. Mission accomplished apparently because we went back to normal within a few weeks. I just don't think this club is about winning. There has always been a reason why it's too hard for our players. You can see the culture of this club all over this fan board...

Ha i was the same when Bombers game was cancelled. So relieved. Could just watch other games without wondering what fresh hell the club has to offer us that week. I generally follow scores now for a couple of reasons...first that we hopefully will kick 2 or 3 goals for the game...and second that we don't lose by 100+. Sad.

Why is anybody surprised? I'm guessing the one's who are surprised are the ones who thought last year's train wreck was purely caused by pre-season surgeries. And that the 2018 prelim was just a bad day at the office. And that this season is all Simon Goodwin's fault. - Good competitive groups don't churn out the 2018 prelim 'effort'...and if they did it would burn so hard that it would drive them forward. Not this lot. - Pre-season surgeries might have made last year a tough one. But it didn't have to make it a complete disgrace. - Those who want to see the back of Goodwin are going to be real upset 2 years into the next coach's reign (if the players haven't managed to completely bury the club by then) when our players still can't muster up 4 quarters of high intensity, high pressure football.

Feel sorry for neutral people who pickup the TV guide and see the Demons are one of the featured teams. Just know you aren't going to get a battle worth watching and it couldn't possibly be worth watching.

Good quarter Demons. Really got stuck into them there.

The group has the capability to be top 8, however we are a bottom 4 team right now and we will finish in the bottom 4 this year. Unfortunately we don't work hard enough defensively and just seem to be poor defensively in general. This means two things: first we can give up 5+ goals in a very short space of time, and second we rarely get easy goals our way (as easy goals usually result from forcing the ball back from the oppo). Was interesting once again seeing most games on the weekend won by the team that applied the most pressure to their oppo. It's a much simpler game than many believe.

Like all the other players at our club reaching their peak years, he needs to keep improving and be able to deliver a consistent minimum level of output. He's looking like being another on the long long list of talented MFC players who seem to go backwards with experience. Other than low expectations from supporters, teammates and the club in general i have no idea why this happens. You would think that all else failing, personal pride and drive would see these guys willing themselvesto be dominant.

Not sure regarding Goodwin, but hearing Melksham this morning get the impression they are quite happy with themsleves about yesterday. It's a major worry. Getting the 4 points yesterday would be hugely important if we also learn from the 2nd half capitulation...but it means nothing if the FD don't adress how badly we played in the latter part. Doubt clubs like Hawthorn, Collingwood, Essendon, etc. Would have been happy with playing like that.

One thing that really struggle to reconcile with our club is how poor a return we get from our players in the 'experienced` bracket. I'm not talking about leadership, I think that word is overrated. I'm talking about pure football output. Over the last 20 years I can think of so many MFC players who's output is just hugely inconsistent as they go through their physical peak. I would have thought the one thing you should get from an experienced player is consistent output. The whole idea of gaining experience is that players get comfortable with what they need to do to make their contribution to the game. It must be a freaking nightmare for our coaching staff. You expect a lack on consistency from the young guys, but with us you have no idea what you're going to get from these supposed experienced guys. Nathan Jones over his career has been an exception to this, and it seems we get pretty consistent output from Oliver and Gawn. But most of the rest of them are confounding. I cannot see how someone like Tom McDonald can be as poor a contributor as he is right now. I always thought he perhaps just wasn't good enough when he was playing in defence, but his season forward a few years back was exceptional. How can he now be this bad? Do these guys get ahead of themselves, stop doing the work, and fall of a cliff??

Agree with this. Realistically it's been this way for the majority of the days since Northey.

At 3 qtr time we were still in a great position to make this a good result. All we needed to do was match their intensity for a period until we broke them. But we didn't. I'm a bit lost as to where this club is at again. Maybe our list really is terrible. But can a terrible list play the way we did early in the game? I still feel like as a club we just do not know how to compete when it really gets physically tough. I just don't see how a different coach gets different results in that area, but who the hell knows at this point.