rufus

Need both playing well over the last month to try and inflate their value. Our focus should be put them in positions to accumulate lots of possies (because the footy media do love a good possie). Can't carry this senior group anymore so need to find ways to extract value for them.

It honestly will not surprise me in the slightest if we lose this game. And if we do, it won't even be our worst effort of the last 7 days. I reckon it would take an 80+ point loss to even get near the level of embarrassment of last week. It seems that not many MFC people are laying much responsibility on the players to show competence and consistent effort at this club (still). Play stupid games you win stupid prizes.

Yeah remember when our boys lost to the Essendon VFL team. Good times. Another proud moment to be a Demon.

Yeah expecting to get smashed here but the Pickett contract is going to be a problem down the track imo. If he decides in 3 years that he just can't do Melbourne anymore, are we going to be expected to foot the bill for him to play somewhere else? That's why the Petracca and Oliver stuff is such a line in the sand thing I reckon. Have to stand firm and say 'if you want out, you find someone who'll pay your whole contract and compensate us fairly, or you negotiate a new contract with someone else and they compensate us fairly'. Otherwise you knuckle down and pay us back for the massive investment we've made in you. I think that if the above is the accepted premise for the industry, then long contracts are OK. Yeah you still take the risk on injury but you just can't have a situation where players are dictating things once they've made commitments like these.

This is going to be a real litmus test for this club now. While I don't want either player with us anymore, we should demand adequate compensation from their destination clubs. I hope we hold a very firm line on that. Would not be surprised if both go on to be impactful players at their new clubs. We shouldn't be made to pay further for the fact that they haven't fulfilled their end of the bargain for us. That's on them. If we don't get adequate compensation, i reckon our approach should be one of them can stay and be told he's playing at full forward from now on (yeah i know he can't kick, but it's the best place to have him coming towards the ball and getting in one on one contests), and the other well I have no idea...you'd just have to hope the new coach can get him back to the great player he used to be.

I don't think I said he should stay. I think I might have said his position is probably untenable. What I did effectively say is, I don't think he's the root of the problem. As a club and a supporter base we have made some of the most creative and bizarre excuses for straight up uncompetitive, soft and incompetent efforts from the playing group for way too long. If we think changing the coach is going to fix our problems then I reckon we're going to learn some really hard lessons (again) over the coming years.

Agree with the first bit. On the second bit, I don't think we're going to be able to lure any external players here for some time. We are going to struggle to sell the idea of joining up with anyone who was on the field on Sunday to a competitive person (and those are who we need). We already struggled with this coming off a premiership when the lack of genuine competitiveness in our playing group wasn't yet outwardly clear to everyone (though opposition players probably already knew it). Things can change quickly I guess, but I think our only way to re-build is going to be through the draft.

I'm in agreement with you. Given where it's now gotten to, it might have become untenable for Goodwin, but I don't blame him as much as I blame the players. History says Goodwin is the biggest winner at the club. He won as a player and he found a way to win as a coach. I think that when everything settles, and people on this board see the unmitigated disaster that is going to unfold under the next coach, Goodwin will be looked back on as a genius for devising a style of play that: Took opposition coaches about 18 months to work out how to combat. Made a team that is incredibly one paced look like they could move at speed (at times) through the way they released to ball out the front. Got a group of players to buy in and apply pressure, when history says they generally just don't want to do that for extended periods. Helped a group of players who are historically bad from a skill and execution under pressure perspective to execute well enough to get to the ultimate prize. Maybe we do have to acknowledge that 2021 may have been one of the biggest examples of great luck and great timing in sports history (who cares, they can't take it off us), but either way we cannot deny that he guided what surely looks to be an extremely weak group of players to a flag...

Both senior players and both involved in the Sunday debacle. Neither should continue with us in 2026. Some people still don't see it, but until we put together a group of players to which that level of uncompetitiveness is unacceptable (in actions, not words) then we're on a road to nowhere. For various reasons neither are good enough overall contributors to help us avoid the disaster that is going to be the next 6 years. We need to come to an agreement with both to parts ways....see if we can somehow limit the damage to 3 or 4 years.

First time I legitimately don't care about any single player on the list being traded or asking out. Every single one of them can go if they like (and some should go of our doing). We are completely screwed till the Petracca and Oliver contracts end...so at least that is only 6 or 7 years to sit through. We are paying big bucks for some of the lowest IQ and least competitive football imaginable. Honestly the best thing I've done for my kids was to encourage them to support the Bulldogs and go to the footy with their grandpa. Nobody should have to sit through yesterday and then cop all the fall out that kids will cop today. The juice isn't worth the squeeze with this club.

Yes. When the coach is moved on we're going to be stuck with the same pea hearted playing group, with an in-built playing culture of 'never ever find a way'. I actually think the club might struggle for viability...people are increasingly embarrassed to identify as Melbourne fans and we're about to go through 5 or more years where it's going to get even worse on field 4 years removed from a flag that it has to be said was just an astounding case of luck and timing. The guys who played in that flag just aren't very good players.

So many people still putting this on the coach. JFC. Probably just one or two players out there needed to give one single f#$k about the club and the supporters and put an end to that and every last one of them with the power to stop it, out on the field, 186'd. Thanks a lot another week of everyone laughing at this debacle of a club.

Yeah that was great. But what about the prior 3 years? Where has that been? This is the absolute root cause of what is wrong with this football club. The absolute root of all of it. Too many people prepared to make excuses and/or prepared to accept less than what should be the minimum expectation of these guys.

His last few seasons have been a direct reflection of the team in general. Just hasn't competed hard enough and hasn't been prepared to do the sacrificial stuff. He was one of the key reasons for our finals success in 2021 because he put his body on the line and applied pressure...and lo and behold not only did it help the team but it helped his own output too. Has seemingly been unwilling to put in at that level since. This is another example where it is in the control of the players themselves. I'd like to think he's smart enough to correlate his best football with his most physical and team oriented period. Or even take stock of how much his efforts in that period helped the MFC achieve something great and recognise that it really should be the baseline. I also would like to think the leaders in the playing group have been on him about the physicality and sacrificial stuff...and simply demanded it of him. But have they?

I really have no vested interest in who coaches us. I just want it to be someone who cares about the club and sets a high standard. While I don't agree with a lot of what Goodwin has done, the fact is that he is the only coach who brought this club success in 60 years. So he must know what he's doing to some extent. He put these guys in a position to succeed 3 years in a row and the top end of our group failed on the big stage time and again. And they continue to fail. Regardless of what game style you're employing, the guys we had playing last night should have been good enough to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and end it in a 10 minute burst. But the lack of intensity, ability to execute and fight is shocking. And because it's been like that for pretty much all of my lifetime, it just feel like focusing on the coach is papering over the cracks, and it feels like we've travelled that road before. What I really want is a club where the players are the ones who set the standards and drive excellence. Instead of hearing rumours every year about this player being unhappy and that player being unhappy, I want to hear that player A is shattered by an underperfoming season and is fighting tooth and nail to turn it around for the CLUB.

It is diabolical that 2 of the players you have identified to move on are pretty much at the absolute peak age for contributing to team success in a football career. Other clubs who've bitten the bullet have generally done so when the players are well past peak and they are being acquired externally for their leadership more than their on field performance. Until we understand and address the perennial issue of why almost every single MFC player regresses in terms of their contribution to the team in their peak years, this ongoing cycle of being a below average football club will repeat. What hope do our young players have when relying on these types of players for how to go about their careers? We get nowhere near the output back for the investment we make in the top end players on our list. The leadership in terms of how they've helped the club both on and off the field is appalling. I think we do need to bite the bullet and move them on...but for it to have come to this is absolutely shameful.

The focus on Goodwin is just not the place to be looking. Good players find a way...and all these premiership players come up short in pretty much every tough contested game they are in. They just aren't very good. There's enough evidence now. What happened in 2021 I have no idea...but before and after too many of the highly rated players just can't deliver when the heat comes on. Time to go in a different direction (if we can even offload these crazy contracts)

These 2 contracts are unfortunately going to kill our chances of building another premiership list for the next 10 years probably. But we had to give the contracts I guess (or the Oliver one at least). Oliver was with Bont as the best players in the competition and still so young. Many signs suggested he would become an absolute great of the game. From the outside it looked a no brainer to lock him up. Maybe people on the inside should have been more across how pear shaped it could have gone. Who knows. Petracca I would have been more wary of as his better performances have always been driven by the pressure applied by his teammates and getting it to him in space. He's always been fumbly and unable to execute under physical pressure so the contract just doesn't match the quality. If we can't come to a mutually acceptable parting with both of them then I reckon Petracca has to be played purely as a full forward. Try and get some space for him and see if he can hit the scoreboard a bit. Maybe we can get about 75% of the value of what we're giving to him out of him. Oliver I have no idea how we can find a way to get anywhere near the payback for the amount of investment we're making in him. We're once again being burned by senior players on big bucks (in these cases very big bucks) regressing as team footballers and dragging the whole thing down. Maybe our focus over the last block of the season should be purely to put these 2 in a position to rack up 40 touches a game (because we all know how much the footy world love a good haul of possies) to try and inflate their value.

I think you are right in a way about the small club thing. But at the same time, look at the Bulldogs for example. Now they also haven't been great since 2021. But other than a few inexplicable efforts where they looked like they just lacked intensity, they just seem to deliver value to their supporters. They don't constantly lose games where you walk away going 'what the hell was with the lack of intensity today'. You don't look at their senior players often and think 'what on earth has happened to him'. Really, they have done a great job of giving their fans something to enjoy for most of this century. As an MFC fan, I completely expect we will lose some or all of the next 4 games, and it will mostly come down to intensity and not getting what we should be getting from senior players. This is in in line with most of what we have seen this century, and it is an indictment on the culture that the club has fostered. But to my mind, that is on the players more than anyone else. Hell you'd think that at some point simple personal pride (even if they don't give a toss about the club or fans) would drive these guys to produce something extra...it just rarely seems to.

Absolutely spot on. Ultimately this is our problem now, and has been our problem for generations. We just don't seem to be able to compete as hard for as long as the perennially competitive clubs. Goodwin seems to have been able to get the appropriate pressure/intensity levels out of the players more than any other coach since Northey, but it still hasn't been regular enough to avoid costing us finals over the time since the flag. Is that really on the coach? Or is it on the players? Or is it the club culture in general? The analysts are wondering why we reverted to slow, kick down the line on the weekend. Well, it is a product of our lack of intensity. Without the pressure, we do not get the ball back in positions or scenarios where we can move it in a more dangerous manner. I honestly think the AFL deliberately make the pressure rating stats difficult to find because if they were easily accessible, none of the analysts would have a job anymore. Everyone would plainly see that games where both teams bring pressure are decided by talent, and in games where there is a difference in pressure levels the outcome of the talent gap and hence the final result can shift relative to the pressure difference. This game is really such a simple one I reckon.

Amazing how different a football team can perform when they apply pressure. We were manic with pressure in 2021 and then gave it up in 2022. It cost us finals matches and possibly another flag losing to ordinary teams by being outhustled. The move to a more attacking style was always going to be ugly with our post 2021 pressure levels. Glad the penny seems to have dropped a bit...but is the pressure going to be a non negotiable or will we pack it in again? History says it might go in the too hard basket.

Here's the issue though (and I'm someone who always rated Salem): why do we get such up and down performances from him? At his age and experience level we should be getting consistently decent output. But we get good games mixed in with shockers. Much like we've gotten from the majority of similarly experienced MFC players over the years. The coaches must be so frustrated. So many of our senior players seem to perform like rookies. You expect and work around the inconsistency of youth...but if you can't rely on your senior players executing their role consistently then what hope do you have?

The key thing in the whole communication from Green, in my opinion, is the line about empowering the playing leadership group in shaping our 'high performance' culture. Hopefully that empowerment/expectation extends to the whole playing group. For mine, who we bring in is midfield coach is nowhere near as important as our playing group taking ownership of setting the standards and driving excellence. The Hawthorn Football Club understand that in the end it's the players who get to dictate what the club becomes. Hopefully we are taking a leaf out of their book.

One thing that I do like about this is that as a player Jones did something that so many other MFC players this century inexplicably have not done: he continued to improve throughout his career and was the best version of himself as a footballer during the peak physical/experience years of an AFL career. Have never been able to understand why we get burnt so badly by players letting us down with inconsistency and under performance in their 'peak' years. It has to be something in our culture and a lack of expectation of professionalism that we drive within the club. Hopefully Nathan can contribute to a club wide change on this front.

Had to happen after the diabolical way the club has managed things over at least the last few months. The person at the top has to be accountable. I hope we can find a strong candidate, external to the MFC, to come in and try to right the ship. For the first time in living memory I'd like to SEE the culture fixed, not HEAR about how the culture is fixed.