rufus

Hawks comfortably after a tight-ish first half. Comfortably the best team in the competition for mine. Whilst Lyon is clearly a great coach, still think Clarkson is better and one of the greatest coaches of recent history. Hawks running patterns around stoppages and off half back will be too good and break the pressure the Dockers apply. Norm Smith will be Mitchell as he is pure class in big games and will dictate this match. Having said that, and despite having a decent bet on the Hawks, I hate them more than almost anything else in the world and if they drop this game I will not stop laughing for the next week.

Yep that is certainly true. I am glad the club is going to see a boost in memberships and sponsorship's as a result of the signing. Without that happening, our chances of survival were getting shaky. The Roos signing buys us some time, but we need to see some genuine and long term changes to the attitude of our playing group. Fingers crossed Roos has enough time and we have someone of quality to take over from him and continue to drive it forward. If our players slip back into the level of non competitiveness and general ineptitude they have displayed over the last five or so seasons they will kill our club eventually.

I am probably the only person in the extended Melbourne Football Club community who is a little underwhelmed with the Roos appointment. Had we got him for 5 years I'd be happier, but can't shake the feeling that he's not really committed to this and has been persuaded by the AFL and money to have a 'hit and run' go at fixing the enormous problems with the club. Personally would have preferred Williams who I feel would have made a big commitment to turning around the ship in a meaningful and lasting way (and who also has a very good record as a coach). Given the path we are taking, the choice of successor will determine the success or failure. I believe a couple of criteria the MFC need to tick off in a future coach are:- 1. Has been part of team success either as a player or coach. 2. Has demonstrated in their own football career that they have been able to extract the most out of their ability. My wishlist would be topped by Cameron Ling who ticks off the above 2 points no problems. My second choice is one that I haven't heard talked about, but Darren Milburn I believe is currently an assistant at Adelaide and would be a perfect candidate for the role. I always hated him as a player, but he was ruthless, successful and always gave it everything. I reckon he has the sort of personality that could extract ultimate effort out of a group.

I'm with you mate. At the moment I would genuinely be happy to be told I have to go to work on a Sunday arvo when we are playing so I don't feel obliged to have to turn up and don't have to watch if it's an interstate game. I'm not exaggerating when I say work is much more enjoyable than watching us play...and I don't like my job. Everyone knows it can't continue for much longer...another year like this and we are toast.

Blease might have done some good defensive things, but he also did some poor defensive things. We need all our players to at least be trying to do the right things defensively for 100% of the time. I'm not sure that you can argue that in the most part he runs much harder when he either has the ball or wants to receive the ball than what he does when the opposition has the ball. It's unacceptable and it seems to be contagious with most of the blokes at the club suffering the same disease.

From my perspective, it's annoying because on the day it shouldn't have been 90 points. If our players went about it with 100% intensity it would have been 30 or 40 points today. Seriously if you are watching on TV and flick channels to the other game when the MFC games are on they look they are in fast forward. Everyone running and attacking contests like, well like you'd expect from AFL footballers I guess. The fact that historically people will mark games like today's down as acceptable in any kind of way is a big part of why our club is in the position it is currently in in my opinion. It's starting to feel like this club is just some kind of giant pi$$ take and exist purely as a tool for everyone else to laugh at.

Why did Viney stand out so much from his teammates today? Because he ran at 100% for 100% of the game. Either to get to a contest or provide an option. It was actually embarrassing how much harder he was running than any of his teammates. That was an atrocious game. We allowed them to go from end to end like it's a training drill at times. At best, we stalled them by getting some numbers back but then we simply allow them to stroll around kicking and handballing to each other under no pressure whatsoever. We were lucky it was windy so they missed some targets and allowed us to get our hands on the ball. We miss tackles because we aren't running hard enough and are usually flat footed trying to tackle opponents going at 100%. We don't create spaces and options for our teammates because we don't run hard enough. Our opponents get 10 metre spacing on us pretty much every time they lead for the ball because we don't run hard enough. There is an opponent loose every time the other team comes out of defense because we don't run hard enough. We contest our one on ones meekly because we are not running hard enough. We can't break away from stoppages when we actually do get our hands on the ball because no-one is prepared to run hard enough to provide the option. For those who can see positives with this club I have great admiration. I will keep going but I've pretty much given up (reckon I lasted 5 or so years longer than the players who have represented the club). Our problem is not the talent as much as the fact they simply refuse to give the minimum levels of effort required. I am embarrassed to be affiliated with a group of people that seem to care so little about something that has provided so many of them with such a special opportunity.

We've had the ball half as many times as they have...and we've tackled half as many times as they have. And when we do tackle, we generally release the tackle in time for them to free their arms and handball to a teammate. When it's all said and done, the pea hearted efforts of our playing group over numerous years will be the number one reason we are no longer allowed to play in the AFL. The coaches can't go out there and tackle for you.

Agree. Decent teams cover for missing players and hardly miss a beat. This club and the supporters have a long standing issue in that we still believe that certain individuals will be our savior and fix everything. Our improvement must come from yhe whole playing group taking responsibility for producing consistent professional level sport each week. If we rely on the inclusion of 'talented' individuals this circle that we've been on for the last 5 years will just continue until the entire AFL community has had enough of us once and for all.

Did anyone here the interview with David Koch on SEN this morning in regards to Port Adelaide? Thought it was great and very relevant to our situation. Love him or hate him, he certainly seems to have provided some sound direction for the Port Adelaide Football Club. What was most interesting I thought was him talking about getting marketing material together at the start of the season and working out a way of selling the club to supporters. He said he spoke to Ken Hinkley and said to him that about all he can think of to sell the club right now is that they will employ an attitude of 'We will never give up'. He wasn't interested in making big statements about winning because there were no guarantees that they had the ability to win a decent number of games. He said Ken Hinkley's response was simply that 'never give up' is the only way he has ever known when it comes to football. A very simple and refreshing message that I think all would agree the playing group appear to have bought into. Let's hope we can find that kind of leadership before the start of next season and bring a simple but organised approach to how our team goes about it. I would absolutely love the MFC to live by the mantra of never giving up. I don't care if we have battlers on our list and struggle to win games if I feel the players are willing to sacrifice and fight for our club. I reckon I've seen us give up before games have even started this year, and in some other games we've probably made it to some point in the 1st quarter before our players raise the white flag. Wouldn't have thought it's a lot for supporters to ask that the players commit to 120 minutes of football ever week. I don't feel good about tonight as I can see us rolling over. Honestly the sooner this season is over and we can hopefully get some good leadership into the off field parts of our club (and clean out more of the dead wood who don't appear 100% committed on the field) the better!

Given that we are in a day and age where the professionalism in top level sports has reached such a great height, and at all other AFL clubs (even those that are struggling to win games) you can see a real care from the players and a real willingess to make the sacrifices required to be successfull, then yes this is possibly the worst season ever seen in VFL/AFL football. It really shouldn't have been like this. We have obviously been poorly coached and poorly administered for some time, but the genuine lack of committment to contest, chase, harrass and fight for the jumper has hit an all time low (going past the low set last season). Even after changing coaches to a man who is apparently well liked by the players and universally respected in football we were afforded perhaps a few quarters of proper AFL standard committed football before the malaise resumed. If the players don't drive us out of this mess with a changed attitude over the next 2 years we are dead meat and will have no reason to complain as the tripe we serve up is painful for us supporters to watch. It's painful for opposition supporters to have to watch their players run around witches hats, and painful for any neutral supporter who just wants to sit in front of the TV and watch some good quality competitive sport.

Agree with this wholeheartedly. I personally haven't felt all that good about the Paul Roos ego stroking that has been going on since the start of this saga. I feel like Williams is the best fit for us (if he is truly interested in getting involved). He is a passionate man with a record of getting the most out of young players. Just seems like the sort of person who might finally be able to start to erode away the inherent lack of real professional standard commitment to that has been allowed to fester within our playing group for as long as I can remember. I feel Williams would be more likely to dig in for the long haul and his motivation would be winning games of football as paramount.

I expect to get shot down, but I don't necessarily agree with the idea that players like those listed above would be the answer to our problems. Put them into our team and allow them to approach the game with the same level of desire and commitment that we seem to have asked of all our current players and they will probably slip down the similar levels of performance (e.g. will make good contributions when things are going well and disappear when the going gets tough). Not saying they are not good players, and if our club was within a bulls roar of being a professional sporting outfit then these types of guys would be awesome additions. There is something stinking and wrong with our football club and until a fundamental change comes over how our players approach the game no number of 'superstars' could turn this ship around. I'll give one glaring example that I see every single week when I go to watch our games. How many times do our players (and I'll single out Aaron Davey as someone who does this often) run towards an opposition player who is about to kick and instead of taking the opportunity to smother the ball they go with a late gentle bump to the body. It is one of the most infuriating things I have ever seen. It happens multiple times each week and numerous MFC players regularly do it. It is simply a case of being non-competitive. They don't seem to be desperate to win. Why does it keep happening every week? Have any of the other players pulled these guys aside at a quarter time huddle and asked 'WTF are you doing? Why the f didn't you smother that ball? Where is the desperation?'. You watch every other club play and their players look desperate to compete and win their one on one contests, to stop their opponent in any way they can, to gain every metre of advantage and stop every metre of gain for the opposition. Who has been in Lynden Dunn's ear over the last 3 years about his short steps when approaching a contest, or about how he so often makes it look like he's trying to hold his opponent out of a contest while he allows another opposition player to waltz in and take the footy in front of him without so much of a yelp. The coaches need to be onto this but so should the other players. They should be demanding that this stops. It's just non competitive stuff. We cannot possibly have drafted 30 odd players who have have no desire whatsoever to compete. It looks like we have, but it just isn't possible. We have allowed these guys to become like this. They all come in from an under age system where they are trying to get 30 touches or kick 6 goals each week to get noticed. They often don't have the good defensive fundamentals built into them when they arrive in the AFL. We are the worst club at demanding and developing these fundamentals in the league. And we are the worst by a country mile. We have been the worst since I started watching football. 15 years ago you could still win games despite this, based purely on the offensive talent you put out on the park. You can't do that anymore. Opposition teams are too good at the sacrificial/defensive aspects of the game and can stifle your offensive output. Good offense flows out of strong and committed defense. We all love Nathan Jones. I love him because it is clear that he works hard and has improved markedly over the last few years. But he is genuinely almost on his own in terms of that improvement. How is this possible? His improvement curve is equivalent to probably 10 players over the same period at almost every other club. I would have thought it's natural that with time spent in a professional and elite environment that a player should show that kind of improvement. How can he be the only one (or one of few)? It beggars belief. I understand that people will say 'well we need high draft picks to come in and help change these issues'. Unfortunately I think it's too much to expect of young players. If a change to the sacrificial/defensive aspects of the game is not instigated throughout the entire club (and quickly) then we will simply bring in more high draft picks and ruin them too. I recently spoke to a former player who is now involved at another club. He told me how frustrated he gets at the ribbing he cops from the players at this new club about his playing career. He said the players (sort of) kid with him that all games he played for the MFC do not count as AFL matches, because the MFC are a joke and the players never ever play with passion or a will to win. They are seen as a waste of time and an inconvenience to have to play against. And this is a player who didn't move in the last 1 or 2 years, so he departed Melbourne before we embraced the complete shambles that we have become over the last 2 years. How embarrassing to have that sentiment directed towards our football club. I am now gravely concerned for the future of the club. I keep going every week now simply because I want to savor every opportunity to see the red and blue jumper in action. If the current playing group (adjusted for the comings and goings at the end of the season) do not drive the change in what this club is about then I don't think things are going to end well for us. I don't believe the solution lies in adding new talented individuals as much as in a fundamental change in dedication and approach from a group of individuals.

Fair enough points. However I don't believe draft assistance is an answer at all. To my mind, none of the top teams are where they are in because of high draft picks. They are there because there is an expectation of everyone that walks in the door that they will perform to a certain level, and improve in a noticeable way due to the coaching they are given, and the way they are expected to approach their professional duties during the week. What use is another high draft pick going to be if we continue to allow a bloke to get games who has played over 100 games, goes around mouthing off at the opposition week in week out, yet shirks almost every contest he ever needs to compete in? Hasn't anyone at the club noticed this yet and why is it still allowed? Or if we play a guy in a tagging role who apparently has great endurance yet stands 10 meters off his opponents in the 4th quarter in one of the few games we've had a chance to win against proper opposition in years? The same guy who has also been shirking contests from the first time he stepped out in the field for our club. Why has he been allowed to do this from the start of his career and why hasn't someone at the club enforced what should be a minimum expectation? These guys have the tools to make a contribution in this game, but they haven't had the expectation of a professional standard of performance put on them. Nor do I believe have they had very good coaching provided to them. I believe we would get more value out of concentrating on making the most of the players we have and the picks we earn than being handed more concessions in the draft. Saw a great interview with Kieran Jack a couple of weeks back talking about what it means to be a Sydney player. Don't really care much for Sydney as a club, but hearing what he said made me so jealous of anyone who supports that club. They're all about commitment to the cause, constantly looking for ways to improve and looking for a contribution from everyone in the team. We are not any of these things, and sadly it looks like the majority of people aligned with our club are hoping for the quick and easy fix again.

Couldn't agree any more with this comment. I can't fathom the idea of accepting more draft assistance. We need to create an environment where we get the most out of the talent we already have instead of thinking that bringing more in is going to solve our problems. I now accept that it's going to take a long time before we have any chance of being at the top end of the ladder again (maybe up towards 10 years). I also believe that if we don't do it in a sustainable way then we won't even exist to get the opportunity to make it there. I want the club to be around for my kids to enjoy so I don't want shortcuts to be taken now. Our group is still suffering from the poor coaching and development of the last 5 or so years. We've almost completed the necessary clean out off the field. Changing the midfield coach is one of the last pieces to fall. A decent midfield coach does not preside over the shambles we are seeing in and around stoppages throughout this season I hope we go after Williams as head coach because the Roos show has become and ego stroking circus and if his heart isn't in it 100% and for the long haul then I don't want him at my club. With Williams I believe we will have someone who is in it for the long haul and who will be committed to rebuilding the club into a power in this competition. No thanks to priority picks. And I'd rather us get the right people in place and run another debt demolition so that we can pay back to assistance given to us by the AFL asap. I know we don't have Jimmy to drive it but there must be a person/group of people out there who can unite the masses again. Thanks to the AFL for the prop-up but if we are going to continue to hold out our hands for help we are not going to survive.

The thing about that is that there's no way we would have won either game under Neeld. The most telling comment I've heard since Neeld's departure was when Trengove said Craig has encouraged them to share the ball and make or opponents defend. That hasn't happened for a couple of years. Under Neeld we let our opponents have the ball for so much of the game we could never have kept a team other than GWS to a score we could beat. That's aside from the one dimensional boundary line/long kicking which gave us little to no chance of cashing in on any momentum we ever got in a match. Ironically our predictability had made us the easiest team to play against that I have ever seen in the AFL. We are a signifantly better unit for the fact we now have a guy in charge who has some tricks up his sleeve to organise and motivate a group of people to try and WIN matches. We are now a little unpredictable which I like.

I agree with questioning why Gibbs and Kruezer don't get the attention that Watts does. According to Hobert Falls, Gibbs is the 10th best number 1 draft pick of all time. Hahahaha barrack for Carlton much? Odd article to write anyway but I guess I did bother to read it. I justify Kruezer escaping because he seems to attack the ball and contests at 100% most of the time. Gibbs however... It's off topic, but In terms of comparing Carlton to Melbourne, for me the biggest difference is the attitude of the players. Whilst we have made some poor decisions regarding our coaches, I have never really had the sense the players are consistently giving 100% for the club. Some will say this ridiculous to say of an AFL player, but giving 100% covers all aspects of the game, from their training, to their preparation, their seeking out ways to improve, to their commitment to playing 'two way footy' on the weekend. It's the most extraordinary aspect of our club. We have turned our list over multiple times to try and rid ourselves of these attitudes, but seem to have found ourselves in exactly the same place again and again. I'm trying very hard to find a reason for optimism at the moment. The first bounce of last weeks' match vs. the Saints basically killed off the little peak I had built up from the change of coach. I couldn't believe I was sitting there watching a group of blokes go at about 50% whilst their opponents stormed in for the ball and managed to kick a goal within about 30 seconds like a Thursday arvo training drill. What do these guys need to happen for them to be fierce in their attack on the ball and the opponent from start to finish? It really seems to have gotten to the point where the media pointing the finger at some of their soft efforts doesn't even get them out of their malaise anymore. Carlton will be ok because the majority of Carlton players are committed to the cause. I believe Malthouse is more of a long term coach in terms of ingraining his styles, so perhaps not the answer they needed if they believed their window was in the next couple of years. But hey, I would take what I am seeing from the Blues each week over what out lot are serving up.

He should be used as a case study for what has been wrong at Melbourne over the last couple of years. Was very impressed with him back in the days of Wellman being the backline coach, then all of a sudden he appeared to do some almost farcical things each match, almost as soon as Wellman left. My biggest concern was that he seemed totally lost in terms of when he should go ahead and try and win the ball himself, as opposed to waiting for his opponent to make the first move. Much of our backline has suffered from this issue over the last couple of years. He seems to have gotten it back now and is realising his potential and playing great football. But what changed? Was it an attitude thing? Was it a confidence thing? Did he drive this turnaround himself or can it be credited to someone else? Whatever it is, please pass it on to the other players because I honestly believe we are seeing nowhere near what we should be seeing from the majority of the list. If Garland holds some sort of secret to how this can be turned around then I am glad he is a leader at our club!

Probably a dumb question, but if we delist someone and have to pay out the last 2 years of their contract, the dollars don't count against the salary cup for the final 2 years do they? If not, I would delist at years end and move on.

Jimmy will be a good player. To me, he goes hard enough, but he does need to improve his ability to compete in one on one contests. Granted, this is probably not what he was noticed for in his junior days. He was probably such a smooth mover and great user that he didn't have to win one on one contests to be noticed. He will need to win them to be a consistently good player in the AFL. His development in this area will come down to the club's development skills (which clearly haven't worked for a number of other players in the one on one contested football area over recent history) and his own desire to be the best player he can be. I have faith in him.

Yes. And if we manage to successfully find a target on our first kick, we hit a brick wall on the second. For mine, it comes down to work rate. Our players are not prepared to run with the intention of creating space for one of their mates. I strongly believe that with the right coaching and buy in from the players this aspect will change. With this gut running in and out of space, opportunities will open up and we will clear the ball more easily. It took me 150 games of football to understand how important real true gut running was. It finds you in space more often, it opens up spaces for your teammates and, just as importantly, it means you find your hitting contests at greater speed simply because you are always running hard. I honestly believe this is also why some of our players look so tentative at times. They are not running hard enough and are often caught in two minds and are on the back foot. This should be something that can be fixed with good instruction/mentoring/coaching.

My two cents:- Strauss will not make it. Unable to compete in a one on one contest which leaves no hope of being a reliable player in the back half. I believe Tapscott will be a good player with good coaching and can't comment on Taggert. Not sure if it's our development or recruiting to blame, but the inability of some of our players to compete in a one on one contest is staggering. I can understand how players like Strauss and Nicholson may have been noticed leading to being given a chance at AFL level (i.e. for their attacking skills), but these guys have very little ability to compete when push comes to shove. This is an instinctive thing to a degree, but can also be coached to a degree. Recruiting in general moved away from 'footballers' to 'athletes' for a while, but for most other clubs it has moved back towards pure footballers. The reality probably is that the way to get noticed in the U18's is to have heaps of possessions and kick heaps of goals. The defensive aspects aren't as 'sexy' and won't get you noticed as much if these are your strengths. It then becomes important for the AFL clubs to teach and develop these skills as soon as these guys walk in the door. I'm sure we have been poor on this front. The body positioning of our defenders, and our midfielders at stoppages, is often so bad that we get opened up like the opposition are running a training drill. You can see it about to happen. I'm sure this will improve with better coaching and development (if we can convince a decent coach to come on board), but it's probably too late for some players. With Strauss and Nicholson I often sit up in the Southern Stand and wonder to myself 'what the hell are these blokes doing with their 40+ hours at our footy club each week?'. I often walk past Gosh's paddock during my lunch break and have only once seen our players out there training over the last 2 years. Now I know it's around lunch time and they are probably eating themselves, but gee with all that time every week and over the preseason I hope guys like these two are spending hour after hour competing with each other and learning how to win contests. A simplistic view I know, but hey, it really couldn't hurt our players to hone their one on one skills a bit more I wouldn't have thought!

Yeah I thought the comments from Colless were mostly pretty much on the money. I've stated before that I don't mind the idea of us being at ground zero, as long as we are definitely at ground zero and are starting to head upwards. Over this last year and half I have felt like we're going backwards with no sign of that stopping. Please let this next chapter be the turning point!

Hi all, If you're interested in playing an online Aussie Rules Footy game then check out the link below. I've been working on a little game based on aussie rules that is mostly a test of reflexes, plus a little bit of strategy. http://www.ttfooty.com It's pretty much complete but open to any improvements anyone might want to suggest! The game is designed for best use on a PC but does work ok on the latest iphone, ipad and Samsung devices. On PC it requires at least version 9 of Internet Explorer, or alternatively another browser such as Chrome or Firefox. On a mobile device, I recommend downloading the mobile version of Chrome. Anyhow see if you can get the Dees to a premiership! Mods, please delete if this type of thread isn't desired on this forum. Cheers.

Fair enough mate. Just passing on what I've been told. I tend to agree that it is unlikely that this would have happened, but then again I have no reason to doubt the person who told me. We'll see where he ends up playing in 2015. Just to clarify a few of your points though:- - I said 2015 not 2014 (I know he is contracted to us for next season). - Any club would want to add Frawley to their list, so it would be the list manager that would be driving it. Frawley has a connection to the Saints, regardless of who is coaching them. - How do you know chasing success and money are the only reasons people are wanting to leave Melbourne? I can guarantee you that in other recent examples they did not leave for finals nor for money. They left because they were sick of what was going on at Melbourne. For example, all those trying to justify Rivers departure as being a case of chasing success are way off the mark. - We'd be asking Frawley, along with others, to bear with us once again while we put in place a great coaching staff. These guys have trusted us before and we've stuffed it up...sooner or later people's patience runs out. So, whoever is coaching Melbourne next year might not matter, the decision may already be made. I hope that's not the case and our better players give us one more chance!