rufus

That's not just a this season thing either. They fight like tooth and nail and want to dominate teams...we are so submissive when the pressure really gets turned on...been that way for a long time. We just don't know how to become winners. The absolute delusion from the club through the spruiking of our 'changed culture' after 2021 was embarrassing at the time...but now it looks like maybe they really did think the work had been done and everything would just happen from there. The approach of Richmond, on field and off field, to strive for sustained success after 2017 puts our club to absolute shame. You win a flag, then 10 games in a row, then opposition start throwing some different stuff at you and we just completely wilted...the heart just isn't there.

Eventually I guess you just have to laugh. From premiers back to our normal historical calamity within about 10 months. We played 3.9 quarters of competent football against Collingwood...the only time anywhere near 4 quarters for over 12 months and then 2 weeks of utter Shi'ite. These guys are energy suckers and people wonder why our crowd is bored out of their brains watching us play at the 'G. Prideless pea hearts.

Great win. We took the physical/attrition side out of the equation by matching them in that aspect for a full game. We needed to get back to winning a game that way. Might the result have been different if both teams weren't affected by missing/potentially underdone players? Who cares. Because if we play with that level of effort and happen to lose a final to a better team then so be it. If we bring sub par intensity like our finals last year, and the Ess/Port/Freo games this year, we will lose finals and it will again leave a really bad taste in the mouth. Also, that's 2 weeks in a row where we have conceded under the magic 18 scoring shots to our oppo. I believe that is the number that would see us being there at the pointy end.

Pies list of missing players will not be the deciding factor today. They recently (and historically) best us by being harder and stronger for longer all over the ground. Today is another big test for whether we can go hard enough for long enough against decent competition.

This times 1000. Is and has for a long time been the missing piece that drives the big gap between our best and worst.

I guess each umpire has 2 buttons...one for each team. Need two presses for the same team to award a free.

My solution to the umpiring problem: - Get three of them off the ground and sitting behind a TV monitor. - Each has a button to press, if they think free kick hit the button. - Two or more buttons pressed, fourth umpire (on ground) gets signal into ear piece, blows whistle and pays free. Obviously would need some tweaking but in general the advantages are: - Decisions no longer influenced by crowd at all. - Decisions no longer influenced by anything being said on the field. - No more players complaining to umpire (the one on the field is simply the messenger). - More consistent decisions with each contest being adjudicated by three people. - Should not slow the game down as technology should allow the decision and communication to happen in an instant - Generally get a better view of the contest from TV screen anyway. The main things that would need working through: - Watching off ball / off screen stuff. - Anything sound related (e.g. touched kicks or contact made that was not clear to see but could be heard). - Is one on field 'messenger' enough to keep up with where the ball is.

I reckon it will definitely come down to 3 three you've mentioned. The 4th team in a preliminary finally is going to be significantly out of their weight division (unless Geelong perks up). When our intensity and pressure are up we can hang with those top sides, but we have too many lulls and unfortunately we just don't seem to have the ability to execute offensively when under pressure...which hurts in keeping the scoreboard ticking over against good sides.

Losing Hibberd hurts us given he's one of our guys who attacks the contest the right way. Harmes and McDonald out should theoretically help our contest, although our depth is looking very concerning when Smith and Tomlinson are now both in the side. Hunter also a net negative for our chance of putting up a decent effort if tested in the physicality stakes. Simply can't see us winning without Oliver if Carlton bring the heat physically...hopefully they don't (or we go back to applying pressure like we did for a fleeting period a few years back, in which case we'd be fine).

Carlton are going to pressure us physically big time...that's how they very nearly beat us with half a VFL team last year. Collingwood will obviously go harder for longer than us...they wanted it more both times last year and can't see how we'll go toe to toe with them in the pressure stakes. Who knows with Geelong...their pressure has dropped off a bit like ours...but they do have a recent history with an expectancy of competitiveness which will continue to hold then in good stead...

This is it. And you have to ask why? Don't these guys want to win another flag? Is it all just too hard? Collingwood have a team of good ordinary players yet they crack in every week...and look at the results.

Possibly very lucky to be up in the year that the GF and big finals were played away from the MCG. We might well have seen an epic pant[censored] if we had have played a huge final on the MCG if there was a hostile crowd involved. Think it suited us very well to be very far away in 21.

If we were all being honest, most of the first 20 years of this century our players treated us to a lot of bruise free stuff. Lots of senior players giving hospital handballs and just not wanting to go when it was their turn. It made it very hard to be inspired or proud of the club. As a result, our recruiting changed to hunting down competitors. I've heard from someone very high up at the Demons that these guys are the most competitive group of players going around (also said before the season started that they believe they are primed for a flag this year and if they don't win it, it will be an abject failure). I'm just not seeing it with these guys. I can't get over how utterly embarrassing we are when put under a bit of pressure. Obviously pressure can make it hard to be effective and we could expect some fumbling...but the answer to that is and always has been to put the oppo under as much or more pressure than they put on us. It just looks a bit too hard for us. It should have been us facing Geelong in the GF last year and at least making them sweat a bit. We were the second best team in it but instead we got touched up by a plodding Sydney team and a decimated Lions team ON OUR OWN HOME GROUND. Make whatever excuses you want, but we were weak. Then we come out today and serve up that against a team who took our top 3 draft pick from us. I thought before this season that our guys would be embarrassed by last year and come out with the pressure turned up to give ourselves a look at another GF. But they just don't seem to have the wherewithal to dig in and overpower decent teams. On top of our guys just being a bit softer than the competition's big boys, our style of play is hideous. I assume we have some analytics department who have come up with percentage chances of scoring and conceding from all parts of the ground. And as a result we rigidly try to move the ball through the same places in the same ways week after week. It is so boring to watch and just doesn't seem to be that effective.

Is there something we all don't know about Tom McDonald? Like WTF is this bloke still on an AFL list let alone still playing in our senior side? Not only does he rarely get the ball...he actually competes putridly in the air and on the ground. He needs to go. We'd be better to go to the mid season draft and play a competitive forward out of local footy and just tell this bloke to stay home. Honestly emblematic of how crape we are that a bloke with that much experience can play like that week in week out.

Love the new culture the MFC have built. Another ordinary interstate team doing us on the G. People wonder why our crowds are either small or just not into it...ourr players are a bit soft and don't offer much to inspire. What a squibby football club peeing away the best opportunity we will have in a lifetime to change into a ruthlessly competitive club.

Pies applying full ground pressure like Cats of last year and us of 21. It's a simple game but obviously the biggest challenge lies in getting 23 blokes on board to work at that rate week in week out. Cats have dropped it off a bit and come back to the pack much like us. Who's going to be able to throw the kitchen sink at the Pies this year? Not seeing a likely contender yet...

Was at the game. Crows brought some heat early but Dogs are outstandingly good at getting out of stoppage or spillage when being pressured. They looked a division above the Crows all day. I have the Dogs and Lions both to win a flag in the next 3 or 4 years...but had the Dogs a year or two away before some of their young talls mature. But their mids are good and clean enough under pressure to potentially go deep.

Unfortunately you might just be right. What's really bugging me from last night is the talk about why the coaches didn't send anyone to run with Butterrs. Honestly full on tags seem to be something that coaches are hesitant to do these days. But what about the leaders on the ground rallying guys to just be a bit closer and a bit more competitive with him? What about the pride of our players to say 'stuff this, we're making this guy look like the greatest player in the world, I'm going to challenge him and beat him around the contest'. Something feels really off with our desire to scrap and fight to get the better of tough opponents. Feels like we're back to old Melbourne for 3 quarters of most games. The quarters here and there where we apply the pressure we look great...just seems too hard for our guys to sustain it.

It's gone. We seem to be back to being the club that can be gotten in the physicality stakes...just like most of the last 50 years. Teams like Collingwood will be licking their lips at the prospect of out hustling our guys.

I think you also need to consider that maybe we are just a little soft. Maybe we just severely lack leg speed, but we just don't look like we're hitting contests or pressuring opposition exits as hard and fast as is being done to us. I feel for Goodwin. On one hand he does seem to have a real stubbornness about his approach. But how hard would it be to develop a plan when the players are so inconsistent with their intensity? He shouldn't need to be dealing with that. These guys have seen the reward you get from manic pressure and ferocious attack at the contest, yet since they tasted the success in 2021 they haven't been willing or able to apply themselves like that for more than a qtr here or there.

You look at our lineup on paper and just wonder how we can be so ordinary so often when coming up against the better teams. We seem to be smack bang in the middle of wasting the best group of MFC talent we may see in our lifetimes. Then again, maybe our guys are just a bit overrated.

Fritsch picked up his defense and contest work massively at the pointy end of 2021. I thought it was emblematic of the buy in from the whole group. We need him to get back there...his lack of defense and poor contest work is not going to cut it and he's not alone in the drop off in that area.

At this point, we have to hope we have one of the seemingly random weeks where our pressure is right up when we come up against Coll or Geel, beat them and hope that it builds some belief and recognition of what it takes to be there at the pointy end. Right now we look absolutely miles off being a contender in my opinion. Very much like the latter half of 22.

The issue with May is that you expect the floor for your experienced 30 year olds to be quite high, or at least a consistent level. That's how contending teams need to work...you know and trust what you get from the Senior guys so you can ride the bigger variation in performance from younger players that you try to bring into the team. May, along with some other senior players, just serves up too many complete stinkers. I reckon it would make it damn hard for the coaches dealing with that kind of inconsistency.

North were as physical against us as any team was last season. They are a better team now, and I expect they'll hit us very hard. I hope our guys aren't expecting an easy game. I'd like to see us hit them physically hard early and not give them the upper hand. This one makes me nervous.