poita

People are really whining about travelling to a neutral venue to play a winless team? I guess they'd rather play Freo at the MCG with no crowd, and have an extra away game later in the year. All it means is that we will have a run of games at the MCG later in the season, possibly against the big Victorian teams, and hopefully in front of crowds. If so, there is a fair chance that we get some prime time coverage if we win some games in the meantime.

The only way Spargo makes it as an AFL player is as Jetta's replacement. Some of his skill errors under no pressure are astonishing for a player who offers nothing in the way of goals, tackles or speed.

I hate the idea of drafting future picks and I'm still not convinced that giving up our 2020 draft pick was a smart move. I'm not saying that we have to use a high draft pick each year, but you have so much more flexibility to orchestrate trades when you have a full complement of picks available. Yes, it is a highly compromised draft, but there are still quality players likely to be available at the top end and there is a reasonable chance that our (North's) first selection is going to be quite early indeed. I'm not sold on Jackson and, if we were so desperate to get Pickett, I would have preferred us to split pick 3 into two later first round picks. That would have given us Pickett plus one more last year, and let us keep our pick for this year.

We are years away from seriously contending. We are weak in all key positions and have little depth across the ground. Our list is seriously unbalanced with far too many mid-sized forwards, and few developing midfielders or talls. We don't turn over the list often enough and carry too many injury prone players. The lack of quality draft picks from 2016 - 2018 will hurt us for years to come. We lack leadership and star quality, and hence we don't perform at a consistently high level across games either as individuals or as a team. Our coach rarely looks capable of swinging games in our favour. We rarely get selection right either. I keep reading that we are a young team, and in some respects we are, but Gawn, McDonald and May are all 28 or older before the end of this season. These guys are our three most important players. All will be 30 plus by the time we challenge again and there are no replacements in the wings. This is a weird season and maybe we could fluke a finals spot with a lot of luck, but really it would be a false dawn.

There is nothing wrong with playing a smaller forward line, as Richmond showed in 2017 especially. The issue is that the delivery to small forwards has to be spot on. Richmond's foot skills are infinitely better than ours, so they were able to find their targets. We have not shown this ability in the past 18 months.

I'm pretty sure that there isn't a player on our list (other than Pickett in his one game) who averages a goal a game. On that basis Brown's 0.96 is pretty bloody good and it is hard to believe he isn't in the side. As for Weideman, he should clearly be playing ahead of Jackson. I fully expect him to be at another club next year - if we're lucky we'll get a pick in the 50s for him. Every week he doesn't play drops his value further.

Another woefully compiled team. Do our selectors even consider who goes on the team sheet, or do they just throw darts at the wall? One badly out of form key forward, plus a developing ruck / forward who is miles off having an AFL body. We get smashed in the ruck every time Gawn leaves the ground, and smashed up forward because nobody can take a contested mark or bring the ball to ground. One genuine key defender, plus a bloke who is key position size but can't defend like one. How many times does Goodwin need to see Lever & May play together before he decides it is not the answer? One slow as treacle small defender to match up on Essendon's multiple quick small forwards. We all love Jetta but Fantasia & Tippa loom as massive threats. But hey at least we've got ten medium sized forwards in the squad. One of them is bound to kick a couple of goals surely?

Don't care about Riccuito's opinion on this or any other subject, but the Lever trade has been a disaster for Melbourne. I never liked the deal from the start and Lever has been a passenger since he got to the club. A 195cm defender on $700K plus a year minding small forwards because he doesn't have the strength to take key forwards - only at Melbourne. But hey, at least he can point well. However you want to frame the deal, we gave up two first round draft picks, one in 2017 and one in 2018. Later picks are immaterial and irrelevant because they hold so little value. The opportunity cost of giving up two first round picks is massive, either viewed in terms of young talent we didn't take or other experienced players we couldn't bring to the club. I don't like his salary or the length of his deal, but it is no more stupid than the contracts given to Kolodjashnij, Vandenberg or Goodwin in recent times. It is about time we started equating contracts with performance.

What happened to Preuss? Was meant to be missing 10 weeks with a knee injury, and has rolled straight into an achilles injury?

Melksham is the same player he's always been - out of every eight games he'll give you one where he is brilliant, two where he is good, and five where he is lazy, selfish and completely disinterested. We've seen two of the latter category so far this year, so he should be due for one of the good ones this week. For an experienced player, there is far too big a gap between his best and worst football.

That's why he gets paid the big bucks - he's full of great ideas, our Simon is. Pity he didn't do anything between the first quarter and the last two minutes though.

How so? We've shown time and time again that we can't make money from football operations. We need reliable sources of income that are not dependant on on-field success. It is that exact reason that Collingwood and Hawthorn are the two biggest clubs in town. Get those things right and then you have a constant stream of money to put back into the football program.

Agree with this. As soon as Pittonet negated Gawn's impact, our central midfielders stopped getting an armchair ride and didn't do anything about it. The stats may have been even across the game, but we were smashed in the clearances and contested possessions from midway through the second quarter. That's what happens when your tall forwards have no physical presence and can't take a contested mark to save their lives. McDonald is great as a number three forward, not a number one. Jackson is three years off having an AFL body, and will probably never be a key forward anyway. We desperately need three talls up forward, particularly if one will be rucking for part of the time.

Given that our current progress is backwards at a rapid rate, setting the club back a number of years would be a good thing. Or have you forgotten that we played in a preliminary final two years ago? Remind me again what positional moves or tactical changes Goodwin made to change the course of the game when Carlton had sixteen more scoring shots than us in the last 2.5 quarters on Saturday. That said, I don't think he'll be sacked either, mainly because the board would have to admit that they were so comprehensively wrong in extending his contract.

All anybody needs to know about Jake Lever's contribution to this side is that this was the first win he played in since 2 June 2018. Yes he was injured for part of that time, but he was on a nine game losing streak until Saturday. He should be embarrassed to be standing Betts or Cunningham whilst Jetta repeatedly had to go up against McKay. Whatever Lever's skills may be, they don't work in the context of our defensive structure.

Weideman is our Liam Jones. I don't think he'll make it as a forward - he is just not hungry enough for the contest. The question is whether he can move to defence as successfully as Jones did. Will it be us that asks the question, or his next employer?

On the back of playing one of the worst, most unbalanced sides we have ever seen in round 1, here might be one that is even worse. We are clearly missing a genuine key defender, a genuine key forward and a crumbing forward. If seven unforced changes isn't a clear admission by the selectors that they got it completely wrong in round 1, I don't know what is. The disconnect between the side that is being selected each week and the game plan that Goodwin wants to use is hugely concerning. Is he not getting the side he wants, or does he simply have no idea how to construct a football side? Neither Lever or Smith is a key position defender, and Lever rarely wants to be in the same postcode as his opponent at the best of times. Any opposition coach worth is his pay packet will use May's opponent to drag him out of the play (as Kennedy did in round 1), and use other targets. McKay will have a field day with Cripps slamming the ball down his throat all day. Hopefully Goodwin puts Harmes back in the midfield, because a half back line with both he and Salem ball watching will be a disaster. The forward line looks more of the same. Nobody who can take a contested mark. No big bodies to bring the ball to ground. Just a bunch of mid-sized leading players who will all get in each other's way. Why you would go from having 4 crumbers to 1 crumber in the space of a week is mind boggling. Good luck to Jackson having to provide an entire forward line's worth of physical presence in his first game. If our midfield doesn't dominate we will lose this game, and comfortably. The likes of Langdon and Oliver have to lower their eyes and find a target, because more indiscriminate bombing into the forward line will not end well, even against poor opposition.

Sparrow and Petty will never be moved on. They are two of the very few young players on our list with the potential to be very good long term players. The delist column will be much longer if the AFL are able to reduce list sizes. Not sure why either Chandler or Dunkley would get a third year on the rookie list.

Lumumba must be a miserable, bitter individual. Four years out of the game and six years after leaving Collingwood, he is still bleating about the injustices of a society that has provided him with more money and opportunities than most people could ever dream of. I note that he has never commented on the injustices of accepting a multi million dollar contract to play at Melbourne and then cruising around at about 25% intensity for two years before pulling the pin mid-contract (whilst expecting to be paid for the last two years). The sad thing is that he has the profile and the resources to actually make a difference on significant issues if he put his mind to it, instead of pulling out the old "woe is me" card when it suits.

Don't disagree with this, but how does it fit in with Goodwin's contract extension last year? Surely we didn't give him three more years to rebuild a side that came off a preliminary final. If so, the board have a lot to answer for.

I'm not surprised that Rivers is in - I reckon Hibberd is done, and we need to get games into his replacement. I think Jetta might be just about done as well, but he will hold his spot for a while longer. Surely Jackson only plays if he is playing forward / second ruck, which is exactly what we were told at the start of the year he wouldn't be doing. I don't understand this one, but perhaps the selectors have finally lost confidence in Weideman. Congratulations to both boys and to Bennell - I'm really looking forward to see what Harley can bring to this group. A relatively quiet game for him will still be miles above what Spargo or Bedford would bring.

It was hardly a dead rubber. Both sides were playing for the win and the four points, all of which are pretty handy if you want to play finals. One team built a match winning lead in the first quarter and sat back. The other team never left the starting blocks.

So this year's induction consists of four modern day players, three of whom played with interstate teams; two SANFL players, and a commentator from WA. I know we are a national sport, but they couldn't find one person from the first 140 years of football in Victoria who was worthy of inclusion in the Hall of Fame this year? It seems like the Hall of Fame is following the lead of the All Australian Team whereby SA & WA interests are over represented. Melbourne's golden era remains massively under represented in the Hall of Fame relative to certain other clubs.

I think he genuinely believes he is the smartest bloke in the room, and therefore he wastes all his time and effort on low percentage tactical gambles, instead of finding a game plan that suits the players he has at his disposal.

How many of the people whining and moaning about our draw and our perilous financial position: a) are currently paid up members of the club; and b) attended all three of our three end of season "blockbuster" games in 2019 when the club basically begged you all to do so? There would have been lucky to have been 10K of Melbourne supporters at each of those games, so I am comfortable in saying that less than 20% of our members turned up to support the club at those games. We lose all rights to demand prime time TV coverage and blockbuster fixtures when our own supporters don't even turn up. How can we expect the AFL and channel 7 to fight for us, when we won't fight for ourselves? The AFL won't let us go under, at least not while they have bigger problems to deal with, but another wasted decade will ensure our demise. We have a golden opportunity with the revised schedule to win games on FTA television from rounds 2-5. If we do so, hopefully we can build some momentum to capitalise upon when games are opened to fans later in the season. However, if we turn 1-4 or worse, we are in for a world of hurt. We have to find sources of revenue that are are not reliant on our onfield performance. Yes, poker machines would not help us at the moment, but they do have value in normal times and it was a mistake to get rid of them without a backup plan. Other clubs have property or financial investments - we are far too reliant on the 1 in 10 years we play finals. The club has been very slow to communicate to members throughout this process, far slower than other clubs. We haven't been pursuing lapsed members and we haven't been engaging those who have signed. Hopefully the action is more frenetic behind the scenes, but really we are own biggest enemy.