The heart beats true

I like the optimism. The issue for mine is that our games are trending painfully similarly. If we are matched for contest work and teams can stick with us until half way through the 3rd the pattern suggests we will be over run.

Yep, and our game plan is very reliant on them.

Nah. I think that’s fair enough. We are painfully quiet. 👍

Thanks for the info WCW. Cheer squad looked and sounded incredible last night - the huge flag was brilliant. Congrats to all involved for their efforts. I think I might join up next year. The passion is inspiring. Go Dees! ✊

I agree with this, and I think a lot of Melbourne supporters who follow the team closely and go to games have seen that game play out 5 times already this year. I think it’s in part why our supporter base was quieter last night. It all felt very familiar. We are a systems based team, but if the system is matched (and it has been this year by top 6 teams) we appear incapable of diverse thinking. Last night we were 4 goals down in the last and kept going long down the line. It’s too easy to coach against. We were getting killed at the fall of the ball because they knew where we were going - so got there quicker.

Regardless of what we have tried to do this year in terms of training loads it hasn’t worked. Our last half form has been atrocious since round 11 onwards. We’ve won 4 last halves in our last 14 games. I wouldn’t want to be the fitness department this week.

I dunno Gonz. I have been really frustrated with our supporters this year, either being too quite, or worse - not showing up at all, but last night I really felt like we didn’t have much to cheer about. Our game plan, at the G particularly, doesn’t have as much dynamic burst as the slingshot style played against our high press. Instead we win a stoppage, long down the line, punched over the boundary, go again. It’s painfully predictable (by design). I’d say last night there was almost 60,000 Melbourne supporters there. We showed up, but didn’t get much to cheer about aside from a burst in the 2nd and 3rd.

Your passion for the sport seems to be driven purely by complaining about us. ’Only at the MFC could the wheels fall off so completely so quickly’. Really? We finished top 4, and got rolled by a good team. Calm down, get some perspective, and have some respect for how hard the game is. It’s not a matching set. You don’t win one and then everyone rolls over and gives you another.

Salem was completely out of touch. I know he’s been such an important player for us but this year had been a compete write off. I can’t remember one game where he would have been in the best 15 players on the field. He needs a proper preseason and some consistent footy as currently he’s not able to play with the polish that’s made him so important.

I thought tonight, and I’ve thought this all year - and for every year Goodwin has coached us, that our game plan is so reliant on winning contest, overwhelming possession and contested marking forward of the ball. All our losses I felt like teams were kicking them from everywhere, but when I watched the replays I realised that aside from Fritsch and an occasional glimpse from Koz, we simply don’t value forward line skill and craft enough across our list. The balance of our play is so reliant on Gawn, Oliver, Petracca, Lever and May that if two of those blokes are down we struggle. I think our game plan in 2022 feels draining like it did circa 2017-18. It’s too reliant on incredible fitness and 110% contest work. We need to get some more polish and an extra dimension into our game style if we want to keep competing. Even in the last we kept kicking it long down the line to 2 ruckmen. It’s too easy to coach against once everyone got a good look at it.

We have looked unbelievably flat since the middle of the year. Take out the 2 Brisbane games and we’ve struggled in every other game. I think regardless of how the year plays out from here the club will be asking some touchy questions. It feels like we haven’t quite got it right.

78k I thought the cheer squad did an exceptional job all game, and the crowd lifted when we got going early in the 2nd and 3rd. The problem was if you take those bursts out we got comprehensively beaten. Not the crowds fault.

Tonight walking out of the ground I just felt really sorry for Melbourne supporters. Last year was something truly special and we didn’t get to see it, and share it together.

100%. I can’t handle people who don’t go to the ground say how quite it is. If you want to make a difference. Show up.

Really? I would have thought a true supporter would have loved to be proven wrong?

There’s been 150 finals played in the last 16 years and in only 2 of them have both teams scored over 100 points. That was an exhilarating game, but it wasn’t at all reflective of the contested intensity of finals footy.

Yeah, I don’t doubt the result - but the process was a disaster for the AFL. Why have goal umpires at all if a guy without clear vision of it on replay can overturn it? The vision to overturn was clearly inconclusive - therefore umpires call.

How was that overruled by the arc? I’m in shock

Hipwood has a Medieval look about him. He’s definitely Homo Sapien, but a much earlier iteration.

Why not show the free kick? The AFL is a monopoly, and it’s painfully boring to not see an element of play replayed simply because it might not be a good decision.

Maybe he’s just sick of the standard of journalism in this country?

Oh, that sucks.

I’d love to know how this came to be the finals system. I wonder if the AFL is encouraging pathways clubs to be more flexible in season to give players the ability to play in different positions and learn different systems. When I played my junior footy in the then TAC cup I was always surprised at the level of input recruiters had over team selection - and often the push back they got from coaches with their own careers to manage.

Melky playing defensive forward role on May?

Wait a minute, the qualifying factor to make our Academy is that your mum has to come from Mauritius? No wonder we don’t seem to have many coming through.