The heart beats true

JVR, Petty and TMac up forward in the AFL please.

Any idea when memberships go on sale for 2023?

Watching Casey one of Turner, Smith or Tomlinson need to become our third defender. Petty to go forward and work with JVR, Fritta and Kozzy for the next decade. Tom Mac to come back next year. All of a sudden our forward line looks a lot more dynamic. I love what the Casey boys are offering up today. A nice little reminder that we’ve got options.

After we won 10 straight? Doubtful

I think in 40 years we will still look back and think ‘how did we lose 2 finals on the G to interstate sides?’. For me I think you have to go back to the middle of the year. The game plan began to be exposed, until the formula to beat us solidified. Simon is a systems coach. He backs in his system every time. Once it was exposed we couldn’t do it for 4 quarters teams got a lot of confidence they could outwork us. I think we assumed at some point it would click. That’s the learning for the footy department. Make it click. Work on it. Don’t expect that it will. I hope it’s the making of a more adaptable side.

Did we ever get to the bottom of why Laurie is out?

That bloke worked for CUB. They sell the coin toss as part of the multi million dollar sponsorship packages.

I reckon he’s been hampered since he got that knee injury in July. Not had the same leap or drive in his running.

That makes sense in terms of our list demo and recent scaled contracts.

I agree with you to a large extent. I think we got complacent about the plan. I think we probably had the right to try the plan again, but it didn’t work for months and nothing shifted. If anything straight sets will show us how far off we are with the current plan.

I find it fascinating how people want to ignore the obvious. Outscored after halftime in 11 of our last 15 games, gave up 22 point leads 6 times (all during that period), and won only 6 of our last 14 (one of those being daylight robbery against Carlton) Sometimes the simplest answer is a big part of the answer. Watching at the G you can see we didn’t have the legs to go again and again after half time for the last few months. I will never know but I strongly suspect we tried to replicate 2021 in terms of training load but didn’t have the same base due to a shorter preseason, and more injuries to contend with. We had absolutely nothing to give after halftime for 3 months. I interpreted Goodwins post Game comments last night to essentially say that the club was going to investigate this.

Fitness

If Freo get rolled this week I expect an announcement this week. Is that unrealistic? Goodwin made it sound like they expect to know in the coming days.

And we are back talking about the 2018 preliminary final review/lack of review again. Let. It. Go.

Do you really think any Melbourne supporter is shocked to see a stat that says we haven’t been a consistently good side for 30 odd years? We all live it BBP. I didn’t mean to come across so dismissive. I just feel like we all know this in our bones 👍

This narrative is absolute rubbish. 85% of the crowd last night was Melbourne. Every metric you look at shows we have the second best turn up of Members to games across the comp (second only to Freo because of their member numbers and where they play). The supporters are tired of seeing the side get beaten in exactly the same way for the last 3 months. Last night we turned up and we wanted it. I can not stand that supporters blame other supporters. It’s factually incorrect, and an entirely useless exercise.

What an utterly meaningless stat.

The vast majority of supporters around me were fantastic. I have to say, and this is a criticism I’d gladly tell anyone at the club who’d listen, it’s incredibly difficult to go to our home ground (which we’ve been banned from for 2 years prior) and see the side get beaten in such a comprehensive and consistent manner after half time week in and week out. I know people have been critical of the supporters but each game was so eerily similar I think it’s a lot to ask of supporters for them not to go into their shell and think ‘here we go again’.

I actually don’t think we’ve got the best list in the comp. I think we have a lack of marking forwards, and elite distance kicking. It’s probably 3 players, but with them we would have an amazing list. I’d also say Hibbo might not go around again and we are lacking a shutdown defender with him gone.

Fitness. I know it’s wildly unpopular to talk about it but we have been crushed after half time. We’ve won 4 of our last 15 second halves. We got our fitness horribly wrong.

Salem is the answer. He’s been operating at 20%. Get him fit and he makes us a lot better.

Dare I say you’re more optimistic than me with your 90 percent estimate.

It’s genuinely infuriating to watch us lose the same way every week. To sit there at the G and have opposition fans give us a bake when we are beaten so convincingly after half time is just utter garbage. We realistically haven’t been a top 6 since since midseason. It’s a lot to digest as a supporter but we fell in a massive hole mid year and never pulled ourselves far enough out of it. I dunno. I’m super flat.

Still not convinced you’re a Melbourne supporter. Week in, week out.

At the ground it’s a sea of red and blue. If you are at the G I need unrelenting noise. Let’s show the competition how much we love our team.