Lucifers Hero

I used 'rookie' yesterday referring to Goodwin and Mahoney not yet having the experience to steer us thru difficult times such as now, without Roos (for Goodwin) and PJ (for Mahoney) to guide or cover them. I was making a case for a Neil Balme type to steady the ship and support them thru challenging times thereby reducing the risk of 'rookie' errors. 'So 'rookie' was intended as breadth of experience not time. Maybe that is where SWYL picked up the 'rookie' reference.

He is in the 'Rookie' Section. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/Team/players/rookie

Funny you should say that. Jesse is looking a lot leaner and fitter. Maybe our fitness and rehab regime isn't all it is cracked up to be. Certainly their is enough anecdotal evidence saying we play injured players or let them stay on the park when injured. Then the initial injury gets worse. The latest example being Jetta playing all 4 qtrs when he could barely walk. Now out for 10-12. Should have been benched.

Thanks. These are the articles I used https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2018-10-03/offseason-injury-update https://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-12-08/wheres-your-club-at https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2019-01-23/preseason-injury-update-misson And I couldn't find any ref to ANB, TMac and Hibberd. Not wishing to correct you directly - just to have the discussion on interrupted preseason and current performance in the right context as surgeries are being quoted as excuses for players and the team (not by yourself).

One thing that might help us is that Rich haven't worked out how to play effectively with two tall forwards. The two big losses were with Lynch and Riewoldt in. When Riewoldt went out they rediscovered their 'DNA' ie playing to one tall fwd. Re Smith he was doing ok until this game last year when Rance jumped late (supposedly) for a mark and rammed his knee into Smith's back fracturing his ribs and puncturing his lung. Shame Rance isn't playing but Smith can seek revenge by playing a top game for us.

This is true. Since we have not had a coach who played as a forward for most or all of Sams career with us, it is an indictment on our development of him and development of synergy among all forwards.

Ok, so Goodwin and co reviewed it. What was learnt from said reviews of how WCE beat us or how they beat Coll in the GF? From the outside looking in no changes or even tweaks are visible to recruiting, game plan, tactics, so its reasonable to conclude that the 'review' was put down to what Goodwin called 'a poor game that wasn't how Melbourne play'. The point you are missing is the way WCE beat us is exactly the same as Hawks, Tigers, Pies, Saints etal did last year. And how Port, Geelong, Essendon and Saints have this year. Reviewed? Yes. Changes? No. Action? No. Goodwin can say and spin all he wants but the lack of action is there for all to see. Actions speak louder than words.

Snap!

What worries me about BM no longer in the 'coach development' role is who is 'mentoring' Goodwin? Last year I raised the issue of not having what I call a 'Football Mentor/Overseer' position ie Neil Balme (for Scott/Hardwick), George Stone (Dew), Chris Fagan (Clarkson) to mentor Goodwin and to hold him and Mahoney accountable. Nor do we have a Football Director (Greg Healy was the last one). To me these omissions were and still are weaknesses in our management structure. We have hit very turbulent waters on and off the field. Mahoney and Goodwin are still very inexperienced in their roles and have not had to perform when things go backwards. Roos or PJ were there to take the heat. imv, now more than ever that we need a Neil Balme type; someone who knows how to steady, then right the ship and how to avoid rookie errors. Someone who monitors, challenges, supports and helps find solutions when issues arise before they become problems. Without that 'overseeing' role it may be very tempting for Pert to become overly involved in football and coaching matters which by various reports was his downfall at the Pies. To me the last thing we need is the CEO trying to run the football side of things. Hope Mahoney and Goodwin get on top of it all very quickly.

Could be higher ups. Maybe it was a reaction to the JLT games...

Out of interest what were their issues? I recall training reports saying various players were in 'rehab' but more to do with tempo of work rather than injury. Even so do you think those issues prevented them having a full preseason ie missed many training sessions or would still be affecting their performance?

I don't see anything wrong with BM being 'overall defensive' coach. Clearly we desperately need one. It means assistant coaches need to work together and take notice of BM to make the role work ie one team! If they don't like it, bad luck. If the players don't like, it bad luck. Goodwin gave him that role for a reason. That is all we need to know. Anyway, it seems to be being overplayed on here - the article says it is mainly a game day issue not some ongoing malaise among coaches.

We must play well and take it up to the Tigers. A repeat of last year's 8 goal loss will give the AFL the excuse to take this game away from us. Maybe not next year but they will be watching. It is a big stage, important game. It is essential we come out to play and make it a decent game to watch. ?

I also thought about this. Of those fielded, I see four groups of players: Those with a full preseason who are consistently performing well below what they can. To name a few: Hibberd, Gawn, Tom Mc, Weideman, ANB, Spargo, Fritsch. Two AA's on that list. Official and unofficial leaders on that list. Others with niggles had an almost full preseason who are under performing their standard. Many of the surgeries were shoulder related so should have had a better fitness preseason than those with ankle/knee surgery. One wonders how diligent they were in their rehab... Those that had full preseasons and are performing consistently, even if not excelling: Salem and to a lesser extent Frost. (Honourable mention to Hore and those who are first year mfc players). I stopped buying the surgery/interrupted preseason spin after round 2 because they did not affect the whole team and those it did affect should have been match fit by then having played most of the practice matches. Surgeries alone do not give us 1-4. And they certainly do not give a percentage of a measly 75% five games in. It is woeful % and it is scary that we have fallen so far. Looks more like a poor pre season effort, all round. I have a sick feeling of deja vu to an era when poor off field leadership and standards retarded the development of a generation of our young talent. I expect it to not be repeated and hope Goodwin will use his goodwill and relationship with players to limit damage to the youngsters. But gee whiz senior players better get their act together. And fast!

Have a look at post #2 and others in this thread Skuit Some WCE big ticket items: Tagged Max and took him out of the game. Lost our 'one wood' right there. Possessed and chipped the ball around which minimised contests - the life blood of our chaos/win contested ball style. Controlled the ball inside our 50 which stopped us keeping the ball there. Short kicks across and down the line which cut thru our zone defence. They are the biggies I can recall off the top of my head. Not sure what the stats say but if we won any of them we weren't able to capitalise on them.

Agree with most of this especially not reviewing with the players. If Goodwin and coaches did review how we were beaten not much seems to have changed this year as we have been beaten the same way in most games. And the coaches still have no answers. My fear is Goodwin is not prepared to modify the chaos gamestyle preferring to make the players follow it whether they are capable or not. As you say they will lose faith in it - maybe they have; how many times have we heard the phrase 'lack of player buy-in' this year? Most coaches develop a game plan to fit their list. Goodwin seems steadfast to make the players fit the game plan and play his way. Time will tell what he learnt from the prelim 'review' and from how WCE won the GF. I hope we see what he learnt sooner rather than later.

Sure, they reviewed it. To me the issue is how thoroughly and how seriously? This comment: "... didn’t dwell too much on the way we played because it was nothing like the way the Melbourne team plays..." reads like coaches dismissed it as an aberration( ie just a poor game) rather than respecting that WCE did a systemic dismantling of nearly every aspect of his game plan and that he had no answers. Maybe it is a rookie coach error to not see the significance of how WCE won, particularly with the euphoria of finals still in the air. But the fact is WCE's systemic dismantling has been successfully copied by other teams and we still have no answers. Perhaps if the coaches had reviewed it more deeply they would have seen the danger signs.

Does anyone in our team even know what that means anymore? Have rarely seen them try it since Roos coached. Would do wonders for our defence if they did.

Match Committee meets today so assume team announcement is this evening. Not expecting a lot from this game. I will settle for an honourable loss where we run both ways and are NOT 'easy to score against'. Hope they fight it out to the end particularly in view of the ANZAC occassion of this game.

Haven't seen Andy post this weekend so thought I would start this thread on his behalf.

The point was the imbalance was foreseeable when we recruited Wagner and Lockhart and we didn't act on it. The rule changes simply exacerbated the imbalance, in particular lack of wingmen and forward depth.

Agreed. From his press conf he thinks its the players: aren't working hard enough, can't get the ball i50 accurately enough (ie can't connect) and our forwards can't mark (ie can't connect). His points have validity but are only part of the story. I didn't get the impression he thought it was game plan related issues. I would be more confident of improvement if he said something like: we will look at all aspects of our game, player skills, workrate, structures, forward leading and positioning, ball movement etc. It wouldn't hurt to take and share the responsibility.

Maybe not foresee 1-4. But they should have foreseen the impact of the rule changes and that our list was unbalanced when we took Wagner and Lockhart. Our recruiting was based on the 2018 game plan ie zone defence, forward half team that relied heavily on winning the contest. There was sufficient experience in many games last year including the prelim that showed our game plan has severe limitations and it is easy to score against. Goodwin said so this week and DL's and commentators have been saying it since the Hawks game early last year. Its not new news. Yet we continued to commit recruiting resources to it. Blind faith? Stubborness? Inflexible? To me the game plan weaknesses were foreseeable. We now play recruiting catch up. Maybe they have just woken up and realised that over the last two years we have traded out (with good reason) players who contributed about 70-80 goals per annum without replacing them and now we don't have fwd depth? Its no wonder our play is breaking down in our fwd half. Blind faith that a fwd line with only one experienced AFL fwd (Melksham) would get the job done? The severity of the AVB and Hannan injuries were known at the time we took Lockhart. The recruiting took out no insurance for fwd line depth in case Tom Mc was injured and Sam needed more development or they fell out of form. The risks were clearly foreseeable. If 17 other coaches could foresee the impact of the rules and recruited accordingly, why could not ours? I would think our list management should foresee the risks of limited depth in key positions on the ground particularly tall forwards, wingmen.

Fristly, thanks for the info - good to have such insight. It can't be new news to the club that our list is unbalanced and largely one-dimensional. Wondering, why would we not have gone for one of those with our last pick instead of taking Lockhart a month ago. Not a knock on Lockhart but we need someone like O'Reilly, Pickett, Saad, Lowson more than we need another small contested ball midfielder type. FWD depth and a speedy type would be great to have right now. We could have also taken one of those with the pick we used for Wagner in the special preseason draft.