Deecisive

one more game and then no more pain this year In the light of a new day, i sit and reflect on last nights effort. had we kicked straight we would have had a close game, regardless of the many rubbish actions of our players throughout the game turning the ball over, etc. sadly against another bottom 4 side. I am not keen on blaming the coach for things that happen on the ground, but i do blame the coach for the players he puts out on the ground. Last night was another example of playing players who should not have been there, as we have seen time and time again throughout the year. while a new fitness coach is nice i would like to see more work from the skills coaches in sorting out players kicking, handballing, body positioning over the off season. Do we actually have anyone working with our players on how to setup defensively, as i dont know how many time all of our players get sucked into the contest and opposition players wait patiently on the outside. Or our defense kicks blindly 30 meters out from the back line to opponents who have no melbourne players near by. the kick the ball out of defense regardless of where it goes mentality is killing us. maybe it would be better to try to get a stoppage so that we can reset. i have hope that a couple of new recruits, a fitter team, possibly an easier draw and the loss of some players who dont deserve to be out there will have us having a much better year next year. and if you are not going to play preuss and others who are backups and possible future players instead of some ANB and Oscar and others then get rid of them, but remember that max cannot do it all by himself. so please stop concentrating on just getting midfielders and more defenders. you win games by kicking goals, not just by defending.

I think we can all agree it was a stupid game plan to go in with the forward line that we had. As someone mentioned in the game day thread, if preuss was in that would have perhaps given the swans something to think on as he did play pretty well against them so would have been conscious of that. may have given fritch as little more space. Our kicking what can you say about our kicking that has not been said 5,000 times already this year. so many more inside 50's yet our forwards are rarely in the contest. we had about 4 less shots at goal, 3 if you count that goal that was disallowed, but we lost by a S##tload. i still think Preuss is part of our future and needs more game time so why do we play ANB instead of Preuss? Preuss could have taken the ruck and let Max go forward if needed. I liked the idea of frost going forward, i would still prefer him on the wing, he runs hard and chases which is not something a lot of our players do. Harmes, what can you say about his performance, did nothing much and what he did he often stuffed up. stop playing players who should not be there next year and play those that we are likely to keep even if they are not ready. and once more i will say i dont understand why we play a zoned defense, we are no good at it. the opposition passes it around our witches hat players until an opening come and then the waltz it down into their forward line with our players trotting after them, that is if they can be bothered trotting. I would strongly recommend the coach make every player watch a replay of every game that we played this year at least twice before training starts. They should see the mistakes and hear the commentators views on their game or lack there of. they need to recognise what they are doing wrong before they can fix it.

our players are always looking for the easy out, instead of moving the ball quickly they are looking to switch or go sideways, often backwards. three or four kicks back and forth before we turn the ball over usually where we started or closer to their goal. they do not play as a team, they do not move away from each other to take their players away so as to open up territory for players down the field to run into. we are are rabble without a cause.

does not matter if they are midgets or talls they have all had plenty of opportunity to get tackle the swans players and have failed to do so. Max is the only one i see doing a good job. We are slow to move the ball and we cannot hit a target. ANB should not be out there, sorry but i dont see any place in the side as bad as it is for stretch, i wish i could but he is just not up to it. and i wish i knew what the hell salem is doing with his kicking its diabolical today.

whats all this asking players to man up... we get our players to stand much like witches hats in vacant spaces between opposition players so as not to impede their run forward.

i have a thorough dislike of zoning, looks like we are trying to capitalise on opposition mistakes if they miskick. if they dont miskick they score, if they do we intercept and get a turn over. Sadly we are more likely to turn it over ourselves as we go forward. there was a comment previously about howe and other collingwood players not having tackles, as they had the ball in their forward line far more time than ours that would have limited them and the other limiting factor is that melbourne forwards just did not have the ball often enough to tackle, except for Petracca. Fritch and Milkshakes disposal efficiency was woeful in the 40% range, symptomatic of our year. The best teams tackle and tackle hard and en-mass our players run around in circles and dont bother chasing as often or as hard as they should.

sorry but i just dont understand our game plan, everyone zoneing off. Players dont stand close to opposition players that way if the opposition miskicks it we are in a good position to intercept and kick a score from rebounds. Rebounds were extremely successful today, just not for us. let the opposition take easy kicks from kickins, let them continue to short pass all along the line because we are zoning not manning up. or opposition kicks to an unmanned player so one of our players down field leaves the general region of his man to cover the mark only to have the ball passed to his opposition. rinse and repeat. Then once it gets into their forward line hang together like a bunch of bananas and fall all over each other. so how many uncontested marks and kicks did the pies have again.... I miss the old style of play where you played close to your own man. you tackled the man with ball and kept pressure on all day long. admittedly the leave sidebottoms alone strategy did work to some degree, the poor fellow wore himself out getting so many kicks and running around the ground that he may have injured himself.

i thought nobody was on fire for the dees

levers constant poor disposal is a real worry

one of the worst efforts this season

hunt seems to be running around like a headless chook never actually impacting the contest

jones needs to retire

just goes to show oscar can run in circles both forward and back and not impact the contest in the least.

what the hell is oscar doing out there, he is a joke as a ruckman. lever if his is not kicking to our opponents his crashing the pack taking out our own players without getting the ball out of bounds. Jones, well what can you say about nothing. turnovers are killing us again and again, when will they learn

just film it in slow motion a bit like the $6m man would.

who would we get to replace brayshaw and how much would it cost, i.e. brayshaw or what we could get for him and at least a 2nd rounder, and big bite out of our salary cap. Then what sort of output beyond what brayshaw currently gives us would you be expecting. 3-5 more kicks, a couple more hand passes occasionally a goal or two more per game if we are lucky. is that worth what we are giving up when we have forward positions that still need coverage and some would say more outside runners, I would like to see brayshaw move to the wing opposite frosty give him a little more room, i think he works best when he has a bit more space.

in all of these supposed trades how many forwards are there?

where is the loyalty to our players, wanting to trade them when they are having a bad trot. when they are not playing well what do you think you will get for them. angus is a damn good footballer who we need to keep, he will continue to grow and get better with age and experience.

It was good to see Melbourne play so well in the first half, i had real hope that we could win this until the rain came. As usual our turnovers kill us. so often when to ball is sent high into defense you will have 3 or 4 melbourne players all flying for the ball while the opposition scouts the packs. When we hurriedly kick out of defense we seem to always kick to an opposition player as all of our players seem to get sucked up the ground into and around the contests instead of providing an outlet up the ground. when May comes back and hore comes back i would like to see frosty move to the win and jones to the forward line. we have too many players all jumping to punch the ball away from everyone including their own team mates, so put frosty where he can run. jones to the forward line because he is not a great asset in the backline, but still can offer something around the goals a bit like Lewis has. Hopefully Jones and Lewis can help better organise our attack. I liked a lot that we did last night but disappointed in simple kicks and handpasses that miss their mark still.Preuss needs more time and confidence of the club to play him. It was mentioned earlier in the threat that Max was not considered too good when he first started, which is what i seem to recall, played some games did a knee, played some games did a knee and was not seen as the brilliant player he has become. Preuss should start in the goal square, he has shown it can mark and kick give him time, he is still young. if he does start to mark these he will be a huge asset up forward. even if he does not mark he should be able to take help bring the ball down to the ground where one day we may actually have someone crumbing.JHK did not set the world on fire but a serviceable game, a much better option than ANB at this time. we should be playing for next year by getting games into those players who need the experience or are on the cusp of keep or let go at the end of the year.

we have not seen the best of frost, keep him. i would try him on a wing, his speed and height would be an asset there.

perhaps we would not have such a bad defense if our forward line actually kicked goals. Bad as we are we still have massive amounts of inside 50's that we fail to capitalize on. If we scored it would go back to the center and we start again even, instead we turn it over in our forward line and the opposition run it down into their forward line and kick goals. We need forwards, we should have tried to find the best forward in the mid seasons draft and we still need to find the best forwards in the end of the year draft. How many games did we lose because of poor kicking for goal, too many..

we have a number of good players we can bring back in this week. but we need to do more than that. if jones is playing play him forward, he is a liability in the back line as he is too slow and his disposal efficiency was a bonus to st kilda not us. Jones has shown he can kick goals so play him forward, Melksham at centre half forward, fritch leading out of the forward pocket, Preuss in the goal square and Jones, Petracca and lewis crumbing. if we can i would put Frost on a wing. he is tall and fast and may be a hard matchup due to his size and speed. he will have a lot more freedom playing on the wing and if makes mistakes i would prefer those mistakes to be closer to our goal than their goal.Just turn him lose and see how he goes. Hore, May, jetta, hibberd (reluctantly), Salem and anyone else but Oscar Mc in the backline. ANB, Wagner, Oscar Mc, smith, and oskar baker as a minimum out. i would try to squeeze JKH in if we can we need to reward players how put in at Casey, otherwise there is no incentive for players to complete, and i doubt he could do worse than ANB at the moment, at least give him another chance though giving him a chance against richmond may not be doing him any great favor.

other teams seem to be able to bring in younger player hungry for a chance, i dont see why we should not it is not as if they are replacing super stars. it is a game that we are going to lose make a statement as a coaching panel that if you do not put in then you will be replaced. Too many players are complacent in their role, getting good money for not doing a lot, they dont show the hunger or aggression that then need to show to play AFL football at the moment. does not mean they cannot recapture that form but they need to be pushed and pushed hard.

This is basically the same team that played finals last year. that had one of the best defenses last year. now look at us a shambles. All of our backmen want to either go for the mark or spoil usually in the same contest, spoiling our own players. Jones is not a backman, oscar is not a backman, frost while i like him turns the ball over, but then again which of our backmen did not. Saints players cleared the ball so easily at stopages. our players just seemed to stand and watch them go. sadly i dont see a couple of early picks helping this team when they cannot defend, tackle, handball, or generally play football. 50+ years supporting this club and this is the crap they serve up year after year.

we are luck to be as close as we are