Deecisive

stats have shown that we have been killed on the scoreboard because we turn the ball over so often and our opposition scores from it. I dont know how many time this season i have seen players under no pressure kick to opposition players, or handpass to one of our own players feet. this is a game of skill, and our side was not up to that this year. As i have said before we play a brand of football where we zone off hoping to pick off the easy miskick, pass etc. that does not work against good sides that do not miskick. We have the ability to get the ball forward but either we are out numbered, out marked, or simply out played. Some players are always looking sideways and backwards rather than moving the ball forward. and we frequently play players who just are not fit enough or have the form to deserve to play, in some cases i would say they dont even have the right attitude, i.e. they dont chase, they dont tackle, they dont shepherd and often miss giving or receiving simple kicks and handballs.

I am not sure i really agree with the idea our backline is full of good ball users. I was worried every time lever got the ball as his kicking to team mates was far from good, a lot of turnovers at critical times. Oscar... has to get the ball first before he can kick it. Hibberd's disposal this year has been woeful, far from the player he was last year. And Salem, again another who seemed to turn the ball over far more frequently this year. May did not give us the drive we expected from the backline. But other than that (Jetta) was pretty good when fit.

how many of our players had 2018 form this year. Max and ?? so your assumption could apply to 30+ other players, not sure why Brayshaw has been singled out. We know he has the capability to play better and obviously having his team mates around him playing better would help raise his game. Ollies form this year has not been outstanding, but i guess the assumption is that his form will return next year.

so that means watch him go..... somewhere else other than melbourne.

i loved jones dedication to the club, but their is a time and place to call it quits and this is the time. He should see if he can help out at Casey mentoring and helping our younger players.

we certainly paid overs for lever, his kicking was atrocious, turned it over again and again. Saleem the same. Jones he has been a good servant of the club, but with great regret i say it is time to retire or go to the suns. ANB what can you say, a player who just cannot find the goals, cannot find the ball that often and one tackle for the game, really only one tackle where is the pressure from this guy. in fact north players just brushed aside so many of our tackles, hunt is brushed aside like a rag doll when he tackles and god knows what Harms was trying to do with his constant playing on and running directly into opposition players. Max a true champion that deserves better than the team he has around him.

put spargo on brown and we can all back brown to win the coleman.

hunt was ok on the lead, but he often did bugger all beyond that, he is not a strong tackler. opposition players seem to shake lose from him pretty easily. and for all his speed he does not seem to catch the opposition players very often with the ball. I feel the problem with our backline is that they dont play as a team, they play as a group of individuals all going for the same ball. they do not seem to have trust in their fellow players at times. I lost count of how many times we have 3 melbourne players going up against 1 opposition player, usually with lever or may crashing the pack which consists mainly of our players. and the ball falls over the pack to the waiting opposition forwards. As for our forward line we have a couple of problems. we often are out numbered when we go into attack. our kicking is usually to the flanks or directly to opposition players. for some reason our players just do not seem to be able to read the flight of the ball as well as our opponents do. Our own players do not help out each other i.e.by getting between our leading forwards and their opponents to take some of the pressure off. Our scoring ability is not always bad, but our kicking for goal is atrocious. Our defensive structure from a kick-in is woeful, we let the opposition have easy kick ins to the flanks where if we get the ball places us in the worst attacking position. from there we allow the next easy pass, then the next, then the switch and we are all at sea. We have shown we can win contested possessions so man up for f's sake. encourage the opposition to kick down the middle, back yourselves to win the ball and attack. i do miss dunnies torps when he used to kick in. Lastly too many of our players just dont know how to move the ball on. they mark the ball and start looking sideways, worried about where to go. often they overlook the quick pass to a players 20-30m away.

Preuss should have played with the dees on Friday, i have to see this revolving door of player being dropped, being brought back in, being dropped, etc.. omac, anb, preuss. stick with preuss

The club may be down (again) but being a stubborn bastard I am still a diehard demon supporter. i will be back cheering again next year (when there is something to cheer about) and the year after if my heart does not give out before watching some of our poorer performances. We know they have the capability to play good football, but so seldom executed. Yes there were a few truely woeful players who played for us this year, they wont be there next year, but all in all apart from max and one or two others most of the team shares the blame for this years poor performance. yes a year can make a hell of a difference, i am hoping next year will be a totally reverse image of this year.

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.