Deecisive

In the 40+ years of being a Melbourne supporter I have never, never been so disappointed. We lost to a rabble, a joke team. All of the team need to watch every minute of that game once every day this week, look at it and study it. That is not the way you play football.

We made essendon look a lot better than what they were with our turnovers and poor football. Sadly this is a skill we seem to turn on every time we are favoured to win.

Sadly our players do not know how to count, otherwise they would not be kicking it so often to contests where there are two or three opposition players to our one. unfortunately that's what we do from kickouts and into the forward line. It is demoralising to see players blindly kick it in directly to an opposition players who marks uncontested. The best teams apply pressure, you apply pressure by tackling the hell out of them everytime they get the ball, our players instead run beside opposition players trying to corral them, the spectre of bruise free football still lingers. and we don't cope well with opposition teams using their spare player to create overlaps as our spare player is usually sitting deep down in the backline.

I think others have suggested that Stretch did not do a lot today.

Roos has not changed the style from what Goodwin set, its just that our players cannot execute it. We get found out on the spread, simple as that, teams chip it around us and over us. At one stage in todays game there were 3 essendon players when the ball was kicked to Hogan alone in our forward line. Why was that, where were our other 2 players? Those three players ran and linked up with heaps of Essendon players running alone all the way up the ground, again where were the Melbourne players ? This reminds so much of the way we used to play against the bulldogs years ago, the dogs would do anything to force a point in our defensive half, then from the kickout they would take it up along the boundary line without a demon player getting near the ball and score. They did this time and time again. Now opposition players are holding it using their spare men in defense to kick to the other side and our players just cannot run or keep up with the opposition who cut us to ribbons. Our zoning is pathetic, we don't know how to man up and force a contest, Essendon had far too many uncontested possessions compared to us. I don't understand the zone mentality when you are allowing your player to have 5-10 sometimes 20 meters lead on you. I don't understand what good having an extra man in our defence is if the opposition can use their spare numbers all around the ground to go around our spare. on in the case of today just bunch all our spares around Joe Danihers feet.

Given our current form we are not going to beat North, what we need to do is make a statement to the players that substandard effort will not be rewarded with a game. I would drop Tom Mac, Bugg, Kent, Harmes, for a start. In comes Dunn, Trengrove, ANB, Frost or weiderman,

We cannot just keep blaming coaches, are we going to call for Goodwin to be sacked when the team folds again like this against Essendon next year when he is officially in charge.

Whose to say they did not, but then who are you going to replace Tommy Mac if you dragged him off, also he would be spending more time off the ground than on with that approach. Players need to take responsibility for their actions, right or wrong. blaming the coaches just gives the players an out so they don't need to consider what they did.

If I was Roos or Goodwin, I will tell all the tall forwards to stay at least 30 meters away from Jesse Hogan in the forward line. Any tall that goes near him gets fined 10% of their match fee for every infraction. That will ensure that all the talls stay a reasonable distance out and offer other options to players down field so that we have other options than just bombing it to a pack near the goals. if the opposition wants to crowd Hogan then that will leave other talls available. I would also put fines on Jesse for every time he stops and protests with the umpires about frees instead of chasing the ball or his opponent. I would make his fines around 2% of his match fee, because it will take him a lot longer to change his bad habits of being a bit of a prima donna.

I still don't know why people think Goodwin would have done much different, he would have been in the box with Roos giving him ideas etc... they are a coaching group. The game was lost on the field not in the box. McDonald's first kick across ground cost us a goal, his play on after a mark after taking a mark near the forward 50 and getting tackled, his tapping the ball over the line in the defensive 50, his inability to make contact with Daniher in marking contests. And that was just him, add to that Jettas free in the goal square when the essendon player was trying to shepherd the ball through for a point, Matt jones kick intercepted from the backline that resulted in another goal, Hogan not competing, Watts disappearing, Kent not even turning up, etc. etc. etc. so why are people blaming the coaches, those actions and many other done and not done by the players are what cost us the game.... You can be the best coach in the universe if your players cannot tackle, chase or deliver the ball with greater than 70% accuracy you will get towelled up. We lost that game rather than essendon winning it.

Question for the coaches now is what changes for next weeks debacle.

Dunn knows how to use his body more and grapple with his opponents, Daniher would have still taken marks but not as many.

I don't see why we blame the coaches for the players bad performance. You reckon that Roos and co said let them run. The players did not execute to plan, the players did not chase, tackle, kick well, etc... Roos put on what we all thought was a reasonable side even with Lumumba and Angus coming in, but it does not matter who you bring in if your attitude and approach is as bad as our players was today. They fall for their own hype so easily, we saw it time and time again last year when we thought we were going in as favourites and lost, today was no exception. We were all chuffed because we beat GWS and Essendon got pantsed by GCS. We were going to play a bunch of VFL and AFL rejects we were favourites paying $1.12 to their $6, it was all about how much are we going to win by, and how many is Hogan going to kick. So our team turned up again expecting to win without putting in and we got pantsed again. The dees never fail to disappoint when they are clear favourites to win.

the problem with Hogan is that he has had things going to well for him, he has not had to do much more than stand there an mark it for a lot of his limited career, its just he is going to end up double and triple tagged a lot more which means he needs to do more, until the contest is dead he needs to do an oliver, see ball get ball. and only stop when he hears a whistle, not stop and look/plead for a whistle.

We lost as a team today, not because of coaching moves, not because Dunn was not selected we lost because we did not play as a team, did not do the team things, and were too lazy around the contests. Hogan maybe a great player one day, but at the moment he is a prima donna who goes for a mark the remonstrates with the umpire on why he should have been paid the mark or remonstrates with himself over dropping the ball. He does not chase his opponents and does not apply pressure on the ground. Kent sadly over rated, he usually runs in and does a couple of things each game to get a goal or two but is way below being a good player. Garlett does some nice things, but too often he has chances to do much more but fluffs them we poor disposals, or just not able to gather simple bouncing balls. Watts really needs to learn how to pull himself up when down, he just seems to sook like a lot of the other players and give in. GWS and Essendon both showed how to beat us, run, run, run and spread. Melbourne players will play 10meters off of you looking for cheap turnovers. We don't chase, don't tackle and have no heart. Todays loss is absolutely gut wrenching, yet nothing seemed to show from the players out on the field.

This is a game that we have to win and we have to win comprehensively. Essendon is using this match as protests of their innocence. We need to stand up for all of the other clubs and the football community as a whole and show them that cheaters will not prosper. When Jimmy died I expected the Dees to stand up and make a statement by coming out fighting and win in that next game but they didn't, we played poorly and lost. Tomorrow we will have a new team out on the field I expect them to standup and come out fighting and to deliver a big win.

With Allen coming back to Victoria, I wonder if he will be getting a new job with a Melbourne based team, Richmond or Essendon perhaps?

We have been playing more attacking football through the NAB challenge and even against the GWS, unfortunately we still have a lot of players who do not have the instinct to dish the ball off immediately or to the first lead. quite often you will see a player take a mark and immediately players down field offer leads, which are not honoured, by the time the kicker gets ready to dispose of the ball all leads are covered or gone, so they kick either long down the line or trying going across or back. Grimes, Tom Mac, Garlett, Kent all seem to lack that spontaneity to push the ball on quickly.

Love the look of Kennedy, his pressure is excellent, our forwards need to put pressure on the opposition backs to hold the ball in and even turn it over. Too often we have kicked it in to see it rebound out as the opposition runs it down the field to score.

We should not be looking at the dropping of a player as being the end of the world. We are putting one player down to try to improve while we give another one or two a chance to excel at senior level. For the first time in a long, long time Melbourne has talented players sitting in the wings waiting to get a game. This is something to be used to give players a rest, to give players a chance to go down to casey to try different things, or just find a bit more of the ball. I just pray that we continue to have dilemmas every selection night like we have now, as opposed to the dropping one out of form player and replacing him with another. I would like to see Dunn back because he gives us options especially in relation to daniher who can mark and kick well enough to hurt us on the score board. I would also like to see Angus and Lumumba in.

While Roos may not like changing a winning team we need to be able to continue to upgrade out team and not settle for second best. Yes we won, but quite frankly there were two quarters in that game that we played poorly, if the GWS had kicked straight then how many changes would we have made. We need to make sure we replace those that do not play up to the level expected with those available who can improve us. We need Dunn to help take care of daniher and keep him goaless if possible. We had too many talls all standing around together last week which made it hard for Hogan and all the forwards. We need to bring in Petraca or Angus. I would play up forward and rotate on the ball. Watts to play CHF and give all the forwards except the crumbers instructions to continue to lead wide and up the ground away from Hogan to give him space or to be another option if the defenders decide to double or triple tag Hogan. So Frost or Pederson probably has to go, that does leave us pretty exposed in the ruck division when Gawn is resting.

picking next weeks team is about picking the best 22. That means if someone has been doing the right thing in practice matches, training, or with Casey and they look to be a better option than even a player playing well then we need to go with that better option. Yes it is not necessarily fair that a player be dropped, but we need to put our best 22 out there every week, and we have to reward players who earn that call up. Petraca is one that I think has earned that call up.

we had a lot of players today that did not chase when the pressure was on. Far too many times our players were running beside GWS players minding their man instead of going at the man with the ball. And we had a few who turned it over in bad locations, even Bernie had a couple of howlers. Oscar and Harmes look the most likely to miss next week. From all reports of the casey practice game petraca was the stand out. I think he should be coming in and give Angus another week to get a bit more form and bring Dunn back in as well. It would be nice if we had another tall able to help out Gawn, Pederson only had 1 hitout for the game and frost none. So we do fall apart when Maxxy is not around.

What I find interesting is that Roos knew we to win the ball out of the centre at the start of the last quarter and start scoring, he had enough confidence to put oliver into that pressure situation, and that he came through for the team. He is something special.

slot petraca in the midfield with oliver and boy what potential.