Deecisive

I think everyone would have loved to take Wines, but were very happy to have gained Toumpas. Having seen Wines, i can see he is pretty talented, but then he was playing in a much better side than jimmy or Jack was. I still see Jimmy is going to be a class player, we just need to let him get settled a bit more and get the ball to him in reasonable fashion his class and skill will show out in the end.

Senior players are allowed to put in mediocre performances because they know they will still get picked, Frawleys example was only one of several type episodes where he really did not look interested, or his man was miles away from him taking marks and kicking goals. Senior players must be held accountable for their actions.

When the whole team apart from Jack and a couple of others stink its a bit hard to get a true estimate of people value especially Pederson and other first gamers for us. Jamar got the taps but if it goes to the opposition then it is a meaningless stat. Our guys were in the square why did not they get it... was it not hit to them, was it taken off them. what was the problem. From looking at the stat sheets 2 Port players were responsible for most of the damange, what sort of pressure did our mids put on them to stop them.

I would love to see some proper stats not just hand passes, kicks, hit outs, but effective kicks, hit outs, etc, and ineffective as some players may look to have reasonable stats until you see their efficiency or clangers resulting in goals kill us. Jamar did hit it down but invariably to the opposition, which means he either cannot control it or our guys are just not in the right spot. Given our poor mid field may Jamar should try punching the ball Forward, it cannot be worse than loosing it all the time at center square ball-ups.

The thing I find most frustrating with Watts on Sunday is that he was doing no good in the backline, why persist with him them change it up, move him on the ball, move him forward, sit him on the bench. He is one of our prime movers why leave him there doing nothing... mades no sense.....

Re the Mark of the year, if you look at the video, see port game review at http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-premiership/paul-roos-declares-something-is-seriously-wrong-with-melbourne-after-disastrous-start-to-the-season/story-e6frf3e3-1226610632733#.UVoxbTeMw1d it looks like a Melbourne Players hand is under the ball before Schulz marks it behind the line, this should have been a point.

While I am not 100% happy with Neeld it was the 22 players on the field that didnt chase, didnt compete, didnt man up.. they need to be held accountable first.

Caption should read - do you think anyone suspects we are tanking

Much as some may like it they cannot replay Sundays game 24 hours a day, but I am pretty sure they are reliving it 24 hours a day. While they exercise, relax, eat and sleep and try to live normal lives as best they can. while we are hurting you can bet these guys are getting it from family friends, TV, newspapers, facebook, twitter, in the street, or in the surf. I doubt there are too many things they would be doing that would take their mind of it entirely, it would keep coming back to haunt them, knowing that they will read about in the newspapers and TV all week, go over it again at training, SAM and the footy show tearing strips off them Thursday and eventually running out again on the weekend against an even better side, who will undoubtedly remind them they are a bunch of [censored] to rile. Players have got to remember social media comments are forever and will go places and be taken out of context, so really need a bit of training in making sure they dont say something stupid that could come back and haunt them.

A short clip is not sufficient to judge, there are a few other traits that are also important that may not show through in a short youtube clip. Trust, Respect, history of success, etc that help make up the package. We have had inspirational coaches before i.e. Barassi to name one. we want a coach someone who knows what needs to be done and is able to get the players to buy in and deliver. I think this last part is the bit that is missing at the moment players are just not wanting to be the hardest team to play against.

But arent our two leaders the two Jacks? I wonder how these older more experienced and proven players feel playing under two such junior captains, especially Trenners who's form has been pretty patchy over the last year since taking on the captaincy. Do you reckon they are inspiring the team.

Must agree Macca someone kicks a goal they go have a rest, why? they should use rotations to rotate tired players, those tired players should be on ballers who have given their all like PORT did. I hate seeing a forward sprint 100 meters to sit for 3 minutes then sprint 100 meters back. god leave him be and let him rest in position, unless he is absolutely spent. As for Neelds video, he seemed to be saying man up, or body up. how is this consistent with Zoning?

Basic physics tell you that if two players run pretty much the same speed but one starts 5 meters behind the chances of him catching the other quickly are ZERO. If one player is standing still waving his hands in the air protecting blades of grass and the opposition player is moving then you would expect the one moving would again have a speed advantage. Zoning is teaching these players to play LAZY football looking for cheap kicks, not going in and earning them, corralling the opposition on the boundary line instead of going in and tackling shows a defeatist attitude, though given the number of time port players danced around our players makes you wonder where all our tackling training was for. Zoning will NEVER work against good opposition, so we are playing a mode of football that may work against lower teams like US who cannot kick, though Saturday proved even lower teams can kick our butts with such stupidity. Footy classifieds showed on short of about 7 port players in the frame around the 50 meter line all unopposed, while inside the 50 meters were 4 or 5 melbourne players again defending their chosen blades of grass.

I like others supporters have invested money and emotion in the demons for more than 40+ years. That is a longer association and more emotional attachment than probably all the players and coaches. The problem will be when supporters no longer boo such performances because they will either have totally given up, or will no longer turn up. They are there to cheer as well as boo, just not a lot to cheer about at the moment.

We will now see what this playing group is made of in the next couple of weeks, if they lay down and give in or pull their socks up and take it up to the opposition. I would hope a lot of these players would have had a long hard look at themselves and got down to recovery and training to put in the extra yards, to look at the criticisms as a guide to what then now need to do. Last thing in the world I want to see is melbourne players thinking they have to run out and start biffing Bomber players next week and giving up free kicks and getting reported instead of out playing them on the ground. I really doubt there is much chance we will win next week, but i would like to seem the 22 Melbourne players put in and play a decent, hard competitive brand of football, and if we do loose, then hopefully it will not be by much.

Another way of looking at this problem is what do successful clubs do that we do not do? Brisbane bears when at their peak played man on man, and tackled hard, if you did not take the ball first time or fumbled you were ground into the dirt. They play with the concept of 'no easy kicks'. These are things that most good sides do automatically, which appears to be opposite to what we do. You cannot hope to give any player 5 yards and hope to catch him, which is what we do all day long with our zone "defense" ironic that it is no defense at all. Good teams shepherd and run for each other, they lead and present they talk... Most good sides apart from Collingwood go down the centre corridor, we avoid it like the plague which is kinda why port owned it and just about everything else yesterday. We should not be afraid of using the corridor, going from side to side was farcical the way we try to do it. Kick long preferably to an even contest if you cannot find a man on his own, but why do we kick it to a man out numbered 3 to 1?

Grimes Dunn Jetta Watts T Mcdonald Terlich M Jones Viney Howe Byrnes Dawes Blease Davey Clark Garland Jamar Sylvia N Jones Fitzpatrick Rodan, Pederson, Sub Toumpas Frawley out as he just keeps failing to produce, needs to go back to the 2's to meditate on his attitude. Garland did ok down forward in the past, I think he should be tried there again providing support clark going left and garland going right and dawes in the middle will test most teams. Brynes and Blease to crumb and help get the ball forward - all forwards need to stick to their half of the ground a lot more so there is support for Clark if/when the ball gets down there. Pederson I think he deserves another chance, he shows he can mark and kick, needs a little more time fitting into a dysfunctional team Howe on the wing so that he can help more for kick ins, needs to move it up a notch. Davey - the coach needs to take him aside and talk to him about how we need his crumbing, run and delivery - he has the skills needs the belief Dunn - needs to step up and take more control of the backline as a senior player, his long kicking down the ground should be used more often. While he may not be the best full back the aim is to stop the ball from getting down there. if Joe Danaher is playing then Tom Mc will probably need to take him. I would expect Essendon would bring Joe in for this game as it would probably be seen as a light introduction into AFL football. No spare man in defense, all players man up and stay manned up all day long. no easy kicks, tackle hard and shepherd for your team mates.

The coach has to devise a team plan to suit his team and the teams make up. Neeld is trying to make us play a collingwood game without collingwood quality players. It is not working. Strengths of the team are being lost as we try to play a foreign game plan that confuses the players. Neeld said it will take 3-4 years to get his game plan, really 3-4 years is it that difficult? maybe he needs an interim plan, something that involves players getting involved and tackling. I dont think many clubs are going to be afraid of us if we are 5 meters behind protecting a patch of earth instead of a man.

Sellers dropped to marks under little or no pressure in front of goal in the early stages of the match that would have got us off to a much better start had he converted, instead he lost the ball they took down the other end and kicked a goal, this was a 2 and 4 goal turn around. I admit I have never been a bigger sellers fan as apart from his 5 goal haul in a practice match I have seldom seen him put in and gather enough possessions to warrant a spot on any team but ours.

I am astounded that the coaches and Watts made statements like "we didnt see it coming" what that the opposition would want the ball and you guys did not. There has been a few calls for the coach to be sacked, a bit early in the year for that. Lets see how the boys take this loss, if they use this as a spur to not let it happen again (hmmm didnt we say that after the Carlton game a couple of years ago).. anyway. One left field approach maybe to sack a player. that way the put all players on notice that they are not safe and allows us to promote a rookie, sure we are going to go one man short on our list but I'm sure there are some players that we are just not going to miss.

Range i have to disagree with you about Melbourne rolling over to the AFL being an influence, thats a lame excuse in my book. 22 players walked out onto that field yesterday in red and blue and they walked or stood all day when they should have run. The port players were bugged at the end of the game, how many Melbourne players were. The crowd showed their appreciation for the pathetic effort. TV commentators noted that port players coming to the bench were stuffed, the melbourne players were not, they were just being rotated off to keep our rotations off. I believe Melbourne players are confused on how to man up and yet still defend the space. I hate the zone concept with a passion. Giving anyone a free kick or 5 meters is stupid in this day and age. Having a spare man in defense meant we were short all day long and port took advantage of that, which left our guys running around in circles trying to figure out who they were supposed to be on. Players are playing to instruction and not natural instincts they are confused and dazed. Go back to basic man up and stay on your man, there should never be uncontested possessions unless you can absolutely help it. too much of this team is based on trying to get easy kicks, BRUISE free football as so aptly put by Carlton, so here we are a couple of years on still playing bruise free football.

All of them are on our list and we need to get the most of them while they are on our lists. Coaching staff need to take them in hand to give them a better understanding of what they are doing wrong, i.e. not catching the ball would be a good start. They should ALL know by now very few players will be safe at the end of the year if they continued such gutless football. And very few if any will find a home with another AFL club. This is their one chance if they blow it then their dreams are gone.

I cannot say I will be too worried about loosing Sylvia or Frawley, Sylvia is just not going to put in for anyone. Frawley is living in his past glory days, every time he gets the ball i cringe, as he far too often butchers his handballs, kicks or gets caught. He is always chasing his man and usually a few yards behind at that.

I honestly believe we do not have a sensible game plan that our players can execute. The zone is a farce, our players stand around waving their hands in the air protecting a patch of dirt while the opposition players run into space. You cannot give AFL players in any team 5 meters headstart. You cannot cover every man when you have a man short. These are coaching decisions. We play an extra man in defense who used to get some easy kicks, but the oppositions teams free player often did far more damage than ours all the way down the ground eventually kicking over our spare man in defense. So what was the value of the spare man in defense today, how many goals did he stop? best form of defense is attack, which seems to be something the demons have forgotten how to do.

Hmm this thread still sadly seems topical. just change some of the players names to protect the guilty