Older demon

Suggested yesterday that Stevens goes to Geelong, Kelly goes to Free and Hill goes to the Saints with swaps of late draft picks. No good for us but seems a good fit with 3 players who want to play elsewhere. If we get pick 2 please take Noah Anderson and do not trade it away for anybody

I won't repeat what other posters have listed as there are some obvious ideas. History is against us because in the last 9 years only Richmond rebounded after 1 year. Incidentally they won a flag on the rebound. Most teams have taken a couple of years to rebound and often they don't. Missing this year is a Garlett type forward who kicks goals. Look at Brisbane with Cameron, W.C. with Ryan, Rioli, Cripps and Cameron, Hawthorn always had Rioli and Bruest. Richmond won a flag with a small forward line in which everybody contributed goals. A huge gap in our forward line setup that needs to be addressed Midfielders who kick goals. Gus, Viney, Clarry and Harmes don't kick goals. The top teams have mids who love to stream down the ground and kicks goals our guys would rather handball, usually to someone in a worse position,

I listened to Richo being interviewed and he has no desire to be a senior coach again. He sees himself as a development coach and that is his area of strength. As luck would have it we have a vacancy for a development coach with McCartney's departure. Rich is much more of a people person than the hard edge of Macca. Already the club has recruited in a lot of youth with Sparrow, Jordan, Bedford, Dunkley and Chandler. If we don't trade of our high draft picks we will have 3 maybe 4 more kids come in.Fertile ground for a development coach to manufacture the next tier of players under Viney, Gus, Clarry and Harmes

Martin Flanagan is a superb writer and demon tragic. I wold never mss his regular articles in the Age. Met him at Robbie Flowers service and thanked him for the brilliant story he wrote about Tulip. His writing reflects his connection with footy especially at local levels and grass roots footy all of which came through in this interview. Rob Murphy was a perfect foil for him. He finished off when they asked about the culture atMFC and he started by stating that they are the world longest established club at senior level. He likened them to a tragedy & a comedy. He thought that Barassi moving to Carlton, modernised both them and the modern game, turning it into the running game we know now. Sadly MFC has been slow to adapt. He then said the best thing MFC could do now moving forward was make Max captain and detailed why. Well worth listening to. I agree! Note Martin said Max should be club captain and that captaining the club is different to just captaining the team on match day. It is his off field presence and personality as well as his fierce desire to perform on field and ability to lift players around him. He certainly has the current co-captains covered with his media savvy and appeal to club supporters IMO

Agree we miss the speed of the Garlett of old but his prime has past and Vanders I suspect may never play again. There is an urgent need to recruit a Garlett type of small goal kicking forward who tackles.

I posted elsewhere in a thread a table of team finishes in the 8 since 2010. Only 1 top 4 team team has rebounded after missing the finals the next year. The fall is easy but there is a reason we are 15th and that is reflected in the quality or lack there off in the team. I do not have a high expectation of next year unless we address some serious deficiencies in the game plan, personnel and the way we structure up ie our goal to goal line is thin and no realistic back up.

Agree with everything David said. The marketing campaign starting this week with the "Big 3" may be a disaster as why would anyone come and watch us play the way we did Saturday night. 3 game membership who would bother. I have asked the club not to send me their Monday morning email with Goodwin's message. The problem has been there all year and nothing the club has done has fixed it. This is a massive fail both at player level and coaching level. They deserved King's boot in my opinion.

Well demonland will go into meltdown after that performance. It was actually 85 points from turn overs 13 goals 7 behinds from turn overs. Can you actually coach a team to handle the pill that badly. With so many professional footballers unable to kick or hand ball to maintain possession it augurs badly for next year simply because there are so many of them we cannot clear them all out at the same time. I also think it is time Goodwin ceased sending us the post match video. It is inane, densely and completely insincere because there is no improvement. I am embarrassed by this club.

A lot has been written about this year being an aberration and there was a variety of opinion on our status on radio yesterday. I decided to look back over the last 9 years at ladder position and who fallaway and how long did it take to rebound. The stats suggest the next few years will not be what we hope for In the period 2010 to 2018 the only teams that didn't appear in finals were Brisbane & Gold Coast with the other 16 teams all making an appearance with MFC making it just with one. From 2010 to 16 teams that made the top 4 and fell away and the time to rebound were Bulldogs 2010 missed finals next 4 years. West Coast 2011 missed next 3 years. Adelaide 2012 missed next 2 years. 2014 Geel missed 1 year. 2015 Freo missed the next 3. Lesson to learn, bad years are rarely a 1 year aberration which doesn't augur well for MFC in 2020 Overall the stats for the 16 teams is as follows. Listed are finals appearances over 9 years and largest gap in between finals appearance. So, Collingwood have 5 finals appearance and a gap of 4 years between finals. Geelong have 8 and missed 1 year. Saints have 2 appearances and 7 years out. Bulldogs have 3 finals appearances and a 4 year maximum gap. Syd have 9 out of 9. Freo have 5 finals appearances and a 3 year gap that is growing. Hawks 8 and missed once. Carlton what a surprise 3 finals appearances but 5 years out and growing. West Coast 6 finals appearances and a 2 year gap out of the 8. Essendon 3 times in the 8 but never out for more than 2 years. North 4 top 8 finishes with a 4 year gap missing the 8. Richmond 5 top 8 finishes and at worst out for 3 years. Adelaide 4 top 8 and out of the 8 for 2 years. Port Adelaide 3 top 8 finishes and out for 3 years. GWS took 6 years to make their first final but have made the top 8 the last 3 years. The moral is don't expect to return to finals next year because it is rare. The fall is usually for a couple of years. I don't think our list is as good as we think and we need much more depth so I hope we use the high draft picks wisely. Given the delistings last year and the influx of Sparrow, Jordan, Bedford, Nietschke, Here, Chandler, Lockhart and Dunkley means there is a lot of development needed. I have lowered my expectation for next year as history says only Hawthorn and Geelong have slipped for a year. With the exception of the dogs in 2016 the flag always comes from the top 4. The top 4 since 2010 has been limited to 9 teams Hawks have 7, Cats 6, Swans 5, Pies 4, Freo & Eagles 3, Crows & GWS 2 with Saints & Dogs 1 each. Port Adelaide is the team stats that most interest as a model for MFC to avoid. In 2014 they came with seconds of knocking off eventual premiers Hawthorn since then they missed finals for 2 years got 5th in 2017 and haven't made finals since.

My sentiments as well. Jessie may be out west but he just cannot get the cards to fall his way. A recurrence of a navicular on top of everything else he has endured hardly seems fair. We have had our fair share of this foot injury and the successful return rate isn't good. I wish Jesse all the best post surgery and in his recovery

At the start of the year we were touted as having the best midfield in the competition. This certainly hasn't been the case on the evidence shown in 17 rounds of football. The KPI I don't like is clearances and inside 50's which suggest our mids are getting plenty of the ball and there is a disconnect with the forward line. I have looked at the midfield depth of other clubs and their marquee players and come to the conclusion that our midfield is inexperienced, shallow in depth and is lacking skill and kicking efficiency. I hope that this draft we look to bring some class and speed into the mix. To prove my point I am comparing Max, Clarry, Gus, Harmes & Viney with other teams. Max and Viney are experienced but Clarry, Gus and Harmes are still learning the caper. Of this group I consider only Harmes able to hit targets on a regular basis. It is fair to also include the others who may run through the midfield ie wings and flankers, to see how we match up. At the top we have WestCoast with 2 rucks feeding Shuey, Yeo, Sheed, Gaff & Masten with Ryan and Rioli as rovers. The Pies carry 2 rucks feeding Pendlebury, Adams, Crisp, Sidebottom, Treloar, Phillips and Wells. Both have players who hit targets up forward and pace. Yesterday English was removed from the ruck and they let Bontempelli, Dunkley, MacCrae and Hunter run wild and still have Libba and Wallis to return. Geelong try 2 rucks but have Danger, Kelly Selwood, Duncan, Guthrie, Ablett, and this year have added Myers, Dalhaus and Clarke to the mix. Our support group is Fritch (efficiency 50%) Hunt (quick but awful kick) Trac (who should be in the midfield but gets lost sometimes on the half forward flank) Salem (needed down back) Melksham (injured and sadly missed) Vandenburg (perpetually injured). Special cases are Lewis (Last season) and Jones (better kick on either foot than Clarrie & Gus but rarely in the middle). In comparison our mids is still young compared to those I have mentioned with Jack the reader being a bull rather than the cream. I don't despair that this year we have gone backwards and maybe next year won't be as good as we expect because I believe we need to develop a lot more before we can consistently play finals and challenge. We need goal kicking mids, centreline and half forward players. We need more class, speed and midfield depth in my opinion. A good old fashioned rover would be a godsend i.e the Papley, Gresham, Rioli, Betts, Tipungwuti type. What do you think?

I wonder if Petty will have some time up forward he is good overhead and may defend the area better than some of our forwards. Looks like max and Brayden will rest at full forward.

As I have no cartilage in either knee after 5 menisectomies I can understand the cautious approach. Minor tears can heal but take 6 weeks and more major tears can be stitched and take longer to heal. Not sure about current orthopaedic practices but surgeons appear to be very conservative about snipping out cartilage. cartilage doesn’t grow back and arthritis is more likely to develop in the knee later in life.

6 Oliver 5 TMac (he did take the 4th quarter off) 4 Preuss 3 Harmes 2 salem 1 Jones apologies to Frost and May

So given max won't play and Preuss is in who was the other emergency held over for tomorrow. Jones may also be in some doubt

Has anyone considered that the coaching staff whilst saying we are still going hard are in fact working towards next year already. This mornings analysts were surprised we went head to head with Brisbane with the run and gun. It looked good and for a half and we moved the ball well, played a good short game and according to Zorko was NOT what they expected from us. It was bruise free footy with minimal tackles and lots of turnovers. They adjusted their game at half time and we didn't resulting in us getting belted in the second half. Consider that the coaches were trying something different and stuck to it all game in contrast to the long kicking game we have tried unsuccessfully. Petty was left on Hipwood and Zorko, Lyons and Neale were left running riot. Our most experienced mid Jones who was playing well was never moved into the centre. Harmes, Brayshaw, Clarry, Viney and at times Trac got their pants pulled down. Even the coach admitted to this and pretty much said he left Viney on Neale all day and lowered his colours. For Lewis to be promoted it would be for a farewell game, Preuss to cover Max and JKH only if he was getting a contract extension. Petty is interesting as he can take a mark but turns the ball over a lot and hasn't quite adjusted to the pace of senior footy. Play him to get games into him but be careful not to destroy his confidence as I note the opposition play through him and his current opponent . WE badly miss Melksham (our most polished mid) Jetta ( best small back) and Lever. I don't see anyone at Casey belting the door down for a game. As for playing kids we already have 3 first year players in the team, Petty in his 2nd year with 6 game and Bull Smith with only 11 games in his time. There was a big investment in youth with Jordan, Chandler, Sparrow, Lockhart and Dunkley coming in this season

Actually Goody didn't make the move. Steven May was shown on vision talking to Frost and getting him to pick up Hipwood, showed some on field leadership. Very slow to react up in the coaches box...

Brisbane are a very polished settled side with a fantastic midfield. 14 of their players have played every game this year. This has allowed them to grow together, be very cohesive and have a very settled line up. We have all known that Hipwood is a gun. In contract Hore, Lockhart and Baker are first year players and Petty in his second year has 5 games to his name. In the last 2 weeks the opposition have played through Petty taking advantage of his inexperience. He is a good mark reads the play well but hasn't got the strength or poise yet and turns it over. Hipwood took him apart in the third and the start of the fourth and if you watch the vision, it was May who asked frosty to go to Hipwood. Poor form from the coaches box to not make the move in the third and idiotic to leave hime there at the start of the last. I also think the long season may be catching up with More and I like Lockhart and bake has a go. Lets not forget Smith has played 11 games and if he was the answer he would have played a lot more than that. Compounding all that our mids got smashed today. Neale, Lyons and Zork tore us to shreds and won so many centre clearances we could easily have lost by a lot more. The deficiencies are plain to see I hope we can recruit to fill them.

6 Salem hits targets 5 May hits targets 4 Jones Best game for the year 3 Viney Never stopped trying 2 Oliver Gets it a lot but treats it like a hot spud 1 Fritch Did some good things and generally kicks well

In a more elegant time ie long ago ageing rovers and mids went to the back pocket. Think Sam Nankervis, who stayed as captain and played 325 games.

OMac not even selected for Casey must be injured

Personal communication from someone involved. Not at liberty to name but it has been mentioned elsewhere

Interesting thoughts and the only reason I can think of is that some senior players still cannot warm to Macca. Don't forget that when Macca came to MFC Daniel Cross was concerned and wanted nothing to do with Macca. His last stint as senior coach did not finish well and that would influence whether you sent Macca to Casey. I do believe he may have done some line coaching at Geelong and the players loved him and his tough love.

With all due respect to the incumbents this is all about leadership and direction. In the last quarter with us threatening (we were within 3 goals) I noticed Pendlebury position himself down back and direct traffic and get involved in the contest. On this day and not for the first time we got nothing from our co-captains. They were invisible and not a presence. Whilst Max is the leader I think we are short on for dynamic follow me leadership. Think Selwood, Pendles, Cotchin, Crips Ziebel and so on who all can impact a game and influence the outcome. Who do we have that fits this description. Before his knee reco last year Lever was a captain in waiting but with 2 ops is not ready to step up Jones has been a great servant but it is time to step down and Viney doesn’t have enough tricks. He can lead in hard ball gets but only has a left foot, cannot kick more than 40 meters and has limitations in his game.

Despite all the extended bench being named at Casey there is no Oscar Mac selected at Casey. Is he injured rather than omitted? Notable that Lewis is selected at half back for Casey. On the news tonight Lever's selection is subject to him getting through training tomorrow. If fit he plays if not he won't be at Casey