Earl Hood

Webber I am sick of such negativity, we have to be strong but then again after watching Sundays game live I have to agree. If GWS had kicked straight it would have been embarrassing. But we are used to it, being a laughing stock. I just can't fathom how we could assemble 40 odd players who haven't got it. How is that possible in a draft type lottery system? Yes I know development but I just don't see the raw talent in any of our guys that you usually see in new gun recruits. Watts has talent but no intensity, Clark had it in spades but no luck, so did Jurrah but his background and all his resonsibilities destroyed his career and you can add Wonna to the list. God knows we have burnt some forward talent in recent years. How do you turn that around inside 10 years?

It seems we specialise in drafting either kids with injuries or kids who are about to develop chronic injuries. If that is not bad enough, these kids also can't play football anyway so perhaps it doesn't matter after all.

Interesting that our players believe they have earned the right to respect or not respect any coach appointed to them.. And now we have Roos, they are well on the way to trashing his reputation If this rubbish continues.

Doctor I made the mistake of driving up to Spotless/Skoda/Showground stadium to witness this debacle. I am calling it my "Lost Weekend". Friday night I see The Hawks dismantle the Dockers in a clinical display of modern footy, Saturday I drive to Nagambie for a get together with the in laws and meet up with numerous aunties who all feel for me everytime Melbourne plays! They all follow the Hawks or the Dons etc. I smile but think I don't need their sympathy, MFC is not me, I haven't caused this. I don't want sympathy We head off up to Sydney, Saturday arvo and get to Gundagai by 1900 hours and stay at a Motel for $75 a night, great value. Then we head up town and it is quiet. We find ourselves at the Criterion Hotel for dinner. Now I reckon I last stayed at Gundagai town in the 60s with the family as a kid, but I reckon the menu and the bistro has not changed since. If you have ever been in a time warp the Criterion is it. I am sure I saw a guy in a dark suit in the corner of the bistro, smoking a cigarette and mumbling someting about "and the next stop ahead is the Twillight Zone"! Anyway I had a burnt Parma with over cooked veggies and a glass of house red that was poured into a glass out of sight from under the bar, $4, great value. It tasted more like a port so that is good value I suppose. Back to the motel and had trouble sleeping thinking about the team lineup and oh that someone next door was snoring their head off. Up early and off to Spotless, thank God for GPS to find our way there. Park at Park No 5. A shortish walk to the stadium became a long one because most access was cut off for the Sydney Easter Show construction! No signs anywhere but got there finally wet and cold from the rain. I knew we would struggle to win but really this is the worst, lowest standard AFL match I can remember. It was wet and slippery but really as youngsters we all played in the wet and even mud and I remember taking chest marks but we dropped them time and time again. After half time we fought back but then consigned ourselves to failure if only from our kick outs. They all went long to the members wing, for two quarters, time and time again, not close enough to the boundary to punch it out, just in board enough to allow the Giants to spoil and handball it out to the receivers who had all set up behind and in board for the predictable Melbourne kick in. This went on for two quarters for heavens sake. Our players only once spread out the other to the other wing on a kick out and stuffed that up anyway. In a game that is so congested and one that you need to open up to win, don't you lead in all directions across the ground hoping to spread the opposition press. Obviously no. I usually look at our losses hoping for positives but really there is not much there I am afraid. West Coast tore us apart because they are so big and imposing. I thought we may regain some composure against the kids but no we were physically out played. The cupboard looks very bare. There are no impact players, who can break open a pack and set up a play or receive a ball and burn off the opposition with leg speed and deliver the ball to a forward. The only player on our list who could have changed Sundays outcome is Mitch who would have probably kicked 3 or 4 by just taking pack marks or getting to ground and roving his own ball. Dawes won't do a lot with our delivery and Hogan will struggle because the ball won't get to him. Gee even in our dark days of the 70's we had some stars who could turn it on every now and then for the odd win, Flower, Wells, Alves etc. They were exciting to watch. Yesterday there was just nothing. Just vanilla players who may try when it suits them but just don't have much to give. We had a number of players who could contest a ball and put it back into dispute but no one who can predictably win a contest and set up the next play a la the Hawks who probably have a dozen players who can do that most of the time. I just don't see where we go from here. We just keep turning over the list I suppose in hope.

A la Trengove at number 2? No jet there I am afraid.

Trouble is one is not enough, we would need to snaffle three or four elites in the next draft to even be competitive again. Our list is so far behind the pack it is truly amazing.

But our game plan on Sunday seemed to be not to kick into the forward line, that can make scoring difficult!

God I hope you are right and we actually got a first round pick right for the first time in 10 years or more!!!

A tough call. How would you like to be full back for this rabble? I think Chip tried to go forward and set up some scoring shots to compensate for the WC goals, unfortunately that failed. Clown I don't think so. The ball just keeps coming in at low level to the key forward. No hope for a key backman. Frawley is on his way just a matter of who puts forward the best offer. Why the hell would you stay at MfC?

Meaning what in the longer term?

Nutbean I think you have part of the equation correct. Yes later draft picks need to get into the right environment to survive and prosper. And MFC has been a hell hole for sure. However given the first round picks we have had we should have avoided the hell hole. In my mind as a recruiter you take the guy who wants the ball, has agression, confidence and of course ability. So if you have pick one you look at the top 5 to 10 and if you believe they all have the skills to make AFL you then look at who has the leadership potential, the agression, the ambition, to say nothing about some muscle. Same for the next level of picks 10 to 20 etc. and MFC has needed In my opinion to draft in the confident, agressive types early precisely because we were unloading our senior players. To me that formula means you would choose Hurley over Watts, Selwood over Maric, Martin over Trengove, Darling over Cook, Wines over Toumpas. I mention those selections because I believed at the time we should have taken them. There are others of course. At some stage after you have loaded up with tough arsed types you then look at the gifted X factor guys to move forward. I suppose my other point would be, yes MFC has not developed our talent but if we are talking potential elite A graders, we have not picked one. You can usually see something physically in these elite types very early, they have the silky moves, incredible balance and reflexes, the soft hands or they have express speed. Watts has some of that but lacks the other requirements, appetite for a contest! I don't see mega talent in any of our other first rounders, they all look a bit vanilla to me but I hope Roosey can turn them around. Of course one exception is M Clark, an absolute gun but he is not playing but he is a good blueprint for who we should be targeting. Remember the first rounders we have unloaded have done nothing elsewhere. Destroyed by us, maybe.

For Rupert anything is possible!

Good point JMac I have watched training occasionally over the past four or five years and at the same time looked at our match day performances. There is a mismatch. Going back to The bruise free footy jibe in 2010 or 2011 I have wondered do we need to train in match conditions at least for part of every session? One part of training is to practice basic running drills, kicking to targets etc but that is under zero pressure. Shouldn't another part of training involve playing a simulated game in a confined space where players have to make quick decisions under intense pressure? I have not seen it in our training unless we are playing an early intra club but that is on a full ground space. If we want to play as we train we surely need to recreate the pressure of game day in decision making, disposal and perhaps even the physical pressure as well. But given the physical fragility of our list, this would be a high risk strategy I admit.

The short take I saw on Talking Footy showed Roosey on 360 saying his coaching performance was deplorable, that he had to take responsibility for a 97 point drubbing as well. He may well have calmed down and be trying to re spin his message to the club and players

I am sure you are right but Shyte we are talking a number 2 for heavens sake but then again aren't we always having the same conversations over every first rounder we have picked since 2007? I am heartily sick of it. No other club has these issues with every first rounder do they? Some fail, some make it big time. But not our guys. It is just mediocre or failure it seems.

Thanks for that Clint looks like Trenners wasn't there. If he was he didn't perform well. But gee he is a nice sort of chap though. Not a nasty type if you know what I mean. From reading that link can we just employ Emma Quayle part time. She seems to be on the money quite often or should I say much more often than our recruiters over the 2000's? And that would not be hard.

This is the point. Has Trengove had groin problems? We have never had that news from the club that I remember. More so we cut him that slack that he must have OP or something similar to explain his lack of speed and acceleration. Who has the proof that he is injured?

Clint I think we are talking the same thing but I don't believe I have seen a 5 meter time trial measure. We are both talking about acceleration, reaction time, it is very important for forwards and inside midfielders. People become backman because they lack acceleration and overcome that by reading the play, so do a lot of outside mids as well, I think. I have a feeling Trengove may not have done Draft Camp because he was playing SANFL finals maybe!

Does anyone know Trengove's draft camp stats? What was his 20m sprint time? That is the measure that often counts, its about acceleration and the first few steps, so often important in footy. I am thinking we looked at his beep test and how well he went over 100 metres and even then looked at how nice he was as compared to a couple of feral types in the mix.

Yes they had a crack but the skills or lack there of were appalling at times when we were put under pressure. And that is going to happen more often with our chip it sideways game plan. We have so many players who can't kick to position consistently, w ho have pedestrian foot speed and who do not make good, quick decisions.

I am not sure what to make of Fitzy's game today. It is tough for a 200 cm forward when the game plan was clearly not to kick it into the forward line! I think a lot of teams might struggle to hit the scoreboard with our game plan. Surely a couple of long bombs to the top of the square would be better than going sideways and then kicking short to 50/50 contest and seeing the ball swept down the other end time and time and time again. Same for Howe as well. Different to last year I don't think the guys chucked it in but we still got smashed. I got the impression we were a gallant U18 side playing the seniors. WC are quite awesome physically, a great mix of big bodied talls and fast onballers at ground level. they will be contending at the pointy end of the season, no doubt. WC has completed a rebuild in 5 or 6 years brilliantly. They won a flag in 2006 and through a combination of compensation for Judd and doing a great impression of tanking to get draft picks very similar to ourselves and on each occasion they got it right, Masten, Selwood, Shuey, Hurn, Gaff, Darling on and on. As for us......

HT that is a blast from the past! I don't think I ever smoked one of those, that I can remember anyway. Viscounts must have dissappeared in the early 70's surely?

DC the papers have come through, it is now official. I have been gonged already for my services to Australian Culture following in the footsteps of Sir Les Patterson and Dame Edna. I couldn't pull a Kaiser which would be pushing it but Viscount will do me. Should open a few doors at the Melbourne Club I reckon.

When I look at our injury list I just wonder how I who did not train all that much managed to play so many second rate suburban level games of footy on the trot, about 80 to 100 if I remember in a row. I know we are talking elite level but they also have full time elite level fitness. Half our list seems to be best kept in Cotten wool, as soon as they play any contested footy, they go down with soreness, tightness! I give up.

I think I have worked all this out. Uncle Rupert has just annointed his two under performing sons as heirs to the News Ltd Throne. Ageing Rupert, now without Wendy, is preparing in time to renounce his US citizenship and return to Oz and accept his knighthood. It all now makes sense.