This irrelevant footy club sure does get a lot of media coverage.

FWIW: we’re absolutely in the finals hunt, given our ladder position and remaining fixture, but wins over 18th and 17th isn’t exactly finals-quality football. Let’s see us beat Collingwood who, even with their injuries, are a far sterner test than the sides we’ve just beaten.

Who’d have thought last week that we’d be sitting 9th on the ladder with a 20% buffer over the Dogs, with a game in hand against some clubs (including the Dogs)?

We got the job done today, and it’s always a relief beating North given our woeful record against them, but they were truly pathetic today. The only reason they led at quarter time was a series of baffling free kicks combined with some moronic ill-discipline from us.

When we screwed our heads on and the umpires stopped rewarding North for ducking their heads, we got well on top. I hope Kaniel Outis was watching.

Really rapt to see Charlie Spargo take the most of his call-up. He’s really struggled since 2018 but a reminder today that there may yet be a future in him. Pickett and Jackson are coming along nicely, as is Trent Rivers. Bit of a dilemma with Brayshaw playing his best game when Viney was out. Flashbacks to 2018.

We’ll see over the next fortnight if we’re legitimate or not, as I don’t think we can tell from the past two games. Collingwood and the Dogs are our competitors for a finals spot. Two wins in this fortnight sets us up very, very well. Two losses and its curtains. I’ll back us in, but I’m far from convinced.

Our performance vs Port was pathetic, no question about it.

But when our losses are to 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th on the ladder, with a convincing win over the only other bottom 6 side we’ve played so far, I’m not sure 17th is a fair reflection on our season to date. North’s only win in recent memory is against Adelaide. Sydney’s only wins are against Adelaide, North and Hawthorn.

Anyway, it’s hard to mount any convincing argument against criticism of us at the moment, and if we lose to Adelaide you can fairly put us 18th. We should win in a canter but we also shouldn’t have been as insipid as we were on Thursday, so who knows.

Adelaide have possibly their last chance to win a game this week. If they’re not up for the fight against us, heaven help them. We should, honestly, win by 7+ goals given how we played vs GC and Hawthorn, but we are completely capable of losing this match and it simply wouldn’t surprise me.

Alternatively, we could easily smash Adelaide this week and think we’ve fixed all our problems and then lose to North the following week. Impossible to read anything into North’s win given how utterly pathetic Adelaide was, but as we’ve only beaten them once in 14 years it’s hard to be confident.

We’ll have to win both to get back to 5-5 and then hope that Collingwood are by then still struggling. They certainly look to have fallen apart, but it could also just be the hub (like West Coast earlier).

Right now seems as though Port, Brisbane, West Coast, Richmond and Geelong are the true contenders. St Kilda play good football and have beaten two of those sides, but I’ll reserve judgment until the finals (until then, even if they finish top 4, I’ll feel like they’re similar to 2019’s Brisbane, flying up the ladder but then failing to win a final). GWS and Collingwood are good enough at their best but I’m not sure they’ll get there. Everyone else is done I think (the Dogs are just far too inconsistent).

So the “heartland” should be “rewarded” but the founding club of the AFL should be bulldozed?

One day my club will give me the fodder to strike back against those like you who treat us like this.

Until then, there’s not a lot I can do. I’d point out my irrelevant club which peaked in 1858 has given me more finals wins than your mob has in the last decade, but that is of course irrelevant.

As a Melbourne supporter, I see these sorts of arguments about our drafting/trading all the time.

They’re not correct.

Paul Roos, who some people seem to think is an infallible AFL legend, reasoned in 2013 that our list was so bad (it was) that two young kids instead of one would be a better option overall. The strategy was correct.

Petracca is A-grade and there was no debate about him and Brayshaw being picks 2 and 3 in that year.

Oliver was a great selection in his draft. And is only 23 and has only played 90 games.

2018 we were the highest scoring side and had coped completely fine without Hogan. But we had no reliable key defenders. Hogan wanted out, May wanted in. And we never really had pick 6: the deal was only agreed to once we knew May was in, so it was in truth a three-club trade of Hogan for May. Again, correct strategy.

And then last year we took Jackson who is not just a ruckman and at any rate sets us up for the future given Gawn is 28.

Our problem isn’t drafting or trading.

There’s nothing fun about being a Melbourne supporter.

You come on here and see keyboard warriors who barrack for sides arguably far less “relevant” than us suggest we should fold.

Then you hope that we’ll, one day, stick it up people like Kaniel Outis or Paul D, but it just never seems to happen.

(PS: if we’re so “irrelevant”, why do we get media article after media article and this sort of heated discussion all the time?)

Here you are again!

At least, as false alarmists, we’re giving our supporters something to be excited about.

Can’t say the same about North Melbourne.

There he is! Comes crawling out after a Melbourne loss (now two, after tonight) to stick the boot in over something that happened a decade ago! Good on you!

What exactly was “light” about Melbourne being fined $500,000 despite being found not guilty of the thing we were being fined for?

I reckon too many are jumping off Collingwood after one (admittedly horrendously) bad game.

Has any side gone through this year without a bad game? I reckon everyone’s played some poor footy this year. Let’s wait and see the Pies’ response before we start calling them done and dusted.

Wasn’t Jetta dropped for poor form?

We definitely do not need Wines. If a Melbourne supporter wants him, they likely still aren’t over the Toumpas-Wines thing.

Our midfield is capable of getting the job done. Langdon has made us much better. We’re still a wing short at the moment: Tomlinson was (unfairly, I think) dropped, vandenBerg’s injured, and neither Jones nor Brayshaw are wings and don’t impact the game from there.

Brayshaw’s lost as he’s been squeezed out of the middle. He’s not getting enough time in the centre behind Oliver, Viney, Petracca and Harmes. In 2018 Viney spent lots of time out of the side injured and Brayshaw was able to cement a spot there. He doesn’t have any other skills so can’t go forward or back. It’s a shame. I expect him to find a new home after this season, somewhere where he can spend higher minutes in the guts.

Our losses so far are to West Coast (away), Geelong, Richmond and Brisbane (effectively away). Nothing to be ashamed about in that, but if we’re going to make finals we’re going to need to beat at least one of Port and Collinwood over the next month whilst pocketing wins vs Adelaide and North. If we can go 3-1 over that period and get to 6-5, in an even season, we’re not out of the race.

That of course assumes we beat both Adelaide (improving, it seems) and North (who we’ve beaten once in 14 years).

I agree that there’s upside to take from the game: being smashed in the stoppages usually renders us uncompetitive but last night we stayed with them through a much better defence of the ground. But yes, we should have been 1-2 goals up at quarter time and should therefore have been much closer than 18 points down at the final change.

A reminder we’re 3-4, not 3-5. Will it make much difference? Probably not. But we do have winnable games to come in our fixture and we’re playing well enough that we can beat teams like Port and a wounded Collingwood.

Can anyone who watched our game tonight justify either of the “dangerous tackle” free kicks paid against Pickett?

As for the rest of the comp, West Coast look ominous but would like to see them do it against a fuller-strength side than the Pies were today. Scary signs for the rest of us though. Essendon don’t look terribly threatening, or Adelaide are getting better: not sure which one. And I reckon GWS can still make a run for it.

I would argue Melbourne should be higher than Fremantle.

We’ve won one more game, have a higher percentage, and have a game in hand. We’ve beaten Carlton (who everyone agrees is better than us), Gold Coast (who might fall apart but remain, at this stage, better than us) and Hawthorn (who suck, but we belted them).

One of Fremantle’s wins was against the clear bottom side in Adelaide.

I’d also swap Geelong and Collingwood and have Carlton, GC and St Kilda all a tad higher, with Richmond, West Coast, Essendon and GWS all a tad lower.

A lot to like about Jackson. All of a sudden with Weideman coming into some form and Jackson for support, our forward line looks completely different, and far more likely to score, than it did over the first four rounds.

The entire football world got stuck into Melbourne a fortnight ago, and rightly so. We were tripe.

Since then we’ve beaten a top 8 side in Gold Coast and then belted Hawthorn who, as far as my biased eyes are concerned, we made to look bad. They couldn’t move the ball because of our defensive set up, not simply through their own ineptitude. If we had had the chance to play Essendon and beat them, we’d be in the 8 right now, so we’re not that far off. Our losses are to West Coast in Perth, Geelong and Richmond, all of which can be stomached to various degrees (and we were a straight kick from Tomlinson away from beating the Cats, despite not playing well).

I’m happy for us to remain in people’s thoughts as a bottom 6 side. For one, we need to do more to prove our worth. But we’ve never done well as a club with any expectation so I’m happy to stay under the radar for now. I suspect Brisbane will remind us that we’re not quite there yet next week anyway.

Still, it’s been a long time since we dominated a game of football like we did today, against anyone. It was nice to enjoy a Sunday afternoon again.

And now for a very snarky moment but one I want to indulge in regardless: I hope Kaniel Outis shows up this week to accept that his/her Kangaroos stink more than my possibly-still-bad Demons. Stuck the boot in when the Roos were 2-0, haven’t seen much since then now the Roos are 2-5 and stuck to the bottom of the ladder playing rubbish football.

As a Dees supporter I was worried I was biased (I was fuming when it was paid) so I tried to go back to the rule. I think I can see where the umpire was coming from – if we’re honest, was Petracca doing anything to try to get rid of the ball?

Sterling has quoted, though, a carve-out to the rule whereby if the ball is pinned to you, it’s not HTB. In that case, given Nankervis was holding it to Petracca, I think it was the wrong call. Findlay was correct when he tried explaining his reasoning (you can be caught HTB without prior opportunity), but I think all up he got it wrong this time.

Just to be clear, Findlay is correct here. The HTB rule has two limbs: if you have had prior opportunity before being tackled, then once tackled you must legally dispose of it or it’s HTB. If you have not had prior opportunity, then once tackled you do not have to legally dispose of it provided that you make a genuine attempt to dispose of it.

Petracca probably didn’t make any attempt to dispose of the ball (doing the old punching the football whilst simultaneously gripping it for dear life). The issue is that this sort of thing has not been paid HTB all year, or for years, on a consistent basis. That is partly what Clarkson was complaining about last week.

My view is that the bigger issue is prior opportunity. Too often we see a player pick it up, take a couple of steps, get tackled and drop it without kicking or handballing. The umpires will let that go because it “looks” better (it’s a player moving and in space), but the reality is they had prior opportunity and didn’t dispose of it.

Carlton didn’t overrun us on a fitness level. They’re the only side this year to smash us in the middle and their confidence just went through the roof.

Our fitness is one of our few strong points: about the only quarter we’re good in this year is fourth quarters. Darren Burgess is doing his bit.

There aren’t many consistent sides this year. I’d suggest Brisbane for consistently good, and Adelaide and Melbourne for consistently poor. Seems very even to me through the middle of the league.

We will fall apart as a football club if we can’t work out how to fix the blindingly obvious problems we’ve been showing in our losses since the start of 2018. Goodwin’s lost the faith of Melbourne supporters and will need to spend the last 13 games of this year earning it back by picking the right players, playing them in the right spots, and adjusting our ball movement to see if we can’t, somehow hit a [censored] target inside 50.

Not all of this is his fault: we have players who under no pressure either pick the wrong option, fumble the ball, or miss the kick to the spare player.

It’s not fun coming on here each week to be the laughing stock of the AFL community, but it’s not as if our coaches or players are doing anything to shake that tag.

It’s only happening a little bit more than it has in previous years. Part of the problem is you see Gawn getting back to defend on TV and it stands out because you don’t see others helping.

Gawn and Grundy don’t play alike outside of ruck contests but I’ve never had a problem with that. Gawn influences games for us with more marks around the ground (forward and back), Grundy plays more like a midfielder. For the past few years it’s worked fine for us. He’s still playing well this year but he’s not at the level of his last few AA years.

Swap Sydney and the Dogs and this is pretty spot on.

Carlton is arguably too high but the reality is they’re winning most of the quarters they play this year.