22 minutes ago, Petraccattack said:

 

The next couple of months will be a wild ride, its Spencll time!!

 

l

How fast was Brayshaw then...

5 hours ago, ProDee said:

Not ideal, but it is what it is.   Spencer is at his peak age and will break even in hitouts with most rucks.  The Dogs won a flag last year without a recognised ruckman.

I'm far from writing off the season. 

I'm not writing the season off either...but the Dogs won a VFL flag last year and Spencer was well beaten by their rucks.

I hope he can at least break even but I'm not as convinced as you.

I think our mids are going to have to earn their money now and on the weekends form Viney and Tyson are going to have to really lift.

We did a very hard pre season...

The injury list was down last season and has jumped up this year. Good luck/good planing..bad luck/bad planning?

When you start to add up the soft tissue/overuse type injuries then maybe you need to look at the training methods.

6 hours ago, GawnWithTheWind said:

Knee would have been much worse. Best case, no surgery and we see him in 6 weeks. Worst case, we don't see him until the final few games of the year.

Imagine if we are gearing up for a finals run and we get our AA back into the 22.

Gawn isn't the first most important player to go down, plenty of teams have replaced and prevailed.

Lets see what Goodwins Demons can really do with their backs against the wall.

I reckon you wont see him again till 2018! Very Very tragic!

Not sure anyone has mentioned it in all the chaos... but does anyone else think that this unfortunate injury could free our players of any pressure to make finals, thus allowing them to just go hell for leather in an all out assault on every opposition they come up against?

This is what I am rolling with... Must be a silver lining somewhere in this [censored] storm!

 

I am actually looking forward to the next 8-12 weeks, or whatever it turns out to be.

We have to develop another ruck that can hold his own at AFL level and with Gawn dominating it was always going to be hard for someone else to break into the side and have a good crack at it.

Now big Jake has his chance, and has a nice block of games to make his mark.

Go Spencil!

11 minutes ago, JTR said:

I am actually looking forward to the next 8-12 weeks, or whatever it turns out to be.

We have to develop another ruck that can hold his own at AFL level and with Gawn dominating it was always going to be hard for someone else to break into the side and have a good crack at it.

Now big Jake has his chance, and has a nice block of games to make his mark.

Go Spencil!

He's been chomping at the bit for so long and has played reasonably well when given the opportunity.

Big pencil will come out firing.

9 hours ago, rjay said:

I'm not writing the season off either...but the Dogs won a VFL flag last year and Spencer was well beaten by their rucks.

I hope he can at least break even but I'm not as convinced as you.

I think our mids are going to have to earn their money now and on the weekends form Viney and Tyson are going to have to really lift.

I can't really remember Spencer's performance in that match, but I note he had the second most hitouts on the ground (23) and he was up against Will Minson, who was an All Australian ruckman at AFL level in 2013.  No slouch and not what you'd call a standard VFL ruckman.  Minson was supported by Tom Campbell, also a decent player at AFL level.

We'll know soon enough whether he cuts the mustard or not.

A good year for Jake to have his best pre-season.

Silver linings. King shortly comes off the LTI list. With Spencil in the ones, it gives King a great block of games to develop as the #1 ruck at Casey

One of the things I noted after Gawn went down was that we still kept the 2-3 players running off the square in the backline - still running with the belief that we will win it out of the centre, which we still did for a good chunk of the second and third quarter. It wasn't until Watts started getting smashed in the ruck that they started to get the ball out of the centre more and the cats manned up on those guys also. They played a 8-9 man forward line in the last quarter which. I think it showed our midfield was good enough even without Gawn winning it. Annoyed me how Blicavs was blocking Oliver most of the times too, even facing away from the ball quite a few times which I thought was to be picked up by the umpires, but maybe only see if you are big name on baller and not a new bloke??

I saw enough in that 3rd quarter to know we are more than capable of winning without Max. Of course he makes it easier in the middle but with watts breaking even we were fine against a fairly good midfield. Yeah he was spent come the 4th and they got ontop but with Spencil breaking even for the most part with the occasional win and also Watts still as 2nd ruck we should be fine. Just gotta take our chances up forward.

On the bright side is this should give Max the time to get his wrist and back niggles right as well. If he comes back as late as round 15/16 fully fit we should still have enough wins in the bank to make a finals run. If somone told me we would lose Max for as much as 12 weeks this is the time of year I'd pick, better than round 13/14 when it would be season over. We have gotten the start to the season we wanted. Just gotta keep chalking up wins along the way while he is out. 

16 hours ago, chook fowler said:

Time for Spence to grow a pair 

Don't worry spencil has a pair. It is how he tickles them that matters.

And Bernie V in doubt with a toe injury. It goes on and on ...

Any news on the scans yet?

 

Surgery confirmed, 12 weeks out.

That puts him out til Round 15-16..  maybe 2-3 games at Casey, then back in the red and blue for the final month and a nice shot in the arm for us come finals time.

Way I see it: We have Freo, Adelaide, North and Collingwood in that period, Spencer will have a real challenge with their main men. However, all the other sides we play in that time lack a really high quality ruckman so Spencer should be more than capable against them. Hopefully he does well. Hope is not lost... yet

Melbourne FC‏ @melbournefc

Gawn: We've got Jake Spencer who I think is a really quality ruck. I find it hard to train against him.

18 minutes ago, Petraccattack said:

Surgery confirmed, 12 weeks out.

That puts him out til Round 15-16..  maybe 2-3 games at Casey, then back in the red and blue for the final month and a nice shot in the arm for us come finals time.

He won't be coming back via Casey!

1 minute ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Melbourne FC‏ @melbournefc

Gawn: We've got Jake Spencer who I think is a really quality ruck. I find it hard to train against him.

Right

I suppose someone has to talk him up

Spencer will be a solid competitor. Not having the best ruckman has not stopped a lot of quality sides. The midfield will have to adjust. Looking at Viney and Tyson to step up and produce their best quality work. 

Devastating blow, but Spencer will be a solid replacement IMO. He's been waiting for this chance for a long time and his endeavour and aggression can't be knocked.

#penciltime is now trending on twitter.

it says at least 12 weeks .... add the usual dose of MFCSS and any game this season is a bonus !!

On a serious note the trouble with these types of injuries is maintaining fitness in the legs during the recuperation phase. The absolute worst would be to bring him back in round 18 and then suffer a relapse.