https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/news/afl-crystal-ball-jon-ralphs-big-early-calls-for-the-2022-season/news-story/86748afb46281d38bfdcd99a94ecb550

 

Spoiler for those of you unable to get a peek behind the HS paywall:

Quote

AFL lists are all but set in a year where this much is easy to predict – everyone is chasing Melbourne, who must win multiple flags to frank this brilliant collection of talent.

 

It seems that every footy writer has just discovered the word "frank" and has to use it as often as possible.

Hoping to earn some franking credits, perhaps?

I hate Murdoch and refuse to pay for his content but I'm desperate to see this article  can someone PM me.

Said every hypocrite.

 

It started back in the 60s when someone Franked Davis as Melbourne captain.

Love just how fickle the media are.

Start of last season they bearly rated us at all, had St Kilda, Carlton, Freo, Essendon and possibly Hawthorn surpassing us.   Now all of a sudden we have a list that is setup to win multiple premierships.

To be honest, I didn't exactly foresee last season would go as spectacularly well as it did, but I did think we had the core of a list that could compete for a flag over the next 2 or 3 years at least.

Now all this incessant tyre pumping is making me nervous and I just hope we arn't about to get 2019 Mk 2.

Edited November 30, 20213 yr by Rodney (Balls) Grinter

9 minutes ago, Wrecker46 said:

I hate Murdoch and refuse to pay for his content but I'm desperate to see this article  can someone PM me.

Said every hypocrite.

To be fair Wrecker, it's only their stories about Melbourne Football Club that we care about.  

I find the posting of links to paywalled items a little puzzling, regardless of which publication they are from.  Subscribers can already read the article if they haven't yet done so, while non-subscribers can't read it at all.  To me, it defeats the purpose of the exercise, even though posters do it with good intentions and are trying to share information.

2 minutes ago, Demonstone said:

To be fair Wrecker, it's only their stories about Melbourne Football Club that we care about.  

I find the posting of links to paywalled items a little puzzling, regardless of which publication they are from.  Subscribers can already read the article if they haven't yet done so, while non-subscribers can't read it at all.  To me, it defeats the purpose of the exercise, even though posters do it with good intentions and are trying to share information.

Although, on this occation, at least Flash posted a bit of a summary and key quote.

His top 8 prediction is MFC, Port, Dogs, Lions, Cats, Bombers, Sydney, Tiges. 

So he is being bold this year and has GWS out and Tiges in. 

His 2021 top 8 prediction was just the 2020 top 8. No changes at all.

A few other things from the article.  He thinks if the dogs had a ruckman they would be premiers.  That's laughable considering they had the 14th ranked defence and no premier has been that bad defensively since they started measuring these things.  

He thinks the cats will be contenders again based on their bad injury run last year.  Fact: They had the second least games lost due to injury in 2021 behind us.

He thinks West Coast will be coming for LJ with an $8m 7-year contract 

 

44 minutes ago, Demonstone said:

To be fair Wrecker, it's only their stories about Melbourne Football Club that we care about.  

I find the posting of links to paywalled items a little puzzling, regardless of which publication they are from.  Subscribers can already read the article if they haven't yet done so, while non-subscribers can't read it at all.  To me, it defeats the purpose of the exercise, even though posters do it with good intentions and are trying to share information.

I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m just trying to share news I’m seeing around and give people a thread to discuss it in. That seems to me to be one of the main purposes of this site.

 Getting past nearly all the major paywalls is absolutely simple and a number of links to chrome extensions that will do it for you have been posted in different threads. DM me and I’ll respond with a link to one.

i wanted to paste more content but I know the mods don’t like it and I’m not sure how much content I can paste before it puts them at risk so I opted to keep it just to a couple of sentences that I thought summed up the general gist.

Wow big predictions indeed Jon. Typical HS bs trying to generate clicks.

Sydney will finish higher than 7th. They'll definitely finish higher than Essendon and quite possibly Geelong

GWS to finish tenth is a big call. They'll finish in the 8 (hopefully at the expense Essendon or Geelong)

1 hour ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

Love just how fickle the media are.

Start of last season they bearly rated us at all, had St Kilda, Carlton, Freo, Essendon and possibly Hawthorn surpassing us.   Now all of a sudden we have a list that is setup to win multiple premierships.

To be honest, I didn't exactly foresee last season would go as spectacularly well as it did, but I did think we had the core of a list that could compete for a flag over the next 2 or 3 years at least.

Now all this incessant tyre pumping is making me nervous and I just hope we arn't about to get 2019 Mk 2.

No way RGB our 2019 days are way behind us, our group now have so much pride and confidence in themselves and the club we are now very similar to 1955 MFC. Having just finished the Red Fox (750 pages) it is almost like this group of coaches and players are following in Norms footsteps. The selfless team oriented football was his trade mark.!!

2 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

It seems that every footy writer has just discovered the word "frank" and has to use it as often as possible.

If I can be frank, I haven't heard it before; well I have heard of frankfurts, not sure that counts....

I saw today Josh Junkins on SEN predicted Riley Thilthorp was in his top 5 chances to be 2022 All Aus CHF.
 

I almost spewed in my weeties. 

1 hour ago, DeeZone said:

No way RGB our 2019 days are way behind us, our group now have so much pride and confidence in themselves and the club we are now very similar to 1955 MFC. Having just finished the Red Fox (750 pages) it is almost like this group of coaches and players are following in Norms footsteps. The selfless team oriented football was his trade mark.!!

Yeah, perhaps I'm being a little Chicken Little there.  What's probably more likely is that MFC 2019, is just missing the 8, like the Hawkes of 2009.  I could handle that, so long as we go on and did what they did subsequently.

Of course, I'd really love us to go back to back, but it's such a big ask, I'd rather not bank it just yet.

...then again, maybe we could just jump straight to the Brisbane Lions style 'three-peat' straight up - to quote an infamous catch cry from a few years back "I'd like to see that!!".

4 minutes ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

Yeah, perhaps I'm being a little Chicken Little there.  What's probably more likely is that MFC 2019, is just missing the 8, like the Hawkes of 2009.

In '08, the Cats kicked themselves out of it. Hawks were a bit lucky. They seized the chance put in front of them, but by crikey the Cats kicked badly.

In '21, the premiers were clearly the best team all year.

6 minutes ago, Mazer Rackham said:

In '08, the Cats kicked themselves out of it. Hawks were a bit lucky. They seized the chance put in front of them, but by crikey the Cats kicked badly.

In '21, the premiers were clearly the best team all year.

That's true.  I guess also if it weren't for short quarters and a horror 5 days or whatever in Cairns a few seasons ago, we probably would have made and presented well in finals last year and appeared less like we'd come from way back in the pack as well.  As has been variously pointed out and stated by Goody, Max and others, our 2020 was actually pretty decient, bar a few finishing touches to the team's ethos and character.

Edited November 30, 20213 yr by Rodney (Balls) Grinter

4 hours ago, bush demon said:

It started back in the 60s when someone Franked Davis as Melbourne captain.

my man. Frankie D

 

 lovely bloke!

4 hours ago, bush demon said:

It started back in the 60s when someone Franked Davis as Melbourne captain.

Nup. Frank (Bluey) Adams in the 1950s.  Not the skip,  it a very fine wingman.

5 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

It seems that every footy writer has just discovered the word "frank" and has to use it as often as possible.

Yes: Franks were Germans who ruled France and gave it it's name. Charlemagne was Carl Der Grosse, who ruled France from Aachen.

Edited November 30, 20213 yr by dieter

4 hours ago, Watson11 said:

His top 8 prediction is MFC, Port, Dogs, Lions, Cats, Bombers, Sydney, Tiges. 

So he is being bold this year and has GWS out and Tiges in. 

His 2021 top 8 prediction was just the 2020 top 8. No changes at all.

A few other things from the article.  He thinks if the dogs had a ruckman they would be premiers.  That's laughable considering they had the 14th ranked defence and no premier has been that bad defensively since they started measuring these things.  

He thinks the cats will be contenders again based on their bad injury run last year.  Fact: They had the second least games lost due to injury in 2021 behind us.

He thinks West Coast will be coming for LJ with an $8m 7-year contract 

 

So no changes Watto!

Tigers 12th     GWS  8th!!!!

And the Jacko quote was qualified by 

" IF he is not signed by the middle of the year.

Alters the whole context !!!!

I used to play cricket with ralphy. A really good fella. Pretty quick fast bowler too.

But jeez his footy writing leaves me cold.

Exhibit A - this line:

The dees  'must win multiple flags to frank this brilliant collection of talent'.

One, the talent didn't magically appear in 2021. If we have so much talent why didn't he pick us to finish top 4 tgis year (iirc he didn't even have us making finals).

Two, it's a any way to set up a stupid narrative should we lose a few games - with this collection of talent they are under pressure because they should be winning the flag.

Three, yes we have a talented list. But the biggest hurdle will be remaining disciplined and selfless

Edited November 30, 20213 yr by binman

Take it as you will......

The phrase franking is derived from the Latin word "francus" meaning free. Another use of that term is speaking "frankly", i.e. "freely". Because Benjamin Franklin was an early United States Postmaster General, satirist Richard Armour referred to free congressional mailings as the "Franklin privilege.

19 hours ago, FlashInThePan said:

I wanted to paste more content but I know the mods don’t like it and I’m not sure how much content I can paste before it puts them at risk so I opted to keep it just to a couple of sentences that I thought summed up the general gist.

Thanks. Just to clarify, it’s generally a breach of copyright to post entire articles, or even large slabs of articles.

There are exceptions to this under what are known as ‘fair dealings’ provisions in the relevant legislation. One of these exceptions is for parody or satire - I’m sure plenty here could make an argument that Jon Ralph’s writing falls under such a category.

Small excerpts are also OK, and because this particular article is very long, it’s fine to publish the Melbourne snippet, which is: 

Every single member of the Demons’ flag team will go around again.

And Sam Weideman, Adam Tomlinson and Jayden Hunt will move heaven and earth to be part of the fun this time around.

Players with significant upside from that brilliant drought-breaking team: Luke Jackson, Kysaiah Pickett, Tom Sparrow, Trent Rivers, Harrison Petty, Bayley Fritsch, Jake Bowey, James Jordon, Charlie Spargo.

Add the freaks: five-goal prelim final hero Max Gawn, Norm Smith medallist Christian Petracca, All-Australian defenders Jake Lever and Steven May, Brownlow Medallist-in-waiting Clayton Oliver.

If the Demons don’t win another flag in the next three years something has gone seriously wrong.

Early prediction: If Luke Jackson isn’t re-signed by June, West Coast will be offering him $7 million over six years as the franchise target of their rebuild for 2023 and beyond.

Edited December 1, 20213 yr by Grapeviney