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Bad day today, a MFC great has passed away. I knew him well, as well as a great player he was a great guy. Just a few months ago we were discussing the current team and we thought 2019 might be the year. Sadly No! Miss you mate.

Are we seriously potting a bloke who has: Just come off a year long break from an ACL injury; Hasn't completed a pre-season; Has played less than 20 games for the club; and Is playing in a backline that has been both putrid and had a load of pressure put on them from a one way midfield, not to mention the revolving door of VFL players. I'll reserve judgement for when we have at least have half the list fit and he has had a decent run at it. Young and smart intercepting defenders with leadership qualities don't grow on trees. Apologies if someone else has already pointed this out, I haven't read all the posts in this thread.

He’s not long come back from an ACL, can we at least let him have a pre-season and string some more games together. I understand being outraged on the internet is the in-thing these days but let’s hold off until mid-way through next season.

No. Terrible thread like at least 10 others at the moment.

As a ruck, Gawn has had a far superior year than Grundy. Its not even close. Gawn is a pure ruckman, Grundy is just a fourth midfielder who competes in the ruck. Big difference. If the AA was done seriously then Gawn is the only choice.

Very sad to hear of Bluey/s passing. What a champion winger he was. When he had the ball it was 'catch me if you can'. Gee he was fast. Even Hunty would pale in Bluey's presence. Of course he was courageous and tough and could he ever play football. RIP my Demon hero.

A very bad day, was one of the greats, a stalwart of our greatest era. RIP. Condolences to the family and friends.

If you can maintain a sense of humour reading the armageddon topics and posts on Demonland since the pooh hit the fan early in the season you'd think there is NO LIFE AFTER THE DEMISE IN 2019 OF THE MFC. I'm here to balance things a bit. Let's look at this week's results for a start. Almost all of the games involved what we called once Thrashings. Melbourne was one of the few who weren't demolished. In fact, this team of dastards and underachievers hasn't been thrashed since early in the season, but if you mention this, it's Goody putting his spin on things. That's the bright side. Then there's the Misson Catastrophe, major in the eyes of some posters. A conspiracy theorist might wish to imply Misson was planted by the AFL to totally ROON us. For the record, I don't believe this is or was the case. Most other teams have suffered injurious slings and arrows as well. Only Misson can be blamed for ours, including the lamentable fact of life that after the 2018 season which saw many Demons on their last legs and in need of the the interventions of many surgeons. That was/is obviously Misson's fault as well. Then there's the rabble rousing bleats about the efficacy of the Coach. Well, in my estimation, he's the same coach who got Melbourne within a bee's protruding bit to a final in 2017, to a Prelim in 2018. So it MUST be his fault that in 2019 the wheels fell off. Then there's the new Ceo, Gary Pert. Obviously as much of the blame for all this MUST be to do with him and the Board. A Ceo and the Board are in total charge of operations after all, therefore it must be ALL THEIR FAULT EXCEPT FOR GOODWIN'S FAULT AND MISSON'S FAULT. Then there's the Il Capitano's, both hopeless leaders, let's trade one of them, force the other to retire and let's appoint ....well who we don't know but when we do all will be solved, except for Pert, Misson, the Board, Goodwin and the Umpires, we mustn't forget about them...Oh, I forgot, Misson is gone, gone gone. Oh, and Chaplin, Rooke, Macca and blow me down, Plapp, anyone else we can blame????????

The great Frank "Bluey" Adams has sadly passed away. Condolences to family and friends. One of the smallest players to have played for the MFC and one of its biggest champions. RIP Bluey.

Frost shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as Petty and Oscar, as a defender he's 10 Flemington straights in front of those two...

Regardless of the why & and what ifs the Captaincy must go to Big Maxy if we are to have any chance of a genuine resurrection from here. It may also go some way to preventing an exodus of members in 2020.

A sad day for all those connected. R.I.P. Bluey and condolences to family, friends & you Mr Old ✌?

No we are this bad.

last week would have been a good opportunity to play Salem on the wing and have Hore at half back. But what would i know.

I think Goodwin made the decision that Collingwood would be affected more than Melb if that tag was in on grundy. Nothing to do with conceding he was the better player. But, in a year when there’s previous little of my interest left in anything this club do on field, to see max playing his natural game and win that battle would have been good. Seems like whatever string goody tries to pull it backfires, and when it doesn’t we miss easy shots at goal until it does. I know it’s not a part of this thread but 1.4 from Fritsch was just soul destroying.

There are not enough facepalm memes on the internet to express my feelings towards this.

I am so sad to hear this and my condolences to the family. Such a great person he will be missed. I met him on so many occasions at family days etc with his family and was happy to be one of the crowd but such a gentleman. My best story was at Luna Park where Frank and grand children where in the queue to get Jack Watts signature and no-one around including Jack knew who he was. I knew who he was, as he was my late mums favourite and suggested that maybe Bluey should be signing autographs as a premiership hero. Introduced him to Jack who didn't know who he was and but then started asking him questions about all those flags. He will forever be remembered in 1955 (I was 2 months old) for that short lived finals appearance of a few seconds when late in the Grand Final he sprinted onto the ground of the bench and collided with wingman Des Healy of Collingwood. Both ended up unconscious. Healy had won the Copeland that year and never played again at age 28 while Bluey went on to win 6 premierships. Another of that great era has passed.

Absolutely. Nick Reiwoldt this morning on SEN agreed with you. Said he found him hard to get a kick on when he played and in his opinion is ATM our best defender. Can't understand why because of a couple of mistakes a game, people want to get rid of him. He has saved us multiple goals this year and generated play from the backline. Yes he has his faults but which Demon doesn't. I could name half the list I would rather lose than him.

We need to find out why the Cleveland Browns in the NFL have the same luck as us and do the opposite.

One of my boyhood heroes. A very sad day, RIP Bluey.

Condolences to all the family and friends. No many names more synonymous with the MFC than Frank "Bluey"Adams. A legend of the Club.

You can react however you want. But you've chosen a pessimistic reaction, which is par for the course for you. An alternative would be to consider 2019 in the context of 2014-2018. Given the changes the club implemented and the progress we made over those five years, alongside the capabilities this list showed in 2018, I don't believe the only reasonable reaction is to say we're back to 2007 (or back to 2014, or back to anything really). I'm more than happy to say I believe we can turn it around in time for 2020. And before anyone misinterprets, this doesn't mean I think we will turn it around. It means I think we can turn it around.

The captain has more impact/say out on the ground than a coach. A book called The Captains Class studies 16 of the most successful sporting teams in history around the world. It revealed they all had one thing in common: an excellent captain. This didn't mean the best player as most of the time they weren't but they had the right characteristics of a good captain. When Jordan won 3 championships with the Bulls the captain was Bill Cartwright and when he left the team didn't win anymore championships even with Jordan. Book summary: • An analysis of the greatest pro sports teams in history found captains are critical to a team’s success. • The best captains play for their teams, not their egos. • This effect may be just as applicable in the military or the office. Walker’s top 16 teams had captains who played for their teams rather than their egos, embodied by players like Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs. Duncan sacrificed larger salaries, flashy stats, and media fanfare for the good of his team, Walker argued. Walker determined that elite captains like Duncan have seven traits. They are extremely resilient. They play to the limits of the rules. They do thankless jobs. They communicate clearly with all members of their team. They motivate through nonverbal displays. They have strong convictions and aren’t afraid to be different. They have total control of their emotions. Now lets look at Jones who Paul Roos said back in 2014 was 'haunted by the past' & expected to lose from experience: https://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-08-03/dees-haunted-by-the-past?fbclid=IwAR1NGm78nDTyAyjX5XnAs3fG26ndirQiO9YQ-9GUWhl1lx8idt-K5sz0QP4 So is a captaincy change what we really need?

Frank gave me my first break in business back in 1986 when he was GM of Multix, then a division of Amcor. He was an authentic human being at every level and for those who don’t know, a wonderful competitive and honest businessman that built a bridge between Australia and so many countries. We would travel frequently to Indonesia well before others would venture there. He made life longs friends in that country and many others. l learn’t the value of true sportsmanship transferred to business integrity and loyalty from Frank for close on 14 years. If we had more people with true nuggety values and basic humanity like this, the world would be a much happier and safer place. Thanks for the lesson Frank. Condolences to the family. Sincerely Philip Withers

Is there no limit to your negativity? For the sake of your own health would you please go an support a winning team.

He played at 100% effective disposal against the Pies. No one else got near that %. I would love to hear he has re signed for 3 years.

When on the wing Salem was on the same side as Sidebottom but was playing the position on the HBF edge of the square. Sidebottom was alone for the majority of the game. If Salem was playing wing he was instructed to play a certain way and that did not include an instruction to man Sidebottom. Not Salem's fault.

Every Demon fan who lived through that golden era would be shedding tears today. Bluey was one of our true greats - as a player and a bloke. Condolences to his family.

Sorry to part quote Praha, probably the most upsetting thing from the game for me and kids. Max looked genuinely gutted and hurt after some of the Pies’ goals. The boy spotted him shaking his head a few times and pointed it out.

Salem was not tagging Sidebottom. He marked him whenever he was alone across the flanks at centre balances but Salem's role was as always: to provide a roving flank and drive out of defense. Jones or maybe even Harmes should have been alternating on Sidebottom. Gawn was clearly running side by side with Grundy it appeared to frustrate him. At every bounce or throw in Gawn was overly cautious of Grundy's positioning. I haven't seen Gawn's body language appear so defeated as it seemed on Saturday. It was a clear directive, maybe the intent was to make Gawn more accountable and work on his defensive game. But Grundy is the worst player to do this against because he will smoke Gawn on the run and with body work, 9 times out of 10. Gawn's strength is in the air whereas Grundy is a superb ground work player for his size and this is ultimately where Gawn lost the contest. Like I said, this was an effort in margin minimisation. Goodwin has completely thrown the towel in for 2019.

Fortunately, the recruiters don't rate a player based upon output when just coming back from a long term injury. They will be looking at the next 8-10 years of Lever in our backline. He was seen as the best young defender in the comp when we traded picks 10 and 19 for him. He'll be well worth it, IMO

Thankyou for this thread. Those clips of 2 Captains says it all. I have never been happy with Jones as Captain. It is not a natural for him. He is a worker.

My first hero was Bluey What a sad day... 6 Flags

Another premiership player has departed us. If we're not careful, we may just end up having no surviving premiership players. Hurry the [censored] up Melbourne.

Hmm.... Jones is mostly vocal when he want teammates to pass the ball to him. And what’s happened to all the tackles he used to apply? Hodge reads the game like a chess master. No wonder the Lions now look so well drilled and organised.

Compare these clips. The difference is stark.

When the trade went through, Lever had just played off in a Grand Final and made the 2017 All Australian squad. He was one of the top young players in the league. Lever, 2017 Pick 37 and 2018 3rd round. FOR Pick 10, 2018 1st and 2018 4th round. Which seems to have worked out to be: Jake Lever Pick 37 2017: Harrison Petty (Melbourne) Pick 47 2018: Matthew Parker (StKilda) FOR Pick 10 2017: Lochie O'Brien (Carlton) Pick19 2018: Liam Stocker (Carlton) Pick 67 2018: Robbie Young (StKilda) Doesn't look too bad to me...

Nah. Clearly supporters have nfi of the impact a comeback from an ACL has on a player. Lever has now had two. Do you really think the club thought he'd do a second one on the other knee when trading for him? His intercept marking and killing of the contest are absolutely elite. Something that Oscar and Frost are questionable at. Yeh, he can clean up his skills but he is a gem and will prove his worth throughout the next 2-5 years.

I think it'll work out I'm a huge fan of Lever and like so many of our underdone players in 2019, looking forward to a terrific 2020 from him

Surprised that nobody has thought to post this before.

Without doubt we have enormous skills issues We have NO leadership. Our games are played out rudderless. What leadership does is harness and direct what assets you DO have. Look at Lions pre Hodge..and Now. That's no accident.

At this point, on field leadership is second on the list to the coaching panel of things that need rectifying

"When Jordan won 3 championships with the Bulls the captain was Bill Cartwright and when he left the team didn't win anymore championships even with Jordan." Jordan won 6 championships. Three of which when he was captain, after Cartwright retired.

One swallow doesn't make a spring, but Oscar was as handy a backup ruck as anyone we've tried this year. One of the reasons is that he has his brother's tank, and can run all day, a more than useful attribute for an on-baller. Or even a forward. There's a perception that Oscar is slow, and perhaps in starting speed he is - but once he gets that big diesel up to speed, he's no slouch. Watch the lead up to his goal: he starts on the wing, but by the time he gets to the forward pocket for the receive, his Collingwood opponent is 20 yards behind. If Hunt had managed a clean kick, it would have been a walk-in goal.

And even available after the selections we still had! For the record, the latter half of the 2017 first round was pretty weak, and the real premium picks outside the top half dozen were in the block bookended by 24 (Tim Kelly) and 31 (Bailey Fritsch). In fact, aside from Kelly, Fritsch was probably the 'best available' of all options even from the pick we traded out. As for 2018 draft... as I've pointed out elsewhere, it is looking like a true misere draft except for a handful of serious quality at the very pointy end. From the pick we traded out (which eventually became 19, Liam Stocker) until the end of the draft, only three players have had any significant presence so far, Matthew Parker (taken at 47), Noah Answerth (pick 55) and.. oh hey, our very own Marty Hore. So, in Marty Hore, we pretty clearly got the best player of all those available at pick 19. So with the exception of Tim Kelly, that has kind of happened twice. Funny how things work out. Debate all you want whether pick 10 and 19 are too much to pay for probably the best young key defender available in the game at the time, but one thing is clear, the trade and its consequences are in no way responsible for how things have gone since then.