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Didnt kick a goal but we had less inside fifties to most of our games and did very well Bb clealy made a difference. Even small things like running down the clock at times He could well be the missing link and help us win a flag. Its early days but he moved well and clunked more than weid. Watch this space I reckon.

Awsome to see. If his body had held up Trenners could have been a good captain. But gee Big Maxy is a great one. Loved hearing him respond to a question from the Eddy or someone on the Fox Footy panel, when he was interviewed post match. The conversation was about how Kossie had seemingly pulled himself out of a form slump and got himself up to put in a great game against the Power and the question asked of Max was "What did you say to him as captain to get him up for the game?". Taking absolutely no self credit, Max deflected the premise of the question and proceeded to talk with words to the effect of what an incredible contributor Kossie was to the MFC and how great his performances were and how he had been so amazingly reslilant in the context of the family tragedy that he had been through at the start of the year and how it would be great for him to hopefully get to spend a bit of time with them over the weekend as well. In the same interview, Max had a bit of a laugh at himself for getting his head sat on in that screemer the Port bloke took on his head, then had a rye dig at Jake Lever for pushing the Port player up there and a laugh about it with Steven May. His work ethic and commitment on the track are elite, his onfield performances are amazing, his work with the media helps elevate the marketability of the MFC and his social and emotional connection with his teammates is sensational and his leadership has us playing the best, most disiplined team first footy that I've ever seen from the MFC. He totally respects the MFC history and great players and personalities. Hard to think of a better MFC captain that we've had in a long time. Another diamond in the rough. Congratulations on 150 games big Gawn dog.

2 Captains

Two things for me: - he was much better when the ball hit the ground then I gave him credit for. He isn’t Luke Jackson but he isn’t hopeless. Much better than anything Weid has showed this year once the ball hits the deck - he was fantastic with palms and touches when he felt he couldn’t mark the ball. I’m going to say at least 5 times when out of position he did either punch or deflect the ball to the crumbers to a dangerous spot. he did get out marked a few times but a number of times our mids simply put it on his head and he was nudged under it. If you’ve ever watched BBB his strength is running and jumping at the ball, not sitting under the high one. I thought he was much much better then his stats and so glad to see he made us a better side

Anyone who can’t see what Brown did for us tonight is not watching hard enough. He drew defenders in a contest, he brought ball to ground. He gave Tmac Fritta and Jacko opportunities to play one on one and on the lead. Opposition defenders worry about Brown. He’s a big unit. You don’t just forget he’s there. He command respect and a good solid opponent. It’s little wonder Tmac had one of his best games of the year tonight. He finally wasn’t being breathed on by 6 defenders! Our midfield was absolutely outstanding tonight. Gawn back to his best. Tonight proved to me that when we are switched on, and when we can bring our signature pressure, we can beat anyone. Edit: if anything ever happens to Steven May we are royally [censored].

I sat next a port supporter last night who commented after Kozzie kicked his goal from the 50, saying that he was soft and had only 2 kicks all night. I gently replied that he had 10 tackles and that was his 3rd goal but thanks for his analysis ???

Random lowlight from the Channel 7 coverage of the Port game last night THAT DID MY HEAD IN #1: Fritter thinks he has touched a ball, because he did, that Alir is paid a mark for. So assuming it is play on Fritter tackles Alir. Much to fritters dismay, the umpire gives a 50. Which was fair enough as a mark was called. The commentators say as much. Play on. Nothing to see here. Later, Kossie takes a nice mark. It may have been touched. Jonas certainly thought so and tackled Kossie. Much to Jonas' dismay, the umpire gives a 50. Which was fair enough as a mark was called. The commentators express amazement and surprise. Watching THE REPLAY, which provided crystal clear evidence the 50 was there every day of the week, 'Hamish" opines Jonas was hard done by. WTF DOES MY HEAD IN!!!!

Ben Brown was a success tonight and didn’t have to kick a single goal to help us win. Straightened us right up and provided a target. Brought it to ground, followed up at ground level, hit up targets inside 50. He must stay in the side. When TMac has an off week, Brown is the one that can step up and hit the scoreboard

Football commentary does my head in. I can't stand it any longer. So I've decided to start a thread so I have somewhere to vent my frustration about the standard of football commentary each week. The alternative is going crazy. Please feel free to use this as your football commentary does my head in safe space

This is quite good...

On the subject of TMac and career resurrections... Jayden Hunt. There is no way at the start of the year I had him as a permanent contributor (*workman like role player) within a premiership contender. Well bloody done to him and his perseverance.

Well he's certainly been noticed now. I want to apologise to Harry. I was wrong on this guy. Never thought he would make it and actively called for TMac to go back when Tommo went down. Wrong o 2 counts there!! Outstanding last night in the Adelaide cauldron.

Salem's ability to get receive the ball under pressure, know what he wants to do before he gets it and execute a quick kick lace out to one of his teammates would have to be the best in the AFL I reckon. Bloke is a magician.

I’m a big fan of how JJ goes quietly about his business. Racked up 19+ possessions last night and rarely makes a mistake. He’s hard at it and enjoys a tackle. Plays with a maturity beyond his years. A gem has been unearthed.

I have never gone so far as to actually start a topic before despite spending my 10+ years of membership wasting too much of my workday reading Demonland. I was so happy last night, i thought i would take a chance. I would have to say that they seem a bit upset at Port Adelaide over yesterdays game and if anyone thinks Simon Goodwin receives a pasting on this site, they should take note of the Port vitriol directed at Ken Hinkley. A few comments from Big Footy are repeated below and these are some of the gentler ones. Also, when did Alex Neal Bullen turn into an untackleable beast? fu** me dead, we couldn't stop him. I thought he was a spud. I think people really underestimated Melbourne coming into this. They have a very strong defence and an absolutely monstrous midfield. It is staggering that we are so poor in every area. Poorly skilled. Dumb decisions. Not strong enough. Not tall enough. Not fast enough. Unfit. No discernible game plan. sh*t leadership. What the f**k do we actually do at training? I refuse to believe that our players (well most of them anyway) are at the limit of their potential. So we need a clear out of the leadership at the club - chairman, coach and captain. We're just so poorly led at every level. Another club waltzes in with a SeAsOn-DeFiNiNg win. Now that the siren has gone I can safely say, insipid performance and a disgusting display of football. Forwards invisible, the only time I did see them was when they crashed into each other. Umps were no help, gave Melbourne a couple. Sure am thrilled to have played Melbourne into form. We ******* suck, sack ken, sack Bassett, fu** it sack Voss too. Gang sh*t we out. Melbourne are good, we aren’t. Can’t see Melbourne not winning the flag now tbh Who's going to want a 200cm third tall with no presence, can't kick and floats around the field like a fern frond with no impact. Edit: and yes I realise this also describes Ben brown, but he kicked 10 in an afl match. And to think we were out coached by Goodwin. That game exposed all of our weaknesses at once. Biggest of which is our gameplan which relies on the other team not being very good. Too many passengers and credit too melbourne who played the game I wanted us to play. actually looked like our mids and forwards were rubbish. deep defense kept the gap closer. the rest were sh*t. boak sh*t. drew sh*t. everyone forward of full back was dog sh*t. At least Ben Brown didn’t kick 10 goals. That’s a positive I guess. yeah, so you agree, rozzee is sh*t, has the contested ball awareness of a minature poodle. Players: What's the gameplan this week Ken? Ken: Oh, we'll chip it around giving Melbourne time to get everyone behind the ball. Players: So same as usual against the top teams then? We put the ken in Farken Average. I'm sick of crap teams going past us - if the trend continues, bloody Carlton will play in a grand final before we will LOL. Melb brought in the tallest slowest forward line I’ve seen in the past 20 years of football. It was set up for us to run off of them. Almost all of their good players had a night out too. Gawn, Patracca, Oliver, May, Salem, McDonald, you know the guys a good coach would have plans for. Hinkley is a bum.

Can't wait for Friday night footy tommorow night. Watching the dees play port. Again.

I flew to Adelaide today and Geeze it was worth it. What a great win!

While both teams played off a 5 day break we looked as fresh as a daisy and Port barely gave a yelp. Huge for us to play 4 quarters with 5 days, travel and in enemy territory then convincingly win. While 'just' 4 points, it was an enormous performance in terms of entrenching us in the top 4 and embedding belief in each other and the system.

How was Dixon mark paid in the final siren!? I saw Georgiadis have a CLEAR attempt at a mark, bounced off his hands straight to Dixon and yet they paid him the mark? Absolute woeful decision.

We win last week if he’s in the team.

Me making breakfast this morning

Those Neanderthals are just all class

Disgraceful! Melbourne fans would never do that with Bradshaw, Jordan or Wiedermann.

He was incredibly stiff not be paid 2 decent marks. Umpire was absolutely rubbish. Brown will only get better. He makes our structure so much better.

What a night to start off with, bumped into Uncle Byron before the game drapped in red and blue wished his nephew good luck what a blessing in disguise, knew it was a good omen. Nearly got chucked out for fighting fire with fire with the Powa sooks, T-shirt Tommy what a player let the Powa know how good he was on the night, couldn't handle it the truth its hurts knowing they can't beat anyone in the 8. Amazing night to be amongst the Deefaithful a night to be remembered, had the locals at the queens head pub wanting to know more about the Melbourne story. A night to remember, long live the Dees.

Straight away I know your analysis is incorrect because you've got Brown down for no involvement in any goal, but he had three score involvements. But it's a shallow analysis that doesn't dig deep enough. For example: This week: TMac 86% TOG (Brown 75%). Last week: TMac 97% TOG. Maybe TMac's ability to rest helped him star?

I mentioned this last night but Jobe Watson was praising our off season recruitment of Ed Langdon last summer. I will say though that Justin Leppitsch has been a good appointment and is light yeas ahead of the other special commentators in the Ch 7 stable.

Agree, freed up Tommy with a less qualified defender. Came up the ground at the right time and was effective enough when the ball hit the ground. He even turned well. His gather, turn and kick to a team mate inside 50 from close to the boundary was class.

According to FF first time in 15 or so weeks Kozzie has been able to get over to Adelaide and see his family because of lockdowns and other things. Hope he can spend some time there with the early match this week and keep playing like that. Something made a difference....uncle Byron watching on as well.

Your best post! God I wish this man had had a better run at it with injuries. Glad he's in the rooms.

Anyone who judges Brown purely on goals kicked doesn’t understand modern footy. It’s so much more about presenting opportunities to bring the ball to ground. Is it any wonder Kossi had his best game for a month last night? Or that Tmac actually could take marks on the lead rather than trying to beat 18 opponents? For a team so reliant on structures, the mind boggles that fans can’t see how his presence completely changes our structure for the better.

Hinkley- “We had control of their tall forwards. They didn’t hurt us”. Must have watched a different game. Tommy McDonald was one of our best.

Possibly the best spoil I've ever seen - 40 metres crashing through a pack down the corridor leading directly to a goal.

Look at the Luke Jackson goal. There was four Port Adelaide opponents that were immediately drawn straight away to Brown to try and impact his contest. As Brown draws these four defenders one which included Jackson opponent, this left Jackson to take a free jump at the ball and take a uncontested mark and set shot goal. This is the kind of stuff that no one will pick up except the coaches come review. Having Brown down there makes McDonald, Jackson and Fritsch job a whole lot easier.

I’ve been waiting for this thread my whole life, and I don’t even know where to start

Did anyone catch the fox footy pre game where David king said alir alir would know Ben brown really well (mistaking him for Majak), and then doubled down and said it again after the ad break? Cringe

[censored] I'm enjoying watching the big T Mac play this year. Clunking big marks all over the ground, kicking clutch goals at big moments in games left right and centre. Probably one of the most underrated and little noticed aspects of his game externally in the media is the drive he provides from wing-half forward and the connection then achieved with our other deep forwards. Just love the way he takes a big strong mark, then gets back quickly, brushes off the man on the mark and then drives it deep into an open forward line with a pretty much perfectly measured kick to the advantage of our other forwards pushing back. Fritta, Kossie and Trac must love it when they see him mark in these situations. He must have an insane metres gained and goal assists for a big bloke. How T Mac ever became so bemoaned riles me. I hardly think you could ever fault the desire, workrate, attitude and team ethos of big Tommy. Love the competitiveness, aggressiveness and passion he playes with. Getting in the face of Travis Boak after kicking that goal last night was gold. Would pay people to remember how he looked gone for all money over the last couple of seasons when they write off the likes of Weid and BBB.

We needed a real marking forward. Someone to draw 2-3 defenders and give us a contest. Ben is that guy. Needs to stay in now for the year.

Breaking news: 21 year old key position defender with 20 games under his belt starting to perform like he belongs. Petty will be a very good long term key defender or even forward. Anyone who has followed him at Casey would know this. The knee jerk reaction of supporters to write off players is insane. He's played 20 [censored] games. How well were you doing at your job on day 20?!

Plays to his "limitations" or plays to his "strengths"? He's a good evader, has a high football IQ and picks out players and forwards inside 50 with accurate kicks.

brown blocked his defender from impacting the contest allowing jackson the free run to mark (and goal)

From supermercado's twitter feed: "Jackson hasn't watched videos of McKenzie because that's what he does" Next thing "McKenzie hasn't kicked a goal since 2015"

I thought his other goal on half time was a bit of a christmas present as well Dazzle. May tackles him, he drops the ball and then May gets pinged for holding the man.

For all of the port fans singing before the game, we actually did tear them apart. I'm loving watching my son (15) reacting to the games. Last night he said "I love them all" which was a far cry from his primary school days.

Just quoting myself (check the date), cause I need a pat on the back ;)

Two where Motlop was the ball dropper, or thrower, and they goaled from both. Hard to bear.

Nah, Weid's poor games you literally can't see the bloke for quarters at a time. Brown will always present.

Well, that was satisfying. Nothing to do for the rest of the weekend but sit back and gloat.