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Don’t let that stop you! I brought giant Jayden home from Family Day by PT: three trains, a bus, and worst of all, those two words we all dread hearing… replacement [censored] bus. AND it was raining! AND I was carrying my weight in cakes and loaves of bread. But then, not everyone is “slightly deranged” as I’ve been described on here. 🙃 Worth every “excuse me” and “sorry about that,” the majority of which were on the packed replacement bus where Jayden punched as many passengers in the head as possible. Good times 😁

I thought Harmes had a good game, he seems to be judged harshly these days imo. He attended 20 centre bounces, equal most with Oliver and when you're in there as often as that you're bound to shank a few kicks with the pressure. He linked up well, had over 20 disposals with 6 score involvements, 2 goal assists and 6 inside 50s. He's no Trac or Oliver but plays a role and that role against Richmond was performed admirably in the absence of Viney. He certainly did his chances no harm for a R1 spot.

Delighted to advise that my company built the exhibit! A proud moment!!

I asked Trent Rivers about Kozzie at the season launch last Wednesday, he told me the whole team is working on him to stay. He seemed pretty confident Kozzie would stay, he said he loves it at Melbourne. Hopefully Trent was right!

It was actually fun on the replacement bus (said no one ever, amirite) because giant Jayden’s presence started a bit of banter between me and a few Bulldogs supporters. Started off by one of them saying Jayden is limp-wristed, (to be fair, he was until I straightened his wrists at home later) and then it was on for young and old. There was four or five of them vs me, and Jayden too, only he didn’t say much, he just let his fists do all the talking. But I gave as good as I got. My crowning jewel… one of them said, “we beat you the last two times we’ve played.” I said, “We beat you when it mattered.” When we all spilled out of the bus at Sunshine Station, a couple of other passengers thanked me for making a replacement bus ride almost bearable. That’s a compliment of the highest order!

I've been told that as long as he gets the money he's happy with he will be staying. I'd say his deal will be done early on in the season.

Going by his comment it is safe to say Rivers will extend his own contract which expires this year.🙂

Round 1 team selection is always tricky. We look primed, slick, fit and hungry, Enjoyed watching out hitouts and loved our more aggressive ball movement and willingness to work angles and move the ball on. Great to see a greater spread of midfield rotations even though we'll tighten that up going into Round 1. Hunter will change us, such a great addition. Love Brodie, think it'll work but I fear for the position of Ben Brown and see him potentially missing early on once Fritsch is back if his form remains the same. I'd also prefer Van Rooyen given his appetite to chase, defend and bring the ball to ground. Harmes kills me and is just a weak link for us imo. He's in prime age bracket and for whatever reason is so inconsistent in his ball use and decision making year after year. Can't wait for round 1, I'm overseas all year so it's bittersweet if we make the Granny as I won't be able to get back! We look formidable, go redlegs.

I thought James Jordon was BOG, controlled most of the game with Munro, but we missed White and Luke Dunstan in the middle. At 3QTime the coach said he didn't care what the scoreboard said - that was the truth. We gave up a 4 goal lead going with the wind. Schache was very good early. Varrell rucked manfully. Hibberd had a lot of the ball, but seems now behind Bowey and McVee. Disco Turner, as usual did some nice things. Kye Turner tried in a different role this week, a bit more forward - shows promise. Sestan quiet in that high half-forward role. Van Rooyen always competes hard, but Schache showed how he (Schache) is a bit cleaner around goals.

More like 3/4 * $250-$300. Usually, the longer the term the less money. Freo offered Acres about $150-200k, grossly undervaluing him (to help get Jackson). They upped it a little bit but he went to Carlton anyway: "Acres is one of a number of Fremantle players who were offered below-par contracts to stay at the club, with the Blues pouncing on the chance to secure the 26-year-old on a three-year deal at around $350,000 per season". Just can't see Rivers who is still only 21 and yet to cement himself in the best 22 getting the same as Acres. I think as fans we tend to overestimate what players get paid especially those outside the top 5-10.

Are you sure that's not the pitch for the next Test in India?

this total hitouts were irrelevant as we dominated post-clearance possession

The last 30 seconds or so clears up excatly what happened with that Gawn goal.

Why does he think the Pies have the wood on us? What was their game plan against us?

Lampers has indeed killed the quiz and is thus disqualified. Demonstone is the winner. Lampers also managed to kill part B which was going to ask which two went from a low number to a high number. Mods, I expect a heavy suspension (unless it turns out Lampers' last name is Cotchin in which case a mild rebuke is fine).

I can't quite understand what's being debated here. We are the Melbourne Football Club, also known as the Demons and the Dees, just like Collingwood are the Magpies and the Pies, Essendon are the Bombers and the Dons and St Kilda are irrelevant.

Harme's greatest moment is locked in demon folklore.....you all know it well

LOL you out-of-towners amuse me! It’s actually “snorbz” but I figured no one would know what the hell I was talking about. Snorbz is the phonetic spelling of the abbreviation “S’n Albs” and any self-respecting bona fide snorbz denizen knows this. 😁

Layz, these are ne’er-do-wells from St Albans, if they say they beat us the last 20 times, they beat us the last 20 times.

Well, with Weids gone and Melksy not playing someone has to cop the flak on here. 🙄

just for the record, i have nfi

Good on him -he's put his hand up. He just has to keep doing that and hope for an opportunity.

as expected we have just crashed the 50k barrier 50,054

Agreed. I usually don't indulge chat about player salaries but I could see the Rivers numbers could easily become a DL 'truth' o I was aiming to bring a bit of realism into the figures for him and put in some in perspective of the overall AFL cap allocation.

Probably not the right thread but this might be of interest to posters: https://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/average-afl-player-salary-rises-to-over-400000/news-story/dfbef989ad02b5f36dcfe04f87d25316 For the average to be just over $400K a lot of players are earning much less, even allowing for rookies (if they are included) dragging down the average. and https://www.afl.com.au/news/874936/million-dollar-dozen-stars-cash-in-player-pay-hits-new-high Only about 25% of all players get over $500

BBB was beaten in a lot of 2 on 1 contests by Grimes or others coming off Chandler as the 3rd man up. Fritsch back in his usual role could change that dynamic. Overall minus a couple of mistakes I think BBB did enough. I also think JVR’s willingness to chase and tackle looks great at training but might take a while to translate to afl footy. It’s damn hard to lay tackles on gun afl defenders when you’ve worked super hard to compete in the air and you don’t know their movements instinctively. Another factor is we love engineering the spare back by dropping the ruck out. That makes our key forwards compete 2v1. Not saying it’s wrong but our coaches have designed a game plan to boost the stats of Gawn, Lever, May etc and make life hard for the tall forwards. At the same time we absolutely have to be proactive with making the changes with the talls. JVR needs game time. Brown needs rest. I think Harmes will be sub if Viney and Fritsch get up. Pickett, Sparrow and a sprinkle of ANB will be the 4th, 5th and 6th on ballers (plus a dash of Rivers or Gus) and they trust Hunter to play big wing minutes. So they’ll prefer Chandler’s forward craft and left foot. I’m surprised Harmes is worthy of so much discussion. He’s a very good on baller, he’s a good wingmen, he’s very useful for versatility if used as a 3rd wing/on baller/forward as he was in 2021. If he’s a forward/mid and tasked with too many decisions with the ball especially around half forward he struggles and is fighting for a spot. Most players struggle in that role though, you can’t just go the shop and pick up gun 2 way mid/forwards.

FYI this is regarding Rivers. I have no intel on Pickett.

WCW - please get is right It's: "Stnalbns" :-)

That was made known when he first came to Melbourne, he was living with "Uncle Nev" when he first came to the club. One of his cousins is a student at my school, she is a Wanganeen. He has family in WA, SA and Vic.

and the silly thing about all this is the gfc strongly discourage opposition supporters by limiting numbers, so the number of opposition supporters' cars for parking would be even smaller. end result is a miserly handful of extra dollars

Bugger you David. I was still trying to erase 1958 from my memory.

@Supermercado Is your friend @ Demonwiki: http://www.demonwiki.org/Grand+Final+1958 Number 6 was Peter Brenchley on the day. The Sun had published player numbers on the day so the VFL forced players to wear alternate numbers. E.g Barassi wore number 2 instead of 31.

We should definitely analyse everything anyone says about Kozzie to within an inch of its life. That's usually a pretty good practice.

Gawn was bullish but he’s the captain. What else was he gonna say? Trac and Kosi are very close. They lived together at one point. Trac would know way more about Kosi than Kane Cornes

According to Tracc on AFL Tonight, he has no doubt Kozzie will stay. They are close.

Move it to Casey.

Trac is a 'sexy' player. The way he moves, the way he can score goals, he just is more eye catching. You have to really understand the game to appreciate how good Oliver is. 90% of what he does is at such speed you miss it if you blink. He is genius with ball in hand, and if he puts a bit more scores on the board this year he will easily be recognised as number one across the competition. It's what I also believe will help him to win a Brownlow one day. If he gets even just 20 goals in a season he will win it. Having said all that, Trac makes Oliver better, just as Oliver makes Trac better. They have a phenomenal sense of awareness of one another and watching them play together is beautiful. We really need to appreciate how lucky we are to have both on our team.

Which MFC players did he (and as an extension Collingwood's coaching panel) rate really highly? And which MFC players are actually much better and more important now that he understands their different roles and skills.

Robbo should stop this stupid attempt at identifying the most influential players in the game because he simply has NFI. Who would you rather in your team? Chad Warner or Max Gawn? What a gormless imbecile.

Check out Demonland's interview with Brodie Grundy on the eve of his debut for the Demons. They discussed his move to the Demons from the Magpies, his relationship with Rucking partner Max Gawn, his new role for the season & much more.

Wow! This is wonderful news to get an interview with Brodie Grundy so early! Well done! I have a few questions for Brodie. 1) Has he done any research yet about the History of the Melbourne Football Club and past players that have worn the number #6 jumper? Such as Frank "Bluey" Adams and Glenn Lovett? 2) I understand he was aiming to play 300 AFL games (initially with Collingwood). Will Brodie be aiming to play 150 games for the Melbourne Football Club? 3) How has the goal kicking practice with Mark "Choco" Williams been going? Has Brodie noticed it helping himself or any of his new team mates at the Demons with their goal kicking accuracy?

You are the epitome of a Demon tragic WCW

Seems the break is for 4 days. Perhaps a training session Thursday or Friday. 9th/10th. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.aflplayers.com.au/app/uploads/2023/01/AFLPA_Players-Handbook_2023_FINAL_Updated.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwie1r2Et8f9AhUpwzgGHd8AA2IQFnoECBEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3oysIUqeptzBORWQSRwFYO

Gawndy

We're getting a lot more love from the fans than Robbo. As part of the same article, the HS readers have Oliver at 1, Gawn at 3, Trac at 7, May at 17, and Gus at 20.

It was on a program on Stan called “Show Me the Money 2”. It was about the AFL draft …what goes on behind the scenes, I really enjoyed it. In one scene & I’m paraphrasing here… Grundy was saying he could get how the “suits” don’t want you but when the coach looks you in the eye & doesn’t want you then I’m like …..well I’ll ply my trade elsewhere & I’ll see you f#*king Kings Birthday. It was said with a grin …I think Dwayne got the wrong idea !

High - 2 points Intentional - 2 point Medium impact - 1 point Practice match - minus 1 point "He wouldn't have meant that" - minus 1 point "He's a champion of the game" - minus 1 point '"The fans want to see the best players playing" - minus 1 point So that's 1 point. Fine seems about right. Princeps Innocentus. Family felidae, genus thug, species sniper. Small predator, most often attacking when its prey is at a disadvantage. Coating of slime protects from capture or retribution.

I think he makes them a poorer side so having him play is an effective team punishment

Ask him if he knew Pendlebury played basketball before footy! But seriously please ask a few things. Biggest difference in coaching style between the clubs. Obviously Collingwood facilities are probably better than ours but how much difference does that make? Did Collingwoods rapid rise come as a surprise last year?