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I just watched the clip and heard this from Kane: “there’s no real star-power in that line-up”. - We’ve had 2x top 10 finishers from in the Brownlow Medal in each of the last 3 years - we’ve had an AFLCA player of the year in the last 3 years - we’ve had a Norm Smith Medallist in the last 3 years - we’ve had a player kick 6 in a grand final in the last 3 years *none of the above includes Max Gawn, Kossie Pickett or Steven May. Old mate shares some truths sometimes but you really have to sift through a lot of sewerage to find them.

I reckon Jason Taylor has moved on from his Presidents of the United States (Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Van Buren) meme and has moved on to cheese. Because not only is there a frightening looking Windsor Red, but guess what the Danish Tholstrup company is most famous for? Pretty sure it was Colby we were trying to trade up the draft for, too. EDIT: Can confirm the is such a thing as Brown cheese.

Somehow, we managed to average around 90 points per game last year. That's about three points less than top spot. We finished clear top 4. Our highest losing margin was by under five goals to Essendon over in Adelaide. Seven out of our eight other losses for the season were by less than two goals. Much of that with a severely depleted forward line. As an MFC fan, the Demons are always incredibly frustrating to watch. Supporters of other clubs are also entitled to their opinions. The dysfunctional forward-line narrative is getting a bit much though.

He is also blessed with the gift of identifying said talent very quickly indeed. I believe his nickname among the recruiting fraternity is Taylor Swift.

I know Stan personally and not only was he a fine and BRAVE player he is a TOP BLOKE!

Hopefully Will gets a decent run in our two pre season hit outs and shows enough promise to be considered for selection His biggest weakness last year was lack of fitness that meant he struggled to ruck for extended periods and a whole match at Casey Hopefully a better pre season has allowed him to build a bigger engine

That's a Gouda one, @Little Goffy. Sing along now. "Some Edam want to use you ..."

What the &*$^ does that mean? An all time great of the club in an era when bashing blokes behind the play was de rigueur. I saw half the games Stan played and do not recall him jibbing it once. Stan was tough - don't worry about that. Single-handedly ensured Norf won the premiership in '77. And for 90 minutes, looked like becoming a premiership coach until his bestie bested him.

Hmmm why did we lose that accuracy? Could it be because we had no bounce from half back and always went up and down the same wing meaning we always attacked a congested forward line and then had shots from tight angles or from distance? And why have our coaches pushed aggressive run and corridor footy this preseason? Maybe they’ve seen what Collingwood, Brisbane and GWS are doing and think we need to catch up.

I think the injury "crisis" is overblown. The backline is fit and burgeoning with talent. The midfield is mostly fit, yes there's the ongoing questions about Clarrie and Gus but that was known information. Hunter has a calf injury he can't shake but Billings has arrived and Woey, Laurie and Windsor may be ready to step up. The forward line is the issue, but we knew Petty has a nasty injury that takes time to get over, TMac and BBB are questionable propositions and McAdam is known to be mercurial but injury prone. Kosi is out for a week. The only news is Fullarton's injury and who knows if he's better than Schache anyway? If we're a Fullarton injury from panic then we're not who I think we are. I think vs Sydney we can go with JVR, Schache, Fritsch, ANB, Spargo, Chandler and Laurie/Woey/Billings/Kolt. Throw in a bit of Petracca. And then someone has to make way for Kosi vs the Dogs. Sure, we don't want more forward line injuries right now but by the same token Petty, McAdam, TMac, BBB and Fullarton are not dead and some will filter back soon enough.

I think there’s a few around here who are in for a ruder shock

As much as I hate this type of commentary, they’re right - we’re incredibly frustrating to watch. We are so much better than some of our results, which for a number of reasons (injuries, inside 50s, sub decisions etc) was what it was last year. The only way to silence everyone is to win games. I really hope we take that step forward this year and win it again. I honestly believe we can. Go dees.

Of course it’s frustrating kicking 7.20, dominating the inside 50s and losing. But, we are incredibly hard to beat the last three years and I hope it continues for a few more years. I’m enjoying this team and frustration is just part of the ride.

They played EXACLTLY like us. Their game plan was completely based on ours. Come finals EVERY team pretty much adopted our game plan, in particular the blues, giants and Pies. Forward half (ie get it inside 50 as quickly and directly as possible and keep it there - hence the hated long bomb), transition, brutal football with insane pressure and huge tackle numbers is now the template for modern finals football. Basically the tigers template with a dees tweak. It is the model that has won EVERY since 2017, bar the 2018 Eagles win (after the raging favorites the Tigers got rolled by the Pies in the prelim) The eyes say this is true. And the stats and data back it up completely. Clubs now employ game two styles a season. The finals (and any high stakes, high pressure games during the season like our last blues game) method as above. And the home and away method - there is more variation between clubs with this method, but come finals last year they all reverted to our game plan. The home and away model is faster and more attractive. The goal is to win games obviously. But the secondary goal is to make it the finals not too banged up. I haven't listened to the audio clip, but i'm guessing the pies are rated the most attractive team to watch. In their 3 finals the Pies averaged 69 points. In the blues three finals they averaged 69 points. On the back of easy kills against the Saints and Port (both defenses were woeful) the giants averaged 83, but could only score 57 against the Pies in a brutal smackdown game. We averaged 62 point in our two losses The lions were the outlier averaging just over 100, but again thta was padded by smashing the defensively woeful Port. The Lions averaged 82 in their other two finals (for what its worth, i think the Lions have the most attractive style). So only the Lions averaged more that 100 points in the finals - the total that is the benchmark for a decent score in the home and away season, particularly in the first half of the season.

tottal champ for us donot let anyone bag him

Hunter obviously

Rods Dillon was another with a vice-like grip when it came to marking ... but not a great kick for goal Parke kicked 63 goals in 1972 but his kicking action wasn't great. But just like Dillon, he could take a great grab Either would be more than handy right now!! JVR reminds me of Hardeman a bit but Gary played his best footy as a CHB. I reckon that JVR can be quite a versatile player so if he spends the year as a CHF, we might see that versatility in terms of him bringing other players into the game

Yep. This is what worries me. We are comparatively a boutique club, but still should be able to make the best of that by being more proactive about fan engagement.

Tomlinson was a possibility but probably a bigger risk than Tmac. The cupboard was bare, I'm afraid. Let's hope it's not at this year's end as well.

The amount of absolute gob****e about the Pies is ridiculous. GWS are far better to watch. All about the clicks though.

Whether it be life in general or football, no-one is interested in your story unless you win. So win.

Nope, just reiterating that after our straight sets debacles in 22/23 that unless we win the flag this year, we will be more incredibly difficult to watch. I'll go further and say that if the same thing happens again, heads will role Big Time!

No real star power! No wonder I didn’t listen

I can actually smell this post.

We lost all of our 4 most important games in the past 2 years, with the lead in 3 of those games (and very close in the 4th). You’d be hard-pressed to find anything more frustrating than that.

At last some sense SWYL . Where are all the vultures criticising me now. All I wanted is a move during the game to help us. ie Tmac off in 3rd quarter and Schache on. This is a variation of starting with Josh instead and the whole Gawn issue ( non issue IMO) has just been ignored now. And to think we had closed this book about 2 days ago. The Grundy issue was unfortunately a fail and there were no winners in 2023 but now in 2024 let’s see how things play out. Also to worry about Dermott Brereton tips of Pies and GWS in top 4 he has always favoured GWS as was an Assistant Coach there for 3/4 years in earlier days and also played a cameo year or two at Pies. He had never liked us sat all. We simply have to stand up and again start with injuries up forward incredibly so P- Man who would have you got on the off season other than Fullarton to bolster our attack and ruck to also help Gawny. Like you P-Man I will be there in Sydney on Zero Round still believing that Billingsand McAdams will help and JVR and Fritta who is flying can get us over the line. I think our system will be better this year also. Let’s hope Petts BBB and Tmac and Fullarton can all get back and give us some depth for our attack in 2024. We deserve some luck after last years Finals but it’s up to us to rectify. Go Dees

That's been the issue... Yes, he would have been fit to compete ...but he hasn't been competitive Would he have come good in a big final? I guess those that should know thought not

Memory is fading but I know I was at Vic Park in '76 but probably a couple of times in the early 70's It was great seeing Big Max Walker but he was up against a good player in Thommo A number of Demon premiership players though and you could still see the Smith influence with the attack on the ball and the ability to get to the front position (Beckwith had taken over in '68) As for the Duke (Windsor), he's got big wraps on him and we know how good Jason Taylor is in identifying talent. Both he & the Kolt will debut early you'd imagine as there is often a flow-on effect when so many players are injured in one part of the ground (in our case, the forward line) With Caleb, I like his first 2 or 3 steps and with the Kolt, it's his awareness and head over the ball Both could be rippers!

Yep, backin Robby mrk 2

The Media department did a great job doing this getting Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart crashing the Team Meeting back in 2015. This was very good. Can you imagine the Melbourne Football club Media Department got Taylor Swift to do the same thing and surprised the whole playing and coaching staff. More importantly it would be awesome to see her in a Melbourne jumper with her name on the back of the jumper.

Good thing we haven’t finished in the top 4 since 2021…

If you were able to look at things in a calm, considered & rational manner, you'd be able to see the logic in us not using Schache (who was the reserve ruck for Gawn) T-Mac was also the 2nd ruck so he had to play. Every other KPF was unavailable And even a 3/4 fit T-Mac is a better bet than Schache. And we couldn't take T-Mac off as Gawn might have had to come off soon after Gawn was carrying a broken toe so Schache was the sub in reserve Schache up until now hasn't proven himself to be a contested beast and that includes how he is as a ruckman (non physical) And lose all that anger, calm down I've heard everything now You and Wyl make a good pair as both your football knowledge is highly questionable You and he won't accept that we had a forward line that was decimated But maybe the result will miraculously change with the avalanche of complaining In my view, bringing Schache on wouldn't have made much difference at all And if we did bring Schache on for T-Mac, we ran the risk of not being able to replace Gawn if he broke down Has anyone here ever played high level sport with a lot of running, clashes & jumping involved with a broken toe? For a month long period? So, we did need Schache as the sub if Gawn had to pull the pin We just used the sub in a different way to how a sub is often used So in reply, can you at least try and be calm & rational? A question for you Do you believe Neale Daniher was making excuses when he referenced all our injuries early in 2007? (Neitz & Robbo amongst others were out injured at the time)

Still getting the sour taste out of my mouth tbh 😁 I’ll pop it up shortly.

I'll see myself out

What a champion what a legend

If your old enough. A cup of tea and a bex never liked either. But partial to the good lie down

Yessss. One has to wonder though, with the likes of Parke and Hardeman up forward why we had such a long drought. Agree though Oliver and Pickett are hard to beat. Kolt and Knot could be a bit too confusing …. and for many especially in the last decade or so when wearing a tie has become less common some may wonder what is the significance of Windsor and knot.

The big difference between Gws and us they have better skills with ball in hand. Yes the introduced being harder at the contest, but there ball movement was much better then ours especially late in the season.

We need Lingers and Angus on the Wings again In ‘21 that was our weapon, and why we controlled so much of the ball

Just win it Dees and then as a bonus I can observe the media go into melt down.

Personally, I love tight defensive footy. Goalfests bore me. Collingwood are ok to watch but mostly because so many games are close, come-from-behind matches - which makes you ask: Why do they get behind? Melbourne plays a hard, defensive game with the capacity to score very quickly at times. I love it unless we lose!

Even as a huge fan i found it very hard to enjoy watching us last season even when we were winning. some of the first halves of games it was staggering how few goals we scored. Hopefully we find a way to open up our attacking play and move the ball quicker and more accurately this year

I liked watching GWS in the last part of the season, they had dare and skills. We played a boring predictable game style the last 2 years.

when we are up and going we are a joy to watch when we are kicking 7.17 in a final? yeah, pretty frustrating

I think it's disappointing there is no single family day this year. Yes it's chaotic and there are huge lines but the fact is the kids look forward to it. The splitting up of the family day in three events doesn't really work IMO. Firstly, the Melbourne-Richmond game is 7 quarters of footy. I will go and watch it all but I don't think I can take my kids - it's not really reasonable to expect young kids to stand at Casey (presumably in the heat) watching 7 quarters of a practice match, with possibly the last 3 of those quarters not consisting of too many Melbourne players. The training sessions in school holidays are not accessible to everyone, as lots of families will be away over the school holidays, in contrast to the usual family day in March when kids are at school. As an adult it doesn't really bother me, but I think we've missed a trick here for the kids.

Windsor's speed, balance and coordination makes you think we have something special here. He moves like Josh Kelly, Whitfield and Rozee. Hopefully he can get strong enough to play inside the centre square one day.

That's unlike you to talk like that, Jack It takes a good level of courage just to cross the white line Stan features quite a bit in the clip below playing as first rover And if Caleb ends up as good as Stan, we've got quite the player. Stan won 2 B&F's and ran 2nd in the Brownlow on one occasion And captained the club for 4 years. He was quite a decorated footballer Coll vs Melb 1968 Victoria Park

I just shake my head at comments such as the one you responded to, really poor against one of our own

No one rates us. They saw are underbelly last year and it’s up to us to come out breathing fire. I’m not overly confident but if we get it on, stay fit and say no to drugs who knows. I do know I’d love to prove some [censored] wrong.