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I don't care that there are people out there rubbishing this game. I enjoyed watching tonight. Our pressure was great. Maybe because it's just great to see Melbourne win if it's the male or female team. Plus we have some awesome players & a great leader

The secret agent had to be clever, about how he was going to get a viewing of the top secret training session, it is so classified that everyone was only told 1 hour before training on its location. I have the coaches phone tapped, the notification buzzes on my phone, I quickly listen into the phone tap, Goodwin is talking to Burgess about the training ahead, what he was saying was amazing and mind blowing, it could be so revolutionary and crazy it could change football for ever. I arrive 15 minutes before training starts I am hiding in a tree, in camouflage gear with my binoculars and my long distance listening device. The first players to arrive are Viney, Jones and petracca, after everyone arrives they all go into their huddle, I can pick up their conversation with my listening device, it's all the usual stuff that players say to each other ra ra ra nothing revolutionary there, Goodwin and all the assistant approach the group, they hold up their whiteboards with the players positions on it, the players were positioned in all different positions forwards in the backline and backmen in the forwardline, May as the deepest forward. Goodwin then gives his speech, it's all about running hard, tackling hard to hurt the opposition, busting your gut and bleeding for your teammates, he says anybody that shirks a contest is going to do 100 push-ups, he wants them to approach today's match simulation like it's a grand final, like their lives depended on it do or die. the three different groups forwards midfielder Backman all go into their own areas of the ground, they do their drills with real intensity, anyone who misses a target does a 100 push ups, I can say Tom MacDonald, Alex Neal Bullen and viney are going to have very sore chest and triceps tonight, the training drills have a heavy emphasis on Quick Ball movement, shepherding blocking and tackling your opponent and burying their head into the ground. After the drills the whole group does 5 laps of the oval, they brake up into 2 teams of 18 players, there are some Casey boys to make up the numbers, at 1 end Oscar McDonald is playing on Tom MacDonald, at the other, lever is playing on weideman. by half-time Oscar kicked 3 goals on Tom and lever kicked six on weideman, Oliver on Viney at the centre bounces was a intriguing contest, it got very heated at 1 point almost coming to blows. Suddenly someone notices me and they are coming my way it is big Greg Stafford, I get out of the tree and run for my life. I come away very impressed with Brayshaw, tracc and lever as a forward. (All parts of the story are fictitious and I mean to cause no offence to anybody)

Just watched the second win for our Women’s team... fantastic win against the other inaugural women’s team ...the Bulldogs. Thought the standard had definitely improved last year but found this game very enjoyable to watch. Are the skills there ...not yet ...but intent & willingness...100%...What I love...the passion for the jumper...something exciting happening this season ...Go Dees !!

Maybe that should be decided by KK and the Doctors not us.

Great win girls. Love Sinead Goldrick's hardness and intensity. Second game ever. Plays like AVB.

So did Essendon

Agree 100% We paid pratically nothing for KK trade wise and the MFC knew what they were potentially up against when we signed him up. If KK had have shrugged off these concussion issues, then everyone here would be doing cart wheels. Just because the punt we took hasn't paid off, then that doesn't mean the MFC should drop KK like a hot spud. I think it's important that the club maintains support and treats injured players in a respectful manner, as they appear to be doing and personally, I that also extends to us as supporters.

Neeld organised an impromptu hit-out with Collingwood... was the springboard to a hugely successful season.

Doomsday scenario is we're 21-0 and the season gets cancelled due to a deadly pandemic

AFLW is going nowhere. Before it’s inception, women’s Australian Rules Football was the fastest growing participant sport in the country, and this participation has exponentially jumped since then. Statistically, no sport has ever experienced an uptake like it. This growth in numbers has in fact been hard to manage for existing ‘men’s’ footy clubs who have created women’s/girls teams. Those who cry ‘not elite’ or ‘could/should be better’ - no kidding, the revolution is in its earliest phases. The AFL’s job here is to facilitate (with $$$) the best pathway and to bankroll the endpoint (most professional) competition so that in however many years, when half the population at least (you know, women) want to watch the AFLW as much as the AFL(M), they’ve managed it progressively to that point. How many stuffups they make along the way, who knows. And despite a certain resistance and disbelief from certain current generations of men (you know who you are) the newer and coming generations of men will be fully on board. Viva la revolution!

Good stuff, Shelley Scott deserved a goal, thought she had a ripper of a game up forward.

Great win against pretty good opposition at their home ground. Well done Ladies!

schwartz pre knee reconstruction would have to be up there....had it all

What like last season.

Maybe you should say "AFLW is not going away!"

Is this thread serious, other AFL sides having injury issues According to Dland we are the only club this happens to and it's because We are cursed We didn't go on a camp We haven't changed our captains Our players are involved in contact drills On a serious note Eagles bigman stocks for Rd 1 McGovern wont play Barass wont play Oscar Allen possibly play underdone Hickey 50/50

A good win driven with intensity at the ball and good fitness that allowed them to run out he game in difficult wet conditions. Well done.

I’m watching this. The girls are playing tough competitive footy In slippery conditions Dees in front at quarter time. Daisy classy off half back

I do love me a good pep.

Interesting article in the context of the discussion about the next wave of talent coming into AFLW: https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-14/the-maddy-prespakis-era-has-arrived-good-news-for-aflw/11964922

Have you boys not been told before never argue with an idiot Especially one with a selective agenda

If KK was in this position last year we would be looking to add an additional player through the PS supplementary or mid season draft. This year while we have 13 on the sidelines THIS week, that number only includes 3 or 4 who would ordinarily be in the first 22 and are expected to be back fully fit within 2 weeks or so. While I hold no great hopes for KK given he hasn't recovered ( not just played) for nearly 12 months, it is a calculated gamble to keep him on the list...any selection to replace him would be unlikely to get a game this year, so why do it? It is not like last year where Dunkley was slotted in to fill the huge number of gaps we had, and finished playing 5 games. Similar story to Bennell, if he comes good fantastic, if they don't then we have 2 gaps in the EOY draft already.

Best player ever seen at MFC, Allen Jakovich . But injury cruelled his career and IMV he does not qualify due to shortness of career. (If you haven't seen his highlights you need to) Best player for career and consistency, Sir Robert Flower MBE DRBM by a mile. MBE DRBM = Melbourne's Best Ever - Deserves a Retrospective Brownlow Medal

Sure is DZ and a heavy 8 in Sydney doesnt offer much help! Best Bet: Flemington Race 7 No 7 Loving Gaby (Plc) 2.30

Bit tough tomorrow. Best Bet Flemington Race 3 Number 15 River Night $2.70 Place.

Hats off to Buckley in agreeing an inter-club training game. Brilliant. Pity our club didn't have the brains and balls to suggest or agree to the request. A joke that AFL neighbours don't utilise the resource of opposition tune-up. Again, the club doesn't lead the comp.

The club should continue to do everything in its power to help Kade the person, but he is done as an AFL footballer and we need to reach an agreement with him to free up a spot on the list. We simply cannot afford to carry him on the injury list for another two years. Further the club needs to come clean on what due diligence (if any) was carried out on Kade's health before they gave him a three year contract. We have seen some abysmal list management decisions made in the past 10 years, but this is clearly the worst.

1989 & 1990 he was named CHB in the team of the year, in 1991 it was renamed All Australian. 1989 B: A. Johnson, C. Langford, G. Pert. HB: B. Lovett, G. Lyon, G. McKenna. ? D. Pritchard, P. Couch, G. Brown. HF: N. Winmar, S. Kernahan, Gary Ablett. F: B. Stoneham, J. Dunstall, A. Bews. Foll: S. Madden, M. Bairstow. Rover: J. Platten. Inter: T. Daniher, T. Watson, M. Bayes, G. Williams. 1990 B: A. Collins, S. Silvagni, J. Worsfold. HB: B. Lovett, G. Lyon, G. O’Donnell. ? D. Millane, A. Shaw (capt.). G. Wright. HF: P. Daicos, S. Loewe, Gary Ablett. F: S. Kernahan, J. Longmire, S. Russell. Foll: S. Madden, C. Lewis. Rover: A. McGuinness. Inter: M. McGuane, M. Thompson, A. Liberatore, M. Tuck. Coach: L. Matthews.

Exactly right, looking at his stats he kicked 4 & had 20 touches in round 22 so probably cemented his spot in the side. It never sits well with me when people say “such an such is the worst premiership player of all time”. There is always a back story to how hard these players work to firstly get to the AFL and then forge a career in the AFL, there is certainly a case of right time right place and some get lucky but there is more to it then a lot of people think

Greg Wells and Gary Hardeman were great players in very ordinary sides. I would throw in Hassa Mann for a mention as well.

Bottom 5 as in 13-18? Surely you jest. If not why is not making the finals a fail?

We've been poor at developing talent. We've had more high draft picks than nearly all other clubs, yet have butchered the development of the top young talent coming in. Some say we drafted poorly, I don't (for the most part). I believe the talent was fine, the development was poor. If we weren't a basket case off-field and our development focus was stronger, young talent drafted like Watts, Scully, Trengove, Grimes, Morton, Blease would all still be in red and blue and would now be the core carrying this club to consistent finals now. Talents like Petracca would be superstars too. We've definitely gotten better, but guys like Petracca, Brayshaw, Weideman all show that there's decent improvement still to be had with our development of young talent. We've been poor at retaining talent too obviously, but I think if development was better, culture would be better, less players leave - it's all connected.

Unless we pull off a massive miracle, I think a premiership for at least this season is out of our reach. That is always the ultimate goal but we're coming from a fair way back. I think we have the potential within the list to push for a premiership but it won't be in 2020. However, this isn't a rebuild like we started when Paul Roos came on board. My expectation for this season will be finals. I'd like to see us finish high enough to snag at least one home final and see how we go from there. Having said that, we need our key players on the park far more often than we did last season. It's hard to compete when so many of them had injuries or their pre-season was severely hampered and we couldn't run out games. I never expected us to fall as far as we did, though. So, a top six finish (5th of 6th) is something I think we can achieve.

Usually I'd have something to add when I stroll in here mid week but everyone's already covered the main points. (Plus the traditional derail that must occur in every AFLW convo, yawn. Got to say that most Dees supporters commenting here seem to understand the context of the league better than the average AFL men's fan...no surprise there, of course ?). Love seeing the enthusiasm for an unexpected win here after the loooong offseason! My favourite thing about watching footy is seeing players develop and improve, picking out the ones with potential and then (hopefully!) seeing that realised at the highest possible level. Obviously, AFLW has that in spades, so for that and many other reasons, I find it very enjoyable. So there are are two players I do want to highlight who I didn't see mentioned up thread. Shelley Heath and Harriet Cordner. Heath is one that I could see great potential in when she debuted in 2019. Her game on the weekend, especially when it was there to be won in the last quarter, showed all of that starting to come together. She just went and went and went, super tenacious and looked really fresh as other players tired. Harriet is a sentimental favourite for obvious reasons but she's improved so much over the first 3 seasons and had a big VFLW campaign, winning Casey's B&F (Birch, Zanker and Jakobsson were joint Runners-up, for those playing at home). It was a massive task for her to shoulder most of the ruck duties against North's ruck duo, particularly King, who is some 10 cm taller and much more experienced in the role. Harriet did a great job and was well supported by her teammates. Here's some photographic evidence of her efforts (credit to Cassidy Captured photography). Ok, so I guess I had a bit to say after all. Go Dees!

Jeez we had some handy players in that side Great memories!!’

He needed a strong alpha male coach to guide him. He was lucky he ended up with Leigh Mathews. I have met him and he seemed decent enough though a little rough around the edges. I heard a story that he witnessed something not involving him quite shocking and unprintable whilst at Fitzroy.

ok. ds. I did say " there has to be a transition whereby the comp allows for a living wage by becoming fully professional. Only then can you truly get an elite game" I agree with you that you don't need to be fully professional to get an elite game. I should reword that last bit to say "Only then will you be able to develop the best quality outcome" p.s. I know it becomes a bit of a semantic argument but i personally wouldn't describe the current aflw as "elite". I don't mean that as a criticism of the aflw, just an opinion . I'm aware that the aflw is necessarily going through a development process and the ongoing improvement (of individuals) is really apparent and encouraging. It will take time . I'm not convinced the afl has taken the best path so far but i think the die is cast and there is no turning back to a different model.

I think he pulled his head in a fair bit when he got to Brisbane. One of my favorite MFC players of that era.

It's much better than that...

Improve our inside 50 to goals ratio (to at least the League average) and results and finals will look after themselves. In the year from hell we were still 5th for inside 50 entries. We score goals from those entries and we reverse the rebound goal ratio as well.

It literally is the elite level of women's footy. Doesn't matter if you think "it ain't ready" (what does that even mean anyway?), it's here, so deal with it.

I like Brisbane’s Doomsday scenario.

What a nonsensical comment. You realize there's been women's leagues for a long time right? (Daisy has 10 flags after all) What exactly would make AFLW be VFL standard? You'd be happier if it was called VFLW? Also, you guys should all try reading the article instead of just the headline.

What a joke An 8 game season... The Women’s League should have been VFL Standard for at least 10 years to let it grow. But the AFL want a ready made elite competition

Max is either Co-Captain or Vice. Depends whether they are going with the Co-Captain model or going solo. I doubt Viney will be demoted.

I would suggest Jone's actions on the field have always been louder than any words

I'd have Mitch Brown and possible even Petty ahead of him. I'd have more confidence in those 2 contributing more.

I think we made an error not going to Viney and Gawn last year. Jones was clearly over the hump of performing as an on field leader and his best leadership was his on field drive. I'd be happy with Viney and Gawn. Viney has done the apprenticeship and might finally have his body right. I still think he has the right on field traits and off field drive to lead the club. Gawn is clearly impressive on field and speaks with passion off field. Why would one of them be stronger without the other? It's a coach driven sport, not one where any player alone can make a huge impact on games to anywhere near the extent of the coaches. If you divide the duties that really aren't that important to team performance - media, sponsors, appearances - then you double the amount of time available for your captain to do the things that do matter