Red and Blue realist

It looks like they used a combination of tightened their rules around how players/coaches interacted with others and then reduced the time needed in quarantine for those who were fully vaxxed - only 24 hrs if non-symptomatic. I wouldn't be surprised if teams go into some sort of bubble type setting on the eve of finals, it might not be to play at the same venue, but all players/coaches might be living at the same resort, eating together, taking the same transport etc. with harsh restrictions on any outside movement. Clubs might be happier with this knowing it's only for the finals period. Of course that all depends where the virus is up to and how many vaccinations are needed by then?

Membership $ is what counts most - all clubs have quirks that can inflate numbers. The Saints were handing out free memberships to all kids who joined a certain junior league and sold a heap of $1 membership one year, I think the Pies and Tigers have a large pet membership number. The key is the membership $ return, which from memory - I can't find but haven't looked very hard! - we had a much higher $ return from every member than most other clubs. So 40,000 members for us is significantly better than 40,000 for other clubs.

Great all round post CHF, I think there's one area that wasn't addressed and that's small lock-down defenders. You've covered off on the running backs and some of them play a hybrid role in that regard, but we've have Nev retire and moved on Lockhart. I know our style of play means we haven't had to rely on a small defender but this was one area that I thought we were struggling with - being vulnerable when the ball hit the ground in our defensive 50, especially in a 'chaos ball' way - this was until Bowey came into team, which gave us much quicker ground coverage. However, I don't think he's a lock-down defender and I'm not certain we'll need one all the time, but I'm wonder if this is one area teams might try and exploit us, of course that's easier said than done, but Collingwoods win over us was mainly due to a 'chaos ball' type approach into their Fwd50, low and hard in rather than deliberate and direct.

Spot on, I contacted them but they only did the 57 for a competition, no doubt they would have got a heap of business. Maybe they just underestimated the level of sales?

Howler have done a premiership beer, no idea how this tastes but the label looks good. https://www.howlerbrewing.com.au/shop/melbourne-fc-premiership-beer

I've always thought they should have a grand final replay in round 1, personally I'd prefer it was at a more family/travel friendly time slot than Friday night, but I can see why the club would want this - that sort of exposure early in the season is a great sell to sponsors and those that haven't signed up for a membership yet. I don't think opposition clubs care that much about when a club unfurls their flag, that's more for the premiers supporters.

These type of results rarely tell much of a story, given they are in isolation. How often would a player get to sprint 20 meters without being impeded, or run 2kms without having to change direction or even with the agility have to come to a complete stop. It's good to know he has these attributes, but he has to be able to use them. I'm sure Trac's not in the quickest in the club for the 20 meter sprints but he gets out of a pack nearly quicker than anyone just due to his power, and the same as Frost, he was lightning quick - unless he had to think, then he was one of the slowest players off the mark.

I think this is player driven, without the clubs involvement so nothing to worry about with breaking the collective bargaining. Happens every year, but is only really newsworthy this year! It's also only the guys who came back to Melbourne to give them something to do, heaps of others stayed in WA or travelled beyond there.

First player to come out to not being vaccinated - in the AFLW, but I'm sure we'll see some in the men as well. https://www.womens.afl/news/74985 The most shocking thing about this, is who it is and what she does/did for a job outside of footy - seriously she's an ICU nurse who in this article says she'd done a lot of education into Covid?? https://anmj.org.au/afl-player-and-icu-nurse-deni-varnhagen-on-footy-and-working-in-healthcare-in-unpredictable-times/

Very impressive, was at Brisbane before he came to us and they had a great run with injury in the last 2 years he was there.

Howler brewing are doing one - not sure on any other details but saw this on their facebook. Doesn't say when/how much, but they've previously done them for the tigers wins.

I asked them and they said it'll only be for that promotion, and they only made a very limited amount. At a guess the 57 for the promotion, 1 for the auction and around 200 that the players drank after the game and in the following days 🤪

Well done MAH! I love that you had all the bidding numbers in there as well, most of the media phantoms seem to have no idea about that works.

I think it's now nearly consensus that if there were no F/S or NGA that JHF is the number 1 pick anyway, so maybe they are just taking the right pick in order and hoping that other clubs don't deliberately pick their F/S or NGA players early in the future just to make them pay.

Maybe they rate this trade period more than next, or they have something else planned? Or we just always plan to trade out our future 1st knowing we can always get one back, and this was the best on offer this year?

I also read this somewhere, the perfect respond came through that we were last in disposal efficiency, so as a system we don't care as much about using it as well, as long as we can get it, and then move it forward. Dunstan is very good at getting the ball, so will work well in our system, plus the knock on Landgon before he got to us was how bad a user he was, I doubt anyone is saying that now!

Jones played 7 games and AVB played 2, plus Jones had a few as sub as well. I'd suspect Dunstan knows where he is in the peaking order but might think if he can come in and do what he did during he's run with the saints that we'd be prepared to back him in more than they were. He might have also spoken with GCS and Essendon and realised that he's not best 22 anywhere, and thought that if he's going to be back-up anywhere it's better to be where 2 older guys have just left and they just happen to be the premiers as well!

I posted this in the membership guessing thread, but it's relevant here - I just had to update something on my membership and was talking to a really nice guy there, he said the club has now sold over $3.5million in merch which is over double what the tigers did in 2017. Also Covid pending they thought memberships should fall between 70,000 and 75,000, said it'd be easy to get there with the MCC members signing up.

I just had to update something on my membership and was talking to a really nice guy there, he said the club has now sold over $3.5million in merch which is over double what the tigers did in 2017. Also Covid pending they thought memberships should fall between 70,000 and 75,000, said it'd be easy to get there with the MCC members signing up.

So I messaged Furphy about those premiers beers the players were drinking after the game, I'd much prefer those than the ones Carlton Draught normally release (but would buy both), Furphy have said that they only had 57 cases of those made and the only way the general public can get one is through a competition they are running. It looked like the players must have drank the other 56 in the celebrations on Saturday night/Sunday!

Woewodin had 22 touches, 4 tackles and a goal to be named in the bests for East Freo, he played against Kobe Farmer - although Farmer only had 6 touches (no goals). Swan Districts won the game by 2 points.

We've already extended TMac who had a year to run, along with Lever who had 2 years to run (from memory), plus have guys like Harmes, Gawn, Salem and Trac on longer term deals, so clearly the list management team are on top of this and have started to make plans already.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Melk stay, he is contracted, but if he were to get an opportunity elsewhere then good luck to him. Of the 9 oldest players on our list only 3 are guaranteed to be with us next year (Gawn, May and Hibberd), a few years ago we'd be jumping up and down saying we need Melk to be a veteran presence (using NBA terms) even if he didn't play much.

Just wanted to highlight again what a brilliant job our recruiting and list management team have done! Here is a shorten list of all the moves made at the trade table last year, that will impact our trading this year, and maybe give us a chance to look at what they might do this year: We traded our 2nd round 2021 (pick 37) and 4th round 2021 (pick 73) to Adelaide last year for picks 33 and 50 in 2020. Really pick 37 for 33 and 50. Then we traded picks 25, 68 & 69 in 2020 and our 2021 1st (pick 18) to Brissy for picks 18 & 19 (2020) and 2nd round 2021 (pick 33). So essentially pick 25 for pick 19 and 33 - one of the biggest pick wins ever I'd think? Of course we then we able to use pick 33 in the BBB deal with North, which worked very much in our favour as well. At this stage we have picks 33, 42 and 54 - and all our picks next year to play with, I can't wait to see what Lamb and Taylor do with these.

It was the Brissy game, so a game we won by a bit but if we had kicked straight we would have won by a lot. Generally speaking our results with the 3 umpires have been pretty similar to the Dogs, just they get more frees.