deanox

"Made him earn it" is actually code for created a realistic and significant physical threat that most of the time is just hard physical impact but also has the potential to cause serious injury. "Made him earn it" completely disregards duty of care.

In Maynard's defense I felt he hung near Angus trying to check on him. And I don't believe he intended to do this kind of harm. But it's a bit like the bloke who throws a shove or a punch at a pub and then gets a shock when his victim drops. Of course he didn't mean to knock them into next week but when you play stupid games you win stupid prizes. Maynard deliberately tried to put physical pressure on the kicker. And did it in a careless, uncontrolled manner that resulted in concussion.

It was the anniversary of Danny Frawleys death yesterday. I'm sure these issues are resonating around the Brayshaw household (his wife Danielle is Danny Frawleys's daughter). I hope they are holding together.

Genuinely no weak links in this squad. Even the "lesser lights" are seriously good.

Give her the 3 votes already

Injuries.

Honestly I love Demonland, with its literary and graphic design critique of opposition banners.

I agree with that completely. I'm actually less concerned about "where our goals will come from" than "how we will generate scoring opportunities once inside 50 by nullifying opposition defenders". It's why I don't think Turner forward is a terrible idea. Telling him to play as a tall defender but in the F50 actually might achieve what we need to achieve in bringing the ball to ground and creating opportunities. That's what Melk brought.

Just as an aside, Melbourne has only seven players who have kicked more than 12 goals this entire season. Only 2 of those are missing next week: JVR and Melksham. Those seven have played a combined 141 games this year out of 168 possible. So on average, less than six of the seven have played each week. Yeah it's not great, but this year our goals have come from everywhere not from a small group of key players. And that will need to be the plan next week.

6 Gawn 5 Oliver 4 May 3 ANB 2 Petracca 1 Langdon

It's almost like something had a lasting affect in your immune system...

You'd assume that Hunter and Langdon are sure things for an extension due to age and FA status. So really it's just Bowey and Sparrow that I'm sweating on for next year. And Petty and JVR for 2025. Sure it'd be nice to keep Jordan and Laurie, but at this point neither are critical. Pretty amazing really.

I think the AFL decision for a Thursday game is the problem. If either game was Friday night instead, these players could probably get a run. That would improve the quality of the AFL finals and the VFL product too (obviously less important to them)

I'm not MCC but I understand a big selling point is "you're a member of the MCC so have the opportunity to attend any event". If you limit ticket sales to club support members only it limits that benefit, so it is a major change. I suspect there are many casual AFL supporters amongst MCC members who just love sport, and attend a variety of club games each year. But I do think it would make it a better spectacle and atmosphere if that could be achieved. Perhaps a similar ballot system could be used but with increased chance of getting tickets if you are a club support member rather than an absolute priority? For AFL members, I absolutely think the club supporters should get first access.

And/Or do tickets as a ballot system for club members. Enter your barcodes and your credit cards. Choose your preferred seating option, then click submit. Once the ballot period closes, the computer randomly selects ballot winners and allocates them tickets and charges their credit card, finalising the purchase. This way we aren't dependent on internet connections to try to get live access to their system to buy tickets, we only have one person per group transaction entering details. Ballot can be allocated in priority if they want. Any unallocated tickets after ballot can then be opened for public sale.

We had 9 players under 24 playing last weekend, and ask holding their spot pretty well (Laurie is really the only one of the 9 who is still finding his spot). And then you can add Petty and potentially Spargo to our under 24 squad. So we've got a nucleus of a future squad, but do need to add a whole group more. I can see the benefit of loading on up a super star at pick 1 to help carry that next group through, knowing that we'll be able to fill a few more holes in the 25-28 year old bracket with free agency as our older superstars contracts end.

I suspect that might also cover things like medallion club?

Use the barcodes from the club!

Are there any bad seats on N? My preference is behind the goals because of view of structures etc, but obviously the other end is far away. (I'm lucky this time, I got N3!) The wing means you get the best view of both ends but it's harder to see the structures and width of the ground. Winners all around on Level 2!

Yeah that's a valid point. It's hard to have a role for a tagger if you are already playing -1 or -2 at the contest.

Good luck everyone!

Perhaps. I just know how hard we worked each week to get Melksham "on" the defender we wanted. Lots of byplay and muck around in the forward line to get it the way we wanted. And it never involved Melksham rolling up to half forward and the wing, the way TMac tends to play. But it didn't involve starting deep. Can TMac do that? Can TMac interfere with the contest the way Melksham did without giving away free kicks? I'm not convinced.

I feel like our "tagging" hasnt been about midfielders, it's been about half forwards and half backs. We used Rivers as an offensive weapon on dangerous half forwards, making them accountable. We use Melksham* on dangerous defenders, making them accountable. It's not the same as "stopping/tagging" but it is our way of taking key opposition players out of the game by moving them out of where they want to be structurally. Opposition teams try to do this with Lever. When we have Turner in this becomes more difficult because he can play the intercept role too. *Melksham is a bigger out than many realise. He has been unbelievable this year shutting down intercept players like Harris Andrews and Darcy Moore serially and by making them accountable. I don't believe we have a true replacement for him and am unsure how our structure will look with him missing. If TMac comes in, it may become JVRs job (JVR often took those players when Melksham was on the bench). Melkshams out really hurts our premiership chances I think.

If they schedule a match after a bye within the concussion period, it would make a mockery of the pre-finals bye and would rightly be met with outrage across the media. It doesn't matter that it is Melbourne, a smaller club, it would be a brutal response from everyone I think.

I think the players will give it 100%, and I think the coaches will expect them too and set that bar. But a late out, or some extra minutes to certain players, or etc might not be off the cards. With Turner and Fritsch in for the first time, we have lots to experiment with.