Bay Riffin

was just about to type that with all the whingeing of playing injured players. How many here would have wanted us to omit May for the Grand Final ?

great to have you back guys. I thought that was our most 'skillful side in a long while watching Hunter, Grundy, Chandler, Bowey help move the ball end to end. I consider Hunter a lock and he makes us look so much better. Do you think Bowey and Chandler will play round 1 as they played well.

a few here bagged Grundy. If thats his stats spudding it up, We will be happy with that.

Watching his rookie footage he's a very smooth mover. Burgoyne type balance and watching him live reminded me a bit of Zac Williams when he put the jets on. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/players/5688/judd-mcvee

yes like the Rivers move but geez his field kicking was terrible today. kicked a great long goal though.

totally agree. well summed up. his elite qualities are his tank (but so is Hunter who's a superior kick) and I think needs to be in the middle. He looks a natural inside footballer to me so a good stint as Casey using his '1 wood' might be what the doctor ordered. and who knows he might go up the pecking order.

to be fair theyve laid down all their money on the favourites. nothing too surprising there.

They have found a way to get back to premiership successover the journey but that last few years have been sweet. The last 2 days games in particular have been mass whinge fests by hawks supporters over umpiring decisions. After all those years of #freekickhawthorn. The last game Ben Brown was given about 4 free kicks in fornt of goal. None of which were near 50/50 but hapless attempts by Sam Frost to stop him by any measure. Not that it mattered as they booed the umpires till the bitter end. Entitled ? oh yes.

that could be timely given we don't know when Salem will be available.

what i liked about our 2018 drafting is we chose players with X factor, a real point of difference. The type you need to win premierships. i.e Jackson and Kozzie. We just cant afford to lose both. It's so hard though when teams are throwing ridicuolous amounts money at them. and iff there is one team in the AFL that is obsessed with 'flashy' players its Port.

I'm not sure I'm buying this revisionism. We came out and won the first 10 games in convincing fashion. I'ts not like we didn't hit the ground running. We were clearly the best side in the comp till the half way mark. A more likely argument would be we went too hard early and were phyicially spent by the end of the year compared to other sides. and that might be just one factor.

good points there. One big improvement I think could be overlooked is if Thomlinson can get back to his form pre-injury, which was absolute A grade. Last year he had no acceleration but signs are hes getting better. That is high quality depth to add to our backline. Also I think they biggest improvement will come if we have our 3 talls in TMAC, BB and JVR playing most of the year. it felt like most of last year we have 1 tall, one one leg. The next improvement would then be probably Hunter who we didnt have last year. Grundy might be an improvment of Jackson but not as much as Hunter might provide compared to JJ.

I think Casey this year could be more of a breeding ground for us than last year. The spine will be pretty new which is exciting and and a host of second and third year players like Howes, Laurie, JVR, Woewoedin will be expected to push hard for selection.

yep. He certainly has earned his chance and was knocking the door down this year but its a big step up. I just dont quite see the X factor that maybe others do.

Chandler has yet to prove he is good enough at AFL level.

what is this based on may I ask ?

so true I remember us getting Scully Trengove, Grimes, Taspcott all who impressed at AFL level early. Mates loved Grimes, great interceptor and leader of the backline. he was excellent Tapscott was close to BOG first game in a hard fought round 1 against Sydney. I would never have thought none would go on to have really good careers. Gysberts another who racked up big numbers very early on at AFL level then lost all confidence later.

such a great player and extremely professional.

interesting. He had Jackson and Pickett wrong (especially pickett rated at 30) but overall what eventauted was the cream is at the top. Its pretty decent.

Agreed. I think people are underestimating him because he isn't as flashy as some players. He had his first year at AFL level last year averaging 14 disposals. This year he averaged 20 and polled well in the B and F. He may not have the highest ceiling but thats extremely good improvement. He and Sparrow are developing nicely.

Glad he isn't Mitch. I thank god Mitch Hannan was playing for the doggies in the grand final. With the doggies 19 points up and stifling all our moves late in the third quarter, Hannnan got a dubious free 55m out. with the elastic band about to break Macrae runs past (chased by a hapless Gawny) to take the handpass and what would be a sure shot on goal or hitting someone up. I thought we are in serious trouble here. The handpass is terrible, lands at his feet and ends up in a stoppage. We were about to go 25 points down with even less time to go. What might have been.

Im trying to understand how this can be ? I cant think of an industry that puts in more support for the aboriginal people. Where every club seems to have a number of first nation players playing. With dedicated people to help with the transition. Was it St Kilda who didnt have the appropriate support for him ? they seem to have had a number of successful aboriginal players over the journey.

Definitely improved his stats this year, becoming more involved averaging 16 possies per game, a lot from the half forward line. You'd think Goodwin now will be in his ear to now take a starting position in the midfield and challenge the big names. He's a nice kick and a beast. He has the attributes to go the next level.

we need this blokes kicking skills in the side. Had a small lapse then fired up again and couldnt get back in. it beffudled me as to why when those in the firsts were not performing that well (e.g salem)

Now we are a month on since we finished, I think we lacked outside run and the ability to cover ground once the game opened up. Looking at the year as whole, we had either a commanding position or were leading at half time in almost every game. Once things opened up you could see we started to lose our strength, that being our contested work. We don't have the finishing skills of Geelong or the Pies and were found wanting. and our conversion was poor up forward. I really think we should have gone hard at Amon and Gunston for example to address these needs. We've lost pace in Hunt and Bedford and gained a strength (assuming Grundy arrives) in an area we may not be able to maximise fully. In the end I also felt we limped into the final with reports of 11 players playing injured in the last Brisbane game. We are still top 4 material but when fully fit, I still feel we lack the ability to run out games. Lets hope the youngsters learning their craft at Casey can improve this for us next year.