Rodney (Balls) Grinter

He did indeed and although the incident will be remembered and recalled, I honestly think it's something of a to be glossed over footnote. The media storm it created far outweighed the actual act it's self and I actually think the way Peddo responded, by persevering, getting on with his career and batteling it out in a somewhat struggling team actually shows more the true character of the bloke than that split second instinctive almost reflex action. Glad to see he's still kicking about in the local leagues. Personally, I'd love to play with him - a true footballer's footballer.

I don't think Jeffo will ever be a contested beast, but does he have to be? While obviously he needs to have enough go to find the ball, I think you need all sorts of players to combine to make an effective forward line. While the Weid obviously lacked enough of that edge to find enough of the ball to meaningfully contribute on a regular basis, there are others like Big Ben Brown and Jack Watts that I'd suggest had just enough physically to contest, but also had other elite attributes that allowed them to be highly effective players overall. Fritta is another that while not being overtly physical has enough smarts to complete.

$30M from the taxpayer is still a [censored] load of money to be gifted to one of the biggest / most financial sporting teams in Australia. Why should Hawthorn have got any? Don't start me on Geelong. Pokies money is blood money - who picks up the pieces from all the broken gambling addicts that contributed to that wealth? The comunity and the taxpayer.

Honestly, the amount of money being splashed around on these training centres makes me sick. $110M is like 1/10th of what Tassie are proposing to build an entire stadium. People are arcing up about the money being spent on the Tassie stadium, but not excessive Taj Mahal type training facilities of the Hawks, Essendon, Geelong,Collingwood etc. All this money being splashed around, while country and suburban footy scrapes for funds. The AFL need to put in-place some kind of equalisation measure and cap on excessive facilities development. Obviously the big clubs have already cashed in, so they need to impose a tax on the to provide a similar level of amenities for those that haven't yet.

Incidentally, this was just posted by the wees and poos.

Throw him into that midfield with Rowell, Anderson, Miller and it's like how the heck do you stop any one of them, let alone all three/four. Trac will benefit massively from feeding off the likes of Rowell, whole likely feed it out to a Trac on the burst like a machine. I imagine it could be somewhat like the old Clarry/Trac combo, before it fell apart and lost the plot. Maybe they had slightly different traits and techniques in feeding out the ball, but Rowell is just an unstoppable bulldozer when he gets going and I imagine that the Suns midfield will grind teams into the ground next season.

I'll agree that I disliked BBB when he played against us, but certainly had a respect for his football skills and nouse to put himself in good positions as a forward and kick goals (alot of them against us over the years). He almost had an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time and in alot of ways didn’t fit the mold of what an AFL footballer should be. That made him irritating, but not utterly dislikable. While I'd admit that Dacos is good, being both athletically gifted and skilful, however, he also has qualities that as an opposition supporter make me utterly dispise him. Would easily be the biggest primadonna in the AFL. The way he overreacts to being tagged, constantly putting on his little performances for the umpires and having a sook when he doesn't get a free kick makes me puke. His absolute sense of entitlement was on full display whenever he didn't get votes in the Brownlow. Give me a humble solid workhorse and warrior like Matt Rowell any day of the week.

Remember that game well. We look spent at half time or something then refused to lie down, put the foot down and powered home. Personally I felt we were a genuine contender in 2021 when we were at 6W 0L and just looked like we had that killer mindset of not loosing games we should win. For most of the season, while we rarely dominated, was so important that we always kept teams either under control with a defendable lead or within reach of a comeback, kept our cool, kept grinding away and then our opportunities when they presented. The mid to late season surge against the likes of Brisbane was so important that we didn't just throw away all our early season good work.

I don't think alot of handball is nessacerilly a bad thing. Just depends how it's executed and if they are damaging attacking handballs, as compared to endless defensive ones that put others badly under pressure of turning it over. Watched alot of Brisbane this year and one thing I think they did very well was linking up chains of handballs through the centre of the ground and CHF. They also carry the ball a long time before releasing it, really inviting and then taking on the tackler - it's almost rugby league like in it's appearance to me. The result is that it gives them a great avenue to goal through a player bursting through CHF who can take a shot on the run or hit up a good target in the corridor inside 50, rather than a crappy play around the flanks and a shot from the boundary.

I like it. I like it alot! Actually wounder if the assertion of us not having enough good kicks in the side is actually more a result of us not training enough fast ball movement, so a) when we do try it in games where not as drilled at it / as adapted to it and b) it's probably a lot harder to actually kick your way through a slow play. Everyone is more or less covered and it almost takes a miracle kicks to find a team mate.

Might have played it smart to wait until after the trade and draft period and perhaps we've front loaded and thrown in a few extra dollars next season with what was freed up from Trac sooking off to the GC.

Awsome news. Keep that Disco dancing indeed. Recon we'll see some great moves from him and XT over the next few years. Stepped it up a notch by staying fit and on the park throughout 2025, but I feel he still has plenty of new levels to go, particularly if we can build a tight defensive unit around him and fix up the rest of our game so the backs aren't consistiantly under so much pressure to defend the scoreboard. Think he has genuine smarts and wepons as a swing man forward when needed and I hope Kingy is more open to throwing around the magnets to sneak a goal here or there and break the game up a bit.

Excellent. Just what Steve (Frothies) May needs to keep at peak performance!

Kinda. I don't think Kossie and Jacko would have been at the club at the same time as Jesse would they? My gosh, just think of the future forward line we'd have if they were all still in the red and blue. Does make me a bit sad. I didn't really want to see Jesse go and while it ultimately allowed us to get Maysie whom was such an integral part of out premiership team, Jesse would be a real asset to hold together our forward line in the transition to the new guard. That said, we now have Brody to assist, bit it's nor quite the same. Such a wasted opportunity for the MFC, I wished we could have got Jesse back when he left Freo as maybe he'd have been the difference in 2023.

While on the topic of the new assistants, can someone who's somewhat 'in the know' please give their views on what distinct qualities they see Matthew Scarlett bringing to our coaching group and the team? I know a little of the champion player he was and my own superficial understanding is that he was also regarded as a great leader at Geelong during their period as one of the greatest teams of the modern era, but would be interested in some more specifics.

I thought it was interesting that he had that time in the ammos. Thought that he'd been in the AFL coaching system all this time.

Agreed that it would have been good to see him get a greater run, although I also thought his positioning and ball use as a half forward was quite good. It's just a pity that a whole bunch of those 21 games would have been as a sub, where he got very limited or possibly no game time. Thought he showed a lot more in his breif game time at AFL level than Laurie who has been given significantly more time on the list for somewhat lack luster performances at the top level to date.

Honestly I'll be stoked to see big Max represent the Big V and yet again follow in the footsteps of his early mentor Jimmy. It baffles me that he wasn't in the first batch announced, like how would the current All Australian ruck and all time most capped All Australian ruck not be an automatic selection for the Big V. While I wouldn't begrudge The Bont being named as captain, I really think it should go to Max this year. Bont will get future opportunities and I think Max would have the better presence on and off the feild for this rebirth of Sate of Origin. They'd just better not name Jerremy Cameron captain. Seeing Kossie and Jessy line up with other greats and favourites like Charlie Cameron will be something of a treat. I'm actually really looking forward to them bringing back State of Origin footy, but must say I'm disappointed that the AFL have gone about it somewhat half assed in a several respects: It should have been mixed in closer to or in the middle of the season proper They should have played the first one back for a while at the MCG. A packed house of 100,000 screaming Vic's would be a much better spectical than 60,000 in Perth

Was it like a match worn jumper?

Was also my thoughts. Hopefully we've got a good succession plan in place as it's bound to occur at some stage sooner or later.

Perhaps time may yet tell a different story, but I think the big failure wasn't so much the recruitment of Laurie that JT was responsible for, its that we have continued to give him contract extensions well beyond what is justified by his AFL level performances. It's like we're giving him all the time of a key position player to develop, when small-mid sized players like him are a dime a dozen and we've had plenty at the club in his time that have actually shown more, that have come and gone. Either way it pans out, I hope his list clogging days at the club are soon coming to an end.

Lol. Would like to know the story behind that one!

Lol Ghosty, now I know you're really delusional 😜

I don't want us to just beat Collingwood though. I want us to absolutely smash the fkers.

I don't think I see any issues with this. If it's not making them money and has no tangible benefit to clubs, then it's just another overhead we could all do without, along with the AFLs bloated corporate / executive management payroll. Really actually wounder if the whole league management could do with a massive overhaul.