Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Going to sit on the fence a little bit here and say that both things can be true and it's all relative to the players level to start with. An establishing player can have a breakout year that establishes them in the team and an established player can have one where they go to an elite level. In my view, it's all about a player taking their game to the next level in a big step, rather than one of slow incremental improvement.

To be fair to Demonland, I think alot of the cues that folks on here have been following are the press releases from the club and interviews with players, coaches etc that have been pumping up Jai's tires. I don't have any huge issues with this from two perspectives: It could be good to give Jai this confidence and/or reinforce to him and others I the playing group that dedicated training ethos and performance is noticed and will be rewarded with opportunities to play that role at senior level. It's amazing how much difference just confidence can have to a player and perhaps the coaching group have recognised that as something Jai needs to take that next step. Given the trade period we had, the club has to sell some hope that we have players with potential to step-up at senior level, fill the roles of some of the senior players we've lost, in order to generate interest, sell hope and sell memberships early in the season. Vitally important for our ongoing sustainability in the current position of the club. Even if Jai does fail to deliver on these early indications of potential to perform at a higher level, I don't think we loose much through being wrong on the above. Probably also takes the heat off others, whom might actually step it up and have breakout years even if Jai doesn't.

I am generally a proponent of MFC players having decent cuts, but there are risks involved. I think if you look back on the years that Ed Langdon and BBB had after they got rid of the long locks, they had relatively mares of seasons, so I wouldn't be recommending it for Jai.

Don't think training and playing hard has destroyed Max Gawn after his ACL injury history. Good luck to the young guy.

Yeah, my old man use to pip me height wise, being an even 6'0" and myself around the 5'11" mark. And he use to be quite happy about the fact. Not so happy an more that his shrinking has let me overtake him. Not sure I'll ever really have such bragging rights over my No.1 son as at 13yo, he's shooting up like a bean pole and I full expect his to overtake me sometime in the next couple of years.

I watched him play for the NT Thunder against Southport in the Northern VFL equivalent when it featured teams like the Brisbane Lions, Suns, Sydney and GWS reserves teams a good 10 years ago. He was lighting it up and was great to see him out there, even though he'd been in a pretty good pasture if you get my drift. Loved Aussie. Wished that he and Liam Jurrah had have played more games for us. Can't recall the age differences, but how amazing would it have been if they could have combined with a young Kozzie at the end of their careers.

Lol. Well I consider it wrong.

See @picket fence , others really rate your favourite player as well.

Finished equal 5th in our goal kicking along with that Petracca bloke, but at 18 goals, 8 behinds was far more efficient than that later who kicked 18 goals 24 behinds. Which somewhat brings us to el capitano's effort of 6 goals 15. If Max can even up that ledger a bit to say 10 goals, 11 behinds, which should be well within the realm of possibilities, given some of the absolute ciders he munted last season in particular, there's a few more goal improvement for the team that went begging and could have got us over the line in a few games. While he's always been a bit of a bunny in front of goals (I think the simple ones are actually his worst), if you look back over the years, 2025 was actually something of a stand out for the lows of Maxy's goal kicking, in which he usually at least breaks even with respect to accuracy (excluding those that might have ended up out on the full!) https://afltables.com/afl/stats/players/M/Max_Gawn.html

Honestly, I don't think 11 goals a game is realistic as the competition is far closer than that. We would have lost 8 games last by less than 20 points. Win just a reasonable portion of those and we play finals. The worst blow-out losses we had against us were in the first 5 rounds and that really pretty much killed our season from the get go. That all said, I agree with @Go Ds main premise that genuine across the board improvement and hitting our straps from Rd 1 are the real key to us having a good season as a team and how well we approach preseason is the precursor to both of those. In this respects, I'm encouraged by reports that our preseason has been one of (if not the) hardest that the players remember. Still regardless of those things, I think there will be and needs to be individual players that go to another level in order for our team performance to thrive. Even if we evenly rotate multiple players through the midfield, we'll need some to step-up and go to another level to replace the drive that was provided by Trac and Clarry. If we can have some that do that with some better flair and efficiency going forward, then we could be well on our way. Interesting reading the words of Steven King in the latest article Re the Pickett's on the club Web sites that he thinks we can be hard to beat if we are better at connecting up forward and challenging teams with ball in hand (I mean no [censored] Sherlock, but I think it does capture the opportunity). As some have mentioned Cully could be a player that helps deliver that, but who might be the others? To this point, I've somewhat dismissed that 'The Bison' Langford could deliver that sort of role at the level of battle hardened AFL mids, that don't typically become a force until their mid 20s, but reflecting on the contributions of the Ashcrofts at Brisbane - why not? The other areas of the ground that I think we have the most potential for growth are across half back and up forward: 1. Can someone the like of CJ evolve his game from a flashy runner with a tendency to get beaten defensively to something that is better rounded over all? Can a Blake Howes become a better at breaking lines and become an attacking distributor? Will it be AMW that delivers on early glimpses or all of the above. Who of our developing key forwards of JvR, Jeffo, Kentfield step-up with Mihocek taking some of the heat off them. Overall, I see this as somewhat of a transion year and the other part of the ground where we are already fairly well credentialed but in need of generational change is our key defensive posts. I'll be looking for Petty to step up and assume the key gorilla wrestler post that's been so well held by Steven May since around 2020 and if Disco can fully establish himself in the defensive interceptor role he plays. Asides from that I'll be hopeful that Jed Adams can play some good footy and establish himself - Max had big raps on him last preseason, but even in a year when we lost Lever and Petty played predominantly forward, he struggled to get a game. As I don't get to all the training sessions that some do, I confess I have realitivly little insight other than pure speculation, but genuinely interested from the avid track and Casey watches that do.

Interested in Demonlanders views. Personally, I think this will be one of the intriguing things to watch our team for in 2026, along with how the team re-forms, gels and adapts to a new game style. One thing about loosing the Petracca's, Oliver's and Spud McVee's as well as a new coach and game style, is that it will great provide opportunities for players who might have been in the showdows to step up. While many would have expectations on guys like Langford, Lindsay and Windsor to go to the next level as part of their development trajectory, I'm also interested to see how the tier of more developed players like Rivers, Sparrow, Chandler, Howes & Co might fare. I suspect that many will would fancy Rivers to thrive given more of a free run at the midfield, but I also personally wouldn't be surprised if someone like Sparrow emerges in a more dominant form and sets the tone. While the likes of Langford, Windsor and Co performed brilliantly in their respective first seasons, I'm not putting any expectations on our first year draftees at this point. If they come out all guns blazing, then great, but if not, then I'm happy for them to develop at their own pace and earn a spot in the team.

Agree there is competition for that spot, which is great. I'm going off a small sample size, but from what I saw of marking contest work between AJ and Jeffo, AJ won a fair few. I actually thought he is considerably shorter than Jeffo, but 193cm Vs 195cm isn't much of a difference really. The other thing I'd add into the mix is form and injuries. Having AJ in the mix gives us another reason not to throw Petty forward for extended periods, which I think we need. Which could spawn another question about competition for our key defensive posts, with all of May, Lever, T Mac, Disco, Adams and Petty to pick from, but that's another discussion again. Bring on the practice matches to give us a better glimpse of how things might line up I say. On another point you raised, given we have a guy in TC capable of adequately competing in the ruck, do we get more proactive with the management of Gawn throughout the season? P.S. I haven't seen that much of TC in recent times to know what his around the ground type presence and maybe that's where the calculation has been made previously.

One of the best jokes I told which got a great laugh was when I spent a few minutes with the preamble only to forget the punchline when it came time. Probably helped that it was in a cab with a bunch of mates I'd been on the beers with all arov.

Lol. Sponsors - I love it. I've heard unpaid overtime termed as 'donated hours' by some in management, so stands to reason that you'd be a sponsor. But putting them in an official annual report is next level. The Collins class thing also made the engineer in me laugh, while being a bit close to home at the same time.

I actually agree with you on all accounts PF. I totally rate Tom Campbell as well, but you could take the view that as a 34 yo who's not going to develop for the future and didn't play an AFL game last year he is more of a clogger than AJ, who potentially has something like 5-8+ years ahead of him as a useful AFL player and who did contribute meaningfully to the on-field performance of the team at an AFL level when he got his chance last season. That was the point I was making with Tom. Asides from just the 'insurance for Max' factor, I also believe Tom Campbell was of significant development value to the team last year. Can't wait to see what The Moose can do over the next few years. Hopefully he'll really grab the opportunity with both hands and take his game to the next level, because as much as I see great potential, I'm also worried it could also go the other way and he could end up being an average VFL ruckman who didn't quite make it if things don't click.

🙄 still going on about Clarry are we? Honestly, loved him in the past, but I think his reaction post leaving really does show that he was a real culture killer. If we go back a few years, I similarly thought it was a dud move trading out Jack Watts for peanuts, but I think history shows it was the right move. No player can be bigger than the team. I think Clarry just learnt that.

One thing about AJ is that he's a "goer". Recently saw videos him doing contested marking drills with Jeffo. Both of them looked pretty good to be honest, clunking them with pretty clean one grab type actions. Even if it's just his attitude that rubs off on our young players, then I think we've come out ahead, but I can also see him influencing more AFL games like the few he played in last season. Every team needs good depth and think he's probably cost us much less in cap space and draft capital than a bunch of other players at our club and at others. To me the cost Vs output ballance sheet looks pretty good so far. Even if he only plays half a dozen games, but helps get us over the line for a win in games we might not have otherwise, that's of immense value in my book. Could argue that Tom Campbell was a bigger list clogger than AJ based on playing zero AFL games last season, but I don't think that would be a fair assessment of Tom's contribution either. Will be interesting to see if he can go to another level with a full AFL preseason.

I was going to troll a bit and make up some nonsense like it might belong to the late Billy Green who played 2 games back in the late 60s and then went on to play for Orbost. But that would just be silly. All I can add is that Google isn't the trove of all knowledge as all you get when you google "Melbourne Football Club Dargo" is pages full of links to stuff about Charlie Spargo.

...and at the same time label other players as useless for their lack of physicality. It's a fine line I guess.

Beat me to it! Seriously PF, take a chill pill man.

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.