Rodney (Balls) Grinter

If we have a rebuilding year and just want to see 'improved cohesion' and 'getting games into kids' etc, we will be going backwards.

Last two seasons have amounted to that essentially.

Plus, given that we weren't really that far off the pace last season any improvements should see us actually winning those close games. There were only a small handful of games last season I felt were truly gone at half or 3/4 time.

Trac and Clarry were almost a handycap last season. Trac in particular looked disinterested, poor body language, didn't put effort into chasing, before we talk about him munting kicks into the forward line.

We have a number of seriously capable and talented guys in the likes of Rivers, Kossie etc that are ready to step up and fill their shoes and some solid foot soldiers and experienced players behind them. And we still have the best ruckman in the league, who is a match winner on many days.

We then have a crop of talent comming through like JVR and Winsor, whom should be capable of making a step up. I don't want to put too much pressure on the kid, but I do think The Bison is one that is capable of being that mature, consistent contribtor, much in the way the Ashcrofts have been as young players at Brisbane. When we rate opposition, as MFC supporters, I think we're often quick to point out their jets comming through, but also often don't count our own against that ledger.

Asides from Brisbane, the so called 'good teams' of last season weren't anything super special IMHO. Every season, there are a bunch of teams that make finals with either average talent and/or ahead of their development curve, but that are well coached and committed as a team. I don't see why that can't be us.

If we go into the season with low expectations and put winning as a secondary objective, then we could come out with Bailey/Neeld type outcomes. Winning and how to win is a mentality and something we need to embed in it's self and I'm personally not turning up to the footy every week with the expectation we'll probably loose and/or maybe might win.

I thought this was super classy from the Bulldogs social media team.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Bf3HYHvgx/

But gee it must have also put a bit of a dagger in the hearts of their supporters bringing back memories of that 2021 premership for them.

50 minutes ago, layzie said:

Vs West Coast at Optus in 2018 to Dean Kent who went on to kick the goal to seal the win and break our 12 year final drought. A massive step on our journey to the flag.

I'm glad you bought that one up as it's one that has stuck in my memories as well.

I also reject that Harmes was a player of limited skill. For a side that many have bemoaned for not delivering well into the forward line, Harmesy was one who was capable of lowering the eyes and hitting a target in a good position inside 50 to advantage. There are those two classic instances that he did it in big moments of big games, but he also did it on many other occasions as well, so it was no fluke - the guy had skills. He was also a strong mark overhead and generally a good kick for goal as well.

If anything, perhaps he lacked just a little in consistently being able to perform such feats and play to the same high standards every game that perhaps kept him to being an honest gritty player, compared to an outright elite. I'd always hoped he'd have a season where he made that step, but it was never to be, but I still thought he made a fantastic and very worthy contribution to our premiership and no one can ever take that away from him - as others have said, he lived out the dream of every Melbourne supporter in achieving that.

3 hours ago, Demonland said:

Awsome just how happy Kossie is in this segment.

My prediction is that all these comentators and 'footy experts' that have written us off as virtual non contenders for season 2026 will eat some humble pie and re-rate the side as a contender and be singing the praises of Kingy after the first half of the season.

13 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Agree with most of that list except for 2018.

The entire supporter base would have torn the MCG down if we failed to make finals in 2018, after missing 2017 by 0.2% or whatever it was.

2021 I'd say we were a 50/50 shot at finals given it took until the final game of the 2020 season to be eliminated from finals (Freo had to beat Dogs in Carins).

I could see 2021 coming from watching the way the team played in 2020. We were better that a team that missed out on finals. Along with the horid Cairns losses, we should have also beaten Brisbane in Brisbane in 2020 (they were still a good side then and finished 2nd on the ladder that season, somewhat boyed by all the virtual home games no doubt). The way we finished the 2020 season against Essendon at Carrara you could tell we belonged far higher up than the bottom half of the ladder.

Love Melky and I still think he can play some good games for us this year. But what I really think is that we need to be developing the next bunch of players with a similar skill set. To me one of the closest we have with that penetrating pin point feild pass is 'The Bison' Langford and will be interesting to see if he can go to another level and become even more of a weapon delivering the ball inside 50m.

Beyond his kicking, Melksham is also a really smart, strong and tough to beat in a 1 on 1 marking contest and knows how to position himself with respect to feild position and where the dangerous space is within the forward line - also traits I think in common with The Bison.

Still think Melksham is very handy depth (perhaps more) this season, but also think he'd be great to have around as a mentor for the next batch comming through.

18 hours ago, Go Ds said:

Archimedes was taken.

Well at least Archimedes could have worked out the thing about a deer, buffalo and hippopotamus sitting on the river bank!

13 hours ago, deemoralizing67 said:

Top 4? No [censored] way

Its more likely a pies fan will pay child support

If they must breed, at least not paying child support will mean there's less likelihood their spawn will follow that despicable team of their father's.

14 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

I'm not surprised we're second highest on the Pythagorean table. We haven't been able to win a close game to save ourselves over the last two years.

Even under Chaplin, two of the three games were a close loss.

I hope we do not continue to be the 'honourable loss' kings.

I still hold that we were beaten by the umpires on Kings Birthday, so there's always that variable as well.

3 hours ago, BoBo said:

I don’t really mind what our win/loss ratio is this year to be honest. I’d rather us cop a bunch of losses if it means it’s in service of cementing the foundations of a winning game plan (and list) for future seasons. Mitchell was copping loads of criticism in his second of two years at hawthorn because they were getting belted, but he didn’t blink and he didn’t change what he was doing to try and mitigate losses. And now they’re back to being a strong team.

Get another year into the kids, get a new midfield mix working together, get our forward line functioning, fix our forward connection and give Max Heath a full season.

This isn’t all going to click in 1 season, let alone, 1 pre-season IMO.

I partially agree with the sentiment, but:

1. I don't think King has as much capital at the MFC to tolerate as many beltings as Mitchell did at Hawthorn, comming off decades of sucess, the last one in particular. Hawthorn also conceded that they needed to pretty much gut the place and that they were going full rebuild, where as I think we're more rebuilding on the run Geelong style.

2. As much as King talks about attacking and taking on the game, I've also heard him talk that we need to also defend well in that phase. I also feel we have a much stronger defence that Hawthorn did during their rebuild, so hopefully we're not as exposed to the blowouts as they were.

I'm also not convinced that Hawthorn are the real deal either. They haven't actually won a premiership under Mitchell yet and although they've made finals a few time and played OK in those games, they could just as easily regress or go nowhere for a few years and big question marks will hang over Mitchell's ability to coach.

30 minutes ago, samcantstandya said:

I agree he goes missing for long periods, Chandler is not an automatic lock in best 23.

He's played every game for the past 2 seasons. I think that gives a pretty good indication that if he's fit, he's pretty much a lock.

3 hours ago, picket fence said:

Haven't seen anything in this player that screams best 23, haven't heard any track watches exhorting his match sim form and as for captaincy material, he can captain Casey!

Chandler will get picked before Jeffo.

I bet he'll kick more goals in season 2026 as well.

On 28/01/2026 at 22:05, picket fence said:

Seriously Chandler has done zilch in match sims this season, underwhelming to say the least!

Kade is a lock. Future captain material.

All set to dominate in 2026.

When the AFL ditched the reserves, it was supposedly as a cost saving measure. But I struggle for the life of me, where that saving would be. The current lists of 40 odd players + rookies of various forms mean there would be stuff all saving in player wages and clubs probably still need a similar number of support staff.

Now that it's back to almost the entire comp again, I wouldn't even think there is a huge amount to be saved in travel costs. Just bring back the reserves and get on with it.

If Lever was shocked and disappointed about being dropped, how does he think T Mac felt after being dropped to make way for Lever when T Mac was in some great form. In retrospect, it might have actually been better for Lever to work his way back into the side via Casey.

15 hours ago, Spud said:

the start of a pretty good season 1998 with which Seecamp was an important component. We were clearly the 2nd best side behind North at the end of the year, who shaat the bed on GF day against Adelaide!!

Who shouldn't have even been there after we smashed the absolute [censored] out of them in the first week of finals.

We made something of a bad habit of comming up against the better teams in prelim finals in conditions that better suited them. Remember that final against North well. A night game at the MCG, at a time when they played the most night games during the home and away of most clubs. Similarly, we've copped West Coast in Perth in away prelims more times than I care to remember.

11 hours ago, Its Time Again said:

I think people have gone too early on Tholstrup he hasn't had a consistent chance to get his act together. Let's hold off having that conversation till the end of this season.

Agreed. While he hasn't burst out of the blocks like Windsor, Langford and XL did in their first seasons, he as shown a few good signs and isn't a bust yet by any means.

If anything I think the club might have overhyped his chances of playing and performing early which probably hasn't helped the expectations on him.

What a great attitude he exudes in this article. Proof will be in the pudding if it translates into performance, but from all reports, the right signs are there on the training track at least.

Hope he has a cracking season, gets back to his best and finds another level as he starts to mature as a key forward. Really love to here the faithful yell out "ROOOOOOOOO" around the MCG.

In consistent all right. We had similar win/loss record in 2021 as Geelong in 2022 and he ranks us 18 Vs them at 12. We absolutely annihilated that same Geelong side in 2021 prelim and our 2022 ans 2023 finals losses were generally by pretty small margins, so to me that gives a better metric of where we should sit compared to that premiership in realitive terms.

3 hours ago, beelzebub said:

They're not their respective corporate colours.

Those logos are worth mint to them.

Thats what the $$$$ are for.

So when was the last time anyone watching Bang...bang bang bang ever considered the logos on the jumpers..

That's right....

Some need to get over themselves.... just saying.

Our colours are worth alot to us too.

I'm not that rapped with the one on the front as it does somewhat detract from the clean red V that is so much a feature of the MFC jumper and would have rathered it elsewhere, like perhaps under the AFL logo (but I bet the AFL have some branding rule against that!).

But in the scheme of things it's not the worst outcome and I agree Penrite are not a Micky Mouse sponsor at all. I actually rarely use anything but Penrite in my personal cars (wounder if there might be any promotional offers through the club!!!).

7 hours ago, GawnOfTheDead said:

Why was he picked up so early this year by us, and no one took him last year?

Like I said, no clue how draft works. Was he injured or another reason teams passed him up last year?

I guess I’m curious why we took him early when we had later picks and I do recall people saying he would not be an early pick.

Sounds like either way, it’s gone really well in our favor and that he’s a jet, just curious on how it works and why really..

If I recall correctly, it was something of a surprise that we went so early with Kossie himself (I seem to recall some concerns on here that we'd used such a high pick on a small forward). Similarly Clayton Oliver was something of a surprise pick. Both were shown to be shrewd picks in the fullness of time.

I think simply in both cases what it was, is that our recruitment saw something in them, that others didn't and were prepared to back themselves and take a risk. Also with Clarry, I seem to recall that we were satisfied that he had responded to feedback to lift his professionalism and get fitter (somewhat ironically in the end). In the same sense, we probably had a better personal insight into Trelly than most via Kossie.

7 hours ago, Demongirl35 said:

100%!

A lot of my friends say ‘at least you’ve seen one’

I always say, my family (including all you demon fans) and I have been going for years which included a time of absolute beltings, couple of nearly winless seasons, pouring rain and cold. A time we thought our club may no longer be around and a time we were lucky to get a few thousand at the G.

There’s no way I’m the only one who sat at my seat at the G, soaking wet surrounded by 5000 other demon fans thinking ‘it’ll all be worth it when we see a flag at the G’ with a slight eye twitch haha

All for it to be in Perth

I watched us make finals out at the Western Oval in 87, us get done by the wees and poos in 88 and then by the Essendon scum on 2000 at the G.

Nothing beats being there at the ground and I still want to be there that one day in September when the MFC bring home the cup for the faithful on the hollowed ground that is the MCG (I'm not a religious person by any means, but I actually think that will be the moment the hevens open up and beam their glory upon us!).

20 hours ago, Demonland said:

That list does also go to show what an absolute beast Matt Rowell is as well. Dion Prestia has the nickname "The Human Meatball", but I really think it is one that more rightly belongs to Rowell.

Some say Steele is too much sameness of Viney, but honestly I think having them both in the same side is going to be an asset to us. Think their leadership will inspire others around them as well.

As much as we want to play a free flowing attacking game when we move it forward, the counterbalance has got to be that we don't loose that hard defensive side when the opposition have the ball as well.