Rodney (Balls) Grinter

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.

7 hours ago, Little Goffy said:

Slightly more forcefully, my dad infamously added the staff who had worked copious unpaid overtime to the 'sponsors' page for a certain peak body's annual report, right next to Linfox and Visy et al.

But if you ever want to witness an exercise in deadpan humour carried out in full, there is the 1999

Report to the Minister for Defence on the Collins Class Submarine and related matters

The utlimate shaggy dog story. Just from recall;

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.

54 minutes ago, picket fence said:

Um Tom Campbell I rate, having said that Max "Moose" Heath is better than both A.J and T.C and as such he is in my best 23 EASILY!

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.

10 minutes ago, picket fence said:

King got rid of our best player since Flower nuf said!

🙄 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.

3 minutes ago, Ghostwriter said:

Besides, people can’t have their cake and eat it too. Folks laud AJ’s “mongrel” and how he makes his physical presence felt, but at the same time label him a suspension risk.

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

1 hour ago, #11-TonyAnderson said:

If he gets a game it’s because he offers more than Jefferson

Beat me to it!

11 hours ago, picket fence said:

Cant believe some posters carrying on about this guy as if he is Jim Stynes, meets Carl Ditterich, meets Hulk Hogan..what are you guys smokin?? Get a grip, bog ordinary!

Seriously PF, take a chill pill man.

17 hours ago, Demonstone said:

IIRC, he copped a fair bit of criticism for ducking his head in a marking contest early in his career with MFC. He never did it again.

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.

On 17/12/2025 at 08:54, Dee Viney Intervention said:

Couldn’t agree more. Jeffo is a neat player, by that I mean good hands and a good kick. As you alluded there are a number ahead of him purely because they play with some physicality and a real intensity around that. He needs to find some and find some quickly. I genuinely hope he does or he will end up being a Sam Weideman who I also think was a neat footballer. We need depth and real competition for spots across all lines to raise performance and climb back up the ladder. I believe we can.

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.

15 minutes ago, dice said:

Only $30m from the taxpayer to fund it. Unlike $300m+ from the taxpayer for Kardinia.

The majority ($73m) paid for thanks to the largest pub/pokies sale in Victoria (at the time).

How are we going to fund Caulfield?

$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.

16 minutes ago, RedLegs23 said:

Yeah gut feel is that trac will blitz it. Like pre injury trac.

All between the ears with him. Wonder what his mental state’s like post dees? Gets that right & he’ll get back in brownlow conversations.

Best possible way to further enhance “brand trac” (as they say) would be to get back to playing at superstar levels, right?

Cristian Petracca is a very talented, determined, driven young man. Mix that with genuine premiership hope & you've got yourself one hell of a Combo!

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.

23 hours ago, John Crow Batty said:

It’s not long ago that Ben Brown was one of the most disliked and irritating player for Melbourne supporters before he started playing for us. Now a revered premiership player.

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.

2 hours ago, Go Ds said:

Yes, not necessarily. Overall I think long kicking is more important. But context is always important - get the ball out to someone in space, or maybe so quickly that the next player then finds someone in space. BTW this was probably the moment i thought Melbourne were a genuine flag chance in 2021. What a chain of handballs!

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.

20 hours ago, Fritta and Turner said:

And just between you and me, I think we are going to handball more next season. (Just kick the thing I can hear us yelling now).

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.

On 12/12/2025 at 10:18, Demonland said:

Plays are just started randomly from a position with the goal to score at your end

Very quick ball movement

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.

3 hours ago, BKKBooga said:

Scarlett and King are co owners of a pub. Scarlett brings beer pouring skills.

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

2 hours ago, DeelightfulPlay said:

WA teaming shaping up into a bit of a Dees player reunion

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.

On 17/10/2025 at 08:31, poita said:

On Woewodin, I think he's a little unlucky and I would have loved to see him get a run in McVee's lockdown defender role.

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.

On 17/10/2025 at 07:29, Salems Lot said:

Taj played 21 more games in the Red and Blue than any of us did. Well done young man!

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.