Rodney (Balls) Grinter

I think you can just about kiss goodbye to that. On a similar note, it's hard to believe that Slone got picked to represent the big V over either Trac or Oliver. Blinkered selectors much? I'm quite ok that Trac doesn't play in this game for now though.

Just point him to our 2019 and remind him what Feb/Mar sub par means too!

Trac was a machine and Jones did some good things. T Mac was well held in the first half, but had a great presence in the second half. Not only did AVB get through the game, but he laid his usual big tackles (the forward half pressure he adds is really important), a few strong contested grabs and generally had a good impact on the game I thought. Interesting to hear him say in the interview that he's feeling the best he has in three or four years - let's hope some of that rubs off Benell as well.

Are there any indicators from the emergencies that did or didn't run out yesterday as to the full extent of the side that will take to the field today? Seeing that side named, whilst not totally unexpected for the likes of T Mac and Melksham, was like an early Christmas present with respect to the likes of AVB. I guess we will see by the end of the day if that named team was just a dream or turns out to be a nightmare.

I agree with pretty much everything you have stated above. I see a lot of Viney and Jones leadership (or apparent lack there of, which I don't personally buy into) being made scape goats for our entire 2019, which is pretty unfair really. Similarly, I don't like the idea of the captaincy being shopped around every year as a popularity contest as the most popular guy at the club isn't alway the best leader. I love Max as a character and a player and I think he has matured into a great leader. However, he does also have his flaws in this regard and now watch every dummy spit and bit of bad body language or some other weakness get put under the microscope. I think it's too fickle to be continuously chopping and changing captain just because they have a bad year or one flaw or another to their leadership style and I don't see why Max couldn't remain an unofficial leader and support Viney and our team in this respect.

Well that means he definitely won't play then. We'd rather leave someone running around on the ground with a broken leg in a practice match than play short or call up an emergency. ?

Paging Joel Smith!!

Well, going off the side picked, we can expect indefinite to mean available by around Rd 4 or 5 - great news!

Which would also sort our run for position 1/2 as well.

I'm quite interested to see how they go too. ...but I know what you mean. ? Darn autocarrot!

I think it does the Weid good to get pushed into the ruck a bit - gets him a bit angry, fired up and into the game physically.

This will be one of the things I will be watching most intently on Saturday night. We will need key back depth. At his 2018 level O'Mac was good enough. If he can improve a few notches on 2018 through that long maturity curve of KPPs, then I do think he could be a very important yet underrated part of our success going forward.

Bulldogs were what the only team to win a flag from outside the top 4 in 20 years? Don't get me wrong if we repeated what the Bulldogs did, I'd be estatic, but it's not the percentage play by a long way. 2018 was a drought breaker and I was very glad to see us just make finals and each to their own, but as a supporter, I no longer see just making finals as a very worthy achievement or representing much of a step forward.

Aims can't just be finals though. Finals without a realistic oppertunity at a flag, are a frustrating waste of time. I could handle finishing in the top 4 and getting knocked out, because that would suggest that we are actually close to winning a flag. The MFC consistenly made finals for the best part of 20 odd years, but never really had a serious crack at a flag, because it almost always stumbled into the top 6/top 8 and even when it made it through to the last game in September the team was physically stuffed and played up against well rested outfits. Same deal in the 2018 prelim. If the club and the players give themselves a pat on the back for making the bottom half of the 8, then to me that would say they are not fair dinkum. Time to get serious and raise the bar. I want the club to be ruthless and relentless in pursuit of that illusive flag.

With a bit of a segway over to the Burgess' Management Plan for Preseason Games thread and as indicated by @Kent and @spirit of norm smith, my take on the injury list and those missing full training is that having put in a solid block of preseason training before Christmas, we are now in a conservative injury management mode to make sure that we have as near to a full list as possible for the start of the season and aren't playing catch-up all year getting back a critical mass of top line players or carrying as many injuries for those that play week to week throughout the season. At least that's what I'm hoping.

I guess making finals might mean something to our membership, sponsorship and perhaps some revenue from playing a couple of finals, but asides from that finishing in positions 5 - 8 is pretty much meaningless and hardly worth any more than finishing 8 - 12. The club has stated in recient days that it has an aim of a mens premiership in the next 4 years. Premierships don't happen from outside the top 4, so if the club is serious, then just making finals can't be an achievement of any real significance.

My general reactions to the this topic are: 1. So much better to bring back state of origin which actually meant something to the football public than have that other AFLX rubbish with the Patrick Dangerfield Lightening bolts or whatever; 2. Would be better to have the Vics playing WA or SA than this concocted 'All Stars' thing; 3. Perhaps if it is a huge crowd drawer and ratings puller, the AFL could/might consider dropping a few home and away games (thus creating an even draw) and substituting them with a few SoA games - perhaps even a series; 4. If we win a flag or two, I couldn't care how many of our players get into the state of origin games - heck half the side could be made up of MFC players for all care and if we were to get a few minor injuries out of it, then so be it.

So our players getting selected or not in an exhibition game will determine or is some kind of indicator of the season ahead? Yeah right. I agree with others that this is all based on 2019 performances. If this game was played at the start of 2019 when we were flavor of the month with all the so called 'experts', there probably would have been half a dozen MFC players in the game. So fickle.

Nice bit of acting. Perhaps these guys could apply this newly found tallent to staging for free kicks? (Yes I know the AFL has rules against that, but all our opponents and the AFL umpires pets always seem to get away with it, so if you can't beat them join them).

Nice clown shoes.

Took the words out of my mouth. Going along with the analogy, I would say that no sooner had we walked that we tripped over our own feet and fell flat on our face! @Pates it's not so much that I'd see just making the bottom half of the 8 as complete failure, but it really wouldn't represent real progress to me either. Similarly I've got to the point where I am indifferent finishing bottom half of the 8 compared to finishing in position 8 - 12 as neither really indicate to me that we would be getting any closer to actually winning a premiership. I don't see that finishing top 4 is beyond us either we were a couple of close wins off it in 2018 and Brisbane came from outside the top 8 to finish top 4 last year, so as Peter Jackson put it in his Demonland podcast a while back, these things don't always follow a linear trajectory.

Love it. The time for mediocrity is over. As much as Paul Roos was fairly instrumental in turning the ship around, the aim I most commonly heard him talking about was being competitive and building a team that could go deep into finals. I understand Roos was both starting from a lower base and had a shorter term horizon, but just making and being competitive in finals doesn't cut it for me. From 1987 to 2006, the MFC had a great period of being competitive in finals without bringing home a premiership. Don't see why we have to wait patiently to keep building our list and playing off in finals for a number of years to put it out there that winning a premiership is what this is all about. I'm so glad the club leadership continued to put it out there, as it would be so easy to retreat back into our shell after 2019 and that would be such a mistake. Aiming to win premierships is a winner's mentality and we need to have that for the players to build the kind of belief that it will take to get us to that goal.

Who cares about top 8 spots anyway. If we don't make top 4, then we are just making up the numbers when it comes to a genuine tilt at a flag.

I know that this is not directly MFC related, but I do think it's great to see an AFL player/person come back from a pretty dire situation and making a good fist of it. For Norths sake, I hope he is able to deliver some star performances in a struggling side. https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2020-north-melbourne-intra-club-report-majak-daw-bridge-fall-round-1-ben-cunnington-forward/news-story/904ab94281fd8ed76f1b839498d35cc2

SEN often put up podcasts or streaming sound files of segments, so hopefully this one ends up online.