Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Now that we are within the last week before the restart of this season, I'm finally getting excited about footy again. It's definitely been a weird few months as a supporter. I was itching all summer for us to get back into the season proper and start to make amends for 2019 and despite the Rd 1 loss to WC, I'm still holding out hope that we can get it back together and have a decient 2020. But when the virus stoped games, I actually found it quite easy to almost completely lose interest in footy, until we were given a firm timetable for restarting games again. Asides from the increasingly promising signs from Harley Bennell and Max's hair cut, even the chatter on Demonland has mostly been a boring regurgitation of gripes about forward entries and reliving 1001 historical games, seasons and drafts. Not singling out anyone in particular about this, it's just amazing how difficult I've found it to find any of these conversations interesting or entertaining without having any current footy events to speak of for relevance. ....Anyways, looking forward to the weekend as I recon we will beat Carlton convincingly, if not smash them out of the park. GO the MIGHTY DEMONS!

Clash of the clash jumpers!!

Much prefer Smith as a forward. Thought he was looking really good as a deep forward in that fated practice match in 2019 ...and then 2019. His foot passes in defense have never looked very convincing or confident to me. Seems to be too slow to move the ball on and then either picks the wrong option or it isn't a great kick and he turns it over. Hope he gets a decient run at it wherever he ends up playing, builds some confidence and does finally develop into the player he has been promised to be all this time.

Rubbish. What really counts is premierships and what is required to achieve those can be substantially different from just achieving a few wins. I'm quite happy to write off 2019 given the circumstances, so long as we are building towards sustained success. I'm also in the camp of sticking with Goodwin and riding it out where ever that takes us. He's a smart, passionate football guy who has the respect of his team at the same time as demanding high standards of performance on and off the field. I don't think it would do the team any good for us to become a revolving door of senior coaches. Time to stick fat as MFC supporters, we have a team loaded with midfield talent that is comming into the prime of it's career.

What I did find interesting (though again not particularly surprising) was that both Richo and Chapman were a big rap for Jay Lockhart and Trent Rivers.

What else was he going to say? Was pretty much the typical speel that people say about Goody - footy fanatic and strong relationships with his players. Nothing too original there.

150 Neville's, nice. I'd love to have 22 of him to run out onto the ground for the MFC!

I take it the above is 2019 stats? T Mac lowered his colours a bit accuracy wise last season. 2018 he was going at something amazing like 80% accuracy.

If it's from the boundary, then Maxy is Da Man. I can't work out if this clip shows a replay or the second of these goals that Max kicked from the same spot in the space of about 5mins. The spray he gives the Bombers fan afterwards is gold and would be worth while setting up Max to kick for goal just to get up opposition supporters.

He is a bit like Maxy in so far as you put him within 15 - 20m straight in front and he gets the yips. Further out than that, or hard up against the boundry right in the pocket, I think they go all right.

...60m+ out, I'll go with Jayden Hunt

N.Jones

HB's first few years on the GC list were nothing short of sensational. HB and Dion Prestia were two of the players I would always have loved to have poached from GC and we all know what happened after Prestia went to the Tigers. With all his injuries, his off feild indiscretions and the sheer time he has been effectively out of the game I think people have forgotten what a generational type of player he once looked like becoming. There were very good reasons why both Freo and the MFC thought HB was worth taking a risk on. Some of the irony in this is that GC picked up HB with picks that would probably have otherwise belonged to the MFC at the time. Maybe this is Karma's way of righting past wrongs of the AFL?

If he's not fully fit, we have the long term physical well being of a potential A grade player to loose. This isn't so much about what contribution HB could contribute to beating Carlton or not in his first game back. I think most MFC supporters have seen enough botched injury management over the years to know that winning a game or two along the way is less important than taking the patient path and doing what we can to guard against aggravating serious but manageable injury problems into those which become crippling long term chronic career ending ones. This applies doubly to a player with the injury history and talent profile of HB.

My interpretation of that is two fold: 1. That the natural skills and footy nouse of HB stand out from the pack. But he might only need to be 50% fit for that to be apparent; 2. I think there is also an element of excitement and encouragement that he has made it back this far and I see part of the players being pumped in the way he's performing as being a form of moral support, encouragement and embrace from the playing group. I'm not sure that I read it as him being ready to play Rd 2 necessarily, but I look forward to the point when the medical/fitness team pronounce when they all think he is at that point be that Rd 2 or a bit further down the track.

One thing I note about HB at the moment is that he is always training in leggings. To me that suggests somewhere in between that he and the club are taking sensible no regrets precautions, but that no one is 100% confident in it yet either. The club keeps talking about building up enough of a base with him to put him on a sustainable path going forward, so I'm wondering how long can everyone be patient and resist selecting him if he keeps showing really good form on the track. As some have suggested, full contact might not be any worse for HB's injury problems, but I think there is a huge difference between training drills/match simulation and the physical stresses of game day footy / match fit. I continue to be optermistically hopeful this comes off long term for all parties.

Thinking I might wear mine face mask style on my daily commute. ...not that anyone much in Bris Vegas will know what it's about, but will proudly fly our colours anyways.

I'd hope by the end of his career with us that Steven May would feature somewhere in that list.

Pitty the backman who ends up manning that combination rotating trough the forward line!

My perception is that Fritch is a fair bit grittier than your average 'icing' type of player. We weren't exactly flying in the back half of last year when after being thrown forward in somewhat despiration, he kicked a number of big bags of goals and provided a good focal point.

No disrespect to Fritta, but I think season will really show if he has what it takes or not. While he oozes natural talent, footy smarts and courage, up to this point the expectations and pressure on him has been modest. It's not like he has been given a free ride up until this point and I'm sure it only would have taken a few weeks of handy 2 to 3 goal hauls and goal assists for him to have attracted the attention and respect of opposition coaches and been marked with quality defenders. However, I will be interested (and hopeful in the affirmative) to see if Bailey can stamp his name as a consistent and reliable scoring machine over the whole season.

If he's out there kicking goals for us we will be screaming it BENNELLLLL you bloody beauty! (....most likely in our living rooms!).

I really do hope we are saying that it was an incredible recruiting coupe at the end of this season. Until then, I don't think anyone will be counting any chickens before they hatch. Even if he plays two or three great games I think everyone will be walking on eggshells hoping he doesn't break down at any moment. If he does make it through sucessfully till the end of the season, then we could be faced with the issue of keeping him on our list under the salary cap, whatever that turns out being. You would hope there would be an element of repaying the faith to the MFC for taking him on, but you just never know. Like you say, fingers crossed.

I'm going against the grain of this thread and putting it out there that I think Max's new mohawk rocks. What's more I think it is the sort of thing that would get on the nerve opposition supporters and possibly opposing players. No doubt Max will come under additional scrutiny and pressure for it if we start loosing, so no pressure big guy, but I think the hair cut suits Big Maxy's style, in your face and warrior attitude so I recon he can pull it off, lead the team to victorious times with it and all the naysayers will eat whatever bad they said will come of it.

I think Max was channeling this dood.