Rodney (Balls) Grinter

My recollection was that the Hawthorn game they had the better of the play, just failed to convert in front of goal. Thus I wasn't surprised at all when a fresh West Coast did the job on us they did. Geelong and Hawthorn are both puss football sides these days. Dangerfield and Selwood are past it. Hawthorn have (had) one good onballer and a bunch of old geriatrics. Game against Geelong should have been over at half time with the gap we put on them in the first quarter, but then we choked up and barely kicked a goal for a quarter and a half and let them back in a game they should never have been in. Need to put sides to the sword in these situations.

Last year we were generally very good at beating the sides below us that we should and stepping on the throat of them. I think we need to do it against good sides and consistently over the whole season. We simply must stand up and win the big games against good teams more consistently than not. Would like to see us beat Richmond, Collingwood and West Coast in our home and away games this year. Call me a harsh critic, but I was disappointed that we didn't totally put Geelong and Hawthorn to the sword in finals much earlier in those games. We did make some big statements with those games, but we also kept them in the game far longer than they deserved to be. I don't care if we loose a few in a upsets this year, so long as we have enough buffer on our ladder position and are able to flick the switch against the sides we really need to beat.

The club should try and broker a personal sponsorship for Harmes from Colgate, Oral-B ...or perhaps Racing Victoria.

And that scum bucket $cully right at the other end. Perhaps he was scared Max was going to vomit on him again. Actually just the thought of that little turd makes me want to vomit, so I completely understand why Max reportly did it.

Yep, no room for scum Collingwood supporters around here unless they see the light and start looking one eyed red and blue

Don't need big biceps for tunnel ball.

Absolutely. Similar things could be said about guys like Nev. Stefan Martin and Martin Pike are others in a similar vein that I have serious regrets about us trading, though they might still have been an almost unviable options for various non playing ability reasons. A bunch of guys presently on our list this applies to moving forward (Stretch, JKH, T Smith, Keilty etc). As a supporter I have the luxury and prefer not to make a call on a player's future potential with us, with a few exceptions. I never felt that Freo guy we picked up in Mark Neilds time was any chop - impressive numbers at VFL level, but always looked useless and never produced when he got an opertunity at in our senior side. It's so much easier to be an armchair expert with the benight of viewing things retrospectively and without actual responsibility for making list management calls.

I'd be quite happy for Freo to develop him as a footballer for a few years and for us to pick him up as a free agent in the prime of his career. Sick of us giving up players and draft picks, it's our turn to pillage the lists of other teams and it would be sweet revenge to take him away from Freo like that.

I think Jones is in a situation more similar to Shane Crawford than the other ex Hawks players you mentioned. I don't think anyone would be complaining if Nathan Jones career ends in a similar fashion to Crawford's.

Hate the suspension. Love the reaction from May to the press after the tribunal hearing. Total proffesional and great leader.

Absolutely, it's not like May actually lined him up or deviated to hit him. Bloody Lions player has a duty of care to him self to watch the F where he is running.

Interesting that you still have Preuss in your side Werridee, where others have dropped him like a sack of spuds. I'm also in the boat that he should and will play. From reports I've read Lycett and Ryder have tag teamed well in the ruck and I think we will be looking very seriously towards Preuss to give Maxy a decent chop out. I've been relatively unimpressed by Hore though. Doesn’t appear to have any real weapons, unless he is an A1 stopper, which I didn't see great evidence of from the JLT telecast, but apreciate that sometimes you can get a better understanding of such things watching at the ground. I'd have Frosty over him in a side that included May, but in May's absence, I'd play Freitch half back/wing and have Smith in the side in place of Hore, assuming he pulls up fit in time. Was also very impressed with Petty and he would be another that I would be playing before Hore from what I've seen.

If you lined up against that during a game, you wouldn't need to be a very creative sledger would you? Just point and laugh!

Who would have thought after his first year or two that he would be the pick of this bunch for the red and blue.

One of the best reads from a footballer I've read in a while. He is a unique, lovable and slightly contradictory character Maxy. Very clever, witty, funny and layed back, but has also developed into a highly professional and motivated athlete. Will go down as one of my favorite all time MFC players. Love his closing quote “Really, the only time we can go to an off‑season happy now is winning the flag.”

And here was I thinking that our Bali top clash jumper was bad. I think pleanty of Dogs supporters and players would rather swap a try hard superhero costume for a crap Bali top. Guessing it's all part of the Marvel Docklands stadium sponsorship thingy. The Dogs would want to be making bloody good money out of it. Biggest pawning of a jumper since the m and m baby blues - lol.

"In your first year playing at AFL, you will introduce your first born prematurely. Driving to and from hospitals and training for over a month, until you can take her home to the ‘granny flat’ of your in-laws house, will be exhausting." Not the cushy ride that some over privileged playboy type draftees get. Respect.

Seems like the media are already linking Andrew's performances to the red and blue. https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/its-only-preseason-but-what-we-learned-from-week-2-of-the-2019-jlt-community-series/news-story/b7df1570aa7410db51786f71be2f9b9c The Demons on the other hand lost a number of players to injury in the clash, including versatile James Harmes who was sent to hospital with a finger injury. Clayton Oliver was again dominant, suggesting he is in prime condition ahead of Melbourne’s first match. Andrew Brayshaw (26 disposals and 11 tackles) and Aaron vandenBerg (18 disposals and 16 tackles) also impressed around the contest.

What complete BS. I just can't believe that it should be so far skewed. Bulldogs always seemed to get the better of the free kicks against us, but so did the Saints, so go figure. The AFL really does need to step up to the plate and do something to deal with the situation at Perth Stadium this year though. Perhaps the umpires need to come out and state they will pay free kicks against the home team over there for obnoxious booing, or perhaps Hern needs to stand up on behalf of the team and say they don't want to be known as a bunch of cheats by getting excessive free kicks at all their home games?

One thing that Jessy Hogan does really well is get up the ground and link up coming out of half back when the situation requires it. I think there are several really good reasons for doing this: 1. Providing the team with an easy get out kick; 2. Getting some confidence as a forward getting your hands on the pill; and 3. Working over the backman aerobicaly - something which T Mac in particular should be able to exploit. Perhaps it's just that T Mac has has an interupted preseason and isn't in peak fitness just yet, but I didn't notice him doing much of this yesterday. The realitive lack of form of both T Mac and Weid has been well commented on, but really hoping they can turn things around quickly and I think getting Milkshake (really needs a better nickname) back into the team will help this as I think he is such a key cog in our scoring machine with his precision passing, line breaking ball movement and aerial contested work.

Agreed. For me, it wasn't just Clarry either. I also thought that Gus, Max and our whole on ball system was down yesterday. Max was winning the ruck hitouts most of the time, but most of the time they were going to no one in particular and we struggled to get a clean center clearance. Losing Harmes just before half time couldn't have helped, but it's not like I felt we were actually much better with him out there though. I did think Gus did some good things I'm patches, one of them being a good goal on the run and if I recall correctly, another not long after from a set shot. In general I really do like Gus's proven ability to break lines through the half forward line and kick goals, because it makes it that bit harder to setup against us defensively when you have players that can do that. It's by no means panic stations and in many ways I'd rather we had a game like this as a bit of a wake-up call and learnt a few things from this game than having cruised through preseason unchallenged and get a rude awakening in round 1.

What it was is a great conversation and space filler for comentators to talk about in an otherwise pretty meaningless game and sensational head line for the media to milk for a few days.

True, but the Lions had a 6 day break as well. Don't know what the conditions they played under were like though and it's also possible they had more on the bench than us.

Would love to see us dominate from start to finish today, but will be a tough ask against the Lyons who I am expecting big things of this season. GO THE DEMONS!

Big game for us today in the context of the Jalapeño Lettuce & Tomato season. Brisbane sitting pretty in second spot and will be keen to post another win to lock in a top four finish and due to our reasonable percentage, a win for us should see us slot into the top 8. ...hmmm, I should have read the rest of the thread better before duplicatING a fairly obvious point. Ar well, I guess it is just a preseason post, doesn't count for as much as posts in a few weeks time against Port.