Rodney (Balls) Grinter

In other news: AFL 2019: North Melbourne coach Brad Scott says rule changes will see more teams be ‘hammered’ https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2019-north-melbourne-coach-brad-scott-says-rule-changes-will-see-more-teams-be-hammered/news-story/200d19422dcdd01b850c85b8645be849 Having been on the receiving end of more than our fair share of thrashings over the last decade, I have zero problem if we hand out some to other's this season and beyond.

Gee, the babies are popping out all over the place at the moment, with little infant hearts beating true for the red and blue. ...yet another father-son for the MFC in the making.

Nev didn't mention anything about his recient Demonbracket 2019 runners-up. Might be a bit more unfinished business there as well.

Would be very disappointing if Hawthorn and neither of the Sydney sides make finals.

Seeing that ladder at the end of the home and away season would make me very happy. I'd quite happily settle for just being top four, but finishing top 2 would put us in a great position for double chance and garenteed home final as well. I'll believe it when I see it, as the MFC has finished top four maybe once in the whole time I've followed them - hopefully our present crop of players can break the mediocrity mentality and change the ills of the past in this regards.

3 days, 13hrs. I know it's only a scratch match but I'm soo hungry for the season to start and for us to start winning. If our players are only half as hungry as I am, the premiership is ours.

Harmes has certainly had his doubters and knockers on this forum before and clearly also in the professional world of AFL footy having to work his way up from the rookie list. I just love the way he has stuck at it, kept applying himself, working hard and learning from those around him. I understand that he identified Nathan Jones as an early mentor (couldn’t have done better in that respect). From being a tagger at the end of last season, I think it's only a matter of time before our opposition start tagging Harmes himself and he will need to learn new tricks to deal with that. What should make it easier is that our opposition will be left with a devil of a problem trying to work out who they should actually tag out of Viney, Oliver, Brayshaw and others like Trac and Vanders that we could use in bursts through the guts. I think it will come down to them having to switch strategies mid game, depending on who is hurting the most at the time. What should make it even harder for our opponents is Gawn's dominance out of the ruck. We could soon find ourselves dealing with taggers on a regular basis. I've personally found it difficult to reconcile the various media articles about us having the best midfield in the competition with my own assessment of our team in this regard as it's taken a while to break out of the psychology of us being inferior to other teams and of being a young developing team. The Geelong games of last season clearly demonstrated to me that our guys have matured to the point where they are ready to match it with the same level of skill, endurance, physicality and not be intimidated by the previous old gaurd. I'm really looking forward to seeing us take that to the next level on a consistent, regular basis next season against sides like Collingwood, Richmond and West Coast.

Think you are a little off the money here. Harmes is no one game/season wounder. I've been watching the MFC rebuild over the last decade and the signs have been there for Harmes from the beginning. He showed glimpses of what he can do in that breakout win against the Hawks in and others in 2016 and has been steadily building his hard agressive game style ever since. He set a new standard for himself in 2018 and it will be interesting to see if he can maintain that level - I'm quite confident he will, but even if his form drops off a bit, I think he will still be a fairly solid contributor. I think what we are seeing with Harmes is something which is common to quite a few of his contemporaries in the red and blue at the moment, is that the years of football and phyisical development they have done to date are starting to pay dividends as they reach a point of physical and mental maturity together. Watching these guys like Harmes, ANB, Guys, Clarry, Track, Viney, Oscar, Freitch and Co impose themselves upon the competition is a tantalizing prospect.

Awsome news. A great day for our club. I'm wondering if Daisy is the first AFL player to give birth during their playing career, or have their been any others in AFLW of lesser profile we just didn't hear about.

And before you know it, they will be forcing us to wear some craappy white jumper because there is a clash with our blue jumper that we have worn all along. Why any team would want to change away from their original/traditional colours is beyond me. ... although having said that if my teams colours were black and white or poo brown and yellow, changing them to red and blue would actually seem entirely sensible.

I think the Weid is a much more conventional and well rounded footballer than Cox. Whilst I must admit, I haven't see that much of Cox, he seems a bit one dimensional to me - a big tall guy who take marks and can play in the ruck, though if he can do those things well enough, he has few rivals that can match his physical advantages. His goal kicking is pretty reliable and I'm pretty impressed with how the guy has been able to make it at the top level of a sport so completely foreign to him. Like you say, it will be interesting to see if he can maintain his form moving forward and how the opposition might combat that. In this respect, whilst I know we recruited Pruess with the intention of playing him as a ruck/forward, I wounder if playing him back on Cox would be the way to go as from all reports Pruess has incredible strength and when combined with his height, he might be a good option to nullify Cox if he posed a threat to us we needed to contain.

BTW I do like the look of what the Weid is becomes, just don't want to count any chickens. The thought of Tommy, Sammy and big Pruess imposing themselves in our forward line is very mouth watering though.

Hogan is/was a sensational ball handler off the deck

Sorry, but I'm joining @wrecka45 on crashing the Weid love-in. Weid has presented a credible target and for 4 or 5 games in a good side playing great footy at the perfect time in big games. Jesse provided a good target and proven goal kicker over 4 seasons in a team which was absolute poo in his first season. Not comparing apples with apples. Jessy is a positive outlier in terms of his early development, Weid has followed the more typical path of a key forward. I'm not anwhere near as interested in their performance for the MFC to date as what I am in their performance going forward. Go Demons and go the Weid, bring us a flag, that's all I really care about in this debate.

I do like what we have so far in the 2021 and beyond columns.

Chaos for oppo backs, predictable laces out delivery to advantage for our forwards. Awesome to have Jake commit long term to our Demons. Should see him into father son territory for his new arrival to qualify down the track as well.

Watched that myself as well in the last few days. Great game. I had an inclining that we would be quite compeditive that day and didn’t fully expect that we would pull it off, but was absolutely stoked when we did. Nibbler also played an absolute blinder that day, kicking something like four goals in his second game, a useful game, with a good goal under pressure from Billy Stretch (so hopeful he can break into the side this year). However, I agree that it was a brilliant and gritty game from Brawshaw that was the biggest sign of things to come. He rode some big bumps and tackles from mature footballers that game, but never flinched and got straight back up, layed hits of his own, some great running and finishing off goals after breaking through the 50m line - signature Gus. I also appreciated seeing a few like Matt Jones and Lyndon Dunn contributing useful games for the side.

For me it should be a 'one cub' , / 'one Denonland' mentality. We put the Casey chat on the main board and let it run it's course, so why not the same of the women's side. As Trisul suggests, if it doesn't get responded to it just gets pushed down the list - let the people have their say (as they say).. Personally, I haven't been all that enthused by the AFLW this year so far, but that could quickly change. I have recorded the Pies game and any time we beat those filth it is worth watching. Actually looking forward to seeing some improvement from some of those we have like Cunningham, O'Dea & Mithen. Asides from that and although the standard leaves something to be desired at times, due to the rapid growth of the competition, what a privilege to be watching (and talking about) these pioneering years of the women's game. There are some here on Demonland that remember the glory days and last premiership(s) of the great MFC, but there isn't anyone who remembers the birth of the club/team it's self - that is the opertunity we have with the women's team at present.

Well done Clarry. Nev, you still have this! (Courtesy of the Demon Army ... and The Age).

Problem would be solved and it would all look much better if both the AFL logo and the Zurich were moved down and out by 25mm or so into the predominantly navy blue area, but probably not permitted to do thay due to some petty marketing thing the AFL has going - just like the one where 'all' clubs need to have a predominantly white clash jumper. P.S. now that my attention has been drawn to it, the NB up the top is pretty freaking anoying as well!

Jetta We love you Nev

Lol, as I scrolled down further on this page, I realized that @Demonland has already setup a counter on this site for our Rd 1 game, but also our first JLT game in 20 days time! Can't wait.

I do like it how the video finishes with a few leaps form Joel, a bit like a teaser for the sequel. With Joel set to be sent forward with more of a license to go for his marks this season, let's hope we see some more serious air time and that highlights reel gets longer and even more impressive as the years go on.

Past the half way mark. Can almost count the number of weekends till our season kicks off on one hand. Setup the below page to help us keep track of the remaining time: https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?iso=20190323T1345&p0=152&msg=MFC+Rd+2019&ud=1&font=slab&csz=1

If Demonland is a reliable representative sample, then I'm backing Nev to romp this one in.