Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Agreed. There was a time when Malthouse underlings were viewed as the next big thing. Was it that Dew was sought out because he was a Paul Roos protégé? So begs the question who of note was it that tutored Clarko to be the undisputed champion coach of the AFL? He had a fairly short coaching apprenticeship by modern standards. Not disputing that the guy has an enviable record or that some of his assistants have done ok as well, but personally I think some of this Clarko midas touch on assistant coaches is a bit overrated at times.

Was pretty good against Sydney at the SCG as a forward in patches. Has potential, needs consistency. Major chip on him as a forward is that he gets run off on the rebound too much. Wondering if that's something good team defense could address?

And how they fair if they cop a normal share of injuries, they were almost injury free all year from all accounts. The harder draw they get due to finishing 2nd could also make a significant difference. Don't get me wrong, Brisbane have been building over a period and I fully expected them to make the top eight, but I do think they were a little flattered by their top two finish.

I understand their goal kicking accuracy in the first half against Richmond was bad, but from watching the second half of that game, they weren't really in it with the general play, with Richmond pretty much dictating the terms the game was played on.

On a related note, as good as the Lions were for most of the year, to get bundled out in straight sets is pretty disapointing on the back of two home finals where they had a far greater home ground advantage than we did against our respective opponents last year. At least we stood up and won big moments and big game finals. Not that Hawthorn or Geelong were really that much chop last year, but the way we were playing, I think we would have beaten most other finalists, including WC at the MCG (particularly if they didn't have the luxury of a second week off in 3 weeks).

Don't ask me, I don't pretend to know. Refer to the Todd Viney is Leaving Confirmed thread.

100% Agree Ron. Todd bled red and blue for the MFC and has always come across as having a great team first attitude in the way he wend about his business both on and off the field, as does his son Jack. If the timing was right for both Todd and the MFC to part ways to start the next chapters, then well and good, but any true Demons supporter should be celebrating and expressing gratitude for his contributions. Any MFC people here expressing criticism at this time should be made to stand in the path of a charging Todd Viney hip and shoulder.

Todd Viney: Tough, courageous, loyal servant and great leader of the MFC. Well respected generally in sporting circles including tennis and seen as being of good post football pedigree having played an important off-feild hand in success at Hawthorn and Adelaide. Welcomed back to the MFC with open arms and initially credited with playing a role in our rebuild from the depths. That he refused to put up his hand for the senior coaching gig despite some initial success as caretaker was a sign of both humility and maturity in my mind. Everything rosy 2018 with Taylor and Viney credited as architects of our list rebuild that has bought us back from obscurity to contention. ... Fast forward a year and according to some on Demonland Todd is seen as part of the problem of the failed season we have just endured - see ya, good riddance Todd Viney ? . Adam Yze - Come on down!!

Agreed. When Frosty gets the footy it normally ends up at least 50m+ further from our opponents goal through either his run or a booming kick and most of the time we have time to get back and defend a possible turn over. Much better than handballing 5m and putting a team mate under pressure 30m from goal as many others seem to do as well.

Cool cool. I like the fact that you can debate and disagree in a polite and respectful manner - something some fellow Demonlanders would do well to learn from.

If it's the one Vs the Hawks in the final last year that I'm thinking of which resulted in us going coast to coast and goaling via T Mac - that was one of the highlights of the year for me. I'd also add to that list you had that Frosty is one of the few players that Lance Franklin dares not to take on. @Engorged Onion, I think this is also what I was referring to with Frosty, I think the goals from turnovers also needs to be balanced with the line breaking, that he brings. It would be interesting to look at the score involvement stats for Frosty as I think they could be fairly high for a key backman. On his day, Frosty can be a game breaking X factor that not all players have - we just need to work on him breaking more games in our favor than agaist, but I think when the whole team is up and firing I think it will be more of the former.

To just look at scores from turnovers is a simplistic one sided analysis. At times this year Frost intercept marking has been huge, he regularly spoils and saves goals that others simply wouldn't.

Agreed. In a similar light, I think last weekends finals games (and potentially next weekends) by other teams can also put some perspective on where the MFC was/is at: 1. Last weekend, Essendon were smashed by WC in Perth by about the same margin as we were against WC in last year's preliminary final; 2. The Bulldogs were pretty underwhelming and got blown out of the water by GWS; 3. After setting themselves up in a good ladder position and a home game at the Gabba, Brisbane were pretty woeful against Richmond. Obviously Brisbane have the double chance and still have the opportunity to redeem themselves. Whilst this season has undoubtedly been a total train wreck for the MFC, what can be said is that in 2018 our team stood up in finals and that much of that same list is still the core that will take us into 2020 and beyond, so I'm comfortable in the knowledge that they do have the mental fortitude to win big games/finals if the team can regain that kind of fitness, system and confidence back.

LOL. #Gold #loveyourworkETthetradebreaker #gottolaughatsomething2019demons

Beating the Swans at the SCG was a good highlight for me. Pretty much the last of our hoodoos gone (just that one day in September left) and came at a time in our season when we thought at the time that there might still have been some life left in it. I particularly like the clutch goal which Weid kicked from around 50m in the last quarter to steady us. Preuss's marking and goal kicking provided some good highlights earlier in the game. Fritta's move back to the forward line, Hunt's forward line form and T Mac's couple of weeks purple patch were good. Joel Smith and AVB provided some nice individual highlights early in the preseason until respectively writing off their season's through injury. Big Max provided almost weekly highlights with his strong pack marking throughout the season and his three goals and dominance against North in Rd 23 was a nice way to finish off the season from an individual player perspective.

With all the talk of trading and delisting players at the moment and the near endless negative dissection of our season, coaches and playing list, I'd be interested in others thoughts on those out of contract on the fringe and worthy of keeping and why and/or players you would consider untradable. A couple few from me to kick things off: 1. Corey Wagner - I'm not sure that Corey would ever be an automatic best 22 selection, but to me he showed enough at various stages this year that he could be useful small forward depth. To me he showed all of good pace, tenacious chasing/forward pressure, good crumbing and goal sense. To me he is close enough to the standard and has attributes where when the fortunes of the side as a whole improve around him, I think he could envisage him elevating his game and be a useful contributor. Most premiership sides have role players of average ability and I think Corey could potentially be one of those. 2. Tim Smith - was a bit luke warm on Smith prior to this season, but when he was fit, he certainly showed me that he is capable of having that strong presence in the forwardline. Only questionmark for me is can his body hold up.

Wearing a MFC jumper, so that means he will automatically get the upper end of the penalty by default.

Was really hoping that Declan was going to make it, but that's the way it goes I guess. The club ended up being a pretty tough gig to get a game as a key backman. It must be frustrating getting so close to making it at the top level, but it's still a pretty decent effort to be as competitive as he was playing senior VFL.

Other notables not in that list for me would be Melksham and to some extent Sparrow. Melksham must have missed a significant chunk of games and with Sparrow, it is essentially most of his whole first year of development missed. That VandenBerg was written off for the season was a huge blow for us in my view, particularly given his preseason format when he was tearing teams apart in the midfield. The absence of outside run has been often stated, by I also think our midfield has lacked grunt and power this season.

I think that problem is somewhat overstated by the emotional bias that some punters on this forum have against Jack. Paul Roos got some decent output from Jack as both a defender and forward during his time as coach, it was only until Goodwin took the reins that Jack's game seemed to fall apart on the field. Not only was Jacks ability to find team mates by foot pretty elite, he was/is one of the most accurate shots for goal in the league, which is an area that we fell over in massively at times this year. I'm surprised this topic didn't come up earlier for us this season.

I seem to recall Alan Richardson always being a very well respected player at Collingwood, due to the way he went about things. Leigh Mathews was full of praise for him in his autobiography, which I would have thought is a pretty good sign of the quality of the guy from a football perspective. I'd also love to prise Voss out of Port as I agree with someone here who thought that he'd be great for our group of young mids in particular. St Kilda were usually a very good tackling team under Richo and I hope he can help get our team back up there in this respect. I noticed in the Swans game in particular, that we allow our opposition to break tackles far too easily on the whole at the moment.

In all seriousness though, if I have to boil it down, I'm optermisitic that we can bounce back and go places, because the core of our list is young and good enough to still have plenty of potential development ahead, but mature and experienced enough to stand up and start playing like men, not like boys, whilst other rivals have peaked and/or are stacked with players well into or past their prime.

Not only that, it will be 2020. So does that make it like 1964 Mk II. Perhaps it means that we can subsequently also me that we can have the pre 1964 success in the decades post 2020, like working our way backwards from 1964. Could well handle a couple of three peats. After holding out all this time the thought of multiple premierships - now that gives me some optimism!

Yeah, just like all the premierships that Clarkson bloke had been involved with before he got the gig as a senior coach. I think even Leigh Mathews admitted that there is an element of luck in winning a premiership or just getting close. Based on that, we should be making our recruitment decisions based on how much luck they can bring to the club with them.

I fully welcome the message from Jordan for the players to take ownership of the outcome of this season and create their own destiny from here on. It's almost refreshing to open the Demonland thread and something other than "is Goodwin the right guy?" thread to be dominating the forum. However, whilst understand MFC supporters urge to vent after the season which we have had, so much of content in this thread is loaded with pessimism and blame mentality with a very narrow focus on part of the whole message delivered by Jordan. On reflection, I agree that the message delivered by Jordan is actually quite powerful, honest, but also well measured statement with equal parts positively, that throws down the gauntlet to our club to stand up and be counted in the future. My dissection of the message is this: 1. Players and coaches got ahead of themselves a bit and took the foot off the gas; 2. But we know we have the capacity to perform at the required level because of 2018 etc; 3. Puts some faith in the playing group that they will respond over the next off season and year ahead. I prefer to put the emphasis on 2 & 3, because 1 is in the past and we can't influence that anymore. Honestly, I also think the calls for mass culling to create cultural change are over blown as well. If you believe the hype on this forum, we have already done this time and time over again with the likes of Silvia, Watts, Hogan, Bugg etc and I think that can get to a point where it not only creates scape goats out of them, but also excuses the majority of the playing group from taking responsibility to embed the values and reform each other.