Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Well the most eligible hipster in Melbourne is now off the market. Congratulations to Maxy and his lovely fiancée.

Is Kelly anywhere close to entering the FA window? If Richmond can land Lynch, then I don't see why we couldn't land Kelly.

A real asset that the MFC seems to have at the moment for attracting and retaining players is Goody. Listening to KK and May talk reciently, big motivating factors in them joining the Demons was the impression that Goodwin made on them and the vision he was able to articulate for their role in the team. Probably quite a similar story with Milkshake and Hibbard with respects to their relationship with Goodwin. It's particularly the case at lower level footy that the sucessful coaches are the ones that are able to attract and get good footballers wanting to play for the club and I really see this as starting to play out in our favour with Goody's interpersonal skills and the team culture which has been reestablished at the MFC giving us an edge over our opposition for building and maintaining a quality list in the era of salary and football department caps etc.

Asides to his value to our team, how enjoyable would it be for the Weid to have a long and prosperous career with the MFC and by doing so getting right up the nose of the filth.

I guess it goes to show how in AFL these days players are only a dozen or so games from being a superstar to an ordanary player - at least in the eyes of the media and some supporters (myself included). When he was at his peak, KK was a player that I really thought, gee there's a player I'd like to have at Melbourne, but those few seasons or so of concussion and average form have just put that question mark over him that can he get back to his best. Really looking forward to see what he can do for the MFC.

"TAB ODDS Premiership: $7.50 Top-8: $1.40 Most losses: $151" It wasn't all that long ago that those odds would have been the reverse of that. Since making finals and our ensuing mostly positive finals campaign, the MFC have become something of a media darling. While it sure beats being the whipping boy of the comp and all these champion data rankings are nice, it's all starting to get pretty hollow without actually being the undisputed champion team, with the flag in the bag - I'd much rather have West Coasts champion data ratings than ours right now. That all said, the excitement is certainly building and I can't wait for the season to begin.

I like the idea of Gawn rucking in the foward line as much as possible. The connection he has with our onballers results in such clean clearances which often result in goals in the forward half of the ground. If Preuss can develop this part of his game per his much stated desire to learn from Max, then all the better. As others have stated, having another tall option (Max or Preuss) should also benifit Weid and T Mac. I just hope that we can adjust and settle Preuss into the side quickly without impacting on early season team form and results like somewhat occurred with Lever.

A [censored] one. I'm just glad that phone cameras and social media were not a thing back in my youth and I recon alot of players back in the 70s, 80s, 90s era that are pretty glad of that too.

They are certainly not a cheap no name brand anymore. Much like our mighty Demons, what an evolution they have gone through in the last 15 or so years. Now very much a high end brand, as too hopefully are our Demons over the forseeable future. For me the mutual association between LG and the MFC continues when I watch game day on my LG OLED TV!!

Great article and great outcome finally comming to fruition. If I recall correctly, Flash was caught up in that whole clean slate effort that saw soo many of the experienced players at the club expunged. Whilst I don't claim to have any insight into whether that clean out was really justified in order to create cultural change, what a lost opportunity in other respects. In the following years, our kicking skills were lamentable and yet we had in Flash someone who was a great kick and that "was interested in becoming a development coach at an AFL club when his playing career ended but was unable to secure a job at the time." Great to see the club mending some fences and welcoming back some of it's greats of that era. All the best to Flash in his coaching endeavors. Seems like he came through the system the hard way as a player being overlooked intitally, before coming through as a rookie and now that he is doing it the same way as an aspiring coach. Would be great if his coaching career can take off at some point and be as productive as his playing days became once he got himself into the system at the elite level.

So many gun players out there which would look better in the red and blue!

His most welcome to do that too, just so long as it's minus the gammy ACLs.

Until then, we will hopefully enjoy watching the Preuss / Gawn combination - the 'Prawn'.

Just finished watching the inside Melbourne from a few episodes back, with Jason Taylor. Right near the end of the episode he talks about how Kobe Farmer is one we will be keeping a bit of an eye on in future years and that his dad is pretty keen on him joining the MFC. That would be a tantalizing addition to our list in future years, particularly when our access to top end tallent via the draft which hopefully is otherwise limited by higher home and away season finishes. Well worth watching the episode.

I'm not 100% sure the assertion yoi are making here Molloy, but if it's that Todd Viney was the MFC's worst coach, then that's a shocking and completely wrong assertion to me. Just looking at his actual record, first two games after taking over a team bereaved of confidence, within two games he makes progress cutting a 76 point loss in his first game as coach, reducing that to a 48 point loss in his second game and then finishing off the season with two losses under 10 points and a win. My reccolection at the time was that Viney took the team back to playing simple hard, agressive tackling brand of football and actually started to bring back some confidence and beleif in the players. He actually did the job so well that there was some mild speculation that perhaps he might take on the job the next year permanently, which to Todds credit he refused to apply for based on his own assessment of his coaching capacity and aspiration (or the genuine lack there of with respects to the later). As far as I understand, Todd Viney has made a fantastic and highly capable contribution to the MFC in his proffesional role at the club, so for the assertion and slight to be made against him as a coach is really quite poor form in my view.

Yes we had a poor list and lack of good support staff behind the scenes, but there is one thing that Neeld did for us that we should be eternally greatfull for in this respect it is for him bringing Jason Taylor over from Collingwood. Perhaps the Neeld legacy is not so bad after all.

I'd really hope they refrain from booing Kent for reasons beyond that as well. Though I'm sure what I'm about to say will be disputed by some on here, as Kent seemed to be a bit of a maligned character at times, my honest veiw and assessment of his time at the MFC is that he typically went in hard physically and gave good effort when he pulled on the red and blue - is it two dislocated shoulders/broken collar bones in recient years are a tribute to that. Furthermore, though I don't think he was able to stay on the park or perform consistently enough, he endured some of the bad days of the recient history of the MFC, with his bursts of brilliance providing some much needed excitement and hope when we most needed it. My reccolection is that his burst and run down the wing as part of a chain that setup Salem for a winning shot on goal thay gave us one of our few wins of the season against an in form/competition leading Bombers back in the depths of our dispare for one of the few wins of the season around 2013. I also don't think Kent was being any kind of mercenary (unlike $cully) by leaving is for the Saint's, just trying to give himself a better chance to secure a regular spot and a more secure future, which is fully understandable. Though it would partially grate on me (because I loved seeing him in red and blue), I really do hope he is able to reach his potential as a player against St Kilda...just so long as he doesn't cost us a game against them!!!

It was really more the recruitment of Preuss that sealed Pedo's fate. His value was as a backup fwd/ruck. I loved watching The Bear play, his willingness to run in straight lines and crunch packs in the air and on the ground was a pleasure to watch, a point of difference from many currently on our list and the size of his frame was an asset in this regard. His goal kicking was generally pretty much good, but not quite T Mac level great. His ball use whether by foot or a clever knock to position was somewhat underrated at times. There were games (paticularly during 2016) when I thought he should have played over Weid based on actual performance and capability at the time, but that is now water under the bridge and perhaps in retrospect the selection committee were right to get the Weid the exposure at senior level. On ballance, in retrospect as much as I thought there were big games when Pedo rose to the occasion, I'll accept there were also those where he went missing for too much of the game. I don't think it was a competition with T Smith, who I think plays a slightly different role. Though I have found T Smith somewhat underwhelming, I think he does compete hard and as Spencer somewhat points out he plays a role the coaches ask of him when he plays. I am somewhat surprised that someone like Gold Coast didn't chase the Bear, because I thought he could have been of value to them for a year, but I guess it might not have suited Pedo at this point in his life to be moving half way across the country on a short term prospect either and I heard that GC were chasing local boy big Jake 'Pencil' Spencer for ruck depth (don't know how that worked out). In the end as a fringe player, I think age became Pedersen's enemy at the MFC, but I think he seemed to accept his predicament with great grace and I wish him all the best for the future.

It's the bold and in particular the underlined that I think is the biggest motivator for all parties as to why bring Preuss into the side. I don't think that would have been a serious prospect for Preuss at North in the foreseeable future. Limited risks otherwise for all players involved and I can only really see positives.

For pure skill, I do like those ones of Melksham and Garlett hard up against the boundary and that snap of Nibbler's is pretty bloody good. They have become an almost regulation shot for some players, but I thought that the Gawn Dog's banana/checkside from the boundary was pretty magic, not just because it was Max, but because he repeated it twice in almost as many minutes, along with the timely back-at-ya he gave the Essendon supporter. For a moment of pure elation, I can't go past Kent's sealer against the Eagles. Big long bom and a tough kick under pressure was a great effort and however he does or doesn't go now for the Saint's I'll alway remember and be greatfull to Dean for that moment. I could go on to list a heap of other great goals that weren't shown, but in the honest truth of it, I enjoyed just about every one of the many goals we kicked this year and being the highest scoring team in the competition, what a feast it was.

Was great to hear of his respect for Nev and Hibbo (the new Rod Grinter). It was mildly impresive that he has memorised his new team mates numbers in realitively quick time. Sounds like this era's Danny Hughes is settling in well. All up, I actually thought it was a really well put together segment. ...mostly fluff, but it all sounded really articulate, intelligent and genuine comming from May - how did this guy get to become a footballer and a backman at that??!!

It was the perfect antidote for me to recover from that dying seconds loss we had against St Kilda a few years ealier when Leigh Montagna stole defeat from the jaws of victory from us in what would have been another hoodoo breaking game against the Saints, but with that recient history in mind, I couldn't fully celebrate the T Mac goal until the siren had sounded. I still remember that Montagna goal and how it made me feel at the time, but moments like Tommy Mac's goal and a number of others are starting to heal the emotional wounds of the past decade, though I don't think I can fully recover from a case of late onset MFCSS until we bring home that elusive flag. Like you Chook, I'm a huge fan of Tommy's, but thankfully he is in good company these days with soo many wearing the red and blue competing for the mantle of my favorite player.

Pedo was a decient part of that whole win, taking a big grab and kicking a goal with about 10mins to go as well. He didn’t play that all that many senior games for the MFC, but he had some big moments in some of the breakthrough games towards the end. I'll never forget Pedo's role in that win we had against Hawthorn - kicked at least 2 goals at crucial times and had a good hand in a number of others.

I'd much prefer both given that Gaff would have been a free hit through FA and it wasn't one or the other.

I can't say I'd ever watched a full game of reserves footy, but always appreciated getting there from around half time of the ressies onwards for the reasons raised above. It was much easier to casually watch and observe the individual performance of players, in a relaxed way, without getting too worked up about the scores/result. Good to see the young kids developing, how players comming back from injury/poor form were looking for the next week, or to hang it on an out of form nemesis from the opposition who'd been dropped.