Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Thanks Nev. I actually think that we are on the same page with regards to the concern for some of our key players that are getting on in years. Of those you list, the only one I see that we have close to an equivalent replacement ready to step up is Hore for Hibbard. Really does show how much we need players like Weid, Petty(/Oscar?), Preuss(/Bradke?) to stand up over the next few years. Don't know we have anyone who could step up and play the role that Melksham does (perhaps Trac? or possibly Langdon), but probably some of the answer there is that we need multiple players who can deliver well into the forward line and not just one. Would be nice if we could land a few free agents to top up with some mature top end talent in their prime without costing us wanted players or draft picks the way some of these scabby clubs like Hawthorn, Collingwood and Richmond have in recent years. The only other subtle point I'd make is that you quoted ages next season, where as the list I put together is current age, so the aging lists of some of our opposition is slightly greater than at first glance.

Joel Selwood 31 Patrick Dangerfield 29 Tom Hawkins 31 Zach Tuohy 29 Harry Taylor 30+ Garry Abblett 30++ Lachie Henderson 29 Mitch Duncan 28 Steele Sidebottom 28 Scott Pendlebury 31 Travis Varcoe 31 Jeremy Howe 29 Levi Greenwood 30 Chris Mayne 30 Ben Reid 30 Jordan Roughead 28 + Wells, Dunn and Goldsack Shannon Hurn 31 Luke Shuey 29 Nic Naitanui 29 Lewis Jetta 30 Josh Kennedy 30 Will Schofield 30 Chris Masten 30 Nev, I take your points, but I think some of the other top teams currently up the top have both more of their lists stacked with veterans and some of their most significant players structurally that will likely retire or become less effective a few years ahead of when our veterans will. Not all the players listed above are currently stars, but they have a level of maturity and know how to get the job done that will be a challenge for those teams to replace overnight. I think Hawthorn and the Swans are the key case in point of the future that awaits what I hope will happen to some of our rivals over the coming years. I'm really hoping that the young core of Clarry, Brayshaw, Harmes and Co will start to power up unto their prime as the likes of Pendlebury and Dangerfield start fade out for their respective clubs.

I signed up again in something like 2011 after a shot hiatus due moving interstate. The game that made me fork out was an 80 point or something thrashing by West Coast. My rationale was that my club needed my support then more than ever, so I will definitely be signing again next season AND holding onto my GF guarantee. I'm as depressed as anyone about our lack of performance on Friday and though some may consider it delusional, I'm not putting it down to a lack of caring. I actually think there is some extent if rank hypocrisy in those that are not renewing yet expect our players to dig deep and bring us out of this.

That's my philosophy with Hawthorn and right at the moment they are bang on target.

Who ever would have thought that O Mac being dropped would bring with it calls that we are tanking? On Demonland of all places!!

I agree and I think this is a big part of it. Oliver's dinky little handballs seem to have become less effective than more effective. Where as last season they would get to a player on the move and create a chain of good connections further up the ground, it seems more the case at the moment that these end up selling our players into trouble and the ball moves nowhere. Alternatively our opposition often seem to move the ball out effortlessly out of the congested area just through good positioning around the stoppage. I do also think the rule change with the 6-6-6 hurt us badly in the center clearance scenarios as we seemed to have mastered a tactic that worked a treat there and are now just around the mark. I must say, I don't have any strong statistical evidence to back up my assertions on clearances, which is mostly based on the impression I get of clean movement out of pack situations watching the game, but I do think that the time in forward half assertion I have made would be backed up statistically based on what I recall being flashed up for individual games.

That is true. We only just overtook them with our massive one hunnder or so point victory against them last year, so there must only be around half a dozen or so games in it. Still I'll hold onto it for as long as we can in the present circumstances.

Carlton are the least successful club this century, so at least we can console ourselves with that.

As the season progresses, I have noticed a distinct drop off in both these parameters from the way we played last year and even the start of the season. Perhaps it's partly due to our opponents of the last two or three weeks who we didn't perform particularly well against in these area last year either, but I suspect it has been a trend over the course of the season. I can understand that perhaps we might now be prioritizing the quality of forward 50 entries as opposed to just banging it in their to be rebounded, but we seem to struggle to move the ball forward of centre full stop. It is particularly noticeable at stoppages and center bounces that where once these were our strength, now I see all too readily our opposition take the ball away with ease after a tap goes to two or three players standing meters clear of any opponent. I know there have been calls about poor work rate and about our players all hunting the ball on the inside like bees to a honey pot, but surely when we are getting out positioned at relatively static situations at clearances to the point the opposition takes the ball away with relative ease, then it's not just effort but dumb football handing such gifts to our opponents that we then have to work out butts off to get back. I find these trends particularly concerning when we have basically the best ruck in the league and haven't suffered injury wise in the middle. Anyone else noticed and have any thoughts on this?

It has been painful and humbling to watch how consistently below part and just off the pace we have been in the back half of the season particularly. I feel like on many occasions we have been 'competitive' with good teams for big portions of games, but just haven't had the grunt to stay with them at critical times in the game and get wins out if a few more of them which kind of works against being able to label us as being competitive. But at the end of the day, it doesn't feel anything like the depths of despair of the Bailey or Neeld days either. Being behind the eight ball and not being able to recover on the injury front hasn't helped either. In a similar light, our drafting of recent times has been criticized, but it doesn't help that we have hardly been able to get our two highest picks from the last two drafts out on the park this season. Charlie Spargo may never be a Brownlow winner, but did show last year he can make a pretty handy contribution and with further development and maturity could be very much best 22 material and everyone had fairly high expectations of Tom Sparrow. The season has become something of a grind to watch out as a MFC supporter and lately I don't know why I continue to do it to myself, but for watching some improved performances from the likes of Trac, Petty and Fritta.

Add a fully fit and in form Melksham (no where near his potential yesterday), Trac and Mitch Hannan or Charlie Spargo and I actually think we could have a pretty potent forward line.

If I recall correctly, him and his family were pretty hard core MFC supporters from way back weren't they? How good would that be for your average supporter to have played even just that one game for the club you grew up barracking for. My impression is that Corey may not have been the most skilful footballer going around, but perhaps still could have made much more of a contribution at AFL level had he stayed fit. So frustrating to have yet another potential goer for the MFC town down by injury. All the best for the future Corey.

Has been pointed out by a few already, but the O Mac goal was a rare moment of joy for the game for me and an even better moment for the man himself. Yes in the context of the game, it was a pretty meaningless act and goal, but I just thought that it was great for a guy who has struggled all season and been kicked in the guts by the game itself, commentators and many of our own supporters to get a little moment in the sun like that. Where O Mac goes as a footballer from here is yet to be seen, but I think it's a great mark of his character the way he has fought on and persevered this season when he has looked so beaten at times it must be pretty hard to keep getting back up and presenting.

What did Garry achieve as captain - not a lot more than our current team to be totally honest. If anything Garry should be able to offer a much better insight into the performance of our team this season that a lot of commentators, because in his time as captain our team alternated between top four world beaters and bottom four cellar dwellers very much like our team has this season. I agree that fair call for him to call out some of the things we are not doing right, but it did seem to drag on and on. I do think it was reasonably well balanced with some praise for individual players like Fritta, Trac, May and a few others. Listening to Cameron Ling last week was far worse IMHO, all Ling seemed to do was bag us from start to finish. At the end of the day, I think it has a fair bit to do with the mental state that I'm in as a supporter. To be honest, the longer the season has gone on, I've found my attitude to our performancesite to be more apathetic than at any time I recall as a supporter. I don't think we are in as dire straights as a team going forward as our ladder position would suggest, but it's been getting harder to get enthused about us either when we haven't been able to recapture winning form in the back end of the season. I'm at a point where whilst I do want to see us win, I'll be quite happy for this season to end and be done with it and I sense our players are pretty much in the same space too.

A fully fit AvB plays where ever the hell he likes, because the guy is a dead set bull. I'm more than happy to have the problem of who misses out.

Perhaps playing Fritta down back so long has given him extra incentive to play well as a forward ("kick goals our you go down back again"). Will be interesting to see if he can keep up this rich vein of form he is in at the moment and I wonder if playing him down back has somehow improved him as a player other than him just being another year into the AFL system.

Given AvB is a contracted player my understanding is that we would actually need to trade him rather than simply be able to delist.

More than just being loud, he was having a huge impact wining and clearing the ball. With his strong physical presence he bullies and crashes his way through packs that others would get caught up in. The counter effect this has on our opposition shouldn't be underestimated. Was so looking forward to AvB being fit and cracking in from the get go this year, buy like everything elese, that seemed to go to complete [censored] before the season even started. That he is back training again is positive, but given his injury history, I think the MFC needs to plan for a season without him next year and if he comes through, then that's a bonus. For me that means either Trac steps it up another notch and plays the AvB role (I think Trac is actually close to it already) and/or we recruit another strong bull at a gate type midfielder that can have an immediate impact with their bash and crash.

Sorry as much as this might make some kind of sense on a clinical purely logical list management perspective, it would absolutely rip the heart and soul out of the MFC culturally if it wasn't a move 100% instigated by Jack and even then I think it would still reek. It's quite different trading a party boy No.1 draft pick types in Jack Watts and Jesse Hogan who gave the impression of only being 60% committed at times, compared to your club captain, favorite father son who runs through brick walls bleeds red and blue for the club.

I'm not sure that I'd really want to recruit a player with Patton's injury history, but knees don't seem to be quite the career ending injury they once were - that seems to be more foot injuries these days, particularly for us.

After a very breif few weeks telling people I supported the wees and poos in around grade 4, for better or worse I became permanently attached to out mighty Demons on that fateful day out at the Western Oval in 87. Since then the team has frustrated the duck out of me with it's innate ability to squander talent and the opportunity for ultimate success to absolutely [censored] luck with injuries and the inability to stand up when the opportunities we were presented were upon us. Still I wouldn't have it any other way with respects to the team I support. Our days will come again and the glory awaits us will be all the sweeter. Never expected we would beat the WC in the prelim last year. They had the benifits of multiple weeks off to freshen up their list, when it's quite clear now that we were totally shagged from backing up in must win games for weeks on end ... and they had the home ground advantage with an automatic 15 free kicks for advantage (which admittedly they hardly needed that day). I never expected that we would win the flag this year, but similarly never expected our win/loss record to be such total poo at this stage of the season either. I don't put as much blame at the feet of Goodwin as many here do, but fully understand and agree that a fair bit of the buck stops with him and he hasn't exactly inspired much of a resurgence within this season which is concerning. That all said, I don't think our performances post the bye have been as putrid as has been made out, but without actually winning more games it's hard to say that we have really made huge progress or provide confidence in what is being rebuilt either. I'm giving this crop the benifit of the doubt and see what they can produce over the off season in terms of turning things around. We still have a realitively youngish list, but at the same time they are also getting to the point in their maturity when that can't be used as an excuse moving forward. As much as anything from Goodwin, I'm looking for the younger core of the group like Harmes, Brayshaw, Oliver, Viney, Trac, Salem, Fritta, Hore, Weid, Lever, Hunt, Spargo, Hannan etc to really take the situation by the scruff of the neck and take responsibility for going to that next level in performance, consistently and in-game maturity over the next season or two. Goodwin might be the man at the helm, but it's the players that are the only ones who can really determine if this becomes a champion team or just another of the also rans that we have been for the best part of half a century. I'm backing them all - GO THE MIGHTY DEMONS!!!

Just reading the 2nd page of comments on this thread, with the exception of @america de cali and perhaps @FireInTheBelly (not exactly sure of his stance), what a bunch of sadsacks we have become on this forum. What would happen if we actually won tonight? CARN THE DEMONS!!!

Yeah, no worries. I noticed someone else made the comment before I did as I was gong back over some of the earlier comments again. Lol

I hardly think these assertions could be further from the truth. Yes his first 2 or 3 games were a bit ordanary, but since then Trac has consistently been one of our better performers. Asides from Max, I can't think of anyone who has been as consistently good for us. Perhaps your perceptions of him are clouded because he hasn't regularly done a heap of flashy things, but rather just burrowed and bulldozed away in a workman like manner. Without Trac this season we would have been even more totally stuffed.

A few of Trac's stats give an indication of his value to the team this season. 3rd leading goal kicker; 1st in score involvements; 2nd in goal assists (interestingly, Melksham still leads this stat, despite missing a big chuck of the season now - shows how good he is in that department and how much we are missing him).