Rodney (Balls) Grinter

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.

Agree with the above and whilst I think local residents views both for and against are important, I've been thinking that one thing that certainly shouldn't be discounted are the view of us MFC supporters as well. As MFC supporters, we are still part of the comunity and pretty important stakeholders regardless of living in the city council/local area or not. Even though I now live interstate, I still feel a real affiliation for the MFC and Yarra Park area and really don't like 'Plan B' options anywhere near as much, because let's face it, they are further from our home the mighty G, further from the range of public transport options and generally inferior. ...and their are over 40,000 MFC members + more non member supporters. This precinct doesn't just belong to the local residents, there is a degree to which it belongs to all of us. I don't want to go as far as saying that the MFC has some kind of 'native title' to this area, because there is nothing like that level of cultural/spiritual equivalence. However, I do also think that the MFC has a significant historical association with this location and that shouldn't count for nothing either when it comes to planning approval considerations.

What a great and much deserved honour to bestow upon Nev. I'm guessing there wouldn't be many MFC players who have played a similar number of games to have received life membership in their playing days. Such a good role model and story of perseverance, courage and humility. A fan favorite by many accounts for good reason and I'm guessing that making presenting him with life membership will be well supported by all the MFC faithful.

...ok, or the renaming of an existing one. How about renaming the tread to "The Neville Jetta is a total bloody legend of the MFC adoration thread"?

Matty Whelan was another courageous player much like Nev that I admired on the feild, who also seems to work away quietly doing his thing behind the scenes at the club without alot of public reconition. I get a sense that he has now been a great influence on several generations of indigenous players at the MFC (and probably non indigionous as well). First with Flash in his playing days and now with Nev and others as well. It's fantastic when past players can return to the fold and make such positive contributions back into the club.

No doubt it will get it's own thread, but this is great acknowledement of a dedicated loyal servant of the club and his comunity. Very glad the club has extended this honour to Nev.

Surely with all the coin that the AFL have been prepared to throw at the expansion clubs a bit of funding from them would be a reasonable thing. As for some of the others, like Melbourne City Council, the Victorian and National Governments and even the MCC to an extent and surely they need to reconise the cultural and heritage importance and significance of the MFC and that the club really needs a proper permanent facility around the location of it's historical birthplace and namesake to survive and prosper into the future. Some important negioation, politicing and promotion of the MFC cause to be done by Pert, Bartlett and Co to be done over the next few years I think. Melbourne members and supporters can and should be part of that push.

Couldn't agree more. I personally don't see why the AFL haven't just slowly kept winding back the number of rotations in order to open up the game in general, as opposed to these convaluted running within 5m of the player when kicking over the mark etc. Pretty simple stuff I would have tought, stop most players running up and back following the ball in a big pack, creating speed within the game through more ball movement. The additional space that it would create in forward lines would probably also mean less double/triple teaming of players due to the freeing of the oppositions player that would create. Full forwards taking makrs after leading into space. I really yearn for a return to thay style of football.

The opposition to the potential MFC training facility at Yarra Park by some of the local residents assioation has been well highlighted in this thread and is certainly something that the club will need to work on/with. However, it was also interesting listening to the Glen Bartlett interview that one of the things he said is that there was actually a shortage of playing feilds in the area. What I'm reading into that is that is that the MFC needs to build support and alliances with some of the local sporting clubs in the area to them behind the proposal. That kind of local community support would help ballance out the disgruntled resident types by demonstrating real mutual comunity benifit. I recon it's a case of watch this space.

I agree with others views such as @binman and @Lucifer's Hero that a meeting place for members/fans/supporters is important. If we segway to the other thread about rebuilding the MFC as a great club again, then great club's are based around people and I think that bringing together all our people and building a sense of belonging is vital to that. I hear the sentiments of those like @Sir Why You Little that not all MCC members are the wealthy toff types and that stereotyping and segregating MFC supporters is not the way to go. Thus a truely universal social facility that brings together MFC & MFC/MCC members under the one roof would be a good outcome. I 've never been an MCC member myself, but for most of my life I've been a MFC member - presently an interstate one. When in my youth a real highlight of our home games going to the footy was attending the 'Demons Club' (I think that's what it use to be called) in one of the function rooms in bouls of the old Northern stand. I recall it having a bit of a mix of MFC and MCC supporters, they put on a good spread of nibbles and it was a great family atmosphere. In my view that's the kind of thing we need to rebuild as a cultural institution of the MFC and it would be good if that could encompass all of the Redleg Club (which I recall as being more of a MCC crowd, but could well be wrong), Demon Army, standard rank and file MFC members together in one spot. Perhaps that's actually the kind of thing which could provide the value to some of the MCC members to join as combined MFC members.

I actually see the PJ started initiative to recruit new arrivals and emphasize the clubs identidy with the city Melbourne as similar to the memership drive that Essendon went on in the 80s to build a bigger membership base. I forget the details of the Essendon strategy, but what I do nominally recall is that they hadn't been a huge club in the past, but that during that membership drive they set out to change that by doing things differently to what the other old power and power clubs of the day were doing. I see the aforementioned PJ initiatives as being the niche's that has been identified that the MFC can try to exploit and make work for us.

I thought it was basically a regurgitation of the Wheatly interview. But that's ok, I like what he had said to Wheatly and the HS article probably just reinforced and reached a larger audience.

T Mac was one of the few that could keep up with Nick Riewoldt when he was up and about. Nice to see the tables turned a bit on his role/position.

To be honest, I haven't seen the video and didn't watch draft night either, but from past experience and what I'm hearing it sounds like it could all be done a whole lot better. If the AFL and TV producers can get some more exposure and advertising sales out of it then why not and let's face it, there is probably a market for it at that time of year, when some people are probably craving some more footy action and/or if you are a struggling club as we have been in the past, it's probably one of the football highlights of the year. By the sounds of it though, probably less focus on draft night proceedings/machinations and more emphasis on player highlights, bio's etc could be more like what's required. It could actually be a good opertunity to provide a bit of airtime and public reconition for the TAC/underage comp level coaches etc.

I guess depending on how old he was when the info was uploaded, he may not be as tall as Jimmy.

Yeah, ooops, ok, my mistake. Let's hope he's a mature minded underage player then. With the elite sporting background of his parents, that's probably a fair bet too. We could have ourselves a real bargain in this instance given that we have the opportunity to put some good development into a great athlete whilst he's still effectively an underage player, prevent him from going into the draft. Effectively as I understand the rookie promotion selection (which isn't very well) we could pick him up with our last draft pick providing he is nominated for such prior to the draft? Really does go a long way to explaining why we didn't go for any project ruckman in this year's draft.

Do you mean Vanders or Hore Dazzle?

Maaan 100 days. That is sooo long.

Hey, we're an hour behind up here in Qld (though some would say it's 9 years 364 days and 23hrs behind), so it was around 10:30pm, just on my bedtime.

Yep and just watching it again, T Mac actually kicks for goal from right on 50. http://m.melbournefc.com.au/video/2018-08-27/rd-23-all-the-goals

The MFC has had some great sucess with mature age recuits in recient times and just looking over our list at present, I count 12 mature age players on our main or supplemtry lists as of the post season recruiting period. The list (largely per my memory) is per the below; Austin Bradtke Bayley Fritsch Mitch Hannan Marty Hore Declan Keilty Corey Maynard Joel Smith Timothy Smith Aaron vandenBerg Corey Wagner Josh Wagner Guy Walker Interested in people's opinions on: 1. Who would be the best player on the list based on AFL performance to date; And; 2. Who has the potential to become the best recruit over the entirity of their career Arguably, Michael Hibberd and Neville Jetta could be included in the above list, but I've excluded them from the discussion on the basis that: A. Whilst Michael Hibberd was originally got his break in the game as a mature age player with Essendon, he was recruited to Melbourne as a well established, many would say elite player; B. Neville was originally recruited to the MFC directly from the elite U18 system in WA and whist he was relegated to the rookie list for a period, he never truly left being listed by the MFC and that environment. Answer away...

Selwood loosing his shiit and giving away that free kick to Melksham was soo very enjoyable to watch as well. Jack Viney's the tackling machine's effort that whole game was absolutely sensational. Has set a new standard for a player comming back from injury - take note Jake Lever!