Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Looking forward to some fresh Prawn on Sunday.

Detouring a little, I really do think we could have used Bernie Vince on occations this year. I know he lost some pace last year, but I think he really could have been used to very good effect in our forward line this season with his strength, footy smarts and good goal kicking. It really does irritate me that the never really tried moving Bernie forward last season to se if it could have worked. Perhaps we would have won a few more games by now and would still be chasing a remote chance of finals if he was still on our list this season. To me that highlights what a mistake it would be for Jones not to play next year. Our list is pretty sparce of mature experienced players and if managed right, I think guys in this age bracket still have some significant things to conttibute. Asides from half back, I think Jones could be used up forward (he's a pretty decient kick for goal) and would still be handy to use in bursts to keep another strong, big bodied midfeilder around the ball when necessary (saw how handy Lewis was in that capacity). Even Luke Hodge still seems to be able to keep a spot in a Brisbane side which is traveling pretty well this year and I think Hodge has a few years on Jones.

As I posted on the post match thread - Appart from the odd game, Trac's form has been very solid all year. A few of Trac's stats give an indication of that: 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). By my assessment, Trac will easily finish top 10 in our B&F, if not top 5 or better. I do think Trac will go Bang and become reconised as an elite player when the fortunes of the team swing back to being more compeditive. Whilst his influential performances might have been flying a little under the radar of even our supporters this season, I hardly think his value to our side would have been unnoticed by our opposition's analysts and coaches, who would be targeting him with their best mid sized defender most weeks, particularly with Melksham out of the side. That he has performed consistently well in an underperforming side is a mark of some mental toughness and maturity. I am looking forward to him really busting things up once the side is back in full flight, I think he will ride that wave of confidence and his natural (Italian genetically inherited) exuberance will get right up the noses of our opposition.

Max and Hunt suffer from the same issue, in fact I don't think it's an uncommon problem among AFL listed players. One of the key off season coaching emphasis should be players getting their goal kicking right.

I can't fathom giving St Kilda a priority pick. Next they will be want to give them to Essendon and probably Hawthorn because they have an aging list and will miss finals this year. They have got to get fair dinkum. If St Kilda get a FA pick, they really must help Hawthorn.

And us as well. That whole second rebuild period we got second go at the talent pool after GWS and GC had their go at it. Not to mention our previous No.1 pick being lured by the big wads of $$$$ being thrown at him by GWS with money and salery cap to burn.

Preuss will do well if he can just find the spot in our forward line where most number of the opposition backs are standing and run there, because that is where we appear to kick it 90% of the time.

Big Boy turns 30 in a few days, so is getting pretty close to becoming an old boy.

6. T Mac 5. Oliver 4. Trac 3. Preuss 2. Jones 1. Hunt

Correction - in his 2 games playing predominantly forward for the MFC, he has kicked 4 goals, an average of 2 per game which is pretty decient by AFL standards. Mind you it's also a pretty small sample size and he was also the 3rd KPP forward behind T Mac and Weid.

Preuss has probably averaged around 2 goals per game as a forwad/ruck at AFL level, so I'd say he's quite a capable forward. I agree that playing Preuss 70/30 ruck and the inverse for Gawn would be a great developmental move over the rest of the season so they both get what they need with what remains of a dead rubber of a back end of our season. Surely it has to be more valuable for Pruess to be rucking against AFL standard players and adjusting to the associated pressure at senior level than running around in the twos. Gawn should just permanently sit himself in that 15m - 25m range out form goal, take grabs galore and have real set shot practice from that position to the point where it no longer represents a mental hoodo for him. The big fella is actually a pretty dam good kick of the footy and a decient set shot for goal from the 40m to 50m range - just needs to get his head and technique right for kicking them from giveme range.

Appart from the odd game, Trac's form has been very solid all year. A few of Trac's stats give an indication of that: 3rd leading goal kicker; 1st in score involvements; 2nd in goal assists (interestingly, Melksham still leads this stat, despite missing a bug chuck of the season now - shows how good he is in that department and how much we are missing him). By my assessment, Trac will easily finish top 10 in our B&F, if not top 5 or better.

No, it wasn't funny. It would have been funny if it happened to another team, not us. Would have been a serious great goal if it had just rolled one balls length further across the line though.

I think most opposition teams would be pretty worried about the prospect of a Gawn/Preuss ruck combo - The Prawn. Seriously though, we normally drop our output when Gawn is resting on the bench and if Preuss can effectively maintain that dominant ruck presence for us for the whole game, it will go a long way to us being a much more dangerous side. The impact should be amplified when either Gawn or Preuss inevitably goes up against the oppositions second string/part time ruckman. I've been very frustrated by the lack of AFL games big Preuss has played, but I can also see the sense in it when he would likely get in the order of 80-100 ruck contests in the VFL as opposed to the 20 - 50 he might get at AFL level with Gawn in the side. Really hoping this seperate development strategy for Pruess is close to complete and starts to deliver a combined Prawn beast for us on AFL game day soon.

Agree Re Cripps, but we were down Gawn. Whilst Cripps is a different sort of player that I don't quite think I'd refer to Gawn as a beast in the same sense as Cripps, I think the absence of both players pretty much canceled out the star player factor for both teams. Gawn has been an absolute freak with his ability to both win us the ruck, rove and win clearances out of stoppages, run all over the place pulling down big grabs with huge value to the team. Missing Gawn the past week and a half has been a massive loss to the team. He has consistently been our most dominant player all year. I don't think it's any coincidence that we couldn't win any clearances and died in the a against Brisbane last week when Gawn was hobbling around the ground on one leg.

He has still been a bit inconsistent and hasn't had a perfect season by all acounts, but overall, I think the reemergence of Jayden Hunt has been one of the real positives to come out of this season. Was great for him (and the team) to get that little moment in the sun after such a trying year (couple of years for Hunt). Hopefully it goes to show how fortunes can change in the space of a year. Really hoping others and the team in general can follow in Hunt's footsteps next year and mount a huge resurgence.

Yes, but a great feeling when the final siren went with us in front. I get the feeling that Carlton supporters were backing their team to roll us from the get go today, so denying them that makes beating them even more the sweeter. Not that I'm not getting carried away with this win from our perspective. For the most part, I have very conflicted feelings about how we played. We clearly dominanted them for over a half of footy with one rotation down, yet without playing anything like our best game and also missing a tonne of opportunities to put them away much earlier. But somewhat to Carlton's credit, they wanted to win pretty badly today, moved the ball well and their straight goal kicking kept them in the game. The real downers of the game were yet more bloody injuries - we just can't seem to take a trick this year. Was a huge effort for the boys to hang on in the last quarter after being down so many players on the bench for most of the game and the last quarter in particular. I had a weird moment of part elation, part relief when Hunt slotted that goal in the dying minutes, which was quickly followed by a somewhat hollow feeling of what a realitively meaningless win it was, whilst still being glad that we had won and maintained some level of dignity, compared to the utter shame and despiration I would have felt had we lost. Overall, I think the result and the way it came about still shows how far we actually have come compared to seasons gone by, but also typifies what a depressing and a complete sh_t fight this season has been for us.

Did Bedford play an average game this week Chell? I think he wants to debut next week! ?

Asides from the likely inclusion of Pruess in the side, the other 'ins' that I'm most looking forward to is Jetta. Have really missed his hardness and footy smarts in the side.

Yeah cool, understand that, I was being half tongue in cheek. But I still don't understand how we could consider cutting it so fine with such an important player. Can't train Thursday, it's not like it's a grand final. I love Gawn's comitment to the cause, but surely even he can see the bigger picture here?

Just like his role model big Jimmy, Maxy's heart is too big for his own good and no good for mine. I just about had an aneurysm last week when I saw him limping off and going down the race, thinking he'd done another ACL. I agree with others who have said it would be utter stupidity to play Gawn this week. If he does play, you can bet his ankle will get stood on by every Carlton player on the ground. Why would we risk our most valuable asset in a meaningless game? Haven't we learnt the lessons of seasons and players gone by? I don't mind @DeeSpencer's suggestion in the other thread that we mess with Kruzer's head with respects to does he play on Gawn or Preuss, but if Gawn actually plays, Mission should have his contract terminated immediately.

Agree and at the same time: 1. Any players that need surgery or the opportunity of a rest to get over injuries should be given the opportunity to do so and; 2. There will also be a number of fringe players on the list that will be going very hard at it to have one last crack at showing why they should remain on the list, which should provide some sort of motivating force within the team in those dying games; 3. I think giving Jordan Lewis the send off he deserves from the MFC in the seniors fits somewhere in here too and I don't think he will be wanting to go out without some sort of a bang.

At this stage I think it's unlikely that we could keep the Pies out of the final, but if we could deal them a body blow like knocking them out of the top 4 or setting them up for an away final or something, that would be nice. Agree entirely with what Lucifer is getting at in this thread. I want to see improvement and us gain something from the back half of the year. Part of me cares less about winning or loosing against the likes of Carlton etc than about beating the better teams, but we can't just coast against the poor ones and put everything into the good sides either because we'd never do that in a season proper. In some ways now the season is gone, it does provide us with some freedom to try things out like we might otherwise do in preseason without caring so much about the final win/loss result, but better, because every game must and will still be played at home and away season intensity. In alot of ways the several seasons that preceeded 2018 might have put us back developmentally because we were so close to making finals at the back end of the season that as much as the coaches would have said they were coaching for the future, there was probably also a reluctantace to persevere with core issues that we needed to rectify in case that meant loosing the game. As supporters, we might not immediately see the fruits in complete performances from siren to siren, but so long as the players and the coaches can use the rest of the season to get their act together, then I'm quite prepared to put up with a few more frustrating scoreboard results this season.

Yeah, that seems about right. If I recall correctly, the one that started that run on they got in the third quarter was also partly the result of us turning over the ball and our defense being out of position. There was about three of them he would have kicked from the paint right on 50 and/or right out on the boundary - an example of some great goal kicking.

I would agree with some that our pressure wasn't exactly manic on Sunday, but I think both teams were trying to play an open free flowing game and perhaps we are putting less emphasis on the tackling side of our game to try and get our ball movement happening and some confidence in that part of our game again. Certainly, I thought that in the first quarter and possibly most of the first half, I thought most of our ball movement looked really sharp. Some in this or other threads have compared Goodwin to Neeld, which I think is way off. It's clear that we are both trying to win games and are generally compeditive. Neeld style honestly would do nothing for team morale. How we play out the year I think is really quite a fine ballance. On the one hand, I think we need to persist with working on parts of our game that need rectifing for next season and beyond and if that means persisting with Weid/Petty in positions when they are getting beaten as development and or trying to implement new positioning of players at contests without it immediately bearing fruit, then perhaps we need to grin an bear a few disappointing performances and match outcomes as a consequence, but on the other hand, I think winning is important for team culture, it is a confidence game as well and we can't afford to loose that completely. There were some matches early on last season when our game looked bad and look at where we ended up. I'm not sure that the average supporter really knows what the coaches are trying to achieve in some of all this, but I really hope we can refer back to it next season and say that whilst we lost some more games than we would have liked to, we can now see what was being developed and the fruits it has brought.