Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Off the bottom, now what second/third bottom - meh, who cares. I only care what we have achieved at the end of the season. If we beat St Kilda next week, we will be in pretty much the same win/loss position as the same time last year. The key difference will be that I think our draw from there on will get harder rather than easier, but if we can't raise our game to the point where we can consistently beat the better sides, then what's the point of making finals anyway. I think our fortunes from here will largely rest on how we recover injury wise. If we can get back some of our guns like Lever, May, AVB, Hannan etc, without losing too many other quality players, our back half of the year could be pretty dam impressive.

I don't know if it would be quite the same as 6-6-6 (I don't even fully understand the full technicalities of the rule), but I do see some potential for say requiring a certain number of player from each side to be behind the centre of the ground opposite the position of play at all stoppages such as kick in's, ball ups and boundary throw in's. I hate the current congested look and feel of the game. That said, I want a MFC premiership more than I care about the look of the game right now. It's fairly clear that we have recruited and developed a game style that works reasonably well within the current rules. To change those rules dramatically and suddenly now could be a huge and quite unfair disadvantage to us, so I'd want any new rules to be bought in slowly and within a reasonably distant timeline. Further reducing the number of interchanges is another rule I believe the AFL could tinker with to good effect and it could be done realitively slowly, with small increments.

I'm very glad to hear that. I'd know what's happened to him the last couple of seasons. The way many of our own supporters have turned on him quite frankly disgusts me. Jeffy has produced several 40 odd goal seasons when we were a way below par team. I'd love to see what he can do for us when both he and the team are really on.

Sigh

BT might carry on like one, but I don't even think the upper middle class bogans would appreciate the way he calls the game. I actually quite liked BT when he was first on the footy show and I have actually grown to like and respect Richo alot more in his post playing days - he actually seems like a genuine good knock about bloke. But your last line really characterizes how they come across when they call the game. Yes you want some degree of rapport between the comentators and probably also the occational wise crack or atmospheric comment but they go so far over the top it's unbearable. My thoughts are that a lot of these ex-players that end up in the media feel like they have to build and keep building themselves up as a personality to stay in the business, but in the end it just detracts more than it attracts people to them. The game itself generally has enough drama and entertainment value without needing much of contribution from some of the clowns that position themselves around it and leach off it.

His multiple endless rants during the game about the Melbourne players having dinner at Lever's place during the game the other night. BT "I've got conections" - wooooo, for real, give me a break FFS.

ABC radio always do a pretty good job, why can't we just get good straight callers like them on the TV? For special comments, I actually quite like David Parkin's style. Knows what he's on about without being full of himself.

After the past three weeks, as a MFC I was actually thinking along the same lines as the comentators. I wouldn’t have felt this way at stages last year when we were up and going, but our confidence and system has been so bad to this point, that I felt the game could have turned very quickly on us and it wasn't until late in the last, when we had nailed the door shut that I felt I could relax. At the time, their comments were on the money, but in retrospect, it was actually a moderately dominant performance by us.

What gets right up my goat is when Brian & Co get totally side tracked when calling the game and start drivaling on about completely irrelevant rubbish - just shut the f#@* up already.

Intentional? Or Natural?

With the way Oscar is playing at the moment I agree, but I think Oscar is capable of playing much better than he is right now. He could be quite capable if a third tall was needed to play along side Lever and May. Incidentally, I thought it was very poor that no-one got over and got in the face and flew the flag against Franklin after he ironed out Oscar like that. Whilst it wasn't particularly dirty, it was unnessacery and that we just tolerated it I think demonstrated weakness and that we prepared to stand back and let a team mate be physically doninated.

My thoughts to this point were that Hore had been underwhelming in preseason games and I didn't think he had done enough to warent his inclusion in the team - was glad for him to prove me wrong. Based on what I have seen to date, his kicking is still the main question mark for me, but I think it's hard to make too many judgements right now. With the low confidence levels generally evident throughout the whole team, I think many players are guilty of hesitant and error prone kicking, with exception of the classy ball users like Salem, Freitch and Melksham. For me Sam Frost has been our best performed key back all year in a backline under siege. Yes he has had his moments, but for the most part, I think he has played his role and when the rest of the team is defensively doing their part, I think he is well up to the standard required. He had one clanger kick early in the game last night, but after that his ball use was pretty good. I thought his defensive effort against Franklin was admirable without being brilliant. My take was that he kept Franklin contained sufficiently that he didn't rip us a new one as he would have done playing on Oscar, but that Frost's effectiveness was somewhat flattered by Franklin's poor-average goal kicking. I did really like Preuss's game, but it was somewhat tempered by the dominant defensive role that Aliir Aliir was able to provide playing off him. I'm not solely blaming Preuss for that though. Pruess is what he is - an immoble lumbering beast of a man. If he is to be most effective in our forward line, we should be kicking it to him more directly and not bombing it randomly into our forward line i.e. bomb it long to Pruess as a semi stationary target, not into space away from where he is occupying - if we can achieve that I think he can definitely become a weapon.

Really need to look at performance over the course of the season to make any sense of it. I think it's entirely reasonable for teams and individuals to have confidence and form slumps at various points in time, they are humans we are talking about. Personally I'm neither a lover or hater, of any of our players. I'd rather see all of them individually and particularly the team succeed. If that means players like Oscar McDonald are ultimately not in our theiritical best 22, then so be it, but I still think such players can play a role if they can be of sufficient quality to provide good depth when called upon. Oscar is clearly down on confidence right at the moment and not playing anywhere near as well as he is capable of. The question is will his confidence and/or the confidence of others like Petty best served by demoting/promoting them to the reserves right now?

I've thought that Jack Viney's impact on games this season to date had been pretty low by his standards, but thought that his game last night indicated he is starting to get back the sort of form that will make our midfeild dangerous. He laid 9 tackles last night and many of them we big hard crunching ones that had a real impact. He also started to win some good clearances and that goal he kicked in the second quarter was very timely. Whilst Jack had a good impact on the two finals we won last year, I've felt that we haven't really seen him at his most damaging best since mid 2017 in that game against West Coast where he almost single handedly carried our midfeild to help deliver us an unlikely victory, to some extent to his detriment, because I think he was also playing injured at the time and has struggled to reach that level since.

I like the Wagner bros, but I didn't think they played to their potential tonight by any means. Thought they gave great effort, went in hard, got to pleanty of contests and scrapped well, which is really their strong suit. But I didn't think their ball use by foot was as clean as they are capable of. Cory in particular just hacked it forward to no one in particular on alot of occasions, but that said the times he did it, it was actually mostly effective and came off to our advantage. I'd really like these guys to improve their game just that little bit further to the point they could be at the level to justify holding down a regular spot in the team - guys like Nev and Hibbo are somewhat getting on in years and it would be good to have depth options to cover their absence when the time comes.

Glad to see some of our out of form players like Jonesy, Viney, Trac and Hunt return to form tonight, even T & O Mac I thought started looking better as the game went on (though both were comming off a pretty low base). Also good to see good games from emerging players Preuss and Hore, who I thought was pretty important for us. I thought the Weid was pretty quite and had minor impact for most of the game, but did some really good stuff for us in the last quarter when it was there to be won. That 50m goal was a sensational kick for goal under pressure and I thought he also did alot of other little things like tackles, a few good marks and knock on's in the last quarter. Harmes was really good early when we were struggling a bit, as was Jones, who went on to play a great captains game, along with Viney to some degree.

6. Jones 5. Gawn 4. Viney 3. Hunt 2. Frost 1. Hore Unlucky Patracca, Preuss, Oliver, Harmes

You just need to understand grunting, it's pretty much how Preuss the cave man comunicates.

To much nervous tension, never felt like we were completely in control and just a bad 5 mins away from having the game taken off us, so ironically I'm not enjoying this moment as much as I would have liked to, but so glad to have finally beaten Sydney. The Swans have been such a bogy side for us over the last decade, another scap ticked off the list.

Not the greatest win, but 4 points is 4 points and something to get the monkey off our back and start building some confidence and system.

I certainly agree in those Daniher years we were absolutely a yo yo side, but many other modern teams have also experienced this to a degree, thinking mainly of Hawthorn, Geelong, West Coast and Richmond. The one thing those teams have achieved that we never did was to stay back up and achieve greater heights after that initial dip. If this year does turn out to be a flop, the main thing I want us to get out of it is to set us up properly to bounce back so much better and harder for 2020 and beyond. I don't think I could personally cope with another period of years of mediocrity like we have been it the past and like Port have experienced after their most recient prelim appearance - not bottoming out, but at the same time never being a genuine threat, hovering around those 6 - 12 ladder positions.

Yes agree, but over the course of a season it's not a huge gap to peg back either, particularly when you consider that when many of the teams currently above us are yet to play many or any games against quality opposition, playing closer to the first full 17 rounds of the draw should even that up to an extent. If you were sitting two games and percentage out of the top eight with 6 weeks to play out of the season, that's a position you would very much still give a team in good form a chance of pegging back.

I honestly feel that if (and from our season to date, it's a BIG if) we can somehow dig deep tonight and beat the Swans on their home deck, then knock off St Kilda next week that with a bit of form and confidence we would be a reasonable prospect of beating Richmond. From there our season could be back on a reasonable course. Sounds far out, but stranger things have happened. I recall us winning one very much against the grain in Adelaide Vs the Crows in 2017 and I think everyone expected us to loose to both West Coast and GWS in the run home last year. So tonight I watch I hoping, without fully expecting to win, but also that beating the Swans should also be well within the capabilities of the list we have. It's got to turn at some point doesn't it?

Whilst I was personally never in the camp of expecting that the MFC would sail through to a grand final birth with ease this year, it would be a huge understatement to say that I've been disappointed in our performances so far this season. Putting the disapointment of going zip and three so far asides, I'm not yet prepared to say we are cooked. Looking for reasons without trying to stray into the area of excuses, our preseaon preperation was rubbish and I think that has had a clear impact on our system and perhaps even fitness levels nessacery to complete in the modern game. We were hit with a number of injuries to key players like AVB, Hannan, Lewis, J Smith, Garlett, May on the cusp of the season that has significantly impacted our game style and particularly our ability to score. If I try to look less emotionally at our performances to date, Geelong game asides, we have been in compeditive positions against two potential top 8 sides, whilst playing some of the worst football in the club's recient history. Despite what the statistics say, we currently sit just two games/8 premiership points outside the top 8 and only 4 games behind mooted top 4 aspirants Collingwood and Richmond. Whilst I don't see much of a future for our season playing at the level we have been, I really struggle to see how we could play that badly for the entire season. If we can correct the defensive issues that have plagued our season to date, I still see pleanty of opportunity for us to build our season once we are playing a much better brand of football and hopefully start getting much closer to a full list to pick from. I think we have a more mature list than many of the teams presently over achieving as well as one a younger one than teams loaded with old fossils like Hawthorn (and possibly Collingwood - thinking of Sidebottom and Pendlbry), both of which could drop away as the season progresses. i.e. it could possibly get worse, but will more likely get better for us from here. I refuse to accept the utter pessimism and negativity surrounding our team and individuals within it. Even if we ultimately end up missing finals this season, I'm still hopeful that we can use it as a season to keep building into the future ...but I'm not at that point yet. CARN THE MIGHTY DEMONS!!!

Oscar's form has done a 180 from where it was this time last year. At the start of last season he was standing up and putting in good games against the likes of Hawkins, taking good intercept marks and generally looking like it had clicked. But right now, I agree he looks like he is playing at the level above where he should be. Time to go back to Casey and find whatever confidence, despiration, attitude that he is presently lacking? The only other thing I would add is that right now Oscar is being asked to play the senior key position back role, where as previously he mostly had T Mac or Dunn down there to shield him from that. The lesser ability to have a spare man in defense is also hurting Oscar and or defensive structures generally and it's fairly clear we haven't adjusted well.