Rodney (Balls) Grinter

I'd just about give him our player of the finals series for just those two acts alone, but the truth is that over the last month or so of footy in particular, Nev played some top footy all round and was one of the players to really step up to the plate, set the standard and accept the responsibility for taking us to the next level in big games. If the All Australian team was picked after finals, Nev would have been picked hands down.

Sorry @Lucifer's Hero, I know this is probably deviating even further from your inital intent for this thread, but as general remark, I do like that Goodwin, Max and probably others seem to be making more of a point of appealing to, embracing and encouraging the MFC's supporters to get on board as an important part of making us sucessful going forward. See their B&F speaches in particular. Seem to be riding the wave of optimisim unleashed with our huge finals crowds. Probably hard to appeal too much to people before now, without making finals etc. Now that being on the cusp of sucess is clear for many, the club really does need to capitalize on the resurgence to set us up finacially and supporter base wise for the next 10 years or so. Should also help put us on the map better with attracting players (like Collingwood and Hawthorn have used it) being able to appeal to playing in front of a packed MCG and would be good if we can get West Coast type favorable umpiring results due to crowd noise as well. Might also mean no more or only one game in the NT as well. Need to keep building on that finals supporter turn-out for the start of the next home and away.

I signed up for the grand final garentee package at the start of this season for mainly that reason. Didn't expect to be so close to putting it into action a few weeks ago. A few more comments: 1. Like you I'm an interstate member and thus it makes the overall package still fairly afordable; 2. The claims that why should the interstate members get it so cheap are somewhat misguided for a number of reasons: i) You get three games but rarely use them all. I'm in Brisbane and there were a number of years when we only had the one game up here and a few years back when we got none; ii) The grand final garentee component costs the same for everyone. If we don't make it, it still costs you the ~$200 odd dollars regardless. Worth noting that it will still cost another $300-$400 on top of that for the actual ticket on top of that if we make it as well (the guarentee only gives you the aces to the tickets, not the tickets themselves). Still I think it's reasonable value and probably still less than paying scalpers prices; iii) I'm ok with paying something even if we don't make it, on the basis that my understanding is that the MFC still gets some portion of the fee (probably something like a 10%-15% sales margin, but I'm just guessing and when I asked the club, they couldn't tell me on the spot); iv) After being an interstate member for the past 7 years consecutively (previously also a member in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s), I think I'm as entitled as many are; 3. My sister got automatically put into priority 2 due to having a number of years consecutive membership (greater than 10, but don't quote me), so some people might also fall into that category; 4. Even though I had the grand final garentee package, it was still somewhat stressful registering for the lottery. It's a pretty tight time window (something like 9am - 12 pm on the Wednesday before the prelim) and my old man (who also signed up for it) who tried to do the online registration found the Tickatek system very unuser friendly, difficult to use and was concerned he wouldn't be able to get it to work in the time available. In the end he got there, but it stressed him (and me) out a fare bit. With the costs/prices involved, we deserve much better than the poor service provided.

A bit harsh Nosoup, though I can see where you are comming from. For mind I can certainly see some good athletic and defense aspects to his game which have probably made a good contribution to the team when he has played. Not sure you have really been watching him play Nosoup if all you have seen is one good tackle, as I have seen plenty of desperate, effective tackles, spoils and good body contact comming from Joel. To me though he is yet to really stamp himself on the senior side with a run of consistent good footy (getting injured just as he is starting to get settled doesn't help that). Problem for me is that he often doesn't look all that confident, composed and purposeful in his ball use when he gets it (which isn't that often). I guess if he does a good enough lock down defensive job he doesn't nessasrily need to get heaps of the footy, but it always helps to have numerous strings to your bow. I have seen improverment in his game this year and still put him down as a bit of a work in progress and would like to see what he can do in the next year or two. Have to remember that he hasn't come off a huge base of rep footy development like many of the young guys, so might take a bit longer to mature from a game sense perspective which I think is the area of most need for improvement for him.

Too much detail. A bit of insider info?

Spot on. And the club should make Jayden shadow Jordan Lewis around the whole of preseason and make sure he gets some extra kicking tuition from him after every training session until he is an elite feild kick just like him. ...would love to see Jayden pull out a few more of those barrel goals like he did end of the third quarter against the Crows last year. Don't know where that one came out of.

What draft pick was Toumpas? The exact reason I don't think draft picks alone would be good value for Hogan - the draft can be an absolute lottery.

Doesn't exactly stand out as the kind of hard nosed, compeditive and resilient types that Taylor, Viney and Co. typically target does it.

So much has been made of the go home to WA and going back to family thing with Jessy, that I really wonder if those has been way overstated as motivating factors. Whilst it's difficult to fully know people's personal/family situations, I really do wonder what influence his family would be at this time. At the end of the day, it's only 5-8 or so more years out of his life that he would be living in Melbourne. I guess it is a personal thing, but I'd take the opertunity to play in a potential premiership team over more money (let's face it Jessy should retire with millions either way) and I'd be telling my kids to follow their own dream rather than feel like they need to stay close to home forever. I'm not sure it's a forgone conclusion that Jessy will even express an intention that he wants out. Probably fair enough to some extent that he weighs up the options in front of him and to some extent, there is no rush for him to make his intentions clear until it becomes an imperative within trade week.

Agree, but I'don't rather go after Gus's little bro. Regardless, I think we should go after Andrew and any other Victorian worth pursuing, to destabilize Freo the way they have consitanly done over the past period with Jessy. I really don't think first round draft picks are fair trade for Jessy and I'm not convinced May will deliver what we need either. All will become evident in the fullness of time, but personally I've still got a really bitter taste from loosing Scott Thompson to the Crows and also feel really duded loosing Howe to the Pies. I would absolutely spew if we lost Jessy and in the next few years he delivers on regularly being that Johnathan Brown dominant game changer type of player.

Personally I'm a little indifferent to his reporting style, but respect the effort, passion and professionalism he bought to the role. Sounds like the dream job of every hardcore Demons fan, but I'm sure it would be far harder to pull the gig off than first meets the eye. Any chance of turning the tables on him and getting him on the Demonland podcast? Perhaps we could Max on and have him interview Burgs?

Though he really fell away this year, I wonder if Josh Wagner could?

Suffer in your jocks Howe.

Doubt it's a rookie spot. If you have listened to Bernie speak lately, he seems pretty certain and comfortable that now is the right time for him to hang up the boots.

Also, if we can be the best team all year and particularly towards the back end, the draw is more or less irrelevant if we can be better than the other top eight teams we are pitted against and it also gives us another opertunity to beat them and deny them 4 points.

From what I recall, both Collingwood and Hawthorn had close calls with teams like Freo and the Saints late in the season that would have bumped them out of the four and us into it. It's a game of inches sometimes. What we should be aiming for is to be as dominant as teams like the Eagles and Tigers this year, so that we are safely in the top four, with a home final if possible.

And despite what some are saying Re our deficiency of outside runners and somewhat glut of bulls, I don't think we could have too many bulls. Thinking of the way the Brisbane Lions use to bully teams into submission and that's where we are heading. Of course we need some good outside runners as well, but they are more so competing with the likes of Hannan, Freitch, Lewis, Spargo, Tyson and Co moving forward.

Absolutely he is best 22 material when fit. Once he found his grove again, from about Rd 22 onwards VB made a huge impact in games and was a massive part of our late season sucess I thought. I don't think we have many players that bust packs open, move and create play the same way VB does. Brayshaw and Viney come close, but I don't think either of them have the same body size that alow them to pinball players in their way as well as VB. With his height, he also provides another tall forward option and makes us harder to match up on. I'd also argue that he has good instincts on where and how to find the footy.

Agree. I'd like to think though that the MFC could provide some assistance for VB to run the business whilst playing for us, perhaps with the help of business contacts in the coterie. You would hope that in the scheme of things, the AFL would permit some kind of such arrangement as being above board within sallary cap limitations. Though having said that, I'm sure the AFL would also love the chance to have a good player movement to the Swans to keep propping the Sydney teams up. In other respects, VB would also be a good promotional tool for the AFL in the NSW market, being a home grown product and in some senses I could respect that as being good for the game, but I'd also temper those feelings with how much the Swans and Giants have already been propped up at the expense of clubs like the MFC and my self interest in our club says I'd much rather keep VB, because the guy is an absolute bull and as you and others have mentioned has alot to give the MFC.

Snice Essendon got on the peptides, perhaps it's time to get him injected with some adamantium. Jack is like the Wolverine in all other respects.

I recon that's a big part of the problem. I think Jessy needs to make up his mind and be fully committed one way or the other. I don't think there can be any half heartedness where we are going. Really looking for key players to form that tight knit take no prisoners and team is bigger than individual attitude like Geelong did at the start of their reign of sucess. By fueling this continous speculation, I think Jessy is actually presently an impediment t that kind of commitment moving forward.

Possibly. If you listen to all the murmerings, the AFL wants to cut down runners time out on the ground, but I guess that just means that the runners have to be more efficient and effective when they are on the ground between breaks. I also recon that Bernie would be great in some kind of game day coaching role with our mids and or forwards. Could see him either on the bench providing coaching to our young brigade when they are resting during a rotation or picking up the nuances of how the match-ups and on feild positioning in the clearances is working out on game day. Whatever his role, I'd be rapted to have him around the club as I think he has that near perfect nexus of being all of a smart and canny footballer, driven for sucess and great positive/fun loving attitude which would make him a great asset to have around the club. ...perhaps there is also some canny finacial thinking on Bernie's behalf as well, as the real estate market isn't exactly tipped to be all roses in the imminent future.

True to a point, but I also think it would be the bitter taste of Scully that set the scene and lingers in tempting us to trade whist we have the capital. Ironically we pretty much used the Scully compensation picks to get Jessy, so that pretty much highlights the futility of the situation should he leave to some extent. I have been thinking that we could find out in the next little while, what matters more to Jessy - money or sucess. That is a good outcome in it's self to some extent and in my view is that he needs to make this a clear turning point. He can't continue to go on shopping himself around every time there is an opportunity to get back to WA or elsewhere, he will loose the respect of his teammates petty quickly and become corrosive to team cohesion if that's the way he continues to behave. I could understand if he did leave for genuine family reasons, but I'd also struggle to believe that if he was moving on a hugely inflated contract. IF he leaves for ridiculous money, then good riddance as I think that would mean he's not really the kind of player we want on our list going forward anyway.

So apparently Bernie has put a full time real estate career on hold to accept some sort of role with the MFC next year. ...filling the water bottles according to the man himself. Good news. I recon Bernie would make a great water boy. A real win for team moral and culture.

Sorry, this talk of him being totally finished is such utter rubbish. Yeah he was bloody ordanary in the prelim, but so was half the side. Lewis was a stand out performer in the Rd 22 game against West Coast and also the Crows game at the Adelaide oval, for just two clutch games that I can think of. And how many of the younger guys say how invaluable his finals experience was for the Elimination and Semi finals. It's true, as Bernie somewhat showed this year, that we don't know when his body and mind will fall completely off a cliff, but even if we only get the equivalent of half a season out of him, he'll provide a much better return and investment than anything we would likely replace him with on the list, given we have already have 7 delisted/retired players.