Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Frosty was our best back today by a long shot. Liked it in the first quarter when he was prepared to back himself, run off his (overrated) man and lay a hard tackle of the Swans player who was charging tawards goal on the boundary. Cops more than his fair share does Frosty. He didn't shank a kick today, but Jessy, Tommy and half a dozen forwards certainly did and cost us the game. I thought Oscar was also ok today, but infortunately, Hunt was practically dead wood. Nother sure that Bailey was a winner down back today either, compared to what he might have provided up forward.

Three main take aways from today's game: 1. Kicking 18 behinds whilst dominating most of the play will generally lose you the game; 2. How many Swans passes that traveled 7m qualified as 15m by the umpires? 3. I seriously can not stand the telecast comentators today.

I officially hat BT

I'be had to hold back the urge to vomit because of all the Sydney love numerous time since quarter time. Come on Demons kick straight and get the job done

How good is our midfeild going when a handball to the back of the head ends up with a shot on goal

If you look at what the Pies have done this year, Rd 23 last year doesn't look nearly as bad, even the North game to some extent. Still can't get away from the fact that we both ran out of steam and choked though. ...not this time.

Will have to give this one a try. I normally use a waterbased product on my deck.

Sitting back drinking complementry beers from the MFC and their agents talking over the final details of their new contracts with Jason Taylor and Todd Viney in the background...

Indeed. If only I rubbed it more often it wouldn't take so much work to get it into shape!

Agreed. I like the euphoria of close wins, but I'm not sure my cardiac system can handle too much more of the raised blood pressure that precedes them.

Around 9 X 4m

I'll be sanding my back deck this morning. You could come over and do that for me if you want to pass some time. Hopefully it becomes an analogy for this afternoon - 'grinding the Swanies into the ground!'

I hadn't done the maths on the percentage equation, but considering the respective opponents, those winning/loosing margins are pretty credible. I recon if we win today though, with the confidence and beleif that will build we will win at least one, if not both of our last two games.

F I hope our boys can get the job done today. Would be an awesome feeling heading into the last two rounds with a finals spot all stiched up and just playing for form and the best possible ladder/first round finals position. IF we win, I think it would leave Sydney, Port, Geelong and North as the teams fighting it out and most likely to miss. Certainly not counting any chickens at this point though as we were more or less in this position last year and lost a very winnable game to North that essentially torpedoed our finals push. However this morning I am viewing the footy world with optimisim that the worm has turned that through trials and tribulations of the past few years and this season we have reached a point of maturity that we have the fundemental footy stocks, resolve and composure to win these big games. Carn the Demons bring it home - finals 2018 and beyond!!

I think Hunt is more so to cover the role of Smith. Pedo takes big pack marks at AFL level, Smith doesn't do that yet.

Pedo is in the 22, I'm thinking that is a good bet each way for either fully covering Max in the ruck, or at the minimum he plays that big man intercept marking role that Max has played so well in the back half of the season to give Max a bit of a chop out.

To me the solution is fairly obvious - play the AFLW finals series into the start of the men's comp and play the games as curtain raisers. I think in this way the AFLW would be complementary rather than competitive against the men's comp. Rd 1 of the men's comp will always attract huge attention, so they could actually give the women a bye round in Rd 1 and give them a chance to get all their stars back on the park for finals, thus raising the standard of finals games to be played in front of large live crowds. By around round 3 or 4 interest in the men's game has probably dipped a bit and the AFLW finals could actually add to the level of interest and media attention for the AFL. Last year's AFLW GF attracted around 7,000 at Icon (Princess? - how appropriate) Park. How much better would it be for all involved if it was played in front of 30,000 to 60,000 at the MCG, Adelaide Oval, Gabba etc. Having the women's GF played as a curtain raiser would probably add a few thousand suporters to that games attendance, but probably still financially superior to opening up Icon for only 7,000. Playing the game on a big stage would also do more to boost the profile and equatable status of AFLW, intangibles that shouldn't be overlooked or undervalued. To a cirtain extent the whole sucess to date of the AFLW has been built around these drivers. I am also leaning towards the view that match payments for the AFLW should be increased to be much closer to the mens. It has been documented in several articles I have read reciently that the AFLW has lead to huge increases in participation at the grass roots level, (helping to fend off the basketball and soccer invaders and establishing another beach frount in expansion states) and that has only got to be good for the health of the game both spiritually and finacially moving forward, providing more than ample justification for a significant increase. Win - win.

That could actually be a reasonable solution in the circumstances. Could have something like east Vs west in the two pools to the extent possible to keep a lid on air travel costs would also keep interstate and intra state rivalries burning. The other option could be to contract the size of the competition altogether and rebuild it as a state of origin competition which would have the effect of reconcerntrating the talent pool and lifting the standard of games. ... but I can't actually see anyone back tracking that far. I can't remember which are the AFLW expansion teams - is there two Perth or Adelaide teams?

Backup plan this year would have been Pedo. Given his age, obviously that gets less viable the longer time goes on, but still could do a stand-in ruckman's role along with either Tommy Mac or Frosty next year if required. Not convinced that Weid offers much in the ruck at present, but perhaps he will get better at the second/backup ruck role as he further matures.

If Kent can start producing what he was earlier this year, I think he would have Vanders measure this season. Kent strung together an excellent run of form and bought real pace and intensity to the side ...and then got injured. To some extent Vanders is also competing with Trac for that mid-forward bull role and unless he gets injured Trac is by far the superior option there. But regardless of natural talent and athletic attributes, it's certainly can't hurt to have depth, good competition for spots and Vanders certainly does have that hard competitive edge to him that is of great value either in or out of the side. Regardless of the level of contribution he makes this year, I very glad that Vanders had made it back this far. We have had too many players completely crueled by long term injuries at Melbourne over the preceeding 5 years. Would be happy to see him offered another contract and see what he can do with another preseason.

That's exactly what I'm aluding to. Prior to that he had kicked probably 20.3 for the season. I had built so much faith in his remarkable accuracy that I thought I could relax and pencil it down as a goal whenever he marked inside 50. Huge fan of Tommy's and what he has brought to us as a key forward is awsome. I'm just being greedy that's all.

Liked the way he is moving and bullying the opposition out of it when he wins those ground balls and then turning and delivering the ball to team mates with confidence. He has had some down games of late and didn't make a huge impact for most of the game against Adelaide last week, but I have liked the way he has kept persevering. Might not have stared against Adelaide, but still contributed with that goal from a free late in the third and I thought his effort to bring the ball to ground in the final major play that ended with a gather by Trac and goal to ANB was crucial. The other who has found their mojo in recient weeks is Trac. That powerful mark he took deep forward yesterday is certainly something we could do with more of over the next few weeks.

Harmes just keeps steadily building his game year on year. One thing I have liked about his tagging role is that once he gets on top, he still gets involved offensively as well - was particularly evident against Adelaide. One other aspect to his game which was particularly on show yesterday is his ability to kick goals. A key plank of the great sides of the modern era (Brisbane, Geelong, Hawthorn) was to have a plethora of goal kicking mids, which is something the likes that we are now building with Clarry, Gus, Harmes, Brayshaw, Melksham, Trac and to some extent with some of our defenders the likes of Salem, Hibbard and perhaps even the odd goal from Lewis.

What's going on with Tommy Mac's goal kicking? He has developed a serious case of the yips these past 3 - 4 weeks. Letting down his elite set shot accuracy record badly. So long as he can correct it and steer it through the big sticks when it might count more in the weeks to come, I'll let him off with some of his descrepancies of recient times. On the flip side, Jessy appears to have mostly sorted out the horror run of bad misses he had a few years back.

One thing that I think can be said for GC team that played yesterday was that they played with effort and endeavor which is something we certainly didn’t in the 186 game, so on that measure alone, they are not the worst team to be fielded in history. At quarter time I was actually hoping that there was a chance we could supercede 186, but I don't think we as good as that Geelong side (yet) and neither were GC probably that bad. The other factor that may have played into things, which I'm sure the coaches would publicly deny is that my guess is that they would have held back ground time for key players like Gawn for next week and I'm not sure we would have seen Clarry play as much time forward against better opposition.