Rodney (Balls) Grinter

I wasn't actually going to watch tonight. Feels kind of hollow. It would be ironic if Trac does win it tonight when he probably had a much better 2021. Similarly Clarry should have won last year. Seems such a shame that the league and media still makes this the premier players award when the voting is so flawed. AFLPA or coaches awards should be elevated to become the Brownlow replacement. Letting the umpires decide the league best and fairest is such a waste.

So are we actually asking the right question here? Do we need an Yze replacement or a forwards coach or both. For what it's worth, I think Yze has largely escaped criticism for the lack of forward connection in the past few years, when perhaps he was actually due some. Was a part of our 2021 premiership, by all acounts a great coach and a great player in his day and for both those things I'll be forever greatful. But maybe he has past his usefulness at the MFC and I think this actually presents a great opportunity for renewal. Just throwing some names out there as potential expert forward coaches Garry Lyon, David Schwartz, Mathew Lloyd, Brad Johnson.

I'd be blaming Ticketek too. Their systems are a joke. When I logged on for the Carlton game and finally got through, it kept rejecting my request for category 2 or 3 seating, on the basis of insufficient tickets, despite saying they had tickets available in those sections. Session ended up timing out and in the end I was lucky to end up with a category 4 seats behind the goals on the 4th level after waiting in the que a second time. I was only after 3 seats. If you pay for a grand final day guarantee, you'd expect more than standing room. It's time Gil and the AFL got up Ticketek. They've got a monopoly to print money and it's time they provided a service that actually works properly.

Ah, yeah. For any band wagon jumpers. They'll also get a Medicare rebate for the lobotomy required to become a fully fledged supporter as well.

Wasting their time. I think Collingwood supporters prefer the toothless look.

I've had a GFG ticket since 2018 (optermisic I know, but it nearly came off that year). 2021 I bought a second for my son and I. Thinking about it now, I'm a little disappointed the club didn't do something more to acknowledge and compensate those that bought GFG memberships in 2021, but I guess you could put the whole MFC membership in that camp and they did put on the day at the G I guess (that I didn't go to, due to being interstate and it being a little hollow). The Ticketek finals ticking system is a farce. The AFL are part of this issue as well. Any grand finals guarantee tickets should be effectively quarantined from the general pool until very late in the week. If there were a few thousand left unclaimed a few days out before the day, I'm sure they would find a good way to sell them (probably at a huge premium). You also shouldn't need to sit in a phantom online que duing business hours to get access to tickets. From what I've read, Ticketek themselves have confirmed what a farce this is with people basically pulled out of the que at random, rather than based on when they entered the que. The current Ticketek system just adds stress and frustration to a time that should be enjoyable and exciting for AFL fans. In 2023, you should be able to pre-enter all your membership details, seating/price point preferences and credit card details into the system in the days or even weeks before to register an application for tickets and then be sent those tickets to your account a day or so after both teams have qualified. Obviously for non garrenteed tickets there would need to be a lottery element to that, but at least that would be better than sitting around in the random que and wasting time for the eventual frustration of not being assigned a ticket or the ticket you wanted anyway. What's more if the clubs and the ticketing allocator actually cared enough, it should be possible to take some of the randomization out the allocations and allow those who applied, but missed out on tickets for previous games first option of being allocated tickets for the next one etc.

Saw on one of the North FB pages they think that Charlie Spargo is gettable for them. Played well in both finals apparently (Casey? and Vs Carlton). I do rate Charlie and if he values actually playing in finals, I can't see him going to North.

We get the drift 😂 It's not like any of us needed any inspiration to have a good heave at the moment.

And a smart one

Yeah, but they hardly play at the G. Should have really beat us here home and away and beat us convincingly in a final last year. I think that poor record counts for diddly squat. They are playing so much better footy than Collingwood.

Nah, if you've got a Collingwood or Carlton jumper those things and more are all endorsed. You know knock a bloke out why don't ya - it's all good.

I want to see Brisbane smash them.

Get a hair cut Moore you Farbio

The AFL has lost the plot with the umpiring of the holding the ball rule. DeGooey took on his opponent,was dragged to the ground with ball in hand and apparently that's play one. Far out. Take the rule out of the book.

Suck that Collingwood

The Giants need to put a jumping shoulder smother on Maynard. Legal play apparently.

Double speak a plenty in all this talk over the value of rucks. Apparently you don't need a good ruck, but if all you have are under developed kids to play the role, who would get smashed then maybe you need at least a solid performer with height and a developed body - turns out they arn't that easy to come by and if you've got one that is, then they're worth something. Add to all this is that Grundy isn't your average second string ruck and has put in a solid comeback season after having an injury cloud hanging over him when we picked him up. Hicky was a solid contender, who had Max's respect. I've no doubt the Sawns would appreciate that he bought that to their side and would this value the contribution a player like Grundy could make. Collingwood desperately needed to offload salary cap space and valued that more than anything. I don't think we're in that same position and think we certainly won't want to accept unders for Grundy. As an asides, while I don't think it's what is driving the Grundy trade, I'm woundering what our plans are for the cap space that we free up from Grundy? Does that help retain a player like Jordon or give us greater barging power to attract a mature key forward?

Couldn't agree more EO. When you look at what the MFC and it's leaders have been through over the past 15 years, nothing about that says 'fragility' to me. Being though isn't about not being knocked down, it's about the getting up again. We bomb out of finals contention in 2020 and the AFL media were sinking the boots into us and had almost completely written us off in 2021 (Brad Johnson if I remember correctly was one of the few who thought we could be up there, but most wrote us off). Many of the core group from 2021 had been there and suffered through years of getting thrashed and being the laughing stock of the AFL, yet found a way to persevere and build themselves and the team around them into a team that has a premiership and 3 top 4 finishes in the past 3 years. Despite all the injuries and setbacks we copped in the back half of the season and during finals, that we lost both games by around a goal or less, shows that the team had grit and spirit to fight out games and not drop our bundle and get thrashed on the way out as many others have in finals. There were stages in the second and third quarters against Carlton when they really looked like they had the ascendancy and were going to run away with it, but we held in there and got ourselves into a winning position. Similar Collingwood where despite being short Angus and a fresh substitute player we could bring on in the back half of the game, we fought our way back and nearly snatched it. In the 2021 GF, we came back from being 18 points down midway through the third and hardly kicked a point after that. Forward line efficiency and consistency is something we need to rectify. If we do that we will be THE dominant force within the AFL and no one will get near us.

Lions and the Giants either or will do.

In summary, in response to the question of disfunction, I'd say neither of our management or players are. To the contrary, you don't get where we have over the past 3 years if your dysfunctional. The results of our past two seasons do say there is room for improvement though and I think our track record says that we'll critically review seek that improvement out to give ourselves the beat shot at it again in future years.

Well reasoned post Queanbeyan, but the title of the thread is over negative click bait garbage. I'm really interested in the response to the questions you've posed, but my summary is that we did pretty well this season with the chips we were dealt. So Grundy won't be viewed as a sucess in retrospect, but the opportunity was there and worth a try. All up, I think Goody has the right approach and is always looking for ways to get better, without throwing the baby out with the bath water, but also prepared to make tough calls and changes when things clearly arn't working. Few saw us even making finals at the end of 2020, let alone making a premiership in 2021, so people can continue to write us off, I say. We'll be competing with a pretty good chance next year and I have confidence in the bulk of the players and coaching staff to do whatever is required to get there.

Really not liking some of the negativity and criticism of our coaching staff and players on here this morning. If we'd won, by 5 points there would have been some very different reviews. Thought we learned a lot of lessons from 2022 this year, but just got smashed by injury upon injuries to our forward half. Yey the players played their guts out and kept us in games when we were dealt some rubbish hands on game day as well. In 2021, everything clicked for us in our attacking game in the last 5 or 6 games of the home and away, but this season, every time we got close in that regard we had another injury to a key part of that forward setup that put us backwards. In retrospect, I wished we'd appealed JVR's suspension, because he might have been the difference against Carlton and what he did was a whole 3 levels less severe than what Maynard did. But next week, we probably would be smashed by Brisbane, like I hope Carton are and in all, I think we just didn't quite have enough go our way in the back 3rd of the season to be a truely dominant contender hitting the finals full of confidence like we did in 2021. Three top four finishes in as many years says we have the troops, the coaches and the culture to take us to another premiership with a few more tweaks and a bit more luck go our way. Max, Viney and Goodie are great leaders, with quality around them on that next level as well.

If only we had that version of T Mac now. His best years were wasted when we were putrid or not quite there yet. Tommy was an absolute athletic weapon when he was younger.

Maybe, but if we'd had the Jack Viney that rises to the occation, plays out of his skin and carries the team on his shoulders version of Jack, we'd probably have won. I'm not being hard on Jack, because the reality is it's neigh impossible to do that every week, but it would have been nice. We got smashed at centre clearances at times tonight and some better performances out of our mids might have just got us over the line.

Let's face it, we somewhat fluked it in 2021 when the key forwards we had in T Mac and Brown were able to stay out on the park enough and contribute at a level that ment we had a functional forward line. Dogga was a reasonable contributor who's marking capasity we've somewhat replaced with JVR. But until that point our forward line was a weakness up until 2021 and unfortunately, they were only able to hold it together physically injury wise for that one year. BBB was an absolute asset in 2021 when fit, but he's body has fallen apart since then, likewise T Mac. To a certain extent I think we pinned too much hope or faith on Weid making it as a key forward and didn't draft enough supplementary talls to develop along side him. This season our forward line has just been smashed by injury at every turn. T Mac and BBB trough age, accumulated injuries, Petty, Melksham and Fritsch through bad luck. While Fritsch played tonight, I think he's struggled to get back his elite set shot accuracy in an injury interuped season. I'm hoping that JVR comes back next year physically more developed, has benifited from the exposure and development he has got this season and imposes himself on games more as he really looks the goods at times and his goal kicking accuracy is superb. Like @picket fence, I think Joel Smith needs to be played as a regular forward as he's got all the weapons on the lead, in the air, with his set shots and is also defensively excellent with his elite pace. I was equally as impressed with some of his substitute backline roles late this season, but forward is where our greatest need is. Needs to stay fit and on the park the whole season next year and really hit the start of the H&A running. Whether it's Petty down forward again or we recruit another mature key forward, I think we still short that third key forward. I was impressed with those 3 or 4 games that Petty did impose himself as a forward this season, but something really does make me feel we lack that third key defenders and or the player to take over Steve May's place in the side one day and I think Petty is that guy. I like Tomlinson's determination, but I'm comming (perhaps somewhat belatedly) to the conclusion that he's just that fraction off the elite key defender material that made us so great in 2021.