Rodney (Balls) Grinter

9 hours ago, David-Demon said:

"Collingwood legend Nathan Buckley says he doesn’t believe Brayden Maynard’s collision with Angus Brayshaw warrants suspension, suggesting there’s too much “grey area” in the AFL’s focus on duty of care."

Listening to Buckley and Brown talk about this and making excuese for Maynard on 'On The Couch' last night made me just question their intellect (as if I hadn't already).  I generally like them as comentators and think they offer a more reasoned ballanced and insightful viewpoint than alot, but last night they lost me.

In particular Buckley described the contact to Maynard as "incidental" .  If blokes getting knocked out is incidental, I don't know where we go to from here.  I suspect it was a mistaken word selection and he ment accidental, but that's an asides.

The point well made by hoast Garry Lyon is that we've accepted there is a responsibility of the player to have a duty of care during the football actions of tackling and bumping, then why not the same for smothering?  But Buckley and Brown seemed to take the dumb stance that this was an unavoidable 'football incident' inherent to the game, which I think is wrong.

17 minutes ago, rollinson 65 said:

No, Balls in in my sniper sights.

You do know who you're talking about here yeah?

Do you fancy eating through a straw like my old mate Terry?

1 minute ago, rjay said:

Is that more games than Cornes???

I think Mundy wins.

More games and more brains.

5 hours ago, Mickey said:

Seems a few of the Dees weren't too pleased with Maynard's visit

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2023/09/11/melbourne-teammate-left-angered-by-maynards-awkward-brayshaw-visit/

My tips would be (in order) Jack, Maysy or Clarry.

There will be way more spite than the duck dinner game next time we play Collingwood.  Will be rip the head off the Magpie time.

2 minutes ago, rollinson 65 said:

Hey, Balls.

You are now officially censored. Take care to read tins entire thread (are we up to 60 pages now?) before sticking out your neck again.
  

Seriously?

PO

3 minutes ago, MrFreeze said:

https://www.6pr.com.au/david-mundy-the-afl-is-trying-to-adjudicate-the-game-they-want-tomorrow-not-the-game-were-seeing-at-the-moment/

David Mundy has weighed in on the Brayden Maynard incident which has divided the football world.

Speaking during his regular Monday night segment on Wide World of Sports, Mundy set the agenda off the top, setting phone lines alight.

“Laura Kane stepping in signals that the AFL is trying to adjudicate the game that they want tomorrow, not the game that we’ve had in the past, and not the game that we’re seeing at the moment.”

“If Brayden Maynard was falling and that was Scott Pendlebury underneath him, I think he would make a different decision than cover up and just protect himself and not worry about the other player.”

When asked by Adam Papalia what Maynard should have done differently, Mundy used all of his 376 games of AFL experience when building his response.

“When you’ve jumped up and you’re in the air and there’s a player underneath you, you have the ability to almost catch yourself as you’re falling on top of them. It would have been really awkward and they’d have had a tumble, but that response has a much lesser chance of resulting in serious health concerns."

Amazing how well co-ordinated players can be when trying to win or do something with the ball, the  turn into such clumsy oaths when there isn't any incentive to control their actions.

Similarly, I think Tommy Hawkins got away with a reckless act when he threw his arms out everywhere and broke Steven May's face a few years back.  ...Melbourne player, no story to answer here.

21 minutes ago, Macca said:

And if the lame attempt at smothering was dismissed out of hand (as it should be) then Maynard would be up for not only high contact with a severe outcome but also, the careless action could be replaced with malicious intent

6 or 7+ weeks

It will be interesting to see how hard Gleeson goes as he has gone hard before (if Gleeson is the prosecution officer in this case)

Spot on Macca.

This "he lost control once he chose to jump" [censored] is just that.

He was fully in control when he charged at the player with the ball, with no regard for where his momentum would take him.  When he jumped he gave away further control and care for his opponent.  That he then chose to protect himself at the expense of his opponent further demonstrates his disregard and recklessness.

Football action my backside.

The only football action in all this is Angus kicking the ball.  If you want to stop players doing that part, take your bat an ball and go home, because we won't have a sport.

38 minutes ago, YearOfTheDees said:

She also said the AFL let Goodwin remarks go unfined due to what had happened.

How could Goodwin possibly be fined for what he said?

All he did was said look at the facts and that he'd been knocked out.  Can't get too much more vanilla than that.

The tone that he delivered it with and gravity of the situation really packed the punch.  The fact that it took Goodwin to deliver this and not others in the AFL and the media is a disgrace.

The way he stood up in our 2021 season when he returned from injury was a huge part of our rock solid defense and of us winning the flag.

Love the Pig Hibbo.

A most worthy bearer of the No.14 and I think whoever next receives the jumper will have big shoes to fill.

4 minutes ago, GM11 said:

Sure I heard him on commentary agreeing that there was nothing in it.

This was Saturday morning I heard him batting against Maynard.  Perhaps he'd had more time to reflect on his previous spur of the moment comments.

1 hour ago, dice said:

The problem will be on appeal when your former colleagues get involved and use all their cunning, trickery and legal jargon to get him off, as what happened with Cripps last year

The same legal jargon peddlers that will no doubt also be getting their cut when players start making claims on the league for duty of care.  They are such overpaid leeches on our society at times.

One thing I will say for Goodwin is that he rarely defends or makes excuses for one of our players that is in the firing line of the MRO for head high contact.

We copped Kossies 2 match suspension for a similar incident to Maynards on the chin so to speak and the the only time that comes to mind that we have appealed reciently was for the JVR spoil, which as a massive level less severe.

I do also like Goodies response post match against Collingwood, when he forcefully told the press to look at the facts of what had been the outcome with Guss.  You could tell this one is very personal to him and the way he stood up to the press and stood up for what had been done to one of our own makes me proud of him as our coach.

Conversely the way Maynard was immediately post match making excuses for himself trying to paint it as a football incident makes me sick.

1 hour ago, BDA said:

There is not much support for a ban in the media. Just looked at the Sunday footy show and none of Cornes, Lloyd, Nathan Brown or Damian Barrett think he should be suspended. What am i missing here? I haven't seen too many pundits make the case for a suspension. I reckon he's going to get off.

Somewhat unsurprisingly James Brayshaw was amoung the few that was advocating for the rightful suspension to be dealt out, but he also suggested that if Angus was the aggressor he'd also be telling him that he'd just have to cop the suspension.

I've had enough of all this 'football act' shouldn't be suspended rubbish.  In my mind, the AFL have set the benchmark on this over the past several seasons.  Kade Chanldler got suspended for 2 matches accidentally falling into the back of someone when being slightly over zealous applying a takle.  Maynard's actions were on another level of reckless compared to Kade's - he should be looking at 4 - 6 weeks, not 2 - 3.

Can't go changing the rules because of finals and Brownlow contention like Crips, that would be so weak.

1 hour ago, daisycutter said:

thanks, but i didn't get an email on friday from club

doesn't matter now i know, just curious why no email. i usually get all emails

No email on Friday for me either, it's only trickled through this afternoon at around 12:30pm.

Similar thing happened first week of finals.

I really don't understand why in 2023 we are left with such a messed up disorganised finals ticketing system that we need to log on and queue for tickets online at 10am on a week day?

The stress, hassle and expense of getting finals tickets is really taking some of the joy out of being a part of finals for me.

At Southern Cross waiting for my old man to arrive from the bush and there's too much black and white stuff around for my liking.

Just now, Dr. Gonzo said:

My boy Spaz! I feel like he's in a for a big game/series.

I'm  expecting him to hit full beast mode in finals.  Underrated, but highly valuable impact type player.

7 minutes ago, Deemania since 56 said:

For this match, Viney, Clarrie and Tracca need to stay vitally invasive and interruptive with the Collingwood attempts to dominate, yet not to over-expend their energies in so doing. They should rely on support at all times; the teammates are there to assist - and to test black & white fitness, endurance and recoveries, particularly in the first half of the game when hopefully the Dees have kept in touch on the scoreboard. After the long break, it is time to go berserk with our game with all Dees' players exerting full pressure and our winning second-half power game. Clarrie, Viney and Tracca can then step on the gas to see us through - by 25-30 points, I'd reckon. 

They might be able to quell one of that magnificent trio to an extent, but another Jack-in-the-box like Guss, Rivers, Sparrow or Kossie is likely to be injected into the midfield to cause some chaos.

In particular, I think Tommy Sparrow is another of those 'built for finals' types we have.

With Tommy Mac back in the team and Hibberd down back to play the third tall(ish) defender role, I also think the conditions are primed for Joel Smith to play that defensive forward role that Melksham was playing.  He's a great contested mark and I think it would absolutely suit him to have his opponent take him to the ball.  Once it hits the ground, he's got some of the best jets in the game and a great defensive mindset and tackling technique  to stop the fast rebound.

Wearing my MFC scarf on the train on my commute to work this morning and getting alot of "Go Dees" comments from passers by. 

The sleeping giant has awoken!  

Since 2021, we are everywhere down here in Melbourne, proud and brimming with a quiet confidence that hasn't been prevalent in most of my time following the mighty Demons 💙❤💙❤💙❤💙❤

...that and everyone else is jumping on us, because they hate Collingwood! 🤣

4 hours ago, Neitz the Great said:

Anyone else struggling to sleep 😩😩

Yep.  My whole week has been building up to this point.  Work is going to fly by today.

The oppertunity to win and go straight through to a prelim is huge.  Hasn't presented many times in my life and that isn't lost on me.

I'd really really like to play one of GWS or Carlton in the GF, but I just don't think it's feasible with the way the draw pans out, unless we lost our first qualifying final.

Carlton have had a great run towards the back half of the home and away season, but I think they'll come unstuck in finals.

If we win our QF, I see us comming up against GWS in the prelim and I think we'd have their measure this time.  They did have a fair bit of luck go their way in Alice Springs, including us kicking 100 behinds and I think we are better than that now.  I think they'll also be stuffed by the time they make a prelim and maybe will see an inverse version of Melb V WC 2018 or us repeat the 2021 Geelong style prelim rout.

Despite Fagan's insistence they're in their best position ever to make it all the way, I still see them as somewhat flaky and I think Collingwood will bust a gut to beat them at the Gabba, leaving a classic Melbourne Vs Collingwood GF.

Demons, Blues, Giants, Lions
Pies, Giants
Demons, Pies
Demons

Thought this might be a reasonable place to acknowledge and congratulate Jayden Hunt on his 4th placing in the WC B&F.

Although the current state of the Eagles list somewhat tempers the achievement, I still think it's a good effort from Jayden to be a consistently good performer in a struggling side.

Jayden certainly gave the impression that he was a pretty solid citizen  at the MFC and I'm guessing his contribution to WC will likely go beyond his 4th B&F on feild placing.

Shows how far the MFC has come in the past 5 years, when we were the ones recycling excess tallent and experience from the lists of others, where we have now become an exporter of such tallent ourselves, with Hunt, Baker, Bedford, Jackson and to an extent Weiderman.

On 8/31/2023 at 11:44 AM, No. 31 said:

The Melbourne name, the pedigree of being the origin club for the whole code, elegant club colours and current highly competitive squad places the Demons in a great pisition to tap into new supporters, which I think is already happening (just my anecdotal observations).

Should be aiming for 75K+ in 2024 👍

On 8/30/2023 at 6:15 PM, Supreme_Demon said:

You win games of football and you play finals and win Premierships, then you will naturally see our membership numbers grow!

On a related note, I recall a great moment at a work training session a few weeks back, when everyone was throwing out an interesting fact to introduce themselves with and the topic was inevitably answered by many (including myself) with which footy team you support.  Small group, but the majority (x2) were Melbourne supporters.  The one person in the group willing to admit they were an Essendon supporter also confessed that their son was swayed to become at Demon for life based on our 2021 premiership and the Bombers being total trash.  This is how it works.  Really hoping Essendon (and Hawthorn for that matter) don't get close to it for another 20 years and perhaps by then  they will be irrelevant with a much diminished membership/supporter base.

5 hours ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

Also, Thursday can’t come quickly enough, clearly. 😑

Are we there yet?

I've actually got an excitement around this year's finals series that I didn't have so much last season. 

On a related note, mentally my plans for the week all work up to and end at Thursday night!

13 hours ago, samcantstandya said:

I wonder why they never tried even for a part of a quarter having both Grundy and Gawn at the centre bonce and around the ground, They could alternate going up for the ruck.

This was always mooted with Jackson i.e. "he's so mobile he could play like another midfielder" and similar has been said of Grundy's physical attributes.  However that it was never actually tried in home and away, says to me it would be a huge risk to do so for the first time in finals.  I wounder if the club has ever actually tried it in match simulation and found it to be a dud?

To me the mis-matches and confusion it could create for the opposition around the ground during ball ups and throw ins could create some oppertities, bus similarly also expose venerabliities if the opposition quickly work it out and have an dangerous on-baller that is able to get free enough to reek some havoc.  Against a team like Collingwood that love fast and attacking ball movement, I feel that we wouldn't be prepared to take the risk, particularly when our own game is so much built around defense - we'd be giving up our best advantage.

12 hours ago, gs77 said:

Let's not rewrite history - he looked absolutely stoked to be playing earlier this season, celebrating goals and wins with exuberance, going in to bat for teammates, etc.

Agreed.  I feel that Grundy was and still is as invested as you could be to the team.  Seems like a top bloke and I've got no doubt that if he's picked he will be playing his heart of for the red and blue.  I actually didn't get that feel with Luke Jackson's performances in finals last year in particular, but maybe that's harsh and he was tired and physically spent.

Not particularly comfortable with him meeting with Port before either of our seasons are finished, but when you look at the circumstances which bought him to us, I actually can't blame him to an extent, although I do also feel that the Collingwood pushing him out the door vibe is quite different to the embrace that the MFC have shown him. 

I guess in this 'professional era' of player movements that this sort of mature approach of players talking to clubs and understanding what their options might look like can be expected - if so, I just hope Grundy is being open with the MFC and Port are also preparing to talk reasonable suitable compensation.

P.S. I feel this is quite a different circumstance to a team trying to poach an up and comming young star from our list like Kossie.