Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Majak Daw knows how to defend: Scott Thompson https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/sport/afl/majak-daw-knows-how-to-defend-scott-thompson-20180305-p4z2w5.html All I can say is that I'm hopeful Daw lines up in the backline and plays like he did against us in the JLT, when we play them in the home and away. Jessy Hogan and Tommy Mac would be liking their lips at the thought of the ensuing goal fest.

Agree. I personally think our midfield has been lacking one or two players that can really pack a punch moving the ball forward. I always thought Salem was slated as a future midfielder when we recruited him. I like his toughness, compeditiveness and his class with his disposal. Reminds me a bit of Jimmy Bartell in his prime. As much as I understand the need for players with quality foot skills down back, I've often thought Salem was wasted down there and he looked like he didn't really enjoy or was fully suited to the fully defense mindset down back. Besides, we have medium sized backline players to burn these days. We really do need players that can deliver well and find targets inside 50 as so often we have dominated time in forward half, only to miss targets and waste opportunities for quality shots on goal. I also think the club has taken a conservative approach, holding back some younger players from having big midfield time/roles too early in their career when they were physically and psychologically less developed. I think it's now time to throw guys like Salem, Brayshaw and Harmes in there and have them bust it up a bit and hopefully take some opposition midfields to pieces.

I think what was implied is that he wasn't expected to be rushed into the side as an 18yo and be one of the saviors of the team.

Speaking of replys and Foxtel, they had some good MFC games from the 90s on reciently on Foxfooty's History Month. One game Vs Geelong had some interesting moments. Mark Neld kicking out for Geelong from full back (literally the only kick I saw him get all game). Garry Ablett kicked 10 or 11 goals from full forward, but we still pulled away and won in the second half, largely due to a sensational game from Glen Lovett, who dominated their star midfield (including Hocking) and kicked 3 goals himself. If I recall correctly, it also featured a few handy goals from yours truly and a bag from Darren Cuthbertson, in one of the half a dozen games of his career that he was a force. No Sean Wight in this game and I had to feel sorry for Peter Rode and Steven Febby playing on G.Ablett - Rode to slow, Febby to weak. The other game I have watched was Vs Collingwood. Great seasawing close game. Very late 90s, big Jim's 250th. Jimmy himself played a great game, comming into his own by running all day and dropping back in defense in the second half starting many rebounding efforts. Other notable players efforts that day included Hopgood, S. Febby, Todd Viney playing at half forward and Brent Grgic who kicked a nice bag and provided a good target when moved into attack. Poor Jeff Farmer did a hammy in the first or second quarter, Swartz and Jeff Wight were bloody hopeless and couldn't get near the ball, let alone mark it. Anthony Ingerson and Jammie Shannohan battered manfully against the Rocca brothers, limiting the to just a few goals. The real star of the show for me though was Joel's dad, Shaun Smith, who sat the whole first quarter and a bit on the bench, but then came on and kicked five goals for the afternoon. Most people will always remember Shaun for his high marking and 'that grab' he took on Garry Lyon's head, but this game exemplified his all round courageousness and the absolute dead eye dick he was from a set shot. The MFC ended up winning the game by less than a goal I think in the end. Great reliving those days.

I did like it when AFL/VFL was a only semi profersional back late 80s. That said, I do think there is truth that other international sports would take the best athletes and take over if the AFL was not able to complete on a player payments basis, which is where a fair portion of the TV rights costs go.. Just look at what has happened to West Indian cricket. Personally I fork out for Foxtel, but only because I live interstate and can't attend many live games. Biggest beef I have with Foxtel is that I have to pay for all their other crap channels. There use to be some half decent stuff on BBC Knowledge and a few other channels, but then they rebundeled it a few years back and I'd have to pay extra for those, so now I get my non footy viewing mainly from ABC iView, SBS onDemand and YouTube. Rarely even bother with free to air, except on grand final day.

Up here already got my tickets. Great to have two games in Qld after none last year, although disappointed we are no playing at Metricon/Carrara as it's a great stadium.

You could well be right about his kicking style inhibiting his ability to cleanly dispose of the ball during play, it certainly does look a bit propy at times. That said, he can be a reliable set shot on goal under pressure. Remember well the goals he kicked against Geelong in our victory against them in 2015 and Hawthorn in 2016. He looked pretty good against the Hawks that day and looked like he was about to break out into a quality, regular player, but instead has somewhat plateaued and been overtaken for his place in the side by the likes of Nibbler. Incidentally, Nibbler also looked like a real prospect of a player right from the start in that 2015 game againt the Cats, think he kicked 3 goals or something and did some other pretty good stuff, then wasn't quite at the right level or make enough impact at the senior level in 2016. You could well be right about Billy's other inherent limitations and perhaps they might ultimately inhibit him from being a regular senior player at the MFC, but I haven't given up hope on him just yet. A big part of me really likes the loyalty and romance that he, Viney, Smith and Maynard bring to the table and motivated, determined players can find ways around their weaknesses and develop a role for themselves. If I had to sum up where I think the two are at right now, I'd say Billy has potential, but Nibbler is delivering. I do realize though, that with limited list spots in modern AFL teams, at age 22 and 5 years or so in the system, Billy's time to deliver on his potential is fast running out.

Agree with alot of this. I'm just hoping those second tier/depth players and up and comming stars like Petracca will be a step further physically developed and go the whole distance this season. Our season last year was somewhat wrecked by injuries to star players (and to a certain extent the mis-management there of) at the wrong time of the season, but also a general fade out and inability of the emerging younger players like ANB, Hunt, Harmes, Oscar, Frost, Salem and others to produce at a high intensity for the whole season. I guess I'm also hoping that the further development of guys like Trac, Oliver, Viney, Hogan, Salem and Brashaw that have the potential to be A graders out strips the drop off of guys like Jones, Vince and Lewis. Gawn is a proven A grader when he's fit and in form, but I felt he was effectivly only a B grade player for most of the second half of last season when he came back. Melksham only found his vibe in the back half of last year, but looks primed to rip in from the get go this year (I'm remembering all the winnable losses at the start of last season) The other guy that has potential to add depth that didn't quite ready and didn't really get the opportunity to do so last year is Maynard. All up though, I'm not counting too much off the back of JLT games though. I also remember dominating and toying with a close to full strength Carlton in a JLT game, only to fight and struggle to get a win against them in the season proper when it actually counts.

Yep... and if we just miss out on finals due to %, it will all come back to this I'll fated decision.

Third quarter. Ball on the edge of the oppositions foward 50, Stretch to Nibbler, to Melksham, to Hannan just inside our foward 50, goes back and drills it right through the middle in windy conditions. Such clean, confident ball movement end to end. Can anyone have thought the MFC capable of such just 3 or 4 years ago?

Sorry ifor this has been pointed out before, but I recon Tommy Mac might have been robbed of a great goal on Saturday. That one he wheels around from the boundary and snaps. Comentators said he missed and goal umpire flags a behind (Fox didn't show the hand signals that preceeded), but I thought at the time and have confirmed via freeze frame on the replay tonight that the ball clearly goes the right side of the post for a goal. The only possibly was that it might have skimed the post, but there isn't any obvious deflection. Mighty good shot at goal regardless and big Tommy is certainly showing some good forward line skills. Bring it on (again) in the season proper I say.

Agree. I think Billy has most of the same wepons, skill set and personal trays - speed, attack on the football, work rate and proffesionalisim. Watched him closely on Saturday and it just doesn't seem to be clicking for him at the moment. If there is perhaps one key thing he might lack in comparison to Nibbler it's vision and decision making with the football.

What is up with Frost? Fit, but not considered for JLT 1? In form and/or with some minor further improvement in his game I think he could be an important part of the team.

I'm not sure that JKH and Kent are really being talked about for selection at the moment (not that I'm writing them off either though). But I was really quite pleased with the performance of all our small-medium forwards yesterday. Pressure without and execution with ball were excellent I thought.

Cunningham has certainly caught my attention. Am I recalling correctly that this is her first season of AFL? Huge upside. Height, athleticism and can play footy.

Watching yesterday's game on reply now. Nice first quarter goal to Alisha Newman.

Good analysis and agreed. The other area where the women's game will be inherently at a disadvantage with respect to congestion is the lesser distance that players can achieve, both by hand and foot which will inherently compress the spread of players around stoppges and make it harder to break out into open space. Not sure how that could be best combatted? Limited zoning perhaps? (Which I also think could be a good thing for the men's game). Perhaps cut the feild in half and make it that all defenders can not go past half way, with one player a side to be perminantly positioned in the foward 50 arc...might be reasonably feasible to umpire using GPS tech now. I'm still at a miss as to why the AFL don't keep pulling back the interchange limit in the mens game. In my mind, it would force players to pace themselves more and for coaches to revert back to tactics that didn't rely on every player trying to cover the whole feild all the time. Aussie rules is at it's best when it's a free flowing display of airial and ground ball contests between a limited number of opponents, not a huge pack of players fighting for clearances. The occational pack is ok IMHO, but when the game starts to be defined more by packs than ball movement is when it looses it's appeal.

Doesn't look as 'unfit' as Tony Locket did at times when he played and no one seemed to make a huge thing about that. I don't recall plugged going for too many runs on the ball like Cranston either.

Upscaling/adjusting of the scores from yesterdays MFC Vs Crows game for minutes played would have us scoring almost the 100 points level (98.82 to be precise) generally considered to be par in the men's game. Even then, there were numerous times in the second half of last season our mens team failed to get above the 100 points mark.

A few observations I made from the MFC Vs GWS game: 1. Some patches of good ball movement and good ball control/skills; 2. Both teams actually had the ability to move the ball the length of the feild and score quite quickly at times, to the point that, with only two minutes still remaining, I was concerned that GWS were still in striking distance of scoring a match equalizing goal. It also needs to be remembered that the women also play shorter game time, so that will inherently reduce scoring; 3. As much as I thought I would hate the so called 'last touch out of bounds' rule, I was pleasantly surprised that the actual rule seemed quite ok. It's not really last touch rule at all, but more of a last controled possession, which I see really working as a more objective form of the deliberate out of bounds rule; 4. The main problem I saw with conjestion was the umpires unwillingness to pay holding the ball for player diving on and sitting on top of the ball. They seemed to alow far more tolerance of that than in the men's game. That's not so much a player skill thing as an umpiring one. If the umpires pay the free kick more quickly, the players will soon learn, adjust, get the ball out, stop diving on it or be moving it freely via the free kick. I can't comment much on the other AFLW games, though I have seen the odd good highlight. The unattractive moving maul in modern footy is as much a problem in the men's game and I'd rather the AFL take step like serverly cut back interchange or introduce zoning in a more normal preseason game than play this AFLX thing or mess excessively and intrusivly as they seem to have with the AFLW in this instance.

Like you said you were in the 2.7%. As an analogy I think there may well be 2.7% of people that would be ok with it if the International Olympic Committee forced Australia to compete in pale yellow and cyan or maybe green red and white so as not to clash with Brazil. Wouldn't make it OK. Conversely I don't think many Aussies really care whether we play in predominantly yellow or predominantly green, so long as the other colour is yellow or green. Adding a predominace of white completely changes the whole symbolisim of the teams colours if they didn't originally contain that colour. Whilst obviously I like all MFC supporters still celibrated the on field victories we have had in those hideous white and silver monstrosities, it adds a bitter aftertaste watching replays and highlights of the game with a jumper that isn't easily associated with the MFC. When we smash our opponents into oblivion in future seasons, they and their supporters will know they've been beaten by the team we love, the team of the RED and the BLUE.

I'm feeling it too. Have been thinking there is huge pressure on the team to make finals this year. As much as I think they are primed and ready to make the next step, the last few years and watching other teams like Carlton and Collinwood and North that were also said to be building over the past decade, but then only falter into mediocrity, tells me it's no certainty. I'm really looking for this Melbourne team to mature into something solid and dominant beyond MFC teams of the 90s and put a consistent season from start to finish, stitching up a top four position and setting it's self up for a realistic crack at the big prize, rather than scrapping out the last six rounds just to scrape into the top 8.

Personally, I'm a little of column A, column B and C. Would like to see a few of the current outsiders played key roles, step up and push a case to be picked round one, any guns comming back from serious injury put in cotton wool and the rest of the side played more or less in position. A few of Weiderman, Bugg, Maynard and possibly Harmes, Trac or Brayshaw are the sorts I think of as potentially stepping up into key roles and Stretch, Kent and JKH as fighting tooth and nail for a Rd 1 spot in their more established roles/positions. I don't think you can throw the magnets around too much that close to Rd 1 and then expect the team to click and play with good chemistry for the opening of the season proper. Thus I expect to see a few that are on the cusp of bigger roles in the senior team given some bigger trial runs in that position, some of the developing players given a small taste with limited game time, our B grade and fringe players putting in the bulk of game time and scrapping out their case for a Rd one selection. Sounds boring, but it's really the development in this later group of players that I think will make or break our season anyway. Under Paul Roos, Sydney were natiorous for playing preseason sides lacking many of their best 22, but turning up primed to play the season proper. I'm not sure if we are there yet, but I'd like to think that' where we are heading and that as others are mentioned I'd like to see a sustained full seasons output from guys like Viney, Oliver, Jones, Lewis, Vince, Hibbard, T Mac and Lever. I don't really think guys of this sort of quality and experience need a heap of game time to step up and be primed for Rd 1. The only exception of sorts would be that it would be good for Lever to play around his new team mates so they understand how each other plays a little better.

I do respect the moderators roll in aiming for some level of decorum, but the auto censor on this site is way too sensitive for my mind. [censored], [censored] and a few others I use in every day speach get censored. ...buy abreviating things like WTF are fine.

I thought there was some really good passages of play in todays game from both teams. Daisy and Cranston did some really stand out stuff which I thought was the difference in the last quarter. Umpiring though was generally pretty auful though. Forget this last touch out of bounds stuff for speeding up the game, they really just need to start paying holding the ball for players sitting on the ball on the ground more often, was a real blight on what was otherwise a decient game. There were certainly a few other dubious decisions and non decisions, but from a nonpartisan point of view, I thought the holding the ball in when on the ground took the cake of the poor umpiring.