Rodney (Balls) Grinter

My recollection is that it was his relationship with Simon Goodwin that lured him to the mighty MFC from the Bombers: Would like to understand what it was about Simon that motivated that decision at the time and if he's noticed much change in Simon Goodwin the person and coach since his time at the MFC. Also what is it that he's most appreciated about being a Melbourne player and part of the current playing group.

Gawn Dog, can you please explain if we're getting pick 5 and splitting for 7 and 11 (which seems like a potentially good move for us), where does pick 4 come from?

Obviously haven't had the best season this year, but similar things to your comments above were stated at the end of 2020 and the next year, they were both well deserved premiership players. Write them off at your peril I say. Both, but particularly T Mac have earnt their right to retire or play out his contract whenever they see fit.

I do get that, but similarly I feel bad for all the other players they have rubbed out over the previous few seasons for simply playing the game, but supposedly not showing enough 'care for the player' when the inevitable body contact occurred (Nibbler in 2020 and Chanler 2022 come to mind).

Watching Trac on 360 tonight - WTF rubbish internet provider is he with that I don't want to be with?

Nearly a Ben Brown run-up on that one. If he'd only gone all the way back to the 50m, he would have had the technique correct.

They might be on the right track to be half compeditive again in a few years. It's a big step from being able to be compeditive with good teams for a quarter to half of the season to doing it week in and week out and seriously pushing for finals. Hope their overconfidence in how great Mitchell and 'the Hawthorn way' are sees them mired in mediocrity for years.

They still have the arrogance built up from sucessful 80s - 2010 era and a sense of entitlement that they are on a rebuild trajectory that will get them back to that place in just another few years. I'd love to see them have another decade or two of mediocrity, where they bobble about between 12th - 9th and then make finals a few times perhaps, but only manage to finish in the 5th - 8th range and get knocked out in elimination, semi and prelim finals without ever really getting close to a flag to give there fans a reality check on what it's like to be a real football supporter. Their "You Melbourne supporters have become arrogant" remark is just the start of their on the outside looking in journey that they are not use to and don't like the feel of.

All good Steve. That's where the 'more robust' version was angled in terms of disposal reliability as well to an extent. To be honest, I haven't watched Jayden play much for WC this season and I think it's hard to gauge players that are a part of basket case teams. I was more just noting that he seems to be getting games and seems to be in their better players and kicking goals alot of weeks. I think Jayden's feild kicking and decision making did get better towards the end of his career with us though. Some of those plays where he took on the game with his dash through the centre square and great kicking delivery forward against Carlton in our come from behind win against them last season very much reminded me of Rivers plays against Brisbane a few weeks back. I think having Rivers comming through was probably a big part that stoped Hunt getting games and why we were ok with letting him go. Agree that Rivers is a superior player at this stage of his career and is a much better move for managing our list age profile.

I don't see either of these guys as line breakers, that's just not how they play or their role. They are more steady as you go defense and ball retention machines that slowly pick their way out of defense. Rivers is more your Jayden Hunt take on the game and break lines type, but a little bigger and more robust model, which I think is saying something, because Jayden actually matured to play his defensive role quite well from around 2021 onwards and is having a very decient year for WC.

Agreed. I use to play juniors on that ground sometimes. The Mustangs were really good our club, which although it wasn't a rep side per se, but they provided some in-kind support such as occational use of City Oval and we wore their jumper. Pity they got swallowed up by the Hawks, but it's probably a reasonable outcome for footy in the area given the sucess they've had since, converse to the realitive lack there of in the VFA era.

The easiest way for the AFL to quash these talks is for the AFL to introduce the draft lottery for the bottom 5 or 6. At the same time, they should introduce a floating fixture for the double up games, so that it gets decided once more of the season has played out and reduce the chances of having an easy draw from deciding the makeup and positions within top 8.

And one in the low 20s as well.

I'm guessing others have probably had their rant on this as well and while we also had our opertuity to win the game more decisively, the reality was that two good sides cracked in hard, with intensity and it was always likely to come down to the wire. While I'm happy to write this off being home and away and with us pretty much a lock for at least top 4, therefore the loss not costing us so dearly, if this was a big final, that goal review could have cost either side. The AFL continuously rants on about tge intergrity of the game and I think this is a big one. For a multi million dollar competition, I think it's really poor for the AFL to have such poor goal review technology if it's going to be used as a decider of scoring. Way too many times, that the umpires go to review scores, the cameras simply arn't in the right spot. It's about time the AFL invest in embedding multiple high speed, high definition camers in and around goals so that there is always a camera that has the right angle to make a clear decision. It should also do investigations into infra red heat cameras and embedding the ball with telemetry to detect small impacts, which I would think should be totally feasible in this day and age of micro electronics. While I'm at it, I also don't see why the video umpires can't also remedy clearly wrong or missed decisions like that one that should have been paid to JVR.

It shouldn't have been the determing factor, but: Review technology useless

I love his leadship these day. When he first shared the captaincy with Jones (and Gawn?) I don't think he was quite ready. If Gawn were to retire tomorrow, I'd name Jack sole captain in a red and blue heartbeat.

Haven't seen one of these threads in a while. Think that's a great sign of how well the team is going that winning more games than not has become our base expectation.

You can only beat the team that's in front of you and we only managed to get over North last week and Richmond the week before who got torched by the Bulldogs last week. I think winning consistently is a better measure and Carlton are there on that at the moment.

I thought he'd been named as the medi sub.

I raise you a Jordan Lewis and a Bryon Picket!

In his prime I would have taken Ben Cunnington and/Boomer Harvey.

Don't hate either of these guys in the slightest, but: Harley Reid Charlie Cameron

Hate it when he plays against us.

Bring it on!

So my take is AI thinks Aussie rule fans are some kind of manky half breed of soccer and rugby fans in most cases. The Essendon guy looks like some American sports supporter and the MFC supporter a private school boy (which actually isn't a bad take on the streotype). Thought it chatactised the mood of West Coast and North fans pretty well. The Port one is a bit off - should have put them behind prison bars, but that should also go for the Collingwood. Sun's guy should have been sniffing a line of coke, meth pipe for the West Coast guy and where's the peptides for the Essondon fan? Don't see where the Geelong guy has put their handbag?