Rodney (Balls) Grinter

At 3:55 on Tommy Mac Donald "Yeah, he got drafted as a forward - I didn't see the potential myself...if he does it two weeks in a row I'll give him credit. Yeah if he kicks five again, I'll be the first to shake his hand" Lol cracks me up does big Maxy.

Another from same media conference: On the general closeness of the competition "you could be just about playing off for the wooden spoon and still have a chance of making finals"

Pleanty of good pickings from Max's latest media conference: http://m.melbournefc.com.au/video/2017-06-26/media-conference-max-gawn A personal favorite is, with reference to Jack Viney injury status "he'd just about have to have the shoulder hanging off the bone for him not to play Jack".

Have been super impressed with Hannan's continued improvement. He has some good tricks inside foward 50 and pleanty to offer around the ground as well. Thinking about some of the goals he kicks a fair few of them could be described as cheeky little cheap goals, but they all count for 6 points and previously we almost lacked for a player to kick those sort of goals and could dominate the inside 50s for little reward.

And the we ended up with Hibbard who has been huge for us, so I'm not that disappointed the Lever thung didn't work, you can't get them all.

I've never been an Oscar hater like some here, but in fairness, I haven't repeditively jumped to his defense either (pardon the pun). When you look at it though I think he has done a pretty reasonable job for someone of his experience all year and the claims he won't make it are hugely over the top. One thing which I think goes against defenders is that any error has potential to quickly end up as an opposition goal. When the side plays poorly and it's the backmans job which becomes so much harder. Nor does Oscar have the reputation to gloss over mistakes. Lewis kicked clanger of the year a few weeks back straight down the throat of Tom Lynch which resulted in a goal and at times Lewis can be a bit of a clanger king, but it doesn't get bleated about like Oscar. One thing which must also be helping Oscar at the moment is the presence of Hibbard and Frost (whom is becoming a great defender in his own right - did a great job on Tom Lynch a few weeks back, who is one of the best power forwards in the game). In fact our whole back six/eight is looking pretty tight at the moment and the continuity of personal must be doing wonders. But look back to the start oF the season and it's pretty much just T Mac and an O Mac with 14 or so games under his belt - I recon he actually did ok back then in the circumstances and the other question that begs is "What would we have done without him back then?"

Agreed. I think there may a little less of the mercurial and more of the percentage plays from Jeff this year, not that he isn't capable of the odd freak goal every now and then, I think he is just summing up the situations better and as you say doing the team thing. His passes to setup team mates in better positions epitomise this, he had a few rippers on the weekend. I think there is also a little less of him trying to take on the world and fail with his run and carry, which I think is also assisted by the team having others in good positions to palm it off to, where's in previous years it might just have been Jeff out the back with nothing else between him and the goals. Would love to see the stats on his goal assists over the years if anyone hasees access to those. Have always been a huge Jeffy fan and great to see he's back in good touch.

Not saying it's right or wrong and obviously game style has changed a fair bit over the last 20 odd years, but Greg Williams, known as both a prolific handballer disposal getter lead the league for both these categories for most of the period between 1984 - 1994, with an average hanballs per game of around 16 and average disposals of 30 - so far this year Clary is going at 23 and 31 respectively.

Somewhat contradicting my previous statement, whilst I don't want to feel sympathetic to the EFC, my feeling is that the whole process was botched and mishandled by all parties including the AFP, the AFL, ASADA and WADA. I can't see any club ever self reporting and cooperating in the same wat the Bombers players did again. And where are the charges against Steven Dank ...or are those yet to come? I do wonder if there has been civil or criminal charges considered against him. That all said, I did watch a fairly convincing story from one of the investigative journalism programs (I think it was 4 corners) that layed out a pretty compelling case that many of the big players in the elite sports and athletics world are gaming the system with performance enhancing drugs by staying half a step ahead of the list of banned and detectable drugs, which did smell exactly like what Essendon were doing.

Will James Hird appeal the appeal?

One about Max, not by him: "He's all of seven foot tall and about ten kilos of beard" Some special comments from Alastair Lynch during game comentary. Long live the beard. Perhaps a few more of our players should do some beard work in the gym and put some weight on there like Maxy.

As an aside, the current Hawthorn coach is another that could be added to that list. Was not an out and out superstar, but a very serviceable player for us none the less.

Regardless of what he said verbally, his awesome fist away and body language certainly said " bounce it properly then ". Was a great bit of theatre in the midst of an enjoyable win against the filth. Added some nice icing to the cake along with Max's other non verbal statements that day.

Just love Big Maxy's persona and thought that he needs his own topic to make sure we never miss a giggle from the gems of humor that seen to pop out every second sentence. So here is one to start things off, as reported on the Fox Footy web news page: Via Hawks duo Isaac Smith and Josh Gibson during the night, Frawley apparently said Gawn’s head would’ve “gotten quite big quickly” if he had taken out the Leigh Matthews Trophy. Big Max’s rebuttal, however, had Frawley covered. “Old Chip Frawley, hey? Well Hawthorn has to play a 17-man defence because Chip doesn’t defend too much anymore,” Gawn said. I'm not sure it's right up there with his absolute best work, bid did like that it gave Frawley a well earnt sledging. So what else has the new mouth from Melbourne put out there?

With all the talk of us being such a young side this season, the addition of Melksham and Hibberd would increase the average age/games overnight. Not sure how significant that is though if they can't play at the required level, as adding Dunn, Garland and or H would have a similar statistical effect. When adding just two players has such a significant statistical effect, I do wonder if this stat/claim was over played a bit by the club this year?

Big Billy fan also, but Re your point on mistakes, might I remind you that he also missed that challenging, but quite gettable goal against North earlier this season. Not that I pin that loss on Billy at all and generally speaking, I agree that if there was someone from our side that I wanted to kick that clutch goal from a set shot, I'd be most comfortable with it being in the hands of Jack Watts, Christian Salem or Billy. From a set shot Billy is exclent, soaks up the pressure and calmly slots it through as cool as a cucumber.

I also like his attack on the ball and the man for a player of his size. I think only thing he lacks to stay in our top 22 on a consistent basis is a mature hardened body. I've noticed that he tends to string together a few really good games, then seems to tire for a few and loose his impact in games. Not a criticism of his, as there are often just arn't shortcuts to reach the stage of physical development required at the elite level. I liken his progress to that of Jack Viney and look forward to what another solid preseason might bring.