Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Well, a sequal is always there for the making "Free Jack Viney ....Again"

I was actually worried about how we might need to restructure our foward play around a strong focal point for Hogan when he comes back, but last night proves we can do it. I think Hogan will also be pretty happy with some of the delivery into the forwardline at the moment.

Was as an impressive an effort from a key forward as I have seen in the red and blue for a while. Lead well, kicked clutch goals and provided a presence up the ground as well.

Hopefully he has a preimership photo one to add to it one day as well.

Never ever wanted to trade T Mac and didn't really want to loose Frawley, but not sure the later would actually make it into our best 22 anymore.

This whole business of players faking/exadurating a reaction to an striking incident off the ball is total BS. WC player dosen't strike Oliver and there is no potential acting to be made for a free. WC player (can't remember who it was) is in total control of the situation, was no need whatsoever for him to lash out at Oliver regardless of the force of the contact which did/didn't occur or was intended. In retrospect, I think that Oliver getting that little strike was a bonus for us as it really fired him up and he played a great second half after being well held in the first. Whilst Clayton works wonders with his handballs, his kicking is also pretty darn good and is a real weapon when he gets in a bit of space and can use it. Acting for free kicks during general play is a different matter.

We need to have multiple clones made of Jack Viney, multiple father sons in the making. Could clone a few more Mc Donalds and a couple of Gawn's while at it.

Just as well, because he was quite, without being discracsful before that.

Tommy Mactually - WHAT A GUN!! GO DEMONS

The way things are this season, being somewhere on the ladder means nothing until things progress and open out a bit more, such that there is a game or two break on where we are. It's also a good year to have a healthy percentage, which thankfully at the moment we have.

I'd forgotten it was only pick 29 we traded for him. What a total bargin. Hadn't really taken much notice of him at Essendon, but can certainly see now why those on here who had were putting so many tickets on him and justifiably so.

Agree the selection of Stretch seems like a good move. I'm actually surprised that it has taken so long for him to work his way back into the side, because I would have probably had just him above Bugg and Nibbler on skills/ability. I guess the form of others when they have got them selves into the side has made it hard to select Stretch back into the side. As much as I do actually rate Stretch for his hard edge, I'm not sure he has the bullocking power to be a direct replacement for Jones in the guts. Guessing that others such perhaps Nibbler, Bugg, Trac and Bernie will spend more time rotating through the midfield. A real pitty that Vanders is out injured, as he is one that would have been good to inject a bit more grunt into the guts in the absence of Jones.

Red back clash I'd definitely the way to go over white and I'm certainly glad we wore it on Sunday Vs the dogs, but was watching the replay last night and whenever a Melbourne player faced the camera front on I was left thinking - where was the clash between our traditional jumper and the Bulldogs current home jumper in the first place. There is a huge contrast between the royal and navy blue and I really think this shows the way for other dark jumpers against which our traditional jumper, it's either navy blue V on red or red V on royal blue ar la 80s retro, none of this white crap. I fear we will wear our white jumper this comming week against the Method Coast and I will cringe and convolse at the sight of it.

Well, the post was written with my tongue firmly planted in cheek, so glad you got a giggle out of it. Gawn's ability to put it down the throat of our on ball brigade will be most welcome and perhaps if Jones is 50/50, it may be a good motivation to get him over the line. What I do think it provides us with is a good opertunity to ease Gawn back into the main role. Perhaps it could also be used somewhat tacticly to wear down the opposition ruck and use Gawn to full effect when we need him most.

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.

All this talk of Gawn back this week. He should go back to Casey and fight for his spot in the side like everyone else - his replacementson Pedo and T Mac are getting the job done at the moment: http://m.afl.com.au/news/2017-06-20/gawn-replacements-starring-in-player-ratings

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?"

The media, including many of the exfootballer expert types are so fickle it's not funny. Go back three or four weeks and they were talking up St Kilda as being ahead of where we are. I think our ladder position is finally starting to reflect where we are at as a side this year. Particulaly with the drop off of Hawthorn and Sydney, I'm with others here saying there is no team I fear in the comp. We have either beaten or been very competitive against every team in the comp over the last two years and we have definitely moved forward this year, closing the gap between our best and worst, our percentage proves it - Roos was very right on that measure.

Unfortunately, this list doesn't actually provide the Martin Pike interview. Probably one of the better ones Mike has done and oh, what a player. Pike was a seriour talent and hard ass player that unfortunately was too much to handle for the MFC, but I bet Goody would love to have a Pike to turn to in our current team.

Thanks Jack. May check out the few I haven't watched (or don't remember), but most I have seen, honestly I think I'd rather forget. My name sakes, Febey's, Ward's and Roos were so dry, dull and retold/rehashed, that I really want those hours of my life back. Please Mike hang up the mike completely and hand over to someone else (other than Robo), I've had enough.

Biff, disappointment is understandable. I as I suspect were many MFC fans hugely diapointed that Aussie didn't make it completely, but as for the rest, your response totally lacks compassion and emapathy, which I actually find sad.

Biff, I took my lead from here on Lovell. http://demonwiki.org/Indigenous+Players He personally wasn't the first that leapt to my mind as one of our indigenous players but reading it on the demon wiki sight did jolt my memory that I'd heard he has some indigenous heritage, so I'm not going to dispute it. I don't think much was made of it during his playing days, in which sadly were not times indigenous players were encouraged to be as proud of their cultural/family heritage as they are in todays game, so I can well understand, assuming it is true that it wasn't brought up much.

You have more faith than I @low flying Robbo, at the time, I was getting the feeling that we could have been swamped by an avolanch of GC goals, they way they linked up and penitrated our defense for parts of the second quarter. Probably also getting psyched out by the comentaters banging on about GC's bye the week before leaving them fresher and also somewhat scarred by our incipid third quarter against Norf the week previous. So glad the players had more composure than I did.

Further to all the above @Petraccattack, one thing I have noticed about our play this season in particular is that while we have been very good at creating forward 50 entrys and keeping the game played in our forward half, at times we are woefully inefficient at actually scoring, which creates two problems 1.It leaves our defensive half very open for the opposition to get out the back and create quality scoring opportunities from limited entries and 2. We often don't have any score on the board for all our dominance and again letting the opposition get back in the game when they have the rub of the green for 5 - 10mins. Obviously 1. Is somewhat an inherent consequence of playing a high press and very attacking game style, so if we are going to play that way it is somewhat inevitable, though having some very quick players like Frost/Hunt to cover the open ground will help as will players who read the play and position well lIke T Mac and Hibbard. Once we can become consistly more efficient at picking off targets and scoring from our share of time forward half, we should really be able to put some teams to the sword early in games and set up some easier wins (assuming we don't then sit back and think it's just going to happen like somewhat like the Freo game). Again balancing the all out attacking with defense, it is encouraging that sometimeswe are getting better at simply controlling the game in between forward thrusts and that was another thing we did well at times in the third quarter against GC (it's just a little hard to know how much of that was due to an incipid oppo on this occasion).