Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Same could be said for North and Tassie

I'm honestly not that phased by the list spot and salary cap these guys might be taking up. It's basically sunk capital. We invested it to keep/lure them to the club at a time they were valuable contributors and they helped deliver us a premership. Giving them extra years on their contracts and thus allowing us to spread their salaries out at a time we were also trying to secure long term deals for Trac, Clarry, Viney, Gawn, May, Lever and others probably also allowed us to keep that team together. Will we also be asking the same questions in the last couple of years contracts of these guys? i.e. should they retire? Plenty of players we pick at the national draft will probably never play a game. Both T Mac and BBB played multiple games in the seniors when needed, with variable levels of output. It also looks likely we will have a significant list turnover this season and a bunch of young talent. In the current AFL envioment of limited soft cap having a few role models like T Mac and BBB around the place to teach the development squad in check and bring them up the learning curve faster could be invaluable, like having a couple of extra coaches available at your disposal. The quality of character of T Mac and BBB is exceptional, so if we can have some of that rub off on the draftees, I think we are doing well.

With May getting into his 30s and Petty being pushed forward, I agree we need a new KPP back. What about this bloke we currently have Jed Adams? https://www.melbournefc.com.au/players/7416/jed-adams Has been a bit of discussion on here regarding the development of Jefferson, but realitively little on Adams. Normally KPP backs can step up and play seniors earlier than forwards, due to them being lead to the ball and only needing to be the spoiler, not the play maker / need for them to take big contested marks. Do any of the Casey watchers have much of a read on Adams? He looked great in his draft highlights videos, but all reports seem to have flatlined since then.

Agree his body has been his Achilles heal in recent times.

In the back half of 21, T Mac may not have been the beast he was in 2017 / 2018, but what he did do, even in the back half of the season was push hard down the ground to be an outlet kick comming out of defense. Didn't always mark it, but often did and was rarely beaten and if he didn't mark, it would be rushed out of bounds, meaning we were able to get our troops over and reset our zone. His tackeling was also pretty good, as was his ability to break through tackles and get the ball moving 50m in our direction with his penetrating kicks. I think he did everything we needed him to, in order to get us to that flag. He was looking pretty good in preseason games and earlier this year before he injured himself again. I'd agree that he appears to be past his prime, but you just never know he may still make some useful cameo appearances here and there and contribute while the next generation of key forwards comes through.

The other thing I take out of that article is what a poor job the AFL have done at promoting the Giants in Sydney. 1.34 million supporters compared to 0.2 million supporters. No doubt plenty of the 33,000 GWS supporters are free memberships given away by the AFL in an attempt to boost the actual popularity of the club. I don't quite get it personally, as I find the Swans a boring team and GWS have probaby been close to as successful as the Swans since the introduction of GWS into the competition. You'd think that more of the Swans supporters would have jumped over the fence to the Giants.

I have no fresh intel on what has happened to him post Damian Hardwicks appointment, but is Steven King someone we should also be looking at? Did a great job turning around the Suns after Stewy Dew went.

Might as well have been for patches against Carlton when we had no one go up in the ruck.

An undervalued 22-24yo ruck who's got a developed body would be perfect, if they're any good there's a permanent position there for them for the next 6 - 8 years.

The only caveat to my celebratory mood regarding this is that Petty seems to have something of a history with doing this kind of ankle/lower leg injuries. Hopefully it's just bad luck, but could also be some kind of predisposition due to either his physique or the way he naturally moves and changes direction. If he can keep his body right, he's certainly turned into the type of key position player the MFC can build it's team around for the next 5+ years, either as a forward or a back.

What drugs are they smoking if they think we'd consider trading Petty or Sparrow for an average mature age player that doesn't even want to be on their list? Unless they are trowing in a first round draft pick, but I honestly don't even think that goes close in the case of Petty. Surely this is a joke and the jurno that wrote it is desperate for something to print.

The MFC needs to train our players to do the jumping smother charge over the off season. It a football action, so you know when Maynard is lying motionless on the ground during our next match against them, it will be completely within the rules and spirit of the game. FFS this a hole makes me sick. If he had half a brain he should have shut the hell up to any reporters about that incident. He knows he shouldn't be playing in that GF. The footy jurnos have got the boots into the MFC about our finals exits. Few of the want to put forward the side the with Brayshaw and JVR in the team, we probably win both those games and thus the rank injustice of allowing Maynard to play, while JVR was suspended.

Well summarised GTB. Couldn't agree more. This year in particular he has been right off the boil, which has been really disappointing, because we know what he's capable of. I know it's been reported he's had some personal issues that may have played their part in that and I'm quite respectful that they are just that and his own private business. Often players are able to level out the inconsistencies as they mature and I'd be hopeful Harmesy can do that in what remains of his career whether that's with us or someone else.

At his best, he's also pretty good at connecting inside 50. Anyone remember that pass to Fritsch in the 21 GF?

Yeah, I think that would get it done.

Agree with that. Particularly with a bit of a cloud over Gus present as well. We're only an injury to Trac, Viney or Clarry from be exposed for midfield depth.

I actually think Harmes would be a good option for a club like West Coast that has bottomed out and needs a few players with mature bodies and good training attitudes around to help establish culture. I'm sure his mate Jayden would put in a good word for him.

He was best 22 in a premership team a few years back. At his best he's a compeditive and capable player. Agree that this year his senior games were rubbish, but mainly because I think his confidence was completely shot that resulted in him making some mind bogglingly bad decisions and skill errors.

The player that hid his Norm Smith looked embarrassed and didn't want to be there tonight. I think he and everyone here would be much happier with another premiership medal around his neck. Locky and Daicos can have all the Brownlows they want.

So the other anomalies here: We have the best backline in the league and they only get 4 votes between them (8 at the very generous end if any of Gus's backline work counts). Out of a total of around 90 votes. Jake Lever gets 0 votes? Jake Bowey 0 votes? Seriously please take the voting off the umps.

Umpires hate him, what can you say.

I had to check that Bont actually hadn't won a Brownlow, because I'd sworn he had. You can add Max and Clarry to that list that should have won one.

100% please tell me how he's not better than Zac Merrit or Josh Daicos.

So Cunrow can hardly score a vote all season and Fritsch gets 2 votes for kicking 4? ...Well I guess consistency isn't exactly a strong suit of umpires is it.

For a side that finished 2nd, the umpires couldn't find another player to give votes to. Apparently even Ashcroft who was gods gift to football in much the same way as Daicos couldn't even score a vote. Similar story for Collingwood for that matter.