Rodney (Balls) Grinter

We will see who plays the bruse free footy today.  

...actually it could be both sides if Carlscum bring a repeat of their JLT form and we have the luxury of playing a free flowing game of keepings off.

Expecting they will have additional hardness around the contest with Crisps - we should seriously just tag him out of the game (if that's possible) and then they will have nothing.

With midefield that features Jone, Viney, Oliver, Vince, Leiwis and big Max, yep it's appropriate.

Jones and Max in particular could be mistaken for maurading Vicking warriors.  I see that Billy Stretch has also been to the barber to get a very short, angry looking hair cut.  Good to see that the boys are taking the hashtag to heart and playing like raising hell too.

As for Bernie - did I detect a bit of a moe that he is growing?  It's too blonde and looks like a ripper porno moe if I've ever seen one.  Actually don't mind him getting rubbed out, all the team needs to play on the edge like he does.  We will see who plays 'bruse free footy' later today won't we.

31 minutes ago, Moonshadow said:

Then the player would pull the tackle at last moment knowing he gets a free. I'd rather look at genuine intent to keep play in progress rather that playing for a free or rushing a behind. Actually, I'd put rushing a behind above playing for a free. Picken stopped going for it and had his hands in the air, that's against the spirit of the rule. He had no intent to go for the ball.

Should have given the benefit of the doubt to the guy actually playing the ball, rather than the one playing for the BS free kick.

Tonight they had a good segment with Jordan Leiwis and one of many topics was the jumper presentation in which they highlighted and showed all the new  Melbourne players  being presented their jumpers by their dads, which lead to the discussion that the dad's presenting was a nice touch, because it's normally a champion ex-player from the club.  Showed the footage of Shaun presenting the jumper to Joel and made no mention that he was in fact both dad and champion ex-player, because they were so interested in taking all things Jordan Lewis.

Just little things, but they are the sort of things which actually make it interesting, rather than the bland regurgitation of the obvious.

The depth of journalism and analysis they put out sometimes is atrocious.  Have been going on all week 'poor Nick Reiwalt' (can't spell his name and don't care to look it up).  The bloke looks like getting away with 2 perhaps upto 4 weeks if the Saints are really conservative.  The good old team at Fox have completely missed what should have been obvious to blind Freddy that it was also actually Reiwalt' who (accidentally) crunched young Joel Smith, popped his shoulder and puts him out for practically the season - no mention.

Never really knew him as wrecker back in the day, more so simply as Wheels, but Wrecker is pretty appropriate.

Definitely up there in my favorite players of the era, but highly underated and forgoten by most outside the MFC supporter base.

Toughness was in good supply at the MFC in those days, Nathan 'Doggy' Brown and Shaun Smith and even  Hoppy were all hard as nails, but I don't think any were quite in the same calibre of speed, toughness and steadfastness in defence as Matty Wheelan.

Beating St Kilda at that [censored] hole:

About Fing Time

On a bit of a tangent, King implied that there was something a bit underhanded going on with Mitchell (and by inference Lewis - he's ours now, so defend him we must!!) getting traded to WC for pick 88 when compared with Deledio going to GWS for a first rounder and whatever else.

Jonesy's probably said it before, (but I don't think anyone should mind me repeating it), that what has kept him at the club and what keeps driving him to be better, after all the hard times, is to be there when the club turns things around and has that success.

Committed, motivated, loyal - what more could you ask from your captain, gota love this bloke.

...And though he has troden a different path, I think Jack Viney is cut from the same cloth.

17 hours ago, CBDees said:

It seems crazy that the eight teams all have to disband for ten months immediately after the GF next week and go back and play suburban football with amateur coaches and no exposure. Surely the competition could continue in the background without being too much of a threat by fragmenting the support base and thereby allowing the girls (like Daisy) to become professional. Personally, I enjoy watching the girls and I am sure that they would grow the code and grow the sponsorship to pay their own way! 

I think the basis of finishing the AFLW comp about now, was more about allowing the top players to return to their local comps and thus furthering the development and depth of the talent pool at the local/second tier level.  I personally think that is the right call and really in the best long term interests of the women's game.

On Friday, November 16, 2007 at 11:27 AM, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Check this out for a 7 week haul from the great man in 1991:

Round 15 - Sydney SCG - 8.8 (just his 4th game of AFL)

Round 16 - WCE MCG - 6.2

Round 17 - Fitzroy MCG - 6.7

Round 18 - St Kilda Moorabin - 8.5

Round 19 - Carlton PP - 7.4

Round 20 - North MCG - 11.8

Round 21 - Collingwood MCG 5.4

Then check how wayward he was to start 1994

Round 1 - Geelong MCG - 8.8

Round 2 - Hawthorn Waverley - 4.10

Round 3 - BYE

Round 4 - Essendon MCG - 5.0

Round 5 - Brisbane MCG - 6.4

23.22 in just 4 matches. He could've had 35 goals in 4 matches!!!

THE GUY WAS A FREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That North game was something else.  The phrase "he had the ball on a string" comes to mind.  I have no  doubt that his hack out of mid air to kick a goal over his head will remain on highlight reals for years to come.

In reality, Jacko was just one of the many gun forwards of that era that the MFC couldn't keep on the park long enough together.  Jackovich, Lyon, Bennett, Swartz, Neitz, Smith, Pike, Charles, Farmer, what a ride.

1 hour ago, Demon Jack said:

In regards to his value to the team, his ability to play against both small and tall forwards makes him extremely versatile. He's a solid decision maker as well rarely makes terrible errors. I find the prospect of him being left out of the team incredibly hard to believe. Saying that, I'm sure Goodwin knows what he's doing.

Coincidently enough, our win against Adelaide back in 2014 happened to pop up in my YouTube subscriptions the other day. Nev was nearly best on ground for us that day after keeping Betts goalless. It could be considered as his 'break out' game. Overall, it's still one of the best Melbourne performances of the last decade.

 

If I recall correctly, Jack Grimes had a bit to do with that win as well.

On Monday, March 13, 2017 at 4:40 PM, ProDee said:

He's been disappointing.  Has he kicked a goal in the 3 games ?  Might have kicked one.  I was looking on a Saints forum today and a few posters agreed he's not presently in their best team, but they know he'll be selected.  His physique still looks like that of a bush full-forward.

Plugger always had a physique like a bush full-forward and didn't seem to do him any harm.  Before we start talking about how the game has changed... I have no doubt that Plugger would be a walk up start in any AFL side.  A good footy brain and goal kicking strait as a die goes a long way.  Not saying that McCartin bloke is nessasrily any Tony Locket by the way.

2 hours ago, ProDee said:

Just watched the game again. 

The mistakes and turnovers were incredible.  The amount of goals they kicked from our basic disposal errors was amazing.  They also had 3 shots at goal from deliberate out of bounds.  And 2 of those were rubbish decisions. 

Our kicking and decision making into our forward 50 was also the pits.  It makes you wonder why the game was relatively close.  

Obviously we did some things well, but I'd argue we almost couldn't play any worse.  

It's easy to pick one the usual suspects like ANB, Harmes and the McDonalds, but Lewis, Viney, Vince, Watts, Jones, and especially Tyson (understandably rusty) had some horific disposal errors where they couldn't spot up easy 20-30 metre targets. 

That said, most of that stuff is quite easily rectified. 

Yep agree with all of the above, partially the last line.  So in a sense, I actually think this was a better result for a practice game than winning by whatever margin.

...And yet we only lost by 20 odd points, so to sum up again, played like crap and we're still in the game against a good side.  Inversely, West Coast probably wouldn't have thought they would have played their best game either. 

What does also stand out though, is that it was close to a carbon copy to the home and away game we played them there last year.  We were in the game, had most of the possession and played the game in our forward half, yet butchered our entry into forward 50.  Clearly something needs to change if we play them at Subi during the home and away. 

We shouln't be wearing the  Bali singlet tops any of the time.  Our traditional jumper never clashed with West Coasts original royal blue jumper.  I don't see why we couldn't wear either the red backed one as we did against the dogs or our retro 80s royal blue one.  Either would have looked better that the crap we wore on Thursday - Sydney jumper from the back, bad Bail singlet from the front. 

Back to writing to the AFL in protest. 

Watching our team in those disgusting clash jumpers hurt my eyes. 

It will really hurt them when Shaun Burgoyne goes down hilll

The biggest problem I see with the rule is that it penalises defenders disproportionately to forwards and has the potential to gift too many goals via free kicks, which when it occurs really destroys the spirit of the game as it has the potential for games to be too heavily influenced by bad umpiring.

I'll take others word that Weed is a player for the future based on what he has shown at VFL level, but for pretty much all of the preseason comp he has given us less than Chris Dawes did last season.

Given he hasn't got a game at top level yet this year I'm guessing Pedo isn't a realistic Rd 1 option.  Based on output during preseason, I'd play Pencil as the additional tall option ahead of Weed.

If we beat the Staints Rd1... I will not throw my empty VB can at the TV like I did when Montagna took the game from under our noses in the last 2 seconds of that game in 2015.

Yeh, didn't like it at all.  Agree it was paid reasonablely consistently in terms of was paid consistently for both teams (one against Bernie was a shocker though).

How I don't think it is paid consistently though is:

1.  Was paid more frequently against defenders;

2. A huge number of spoils for which the clear intent was to find the boundary, but we're not paid;

3.  I'd also contend that on many multiple occasions players intentionally allow them selves to be tackled out of bounds - in my view this is a soft option and it should be paid either holding the ball or deliberate out of bounds of a player is tackled across the line.

Accept in the most obvious of cases, I really don't like this last touch type deliberate rule.

3 hours ago, brendan said:

Those odds for the saints are too good to pass up, if we get beat at least I can win some money and if we win I won't care about the bet, win win 

I would have to bet so much on St Kilda to get any sort of semblance of satisfaction, that it would upset me when we win.

I know no doubt that Goodwin and co will play it down, but in my mind round 1 is a must win game.  If we are going to be a decent side this season and aim at making finals, then we must put away teams we should beat  (Essendon, Carlton, North, St Kilda, Richmond, Gold Coast,Freo etc).

We win round one, I'm happy - simple.

1 hour ago, Demons11 said:

My issue is that Pedo is very inconsistent and goes missing in games.  Weed will also do this but as a 20 yr old I prefer that he get game time because he will be 100 times better player than Pedo in the long run. 

Disagree.  When he is not doing something good with ball in hand, he is putting on good physical pressure and presence, which the Weed just isn't up to yet.  So many punters here have complained about game being gifted to young players in the past in the name of development and due to lack of depth, so what is the difference here?  Won't nessasrily hurt Weed to spend another year in the VFL while he develops physically.

Someone also mentioned Joel Smith playing ahead of Garland.  Whilst I loved Smith's tackling and defensive pressure, he was shown up big time most times when he had the ball and couldn't dispose of it in good fashion or to the right option.  Was great to give him two games exposure at the top level in preseason, but it's either Garland, Jetta, Frost, Hibbard or Harmes come round one for me. 

Seriously, are you people still talking about this?

In terms of the club not being fully open in the media what do you expect -

Club: "we think this is Jack's weekness"

Opposition: "great, let's target that weakness verbally or physically"     

OR

Club: "this is how we want Jack to play within our team"

Opposition: "thanks for passing on your game plan for Jack Watts"

I guess the club could give some kind of BS decoy of a reason, but that is going to be seen through in an instant and wouldn't stop the chatter, speculation and inuendo.  If this were most other player, the dead bat response from the club would have been accepted and everyone would have moved on... Which is what I'm doing right now, only to return to this thread when Jack is either delisted or more likely puts in a blinder, kicks a bag of six and or wins us the game some other way off his own boot.  

Has been a faithful, loyal and sound servant of the club over many years.  I'll go out on a limb here compared to many here in this forum and state that I think his best footy is pretty good.

 It certainly would be a great footy story for him to break his way back into the side 'play his role , and taste some team success.