Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Roo looks on today

Tyrrells should put out a Melksham vintage. Just keeps getting better with age.

I've got a lot of love for Disco, but his kicking in the back line is a liabilty at times

Crowds disappear into the MCG. Chill out people, there is a reasonable crowd here. At least Gate 3 was open today.

If you can't trade for them, the draft is the spot you get them. I think we've done well with our recent selections at the draft, but as good as those kids are, it takes a few years to develop them into reliable AFL level performers.

My 6 word summary I'd rather eat my own vomit.

I think two things can be true at once. I'm actually glad that the players came out in defence of Goody, which shows the level of respect and loyalty they had for their coach and mentor for he past 10 odd years. But I also don't sense a mass player dissatisfaction and revolt against the board. I'm personally not expecting the players to sulk. I think Max set the tone well, when he said words to the effect that he was originally shocked and hurt, but that he's moved on. I think it's also possible the playing group will also be thankful for a fresh start and some clean air without the conjecture of having calls to axe the coach hanging over them after every loss.

For the love of god, I hope we give big Jed a full game. Really don't see the value in him sitting on the bench as sub for 3/4 in the position we're currently in. Start him in the 22, get him on early and give him maximum game time and experience to build on for 2026.

Last week, I came out before the game and said to my mate ans girlfriend that we'd probably smash West Coast by 80 points after the St Kilda debacle. That's just the kind of side we are at the moment, capable of putting in a good performance when you don't expect it. I've got no real sense of how we will play today though. Everyone is expecting a sacked coach rebound, but I'm not confident we will. I have a feeling that we spent alot of mental energy in responding to the St Kilda game and wouldn't surprise me if we put in a flat mediocre performance and loose by 30 - 50 points. Really hope I'm wrong. I'd also rather we have plenty of fire in the belly for Hawthorn and Collingwood.

Exactly. If Buckley is the guy, the he has nothing holding him to another club as far as I understand. Assistant coaches might be another story, but then some of them may not even be able to properly fall into play until after finals. Just get on with it and start building for 2026 ASAP. If we can be getting into the ears of any potential trade targets and potential assistant coaches during the finals period, then let's do it. I think that was the whole point of dismissing Goodwin when they did.

Great effort of Ed to get to 200. It's somewhat disappointing that it's been overshadowed by Goodwin's sacking. I actually think his performance at the presser was good. He spoke genuinely of the players perspective and love for Goody, but was also clear that he respected the boards decision. Ed was one of the early quality young up and coming players to join a rising MFC. He made a great impact when he arrived and continues to make a great contribution to the team week in week out. He does have the occasional quite game and I think he's played one fairly average season for us back 2023 or something, but by in large, he's been incredibly consistent and reliable high performer over the journey. Congratulations on 200 Ed and thanks for making the MFC your football home.

If they get pumped next week, they could very well be playing for just a spot in the 8 if all the chips fall the right way. Even if they win next week, I suspect they might still need to beat us top 4.

As a bit of an asides, one of our few losses in 2021 was to Collingwood, the week after or something Buckley resigned, so we owe them beating them in the last Rd this year for that as well as Gus and everything else. Would be great if all the cards fell right and we knocked them out of finals - a bit of 2017 karma about that as well.

I'm actually distinctly warming to Buckley for all the reasons you mention. Think he has a good mix of approachable mate coach, but also able to set high expectations and give the team a good rev-up when they need it. I think he was set up to fail the way the transition worked at Collingwood under Malthouse and with Eddy in the background. His closeness to some in the playing group probably didn't help either. I initially defended Horse's initial reaction, but the more I reflect it seems he really doesn't want the job. I'm also somewhat turned off by his shocking GF record. Asides from the one premiership he actually won with them, Sydney were pretty much trounced in every other GF they played under him, which isn’t a good sign for me. As a real left field thing - could we coax Roosy back?

Congrats to Jed. Haven't seen alot of his VFL form, but unless he plays an absolute mare on Sunday (which I don't think he will), I hope we find a way to play him until the end of the season.

Other notable owners in my time were Greg Doyle and Jack's uncle Jay.

Good lord "Howe contributed to this himself more than Evans" It's pretty much pot luck how these incidents turn out in both those circumstances. May could have just as easily copped a slightly erant elbow to the head, would Evans have been suspended then? Honestly think they need to have some of these AFL muppets role play all of this out at full pace to show how the players should act and maybe get an actual appreciation of what's reasonable.

Read in interesting article quoting Paul Roos earlier this week how seeing Nev Jetta play one of the final games of the season before he took over as coach gave Roosy enough of an impression that Nev was worth persevering with and keeping a list spot (probably just a rookie lost one from memory). But Laurie has shown nothing like what Nev did up to that point.

Laurie was given numerous opportunities last season and in previous seasons. Pretty much every time he plays, he doesn't have the composure to execute basic football skills at AFL level. Given Laurie had the somewhat unjustified luxury of another preseason and year on our list, I'd be against him being given opportunities to prove he's got what it takes at the top level for the remainder of this season. Give those to Adams, Taj and Pup instead as I think they have shown themselves to be far closer to AFL standard when given opportunities than Laurie. Glad that Culley is being given a decent crack. Would even prefer guys like Henderson and Sestan be given opportunities ahead of Laurie. If Laurie has an outstanding pre-season, then he should get some good gametime during practice matches etc. Honestly though, personally, if we could I'd rather trade him as maybe a change of scenery might do him good; perhaps a change of senior coach might have the same effect for us. I doubt anyone else will be interested though and think he'll end up playing out his career as a solid VFL player.

On a related topic, it was reported by the MFC that Steve May only just came out of concussion protocols this week, so the 3 week suspension was probably somewhat inconsequential in that respect. I guess De Koning "only gave him a concussion" and everyone loves a good specky, so we should just move on. The other thing that I take away from that is that next time players realise that they need to enter a foot race in which they might arrive at the ball at the same time, they should just try to take a specky on them and knee them in the head instead, because that's a football act that provides total immunity from suspension.

No doubt they will come up with some BS rationale that insults all intelegence and logic.

Looking at Grand Final win / loss results paints a bit of a different picture though. Buckly 1, 0 - 1 Longmire 5, 1 - 4 Goodwin 1, 1 - 0 Voss 0, 0 - 0 Simpson 2, 1 - 1

In answer to the basic question of "how are you doing ?" - to be honest when this was first announced earlier in the week, I had a real sinking feeling and almost embarrasment like "oh no, here we go again". Melbourne are a basket case, sack the coach, ra ra ra. But after riding all the bumps over the past 40 odd years of following our team the past 20 in particular) I've learnt not to get quite so emotional about this stuff and just switched off footy for a few days. Putting things into perspective a bit too while its certainly not the season we'd have hoped for, our season hasn't actually been all that bad either. Yeah we've copped a couple of 60 point losses, but nothing worse than that and handed out a couple back the other way. We've been pretty compeditive against some of the higher ranked sides too and our percentage is getting close to 100%. I don't actually read all that much into the St Kilda loss - Hawthorn had just as bad a quarter against Adelaide the other week, which took them from a dominant position to loosing the game as well. GWS had a bigger turn around against Sydney in a quarter too. If anything, St Kilda got pretty lucky to be gifted a 50m penalty and a free kick out of the centre in the dying minutes and seconds, without which we win the game and it's pretty much a non story. Big turn arounds happen in quarters these days - just look at the last 45mins of our 2021 GF. What happened this week was nothing compared to some of the bad old days era 2008-2013. As an asides, I reinstated my MFC membership while living interstate in 2012 after a thumping loss to West Coast by 108 points that had many baying for blood. This past weeks have been nothing like that.

Not sure how many concessions King got as a player, but both these guys are brain dead when it comes to any sensible, objective critical thinking.

The players that miss out on premierships is always hard and something of a regret. In that year, I also somewhat feel for guys like Melksham who I felt was a huge part of our revival in 2017 / 2018 and has been great in the last few years, but was unfortunately either injured and/or out of form in 2021. Adam Tomlinson was also another so unlucky to get injured mid season after putting together some great form and helping hold the backline together for a number of weeks in the absence of May and Hibbo. Similarly Aaron vandenBerg was a personal favorite of mine with the way he played the game and played an awsome late season cameo role in 2021 from recollection, but didn't make the final cut. Joel Smith another to play well late season, including a great qualifying final playing on Charlie Cameron a his peak. Would also have been great to have seen Majak Daw played at least one senior game during the season if not for being struck down by injury at just the time he might have got a game. Like I say, it is a typical thing with premierships, but hopefully all those guys really did feel valued in their contributions to bringing home the trophy.