Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Until he got powered by the energizer:

If Grundy is rucking and we're winning it out of the centre clearances and generally around the ground, Gawn dropping back could be a waste. Equally I like the idea of Gawn drifting or storming forward in the right circumstances as well. We saw what an offensive weapon he can be in the prelim against Geelong in 2021. I think potentially having the luxury of utilizing him wherever his of most value at the time could really catch some teams off guard and really splitting the game open - just like we saw that night against Geelong. On a slightly different note, there was often the suggestion that Dogga could play as a ruck rover even with say Gawn innthe ruck, but that was never really attempted as far as I'm aware. I just wounder if it's a more feasible possibility on occation for Grundy to be roving to Gawn and providing a height mis-match around the ground during general play? Will be fascinating and hopefully salivating for MFC supporters to watch.

And to think a few years ago we were chasing Jack Gunston. I think since he's perfected his set shots on goal in the past few seasons Fritta is now the sort player that Gunston once was in his prime and Gunston himself is probably 'past it' or almost finished in terms of years to play out his career. Not to say that Jack couldn't have made some kind of mentoring contribution around the club (which is probably partly what Brisbane are hoping), but I think we've come out ahead on this possibility that never eventuated for us.

And can't overstress how important that blondness is either. It's worth at least 6 - 9 Brownlow votes in a good season.

Saw a "Hawks Premiers" sticker today. Was 2019 or something which had me scratching my head a bit, until I looked harder and noticed it was a 'Boronia' Hawks - hopefully the only Hawks playing finals anytime in the next decade or so.

I feel like the somewhat forgotten man in this thread is Joel Smith. IF he can stay uninjured for more than half a season, I really do feel Joel could be a real weapon up forward or down back. Felt like he was just starting to hind some real confidence at top AFL level before he got injured 'again' last season. If our A team defenders are all fit and firing, I think Joel would struggle to get a game down back, but is quite useful depth in that part of the ground. Would definitely love to see him given another crack up forward though, where I think he's got real X factor talent about him, suited to that part of the ground. He has pace to burn, which would be a real weapon with the flood/zone/team-defense style of game we play and where there is often space out the back, begging for someone to run into and take the game on. Combine that with the likelihood that having both Kossie and Smith forward would make it very hard for the opposition to find 2 defenders fast enough to stay with them. He'd also be a tough match-up in this regard due to his height. Joel's contested marking has come on nicely in the last few years and he's got that leap which is often spoken about, but he doesn't have licence to use down back. In my view, he can be something of an unreliable feild kick down back, but is a fairly reliable shot for goal. We would need the right oppertunity to use him, as I feel that JVR probably gets picked ahead of him most weeks if he's fit and in form, but I still think it could be good to have Joel up our sleeve if the circumstances call for a player like him.

One of the real strengths of Tmac's game is his areobic capasity to work up and down the ground for a big man. As well has his strength and contested work forward of centre, he contributes in other ways. I think he plays a pretty important part structurally comming out of defense as he pushes up between the wing - half back and often provides a reliable outlet option for one of our defenders. Even if he doesn't take clean possession, his size and competitiveness mean he's rarely beaten and at the least usually forces the ball across the boundary and allows us to reset our team defense and players forward of the ball. If he wins the possession, he often uses his strength to break tackles and move the ball forward quickly with long penetrating kicks deep inside 50 for our other forwards to make use of.

Would love for Tmac to kick on for another 10 years 58, but that might be asking a bit too much of his battered body! 😉

Some other observations of mine is that I don't see many stickers from the other 'big' Melbourne clubs of Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon or Hawthorn or others around my parts either. Don't even notice many Richmond ones. No doubt this is related to the recient lack of success of the aforementioned teams - long may it continue. Also somewhat pleasing to me is that I see a high number of stickers on grubby tradies utes, implying the team has support from across the social demographic out here and it's not all snow going doctors Jaguars.

I'm starting to feel all this "if he hasn't signed by Rd 2 then ..." talk is a bit of emotional scaring from Dogga 2022. Let's just settle down and see what transpires. Wouldn't surprise me if Kossie holds out for half a season and then signs on for another couple of years and backs himself to pitch for the mega dollars, long term contract when he's right in his prime like Trac, Clarry etc. He'd be worth good money now, but he could be worth more in a few years. That in itself wouldn't nessacerilly me a part of him does or doesn't want to get to Port/SA, just that he management are playing a long game. If he's thay desperate to go home, I don't think he would have played out the season and a deal would have been done. I'm not convinced we're anywhere near desperation point on anyone's side.

Hope you're on the money here dworship.

It's mid Jan and the traffic and topics here on DL seem a bit slow this off season this time of year, so here's a topic for something to do. Having moved down here to the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne from Brisbane last year, it's refreshing to see the number of MFC bumper stickers getting around at the moment and particularly still pleanty of Premiers ones. Gives me something to smile about on the inside when on my morning/afternoon commute.

At risk of yet again deviating from the please Kossie stay topic, I actually find it somewhat refreshing that we are debating on DL, why we didn't win back to back, instead of flagellating ourselves and each other over what a pathetic team of players we have. The fact we are fretting over potentiality loosing one of the best young forwards in the comp is a sign of the times it's self. DL of old would be berating over how we have no elite talent, can't draft them or attract them from anyone else, when now we're in the box seat of having Kossie and an almost embarrassing pleanty of others at the club that others envy and want to poach from us.

He pulled the pin sighting a lack of passion for the game to play at the top level, so good luck with that. https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/teams/adelaide-crows/afl-news-2023-fischer-mcasey-retires-top-adelaide-crows-draft-pick-steps-away-from-elite-level-draft-pick-carlton-trade-rumours/news-story/c9fec52f6611b1db0f50bba52d6296a5

Saw this pop up on my FB feed courtesy of Zero Hanger. Bodes well for the MFC, particularly considering Grundy only played the 6 games in 2022, otherwise he'd probably be the outright leader and the gap to the rest would be greater, although similar could also be said for Witts who played just the 3 games in 2021. Also highlights the quality of Witts somewhat as a ruckman and I recall Max publicly rating him highly on numerous occations as someone he finds challenging to play against. Top 15 Total Hit-Outs Between 2018-2022 3806 Max Gawn 3482 Brodie Grundy 3258 Jarrod Witts 3174 Todd Goldstein 2383 Reilly O'Brien 2174 Sean Darcy 2123 Oscar McInerney 2018 Nic Naitanui 2010 Toby Nankervis 1944 Rhys Stanley 1932 Scott Lycett 1830 Ben McEvoy 1789 Paddy Ryder 1751 Stefan Martin 1684 Rowan Marshall

Yep, that's the one. Wasn't the only dodgy umpiring anonomly either. As I suggested the free range that Brisbane were given to harass Max off the ball was a disgrace and they were probably looked after like a protected species. I actually made the Foxy Footy telecast that game going off my nanna as one of the few Demons supporters they could find in the crowd 😂🤣. Win that game and we make finals. Brisbane were decient that year, but we weren't actually that far off the mark either. If it wasn't games like the Brisbane one and being dealt a rubbish fixture going to Cairns two weeks in a row, we would have made finals and I think we actually could have done better against Richmond than Geelong. Totally spewing as I would have been able to attend that GF.

Good ruckman can often studdy and decelop a strategy to take an opponent out of the game, and/or match-up better against some opposition better than others. I agree that having 2 elite rucks would make it so hard for our opposition to take both of them out of the game. One or both are likely to dominate. Similarly, it should give our mids some really good unpredictability in terms of setup for the opersition to counter. Guys like Trac, Clary and Viney don't exactly need much of a head start, so if it gives them additional advantage, we could really tear some teams apart.

I feel like this is a key issue, as @Pates also pointed out, having both Max and Brodie in positions able to receive at kick-ins would be a big advantage. I recall a game at the Gabba in 2020 against Brisbane (that we should have won, but didn't), when big Maxy was being repeatedly blatantly and crudely shepherded out of running back to position himself for kick-ins by Charlie Cameron. I'm sure it was a premeditated deliberate coaching tactic by Fagan, well executed by Cameron and it was quite effective at mitigating Max's output at kick-ins in particular and to some extent generally around the ground. Much harder to put work into two genuine marking options like this. I'm also not sure that Jackso was subjected to anything like the same level of oppisition attention, somewhat playing second fiddle to Gawn, who in my view would still have been viewed as the main threat.

Found an article that outlines Burgo's philosophy: Fitness guru reveals secret to Dees' incredible injury-free run: https://www.afl.com.au/news/686425/fitness-guru-reveals-secret-to-dees-incredible-injury-free-run Some key statements below: "There's two ways to go about injury prevention, I think. "If someone has niggles you give them a rest so they complete as many sessions as possible, cut the sessions short if someone's a bit sore, or you can build them up and push them through those periods where they're a little sore, a little bit tender and a little bit fatigued … to provide them with that robustness to get through." Burgess said he used to subscribe to the former theory before evolving to the latter in recent years. After an improved 2020, Melbourne won the 2021 premiership partly off the back of player availability, and the work of Burgess and his team. Nine men played in all 25 games, another four missed just one, and 16 played 20 games or more. "Providing that physical resilience was about turning up, day after day, with training intensity at a super high level," he said. "It's really tempting for medical, performance people to say 'we train from November to March and then we play games. And in January when it's a bit hot and someone rolled their ankle slightly, it's tempting to say just have this session off, it's just January, it doesn't matter if you miss one session'. But it does. Somehow this worked for us in 2021, with players no doubt carrying some injuries through the middle parts of the season, but in 2022, if Selwyn Griffith applied the same philosophy, we are supposing that it wasn't as effective, because the players weren't in as good a condition headding into finals. Maybe there's also some nuance that we didn't quite get right in 2022. I'm also actually woundering if injuries in 2022 were really as significant as is being made out? We weren't that far off Sydney and Brisbane in the finals we played them. Brisbane we'd smashed comprehensively just a few weeks earlier on their home deck. I'm woundering if it's more down to being outplayed on the night in 2022? To some extent I also recall Sydney being helped back into the game by some fairly dubious, momentum shifting umpiring. We beat Sydney and then we'd have had a weeks rest for the whole side before the prelim like we did in 2021.

Not sure 2022 was really that hellish injury wise. The only players I can recall we lost for big parts of the season were T Mac, BBB, and perhaps Salem and Hibbo during the first half of the season. There was also J Smith and Disco, but they're not established best 22. There would have been a number of other top 8 teams that dealt with more injuries than that I feel. T Mac exposed a key structural area we lacked depth (and or a willingness to experiment with others), but the others like Salem and Hibbo were positions we had plenty of depth. The rest were really more 1 or 2 week injuries and niggles and/or trying to keep players playing with underlying issues that really comes more within the space of player management.

I feel a big part of the issue to pick through here is that seemingly what worked for us in 2021 in terms of player management didn't in 2022. From what I heard of the Burgo philosophy, it was all about big pre-season, training at high intensity and playing players through niggles rather than resting them if they were 80% or there abouts. There were some exceptions in 2021, such as late starts for BBB, rests for Salem and possibly others like Viney at various points in the season to 100% recover from more chronic injuries, but from what I recall Burgo's mantra was mostly about train hard to play hard and not resting players.

A fully fit and in-form Salem would be a big lift for the side. Really important player for us when firing. I feel he never really got going in 2022 like in 21. At least Trac was pretty awsome at the start of the season and even then in patches after he was apparently carrying an injury.

But is he the right guy? 😁

Ray, agree with your main points. I was meaning that he's good enough to be given a decient oppertunity at senior level to establish if he can make that step up. I'm not sure he has massive X factor like Kozzie and he definitely wouldn't be like for like in that sense, but I'm not sure he needs huge X factor to be a valuable contributor to the team.

Mostly agree with your broader post fr. However from my own corporate experience of having worked in several companies, I would say that organisational / team culture does impact significantly on how I'd differentiate. Hopefully Kozzie's manager is awake to this. Not sure clubs like Hawthorn or North or Essendon would be particularly attractive options at the moment based on organizational culture. Conversely the players often talk highly favorably of the culture built by Roos/Goodwin and of the positive relationship they have with Goodie. I know there was rumors of disquiet just prior to season 2021 and without being a true insider, I'm not sure where the truth lies, but if the club / team culture at the MFC is strong and imparts a good sense of belonging for Kozzie, I think that would be an important factor he'd consider.