Rodney (Balls) Grinter

People often credit Max's leadership with our flag, but it's pretty clear to me that between them, Jack and Max make a pretty dynamic duo. I think Jack deserves to be captain in his own right again some day and think he'd do a great job of it too.

That tackle on Coleman at 3:25 is a thing of beauty. Incidentally at 3:15 the Lingers - Spargo double falcon lol.

Jack would tear the cougar a new one if ever he stepped on to a footy field.

Yeah ...nah.

You know, I think Goody just needs to get amoungst it some more and go and have some beers down at the pub with our players. Kinda worked in the past!

Yeah, I guess there's a fine line between anger and passion and maybe I've also had a few beverages myself tonight too Macca. Crossing over from another thread, I certainly do agree with you that we could definitely do with a win about now. I loathed the Hawthorn teams of the past, the 80s and 90s ones in particular. But one mantra they did hold pretty true to, that I have a fair bit of respect for is that they rarely lost three games in a row.

I was well and truely alive that whole time and watched pretty much all of it live, much to my disappointment and mediocre is exactly how i would describe it. During that period, we played with flashes of brilliance, but never had the complete complement of players, administration, team buy in and system to put it all together on a consistent basis, which all lead to scraping into the finals series and 40 years of finals fails. It was the very definition of mediocre. Individual players don't make a team. There's no need to tarnish Robbie in any of this, he was a star and from what I can make out, epitomised what every team player should aspire to, but the teams he played in never won a flag and thus those teams don't come close to being great. The thing that sets our current team apart is the consistency of effort, system and winning, which gave us a credible chance of winning a flag and then grabbing the opertuity that presented when it was there to be taken. Got a framed picture on my wall that is captioned "PREMERSHIP GREATNESS". Everything else is mediocre.

Anyone calling for Steve May's head needs to give them selves an upper cut. May's never say die attitude is the sort of spirit that saw us turn around a 20 point third quarter deficit into an 80 point premership for the MFC. You can't worship that and then turn on the guy when he tips ever so slightly over the other side of the line. Just can't please some people, the Weid is soft and doesn't put in, but now May's too much of an animal? To all the people that claim he shouldn't have been drinking - the impression I get is that today's footballers drink 10 times less and have 100 times more disiplined lifestyle than the average man on the street, so unless you're perfect, then let the bloke be a human. The AFL wading into this is total BS. Buddy gets one week for intentionally impacting a guy in the head with a fist while sober on a footy feild with perfect video evidence and they want to go further than the one week self imposed punishment given by the MFC - go [censored] yourselves AFL. I've seen a number of the statements made by Max and Maysy post the event - like what more do you want these guys to do? Start flagellating themselves until the blood runs freely FFS.

Sydney and Freo made us look like a team that was tired from winning 17 games in a row. Freo made us look a little second rate, but honestly loosing to Sydney by 12 points making us look ordinary? FFS The team isn't exactly firing at 110%, but if you are complaining about the teams performance at this point right now, after suffering a lifetime of mediocre rubbish, then God help you. I'm backing our boys led by Max to show the Pies what a real footy team looks like on Monday. GO THE MIGHTY DEMONS!!! Get behind our boys MFC supporters. Get angry and get [censored] LOUD!!

Of course if we loose it's not the Cheer Squads fault, but crowd noise does add significantly to home ground advantage and right now I feel we have none or worse in that respects. Most other teams know how to play the G and would feel zero intimidation factor comming to play us there from a home crowd perspective right now. Even Brisbane crowds at the Gabba create more crowd noise for them than we do at the G right now. When Max said after we won the flag at the end of last year, that he and the team wanted to win a flag here in Melbourne for our supporters, right now, I think him and the boys would almost be thinking -- "why bother, our crowds and supporters are so meh".

I agree with the premise of this thread started by @Sam the demon . To have interstate teams like Freo and Sydney provide a louder crowd presence than us is absolutely pathetic (Freo in particular as at least Sydney have some local ex South Melbourne supporter base). It's an indictment on our whole supporter base, not just the Cheer Squad. However, I personally don't buy the meek Melbourne supporter rubbish. Growing up supporting our club through the 90s and early 2000s, we were significantly louder and prouder, even though the team was less consistently high performing. I even think back in 2018 finals series we there was more passion and crowd presence. Going to the footy pretty much every home game this year, since returning from 18 years of life in the Sunshine State, I've been particularly disappointed in how quite and how little chant support there has been for our might DEMONS. I feel it becomes somewhat of a vicious circle when our games lack atmosphere and home crowd support, it's no wonder we are struggling to attract a bit crowd from week to week and the lack of any prior vocal presence leads to quiet timmid crowd interactions the next week. I actually think @BoBo is on the right track here, that we need more people who are prepared to be vocal interspersed over a larger area, than all concentrated into a single pack behind the goals. Those of us that don't sit in the Cheer Squad need to get behind any chant that starts - people are like sheep in this respects, once a few start up, others join. While I'm not directly having a go at the cheer squad, as from all I can gather the Demon Army has built a great culture of inclusiveness, I do think the lack of noise is a failing of the group's purpose. I'd love to see them plant a few more clusters of people who are vocal and prepared to coodinate and get our chant going over a wider area.

On another note, is there any stats published on goals from free kicks? My suspicions are that Sydney would have had this stat covered on Saturday night.

So after training for free kicks, this is Beverage's second row of defense in his secret weapons for free kicks - fan army free kick advocate bots. We're onto you Doggies.

Lol Yeah, so did I. Comes across better and funnier in Max's interview the way he delivers the line than typed text could do, but I also love the hard as nails attitude of May. Played injured in our prelim and premiership wins, but I think just his physical presence and leadership out on the ground in those games strengthened our team's resolve. He's plays with that same courageous character and spirit that Jonathan Brown did for the Lions in their premership years.

Thanks for kicking off this thread @Turner. Congratulations Jake 200 games is a great achievement for a modern footballer and you've put in a bunch of great ones for the red and blue. Jake's 2018 finals series was an absolute ripper and us winning finals that Jake was a huge part of, contributed to us building belief that we belonged and could perform on the big stage. Kicked a great goal last week that was similar to those that got us over the top of Hawthorn back in 2018. Hope you have a great game today Jake and enjoy the rest of your ride with the mighty Narrm.

I understand that perspective and I must say I haven't really seen him set the world on fire in any of his senior games over the past few years. By the same token, he's been pretty close to the mark for the position he plays as well, but certainly wouldn't be in the side over a fit James Harmes were he available right now. He's also a good distributor inside forward 50, which we really need at the moment and I'm not sure Dunstan provides that skill set so well. But that all said, I think Melksham made a decient contribution to our rebuild from obscurity over his career with us and it's not gifting games to honour players like that in a fitting way in milestone games, it's showing gratitude and respect and I think that is well within the character of the current team.

And all the aforementioned looked like they belonged at the level just about from day dot, where as I'd argue that Baker has looked like he had potential to, but wasn't quite there in certain areas. No disrespect to Baker, because I think he puts in and gives it a red hot crack. I also think he's had plenty of chance with the time he's had on our list. I wounder if he would be an attractive addition to add some depth and another mature body to an up and comming list like GC (was he from that way) or West Coast etc?

Will be interesting to see where Bedford plays. Been really impressed by his appearances so far this year. Goody has stated that Tobby is ready to perform at senior level and I'd absolutely agree based on what I've seen. Looks much more confident and assured with the ball compared to appearances he's made in previous years and his pressure has been awsome. Does he play on a wing for us this week? From what I recall hearing he has one of the biggest tanks at the club.

Happy to see Melksham play his 200 for us at the G. Really hope the boys turn it on, win for him to make it one to remember and keep our winning ways going.

I just want to know why this thread isn't more appropriately named "What they are saying at Cockburn Central"?

Yeah, I agree with you on both points Nasher. It did occur to me that playing this kind of mind games wasn't really in the Goodwin straight talking, honest, open and respectful communication play book.

It's not only Loyd either. Turn on just about any footy show and they all sing our praises. Rewind just a few years ago to mid-late 2020 or worse still mid-late 2019 and the media would have been telling a completely different story about us. Just goes to show how fine the line is and how fickle the media can be. It's also weird how quickly your own mindset changes too. I would have previously been quite happy and accept that we may not win every game, but if we generally won more than we lost, I could be quite comfortable with that. I'm getting to the point at the moment, that I'm not sure how I handle a loss if that ever happens again.

I was somewhat surprised when Melksham got the nod over Dunstan to replace Harmes. I have to wounder if Viney missing was the plan all along and/or if they were playing some game with Dunstan to keep him hungry? I'm not trying to diminish Melksham as a player, because I do somewhat rate him, based on past performances, but it really did seem like Dunstan was the more obvious choice to replace Harmes from the start, based on current form. All very strange. The only other thing I could think of is that perhaps Melksham plays a more similar role for the team as Harmes, being a talented distributor inside 50 by foot as compared to Dunstan. Does make complete sense to rest Viney if he's not quite right though. Too important of a player to risk injury wise and even if it sends a message to North that we don't rate them (which should be fairly apparent regardless), I think we're so much better off preserving Jack for later in the season. Looking forward to seeing what Melksham and Dunstan can do with their oppertunity.

Picket Palace have one on Richo. They also have one on Aaron Hamill, but it seems to be more of an instrumental track, so I'm not sure that counts. Of course there was also Mark Jackson's "I'm an Individual", but that was written and sung by himself, so I'm not sure that counts either.

All the best Tippa. One hell of a player, if only you'd been a Demon. Not many players get a song this cool made about them.