Rodney (Balls) Grinter

So greatful Jason Taylor worked his magic and bought Kossie to the MFC. My recollection is that he was somewhat a speculative selection for a small forward to go as high as pick 12 and from the start it was clear that Taylor had alot of faith in Kossie to make it. Likewise I think it's clear that Goodie and the other leaders at the club continue to back in Kossie when he has a patch of quiet games. And watching him play, it's not hard to see why. Even when he doesn't have a big scoreboard impact, the pressure and harassment of opposition players, along with the sneaky little assists he provides team mates, he's always contributing and so often looks like he's just that rub of the green from splitting a game open like he did yesterday. He also seems to have such a modest unassuming approach in the context of his extraordinary ability, that it's easy to see why he would be loved by his team mates. Of yesterday's performance, I loved the amazing range of skills Kossie executed to perfection to slot his 6 goals home. A couple of freakish snaps from deep in the pocket, that split second kick out of mid air, a couple of regulation set shots that he calmly put through the middle and a great running goal from outside 50m. I actually really rate Kossie's set shots and his ability to go back and kick the more mundane goals is something that really adds value to him as a dangerous small forward. Then there were those trademark dance moves to twist and turn, wrong foot his opponent and buy himself space to cleanly dispose of the ball, when most other players would get wrapped up in a tackle. About the only skill I'm yet to see him fully master is pulling down one of those screamers that he flys for every so often. Once he gets his technique and confidence right to complete these marks, his skill set as an outright excitement machine will be complete. Love your work Kossie.

Agree 100%. I think this mostly started with that decision not to handball to Trac a few games back, but I personally think that was more just a case of Freitch misjudging how much time and space he thought he had at the time than a deliberate decision to burn Trac. In that instance take away the impending tackle and it's the easiest shot on goal that you'd expect most league players to go for themself rather than dish off to someone that was a few meters away and hardly in a better position to kick the goal. Since then it's just been the ridiculous pile on alluded to. More a case of some of these media hero's like David King and Brian Taylor selfishly wanting to be something vaguely resembling relevant and for everyone to hear what football geniuses they are. As if BT would look to pass off a potential goal to a teammate. ...as if BT has any kind of mates 😜.

Just an observation that Bedford seemed pretty quiet this week. Did a few good things when he got his hands on the pill, but just didn't get much of it. I wounder if he was given a defensive role to take one of Port's playmakers out of the game. I'd still be keeping him in the team regardless at the moment as the extra pace and goal scoring potential he adds means that the opo has another fast player that they need to mind and match-up on, which I'm guessing helps take some of the heat off other guys like Kossie. Thought some of our second tier forwards like Spargo and Melksham played really good games, used it well and really contributed to the win yesterday as well.

I might be going against the grain here, but I've been quite happy with BBB's form over the past 2 or 3 weeks. Has been leading well up the ground and providing that outlet option between the arcs that was previously more T Mac's role. He has provided a good target in this situation and been cluncking them pretty cleanly more often than not, which is probably really more his natural game to be taking marks on a lead than the big contested pack mark. Even though he hasn't kicked any big bags, he's still really good at hitting the scoreboard from limited opportunities and has that innate goal sense of a true forward that means he puts himself in dangerous positions to capitalize on spills and loose balls that bob up his way. Also noted the Fox comentators having a go at Bailey Freitch again for being 'selfish', but I'd disagree here too for the most part. Again, Bailey is just such a good shot at goal 90% of the time either from a set shot or in general play, that I think he's one of the few players (like Kossie) that you'd give a licence to be a little tunnel visioned and have a ping at the goals. I'll bet there's more times than not that he kicks the goal and no one notices that he had other options. Conversely, there are also times when players try to pass off the ball into a spot with a player in a better position, but end up messing it up, turning it over without bothering the scorers. I'm sure we'd all like it to be perfect execution entering our forward line every time, every game, but I actually think we are going ok in this respects and it's not panic stations in respects to our forward line performance.

I agree that Preuss has significant potential as a ruckman in terms of ability and showed quite a bit for us at times when he was called on. Biggest question for me is around his robustness and age. He's now 27 and from what I can gather has never been able to string a near complete season together at AFL level. Gawn certainly had injury and some attitude issues early, but was able to get all that together early enough in his career to establish himself and then produce at that high level for a number of years once he'd established his grove. I fear Pruess will go down in the history books as a player who could have been, but never was due to injury.

Why not? Wouldn't be Demonland if there wasn't redundant topics off everywhere. But I happen to think this one raises some unique points that would be lost in the generic changes thread.

The obligatory angry fan going off at bad umpiring decision (or non decision). Ch7 got me having one of those moments against the Lions at Metricon at our home game in 2020, that we should have won.

Viney's game was an absolute ripper, but i also really liked Bedford's game. He'd have to be pretty close to being a permanent selection now Bedford, just about every full game he's player this year he's been excellent. Weid did ok without setting the world on fire. Maysy is just so important to the way we play. Wasn't exceptional last night and he had that massive clanger kick that resulted in a easy goal against the play, but you can tell he's just such a steddying influence on our defence. Clarry was Clarry and the more I watch him, the more you see those brilliant hand passes and subtle knock ons that so often end in goals that would otherwise have ended in a stoppage or turnover. Harmes Jimmy Jordan and Tommy Sparrow also continued their great seasons. That goal marked over the goal line of Harmesy's was karma for that one Tommy Mac stole off him by marking it on the line!

Todd must be so proud of Jack. He reminds me of the way the old man use to play more and more.

Still somewhat buzzing from Thursday night's game. Such a pivotal win in setting up the back half of our year. Still a realitively long way to go, but this win puts up in the driver's seat for now, where as a loss would have seen us scrapping just to stay in the top four (based on previous season's following the MFC, I can hardly believe I'm saying this and with us being 11 and 3!!). While I usually always give us something of a chance of winning, but must fully admit that the MFCSS was having something of a relapse, because I wasn't really very optimistic at heart headding into the game based on our form. To watch the team totally control the game after quarter time and then blow Brisbane out of the water in the circumstances made that a more enjoyable win than any other this season. Winning by small margins with an expectation of winninh and being always in control had got almost boring.

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.