Rodney (Balls) Grinter

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.

I'm quite happy for players privacy to be respected. If they wanted everyone to known the details, I'm sure they would have put it out there and perhaps in the fullness of time, he will. Unless Tippa does choose to tell his story, then I don't think it's right to be speculating.

CARN THE NARRM Love it and looking forward to yelling it out at the ground on Saturday.

Agree. Alot of credit really does need to go to those who sealed these deals. Not only did we get it done with a reasonable exchange of picks in pretty much all cases, but the efforts to convince these players that they should chose the MFC over the many other potential suitors shouldn't be underrated either. It's not like we were exactly a destination club until 2021. From what I recall, most players that have arrived at the club all stated at the time that they were super impressed with the approach and vision outline by Goody in their talks with him, but I dare say there are probably also others in our admin that quietly did a great job behind the scenes as well. I think that Melksham and Pig Dog could also be added to that list of great trading and I can hardly think of a trade bust that we've had in recient years.

Also ironic that he played his first game against us as well. He well and truely got me riled when he played us that year, I think even more so the second time we played them at Docklands. It was a game I thought we should have been more than compeditive in and should have won, but they rolled us again, BBB went on to kick a bag of 3 goals or so and all the comentators could talk about was how rubbish the MFC were, but how North had found a good player in BBB. Couldn't believe our luck when he chose to come to us when North pretty much gave home away only a year or so after he'd accumulated more goals over a 3 year period than any other player in the comp. My youngest son has a jumper with the No.50 on it. Congratulations BBB. 150 games and a premership player for the Red and Blue - you've done well.

Hawkins broke Steve May's face non-deliberately and got zero weeks. I can understand how umpires might struggle for consistency when they need to make 'in the moment' decisions, but the MRO tribuneral, whatever it is really doesn need to do much better. It's not rocket science.

There is no justice in the penalties being handed out by the MRO at all on an individual level. A two week suspension doesn't really hurt established players like Ryan and Hawkins etc. Thought Chandler was pretty good when he came on in the last quarter and although Luke Dunstan is probably the most likely replacement for Harmes, I thought Chandler put his best foot forward with his limited game time. Two weeks right now is potentally costing Chandler a chance at establishing his career, for something which was pretty accidental and based on the bad luck of the consequence to the opposition player. Similar could be said for ANB when he was rubbed out in 2020.

Technically you were right on the interstate call Flemo, with Spargs being from Aulbry and being a TAC Murray Bushranger, but his Wiki page also metions something about him being an with NSW/ACT in the U16 & 18 championships and a GWS Academy player, so we are lucky he slipped through that net. Your call somewhat surprised me at first as I only remembered the connection with his dad to North and that he was a Melbourne Grammar boy.