Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Yeah, cool. I get that perspective too. Saturday afternoon would have been my preference, following that Friday night. Guessing the AFL and the club also have their eye on the TV audience. Not sure what the calculation is there Wednesday Vs Friday, but I'I'm guessing in their drive to Amercanize our sport and maximize cash, pretty much anything goes. I'm just hoping that things will return to a Saturday afternoon GF at the MCG again from 2022 onwards.

I'm actually not so sure about playing the dogs fist up, as I'd probably rather us both have at least 3 or 4 games under our belts Into the new season, to build both form and anticipation of the game, but I can also live with playing them first up in Rd 1. It's a no loose situation for us really though. We win the game and all MFC supporters will go home happy that we've unveiled the flag and got a win first up to maintain our dominance and kick off the new season on the right foot. We loose and it's like 'meh, we won the one that counts and we're the premier's. I'd much rather win mind you and should we subsequently loose games in the following rounds, a round one loss would be more consequential. Still, a big pressure game for both teams first up to kick things off.

You don't think we'll get 80,000 MFC fans to this game to watch us unveil the flag for the first time in 57 years? Sunday will be great for everyone who can make it, but I'd be going to this Rd 1. game if it was played underwater at Timbucktoo at 4:00am on a Monday morning.

Love your work Webber. Give me your work over a Picasso or Van Gogh any day of the week. This fine art should adorn the wall of the true Melbourne supporter.

Nah, we play that just as the dogs get onto the ground before the game. ...and after if we win too!

Now we are premiers, the sound of that song should simultaneously send a chill down the spines of MFC and opposition supporters for polar opposite reasons. Hope it becomes even more hated by the opposition than Ports never tear us apart or whatever it is.

That's true. I guess also if it weren't for short quarters and a horror 5 days or whatever in Cairns a few seasons ago, we probably would have made and presented well in finals last year and appeared less like we'd come from way back in the pack as well. As has been variously pointed out and stated by Goody, Max and others, our 2020 was actually pretty decient, bar a few finishing touches to the team's ethos and character.

Yeah, perhaps I'm being a little Chicken Little there. What's probably more likely is that MFC 2019, is just missing the 8, like the Hawkes of 2009. I could handle that, so long as we go on and did what they did subsequently. Of course, I'd really love us to go back to back, but it's such a big ask, I'd rather not bank it just yet. ...then again, maybe we could just jump straight to the Brisbane Lions style 'three-peat' straight up - to quote an infamous catch cry from a few years back "I'd like to see that!!".

Although, on this occation, at least Flash posted a bit of a summary and key quote.

Love just how fickle the media are. Start of last season they bearly rated us at all, had St Kilda, Carlton, Freo, Essendon and possibly Hawthorn surpassing us. Now all of a sudden we have a list that is setup to win multiple premierships. To be honest, I didn't exactly foresee last season would go as spectacularly well as it did, but I did think we had the core of a list that could compete for a flag over the next 2 or 3 years at least. Now all this incessant tyre pumping is making me nervous and I just hope we arn't about to get 2019 Mk 2.

How times have changed!!

Just move them out by another 0.97 maxies and make the a 25 maxie line. Not sure your average footballer, let alone comentators would understand decimal points and fractions of maxies.

On a related note, I loved reading the Melbourne bit in the below article: https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2022-round-1-teams-afl-draft-2021-recruits-most-likely-to-debut-in-round-1-at-every-club/news-story/5c63c76358ba821c57a2ba5437d54ee1 Round 1 verdict: The draftees most likely to debut immediately at every AFL club MELBOURNE Three great national draft selections for the Dees, but it’s going to be a tough task for all of them to break into the reigning premiers’ senior team early. Perhaps the best chance would be first-round selection Jacob Van Rooyen. The 193cm and 91kg utility, who played a few games at WAFL league level for Claremont this year, will walk into the Demons with a strong frame and the ability to play inside either 50m arc. The biggest obstacle, though, is there’ll be a few gun players – at either end of the field – in front of Van Rooyen. But a strong pre-season from the WA product should still put him in the mix. Honestly I could have predicted this would be written up as the prediction for us, both from my own analysis and also because of the cookie cutter script Fox Sports use for these articles. But I still just liked reading the parts about us being premiers and how all these experts are fawning over our list all of a sudden.

What ever the correct wording was suposed to be, it should go down in modern footy folklore and replace / contemporise that Kennedy one. The force lives strong in the Reverend.

As quoted from the article in question: "AFL coverage fails to inspire him. He tries, but listening to commentators with little knowledge of modern football’s arcane strategy makes him groan or curse. It’s not worth the grief." Though said article was none the less written by a journalist as well! Best guesses for which coverage / comentators this was aimed at?

Love your work. Someone needs to offically raise this as a motion at the next MCC general meeting, to have the unit of official measurements of the MCG changed from the metric system (SI units) to Gawn units of maxies.

Look, I totally rate Goody and agree he should be getting most of the coaching credit for taking us to a flag, but I think Roos did still play an important part in turning around our culture. Other guys within the coaching staff like Choco, Stafford, Chapman, Yze, Burgess etc probably also deserve some credit too. Although 2019 was a Fing disaster, Dave Misson was also probably the one who lifted our fittness and traing standards to anything like where they needed to be (under Roos?). After all, it's a team game on and off the field.

That's a bit of a stretch isn't it Mo? Roosy and Jackson bought us some space and credability and laid the foundations of the culture for guys like Goodie to build upon. Roos bought a build from defense mindset that bought back compeditiveness and confidence to a team that had neither for the preceding period. His impact was huge. With all the sack Goodwin now thread that was going pretty hard up until the start of this season, do you seriously think Goodie would have made it through the period that Roos guided us through as a rookie coach?

Loved those post premership scene with Gary Lyon interviewing Shane in his 2000 GF jumper. Similarly the probably somewhat staged scene with Jack presenting the premiership cup to Todd made me all warm and fuzzy inside. Will be great to see a video of Shane and Taj celebrating his selection for the mighty Red and Blue. Also wounding if Jack and Taj got to know each other hanging out around the MFC rooms all those years ago?

Would be a great outcome. By the time that guys like Viney, Oliver, Patracca, Harmes, Salem etc are reaching the back end of their careers, to have a second solid core comming through in behind them, the likes of James Jordan, Tommy Sparrow, Bailey Laurie, Kosie, Jacko and now potentially the likes of Taj Woewden reaching their prime will be so important to our sustained sucess. Having solid characters like Jack Viney, James Harmes and Taj Woewdin that bleed red and blue and have that almost unbreakable loyalty to the club is so important to a strong team culture IMHO.

Similar experience with the "Premiership Greatness" framed, signed photo I ordered. Courier just left it on the front door at my mum's place I had it delivered to. When I checked my email, yes they had notified me it was on its way around the time it was delivered at 7:30am on a Saturday morning, but like I'm seeing that at that hour (and I'm actually in Brisbane, so that was 6:30am for me). Got left on the front doorstep at 9am on a Saturday morning in broad sight of the footpath, with no-one signing to receive it. Luckily, they took and emailed me a photo of where they had left it, so had it gone missing, I would hace provided this as evidence of their stupidity and requested full replacement. Had my mobile No., but I received no phone call. 'Couriers Please' - please lift your F#@$ING game! Couriers please and Memorabilia mob can expect a phone call from me as I have several others on the way and stuffed if I want this happening again.

...or maybe he's more Taj Woewodin? 😁 I get that he ultimately didn't quite make it and no doubt he had some deficiencies in his game that were the reason for that, but Billie was still pretty close to cracking it and played some good games. Kicked important goals for us in those break through wins we had against the Cats in 2015 and Hawks in 2016 and was highly regarded within the playing group for his professional training standards, so I'd like to think that he in some way contributed to our rise. If Taj has the same approach as Billie, I don't think we can ask much more than that.

That Sam I am, that Sam I am. Say, I do like green eggs and ham!! Not sure that what you were aiming for Red, but it works. For what it's worth, I also think the Weid is only having a decient, non-injury interrupted preseason away from having a really good season next season as well.

What about 27? A few good backman for us have played in that number.

That bloke on our list that was part of the best defense in the competition 'Steve May' is waving hello with his All Australian blazer on! Sheesh mate, not everyone can be a Luke Jackson!! 😉