Rodney (Balls) Grinter

I recon he's due and looking primed to kick a bag.

I've been asking Santa for a MFC premiership for 30 years and he hasn't bought one on Christmas day yet. So if we win today, stuff that [censored], he can have his Christmas day, we'll celebrate MFC premiership day on September 25 every year in our household until we win one on another date in September.

We are all sick in some way to support this hellish club, so glad we are feeling it this morning. If we win tonight, I won't be feeling hung over tomorrow.

I want an extended version when we win!

After believing all year, I was having a bit of an MFCSS panic last night, because as good as we've been, on the day anything could happen. So I re-watched the first three quarters of the Geelong PF to calm my nerves. For the past 5 years I've wanted us to finish top 4, to set us up for a genuine crack at the big one. And now we are here. Plan to setup a TV in my outdoor entertaining space to watch pre game shows etc while having a few pre game beers to calm the nerves have a bbq and then head upstairs for the big game. Need to pace myself, because it could get kind of messy if I go too early. NRL neighbors arn't going need to watch the game to get a score update. Fellow Demonlanders in the word of Goody The Great - Lets just be us (not sure how that translates to Demonland, but anyways). Thanks for your comradery. Strangely, over the years, I have enjoyed the ride and hope to be back here sometime tomorrow morning posting in a delirious half drunk celebratory mood.

Got on the train yesterday wearing my retro Demons scarf and the train guard sees me and gives me a big GO DEMONS!! Get a few go Demons around town and I think 90% of neutral fans and even non AFL are behind us. Took a bunch of scarfs into the office today and made everyone in my team an honorary Melbourne supporter for the day, much to the disgust of my boss who's a Lions/Bears fan from day dot, but even he took it in good spirits. GO THE MIGHTY DEMONS!!!

Now 'flying the flag' 24/7 from my part of Brisbane, with a little tribute to the fallen Demons of my generation of supporting the MFC.

It's such a shame that s bit like Jonesy, Nev's best form is a few years behind him at the time the team has been most successful. Though like Jones he will almost certainly miss out on Saturday night, like Jonesy I'm sure he will revel in the sucess of the team as a whole and can be more than proud of the part he has played in the journey for us to get where we are. I think he'll also be particularly happy for Kossie as I get the sense that there is a strong bond between those two guys and that Nev has been quite influential with the mentoring and support he has provided for Kossie.

I must admit that it took me a while to warm to Goody's press conferences. To some extent it was because the standard had been set pretty high by Roos in this regards, but also because the different more simple, monotone and low-key approach of Goody in the way he communicates. But as the years have gone on even Goody's pressers have grown on me and he's probably also lifted his game in this area as he's built confidence in himself as senior coach. It's also much better and easier to hear from a coach of a successful, winning side.

Some credit for this needs to go to our administration that could have gone fully Carlton and sacked Goody before he got the oppertunity that he has had to build the level of trust and maturity in the playing group that has been so essential to our success this year. Also that we havr gone out and recruited some of the best for Goody and the team to work with (how much of a coup has it been recruiting Darren Burgess). I love that Goody has won this award and congratulations. But I'll really celebrate if he emulates what a select few of the past winners of this award did and go on to win the premiership. As I'm sure the man himself would say - "Jobs not done yet!"

Loved the way in which big Jimmy embraced the MFC and the inspirational way he played, conducted his life and encouraged personal growth others within and beyond the footy club to bring out the best in themselves. I probably may have only ever fleetingly met Jim in person at MFC after match functions at the Demons Club back in the day (I can't remember any particular encounter, but odds are I was probably momentarily there when he was as some point). However I read Jimmy's autobiography when I was around the 18 - 20 year age group myself and it left a lasting impression on me. In one chapter, he tells the story about a training run he did in Ireland soon after the 87 prelim debarkle. The story goes that it was typically Ireland, cold and windy as anything and here is big Jim doing this training run up some mountain in Ireland, wanting to stop and give up, but keeping on going by willing himself to the next bend in the track or next little rise or whatever, but never giving up and eventually making it to the top. I used that analogy as inspiration throughout my own humble amature sporting career and hard times in life - if Jimmy didn't give up climbing that huge mountain, surely I can overcome what's in front of me, I'd tell myself. My youngest sister attended a number of Jimmy's Reach Youth functions as a troubled young teenager and I know that left a huge positive impression on her. I know that Jimmy's time as a football administrator isn't necessarily looked on as favourably as some that followed him in the Roos, Jackson, Bartlett era, but as I understand it, he still achieved several great things like wiping a bunch of debt and getting the club moving forward with spirit and a sense of purpose after it lost it's way in those senses in the years that preceeeded his tenure. And let's not forget that the big man was battling cancer and still giving his time and energy to the club. From the way he talks, it's also clear he left a big impression on Max Gawn, so perhaps that's part of the genius of the team as it currently stands right there. Hearing and reading the things that the Stynes family have said in the press over the years and in recient weeks, it's clear their blood bleeds red and blue to the core as well. If we do pull off the win on Saturday, I hope it brings the Stynes family great joy and he and his contribution is acknowledged publicly and prominently amoung the jubilation (which I'm sure it would be).

And didn't Nick Riewoldt try hard to put words in his mouth to the extent of "yeah, but are you [censored] off" to try and get that negative sensationalist sound bite. I think Jonesy answered it about as well as anyone could, with great humility and diplomacy. He did admit an element of being [censored] off, but the overall tone of his take on the issue was so positive and happy for the team that I don't think we really gave them anything much to work with to put together their sensationalist spin. Didn't stop them from weaving like 2 seconds of semi dismissive reaction from Jones into a negative slanted click bait headline: He’s ‘p****d off’ about reaching the end. But Nathan Jones will ‘never regret’ his GF sacrifice https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/teams/melbourne-demons/afl-2021-nathan-jones-on-retiring-before-melbourne-plays-in-grand-final-will-never-regret-flying-home-to-be-with-wife-jerri-on-the-couch-news/news-story/c2d842542332e7a5380178311a3e005f Anyways, overall great interview performance from Jones. I'm sure that Maxy will get a heap of praise for the way he's bought the team together and taken them to the next level this season, but listening to the clips from the players at the start of the interview and also big Maxy himself during his podcast with Nathan before his 300th, it's pretty clear that Nathan Jones has also played a pretty decient role in even our most recient of revivals over the last few seasons driven by solid team culture.

It's a combination of some cheepy Bunnings LED strips and Arlec RGB (should that be RBG - pun intended) smart globes for ambient flooding. Only set me back a few hundred. Not exactly perfect and probably looks better in the photo than real life, but generally gives the effect I was looking for.

So long as they don't turn me into a Collingwood supporter, I think I'll be ok. 😜 Lol!

Lockdowns do still work when you go early and go hard, which is exactly what Gladys didn't do. I agree that the long lockdowns no longer seem to be working to eliminate it, probably partly due to delta and partly due to lockdown fatigue, both of which are a good reason to have short sharp and effective lockdowns.

This image has taunted me on pretty much a daily basis since our victory over the Lion's. Footnote, as a consolation, I ended up in a pub in Stones Corner in Brisbane full of Brisbane supporters for that game and was somewhat enjoyable as one of the few Melbourne supporters amongst that hostility celebrating that win when the final siren went. Really feeling for all you Victorian folk in particular, enduring this second major lockdown in two years. Do hope like heck that we win next Saturday and that brings some joy to your current predicament.

After the time I've had on a personal front this year, I'm absolutely Fffing ropable with some of our politicians for what's happened and how this is panning out. Have been a mad supporter since 87 and a member of some form for most of that time while living in Melbourne. Was there in 88 and 2000 and the pain of those loosing GFs. Got myself an interstate membership back in 2011ish after we'd just been belted by the Eagles, because while I loathed being beaten, with everyone laying into the Demons I thought that it was time to stick fat, not run like rats from a sinking ship. I've had a GF garentree since early 2018, because I thought we were on the verge of something special then. My old man also bought one, so that if we made it, we'd definitely be there (and not get beaten to tickets by all those corporate bankers, neutral MCC and AFL members that didn't deserve to be there) and enjoy the moment of the Demons wining a premership together. Early this season around Rd 3 or 4, I bought a second GF guarantee ticket for my youngest son after he showed enough passion for the mighty Demons that I thought it would be worth while him attending. Before this latest COVID f-up, everything was looking perfect. I'd come down to Melbourne for school holidays, see family, kids could spend some time with their cousins, could go to the pre-lim and then the GF if we made it. Enter that gold standard wench Gladys Berejiklian egged on by that smirky S [censored] C [censored] Scomo who thought they were too good for the rest of us and didn't need to lock down. And they can't plead ignorant either, only their extreme arrogance is what's got us into this mess. Back before Easter up here in Brisbane, we had a snap week long lockdown, because there were a couple of cases of delta detected in the comunity and the health authorities had a sniff of intelligence that delta was more contagious. The smaller states outside of Vic and NSW have shown how to control COVID. You keep the stuff out and if it breaks in, you snuff it out quickly before a spot fire becomes a raging inferno - it ain't rocket science. Scomo's refusal to build fit for purpose quarenteen facilities once it became obvious they were needed has certainly also been a major reason. The Chinese can build a 5000 bed hospital in a week, but Scomo can't even put up a small donga camp to do quarenteen in over 12 months, even with his major general in charge (God help us if we ever go to war). A few weeks back, I was still holding out a glimmer of hope that I could fly in fly out of Perth from Brisbane. We'd had F all cases up here for a month or more, but the odd incursion from interstate truck drivers has been enough to keep the condition of entry into WA as 14 days quarinteen, which I simply cannot afford to do in my personal position. I'm not really the biggest fan of Eddy McGuire, but Mark McGowan's treatment of him along with his skiting about hoasting the GF has really got on my nerves. Don't know who the bloke supports, but I hope he never gets to see his team play in another GF. For all the years bitching and moaning of WA club supporters that they never get the GF, they've never had it this bad, at least a fair portion of them have been able to travel to Vic. Anyways, rant over for now. I'll be barracking my lungs out from my living room in Brisbane (neighbours said they knew ever time Melbourne scored last week) and hoping like F that we win it and there will be tears of utter elation if we do, but it won't be anything like the same as being there at the G with my old man (who was there in 64) and my youngest son. IF we win, I'll be then hoping that the players have enough hunger and the cards can fall our way to collect another premiership at the G, because no belated, contrived celebration could beat being there at the ground after that final siren goes with the Demons in front in that last day in September.

Since we are playing in a night grand final.

Love it. I must say, I've only just started and I keep thinking of new bits and pieces I want to add. If we pull off the premership on GF day, it will be better than any Christmas I've ever had!!

It's been quoted many times by the players in recient times that the key to our success so far this season has been that the players have embraced a team first mantra along with a sense if selflessness to acheive that. In so many ways over his career by sticking with us and finally punctuated by his decision to put family first and return home, Nathan Jones should be viewed as the embodiment of that selflessness. I previously thought that Jonesy playing on Grand Final day could provide extra motivation and his onfeild presence fearsome. Perhaps in the end it could be his final football sacrifice that will the more powerful influence? Jonesy thanks for giving everything you could to the Mighty Demons, giving us something to cheer for and the nucleus of hope for our club to build on --- Now go and bring us home the premiership Demons!!!

My kitchen/dinning area. Exterior house lights in progress.

Up here in Qld my 6yo son's PE teacher has been wearing one all season. Every time he walks past this teacher my son gives him a huge "GO DEMONS!!" with complementary pump action.

Agree. I see it more as a statement of fact than a backhanded chip at the club. From someone really hoping Jonesy could still be in GF calculations, I think the club did pretty much all it could by him this season given where we are at. What really cost him was getting injured again just as his form was comming good, that and that the GF is being played in Perth, not the MCG and thus he couldn't do both the birth and potentially still keep a glimmer of hope as being named even the sub. With what it sounds like Jerri was going through, and what Max has said, it sounds like Nathan would have made the decision to come back home regardless of the potential of being named in the side or not.

I've only re-watched 'that 3rd quarter' again so far as I was totally shagged and with a belly of red and cideres I ended up falling asleep on the couch (for a change), but highlights that stuck out to me: MAXY GAWN - did what he's always threatened to do and kick a huge bag. In my view, he's always had the potential to do this, last night it all just clicked. Trac - what a bull. With Geelong sacrificing Selwood in an attempt to quell Clarry, they couldn't contain the Trac as well and he had such a huge presence and driving force early; Kossie - was super sharp and Geeeelong just didn't have anyone capable of containing him. If he keeps playing like that, perhaps he'll be the measuring players off him and not Ciryl; BBB - did BBB things and has justified his selection and place in the side; T Mac - although he didn't set the looked like he has got his mojo back and could be poised to tear our opponent next week apart. Above all, I'm just so happy that a bloke like T Mac who was there when we were getting smashed every week got to be a part of last night and unless something goes pear shaped will be there next week; Joel Selwood - loved seeing him spit the dummy over that 50m penalty to Fritta. I don't know why the comentators are so in love with Selwood and act like he's an ornament to the game, when regular acts like last night show he's an absolute peanut.

Still buzzing from last night's game, even though I'm tired as [censored] and mildly hung over. Could see from early in the game that we were sharp and switched on and for once we were able to get that dominance on the score board, put the foot to the throat and just keep ramming it home so hard untill it came out the cats [censored]. That third quarter was something to behold. Was happy enough pretty much totally cruising and turning the whole last quarter into a stress free, self preservation mode junk time. I've only really witnessed other great teams that have gone on to win premierships play in this way in big finals and not the MFC. Never seen our team play with such consistency and dominance over the whole competition. It's a great feeling and I just hope like heck it continues for at least another week this season and then who knows, maybe even the next couple of years.