Rodney (Balls) Grinter

The one flip side to the long weekend of waiting for our game is that it's helping give me something extra to get through the usual Monday workday drudgery.

I know it probably doesn't make a big difference once finals start, but I would love to see us win tonight and be in the box seat to win the minor premiership. Think it would be a good psychological boost for the boys and our supporters if nothing else. ...of course the media would still be asking if we are the real deal, but who cares what they think. Anyways get the job done tonight boys or it's all academic.

Really happy for Hawthorn and their supporters to see them making this great late season charge. What an excellent and fitting parting gift it would be from Clarko to Jeff if he could get his beloved Hawks another rung or four up the ladder and weaken whatever draft hand they have a bit.

I think this is the key to it. Having watched a fair bit of Martin in the past and having seen what he can produce, I still think he can be an elite player in the same mold as Charlie Cameron is at the Lions. But he certainly isn't delivering value for money at the moment. Really glad our list management team seems to apply a such a mature approach to picking and choosing which players we chase hard and are prepared to offer good, but not ridiculous money too. Hibbard, Lever, May, Langdon, Tomlinson all have such great character that go along with what I assume are reasonably priced salaries. From what I recall, Lever and May are on pretty decient coin, but it's not the stupid big highest bidder type money either. I'd imagine they could both have attracted a far bigger pay check elsewhere. As another asides, there is a lesson in all this for the Weid too I think and I actually personally get the impression that it's not lost on him.

Congratulations on game 100 Nibbler. Was a great game that one, Max Gawn's break out game as well, when he stamped himself all over it, taking a ton of big grabs all over the shop. Let's hope Nibblers game 100 can be just as memorable for a gusty win in another highly adversarial enemy territory in West. Nibbler has well worn the scapegoat tag for all our failings in the past, for reasons I really can't understand. Like many in the team, he has lifted his game to new levels this season, but to me, the signs of his elite running, smart ball use by foot and handy goal sneak ability have been there for a while. His form this season and notching up 100 games is a triumph for the lesserlikes over the marque players of footy.

Wow, that's incredible. Wouldn't it be amazing if they got more injuries before the end of the season and had to pick some lucky bloke out of the VFL not even on an AFL list to put 22 players on the field.

Talking about players/teams doing a Melbourne, gee I loved that shot for goal from was it Jordan Clark last night in the last quarter. Easy set shot, 15m out stuff all angle and he tries on some stupid around the corner kick and puts it out on the full. Geelong were only 9 points down at the time and had around 6mins or something on the clock. Had he kicked that, I reckon GWS would have [censored] the bed and rolled over. Way worse than Max Gawn's miss against the Cats in 2018 or whenever it was. At least Max had the excuse of genuine pressure of the moment and in front of a big crowd. Reeked of arrogance and a lack of footy sense on behalf of Clark.

I can't realistically see how it would happen, but I'd really love it if Gold Coast could dig deep after their embarrassment of last week and knock off Carlton today. Would make Carlton supporters feel some Melbourne like pain of having their season snuffed out totally by a team they should beat every other day, after thinking they might be within a sniff of a finals chance after their win last week.

Petty could potentially do the job as well, as could May in the end as all three of our key backs are pretty good readers of the ball and interceptors. I guess I was thinking that out of the three, Lever is the more likely to play with a bit of physical distance between him and his opponent and not get engaged physically which plays to Hawkins key asset - he's just such a huge powerful man, to the point that he makes May almost seem puny and weak.

Really must say that I don't really like Monday night or Sunday night games for that matter. I find I get impatient waiting out the whole round / weekend to watch us play unbearable, particularly now we are playing so well and I expect us to win most games.

Great summary Binman. From what I saw of the game, also I thought the key was that Taylor didn't engauge physically so much with Hawkins and relied more on his ability to read the play and intercept. Has me thinking that would we perhaps be better playing Lever on Hawkins and May on Ratugolea or one of their other key forwards in a few weeks? Not that I thought May did badly on Hawkins last time around before he got taken out by his backhander.

Gee, all the doom and gloom for GWS to kick off this thread aged well didn't it??!! To be fair, I was mostly thinking the same thing before the game started and certainly not complaining about the result. Does have me worried about all the tallent that GWS still have on their books. Loose their elite key forward before the start of the season, have a horror run with injuries and still compeditive with good teams and in touch with finals. They have been inconsistent, which is why they are not deeper inside the eight right now, but that is probably somewhat because they have struggled have any consistency with personal due to injuries and a young side. If those two things turn for them next season, they could be quite a formidable team.

Agree with the above. Also, while it's a little bit off topic of this thread, but from what I saw of the game, I thought was that Taylor didn't engauge physically so much with Hawkins and relied more on his ability to read the play and intercept. Has me thinking that would we perhaps be better playing Lever on Hawkins and May on Ratugolea in a few weeks? Not that I thought May did badly on Hawkins last time around before he got taken out by his backhander.

Here was I thinking this thread related to our charge to make the top 8. Seems unusually pedestrian for this time of year ...boreing even. Usually around this time of year, I'm doing the sums on us needing to win our last three games of the year and what other teams need to loose games for us to sneak in. Not really sure how to handle this guaranteed finals caper. Where has all the excitement gone? 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️

Isn't Walker thier captain WTF? What an embarrassment. What a disgrace. Come on AFL time to step in. No more time for BS excuses and puss weak appologies.

It often more like a 20/80 decision the way holding the ball decisions don't get paid by some umpires. Was often a directive of coaches when I played that you are better to hold onto the ball that bit longer, be prepared to get tackled and dispose of it properly to a good option than to panic and just put the next bloke under pressure or turn it over. I've never really had an issue with it when Jones or Viney get paid holding the ball on that basis alone. Even in recient times when he wasn't racking up huge possession numbers, it was my observation that Jonesy often used the ball so creatively and setup guys in good space within our forward line that we got very good value out of those possessions, precisely because he didn't just pass the ball on like a hot spud.

Seems like Oscars are wipping boys whichever team they play for.

Thinking about the Eagles copping the full brunt of an Optus Stadium booing should be extra motivation for our boys to do a proper job on them. Would be a real highlight of our season if we could make that happen.

So [censored] ropeable right now. The contrasting outcomes between Jack and Lance Franklin is a [censored] disgrace. The only potential upside is that we can now micro manage Jacks training regime in the run-up to finals, get him cherry ripe ready to tear some opposition on-ballers a new one.

Of all our games to stuff-up the replay for, the one we finally put a team to the sword properly! I finally got rid of ripoff Foxtel for Kayo back in March and haven't looked back.

There's a contract with the MCC that has to be honoured doesn't it? The MCC/MFC alliance has to be worth something doesn't it? Sorry, I forgot how this really all works - we'd be screwed over big time, but wouldn't it be even sweeter beating them on the one and only time the GF if played on their dung mound?

Brisbane are puss. Only up there the last two seasons because they had a dream run with injuries and home games. My personal thoughts are that there are only really 3 genuine contenders for the flag this year - us, Bulldogs and Sydney... and I think we can beat them all. Call it a hunch, but I really do hope and expect the wheels to fall off dad's army when the going gets tough deep into finals. All the others are just pretenders.

Puss off for good Jeff. That's the best thing you'd ever do for Victoria.

Spargo has an excuse - he's a short [censored] by birth. Selwood is just a [censored] by birth.

Bloody hell, how is this preparation for finals? [Sarcasm]