Rodney (Balls) Grinter

The whole reason for this thread is very un#positivelingers BTW

Don't fully get the lack of love for Baker. Yeah he's no #positivelingers (let's face it other than the man, who is?), but I think he showed good intent and attack on the ball when we played him late last year and again against North. If his Casey form is decient enough (mind you that's hard to evaluate with the lack of games) if we are not prepared to play him in scenarios such as this, you wouldn't think that fairs well for keeping him on the list. However I doubt that's the case, since he was promoted for the North game and an advantage of Casey not playing this week is that he'll be pretty fresh as opposed comming off a six day break that Brisbane will be.

The umpires haven't missed paying a bunch of marginal deliberate out of bounds against us this game have they? FFS ?????

Yep. I think that's it.

It's kind of an asides, in the context of tonight's game, but I've been thinking lately that Sparrow really needs to log some more time at AFL level. Jordon has been good, but I'm not sure he's that much better than Sparrow right now and I think we really need to rotate these two in and out of the team for some decient blocks of games for the sake of both their development and ready made depth for the team.

Just seen the news that this game is definitely going ahead and it's made my Friday. Can't wait to get through the rest of the work day and watch us slog it out tonight. Irrespective of what happened last week, my feeling is that our form hasn't been that great (i.e. we're not totally dominating games) so I'm not brimming full of confidence, but our ability to consistently rise to the challenge that's in front of us has me believing we are still in with a red hot chance. Hoping we learn some things from last week and our encounter with the Dogs pre-season. Really want the win tonight - hate these [censored]. Go the Mighty DEMONS!

Agree, great article. Has been a glut of this kind of article about us of late, so I didn't have high hopes of learning anything new, but this is loaded with intimate insights. The author must have had some great inside access and trust within those individuals, which had been repaid by the author with the absence of any real mud slinging, except perhaps with respects to Bartlett which is pretty inconsequential to the current context and I'm not really sure even he would have an issue with what is stated. I've had a good feeling about the sort leadership qualities refered to about Trac for a while now. Contrast this article to the one shown on the same page by Carroline Willson titled "AFL big boys club" (Or something like that). I've got no issues with Wilson not writing about the match day stuff, given it isn't her expertise and no doubt the exclusive male dominated aspects if the AFL is something which should be written about (by someone) but why she has to always be the one to focus on slinging mud 90% of the time as opposed to using her connections and journalistic tallents to write a ballance of interesting and insightful articles like this one is beyond me. I also find some irony in the trajectory of our team this season, compared to that of St Kilda. At the end of last year and start of the season so many 'experts' , both in the media and here on Demonland raved about how much further advanced St Kilda were as a team compared to us. It's quite possible St Kilda arn't as bad as there season is playing out right now either, but I've sensed a growing capability within our team over a number of years and it's amazing how many were prepared to write that long term growth/capability trend off on the basis of a few games against Sydney and Freo in a compressed fixture period. I still recall the wise words of Peter Jackson when he stepped down from his position, that sometimes growth isn't linear and that we should expect a few speed bumps along the way.

Oh yeah.

The new one or the old one?

The other potential worst case scenario issue this raises is how keen (or not) would players and coaches be to go into hubs again?

Really hope they don't move to shorter quarters, I think that would take away a key advantage we have by having a mature, fit, but also realitively young list compared to some of the other potential contenders like Richmond, Geelong and West Coast.

Yeah, and as you can see from the picture, there isn't any snow either. ...not like anyone could head there with the lockdown anyways.

Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Ain't hindsight a beautiful thing! ?

I guess the one thing all us armchair critics had the benifit of, which the players probably didn't, was knowing exactly how much or little time was left on the clock.

Getting 2 premiership points instead of a big fat zero would have been a win. It's about playing for ladder position to set our selves up at the pointy end now. There were 120+ for the team to play for an outright win, but in that last 30 seconds where we had multiple ball ups 10m out from goal, punching it through for a behind was a winning strategy.

Nothing like that diabolical. I actually had a different reflection on the game this morning. Adelaide played like a team with nothing too loose, because they don't have anything to loose. No chance of making finals, weren't expected to win, just hoping for some competitive games and maybe a win or two along the way. They were daring and rolled the dice with their ball movement, because they could afford to be. Could have been a completely different story if they didn't get a few goals go there way via cheap free kicks just before half time when we were starting to kick away. Even for the best sides it's hard to be up every week in what is really a pretty tight competition. To get to 9 - 0 was pretty phenomenal and I didn't think we'd be in anything like that position at that point in the season. The next month of 8 point games will be super important to our season. I'm backing us to at least break even against the Dogs, Lions, Port and the Pies which would be a pretty good outcome and solid ladder position to build the rest of our season off.

100% yes we were off our game and didn't play that well for big periods, but we were also pretty good at times too. Our 3rd quarter was good and we got to a position of being 16 points up with 8mins to go, a goal of which we lost, because of a howler non free kick. Oliver, Lever, Track, Spargo, ANB and others were pretty dam good and played at least as good team first footy as they did that second half.

What was the injury to Salem? I switched on just at the satrt of the ga.e and it wasn't really stated.

Just 40? Nah, I want to destroy them by 80+ points.

21 Votes Clarry Don't know if this has already been pointed out, but Oliver lead pretty much every key stat for the game. Goals - Oliver Marks - Gawn Score involvements - Oliver Disposals - Oliver Tackles - Oliver & Jordon Contested possessions - Oliver Talk about a powerhouse. There are some games where I don't notice Oliver's workman like burrowing and dishing off as much, but this game he was phenomenal. If we had got up, it would have been due to Oliver. When we got belated by the Dogs pre-season, I think his absence was a key factor. Not scared of the Dogs on Friday night with Clarry in the guts. Such a key cog in our machine.

It was very ironic given that the Crows got awarded a free for deliberate out of bounds which they got a goal out of, which far less of a free kick in my eyes. In that instance out player (I think it was Lever) did a soft hand loopy handball out of a pack situation and the Adelaide player shephered the ball over the line, while appealing for the free kick. When the rule was first bought in, the free would have actually been paid against that Adelaide player, because he had pleanty of oppertunity to pickup the ball before it went out, but chose not to. The non paid free kick for holding the ball/incorrect disposal, which bobbled out to Tex was also a complete shocker. There should be bigger consequences for umpires that F it up this much and make howlers that change the result of games. The expectations on players in the professional era are huge and they should be on umpires too. Not enough for the league just to say, sorry we F that up. The responsible umpires should get substantial fines.

So, we played poorly, that's one thing, but something I think we really do need to get better at is putting a bigger break on lower sides early in games. We've been able to let sides stay with us and then kick away pleanty of times this season, but that does risk a side getting the wind in their sails and comming in over the top like Adelaide did tonight. Just think there are times when we need to really put the foot down on the throat a bit better when we kick away to a 3 or 4 goal lead at times. Not that it was necessary the dominant factor in tonight's loss.

The missed free kicks to us in the dying minutes were one thing, but gee didn't they give Adelaide a bucket full of BS marginal frees smack bang in front of goal. That 50m that got paid against Gawn - like how many times does that happen to us in a game and not get paid?

Can someone confirm who is our 5th indigenous lad? i.e. The guy second from the left next to Bedford.

A true tribute to your resilience as a MFC member/supporter. Booking trips at the ski lodge my [censored]!