Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Same issue here. I'm guessing staff cutbacks due to COVID are the problem.

And alway cruises around with a huge grin from ear to ear looking like he wouldn't blow out a candle. His kicking for goal and delivery deep into the forward line was a bit iffy last year, but his general feild kicking was never really an issue as far as I've noticed. Actually wounder why opposition teams don't try more of a hard tag on him, because as others have noted, he's become pretty critical to the way we play.

Clarry on board the Demon train choo choo

And hopefully not flogging Max every will have him both fresher at the pointy end of the season as well as extending Max's career a bit.

Ruthless mongrels. I really want us to tear the Hawks a new one. I'm not sure that I'd be as assured by Jackson filling the hole and marking behind play as I am by Gawn, but it would be a good string to add to his game at some point.

Would love to see us dominate first half against Hawthorn and just go on from there like we did to Carlton in 2018. That's been the only thing lacking in our performances to date, to get on top of a side early and then go on with it. Started to go that way against Freo and St Kilda, but we let them back in with periods where they had the ascendancy and kept them in the game on the scoreboard and mentally, which isn't entirely surprising since they arn't exactly bottom four sides and you'd expect some sort of contest. Our forward line has been good this year and we are getting so much better at hitting up good targets inside 50, but you still feel there is an oppertunity to make more of our around the ground dominance. I feel that we were almost totally in control for most of the game against Geelong, but kept them within striking distance by not totally capitalising on the scoreboard. I don't think we are kicking quite as inaccurately as the scoreboard might suggest, because quite a few of those behinds are rushed, which plays to our dominance, because sides are pushed back to that point in defending our deep forward entries, as opposed to our backline which is mopping up the opposition's entries much more comfortabley around the 30m - 40m area alot of the time. Feel like we are playing quite conservatively through the midfield alot of the time too, preferring to go around the wings rather than taking on the corridor too much, which may be both a confidence thing or related to a lack of skill by foot or a bit of both. Feel like we could really rip a side open if we attacked through the corridor a bit more and perhaps having BBB leading from full forward providing a predictable, reliable target might help this too. Clarkson may be a master strategist, but he doesn't have the troops to play the accurate kicking game he use to, so that takes away his main weapon of choice from years past. I can just see him getting his players riled up to play the man though and I think that will also become part of the next challenge for us, becoming the hunted every week, although right now we are pretty good hunters, so long as we don't let it go to our heads and start playing like millionaires, but I sense the disappointments of past false dawn's will put that somewhat at bay as the playing group really does seem to be playing with a maturity that correlates to the bulk of the team being in their prime and/or with plenty of experience in the bank.

You can thank @pinkshark for that:

Asides from his substantial footballing ability, everything I've seen and heard about BBB suggests that he's a rippa bloke to have around a footy club. Really makes me think that North made a big mistake offloading him the way they did and if they have made similar mistakes to the MFC era 2011 loosing too much experience and leadership within a young, struggling team.

Yeah, I can understand that too. I just thought it added a good bit of theatre. Can just imagine how Bruce McAvaney would have carried on after a goal like this. Regardless of the like or dislike of the commentary around it, I just think it's great that the MFC finally has an excitement machine like Kossie in the team again, from all of the perspectives of marketing potential, matchday excitement for our supporters and the added team performance it contributes when you have a player that can regularly manufacture goals out of almost nothing.

Do quite like the commentary from Kelli Underwood to this goal ..."Buzzing around like a mozzie Kozzy"

The royal blue retro isn't exactly my first preference MFC jumper, but it's a vast improvement on any predominantly white jumper the AFL made us wear for way too many seasons, so I'm not going to complain about it. Next weekend is a MFC home game, so I'm assuming they will wear the traditional red and navey blue and hopefully the following weekend against Hawthorn as well.

The thought of Hibberd comming into the side is quite tantalising. We would have some serious drive comming out of our backline with all of Hibberd, Salem, Hunt, May and Rivers running the ball out and then delivering with long penetrating kicks. I think Nev has been quite serviceable, but I think we really need to take our game to the next level and we have the players there to assist with that improvement, so should use them. Similarly, I think Melksham's ball use inside 50 could be quite valuable. Still thought we weren't as efficient as we could be delivering the ball into our forward line as we could have been last night. Some noteworthy good passes from Spargo and Nibbler, but still too many bombs to packs. Our forward line would have looked very average last night if it wasn't for the heroics of Kossie and Fritta actually kicking straight for once.

Kosie for PM

6. Salem 5. Oliver 4. Picket 3. Tomlinson 2. T Mac 1. Jones

Mmmmmm doughnuts. Hot jam doughnuts at the G after a win for the MFC are my favourite. ...and they only have a little hole where the jam goes in!

To temper that, I think Jackson spent a big part of the second quarter on the bench/in the rooms getting a shoulder complaint assessed and the Dockers had multiple injuries which hampered their ability to rotate players in the last quarter in particular. But agree that his mobility/agility for a big man is quite awsome. He does really seam to move with that basketball style 360 degree spatial awareness like Trac as well.

Lol I guess Kyle Dunkly and Kade Chandler also somewhat support this hypothesis!

Yeah, I did think of that as I was writing ;-) . ...but thanks for pointing it out. Along with the right to free speach is the right to be a hypocrite. There are alway shades of grey. I would suggest that the Melbourne Football Club doesn't use it's name in quite the same influence peddling way as the others I mentioned. The main grip I have with the Australian Family Association is the way they are always get their name dropped into news bulletins without qualification by news readers that are either lazy or have an agenda.

As an asides, I don't know why exclusive clubs like this are allowed to own such generic broad titles like "The Australian Club" in the first place and proport to represent a broader base of people than their rules allow. A bit like the Australian Family Association which proports to be a secular non partisan organisation, but is really a front for conservative Christian values to be represented as more mainstream societal best practice.

The timing of this is shocking and probably most of the reason it has become headline news, rather than an overlooked footnote in the AFL clubland social callendar. That doesn't change the fact that it's dumb and poor/weak leadership for club officials to accept the invite in the first place. That the likes of Pert and Bartlett didn't know of the venue organization's exclusive male only policy beggars belief. Smart and strong leaders would have politely refused the invite unless an alternate venue was offered on the grounds that it went against the clubs values. Forget the public perception issue, this kind of double standard is corrosive to club culture.

Love the drive, team first attitude and passion for sucess that Gawn expresses in this article. Maxy has come along way from eating pizzas and smoking durrys after training. Also love the quote in the MFC article “Free Agency – I don’t even know what it is really, I wouldn’t even know how it works,” Gawn said. In many ways the down to earth Gawn is culturally the anti $cully and vomiting on Tom was probably the first great thing that Maxy did at the MFC and which hopefully one day we will look on it as the preeminent turning point moment for the MFC.

No, not so much. The elite development of Patracca, Gawn, Oliver, Salem, go against that. We will have to wait and see if Oscar continues on an upward trajectory, but there are probably also some players like the great Nev Jetta that need to stand at the precipice of their AFL careers before something spurs them into action and they turn things around. Also similar to Nev, perhaps just a change of environment and someone showing some interest and faith in them may be what's required. For what it's worth, I think in fairness, Oscar has probably had alot of the tools to be a decient player and it wouldn't surprise me if he made a good show of things at the Blues.

That's a bit of an unnecessary slur on the bloke isn't it. I'm a bit disappointed that we didn't get more out of Hannan given his best was pretty bloody good, but I'd personally put that down more to a bad rub with injuries than any lack of endeavor about the way he played.

Don't think it would be a bad thing at all if Max stays around for a few years at Casey while providing coaching to Luke Jackson if it comes to that. Hopefully Jackson can step it up (and sign up long term) over the next few years, sharing ruck duties with Big Maxy, which should help prolong the laters career as well.

Part of the other side benifit of this is that if we can rely on Lever and May to take more intercept marks and rebound out of the backline, it should also free up big Maxy to get involved and take marks further up the ground in our attacking half.