Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Decient enough odds, depending on if you are a glass half full or empty sort of person.

Geelong is a modern refference point I like to look back on as a team that had a bit of an up and down, slow build of a premiership team and then went BANG. Just looking at the records from 2007, they went 3 losses from their first 5 games and then put together something like 15 wins on the trot, before loosing a sole game for the rest of the year in the second last H&A before winning the GF. If we could emulate something similar to them, I'd be stoked. I'm not sure we are as good as that team though and one other thing that Geelong side did that season (and in others thereafter) was totally dominate sides. I wish we'd do that a bit more. Winning the 4 points is great, but it would be nice if some of our games were under control from the get-go and I could just sit back and enjoy the show instead of stressing. Lost enough hair (and brain cells) following our team over the years.

So seriously, hands up, who thought we'd be in this position of 9 - 0. Since 2018, I've wanted us just to finish top 4 and thought we had a side capable of that, but never really thought that we would be without a loss up to this point in the season. No that we are here, I'm not sure why we couldn't beat either or both of the Bulldogs and Lions, although I'm equally not sure that we are playing at our best, so wouldn't be surprised if we went on and lost one or both games. I think it should help our form getting Viney back sometime in the next few weeks hopefully.

I recon the confidence from that mark to Weid almost as important as the goal to T Mac.

A beard bath. Lol. Loving the comedic light relief on D'land here this morning.

Lol. Funniest thing I've had all morning.

Surely not. Trac would be 'fine to play next week' according to Goody! (Using my best sarcastic voice for the above statement).

I was thinking the same way Re a Port win, but as it's panned out, I think it was better them loosing as it could put us 3 games clear inside the top 2, which is really more important. No real difference between finishing 1 or 2 come finals time, but 2 or 3 could mean a home Vs away final. The closeness of the end result last night has also helped bring the dogs % back down to earth a little.

Asides from Chandler, a few points of difference and things I'll be interested to watch today: 1. Do we fix our centre clearance issues from last week; 2. Can Harmes backup and/or improve on his form from last week - could make it interesting to eventually squeeze Viney back in (though I think that could end up as Chandler out, Harmes forward and Trac playing more forward time); 3. Functionality of the forward line - I see strengths in all positions and wounder how the heck Carlton contains that. Will be mainly up to us to make it gell, particularly when defense was a reall weakness for Carlton last week. Tommy Mac and BBB proved they could play forward together last week and I see Tommy as more contested compared to Weid, so they are not necessarily competing for the same space in that respects. 4. Last week Fritta was quite though. Was that a result of 3, or was it just that Sydney decided they needed to play a lockdown job on him after he kicked the bag the week before? 5. How does Weid go getting the third tall defender? He must internally love the prospect of that. If we get all of the above right, I could actually see this becoming a bloodbath for Carlton.

Really looking forward to seeing Kade Chandler play today and hope he makes the most of his oppertunity. Looked red hot in the preseason only to get squeezed out by a too hot to handle Kossie from Rd 1.

Agree this is a possibility. Everyone here keeps fearing us dropping a game to one of the lesser teams, but conversely I fell we haven't really clicked and dominated any team so far this year and that's also a possibility. I guess that's somewhat the reality of the competition being realitively tight, that it's difficult for even the better teams to have it on their terms for a full game. Getting off to a good lead in the first quarter and going on from there instead of wrestling with them all day would be a good start.

Yep

Maybe the club has been listening? Good little promo for Haymes by BBB published in the past couple of days:

Talking about clubs walking in our shoes. Suck it up Hawks supporters! For the third time in four seasons, the last remaining winless team records its first win of the year against Hawthorn. 2021: Kangaroos def Hawks, Rd 9 2020: Crows def Hawks, Rd 15 2019: Blues def Bulldogs, Rd 5 2018: Lions def Hawks, Rd 9 Credit, Max Laughton via Twitter.

So has that old chestnut of "Melbourne still haven't beaten anyone good yet" come up much in Lygon St? (I recon Royal parade isn't quite accurate. Just about every second Carlton supporter is of Italian or Greek decient).

I read an article where they recon his back is broken, but it's not that bad a thing and he can't do much more damage to it?! I can't figure that one out personally, but then I'm no doctor. Also sounds similar to when we played Jonesy for most of a season with a stuffed neck. Not sure that did him or us that much good over the journey.

Or Tasmania - oh wait!

Just about any other season, this could be something written on Demonland about us.

I agree with the sentiment and as much as I'd like to see us absolutely pump someone, I really apreciate that one of the key things the team have worked out this year is that consistentcy is better than brilliance and that getting the 4 points is better than winning by 100. Even if/when we eventually drop a game here or there, I'm not that bothered, so long as we don't loose multiple on the trot.

There fixed your easy fix some more.

So is there anything old mate Jeff isn't having a winge about. He's also cracking the sads about the Dorks not getting an AFLW side any time soon. Seems he's just cottened onto the importance of the female sponsorship/supporter growth market and now must have his (larger than deserved) piece of the pie, after not giving two shiiits about womens footy for the last however many, like forecer years. Again, in the words of our good freind Cards:

Personally, I quite enjoyed reading this article/aspect on the Dorks walking in our shoes: The Hawks took the wrong path at ‘a fork in the road’. It’ll take ‘a long time’ to recover https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/teams/hawthorn-hawks/afl-2021-hawthorn-problems-rebuild-jordan-lewis-drafting-jeff-kennett-comments-analysis-afl-360-latest-news/news-story/75bb5bfdade971e552538f35f724d3e6 I won't be truely satisfied though, until they have gone 12+ years without making finals and then another 50 years without another premiership. Maybe they would be relocated and have become the Tassie Devils before that last part though. We might have our own version of the prison bars saga in that instance.

I quite like the attempt to analyse the reasons and factors behind our great start to the year, but: 1. I feel this thread is a bit premature. There is still a long way to go before we call it a truely successful season; 2. Without any public ownership by the supposed instigators of these inspired decisions, it's all just so speculative that it's of fairly low value to me. For all we know some of these moves could have been player driven. With respect to the second point, Tomlinson is on record of suggesting himself to Goody towards the end of last season that he be played at CHB where he played most his career with GWS. There was also that article earlier this year which quoted Max and went by the headline of "Demons to play angry" (or something of the like). I didn't read the whole Demonland thread, but I thought most of the D'land thread read only the headline and missed the key point made by Max in the article, which was that though initially the players were angry about missing out on finals last year and felt that gave them motivation to attack the preseason etc, importantly what they did after that was to calmly, critically and honesty review and reflect on the 2020 season to identify areas they could get better. To this point in 2021, I think it looks like Max and Co. have delivered well so far on their pledge to improve key parts of our game, but I'm always encouraged to hear how even after being 8 - 0, we still feel there is further improvement to be had and a strong desire to keep improving. Anyways, if we win the flag, then I look forward to the behind the scenes doco on who's brainchild the various brilliant changes can be attributed to. But until then, I'll just be happy to read little snippets quoted from the horse's mouth than to speculate on their origins.

As others have mentioned, great point. ...not just a pretty face! ?

Wish the AFL would just bring back the old reserves team format. Really don't understand the supposed cost savings/cost-benifit to having this whole separate second tier comp garbage.