Rodney (Balls) Grinter

Fair point. Watching his post match interview with Ben Gibson I thought Steve gave a pretty frank and accountable self assessment of that criticism.

So, just curious - is there anyone who still questions the value of recruiting Steven May?

Big Maxy, what a great captain. When asked in an interview what does a big win like this mean, Max's response was that he was "I'm just proud that we can put a smile on some people's faces back in Melbourne". Maxy has such a great connection with us supporters with his down to earth, easy going approach. Love ya Maxy.

6 May 5 Trac 4 Langdon 3 Salem 2 Weid 1 Rivers

Will be interesting to see what big Maxy comming back into the side can bring. I think he will need to put in one of his gut busting inspirational captain's efforts to help get us over the line, but I wouldn't put that past him. I'm not as cut up about the selections as some are here. If anything, I think the inclusions will add some much needed despiration and effort to the team. Rivers should be better than Harmes, Wagner on a par with Sparrow, Max is a big upgrade on Pruess and Brown should give us as much as T Mac, but a bit more mobility. Whilst I rate Fritsch, he was burning a lot of opportunities in our forward line and wouldn't surprise me to see Hannan have a day out in his absence as I think Fritsch was somewhat robbing Hannan of being a second lead up target which I think Hannan can also do fairly well. Also feel like we need a big game from all our mids to win it at the source and go on with it from there. Patracca has had a pretty quite month or so and I think it's about time he smashes a game open. I certainly think we can get the job done, but I'm not particularly confident in it though.

While the above is somewhat true, St Kilda's win/loss record and percentage says they are around the same mark as us. If we beat them tonight, I think it will put us pretty close to level pegging with them when you consider we have a game in hand and they have WC next week (whom I'm glad were beaten by Richmond). While it's true that the beat Richmond and Port, they were also beaten by North & Collingwood (by 44 points) and Fremantle. Where we had a loss to Geelong within a few points, St Kilda were thrashed by around 60, similar to our pantsing by Port. I neither totally respect or disrespect St Kilda, but I don't think we should be scared or intimidated by any apparent strength of theirs either. Tonight will be the ultimate test of where the two teams are with respects to one another and I'm hoping we can turn around our game from last week and get the job done. They haven't earnt their spot in finals yet, neither have we, but both of us still have a pretty decient oppertunity to over what remains of the season.

Totally baffled by what we have done to Harmes. How James Harmes has been transformed from 3rd B&F in 2018 & 2019 to a fringe player is nothing short of a disgrace. It has been touted as a strength of the team that we have a multitude of players that can hold their own and be rotated through the midfield. I also hardley think it's disputed that Harmes is our best run-with tagger to shut down an opposition's dominant mid. However: 1. We have barely rotated our mids; and 2.. There have been numerous occasions this season when an opposition midfeild has got on top of us without a serious attempt to shut down their prime movers. (Lions, Power and Bulldogs the most obvious ones). To me, the second point reeks a bit of arrogance, like we think Oliver, Patracca, Viney and Brayshaw feeding off Gawn are better than anyone else's midfeild that we expect our guys to offensively get on top of the opposition every week and have no plan B for when the tables are turned. If there are any signs of an opposition side getting on top in the guts, Harmes and/or Viney should be sent to their most dangerous on baller. That we didn't tag Lachie Neale and others with Harmes is ridiculous. We probably beat Brisbane if we tagged Neale with Harmes. I also agree that trying to play Harmes as a defender is a dud move. He's hardley Jordan Lewis like in his abbility to read the play and position himself defensively. I really think we should be looking to rotate all of Harmes, Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw and Patracca through the forward line. They all have pretty good goal sense, kicking ability, tackling and marking attributes as forwards. None of them have particularly good attributes as permanent backman. I still also rate Harmes highly for his line breaking ability through the midfield. Asides from Patracca, I think he has the best ability within our team to break away from/through congestion in the middle of the ground with strength and speed. He may also deliver into the forward line with more accuracy than Patracca. Such a waste.

So just for a bit if a change of pace - a few interesting questions: 1. Will Adelaide win another game this season and/or when was the last time a team went through the entire season winless? (Even at our 2007 - 2016 decade of pain, the least games we won in a season was 2 and you need to go back to 1919 for a winless MFC season) 2. Which one of Hawthorn, Sydney, Adelaide or Freo is the team most likely to cause an upset which will shape the eight and which team other than us will it happen against? As an asides, they may be above us on the ladder right now, but I think Essendon's season is DonE. It will either be a game for pride just them or both the EFC and the MFC come rd 18. I actually suspect our season will be alive, but their's won't be.

Yeah, but same could have been said for us. Anyways, like Richmond Vs WC, I think it just goes to show how close the teams are.

^^^^ I don't believe the late to training thing. I think it's more than just that perhaps attitude plus the above. Fritsch's performances this year have been a tease and whilst he's shown potential, he hasn't really delivered what he is capable of. He is too good a player to keep kicking these ridiculously inaccurate scores. With the opportunities he has had, he should have kick a few bags of 4 or 5 goals by now. Perhaps a good kick up the backside is what he actually needed. I like the Fritta and hopefully he comes back into the side better and launches himself and the side to new levels (not sure he could actually physically come back 'bigger and better' ).

Might need to have a lay down Harmesy, you've made way in the side for J.Wagner.

Maybe this is Goodwin's revenge watching Demonland going into melt down when he picks a few blokes who some on here didn't think "should ever play a game for the MFC again" - lol.

Don't mind this side at all. All the players that we've bought in are goers and more than capable of playing the roles required of them. The only real disappointment for me is that Jayden Hunt didn't get a go. I recon he deserves another crack and is capable of kicking goals.

Two guys that can play. O Mac's form this year has been ok and Wagner is capable enough and will provide pleanty of effort.

Was BOG in the first half of the practice match against the Saints last week apparently, so I wouldn't be surprised to see his name read out sometime in the next week or two.

I'm with you on this @Cranky Franky. No teams announcement on a Thursday night really messes up the natural rhythm of my week. And it provides something more to argue about on Demonland for an extra day or so. Totally understand why it wouldn't be announced on this day for games that arn't played on a Friday - Sunday, but I've been looking for the team on a Thursday night the past few weeks and come up empty handed and disappointed. It's not like it's ever anything like the final team on a Thursday anyways, so I don't just see why they didn't stick with normal practice.

Preuss can go ok as a key forward. Has been holding onto his grabs better than T Mac and he's both a good kick for goal from set shots and got surprising agility and goal sense when the ball is in general play. His biggest downfall previously as a deep forward was his lack of run and players just running off him rebounding out of defense. It's a bit hard to gauge from his work around the ground in the ruck, but my impression is that he has slimmed down a bit and looks like he's a bit more mobile and developed his tank a bit from last year.

Putting the total unfairness of his suspension to one side, Alex will be available to play against Sydney and Freo, which I think is a great outcome for Alex and the team. Listening to Alan Richardson's latest interview on the MFC website, it's pretty clear to me that the club will rotate players through the team in the next compressed fixture period. I certainly know he has his detractors here on Demonland, but bringing in fresh legs with a player the calibre of ANB represents a significant advantage to us. His 2018 showed that he can be a weapon for us when he's on song. Yes this year, his game against Adelaide wasn't a great showing, but I do think he has been somewhat unlucky not to get more games, as in his only other real showing against Carlton I thought he was actually pretty bloody good. In my view, there is absolutely a spot in the side for ANB. Pen him in for the game against the Swans, unless he gets injured on the training track between now and then.

One aspect that you have missed here Lucifer is that if we beat St Kilda this week, they are all of a sudden very venerable and a high chance of missing finals as they have one less game still to play and come up against West Coast, Hawthorn and GWS. Beyond keeping our season alive, I'd love to beat St Kilda this week, just to [censored] their season up like they have to us in seasons gone by like 2018. Actually think St Kilda are somewhat over rated looking at where they currently sit and there's really no reason we should be so scared of them as an opponent.

Have been happy with Fritta's ability to find the ball this year as a forward, but his lack of accuracy from set shots has been a major disappointment. As for the Weid - I think his set shot kicking has generally been ok, bar the game against the Lions at Metricon/Carrara, but that is somewhat understandable, because the wind down there is very tricky.

And people wounder why our indigenous brethren might seem hyper sensitive to the odd sly monkey emoji posted on social media. On a minor tangent, good on the North Melbourne Footy club for calling out the social media giants for their pathetic and week response to the issue in it's modern manifestation in the article below, as have the MFC and others: https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2020-aaron-hall-partner-sophia-absalom-slam-disgusting-instagram-racist/news-story/6e4903f0b64ebee434a80ba776c3ca9e If this kind of rubbish doesn't go against 'Comunity Guidelines' then what kind of messed up world are you living in?

Try just about any govenment services website, but that's hardly a fair comparison as these days, they are pretty much designed to fail to dissuade people from actually accessing the services they are there to provide. My current employer's intranet is also an absolute dog. Not defending the current AFL site by any means though. The current one has gone backwards from what it was. Biggest gripes for me are the several changes they have made to the match centre: 1. Removing scores from the banner up the top; 2. Only displaying the current day's matches rather than the whole round (i.e. requiring another button click to load the whole round); 3. Removing all the ticketing info off the match centre/game details pages.

Say what you will about the Wagners, but you have got to be kidding on the names highlighted in bold above. Guessing you probably would have had Spargo on the list that shouldn't play another game until he turned it on again in the past few weeks, or that Pruess would let the side down. Personally, I think the closer we can get to having all the frindge players we have ready to step up and play their role, the better and I really can't stand it when our supporters make those kind of bold judgemental statements that a player isn't up to the standard and shouldn't play again. You never quite know when we could be hit with a streak of injuries or when players might develop their game. Love what we've seen of Rivers in defense, but players like Josh Wagner and Joel Smith offer something a bit different and you never know, we might even need both.

Playing a bunch of fresh players who are up to the task as opposed to playing fatigued players backing up multiple 4 day breaks in tropical heat isn't underestimating them IMHO. I think it also depends how we go against the Bulldogs and Saints. Win those two games and I think we could afford to risk a loss in order to manage the injury and fatigue level of the A team. We could find ourselves in a position of being gaurenteed a top 8 spot, with no prospect of making the top 4 and I can't see a huge advantage to finishing 5/6 as opposed to 7/8 with essentially little likelihood of there being any home ground advantage up for stakes.

A somewhat maligned player here on Demonland, but listening to the latest podcast, has a number one fan in Aaron vandenBerg, with the big AVB endorsement for toughness and the suggestion that Josh should be one of the next players back into the side. Personally I've always liked the same qualities that AVB sees in the older Wagner and do think there would be merit in rotating a few of these players currently on the frindge through the team against Freo and Sydney.