Rodney (Balls) Grinter

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.

The one against Harmesy early in the North game was an example of that. Also due to the hashness of the penalty, I think it should only be paid for the more extreme indiscretions. That one against Harmesy was soft as butter.

Gets me that they would reverse a free kick for what Vanders did yet, blokes frequently get pushed in the back by other players towards the fence when it goes over the boundary ...and nothing. Haven't noticed it so much lately, but a while back it use to happen all the time. That to me was a real anomaly.

Back on the topic of the fixture , I am really hoping we plan and implement an intentional policy of resting and rotating players for our games against Freo and the Swans in Cairns, comming off 4 - 5 dayish breaks and playing in Alice. Really do think theI do think it's been apparent that even with reduced game time, the shorter breaks take the edge off teams and the hotter/humid weather in these parts up North will sap the players comming of such short breaks. We have plenty of quality players to bring into the side fresh, that I don't think it will be big step back in terms of the quality of the team we put on the park. Particularly if we can get over the Bulldogs and Saints in the next few weeks, I think we would be in a great position to make sure we were managing the list to be fit, fresh and raring to have a red hot crack at finals, without risking a West Coast prelim style blowup.

Rippa jumper design. Whole heartedly embraces the MFC traditional jumper, yet is also a proud and distinct display of indigenous culture all at the same time - a great reflection of it's designer Nev Jetta. I'm rarely tempted to buy non traditional/alternate jumpers, but I'd love to get one of these.

I remember that one, it was Cunnington that punched him. It was pretty obvious and pretty darn hard and if ever there was a case for suspending a player for a gut punch, the was it. Mind you Bernie was the kind of player to do this to others as well, so I think it was somewhat a case of what goes around comes around. Altough as others have said, guts like Bernie, Lewis and Hogan all got weeks at the tribunal/match review for silly little things like this playing for us.

I actually think @WERRIDEE is pretty close to the mark. Just have a look at how many players the MFC has up the top of the AFL coaches association voting - was more than any other club when I scrutinised it not so long ago.

I think his delivery by foot can look slow, because of his smooth kicking action and because he usually has good awareness of the time and space he's in. But if he needs to quickly hit a target off one step, he's more than capable doing that - pin point pass to a leading Tom Sparrow in the last quarter vs the Pies was a good example.

I'd want a 2021 or 2022 first rounder for him. 2020 first round could be an even bigger lucky dip than normal.

About the only other thing I'd possibly hold against him is that - is he injury prone? He spent most of this season injured (though he did come good at the perfect time!). Did he also spend a big chunk of last season unavailable through injury as well?

Like the big Preuss. Has got a good competitive and hard/aggressive streak to him. His marking around the ground was pretty good for us against the Pies. Remembering that one of the initial thoughts behind getting him, was as a backup ruck who could also play as second ruck and second key forward. It's now almost a similar predicament to how things were a few weeks back with Jacko in the side and playing well - can we play all of Gawn, Preuss, T Mac and Weid in the same side? His previous lumbering running action and lack of mobility didn't stand out to me against the Pies and I do wounder if he has slimmed down and got fitter?

I know you have kind of justified the above later in this thread and I'm not saying that Jones should be beyond reproach. Maybe us red and blue faithful are worshiping someone who with a ballanced view was only an above average player and never a superstar based on football ability. But Jonesy won three best and fairests in a row, so he was the best above average player we had at the time and he stuck fat with the team. I also do think that having guys like Jones and Bernie do the bulk of the grunt work in the guts has allowed the current batch of on ball stars we have now to mature in their own time rather than practically solely carry the load as Jonesy did for so many years or get the weight of the World and expectations thrust upon them like Trengrove and Grimes. I think he really played an anchor role in the current state of the team and for that he deserves a ton of respect in my book.

He has probably played in more wins this season so far in the 4 or 5 games he has played for the year than he did playing a full home and away season of 22 odd games in the dark times era 2011ish.

Imagine if the club had decided to ditch Robbie Flower at the end of 1986, rather than let him retire on his own terms. Obviously there are some differences between Jones and Robbie and if there was a total parallel, then it could be argued that if Jones were Robbie, then he probably would have seen the writing on the wall and retired at the end of 2018 and gone out on somewhat of a high. But similar to Robbie, Jones stuck with us through thick and thin when we were a total basket case and at his prime could easily have gone seeking greener grass at another club elsewhere chasing a flag/finals like Frawley. Time for the MFC to repay the faith. Also thinking we don't have many veterans, so I'd assume that we could pay a fair portion of his salary outside the cap (whatever that ends up being next year).

No way we finish bottom 4 from here, so I'm booking us into the top 4 right now.

As I've said before, I get the feeling that shortened quarters have hurt us more than most teams. Go another 20mins against Geeeelong, Richmond and Brisbane and I think that's three games we would have won.

Ohhhhh, yeaahhh

@titan_uranus, I know there is that old clechè of taking it one game at a time, but I'm also of the view that we need to start being confident enough that we have an expectation of winning most if not all of those games, otherwise to me it's just like expecting mediocrity of another practically wasted season from our team. Not beating the teams above/around us on the run home would mean that we haven't improved and matured as a team and would actually represent a huge step backwards for me on 2019, which is not where I think we are at.

Really don’t envy the selectors this week. I thought all the inclusions last week were good to great and the guys that were rested are pretty much automatic inclusions if fit. I guess the selectors jobs may be made a little easier by having actual knowledge of the injury status of the guys to come back in, but that’s about it. I also think a case can be made to keep the most obvious omissions in the side as well: Harmes – was absolutely horrible at times, with his countless fumbles. But every time we have bagged out one of our on ball stars this year, they have responded with brilliant runs of form there after (thinking of Oliver and Brayshaw in particular here). Give Harmes the job on Sidebottom and let him go to work. The anti will go up significantly in this game from those we have just played against North and the Crows. I think we will need to step it up physically, make a big statement in this game and I think Harmes is just the sort of player that will rise to that occasion. Jones – looks like a shadow of his former self at times, but one thing I did noticed in our wins of the past few weeks is that he made good space/position, used the ball well and was in a significant number of our most potent attacks. Melksham – not in scintillating form by any means, but similar to Jones keeps kicking important goals and along with Patracca is a often a key cog in our fast ball movement through the centre of the ground that breaks the game open and results in goals. Experience and physical presence – really important in a big game Vs the Pies. They are somewhat depleted and were not particularly impressive against the woeful rabble that is the Crows, but Collingwood would realise that this is backs to the wall time and that if they don’t win this game, they can just about write off their season. I really think this makes guys like Jones, Melksham, Harmes and AVB really important – big game players and I expect they will rise to the occasion. Should throw both of Harmes, AVB into the guts early, get them angry, fired up and along with Viney putting on some big, hard, but fair hits that really hurt Collingwood and set the tone - this really is like a final for us I recon and we need those guys to set the tone. I’d also be leaning towards playing T Mac over Gawn if there is any lingering injury concerns over the later. Don’t want to destroy Gawn and as good as Jacko has been, he’s an 18 yo and I don’t think we want to be destroying his physical development by overworking him in is first year either. For that means if there is an opportunity to work T Mac into some form for later in the season there is some huge benefit. I don’t underrate T Mac’s ability to take big pack busting marks, go back and reliably kick big goals when on song – different players, but I’m not sure that the Wied or Jacko quite have that in them yet