Rodney (Balls) Grinter

I agree with the trust of this thread and though I don't have any great tactical insights I can offer, my loose thoughts are thus: I actually don't think we are that far off being a top side. We were totally compeditive against a number of top sides this season, including Richmond, Brisbane, Geelong. What I think we lacked was belief and as Goodwin articulated a ruthless attitude to grab games and sides by the scruff of the neck and put the foot down. We were probably rightly criticised for our chaotic ball movement at times earlier in the season, but then I think we somewhat overcorrected and didn't take the game on enough in the end and prevented ourselves from blowing games wide open with our ability to attack. Another thing I think that keeps killing us as a side is poor starts to the season. Puts us behind the eight ball making finals each and every year. Instead of solidifying our spot in the eight through the middle of the season and putting our selves into a position to finish top 4 come the end of the year, we are always scrapping just to get into or near the eight somewhere through the middle of the season, leaving ourselves no tolerance for dropping the odd game to a middle/lower ranked side at the back end to make finals and/or alway throwing the kitchen sink at the last 6 weeks and carrying too many injured players into finals. Just once I'd like to see us win the first 5 or so games of the season and see what a difference it makes. So sick of hearing this accepting mediocrity crap about round one being no or less important than any other after we have lost it. Loose any more than one or two games in the first five and it's season over for any chance at genuine success. Asides from that, I'd really like to see our mature guys in their prime like Harmes, Brayshaw, Fritsch, Weid, Lever, Spargo, ANB and Salem bite the bullet and go fully ballistic next season like Trac, May and Gawn have in recient seasons. All the aforementioned have too much talent to put out the kind of seasons they did in 2020 (mainly think of Harmes and Brayshaw here) or have an extra level they can go to on a consistent basis. Weid needs to clunck more big marks, Fritsch to kick strait from set shots, Lever have the confidence to mark it more often when he has the opportunity than punch it and Salem to really take the game on more than play safe all the time. Guys like ANB and Spargo just need to be more consistently at their best, but I think the team lifting around them would help their cause a fair bit too. All going well, we should also get some good 'natural development' out of our youngest bunch of players like Jacko, Kosie, Rivers and Sparrow with the right kind of mentoring and standards being set around them. Having established their personal performance at an elite level, it's time for guys like Trac and Clarry to lead the team, by better reading the flow of the game and changing of attacking or defensive setup around the ball in real time. I do think this is an area where Harmes needs to be used to far greater effect. The games we lost the handle on this year were those when our mostly attacking midfeild got badly beaten up for big periods like against Port, Brisbane, Bulldogs and to some extent Freo and Sydney.

Just watch Preuss master the dark arts of belting around opposition mids with immunity from umpires as the apprentice to the Sith lord Mumford should he end up at GWS.

The MFC has been a fertile ground for developing top line rucks for other clubs in the last few decades. Thinking mainly of Jolly, Stef Martin ?

Agreed. At his best, he's pretty close, but slightly different in football attributes to Fristch. Takes a good high mark, on the lead and reads the drop of the ball well with good timing to scoop up the crumbs and pounce on opportunistic goals. I think he is actually a pretty good set shot for goal and has Fristch covered in that area. His form has been incredibly patchy over the last 2 seasons, but IF he could recover that 2018 fittness/form, then I think he's better than depth as a half forward.

Have been saying for years that this highlights a huge flaw in the AFL's free agency system, while trying to maintain an fair and even competition through the draft. The high placed teams like Richmond and particularly Geelong have been able to constantly top up with free talent via free agency and able to pay them unders, because of the value players rightly put on sucess. Yes the club that looses the player gets somewhat compensated via draft picks, but the club that gains the free agent doesn't need to pay anything with respect to draft picks. In my veiw, they need to be made to give up a draft pick they have which is equivalent of the compensation pick received by the other club. It would still be free agency, because the club loosing the player can't prevent the trade. The giving up of equivalent compensation picks also needs to made retrospective to penalise the likes of Hawthorn, Geelong and Richmond for the beinfit of a more even competition going forward.

Couldn't agree more. So sick of this blame the coach mentality. Time more of our players started talking a leaf out of the book of guys like Gawn, Trac, Viney and Steven May and took ownership for their own and the teams predicament. I think it's great that Patracca his lifted his personal performance to an elite level, but I think the next step is for guys like him Oliver and the aforementioned guys to take some initiative and drag the teams performance along with them. I'm not saying that we necessarily have a bunch of selfish players who don't play a team game, I just think it's the got to be the next stage in our evolution from being an average team with talent to becoming a champion side. I'm also hoping that this years second tier of somewhat underperforming guys with talent like Harmes, Melksham, T Mac, Tomlinson, Weid, Fritsch, Hannan, Spargo, Smith, ANB, Brayshaw, Preuss, O Mac and Hunt can take a leaf out of the book of guys like Gawn, Trac and May to go or get back to the next level and lift them selves to the required standard on a regular basis. I think it's a poor excuse for us to keep blaming Harmes lack of performance this season on being played out of position. Perhaps he also needs to take a mature stance and have a difficult conversation with Goodwin about playing him as a back. Alot of us here, myself included love Fritsch, but his set shot goal kicking accuracy is a disgrace, has let us down on multiple occasions this season in big games and something he needs to fix or he will forever be just a good player, not a great one.

So your 'impeccable' source starts leaking his info to a bloke who posts it on a supporters blog site. Give me a break.

If we could get either of those two, then yeah great, but a) at what price and b) if we don't land them we need a backup option.

Side show Bob could be the leader of his fellow mop head brothers Jackson, Hunt and Langdon.

Just watch those free kicks evaporate the moment he pulled on the red and blue.

Two Salems would be better than one! I'd probably have Hibbard and/or possibility Weid in the top ten somewhere.

Yeah, I feel like I'm taking a bit of a punt there across the board against the prevailing logic in a lot of ways. I just suspect that coaches and those within the club might rate the value of Langdon's contributions to the side differently to your average footy jurno. Even looking back at who myself and other have given votes to with the Demonland player of the year votes, Langdon doesn't feature that strongly, yet when I look back across the season at his enormous efforts he so consistently puts in week in week out and what that has provided for the side in terms of ball movement and structure, 3rd best and fairest doesn't seem too far out if at all. I thought I was going out on a bit of a limb to have Gawn so far down the list, but I was interested to observe that many others here also see it a similar way - that a) he's probably missed too many games to feature at the very top end and b) that he probably hasn't been in his peak form all the games he's played either. So close to call between the likes of Patracca, May, Oliver and possibly even Viney in there somewhere that I'm really quite unsure how the cookie will crumble, but will be interested to see how it all pans out.

Per the thread title, the club are running an online comp: https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/817801/predict-your-best-and-fairest-top-five For what it's worth, the top 5 as I think it will fall out is: 1. Trac 2. May 3. Langdon 4. Clarry 5. Gawn

Don't see how that's at all controversial. From what I understand Grundy fell away big time this season and wasn't anything like AA form. Goldstein started strong, but faded out. He was practically non existent up against Max, so I think that shows a clear pecking order.

Most consistently good player of the season would have to go to Ed Langdon in my book. I think I can recall him playing maybe one mediocre game all season, but I couldn't tell you which one it was. Really liked what he bought to the team. Absolutely genius move recruiting him and I hope he enjoys the wide open spaces of the MCG next season.

I also can't help thinking that the whole COVID situation, draw and fixturing didn't help our cause much this season. When you look at a number of the teams that have finished near the top, Port, Brisbane West Coast, they all had fairly substantial home ground advantages over Victorian sides this season, particularly Brisbane and to some extent West Coast who always seem to get a substantial home ground advantage (particularly from umpire assistance). West Coast were actually so good at home and so bad away from it, that you wounder if they would actually have made finals had they not been able to play in WA. Playing a bunch of games off 4 - 5 day breaks in hot and tropical conditions in Alice, followed by Cairns in shocking conditions really didn't help our cause. Neither did missing the Essendon COVID positive game and the subsequent lack of bye round (actually more like a normal 7 day break that most clubs got but we didn't). In the end when we only missed finals by one game, I don't think these factors can be discounted as to why we missed finals, but as stated in my previous post, it probably wasn't enough of a difference as to why we weren't a genuine contender either.

To me the Bulldogs winning tonight thus ending our season makes little difference. Had we made finals, we would have just been making up the numbers with the form we were in and the lack of ability to beat the good sides with any regularly. That said, I don't think we are really that far off any of those teams that finished in positions 6 - 8, being Collingwood, St Kilda or the Bulldogs, so finishing 9th is more or less as good as finishing 6th to me. About the only thing to be said about making finals is that we could have got a bit more 'finals experience' into a few players. Until we build the kind of system, confidence and maturity to consistently win enough games to beat all comers, embed ourselves in the top 8 early in the season and lock in a top 4 ladder position, we are setting ourselves up for failure yet again. I do think we have a solid core of players that could take that next step in years to come though, so it's not all bad. The good performers and big improvers for the season to me (in rough order of merit) were: Trac Clarry May Langdon Gawn Viney Salem Hibbard Weid Fristch Lever, Brayshaw Jackson, Rivers, Kossie, Spargo, Hunt, ANB, AVB Lockhart, Tomlinson, Brown, Preuss, Smith, Bennell, Harmes, Melksham Appologies to any of the better performers I've forgotten about. Unfortunately, there was also a bunch of players who had uninspiring seasons and I can't help but think their drop offs from what they are respectively capable of was part of the reason we didn't really take the next step. Not going to name them, we all know who they are and I'm hopeful that at least a few of them can turn around their fortunes and that of the team with them next season.

Situation apparently is that the club want him to build his fittness/running power and go to that next level he has in him. Unless he breaks down in the process and calls it quits, I think he'll be a Demon again next year. I was impressed enough with half fit Harley, the thought of us having him after a full tune up and firing on all cylinders again is salivating.

Great post. Hits the nail on the head for me. I don't even bother reading Caro's drival these days. To me all she has ever written is trashy tabloid rumors an innuendo. Seems to actually hate footy, because she never has anything positive to say.

But kicked four goals and we won by what 19 points. Don't think he needs to rack up huge numbers of disposals if he keeps hitting the scoreboard like that. Wouldn't mind betting that Jayden kicking goals and demanding defensive attention helped Fristch get off the chain in the last quarter as well.

I agree with your sentiments Re Hunt, but I'd also say that Trac is pretty accomplished kick for goal in general play and set shots. Love that one he slotted from 50 out on the boundary today when the game was up for grabs in the second quarter and that snap from 50m out on the run against GWS was quite something as well.

Have watched Smith fairly closely over the past few weeks and my observations have been similar. It's been good that he's been able to stay fit and on the park for most of this season. He was pretty solid on Cameron at times last week and I think his disposal and decision making is getting better with more exposure at the top level and more confidence. I'm very tempted to see what he could do up forward if he was allowed to fly for his marks a bit more. But I do think he could be worth persevering with for at least another season in our backline as he just might really turn into something.

We have really cruelled Jayden this year. My feeling was that he didn't do that much wrong in the games he was dropped and then we didn't give him a look in for weeks and weeks even though our forward line wasn't functioning that well. He must be very jealous of all the opportunities that Kossie has been given this year for some pretty mega performances at times. Hunt was one of our best goal kickers last season in a dog of a year and he has been one of our most dangerous again this year in the games he's played. Doesn't shirk the hard stuff, takes a good mark and is one of our better kicks for goal. For all his courage and skill, Fritsch's goal kicking from set shots this year has been putrid. We would have rocks in our head not to do what we can to retain Hunt.

6 Oliver 5 Langdon 4 Gawn 3 Hunt 2 Fritsch 1 Patracca

Oliver has been awsome today. Played a very important hand in a number of goals.