Rodney (Balls) Grinter

No it wouldn't. If there is hard evidence, it puts the integrity of the AFL in serious question if they sit on their hands and do nothing. All that sucess that Hawthorn had through that era at the expense of everyone else and they are still reaping the benefits of the inflated membership base it allowed them to build. Taking away premierships retrospectively would be hollow. A fitting punishment would be for them to loose a bunch of first round draft picks and exclude them from free agency for the next 3 or 4 years to thwart the rebuild they need to have and make them mediocre for the next decade like other teams have had to endure.

Rivers seems to play with a pretty mature head on him, so I think it could work.

Amazing how much Max is getting scragged off the ball. Nothing too dirty, just shepherded off it by annoying little blokes like Charlie Cameron when the ball is a mile away. So bloody obviously and the umpires have done nothing. The minute Max were to do anything, you can count on it being a free against us.

Interesting take. After Zorko and Neale, their on ball brigade falls away pretty quickly to a bunch of no names I have no idea about, but clearly they have played some reasonable footy together over the past month or so, as such we need to pay them some respect. I think Langdon would absolutely carve up Robinson for pace, so I doubt Fagan would be silly enough to play that as a match up. Oscar v Hipwood and Jetta/Lockhart v Charlie Cameron are some other pretty import matchups between the teams I think. The others I think the Lions will put some serious work into stopping would be Hannan and Fritsch. Those guys have been pretty important cogs in the return to form of our forward line.

Clarkson's public whinges are becoming fairly frequent of late. The AFL seemed to listen to him on the holding the ball thing and maybe now they will make some kind of adjustment to the rules because of this incident as well - or maybe not. He is really damaging his own legacy with this kind of behavior at the moment. Shaun Burgoyne up for another crude/sling tackle too I think (thought he was pretty useless against us anyways). The wheels are falling off indeed and it's enjoyable to watch.

I really do doubt this - I'm more inclined to think that Jack was clearly regarded as on of the top 2 players in that draft and thus that's why we took him. If I do remember anything, there was a debate about him going 1 or 2 and some thinking that he should perhaps go pick 1 due to his leadership qualities setting him up better to handle the pressure associated with pick 1. ...then there was also the episode where we nearly traded him to Richmond when he still had some trade currency. You can't win them all I guess and it was a bit of a sad saga all round. ...but the I guess St Kilda did pick up Paddy and leave Trac for us, so it evens out over the long run sometimes. Also everyone in that draft let Gawn slip through to the 50s some where.

It's a nice sentiment but: 1. Maybe a Casey gig was actually offered but rejected by Jack; 2. I think the competitive nature of him would have always wanted to play at the highest level if he thought there was a remote chance of it; 3. Going to Port may also have suited him going back home to SA to be closer to family.

Good idea and I did wounder how long it would take for this to be come an eventuality. Takes me back to junior and my reserves footy days. Was pretty common place to for someone to loan the opposition some players if they were way too short, so at least everyone got a game.

Surely the club has learnt from the Junior experience. It's hardly like we are top heavy list age wise. Having a few more experienced heads around the club would provide some good stability to the place. I suspect that when it becomes obvious to them that their time is up, all of Jones, Jetta and Hibbard could be trusted to make the right call and do things on their terms. Jones apears to have taken his absence from the senior side for the past month on the chin and with the team first attitude that made him such a great player and captain over the years. Would be great to see him play some good games over the next few and lock in his place in the side. Still think he has something to offer.

Jones comming back into the side is a pretty big plus for us I think. I expect that he will bring close to the same level of physicality as AVB, perhaps not quite as much pace, but I think Jones ball use, distribution inside 50 and abbility hit the scoreboard could be important in what is already a pretty damaging forward line of small to medium players. If Weid and Jackson can carry on their form from last week, our forward line and scoring ability may return to being one of our strengths.

The big Porterhouse will get the job on Hipwood I suspect, which will be an important role. Hipwood was pretty much the difference between us and the Lions last year at the Gabba I recon. Last year, he had a big day out and kicked something like 5 goals, a few of which were big long bombs from 50m or tight against the boundry. Was a real purple patch for him and although it's hard to see him repeating those kind of heroics, it will be an important contest between Oscar and him. Another vivid recollection from last year's game was the chemistry between Frost and May, or distinct lack there of. I quite liked Frosty as a player, but I get the distinct impression that both he and May wanted to be alpha males down in defense and it didn't really seem to work, where as Oscar seems to just put his head down and get to work in a business like manner and help that back six to really gel.

I think Robinson has the potential to do damage if sides don't pay him respect and he gets off the chain a bit, but he's not a powerhouse, never was. Would love to see Jack, Trac and Harmesy tear him a new one this week.

Loved that set shot. Often players with Kosi's kind of mercurial skills look a little wobbly and uncertain taking set shots, but his approach was steady-as and kick straight as a die. If only Fritsch and date I say it, Maxy could take a leaf out of his book.

I can see both the Lions and Suns ending up with a dream run of games played in their home state. Both these teams have barely traveled to play this season and unless COVID-19 just 'goes away one day' in Melbourne, the opportunities for them to play anywhere else but Queensland are rapidly running out.

The above is true, but would work out better still for us for the Collingwood game if we can play Nth in South East Queensland, the we play Collingwood in Rd 12 who will be traveling from Adelaide off a few day shorter break than us.

Agree absolutely with this. When you add in the Essendon game, I think the additional disruption that our side dealt with is one of the key reasons why our form has only just turned the corner.

At least it provides a very reasonable explanation, for his otherwise fairly average game on Sunday. Given the circumstances we now know, his performance was nothing short of courageous and beyond the still very worthy on feild performance and physical presence he did provide, even the additional rotations he enabled for the team would have helped our performance. What a great impact this kind of behavior would have on the team first culture of the club, littlerally bleeding for your mates attitude and morale the club that this bloke brings - priceless. Just to further qualify my assessment of his performance a little further, it's not that I thought his game was that bad, but more that I was a little disappointed, because I was hoping to see something closer to Vanders at his best after some of the ferocious tackling and hard running he showed against the Suns.

I'm less interested in potential than I am seeing that translated into actuality. That said, I do have high hopes that we are building towards becoming a champion team. 2018 was a small teaser of what I think the team is capable of. When you look at how we played towards the end of that season, I thought we had a team that was capable of beating any other. In my view, the preliminary loss was at least partly the result of playing like our season depended on it for every proceeding game for the last 6 or 8 games prior to the prelim, playing on the eagles home deck and them having earnt the weeks rest prior to playing us. For us to truely deliver in September, which is the only thing which could set the current side as being better than any that came before it in the past 50 years, they need to put together a consistent season and finish top 4. When you look at the age profile of our key mids, they are now at a point where they have mature bodies and could really start to dominate the best midfeilds in the competition on a regular basis, so I don't think we are too far off what we can become. Many teams win premierships without necessarily the best key forward, but most have a pretty solid defense, so I think we are doing ok in these respects. The other thing I think our list currently has is pretty good depth - there isn't a fit player on it for us that I would have a concern in playing, including the Wagners if required to fill in and play a role (could be pretty important across the next 4 games). I was ok with writing off 2019, but have been a bit disappointed by our faltering start to 2020. I do think we have been hurt more than most by the interrupted start to the season (Essendon debarkle included) and shortened games, but that only goes so far. To me our performances over the next 4 weeks will show if we are ready and capable of delivering on our potential. For me the pass mark is winning 3 or 4 out of the next 5 games, i.e. beat at least 1 or preferably 2 of the in-form sides of Brisbane, Port and Collingwood without getting smashed and totally by any of them and putting away both of the two bottom sides of Adelaide and North. Do that and I'll start to believe we are on our way.

Totally Norm. Like I said, I think was a technology problem - too smart and too complicated for it's own good sometimes. Tracy was great - many thanks and give her a bonus (I get the feeling that a win on Sunday might suffice). GO DEMONS!

I'm a Queensland MFC member. Another couple of phone calls and emails to the club over the past few days and all sorted. Something screwy going on with email systems (don't you love technology!). Anyways - GO THE MIGHTY DEMONS. P.S. I recon it will be a good game, but I think we are every bit capable of beating the Lions. Thought we almost could have won last year at the Gabba with half the list to select from that we do now. T Mac to kick 5.

Exactly a two hour flight Melbourne to Gold Coast is basically 4.5hrs out of your day door to door once you add in travel to and from the airport and check-in time etc. Hopefully Melbourne can fly direct from the Sunny Coast airport to Adelaide/ Tassie. Benifit of exclusive use and familiarity with the facilities at Maroochydore is pretty important I think.

So on a related note, being up here in Bris Vagus I was watching the local Seven news and they were going on about what a boon it is for Queensland to have all theses Victorian teams up here. They then went on to say that with all the extra games being played at the Gabba and Carrara that they will need to manage the grounds well to keep them in good nick and that as such the Lions might need to give up 'some' of their training sessions on there. You would bloody well hope that the Lions have to give up pretty much all of their training sessions on the Gabba, given MGC tenants rarely get the oppertunity to train on their home deck. I also think this period could be a good oppertunity for the MFC to get comfortable playing on both the Gabba and Carrara, which of some importance given that both the Lions and Suns look like being pretty decient sides over the next few years. Having said that, I think that we play both the Gabba and Carrara pretty well as it is and have a decient record on both grounds over the last few years.

9th - 12th works best for me. Not good enough to genuinely contend, but not low enough to get first dibs at the creme de la creme of the best talent at the draft either. Unfortunately/fortunately I can see Hawthorn really bottoming out over the proceeding period, quite possibly to the point of being gifted numerous priority picks again as well. You just need to look at the sheer numbers of aging players they have which will retire in the next year or two and with no more trade or free agency currency, I can't see how they won't take a huge dive once their side is flooded with undeveloped kids, frindge top-ups from other clubs and the state leagues.

Absolutely. And don't get me wrong, I thought Weid was great. I just thought it has also been a really good sign for the side over the past two weeks and particularly against the Hawks how they have been unselfish in sharing the ball between themselves to distribute the ball to a player in a better position in front of goal. Fritsch, Hannan, Kosi, Bennel, Trac and Weid have all been great for each other in this respects I've thought and it seems to have really clicked. Also agree that some of Weid's crashing of packs and bringing the ball has been great and really impactful to our forward play.

I think it's also been a function of playing in a congested forward line where the ball is just bombed in long to frequently as well. What I saw a lot of against Hawthorn was backman being forced into leaving their forwards to pressure the ball carrier running into an otherwise fairly open forward line. It's amazing what quick clean ball movement up the ground can do. Probably also helps when our forwards have the smarts to hang back for longer and not get sucked too far up the ground. Will be interesting to see if we can still achieve that well and hold our structures and two way run against Brisbane.