BenJamin on Deesy St

One for the believers. Fantastic post-match interview with Nathan Jones here: http://m.melbournefc.com.au/video/2018-08-19/rd-22-nathan-jones-postmatch Talks about dealing with what must have been a crippling weight of expectations over a 12 year period, and how he has grown as a leader, learning more about himself and footy over the last 2 years than ever before. Dees’ fans, time to cast aside the veil of negativity for good, and start believing.

The funny thing is (and the line that will be trotted out), if we beat the Swannies this week, we still wouldn’t have beaten a team in the top 8 - as they will have dropped out!

No mercy, no injuries, please Dees!

Mental strength has nothing to do with it if your heart’s not in it. Anyway, one could just as easily argue that he’s shown a great deal of mental strength in fronting up publicly and pulling the pin on his AFL career before season’s end - especially knowing full well that such a move would open himself up to the kind of ill-informed, mean-spirited commentary and ridicule that has come his way, yours included.

If we do make the finals (hallelujah!), we will be as well-prepared as we could be, with the quality of opposition and high stakes involved on the run home. And the players did learn some things from last week, including slowing the game down, going the boundary, creating stoppages, getting extra men behind the ball etc in the last Q. This was all very different to the frenetic, play-on at all cost mentality of last week (yes, rain played a part in this, too). That was the Crows’ last yelp for the season, and we quelled it. Effectively ended their season. As the players and coach said more or less afterwards, this was a result to feed and engender belief, not doubt.

Indeed we did. And so did Adelaide, which makes the win even more meritorious.

Agree with this. Undermanned (Viney, Lever, Hibberd), coming off last week’s gut-wrenching loss, against a desperate side in form at home and close to full strength (although Seedsman injury helped), 20 points down in first half, clawing our way back, having the balls to pull the trigger in the 3rd and then stack the defence in the last - in the wet - Sydney-style and guts out a win! A great test of the character and mental strength of this group of players, who are maturing before our eyes. Well done, Demons.

Just got home from Geelong. Took us 40 mins to get out of the god damn car park. Excruciating. Game reminded me of ‘87 pre-lim, but this time it wasn’t me bawling my eyes out, it was my daughter. Just horrible. Put this game together with Round 1, the Port and Saints games, and that’s the season - missed [censored] opportunities.

Made the trip again. No Jayden torp heroics yet - thought Clarry might try one before. Getting very dewy. Can we please kick straight?!!

Agree with the idea that our club has bent our minds over the years! But . . . Disagree with your rhetoric in this thread around MFC being an unambitious ‘old girl conservative’ club with ‘transient’ ‘sometimes’ members. Heard that stuff for decades, mostly from non-Melb supporters, and it’s frankly tiresome - and untrue. I know this has been posted on Demonland before, but on the subject of supporter loyalty and engagement, have a look at recent Roy Morgan research (links below). Among proportions of fans who go to games, Demons fans (~50%) are more likely than any other teams’ fans to go to a match (Melb v Haw game this year was a good case in point). And the conversion rate of our supporters to members is the second highest (behind the Bulldogs) in the AFL: http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7184-which-afl-teams-have-most-engaged-supporters-201703221004 http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7345-roy-morgan-afl-supporter-ladder-2017-201709210118 As to the notion of the club being old girl conservative (whatever that means), let’s not forget: • 1980s: appointment of Barassi as coach and the 5-year plan, which was pretty radical at the time, as was the Irish (and North American) recruiting experiment • 1990s: Alternative Demons ticket in response to failed merger and, of course, Diamond Joe • 2000s: taking the game to the Northern Territory, Jimmy’s debt demolition, appointment of Roos, pioneering women’s AFL, recruitment of Lever, abandoning poker machines So, yes, while we haven’t enjoyed the ultimate success since 1964, it’s not as though the club has been sitting on its hands and not making some bold moves since then, particularly in the last 5 years.

I was there, standing amongst a sea of red and black with one of my brothers, shouting DB deliriously!! Had 19 on my back soon after (replacing 17). What a win!

No doubt, but a good retort is that we had players missing too: Jayden, Pedo, Jeffy, Dom, Billy, Bugg, Frosty etc! What’s the saying, ‘you’re only as good as your last [5] games’?!! Very pleasurable. Playing like a real team - for each other.

Milkshake, T-Mac and Max all well ahead of him in my book. By the way, I’m not a betting man but I did have a small wager on Oliver getting more possessions than Cripps - lost out on that one by 5. The difference? 5 soft free kicks.

Cripps is no mug in the air. And they’re the same height (195cm). But, yes, next Sunday we’ll know a bit more about him and the team. Looking forward to it!

Merely countering your similarly hyperbolic point about every team thinking they can beat us with pressure, and that we fold. If that were the case, we wouldn’t come back from any deficit, respond to any adversity or win any games of footy.

I’ve seen enough under Goodwin to know that most teams fear us. Yes, we have lapses in games and have a few run-ons against us, but we push to the very end, keep coming and are rarely out of it. I lost count of how many comebacks we staged last year. Already this season, we’ve responded well from almost 5 goals down to the Cats, and we stepped up a gear when headed last night - in difficult conditions. This current mob do not fold or capitulate in the manner of years gone by. Opposing teams know they haven’t got us until the final siren sounds.

Is that when you strike a player from within - like Neo blasting open Agent Smith in The Matrix?!

I’ve been developing my backyard with some fresh new faces:

The Void Of Subcutanea

Think you might be underselling Goodwin’s natural talent as a player and a sportsman here (state captain in junior cricket at around the time he was drafted). Yes, he was a pre-season draftee and developed into an absolute monster on the training track (particularly under Craig), but geez he was a class player who racked up a truckload of individual accolades. Don’t think there would be any deep-seated envy here, just frustration in seeing one of his charges not getting the best out of himself on a consistent basis.

Sorry if I misrepresented the comparison you were making, but I can’t see any similarities, defensively or offensively. Robbie, you may recall, also played in some pretty crap teams, arguably worse than what JW has played in. No silver service for him. For a long time, he was the only reason to go and watch the Dees. Game was played then as a series of one on one contests, which he, despite his size, invariably won.

Helping us march onwards and upwards to the triple ton. C’mon D-Landers, let’s do this! Jack Watts. An enigma. And one whose plight provokes an enigmatic and emotional response from so many of us. My 2 cents. Seven years of either ordinary or inconsistent footy - punctuated by flashes of excellence generally around contract renewal time - and then one and a half years (2016-17) of sustained decent stuff, the latter almost befitting of a no.1 draft pick (yes, we can’t ignore the significance of that investment and the burdensome expectations it has brought - on him, the club and, in a funny way, on all of us). Over the 9-year ‘journey’ (the most hackneyed word at the MFC right now), I must admit I had hoped for more from the blond-haired man in the red and the blue. Do we, the MFC, owe him anything for his loyalty (and popularity) and efforts? I have this nagging feeling it’s the other way round - that he owes us a few more years of his best footy. Clearly, we’re not gonna get that. Maybe we never would have. On over half a million bucks a year, from all reports. Not a bad gig. He’ll be alright, wherever he goes. As to the increasingly eyebrow-raising comparisons in this gargantuan thread - Watts v T Lynch, Watts v A Goodes and, heaven help us, Watts v R Flower - let’s not trespass into the realm of absurdity. Having been fortunate enough to see a lot of Tulip in the last 7-8 years of his career, I’m afraid to say that JW’s absolute best does not come close. There are no similarities. None. If one could quantify and personify Robbie’s pace, grace, flair, determination, courage both in the air and on the ground, evasive skills - skills in general, the whole bloody suite - they would be like a colossus to JW’s garden gnome.

Lewis in 2017 Played 19 games (v career ave 21.8 games per season), averaged 26.3 disposals a game (v career ave 23.9), got better as the season went on (unlike many of his teammates), showed composure in a number of tight finishes (Carl, Port, WCE), was amongst our best in many of our crap losses (Nth x 2, Haw, Adel, Coll). Yes, had a couple of stinkers (QB and Syd) and got suspended (even though that act was clearly targeted at young bull and leader, Cripps, who at the time and like his team was strutting about and getting on top) but, overall on field, he did this season what he’s been doing for 13 years. Nothing too fancy: accumulating, persisting relentlessly, creating, moving the ball forward, setting up, going again, finding a way to win no matter the situation. All in a new team, new coach, different system, different role. Oh, and I’ve obviously been waiting for this, he just finished equal 3rd in the Bluey, singled out for his leadership by both Goodwin (in presenting trophy to Lewis) and Jones (in his own acceptance speech on sharing same award). I’d say there is incontrovertible evidence now, if there wasn’t before, of Lewis’ worth as a recruit AND leader, isn’t there? Oh, that’s right, the jury’s still out - 1 year out of 3 proves nothing, he’s just playing for his pension, he bleeds yellow and brown, he’s clearly past it, he got reported, not worth it, slow, fumbles, broke Jesse’s collarbone himself, got reported, slow, falls to ground and - did I mention? - he’s slow and got reported. As I’ve said before, the day a young Melb player tenaciously grabs his spot in the 22 will be an auspicious day for the club, ‘cos the old hardened 4-time premiership bastard ain’t gonna surrender his position in the team any time soon.

No, not end of story. You can be just as committed to your club as you are to those with whom you've forged strong relationships at other clubs. And when all is said and done, when the parochialism of the season is over, why not. Just ask your 'culture builder' Clarko, who is pictured here arm in arm with Dimma straight after the game on Sat.

One more yellow and black rendition will send me over the edge. Thankfully, the tram to North Melb is devoid of those Richmond pricks. Time to divert my attention to trade period and AFLW. Go Daisy!