Mel Bourne

Despite this rock solid analogy, a player returning to their original club in an official (or even unofficial) role happens regularly in AFL.

I’m going to buck the trend here and say that I’m pretty nonplussed about this. He was a fantastic player for Hawthorn and an average player for the Demons. And though he’s influence behind the scenes may have helped inspire the club to new levels of greatness, that greatness culminated in an appearance in a preliminary final in which he....well you remember. And I remember all the posts here about it too. Having said that, he seems like a nice fella and I wish him well As for folks suggesting he may stay on at the club in some form or another - serious question - is he not welcome at the club he won four premierships at?

Give the big lad a chance to develop. Like many posters have pointed out, he’s got access to the best player in the league for what he’s aspiring to become.

That shoulder hit he took against the Swans the week before looked nasty AF. Then they put him in the team the following week, in a position where it’s more crucial than other positions to lift your arms above the chest, despite the fact he obviously couldn’t. Any criticism of his performance against the Saints should heavily factor this in.

Too subtle, Chook.

Lever said himself that he couldn’t run and took himself off the track before that match so ??‍♂️

C'mon. He's gonna make mistakes, especially when he's run up and down an oval all night in that kinda heat. Also took some pretty nasty hits leading right up to that dropped mark. The guy is our beacon in some very dark weather right now.

Goodwin should at least fake a really fed up and disappointed persona at the press conference. He can apologise to the team straight after.

Has Goodwin ever given them a spray?

&*^k off mate. Nah just kidding. We're a heavily depleted team with some notable under-performers on the ground, and when we have Lever, Melksham, May, Jetta and Tom MacDonald back in the team we'll enjoy a glimpse into a much more enjoyable next season. (What, you mean some of you were still holding hope for this one?)

Nathan Jones is going to win this for us.

Yeah for God's sake I am absolutely correct about Oscar MacDonald.

He's been average. With all the good work, there are still some pretty basic and recurring problems (such as losing sight of his player at crucial moments). I'm nowhere near as harsh on him as other people are here, but with the players coming in it's a legitimate question to ask.

A lot of players that were copping early flak from you lot, have done some redeemable things. All except one. Are we watching Omac’s last game tonight?

Zero apparently

I’m a little confused by people labelling this kid “slow”. Was this gleaned from watching that pretty vague highlight reel? I had trouble telling which one he was at times. Anyway I bet he’s faster than us useless tossers. Welcome to the MFC Kyle! Make our dreams come true (or not, no pressure).

That doesn’t explain the form of players from that final who were also on the ground today. And there were many.

Ask Goodwin at the press conference: ”How does a team go from a preliminary final to being the worst team in the competition in one season?” Make him answer THAT question.

Good thing you didn’t get one then.

Sack Goodwin. Let’s face it. The fans deserve a head and it’s his. We can’t afford to drop our dead wood in the team, because we don’t have the depth.

Can Tom MacDonald please concentrate less on neoconservatism and more on football?

No. He’ll suddenly become an incredible player in a different guernsey. Can’t let that happen.

What a strange and sad season. Like a lot of people here, I was deeply impressed by the team last night. In every area except one, of course. A horrible case of the yips in front of the goals, which has affected a swathe of otherwise reliable (tmac, Garlett) players. The dwindling standard of goal-kicking in the AFL has been well documented of late. It’s a deep shame to see the Demons as the poster boys for it, especially after being the highest scoring team in the league last year. I don’t think it’s due to a lack of skills In that area (the list has changed since last year but not THAT much), I think it’s fear of failure. And in many ways that is a much more difficult issue to tackle. We all know that mental weakness has been an issue at the club for years now, and we all see the lack of confidence, the skittishness, the nerves and the dearth of belief on display at disappointingly regular intervals. And we feel these things as fans and supporters too. It’s a shared epidemic. The Melbourne Demons shouldn’t invest in one or two sports psychologists. They need to invest in a comprehensive psychological program. Combined with the returns of Lever, Hannan, vanDenberg, Jetta, Melksham, Hibberd and the debut of a fit Steven May, I’m quite sure by the end of this season we’ll be defeating whoever the eventual grand finalists are, and we’ll hit 2020 with all clubs wary of us. We’ll also win the flag and Trump will get arrested. It’s going to be a great year folks. This one’s just a grind though. But hey, at least we can enjoy watching the club in a calmer, analytical way. Once you remove that rubbish called “hope” you can actually relax.

Pardon my ignorance, but is Petracca often named at full-forward?

Sam Newman embodied everything I dislike in a person. Arrogance, pseudo-intellectualism, vanity, intolerance and the list goes on. The whole idea that he was some kind of charming raconteur is a joke. He had a Pamela Anderson mural on his front wall ffs. He was the William F. Buckley to any given Monster-drinking dude with a pair of Oakleys glued to the back of his neck, and talking about him in the past tense is extremely enjoyable. The rest of the [censored] can [censored] off too. My wife isn’t a football lover. I’d try to convince her of it’s value from time to time, but she always had the perfect rebuttal, which was simply pointing in the direction of that godawful lowest-common-denominator horsesh&t and saying “I rest my case”.