Bring-Back-Powell

Good nom. Now that LJ and Grundy have left there's an important opening for the forward/resting ruck role to give Gawn a spell. That is unless you're happy with T Mac to continue his role from the Carlton final as the back up ruck, or JVR to be thrown to the wolves all year. I've only seen a 30 second highlights clip and cannot remember his game against us in the 2022 finals so don't have an opinion on whether he has AFL attributes. However, he has an opportunity to make our side better if he can kick a goal a game with a few clunks and provide a 50/50 contest at worst in the ruck.

That's the major contrast between Demonland and the MFC forum on Bigfooty. The average Demonland poster is way more optimistic than the average BF poster. Whilst many Demonlanders are convinced we're still in the premiership window, many on bigfooty reckon we're going to go back to the pack and are quite frankly brutal and scathing on Goodwin.

I’ve never seen the kid play but I’ll go Jed Adams.

Any idea who he was?

He certainly moved onto bigger and better things at Green Bay.

7 used to play for Adelaide I reckon.

Every year since 2015 a team has jumped from outside the top 8 to finish top 4 the following year (after the home and away season). It’s absolutely likely someone will come from nowhere to finish top 4 this year.

Good analysis above. However I disagree with you for disagreeing with me about Adelaide. They threw 6 games last year in the bin through complete inaccuracy. In those 6 games they outscored the oppo but somehow lost the game (we were one of the beneficiaries in round 19). Going through past years, that stat is a complete anomaly and all bodes well for them this year if they can tidy up their accuracy. If they won just 3 of those 6 and they would have finished 5th not 10th. It’s a complete anomaly because in 2021 and 2022 the highest amount of times where a team lost but outscored the oppo was 3 as opposed to Adelaide’s 6 last year. In fairness we also lost 5 games where we outscored the oppo in 2023 so I take a fair bit of solace out of that. In 2021 and 2022 we committed this sin just twice. I think Adelaide can bolt into a top 2 spot provided they can fix up their accuracy issues, enjoy natural improvement from their under 25’s and get another big year from Tex who doesn’t appear anywhere near the end.

Hey, I tipped a finals win. That’s a damn sight better than the last 2 years.

6th - 8th with an elimination final win is my tip. I have Collingwood, Carlton Brisbane, GWS, Sydney and Adelaide ahead of us this year.

Sparrow’s been hanging around the 16 possession mark a game over the last 2 years. Would like to see that increase to 20 next year, particularly given there may be an opening for more midfield minutes next year. I would also like him to play more games like the St Kilda game at Marvel this year. 22 and 2 goals. If he can start doing that on a semi regular basis, he’s really going to elevate himself to a seriously good AFL player.

Should not have played under any circumstances against Carlton. His performance in week 1 finals was off the pace and attracted warranted media scrutiny post game. And yet the selection panel retained him for the Carlton final as part of a litany of questionable selections in the finals series. We had a perfectly fit Grundy or Shache that could’ve played his role as the second ruck and have a smaller sub to provide late game run on a warming night for a final. I agree with their idea of training him and ultimately playing him as the third tall defender. It will be good to have Tomlinson, Turner and T Mac fighting for the one spot and T Mac is a proven commodity down back.

I like this line of thinking. Offering solutions to that game rather than making excuses. Surprised he’s only averaged 0.7 goals a game in his career for someone that’s lined up in the forward line for basically every game. Definitely in the mix next year.

Was YouTubing some late 1980’s MFC games and came across a 1988 game against Collingwood at Waverley. We won by about 10 points but Wilson was the absolute difference in the game with 30 touches and 5 goals. Genuine super star performance.

If you told me at the time we recruited Schache that we would subsequently go into a game without Petty, JVR, Melksham and BBB (with T Mac grossly out of form) and yet we still couldn’t find room for him in a depleted forward line, you’d probably wonder what the point of his recruitment was. His decent accuracy would be a welcome boost to our forward line but I’m not sure what else he brings to the table. Would be fighting with Fullerton for that potential back up ruck role next year.

Criminally underused by Goodwin. Even gets dropped after a career best performance.

You'd imagine Tomlinson and Turner (both 194 cm) will be competing with each other for that third tall defender spot behind May and Lever. Can't see our weekly backline containing all four players. Arguably stiff to be dropped for the Pies final after a very encouraging round 24 game in which the stakes were high for Sydney.

I agree that we should've challenged Kozzie's hit on Smith from 2 weeks to 1. The AFL community were outraged with Kozzie's hit on Smith and that in the spirit of football we should not have even dared to challenge it. However in reality, Smith was perfectly fine and the incident should have been deemed medium impact rather than high. In fairness to us, we went into bat for JVR and Hunter with varying results.

What do you want me to say or suggest? I'm merely pointing out the deplorable stats of the first five minutes of that final which set the tone for most the night, which caused us to play catch up footy. I've listened to numerous NFL press conferences this year and the common theme from the losing coach is "we were flat and didn't come to play, that's on me as the head coach, I take responsibility for not having them prepared" It's up to Goodwin and Co to analyse how they prepared the players in the lead up to the Collingwood final and why we were jumped in such spectacular fashion.

I agree that the coaching staff should not be immune to criticism despite them being the obvious key drivers in winning the 2021 flag. We can be forever indebted to them, but we also have to move on and critique them year on year. Accordingly Goodwin and Co need to take responsibility for the Collingwood final, and specifically not having the troops ready and switched on from the opening bounce when the finals are their hottest. The first 5 minutes set us on the wrong course to get to GF day. Before the Maynard hit when we were 12 points to 0 down: Inside 50's - down 7-0 Ground ball gets - down 9-2 Contested ball - down by 10. All critical KPI's to win a final. There were also extremely questionable selection moves. Played 1 tall defender short which enabled McStay to kick 2 third quarter goals - a contested mark between Rivers and McVee and an uncontested mark with no defender in the same postcode which screamed structural issues. In fairness the poor start was rectified against Carlton the next week before the next set of issues reared their head in that final.

Oh yeah I forgot Tomlinson played his career best game on Kings Birthday only for our master mind of a coach to drop him the next week in a bad loss to Geelong. Not as bizarre as dropping the third tall defender for the Collingwood final but still pretty baffling.

Putting the Maynard incident aside, we came out as flat as a pancake for a final, barely went inside 50 and lost the contested possession count by 10 (a key KPI for a final) before the incident occurred. Collingwood set the tone before the Maynard incident and it just wasn't our night whichever way one looks at it.

Geez and I thought 2013 was bad.

Round 20 1988. MCG Melbourne V Bulldogs. We lost by 10 points after being down by 8 goals at 3 quarter time. We were in the midst of some really poor football in late 1988 after an 11-3 start to the year. My second and third games were much better. Early 1989 wins over Fitzroy and Richmond at the MCG as well.

Our game is apparently nearly sold out. Restricted viewing only.