Skuit

I'm not sure if I've ever been in greater agreement with a post on Demonland. In an odd roundabout way, we can cover for JJ, but JJ can't cover for a number of contingencies. Experience alone should be a factor. Jordon is 20 and will get his turn.

And a couple streets from my last house(boat)!

Love that you're at number 13. I have ridden past this house every match this year on my pre-game routine to the bottle shop:

Definitely bringing the Charlie Spargo vibes.

Since the 2016/17? Bali away fiasco the club has nailed everyone of its jumpers and most of its marketing. The Red-back looks awesome. Who cares? Let's win a premiership!

Seems wildly unfair that anyone on here can slag off any one of our players or coaching staff and wind it back with a 'schucks, I got it wrong' mea culpa, but gloating is considered so unseemly in comparison. And I use the term 'mea culpa' deliberately, we simply wouldn't be here on grand final eve if a lot of our fans and posters got their way last year. Anyways, [censored] it: I've always thought Simon was the right guy, and my record will reflect that, and I feel especially chuffed with this recognition for Goody for what he has turned this team into. Go Dees! And for anyone still deflecting to (the undoubtedly influential) Yze and Choco as prime instigators of our flag charge, look up confirmation bias and then go back and reflect on our past four years as a club under Goodwin.

Jack made me cry last time out, when he lifted Gawn off the turf.

I'm a firm believer that satire should be as understated as possible, but you still have to give a slight hint DeezNuts. Also, why do the commentators always refer to Stevic as Matt Stevic in full? Until this thread I've never been sure if his name was Matt Stevic, or Matstevic with a mystery given name. The same thing makes me okay with being screwed over for Mac Andrew as an NGA, as I'm sure he will take on the unlikely Scottish name of McAndrew during his career, and I get annoyed by small things, apparently.

The phrase 'It's on like Donkey Kong' denotes a readiness for some fierce competition. While Donkey Kong's famed nemesis Mario comes from the Mushroom Kingdom, he's clearly of Italian stock. Less clear is what's inside the barrels that DK relentlessly hurls at Mario, but they may well be barrels full of cash. I'm getting distinct Lygon Street vibes here. Meanwhile, Frankie Valli is also of Italian heritage, as is the name Cerra. I'm not sure what Cerra means in Italian, but in Portuguese it means something like 'closes', and I think can be used in a way similar to close your mouth (or Shaddap You Face) - or 'pipe down' in English, bringing us right back to Mario. I also recall something about Mario raising a 'flag first' when he reached the conclusion of a stage before taking on the end-boss?

Nothing mentioned so far in this thread remotely bothers me. I love fancy cheese. I buy it with my Basics Card. Never been to the snow, and don't have my driver's licence let alone own a Range Rover (I'm currently borrowing my mum's bicycle). I'm not sure why anyone would remotely care about overworn stereotypes, delivered by toothless morons eating meat pies. The only thing that riles me is outsider perceptions that our current team has been built on the back of an AFL leg-up, through priority picks and free agency overcompensation, when it often feels quite the opposite. The only decent AFL-backing we have been given is the one never mentioned - the installation of Peter Jackson, which then brought us Roos. We received pick 3 as compensation for James Frawley, as per the formula and in a demonstration of why the system was built as it was. Buddy Franklin is irrelevant. We haven't benefited from free agency player-wise, outside of an injured Tomlinson. Our last priority pick was Scully in 2009, which we have since parlayed, as did the Dogs with 2005 priority selection Ryan Griffen. Meanwhile, our opponents this week were handed a free number one last year, and have another top-three talent arriving via father-son this year. (They also landed Treloar for the equivalent of about pick 60). Our first real NGA prospect is now likely off the table. We have Jack Viney as a F/S (26), while they have Tom Liberatore (41), as well as Hunter (49), Cordy and Wallis. All done and said, we will have an equal number of former top-ten picks running around on Saturday. I expect once the feel-good factor wears off, this narrative of AFL hand-outs will start to become more prominent once again. I don't recall a sentiment of unfair advantage around the Cats and Hawks dynasties, and they benefitted from F/S and priorities way more than us.

Chol is a free agent. I doubt he will get them anymore than a third-round compo pick. CCJ a third-rounder at best as well.

Of players originally drafted at pick 57 to play in grand finals, 75 percent have won.* Step on down Jayden. *This factoid might not be entirely accurate.

Such a glorious outfit.

Excellent. Critical now though that our footy dept. brains-trust comes up with some creative compromise to retain the services of Burgo too. I would pay him the same amount for half the hours, current soft-cap restrictions be damned. He can do a pre-season intensive and then fly over once a month, with some zooming and program-writing in between. It's a half an hour flight from Adelaide. And half of that cash-sacrifice would be simply to keep his IP from other competitors. It's easy to forget what it's like not having full confidence that our team will come out in the last and compete until the very end. It wasn't always like this.

Indeed, looking back on our 2011 margins (as a repeat of 2001 and other seasons), it's crazy how erratic we were, when compared to right now. It's often forgotten that even after conceding 233 points against Geelong, we were still actually right in the hunt for the finals. When we were looking semi-decent in 2017, I posted something along the lines of not being ready yet as a supporter - I wanted a run of supreme dominance first. I never imagined dominance would look like this; not blowing teams off the park, but never remotely looking like losing. But I don't agree with your thesis jnr. Vince and Lewis and co. were probably the right signings at the time, but they aren't what ultimately brought Lever and May to the club. That was Goodwin and his vision. Roos did well, but any competent coach with the same mandate should have been able to do the same, in my opinion.

The red & blue were running rampant at the end stages of 2018, only for it to all fall apart. The MFC were unceremoniously bundled out in the prelims, with both Norwood and West Perth going down in their respective grand finals. (I also maybe recall another red & blue north-eastern seaboard team in the mix?). As it stands, all three are still alive this year, but with quite mixed hopes.

Edit. Forgot the serious content and language warning for the above. Teenage Demons fans should be advised to go back and watch whatever wholesome online content they usually do.

I probably would have done the same [censored] as kid. Maybe we should lay off her a bit until the full details emerge. If she's a young adult or underage, I hope she cops the fine and is then left to deal with that out of the public spotlight. It's not representative of the Dogs' fan-base, and shouldn't be made out to be (not suggesting you have done so Gorg). This isn't the motivation we should be tapping into. Every club has its undesirable fans, and we're not immune.

This isn't intended as a criticism of any of these coaches in any way, but it's quite crazy the circuitous route we've taken to get to this point over the past ten years, or even just the past five or so. Following Bailey's free-flowing game-plan (forget Neeld), Roos came in an immediately instilled a stolid if uninspiring defensive approach, as was his style, but if only to stem the bleeding. Goody then takes over with all guns blazing and we become the highest scoring team by some margin, but leak like a sieve. Somehow since then we've now found ourselves as one of the best defensive teams that has ever graced an AFL paddock (actually through shrewd recruiting, and at least by far eclipsing anything MFC in my time), while retaining decent firepower up front. This grand final is definitely a product of all those parts. Goody rejected the approach of his mentor - knowing it would likely get us nowhere - but then probably had to go back a bit and embrace some of that philosophy, and rebuild his team from the back-end.

Yup SPC. Had to remind myself today as well that ours isn't a flash-in-the-pan team either. No matter how our last grand final outings felt, this MFC squad is right in its prime and built to contend for a number of years. Should we be beaten by a better team on the day, it won't be the end of the story. It may sound like softening any potential blow in advance, but until Gawn, May and Brown start fading we're not going to go backwards. This is just the start of our window. I feel quite serene about any outcome, as if my hard work as a supporter over the past however many years during our darkest of times has already been done. I might even 'retire' once Oliver and Trac are done - can't remotely stomach the thought of going through our next rebuild - and hopefully we snag a few flags before then. That said, I hope our older, potentially fading members get a chance at glory this year.

I definitely think anyone joining this site to hopefully score some GF tickets - and I don't begrudge you in that desire - should swing by the 'First game, worst loss, best win' thread first as a courtesy. A lot of tragics on here who have contributed plenty to this community over the years who will sadly miss out. It's not a time for desperate poaching, but respect. I was very kindly offered a ticket on here for the PF (and GF! but can't make it), but was up-front that the PF ticket would go to an Eagles' supporter ready to cheer on the red & blue. Even if you're a fan of either of the WA teams, be honest and tell us what your best and worst memories are as a supporter, and you'll probably earn a lot of respect in return. We're not stupid.

The Dogs' mids and runners are exceptional at collecting front and centre from kicks in general play and quickly finding a handball out the front of the pack (see last night and our breakneck pre-season match-up). I'm not sure that we can concede a number as we usually do - need to wear them tight in packs and need someone blocking the front exit. While they have great distributors off half-back, it suits us if they move the ball backwards as we set up so well. It was the ball through the front which completely broke down Port's defensive structure, that and what felt like Footscray always having one or two extras at the contest. The midfields will probably decide the grand final, and I believe that it's us who needs to adjust to them tactically. A bigger factor though will be pressure. Would love to see the stats for pressure and correlation to winning games of AFL. Both grand-finalists brought it one way in the prelims. Should be a cracking encounter, but who knows. The two positives I like to draw on: we prevailed in all of the highest two-way pressure matches this year, such as against Richmond. Our biggest loss was against Collingwood by four goals, although we admittedly went down to the Dogs by 20 points, after level-pegging half way through the last. The other 'losses' were by 1 point, 9 points, and a draw. It has felt like we've stood up to the challenge whenever it really mattered.

If Hunt is fit then he's ahead of Jordon and Jones as the sub, and what a tantalising sub he would be.

Jones sub. He is capable of what Jordon did tonight. His presence on the bench alone will lift the team.

Almost flawless. As good a drilled team as there has been in the AFL era. Hats off to Simon and the footy department. Jones in for sub.