Skuit

Can't believe this is really happening. 2019! I'll be comfortable with a 35 point win considering we're underdone. Otherwise I'm tearing up the joint. Also, can someone help me with the time difference - do I really have to wake up at/not go till bed till 4am to watch from Europe?

Also a shout out to Jack Watts and Jesse Hogan. Who once again demonstrated to the AFL that it doesn't need to manufacture off-season interest through one-month trade weeks and grand final time-slot speculation when it has twenty-something year-old blokes as its prime commodity.

MFCSS: Obstructed vision = blinder.

I've called Billy out before for not having the aptitude for AFL - especially with respect our playing style - but his return last year in Darwin was impressive enough to make me reconsider my position. The emergency list of Preuss, Petty and Keilty suggests that we're not intending to bring another mid/small regardless of the circumstances, and I think Sparrow's inclusion can be considered in line with the rewards system we've used in the past. As such, and with other injuries, it's not clear how far down the pecking order Stretch truly is - and he may very well be the next-in-line mid, ahead of KK, JKH and Maynard (but presumably behind AVB). Too early to be calling it cross-roads.

Love how Demonland has turned the Melbourne fans' penchant for jumping at shadows into a literal art form.

But I wish they wouldn't mess around. Even just seeing Jordan Lewis's name in print next to Robbie Gray's in a forward pocket makes me break out in cold sweats.

A noted innovator, Hinkley takes the concept of chaos ball to a whole new level. All up, the Power will have 11 changes to the team that lost to Essendon in round 23 last year. "It makes it hard for Melbourne to predict what we're going to do, because we don't know what we're going to do."

Hawthorn does the Kokoda trail to build up leadership qualities. Collingwood just recruits those who survived the MFC pre-2014. Much smarter from a logistics perspective.

Firstly, how exactly do you conduct a fitness test on a fractured cheekbone? Secondly, I'm happy to volunteer my time if they need any help performing the test.

Fair enough. I suppose signing Jay on deadline day suggests he wasn't our first option, and as such there's a natural sense of disappointment that we missed out on something else. This of course might not be case.

The club hasn't done much to sell this pick. Last day of bidding: “The AFL introduced a Supplementary Selection Period for the first time this year. This allowed teams to add players to their rookie list up until todays date,” General Manager of Football Operations Josh Mahoney told Melbourne Media. And rather than having some wild untapped potential, we happened to know his name: “When we were considering how to use this position on our list, it made sense to add a player who knew our system and had played under our coaches.” Underwhelmed accordingly.

D'land just got juicy.

Please don't quote me for a little while DV8. Thanks.

Melbourne could be as good as anyone, but first and foremost it has to get over itself. Melbourne fails to know how to get the foot to the throat and press down hard. The Demons release the pressure too soon and play like millionaires. This needs to stop. Malthouse makes the leap that every other simple-minded shouty sports fan reaches for when a talented team performs below expectations, discounting maturity-levels, experience, etc: it must be arrogance. From every thing that I've ever read about or heard said from Goodwin, he continually imparts the need for humility. I think there is no other cliche than the bathwater one that gets my back up nowadays. That said, and moving past the 'millionaire's' swipe, Malthouse is correct that we've had an issue with putting the foot down in the past. There was the 'failure to crush' teams thread on here the year before last - and in that year, when we played Port after the bye, it was reported that their players were super-confident at the break despite us having completely smothered them in the first half. It shows that there's an issue, at least of perception. We made some in-roads last year against the weaker teams. But still, while my recollection remains that we completely destroyed Geelong and Hawthorn in each of our finals, two of the highlights from the season were us closing them out after tense moments late in both matches. They were both given a sniff despite our dominance. That will need to change, and is the important next step for the coming season. It's an issue of maturity. And we rely on intensity - rather than playing like millionaires, we get out in front and then don't know what to do when the intensity drops, playing less direct and dinking it around until the inevitable turn-over leads to easy goals out the back and the pressure comes back on. We need to learn more tricks in scoring from structured play, and how to control the tempo without losing our intent. That also comes with maturity.

Okay. While I can't tell how much of your post is intended as ironic, I'll speak as directly as possible. In what I personally consider could be an otherwise valuable thread - saving me and others from having to trawl through alternative news sources for information on Port's progress - I instead have to dig through post after post of people's anxieties in relation to Melbourne, their issues with our past performances, the supposed overconfidence of the Demons' players and supporters etc. to simply find out how Ryder might be tracking - when there are many other more appropriate threads for posters to repeat themselves in - literally, every other thread on Demonland. I hope this frank contribution will help save the lives of some small children somewhere.

It was a post reminding others to be respectful of the thread title.

I came here to get excited by injured Port players.

It adds 'pick 4'

I consider JKH mostly pointless from a list perspective, but skip back just one page and everything being said now has been said before. Someone mentioned he'd been on our payroll for more than half a decade, and when framed like that it's quite the jolt. He's survived longer than pick 4 Jimmy Toumpas.

A certain amount of co-ordination is necessary though, with Fitzy proving he could deny the odds in that respect.

They've actually now discovered six different muscles unique to Jack Viney.

231 × 300

But so what happened? Did the Yanks revise the prognosis after his sojourn there?

Any chance this is meant to read 2 to 6?

Cheers Cards, a good thing we have experience with Frost's previous 2-18 toe injury.