Its Time Again

The interesting thing about upgrading Gosch's to MCG size is why would this be announced in a few weeks with State Govt funding which has already been announced if there's an immediate chance that MFC will have to move elsewhere if they fail to reach agreement to build the facilities there. It seems to me to be a very solid indication that the facilities will ultimately happen around the Goschs precinct.

And so it begins. "There have been rumours swirling recently that Melbourne’s Luke Jackson is homesick and misses family and friends in Perth. These have been flatly denied and the Demons are not concerned about losing him any time soon given he’s contracted until the end of 2022," Has anyone on DL heard these rumours. First I've heard of it. Always the worry drafting young Western Australians but he's coming into a very different environment than the one Jesse Hogan came into when he was only a 17yr old. So hopefully a very different scenario with hopefully a very different individual, who also has his best mate, Rivers, here playing with him. Always a bit of a worry when a young player doesn't sign a longer term extension than just one year. We'll now be on the merry go round with him until we get a more meaningful extension than the repeat 2 year ones that Hogan would only make.

We're back row Ladies Stand.

I was having a lend. GWS makes sense. What a huge benefit to the Club it would be if that happened.

I really hope they do this. Ideally it would be the Cats game. That GMBH Stadium is a seething sess pool of Covid. Can't have the game there under any circumstances. Just please don't transfer any of them to Cairns.

Got Mrs IT coming again with me and the boy. And bringing a couple of friends. Went out and bought everyone fresh MND beanies from my local Bunnings up here. Very surprised I could do that up here. Impressive. No one up here would have a clue what they are. This has been the worst 10 days financially in the Clubs history. $1.8mill lost just like that. Seem so absurd not to have allowed QB to go ahead. Thrilled to get to see it up here but appreciate the terrible cost to the Club. Have tickets booked to come down and see the Dons game. Hope it's on. That would unexpectedly make 3 in a row. One of the bigger seasons I've had adding on to the Saints game earlier in the year. How things have changed. I went to that 2nd rounder with a couple of mates and all of us expecting it to be a loss because they were top 4 bound and we would be scrapping to make 8th. Perspective is just a bit different now especially after Friday.

OK. I didn't realise there were separate soccer and rugby fields there. My theory would have worked if the soccer team was leaving and you just had the two rugby teams who could both play on the one field which could be put at the existing Goschs paddock. I guess they're not going to put different sports lines on the one training field like we all grew up dealing with. Red lines for soccer, white for rugby or whatever. That would solve it.

I did a bit of basic measuring on a map and if the Rebels move out to Melton and only one rectangular field is required they could switch that to where the Gosch's oval is now and at a certain angle could put in an MCG sized oval where the rectangular fields are now. This fits in with someone I know saying they saw a group of MFC people with some MOPA and possibly Govt people walking somewhere around those rectangular fields with something that looked like plans. This is directly adjacent to where I think the most likely place is for a facilities building over the existing car park at AAMI Park facing Goschs. So those facilities would look directly over the MCG sized oval. Too good to refuse. To be fair that sighting might mean nothing. But then again it might mean something.

If you grab a coffee anywhere at the Entertainment Quarter they will stamp your parking ticket and it makes it a flat rate of something like $15. They'll even do it at the pub as you're walking by going to the game.

Thanks @Rodney (Balls) Grinter Have been dealing with a family issue and had to head out of town so only just saw this. Here’s an update on my night. I had previously mentioned that Mrs IT finally joined me for an MFC game. First time 28 years. Plus our kids came too. Half way through the first quarter she’s not looking anymore and says I didn’t come out here to see them play badly. Half wat through the second she said she was going to leave. I politely told her that won’t be happening. I said they’ll come back and have a famous win. By the end she was screaming louder than anyone else, embarrassing our daughter no end. On Saturday morning I listened to her singing the song to herself in the shower. She remembered about 3 words and tra lala’ed the rest. Had a big laugh to myself. She’s coming to QB now. Go Dees. One of the great wins. I still can’t believe we got to see it live.

For sure it wouldn't be happening without that but they have been flat chat creating all sorts of different ways of getting people to take out memberships that weren't around before. Credit where credits due.

Awesome news. You've got to admire what Pert and the membership team have been able to do in these crap times. No small feat.

ticketmaster. Just go to Sport and it pops up. https://www.ticketmaster.com.au/melbourne-v-brisbane-lions-olympic-park-04-06-2021/event/13005AC1A2905847

Hmmm you’ve got me. A riddle perhaps?

A sirens usually right 8 times a game.

Probably need to reverse those volume instructions. What do you want me to yell in the unlikely event they kick a goal.

I'll put in some extra loud ones for you mate. I really feel for you. Us interstaters don't get many of these opportunities and I really love watching the Alice game. I flew up to Darwin a few years ago for the game up there and it was an amazing experience. Am planning to get to Alice at some stage. Haven't been there for a while. It's a real shame.

It's just snowed in hell. My wife and daughter are going to join my son and I. Never happened before. Real dilemma now. I have no idea how to behave at the football. They've never seen me at a Dees game before. It's only been 28 years with the wife and this a first. To be fair it's all been O/S or Sydney but still. Any advice on behaviour management at Dees games. They're already somewhat broken in having watched me screaming at the TV but this will be different. Hopefully they play nice and I'll behave nice.

Got out to Giants stadium last year to see wins v Hawks and Suns. It's our new fortress. Bring it on. I'm furiously building a possy to go out there to give those Lions heaps. Anyone want to hear any messages. I'll just yell them out and you'll hear them on the TV. Our group will probably make up half the supporters at the ground. All 5 of us. Otherwise it's a hell hole. The equivalent of trapsing out to VFL park except finding your car is a lot easier because they don't have crowds. It only costs about $20 in tolls each way too. Big win for us Sydney siders but big $$ for the club. Would be great if AFL switched another home game to Traeger later in the year. Anything possible in this Covid era.

Surely under the circumstances the AFL will make this our home game next year so we retain the gate rather than missing it completely this year. This would be a win as it would split it up to be alternate years to the Anzac Eve game which would be much better for spreading the cashflow.

Accchhhh!!! Discussions about kick ins inevitably lead me to the horror memories of Stephen Febey's kick outs in the 2000 Grand Final. He could not kick out so that Melbourne got a possession. Every single kick out ended up in Essendon's hands and just went straight back in either for him to kick out again or a goal. Gives me the heebies just thinking about it again. Glad to say things have moved on now. Very confident we won't be seeing that this year in the big dance.

Frankly it's a seriously pointless exercise to have a thread without any creditable knowledge guessing which coach is responsible for what especially as your point seems to be mainly to try and find everything that Goodwin isn't responsible for. Why don't we just be happy that we are witnessing the biggest one season improvement since '64. There's so many reasons for it I find this exercise misdirected. It would have been better to have been a thread about what's improved. The players are saying the single most significant improvement is nothing to do with the coaches it's the playing group culture which is playing for team not individuals. To paraphrase Trac this week on SEN the culture change originated after the two loses in Cairns which made the players realise the culture was broken and needed to be fixed by them and across the club. They even spoke to Bartlett about it. He puts the success of that down to a collective maturity in the group. It's taken 3 1/2 rebuilds since 2007 to get enough players through the system to reach the current maturity which appears to be reaping these benefits. If you want to credit someone for the coaching credit Bartlett and Pert for holding faith in Goodwin's gameplan and ability. MFC history has been a coach with Goodwin's record would have been sacked by now and we'd be dealing with yet another upheavel probably with another unproven coach. For what it's worth if you go back through Goody's messaging from day one it's always been about the contest. That's what we're seeing now and that's what makes it look more sustainable than any MFC team I've seen since '64. Of course there are a lot of other changes we are seeing this year to the way they are playing and for sure various of the coaches have had a hand in that but let's praise the collective and particularly Goody for embracing the changes not hindering them.

Any body have any idea whether they are going to appeal this. I really hope they do. I can't see any reference to it anywhere. I thought there used to be an MRP section on afl.com.au but can't find anything.

At the risk of derailing the thread and turning it into a Max appreciation society. Remember this play very well particularly because the player he beat to the ball was Hickey who is 201cm compared to Max's 208cm. His agility and athleticism is off the scale for his height. I've never seen an AFL player even remotely like him. I saw his first game and thought they clearly had his height wrong because he is physically very well proportioned and too balanced as an athlete to be that height. No disrespect meant to Hickey but because of his body shape and loping running style he looks like he's the 208cm player and Max 189. Max is truly a freak of nature.

Great stuff Nasher. Even more interesting than comparing two of our games might be to compare to the Dogs who according to the stats I compiled above are by far the best centre and stoppage clearance team. The win v Blues was another typical game by them losing hitouts 23 to 42 but winning centre clearances 23 -7 but interestingly breaking even on stoppage clearances. Being a strong advocate of the importance of ruckmen I don't want to face the possible truth that the Dogs show that winning hitouts is not only not important but in fact could be a negative. It's hard to ignore that their stats appear to indicate that it is a lot more effective to setup defensively and shark the opposition's hitouts than to setup to win a clearance from your own hitouts. No doubt the rest of the comp are studying the Dogs system very closely. I have focused on Viney in the past and noticed how much structural blocking he does to create corridors for the other mids to break out from. It's not just his contribution of winning the ball himself. We seem to be missing that work as much as his own clearances.