Go the Biff

I kinda agree with this. He's contracted for another year and failing a miraculous return from TMac we have to keep playing him this year. His main issues as I see it. 1) He's too easily outbodied. So either he lacks core strength - which is possible as he's only put on semi decent size in the last couple of years - or his technique is poor. If the former then he's got a summer of squats & dead lifts ahead of him if he wants to make the most of his final contracted year. If the latter, he needs some specialized coaching. The Ox is a great example of someone who turned into a great "body" player. It needs addressing because at the moment he has a 95kg body being driven by a 70kg brain. 2) He needs to mark with his hands out in front of his face. Take the ball where its harder for defenders to spoil it. Too often he tries to take the ball almost directly above his head. Easy meat for any half decent defender to spoil without infringing. 3) Get the boy to Specsavers ! Have we tested his bloody eyesight ? The double grabbing, the running under the flight path - can he actually see the damn pill properly ? FWIW I gave him a bare pass on Saturday but he turned a fantastic start into a barely adequate game. Someone should also tell him that just because Max is in the pack doesn't mean he can't fly for it as well.

Nah - JB has been rolling with "bang" for years. His Clarrie call though, will likely become part of AFL iconography alongside the likes of Stephen Quartermain's "Leo Barry You Star" I thought the best thing about Brayshaw's "Bang..........bang bang bang" was the silence he followed it with, allowing the vision of the celebrating players tell the story

Good to see someone recognise Carmody's efforts. He reminds me a bit of Peter Donegan, a quality sportscaster who could turn his hand to pretty much any sport. A few years ago the VFL & AFLW telecasts were largely anchored by Carmody, Jason Bennett and Abbey Holmes and I thought they did a terrific, professional job. Good to see the three of them get more time on bigger stages although Carmody's expanded role has mainly been in horse racing coverage. I'm also a Papalia fan. He understands that his role is to call the game as accurately as possible and he just gets on with it. I prefer Daisy's analysis to most and I suspect the main reason that she's good is because she's still involved in the game. Special comments / analysts seem to me to have a limited shelf life. Some may recall Cameron Ling being lauded for his special comments in his first year on 7. He was bloody excellent. But with each passing year he's provided less & less meaningful analysis and more and more cliches. He's hopeless now. Malcolm Blight was another. Straight out of the game his on-air input was a breath of fresh air. Then he lost his marbles & from his most recent utterances, still hasn't found them. When it comes to hosting footy coverage I think both Sarah Jones & Kath Loughnan do a terrific job. On 7 Abby Gelmi is good but under utilised. Hannabal has summed up my views on Kelli Underwood to a tee. Nails down a chalkboard stuff. To finish up, I've always thought Rex Hunt was a megalomaniacal farkwit. He is, always has been and always will be about Rex. Any of his "offerings" should always be viewed in this light

Makes Best 22 lists !

Spot on Dazz. It appears from the outside that he's the chief architect of this disaster. North's version of CS. He seems to be Teflon

VFL coach Leigh Adams will be interim coach. Poor bugger. That'll be two coaching careers Norf have killed in one season

He was as useful as a chocolate teapot. And about as hard. Conned you & a few others though - including the club.

Yep. And floating mongrel punts become the order of the day. I'd hate to be a forward in our setup.

Jesus . Bucketing down. Trying to work out who's kicking with the tide. Couple of nice efforts from JVR just then

Well, that aged well @Lucifers Hero😁

You only ever heard of it when they won by a few points. Unmentioned when the result was a few points the other way. Absolute myth

FMD - some long bows are being drawn in this thread

Infection can set in rapidly. For a Demons example, I saw Rod Grinter at a party the night he clocked Terry Wallace. His hand was infected & had already swelled up like a soccer ball. It caused Grinter to miss the following week (while Wallace played)

Yep. Robbie wasn't comfortable with the number being out of action. He actually addressed the playing group & asked who wanted it. Stinga stuck his hand up & said "I do". So he went from 52 to 15 - the number of one of our greatest wingers in Stan Alves - to # 2 - the number of the greatest winger of all time

2018 when Mich Hannan was racing towards goal was seriously loud. On a fairly bleak May Sunday in 2008, inspired by little Aussie Woneamirri, a crowd of less than 20k sounded like 120k. The joint was heaving. One of my favourite days at the footy. That said, I'd rather not have to give the oppo 50 points head start to generate atmosphere.

Reckon you're spot on here @Sir Why You Little. Winning a flag does some great things for a supporter base. What it doesn't do is double it overnight. 57 years with little success has lost us a few generations of supporters. I suspect Hawthorn are the chief beneficiaries. That will take a long time and a lot of success to recover from. I was going to come off the long run-up on this but rather than boring folks with my waffle, will instead list a few observations 1) With the exception of Carlton, crowds are down across the board. It's not just an MFC issue. 2) In the last couple of years, circumstances have forced matchgoers to get their footy fix on TV. A lot have found that for various reasons, they like it 3) At a time when the AFL should be doing everything possible to make it easier for people to go to the footy, they seem to be making it harder. Ticketek etc. 4) We have over 60k members. I'd love a breakdown (for all clubs) as to how many of them are full season ticket holders. A spike in membership doesn't necessarily guarantee a spike in attendance. I know several members who through occupation, location, health status etc who know they can rarely if ever attend matches. But they are happy to buy memberships they can't use to "do their bit for the club". I know others with limited game memberships who are picking & choosing which games to got to. And our crunch games are in the back half of the season Given the trend, I actually think we're doing ok attendance wise

Fair enough. This evidence of which you speak - has it been communicated to you from someone at the club who would know ? Is it what you've observed first hand at training ? Or is it you extrapolating on what you see in matches ? Serious question. A lot would hope that you are correct but without real evidence, it is just clutching at straws to explain our performances in recent weeks

Max. NZ

Interesting chat with Benny Gibson

Dunno about that Jaded. Sure, he made a mistake & has had to own it & live with it but this is also the same bloke who pulled his club together after the horrific murder of their coach. Ticks & crosses. Agree with the first bit. Still a bloody good player & would rip it up in a good team

We'll have to agree to disagree Franky. These things happen every week & the usual worst case scenario is that the player underneath gets winded. Ed was unlucky. I'm a believer in tackling with intent & if the player tackled comes out of it a bit sore, so much the better. As others have said, I'd applaud any of our blokes who laid that tackle

Absolute bollocks. His arms were free. Fair tackle - no prior, ball-up.

There's no class action being assembled for victims of cracked ribs, torn hamstrings or high ankle sprain injuries. Also, I thought it was a great tackle. If one of our blokes laid that I'd be punching the air in approval

Hey Jaded - fair points one & all. My membership doesn't cover away games but I was interested in going to Docklands this week. So I got onto Ticketdisaster. According to them, "least expensive" seats were 55 bucks on Level 4 and "best seats" were about 75 bucks on L1. Hard to justify I thought. Strangely. on the telecast it appeared L4 was either closed or so sparsely populated that a crowd was undetectable.. Will have to have a closer look when I watch the replay

No respect !