Vipercrunch

Current forecast is predicting a dry southerly cool change coming through just before game time lowering the temp to mid to low 20s We'll be watching that closely to help make our cheese choices for the game.

Not great news about May. I hope we are more conservative with player management this year though so from a big picture point of view, I am ok if he misses. Not going to try and guess which way the club will go with a replacement. I'm backing BBB to have a massive first half of the year. Many of the players interviewed in the last week or so (and some Demonland trackwatchers too) referenced with awe his marking and goal-kicking form he showed in some intraclub match practice, so unless the cool change comes late on Saturday, I'm tipping him to kick 6+ goals and remind Liam Jones just how hard life can be as an AFL defender.

Important case for the code and sport in general. The AFL has talked big with protecting the head through the MRO and tribunal system, but so often have failed to deliver. No idea if those failures come into it or not. Interesting that Emma Grant and Liam Picken chose not to be part of this class action.

My oldest daughter has just recently moved out of home and up to Melbourne for uni, so I'm taking a bootload of of her stuff to her apartment late Saturday arvo. We'll then grab a feed somewhere local to her before training it in to the G where we may or may not meet up with my oldest son who is definetely going, but he's not sure if he'll be hanging with his mates or us. Like everyone here, we've been hanging for the season to start for so long now and have talked about it so much. Can't wait.

Final Interview with Jack Viney https://megaphone.link/NTETP9553886944

Dwayne Russell with Spargs - https://megaphone.link/NTETP5726788620 He interviews quite well really.

I wanted to add it to the end of last years thread but it was locked. Perhaps @Demonland can merge it with the old one.

Links to some interviews. Lyon and Watson with Gawn - https://megaphone.link/NTETP1473691397 Whateley interview with Grundy - https://megaphone.link/NTETP1527227155 Good chance there will be more later in the day.

"Sunday Crunch Time will have an all-new line up in 2023, with renowned AFL.com.au presenter Sarah Olle and former Fox Sports senior AFL and cricket journalist Tom Morris teaming up on SEN." I wonder if Bevo will be the first AFL coach they get on? https://www.sen.com.au/news/2023/03/08/sunday-crunch-time-returns-to-sen-with-new-hosts-for-the-2023-season/

His reputation is all based on 2 incredible finals runs, but given he has never once coached them to the Top 4, is he really as good as some in the media want us to believe? I don't think so. I think he tries too hard to be edgy and it will catch up with him if he can't get more out of his talented list.

Gone are the days when the discussion pre round 1 is all about which handful of 18 year old fisrt year players that are green as green will we lump all our hopes on for that coming season. Now it's all about trying to sqeeze 26 or 27 experienced and very deserving players into 23, and which ones will be incredibly unlucky to not get a game. Starting from the 23 that played against Richmond and assuming as per Yze's press conference that only Fritta is fit to play (not Viney), I think Woey Jnr makes way for Jordon as sub and Fritta comes in for Laurie. I think McVee is a lock given he played in both praccy games and I think Chandler did enough to get a run at it in the real thing. It means a fit JVR, Hibbo, Schache, and Tomlinson miss out, with others such as Salem, Viney, Melksham, Joel Smith, Dunstan returning from injury, as well as other promishing youngsters such as Disco Turner, Laurie, Woewodin, Deakyn Smith and Blake Howes continue to develop at Casey. And thats not mentioning any of the first year players, which Will Verrall has been an absolute standout for mine.

Nothing worse than goal highlight packages that only show the set shot and ignore the actual intersting part of how the player recieved the set shot. Was it a towering pack mark, a exquisite pass to a strong lead or a down the ground free?

I wonder if some captains do some vote swapping as there a lot of lesser known players in that list.

The second paragraph of the article fails to mention that Melbourne also had 4 votes along with Brisbane to reach the GF.

Appointing Grimes and Trengove as Co-captains was a terrible decision, but it is not proof that co-captaincy and/or large leaderships groups can't work. Sydney Swans has had sustained sucess with 2 or 3 captains, an initiative that was begun by Paul Roos 17 years ago.

You'd think our results and performances over the first 5 weeks would be crucial for realising our aspirtions to reach 75k members. 5-0 or 4-1 would go along way towards it, as would a much more attacking brand and hopefully some big margins. Would be great to only drop one at most out of Bulldogs, Lions, and Swans, then hammer the Eagles and Dons leading into the Anzac Day Eve game agaisnt the Tigers would have even the most pessmistic MFC supporter up and about and hopefully eager to get aboard financially.

We were +5 in hit outs to advantage so no concerns imo

The last 30 seconds or so clears up excatly what happened with that Gawn goal.

I've finally had a listen to Yze's press conference from Saturday's game. Very informative. Sounds like Fritta is the most likely to return for R1, with Viney also quite likely. Salem is looking like being 2 or 3 weeks after that. He also said although it's easier to spread the midfield minutes with younger players in the practice games, it's important that they continue to do so during the main season. Both to reduce the workload of our elite midfielders, but to also develop the younger ones, so it seems that as a general rules, that will continue during the year. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/1279179/tested-and-ready-for-round-1-yze

Who does he least want to room with when they go to Brisbane in round 2 (ie biggest pest in the team)?

I assume the controlling umpire totally missed the part where the ball hit the post and then go over the line and only saw Max kick it through, and thought calling it as an advantage was the way to go. And as you say, same result in the end.

Is he an avid footy watcher when not playing, and if so, what did he make of the 2021 GF?

Putting my one-eyed, rose coloured glasses on here, but perhaps that WAS our half intensity. Look out competetion when we actually switch on.

Which MFC players did he (and as an extension Collingwood's coaching panel) rate really highly? And which MFC players are actually much better and more important now that he understands their different roles and skills.

I wish it was much harder to march a player to the preseason draft. Even the threat of that puts all the power with the club the player wants to get to. Maybe have a rule that players can't register in a preseason draft until 5 years after they were picked in a national draft? Allow them register for the National Draft again without nominating a contract like they can in the preseason draft. Also, Wikipedia says Kozzy is the nephew of Byron Pickett (which we all know) AND Neville Jetta. Can anyone confirm or deny that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kysaiah_Pickett