Standing Room Only

Not this week unfortunately but would have been a well deserved nomination. Was great again on the weekend. If he has another good game this weekend would have to go close to getting the nod seeing as though the selectors tend to look at patches of form. Which brings about my question. If he gets the nod sometime this season that will give us 4 in one season. Since the rising star began has any club had 4 nominations in the one season ?

Joeboy - has his favourites

Clearly it is. The opening line says "Assuming we win all our games" I know it's been a while since we've seen a MFC final but I'm sticking with the premiership!

The Premiership

Jones will sign. Heart & Soul

This seems as good a place as any to ask this question. With the changes announced by the AFL today, in particular the banking of the last 2 season's of "underpaying" the TPP, where does that leave us? Does anyone know whether we were 92.5%, 95%, 100% of the TPP over the 2013 & 2014 seasons? I recall a couple of years back under the Harrington era of list management we front ended a lot of contracts so we could chase players (the reason why Frawley is UFA & not RFA). There's also the issue of the Clark payout. My thinking is that this may give us a little more squeeze room with the likes of Frawley & Dunn who are both UFA. Perhaps the club has been holding off on resigning until the AFL's position on the matter became clearer.

Martin Flanagan has written another Demon based article. Someone can post a link as that is outside my skill set. His writing is always a wonderful read but I most like the fact that even through our darkest times he wrote about the game, it's spirit & joy (and sometime it's pain). As a kid growing up it was the excitement of a Saturday morning before the game that hooked me. I always remember an ad from the 70s or 80s (I think it was the old "football, meat pies, kangaroos & Holden cars) with the crowds leaving the train at Jolimont. All buzzing before the game. Today Martin has written about Howie. Gives him a big wrap to. The best part of this article is the acknowledgement of Howe's mark over Embley at the G early last season. We've all seen his specky's from behind against Sydney & Port (well just about everyone) but that for me was his most ridiculous (you could add the one against Footscray at Docklands late last season but that idiot boundary umpire spoilt the party by saying he didn't control it over the line). For him to have the courage to go back like that and attempt the high mark over a player coming towards him and bring it down clean as a whistle, WOW! The last 3 seasons have been very hard for all of us and I'm not quite willing to open myself up yet to the prospect of improvement (we all know where that's ended up the last few years) but while we continue to have the likes of Howe in the Red & Blue at least there is some joy. One last thing on Martin, if you get a chance to read the article he wrote after his Dad passed away you will not regret it. A few years back now.

Was watching his game & Viney's on the weekend & a thought crept into my head. Todd Viney was one of the great leaders of our club through the 90s but only captained for 2 years because of Gaz being such a magnificent leader. Is history repeating. Could Jonesy be skipper for the rest of this decade & Jack, who oozes leadership, will end up skipper in the twilight of his career. Whichever way it ends up no one can question the leadership of the club & I don't just mean the skippers.

I'm in.

So why bring it up in the first place

I'm not sure if I'm on my own here or one of the silent majority but I get a little sick of all the negativity in a lot of posts, especially match days ones. Don't get me wrong, I understand your right to whinge & after the last 7 seasons why wouldn't you. But as someone who craves the positives I don't often get more than a page through threads before running into some sort of negativity. So this thread is dedicated to the positives. If people take it up then it would great if the admin could stop it from being hijacked. My list from last night: Constant leads from Hogan went unrewarded but lead to the space being created for Toumpas' goal on half time. All players did the right thing. Good players & good teams create goals that way. Dunn's field kicking was a treat. Stats might make a liar out of me but don't remember him missing a target, especially on a switch. Players made mistakes but didn't go into their shells. The next possession they were in the play to make up for it. Jack Grimes courage. Your turn.

Written by Mark Robinson. Essendon sycophant & James Hird lover. Move along, nothing to see.

Not a draft watcher so no idea of his talent other than being top 5 in most phantoms. My questions are obviously how serious are the injuries, how long is he likely to be on the sidelines & is his talent that good that we can afford to wait? If we're worried about any of those we can't afford to pick him.

A psychologist would love this site. Full of negativity & conspiracy theories.

Just to clarify .... No

No no no no. All he does in run. Poor user. Poor decision maker. In an ordinary side he would show his true colours

Now I'm not here to say appoint the man, far from it. What I would like to say is that after just watching his presso he is very well spoken & very respectful of all around him. The things he had to say made a lot of sense. Whether he coaches for 11 weeks or 11 years I guess we'll soon see.

For the last season I've heard people talk about this fella. Can someone please explain why there's so much love. I know he's only a young bloke making his way but I just can't see it. Nice enough field kick but terrible mark & poor decision maker (fits in perfectly at the moment).

Overheard Tony Jones, who I normally have little time for, on Triple M this evening. Billy was trying to suggest that there must be a stack of evidence against MFC (if you read the reports) and Tony Jones was basically saying nothing will come of it. No evidence at all that anything occurred.

Same way he knows everything. He generally makes it up to sound good. The guy has zero real football knowledge. Consistently gets players names & positions wrong which really shouldn't be that difficult.

Neeld mentioned the numbers of list changes in the Hogan press conference. Obviously all hypothetical but he mentioned 12. Said something like 5-6 kids & 4-6 experienced players. Do clubs still need to take a minimum of 3 players from the draft? That being pick 4, Viney and next available.

Brent Grgic was a footballer. I win .... or lose.

And in 3 years time we might be celebrating a 3rd premiership! You can't say Gawn will be an absolute retard. Based on his handful of games he looked "ok". Nothing better, but ok. He's big, he knows how to ruck. Martin is big, looks great, has no footy smarts, lacks stamina and rarely impacts a contest. Right now Martin has value to other clubs. Morton had that a couple of years back and we resigned him and now look what we are left with. If we move him and he turns into someone who can play (as yet he's done nothing to prove that) then we were wrong. We've been there before.

100% correct. He's had too many injuries to form a true opinion on yet. I didn't say he would be great, I said he'd be a far better ruck than Martin. He was a ruckman as a junior, he's 208cm & in his few games in the ruck he showed he knows what to do. Martin played a season at Old Hailebury (probably as a glorified wingman) and was outstanding. He was drafted on the back of Melbourne's love for athletes, and he is definitely that. But he's played forward and hasn't done much, he's played ruck and was ok when forced to ruck on his own but quickly ran out of gas on a number of occasions & he may have played back in his first season but hasn't since. Martin has played 57 games now & if he was going to be anything more than just a back up tall we would have seen it by now.

I've obviously never seen this Martin fella play because the descriptions above don't match the ability of the Martin I know of. Can he run - yep Mark - yep Can he play footy - haven't seen it yet. McDonald, Frawley, Garland, hopefully Rivers & Sellar are all better tall backs. Gawn will be a far better ruck & with support from Clark, hopefully Dawes & maybe Pedersen we don't need Martin. Been on the list long enough. Show him the door & get some value. Tip him into the Dawes deal. 20 & Martin for Dawes & 2nd round pick.