Nasher

Epically short turnaround. No coincidence that it's young players dropped. Essendon have made a squillion changes for the same reason.

The first handball to space in that chain was brilliant. How did he even find space in that pack? Then he somehow ran on to it himself, received an illegal high tackle and somehow got it to Garlett. I'm pretty sure he has some kind of telekinetic power over the ball. I haven't seen another human who can do these things so often.

Must have been tired when I posted this. I have one too many players on the bench at conclusion. I think the likely bench is Tyson, Stretch, Salem, (Weid/OMac) with Bugg and Harmes out.

Did Tregenza have a famous shank or something? Pretty random to drop a reference to a forgettable Crows player from the 90s.

Exactly the thought I had. Not even kidding - I'll settle for pretty much anything that doesn't involve Watts having to ruck half the game yet again.

Did Jesse know your son's story of losing his mum when that photo of them in your avatar was taken, Mark? If not send it to the club with the story as fan mail to remind him that he is in you and your son's thoughts and you have some knowledge of how he's feeling. It would be a touching gesture (or I think so anyway).

Extended bench is Salem, Tyson, Stretch, OMac, Bugg, Harmes and Weid. Can't see Tyson, Stretch or Salem (lol) being dropped. Think one of Weid or OMac (but not both) has to play - Weid for the Pedersen ruck scenario, or OMac for the TMac (Pedersen forward) scenario. That only leaves a Bugg for Harmes scenario - not a clear upgrade for mine so I wouldn't bother, but don't care one way or the other.

That's an incredibly dangerous tactic inside the top 5. They rolled the dice and lost. Sorrynotsorry.

If Kent plays and Bugg doesn't, I'll eat my hat.

Thanks for the insight - just proved what I was saying. Spencer is a rare case. I know the cynics on here will say it's because he's no good, but he never seems to have even considered testing the waters out there. As I said in another thread it's an unusual case of the club and player sticking together for a very long time.

Great effort. Have to say that when he was delisted at the end of '13, I would never have seen this coming. Didn't look to have any position - wasn't a midfielder or a forward and he didn't have any particular tricks that made him stand out. When we picked him with our last pick in the rookie draft, I took that to mean "there is literally nobody left in this draft". I think Nev credited Jade Rawlings with his turn-around. Whether it was Rawlings or whoever it was that put the word on to Roos and Taylor to give Nev another shot as a defender, take a bow. He's evolved in to a tough, reliable player. You know that he will at least halve any contest he's in (except when the back line stuff up as a collective and he ends up one-out on the key forward - gee that annoys me), and while he's not a huge collector of the ball, he never wastes it when he has it. He is greatly underrated as a ball user in my view. Well done Nev on 100 games. You got there the hard way - not that there is an easy way - and I am proud to have you in our team.

We are now going in to this game with a makeshift forward line as well as the ruck. I'm still optimistic of a win as our midfield still looks strong, but we'll be pushing it uphill to a degree.

There is no way Kent will come in. Plapp's report might as well have said "he stunk". For whatever reason he is off the boil at the moment. I'd forget about him for the time being. Kent is capable of tearing a VFL game apart. I'd expect the Plapp reports to at least indicated he did most things right before seeing him picked. Now that now I've been so confident about it, no doubt it'll be in: Kent, because as others have said I actually have NFI.

I'd say take as much or as little time as needed. As BB said, grief is an individual thing - some find having something else to focus on helps. By the way, I'm proud of the way the club has handled this in recent times. It's been obvious in recent times that Jesse has been up to his neck in it - a few on here failed dismally at reading between the lines and panned the club over letting him go to Perth - but ultimately the message was always one of absolute support, without ever exposing the public to the details of what was going on. I have no doubt Jesse will get the support he needs from the club - this is what good clubs are about.

Agree. TMac to the ruck looking more solid now. Going to need both Pedersen and Watts forward as much as possible. Would also consider Weideman if he's fit.

RIP. And the footy media and all the tools that panned him can all go jump. A number of media outlets owe him an apology.

I think there's a fair bit of revisionism going on here: 1. The club didn't "let Jolly walk" - I'm lead to believe it was filthy about it at the time, but felt it had little choice once the player said "I'm outta here". What are you meant to do in that situation? You can't hold the player prisoner. 2. Martin was a conundrum. He was capable as a first ruck, but we didn't need a first ruck and he was hopeless as a forward, a position we did need filled. In addition to the personal issue at the club he faced, he wasn't going to stick around waiting for Jamar to get injured (Spencer is the only player I've ever known to spend a whole career waiting). If Martin had been on the list last year he'd have played every game in the VFL. Do you think a player with AFL aspirations would have settled with that? It's easy to say too few rucks = poor management, but in reality it's the most complex position to manage, because you only ever need one ruck specialist in your side at once. Good rucks forced to wait in the seconds are eventually going to tire of waiting and leave.

Jeepers. This thread has officially jumped the shark.

I won't delete the topic but I will close it. While I accept that there's no stopping these stories once they start, I believe as supporters of the MFC we have a responsibility not to fan the fire. This is the ugly side of our "can't get enough" footy media.

Social media 101: Don't. Read. The. Comments.

Default setting in the software. Don't know why - to prevent like spamming I suppose. Don't know why that might be a problem, but I guess we'll find out as I've just changed it to unlimited. Like away!

Fair enough. He took a long time to show it at AFL level.

You've forgotten: Gawn had all the marking power of a man with watermelons for hands until the last few years. As recently as 2015, Gawn was kicking around in the twos, with Spencer the lead ruck(!), with Roos and co going "hrmm, this guy is a bit of a worry". He was textbook "bean-pole ruckman". King was taken where he was because that's where the recruiting team ranked him.

Should have waited until the rookie draft to get Max Gawn too I suppose.

Don't know how you can be so sure. Hogan first forward, Tim Smith second forward, Watts third forward/10% ruck seems like a reasonable setup to me. The alternative is Hogan first forward, Watts second forward, Pedersen third forward/10% ruck, but that is just urinating around the edges as far as the ruck goes, it only means 10% more Watts in the forward line, and I'd prefer we got a good look at Smith. I don't see it as such a huge leap forward over what we picked to be able to use absolute words like wrong. Not directing this at you specifically Gonzo but the "she'd have all been fine if we'd picked Pedersen" mentality is breaking my brain a bit. Surely it is beyond question that the reason it went pear-shaped is because we lost two key pieces of the infrastructure, and that what would have happened had we not is unknown.