Nasher

I can’t help but wonder how things would have turned out if Jurrah was arriving on the scene now instead of when our culture was in the bin. Obviously a lot of his issues were of his own doing, but a strong team culture might have had more pull for him. We’ll never know now. Sounds like he’s got his life in order now though which is great.

Another one here who had a mild panic that I might not be able to watch the GF thanks to 7’s dumb streaming options, but I’m sorted. Phew. Can’t watch this though. Honestly, who actually owns an antenna in 2021? There hasn’t been one in my house for years.

Donlan, Meredith and Mollison. Other game was Rosebury, Stevic and Findlay. I wouldn’t know one ump from the other. Not exactly what I’m paying attention to when I’m watching footy.

*Williamson

W_J, you still owe yourself one uppercut for suggesting we should have taken Parish and Mathieson!

It is a great piece. The mother’s ongoing grief in the Sylvia bit at the end hit me square in the feels. It’s easy as footy fans to dehumanise football players a bit. To think of Colin Sylvia as that kid who never quite managed to reach the heights we thought he might. But at the heart of it, he was just a young man, with a close relationship with his mum and the best years of his life still ahead of him, who is gone too soon. We all felt a pang of sadness when we heard the news, but she still lives it daily. It’s all about the people and this article captures that. I highly doubt Brad Flower, Sam Ludbey-Stynes, Peggy Wight, the Broadbridges and Lynne Hatfield have anything in common whatsoever other than grieving men lost too soon, and the Melbourne footy club. They’re all our people, it will mean something to them, and they’ll be amongst like-minded friends if it happens, even if they don’t know it.

He’s gone up a gear in the last few months, that’s for sure. He’s hanging on to his marks again now, and his work rate is awesome. Funny how ridiculous perception of footy players are from the outside. For Brown, there was this perception that he got a favourable run from the umps. Having watched him a lot more closely since being one of our players, if he does draw frees it’s only because at his best he’s so hard to stop otherwise. He’s huge, he’s massively strong and he’s got a high leap. There aren’t going to be many defenders who could match him, so they resort to double teaming and arm chopping. We took a player who was injured and well below his best, for cheap, and gave him the time and resources to get back there. Great recruiting and great management that is now paying dividends.

I’ll put my hand up and say the Spargo bandwagon was standing room only when I jumped on. He’s a key ingredient to our forward line now though. He defends like a warrior and his possessions while low in numbers are high in value. The kid rarely wastes it. And I love his reactions to when he scores. It’s almost like “yeah so? It’s my job.” He’d be a massive blow if out. Sounds like it’s all good though.

Oh jeez. It’s way too early to be chopping onions.

It’s going to be a long week. I’m in danger of being exhausted before we even get there!

Hibberd isn’t the most polished media performer. He was asked a question about his previous teammates and so he answered. Whether the Essendon players were “victims” or not is beside the point. It’s surely beyond doubt that it would have been by far the most difficult and stressful period of Hibberd’s career. An experience that none of his current MFC teammates (other than Melksham) can relate to. We’ve been crapping on all week about how only MFC supporters understand how other MFC supporters feel. The same will be true for the Essendon 34. Irrespective of whether they invited problem themselves or if they were completely unwitting “victims”, it was a period of great stress they endured together. Of course there will be a tight bond amongst them. Hoping he now doesn’t play because he dared to mention a bond with players who aren’t Melbourne ones, when asked about it by an experienced journalist, is just jealous, spiteful and nasty. He’s one of ours. Don’t dump him because he has love for more than just us. And claims that the EFC supporters are the victims, please. I don’t see myself as a victim of the bucket of pus the MFC delivered 08-13 and that’s absolutely no different. The EFC fans saw the effects of a woefully incompetent administration and their team sucked for a few years as a consequence. Boo farking hoo. Their lives and livelihoods and reputations weren’t soiled in the same way the players were. They had zero sympathy for us and as far as I’m concerned, the feeling is mutual. I don’t want any anyway.

I’d heard about him being told to lose weight, but I hadn’t heard the version of him being told directly by Goodwin that they’d bring scales to the combine and that’s what they’d base their decision to draft him on. He’s added three things to his game since arrival, all touched upon in the article: 1) elite fitness - finds the ball in space now as well as in close 2) slower ball use - his natural ability to get the ball in traffic is now more of an advantage because it doesn’t get shot out to a teammate in no position to receive it 3) kicking! And he’s worked his butt off to add these elements. The best thing in the story about him and Trac is that we’ve snatched a couple of top-end talents out of the draft, and actually managed to develop them to the level they had the potential to reach. And scarily, they’re both still young enough that their best footy is still ahead of them. It’s a great time to be a Melbourne supporter.

Of course not - the intrinsic reward of having played is always going to be present. The point isn’t to make the players who didn’t play feel “the same” as those who did, that’s not possible. It’s to acknowledge the contribution to getting the whole team to the pinnacle. I wonder if the co-driver in a winning Bathurst team feels the prize is cheap, because he wasn’t the one in the car when the chequered flag was waved?

Fair enough, I see where you’re coming from. I guess the difference for me is that I see “the flag” as the sum total of the whole season, not just the result of the final game. That is, the 50 point win in round 5 that Mitch Brown played his only game in was just as much a factor in the total as the win in the Granny. I see the reward for playing in a successful Grand Final as having the memory of playing in a successful Grand Final. That’s something the players who didn’t play will never have, no matter who receives what medal.

Damn, that’s totally what I was going to say.

Do you think that Max Gawn would think his medal would be worth less if Nathan Jones also got one?

I love this. It’s only a small thing, but the Demon by proxy thing is such a great way of creating human connectedness out of a cruddy situation, in a time we really need it. Great stuff.

He’s just doing the prudent thing to prolong his career - I can’t see breaking back in to the side becoming any easier next year. He’s been a good player for us over the years and I’d wish him all the best. I think the likely trade would be a token one.

9pm is completely reasonable in terms of setting an expectation. The boys no doubt have plenty of rec time up their sleeves, being back at the hotel by 9 shouldn’t be onerous. They’re there to get a job done, maintaining standards and discipline is part of that. Pert said it’s not even being strictly enforced anyway. What a beatup.

Degree of confidence would be more or less the same irrespective of where you live in Australia - it’s all done by the same forecasters using the same models. 12 days is too far out. At my work, where we rely heavily on weather forecasts, we basically ignore anything more than a week out. Personally I wouldn’t bother looking at the forecast before Tuesday.

I trust this means the two jumpers won’t be deemed as a clash in subsequent H&A games, then.

Haha. I’ve seen some mathematically questionable awards before (I’m looking at you, Demonland Player of the Year!), but that takes some beating.

Garry could hardly string a sentence together he was so emotional. And he was massively fanboying on Gawn. I loved it. I felt like he was personifying all of us at that moment. Garry’s had a bit of flack over the years, particularly in his role in the Neeld era. It’s clear he loves the club though. All is forgiven in my opinion. He’s one of our people without a doubt.

I want to write a million words, but can’t find any. So I’ll just list the topics and you can mentally fill the content, you can all feel it in your hearts anyway: - Max - Trac and Viney - The whole team on the field at the end, and in the circle - The Perth crowd (new home fortress) - sharing the moment with other Melbourne fans, because nobody else understands

No change. Medi sub: Jordon