3183 Dee

I love the bloke.

What's going on here?! He's laughing at us...and now he's going to take Harmesy as well!

10 hours ago, biggestred said:

Watching jared tallent go back to back hopefully in the 50k walk after having a BS medal ceremony in his backyard because he was beaten across the line in london by a drug cheat makes me happy and angry at the same time. 

He shouldnt have had to wait 4 years.

Neither should mitchell or cotchin whatever you think of them

That's a very good example - hadn't thought about it in that way.

Thanks for posting that - great stuff.

Or maybe there is going to be an exchange of Toms between Melbourne and Sydney? Mac to SYD and Mitch to MEL?

Mitchell puts talks on hold

Went to training today, with the lad. Feeling the love -  a few things in particular struck me:

 - Skills have improved considerably over the past year or so: much quicker and more accurate.

 - There is a fantastic camaraderie amongst this group - they seem incredibly tight.

 - Clayton Oliver is a beast - silky smooth and tough as they come. He could be one of the most inspired signings for years.

 - Jack Watts looks more and more assured and self-confident. He's clearly a leader amongst the group.

 - So glad to have Bernardo Vincenzo (as he's known in our house) at the MFC. The new smiling assassin.

 - Always impressed at the interraction between players and supporters at our club. Christian Petracca was straight over to the kids after the training session, signing shirts and high fiving.

Noticed that Dunny seemed a bit on the outer - running laps by himself, but not in the buzz of things.

10 minutes ago, TeamPlayedFine39 said:

I wouldn't be shocked to see Grimes play this weekend too.

Agreed - will be interesting to see both these guys without the pressure on their shoulders and amongst a group of exuberant, passionate, talented young fellas.

8 minutes ago, Deeoldfart said:

This is absolutely brilliant!  Just look at the spontaneity!

Telling Jack on the track

Thanks for that - sitting in a car, waiting to pick my daughter up, blubbering like a fool.

I love this clip, not only because Jack is back, but because of the mood amongst this band of brothers. 

After all he's been through

After all they've been through

After all we've been through

On the MFC Instagram feed, they called him Jetts in photos taken today.

3 minutes ago, Biffen said:

 

Like when you switch on the cricket and they say 9 for 1 and you think the innings is nearly over.

Either way, it pretty much sums up English cricket.

30 minutes ago, Biffen said:

I love that last word.

Quite chuffed it was not censored.

Agreed, but why do Aussies say it so that it rhymes with "what"? It should rhyme with "hat".

12 minutes ago, Bombay Airconditioning said:

Haven't read every page so this may have been mentioned. Can Essendon rort the salary cap by paying its players "compensation"....??

 

How does the AFL differentiate?

I have been wondering exactly the same thing. How is the compensation decided? Does the club get to negotiate and reach an out of court settlement? If so, what's to stop them paying a million and a half bucks to Heppell as compo and then putting him on, say, a $400k/year contract over 5 years?

So glad to see us finally put a team to the sword. Relentless.

It's so good to see - the difference is that we have a legitimate toughness that is backed up by ability (Viney, Jones, Vince etc). It's cringeworthy when players play the tough guy only to get pushed back or your team to get flogged - I think Dunny was a bit guilty of this a couple of years back. We've stopped recruiting guys with nice table manners as a pre-requisite.

I think we still have a fair way to go, to get up with the big boys on a regular basis, but it is obvious to anyone who has been watching this season, that we finally have a group of guys who play tough, exciting footy - and more importantly, play for each other and back each other up.

Apparently Bernie was miked up for the game and Channel 7 showed the highlights of it. I got in from the game too late to see it, but does anyone know where I could find it? Apparently, well worth a look.

At the station on the way in...loads of Melbourne everywhere. I feel a bit sick.

3 minutes ago, Hell Bent said:

No doubt Richmond are due to click at some stage. I think the betting odds skewed their way thru the week on the back of 2 big inclusions but I think this will be detrimental to them, particularly in the last quarter when they run out of steam, if not earlier.

If we bring the intensity and pressure of the last 2 games we will win comfortably. I think we will bring it, the Essendon loss may well be the best thing that could have happened to us, and we wont see a performance like that again for many years.

Let's hope so!

^^^Agreed - I'm going tonight, but am not expecting a comfortable win by any stretch, or even a win to be honest.

We are still at the beginning of our long journey - consistency is what  I will be looking for tonight: if we can snag a win, then even better!

16 minutes ago, hemingway said:

Fact is no-one knows. Probably not even Hogan himself. People pretend to know, think they know, have opinions but at the end of the day who knows?  It is an industry in which every day second rate media types create news grabbing stories that are pedalled as fact. No-one is held to account so it becomes the story. It is really tiresome and best to be both cynical and detached. Increasingly players jump ship when there is a better deal or other reason such as "going home". Supporters of every club rejoice at picking up a star recruit from another club but become concerned when a player wants to leave their club. Such is the way it is. Swings and roundabouts. 

I completely agree. He's contracted til the end of 2017, so whatever happens, happens. 

Don't get me wrong: Hogan is a very good player, but we now have a few more very good players, who haven't even hit their straps yet. If he decides to go, it won't be for any negligence on the part of our off-field organisation. The business management of the MFC is so much more slick and well organised these days, they'll do what they can to keep him, but I don't believe we're a club looking for a Messiah anymore. Instead, we're building a team of gifted, tough and confident young men of whom Hogan is one. 

1 hour ago, CBDees said:

If only we had beaten Essendon followed up by our spirited performance against North then we would be already there. Still a chance however if we whip the Pies (when they are playing at home) followed by the Tiges.

We are letting them play at our home, our players should remember that every time. It's our home, theirs is over the road.???

This will be a massive test of the team's mettle. Over the past few years, the Pies have used these games to run themselves into form. We've already been stung once this year by believing we were too good to lose, let's hope lessons have been learned and the Demons come out hard, aggressive and full of run, like last Sunday.

Vanders is not a great out - looks like his ankle issue was bothering him last week. Will it just be Garlett and Gus in for Vince and Vanders?

I think winning helps - the more you win, the more confident you become, the more you love winning.

Conversely, the more you lose, the more you get used to losing, and the more you expect to lose.

There's a confidence that teams like Hawthorn have - confidence in the team, confidence in the individual. You could even see it in the Bombers on Saturday. Yuck! Happy to say that I've also seen it in our boys on occasions during the past 18 months, here's hoping for more of it!

...call bulldust.

Thanks guys, for the replies. 

I can only commend Melbourne supporters as the most loyal bunch of all: 35k + after what we've been dished up is a great figure, and when that Members and Olympic wing starts firing, it sounds like 60 or 70k.

I hope that the boys respond accordingly this weekend. Remember the Doggies, Richmond and Geelong all had their horrible games last year against the strong underdog (us), who wanted it more than they did. I hope it's a reality check that we still have a long way to go, but the journey back has at least begun.

re Plymouth Argyle: they were that bad when I was growing up that, until I was about 7, I thought they were called Plymouth Argyle Nil.

Thanks for the reply - I should clarify that I have over 35 years supporting Plymouth Argyle back home, so I'm certainly no stranger to futility and despair.

And I understand the frustration and emotion - believe me, I've totally bought into it. But yesterday was not as gut wrenching as watching Port or Brisbane kicking bags against us with no reply, like a few years ago. Then, we didn't even have the cattle - now we have, at least, the basis of a really good team. Still a lot more hard work needs to be done and lessons to be learned.

I also get the frustrations, when looking at the Doggies' rebuild, but they were never coming from as far back as we were: they played finals, had a couple of lean years and then re-loaded. None of the rebuild teams had such a rotten off-field culture as we have had. Getting rid of the stink of that  has been hard enough, but to turn around years of shithouse recruiting, attract players to the sinking ship and formulate some semblance of a game plan was never going to be an easy fix.