FarNorthernD

I agree that we are a ruck short but I’m guessing the Club looked at the options out there and decided that there wasn’t a player who could get good enough to play AFL this season if both Gawn and Pruess went down. No point having an emergency ruck on the list if you can’t use him in an emergency.

And the Saints have a back up in Ratten who is possibly a better coach than Richardson. It wouldn’t be a difficult deck chair for them to move. I agree, he is in more strife than the early settlers.

Everyone should get on board for this game. The AFL have made it difficult via the conference allocation, the umpires have made it difficult and by losing two games by four points we have made it difficult for ourselves. If we pull a big win off on the weekend against the premiership favourites it will be epic. Go the red and blue!

Considering how appalling we have been for most of that decade, Port only having a 11-5 win/loss record over us almost makes them our bunnies.

There will be a tipping point but the AFL won’t see it coming. Like authoritarian governments they have a compliant media that cannot ask any difficult questions for fear of losing their accreditation. So most of their close feedback comes from subservient and fawning journos and others dependant on the hand that feeds it. When it all falls apart they will be totally unprepared and surprised

I understand the need to appeal to the younger generation as they will be the ones who will support the game for the decades to come. Is it smart though to alienate your core at the same time? Who do the AFL, or in this case the Bulldogs, think drive the younger generation to the ground and pay for them to get in? To me the game has always been first and foremost a uniquely Australian game. The Americanisation of it with ‘Game Day Entertainement’, the creeping U.S style commentary and now Marvel Comic super heroes is an abomination. The people running the game seem to have no feel for it. This is a quote from the Age article regarding AFLX that pretty much sums the leadership of the place. The AFL said they were pleased with the outcome despite the fact it was spurned by many supporters and ticket sales ahead of the tournament were low.

Yep, totally agree. Every bloke who wears the Melbourne guernsey under Goodwin will go when it’s their turn.

So no chance that Hibberd is just right at the beginning of the season and is just yet to find some form?

What a beautifully bizarro world we live in. A few years ago the thought of us capping our premium membership so as not to exhaust our Grand Final allocation would have been fanciful.

So the skills overall aren’t up to the men’s game but check out the vid below and tell me how many of the blokes would have kicked that goal Zanker did or would taken that mark in front of the pack and calmly slot the winning goal like Cunningham did. But most of all check out the unadulterated joy and passion for the victory at the end of the game. Leaves the blokes for dead. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/video/2019-03-10/aflw-behind-the-win

I like the Allen Jakovich swagger reference that the author believes Melbourne supporters now exhibit. Don’t think I’ve got a strut going yet but it is certainly nice not to be the runt team of the competition and to be proud about the side you barrack for.

I really like Jeremy McGovern, he is my favourite non MFC player, but to give him the 2nd biggest contract in the comp seems wrong. What do others think? “West Coast's Jeremy McGovern will join the millionaires in 2019, having last year signed the competition's second-biggest deal behind Martin.”

Given that the MFC added the Collingwood scratch match to the two JLT games I’m assuming most Clubs would see two warm up games as a minimum I’m pretty sure I’ve read we try to get close to two games of match practice into our preferred 22 before running out Rnd 1. Then with trying other players (Sparrow, Keilty, Hore, Pruess etc) that brings you up to three games. Without practice games to ease into the season who is to say injuries wouldn’t be worse in the first few rounds?

Who knows how much it will help the MFC and, while it isn’t mentioned in the article below, the new MCC president is a passionate Melbourne supporter and comes from a family of passionate Melbourne supporters. If there was ever a time to quietly cement the MFC/MCC relationship now would opportune. Mike is the perfect replacement for the current president, Steve Smith, of the MCC who played over 200 games for us https://mcc.org.au/whats-on/latest-news/2019/march/new-mcc-president-elected (Probably not worth it’s own thread but I couldn’t find anywhere else to put this)

And the other 951 were Tyson’s

I used to really rate the Brownlow. Perhaps it was because we never really had a chance at team honours I would focus on Robbie or Greg Wells or Brian Wilson or Hardeman to hopefully bring some kudos to the club. Nowadays I don’t really care about the Brownlow at all. It’s not on my radar and I’m not sure if that’s me or it has been generally devalued. I wonder which award means the most to the players? Coaches award would be a big one you would think? I suppose a Brownlow would still bring in the most reputational post career dollars.

Like the team but think the only current player you could really include would be Jones. I’m not expecting them to leave but way too early to put Oliver, Viney, Gawn and Brayshaw

And when Hogan was photographed smoking a cigarette that freaked me out a bit. What was the point, there is no upside. At least with most recreational drugs there is some sort of nice mood altering pay off. Ciggies are merely the worlds slowest form of suicide

For me Bayley nicely demonstrates the difference in this club over the past five years. If Fritsch was playing for Casey before the 2013 draft we don’t pick him. We do however pick a skinny kid from the VFL. He has great endurance and can handball but is really one sided. He can’t kick or mark, hasn’t got the tricks to play small forward. We play him as a mid. He plays 9 games during the 2014 season and two in 2015 and is then delisted. He finishes his AFL career with a 3/8 win/loss record. Bailey is picked up by the Hawks the pick after ours. There is some discussion on this board that this rivals the Toumpas/Wines debacle as Bailey was actually taken from under our noses. Fast forward to the 2017 draft, and aside from the dedicated Casey watchers, there are some quiet murmurings on this board wondering if we had picked up the skinny VFL kid a little early. Any doubts are erased though when there is a collective ‘oh wow’ as Fritsch floats (seemingly literally) in front of 2 time AA defender, Harry Taylor in the first quarter of his first game and pulls down a ripper (29 secs into vid below). There is a bun fight on here as every poster rushes to be the first to compare Bayley to Robbie. After a just a few more games we add another year to his contract tying him to the Club till the end of the 2020 season. He finishes the season with a 16/7 win/loss. Different times. https://youtu.be/wtYQqEmpBP0

Neil Crompton Life Member 220 160 post Posted July 1, 2018 ”Out: - our forward line coach - our backline coach, - our skills coach, - our game plan coach.” I suppose to be fair here Neil you weren’t calling for Goodwins head, just every other coach

And much like Kent who left us for the security of a 3 year contract at the Saints, Big Bad Braydon does not need to worry about inking a new contract till the end of the 2021 season

I tend to agree about the IQ but he must have some talent. He has only played the game for a short time but still managed to kick five goals against us last Queens Birthday

I like the commentators call that if he found himself ‘in the hole in front of Braydon Preuss he couldn’t run out of it quick enough’. I would do the same

In 2014 we named a leadership group of six (Jones, Trengove, Grimes, Clark, Frawley and Garland). Five years on we now we more actual leaders across the ream but our leadership group is getting smaller. I like that.

And to make that Footscray win just that more heartwarming was they were coached by a young Mick Malthouse who was just developing into full arrogance. Afterwards Mick commented that he didn’t think Melbourne supporters knew how to get to the Western Oval! We certainly did that day and we owned that outer wing