Deefiant

May not be but I think Spargo himself would know that he had an ordinary game. There were two efforts by him that really stuck out in my mind. In quick succession he had two opportunities to put pressure on the ball carrier on the wing near the boundary line. Instead he was easily brushed off. I remember one led to a direct goal.

Honestly, I respect him like I respect Brayshaw wearing a helmet. If you listened to his story. He almost became blind in both eyes from fingers in eyes on the footy field. And another one would make him blind. Wearing glasses means his able to play afl, despite all the flack that people who don't understand give him.

If we're relying on one player to beat Collingwood we're covering cracks with wall paper. Not sure that winning the game for Neale can be used as inspiration as we have lost 6 of 8 big freezes.

A lot of people digging into Jack. Haven't read the article but I think when Jack was drafted our club was a shambles. He went through multiple years of an unstable administration that lead to changing in coaches and his career only started to turn around when Roos came on board. I don't think he is being harsh on the club for critising how bad we were during his formative afl years. He clearly had the talent, but we didn't have the structure for him to succeed. That is partly on him, but a lot on us. As a club failed him. I think if he went to a club that had its [censored] sorted his career would be much different. I don't think Trac would be the same player he is today if he went through the club at the same time Watts did. I respect Watts because he truly loved the club. He believed in our goals and bought into the club. He was pushed out because of the bad habits that probably had a lot to do with where we were at the time. You could tell he was hurt by being pushed out and his heart has always lied with the club. A bit different to JHF who is talking about leaving already one year in. I really do feel for North and their supporters as it feels like we were probably in a similar situation.

If I was in melksham's shoes I would be shattered to miss the grand final which is something I would have been working and dreaming off since a child. I would've felt disappointed since I'd been a large part of the Melbourne team for the large few years. I also would have an insecurity knowing that I am not as good as I use to be and not good enough to make the team. If a senior team mate decided to pick on my insecurity as 'banter' I'd be [censored] off. I don't think it's clearly illogical, because May is clearly picking on life ambitions of any afl player. Yes melksham shouldn't of punched him but it wouldve been a lot easier for May not to say we wouldve lost a grand final if you played.

I remember his first game. Even though he didn't kick a bag, I remember he took a few good contested marks and was thinking this rookie is making us look bad, and thought he would be a player. Interestingly, his first game for us was against North as well.

No thank you, they can keep frostball

If you ever heard Gus interview I think that would be a pretty insulting statement for him. He's extremely articulate. Even if you listened to part of this podcast his insights into mental health, concussions should at least point you to the fact he's a deep thinker who is more than the stereotype that footballers are dumb. He's also one unit away from finishing a finance degree. I know he started off with an engineering degree as well. If I was a decent player and out of contract I would be leaving hints all over the shop whether I wanted to leave or not. Shows other clubs you're available. if they enquire and you get a serious offer you create a bidding war. Sucks for supporters. But at the end of the day, you're in afl for a short time; you need to maximise your earnings.

I've been saying this for 6 months

Brayshaw said a lot of nice things about how he guided the team on inside Melbourne back in 2018

Rivers looked injured, why brayshaw went back on

Not sure if you got the membership number/barcode (on ticketek). But mine came in Feb 28, it was titled "Member access information for Round 1" At the bottom of the e-mail it has: Round 1 Ticketing If you wish to upgrade to a reserved seat on level 1 for the match, you can do so from 2pm Tuesday 1 March. Simply enter your barcode below into the box provided via Ticketek and upgrade to a reserved seat for Round 1. Your barcode/s xxxx Hope this helps!

That's incorrect. There's two barcodes one for your membership and a ticket barcode that is the qr code to scan in. You can upgrade to a reserve seat with your membership barcode but it's not easy to find what that is without your physical membership. It was emailed with the ticketing info for round 1. Bit of a [censored] show really.

I didn't notice Kozzie specifically but I did notice there was definitely an emphasis on marking him up when we were in our defensive structure. I noticed Sparrow sticking pretty close so they they didn't have the inbound kick. In terms of changes, I noticed a definite lack of class from the backline after salem went down. A little bit of out there suggestion but maybe Melksham could come in and fill the role? Unfortunately I think Salem is a player we don't really have any backup for and the hardest to replace in our team.

Name calling when titan makes totally valid points. Pretty toxic behaviour. I was behind that pocket and tmac was in defence for a majority of the doggies run. I would say that our defence was definitely not tight during that period. E.g. Treloar goaling fromt and centre and loose defending. Not sure i'd attribute that to TMac but to me I think we structure up better TMac ahead of the ball

Josh Kennedy goes okay for 194

Not sure if it's been announced but the AFL squad list has been updated with numbers. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/teams/afl

Bit of recency bias here. Pickett was picked up as a small forward that had knocks on him that he had x factor but would drift in and out of games, he's first pre season was also struggled with fitness. Jackson was a raw athletic ruck that, who Jason Taylor who thought could be thrown forward. The fact that they developed more than we thought doesn't mean they weren't development players. In fact Rivers was probably the player who needed least development.

Sam Weidemann? Would also argue that Pickett and Jackson were both drafted as development players that exceeded expectations early on.

To be fair, I would not put us up there as having good reliable wings. For starters we demons are not known for flying. In the league there a number of bird teams like the eagles, hawks, crows, magpies, and, perhaps the biggest wings of those birds, the swans. These would already beat us. I would say the second best wings would be the saints as they can sustain what should be human weight to fly. But the best wings in the comp would have to be the bombers. Have you ever seen one? Massive. That's not even to mention the suns who are the known enemies of the wings club after taking out one of history most well known flyers in icarus.

Not sure why this is turning into a english lesson but acronyms do not have to form a pronounceable word. E.g. ATM See: https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/1844;jsessionid=30BDA79707D63A72D9BEA9B88448FB8C ( 1. A group of initial letters used as an abbreviation for a name or expression, each letter or part being pronounced separately; an initialism (such as ATM, TLS)) https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/features/word/search/acronym/ (2. initialism) and good old wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym (Acronyms can be pronounced as words, like NASA and UNESCO; sometimes as individual letters, as in FBI, TNT, and ATM, and as both letters and words, as in JPEG (pronounced JAY-peg) and IUPAC.)

I think you need to look at our age profile rather than the numbers. From your list Gawn, Daw, Brown, McDonald, Brown, May (Tomlinson is borderline) will be pushing 30 next year. Weideman, Lever, Smith are in the sweet spot of around 23-28 with only Lever in the best 22. The young ones we have Jackson, Petty and Turner. It looks pretty light on to me. Our core mids are in the sweet spot and have depth backing it up (Jordon and Sparrow). To me it looks like we need to boost our KP talent for when our talls start tailing off in their late careers, whereas our mids will be solid for the next few years. I don't think it'll have too big of a bearing on Taylor anyway. I think if there's a talent he'll take it regardless of need.

If we traded our first round after our 2018 season it would have bit us big time. I don't think Collingwood ever thought they would be getting pick 2 this year. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't.

One of these years this will come back to bite us....

Realistically, I cant see us ever losing again.