Deefiant

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.

They didnt put out a press release (why would you) but a few players have mentioned it in interviews

Too many what ifs. I don't we were anywhere near a perfect season. In my mind winning the middle patch against the contenders meant we were in good shape this year and I confidence we'd be a serious contender. I also thought that the wb loss was just two teams cautiously watching each other. I only took the fact that we matched up to them well without dominating. The had a patch in the middle that I was a real kick in the guts where the team needed to lose a few games. I think that we were took more learnings in what to do tough games than the doggies did in winning big against the lower ranked teams. I think this really showed in the grand final where the doggies challeneged us but we were able to dry up scoring, absorb their pressure and swing it the other way. The doggies just kinda gave up. Remember collingwood went 20-2 and still didn't win a flag.

I was going through my old stuff and looked at my membership and the number of consecutive years: 7. Probably a lot less than the majority of you guys but in total I've been a member for around 13 years. One of the reasons for my break was the disillusion of where the club was heading after the Neeld years (being a broke uni student probably tipped me over the edge) even though I had stuck through the tanking saga. As a Melbourne supporter, my childhood has been littered for being picked on for being one of the few Melbourne supporters. I remember seeing all the kids with Hawks colours and at auskick games hardly anyone would wear Melbourne colours. I remember being worried about if there was really going to be a future for this club. I realised that my seven years started the second year after Roos and Jackson came in. I presume that at this point I could see where the club was going and it wouldn't be barron land forever. Even if the club might not win a premiership, we would make finals. Today, after an unbelievable year the summit has been reached. I see so many young kids wearing their Melbourne colours proudly. I am no longer worried about the future of this club. The work that Roos, Bartlett and Jackson have done have been the foundation for our success this year. They turned us around from a rabble. I think there should be plaudits for a number of others who believed in cause and helped transform us but haven't made it to the final day: Shannon Byrnes, Daniel Cross, Bernie Vince and Jordan Lewis for teaching this young team strong habits Neville Jetta and Nathan Jones for being champion players and making us competitive I'm sure there are many others that have contributed heavily to the success but won't get any plaudits. To all of you, thank you for making me proud to wear the Melbourne brand.

I think you guys are looking at it the wrong way. Yes Hunt can play in more roles, but JJ can come in and play midfield and push other players to cover the roles Hunt can play (probably better than him). If a midfielder goes down, then Hunt would struggle in there and the heart of our engine room would struggle. I personally think they might give Smith the sub role, as there is a definite injury risk to May and we would struggle more trying to cover him than another position.

To be fair it is a pretty shonky rule. First brought in to appease Eddie and the northern states getting access to kids. I doubt very much of it since he was rated 40-rookie early on this year but has shot up the rankings this year.

Delete

Did you get an email about the code for last week's game. It'll be the same codes.

Right in the feels. The pictures of Tomlinsom, Jetta and Jones after the game. I'm glad they could see the team they help make.

The afl have uploaded highlights from the finals series from 2000 onwards. I was looking at the 2000 run (even if i dont remember much of it) and it was a trip down memory lane about the players that made me a dees supporter. Haven't put the grand final highlights on yet, might skip to 2002. https://www.afl.com.au/ondemand/highlights/673395/every-final-this-century?episode=4#2000

Seems right to me. I downgraded to an interstate membership in 2018 and was disappointed to find out that it was only priority 3. 20+ years automatically gives you priority 2 if you have a 3 game.

Yep. This double standards is [censored]. Neal Bulleen got 4 weeks for a sling tackle that he pleaded guilty to and showed remorse. Not directly comparable but one is a worse look on the afl.

Kinda [censored] of the AFL to put an umpire in that situation. He would be facing trolls on the internet if he said differently.

Not sure if you are joking here or not but just in case you aren't. I would hate to see on the front page of a newspaper that a selfish MFC fan has tried to break 2 states health directives to watch a football game. While it will be disappointing to not see our finals run live, you could be risking the lives, incomes of people who are unaffected.

He's always been a good kick. I think for him, Brown and Weids it's all in the head. Once the confidence drops/it's a tight game the goal kicking is less reliable. Even the relatively easy shots are missed.

Don't think you can say under 40's have had plenty opportunity to get it. ScoMo only announced that under 40's could get it on June 28, night https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-01/atagi-co-chair-pours-cold-water-on-morrison-az-comments/100257392. Give another week for GP's to get processes in place so it could go ahead. So realistically it was only available from July 5. Considering the 12 week gap between injections, that realistically only gives under 40's a 3 week gap to get it before the grand final. This also meant that people are going ATAGI's advice of waiting to get Pfizer.

Richmond player a part of that pub walk...