The heart beats true

Why has the umpire in the middle of the ground called play on 5 times when no player has moved? It’s bizarre.

Whose this [censored]? ?

Eagles aren’t good enough.

Riewoldt gets into a verbal altercation with Waterman over something. Waterman puts his hand out to apologise. Riewoldt pushes it away. He’s such a hypocrite. Likes to pretend he’s better.

A 2 losers draw. North shouldn’t have let that slip, and GWS shouldn’t have left it so late. Plus GWS need wins. The draw is essentially a loss.

Sounds like another football forum I frequent.

It was poor - but they had so few players available you can’t read too much into it. For what it’s worth I really rate Ratten. He had our midfield performing above where it should have been when he was midfield coach, and I think he understands the game really well.

That’s a new low from the Saints.

Yep. It’s a very strong competition.

That’s comedy gold ?

Yep, I’m 43. Have been told for 2 weeks I can get vaccinated. Made an appointment 9 days ago for this morning. Fronted up today at Prahran Town Hall to be told (like 90% of people there because of the age demographics) that they don’t have any Pfizer, and they don’t know when they’ll get it, and we’ll all have to go home - and hope that when we make our next appointment they might have it then, but they probably won’t. Yet somehow all the politicians seem obsessed with the idea that we need to incentivise people to get vaccinated. How about we just get it right the first time? I can guarantee you that 90% of the thousands turned away today won’t make another appointment now - we all took time off work to do our bit. Meanwhile friends and family in the US and UK have been fully vaccinated for months. The vaccine program has been stuffed up royally - and it’s only the most important public health program of the last 100 years.

I blame Tim Kelly for this whole thing! He goes to any other club first and the cats don’t have the picks they’ve used to bring in players that have made them substantially better. It’s so irritating that he ended up being such a gun as a mature age player - and got them so many picks after just 2 years in their system. They did nothing to develop the guy and it kissed them on the [censored].

I’d expect Benny Brown is named as an emergency given TMac’s second child is due next week - and he’s already said he’d come home if the baby comes early. Be interesting to see if Mitch Brown is named instead though. Might be a good indicator of where Ben is in the current pecking order. Still nervous about Salem too.

Last year my partner was diagnosed with MS after he temporarily lost the ability to speak, and then my brother got diagnosed with liver and lung cancer - and for the last few weeks of his life couldn’t speak to us properly. To watch people who you love lose the ability to communicate is so cruel. For Neale to handle it with the grace and good will that he has is a real insight into what an amazing person he is. I literally can’t believe how brave he is. What an incredible spirit. To support a club that has an association with such a quality person makes me feel proud. I can only imagine how proud his family are of him.

He’s easily the most disrespected journalist in the AFL - and the best thing about it is he’s so thick he’s never even noticed.

He handled himself so incredibly well in that press conference. Regardless of some of the internal stuff that’s clearly gone on, and continues to go on, at Collingwood Buckley is a very polished media performer. He’s very well suited to a Director of Football role at a club who is developing.

Buckley stepping down

What if they just aren’t very good? I feel like they have a few good players, but not enough players who are ‘good enough’. Their bottom 8 aren’t capable - either not yet, or probably not going to be. I also have thought that they are probably the team that’s been hurt the most by the debacle of the VFL over the last 2 years. They really needed consistency for the age profile of their list. It’s the same sort of argument you can make for guys like Chandler and Bedford at Melbourne - but times about 12 for the blues list.

Not of a fan of the commentary team (full stop).

I had a go at a poster in the game day thread who I felt was being particularly negative about a team that was 10-1 and 20 points down. I won’t do it again, as it’s not particularly inclusive behaviour. However, I do implore all supporters to give this team some credit, and let them use it. We don’t need to go to water and immediately start saying we are ‘cursed’ and ‘hopeless’ when we are simply in a contest. It’s a very high quality league.

To be fair Oscar and Frosty individually did good jobs in 2018. The issue in 2018, in my opinion, was that our defensive structure as a team lacked strength. We also lacked confidence in the team system, in that when we were challenged we didn’t need each player to try and be a match winner (attack the ball), but instead to trust their teammates and maintain their structure in our system. Sadly that became the blueprint to beat us for the 2 years after 2018, and the reason we all pulled our hair out screaming for some outside players. Now we are confident of the players behind the ball (without question Lever and May are massive upgrades here) which gives us confidence to maintain our shape at stoppages - so if we win we are set up to be much more dynamic. I used to only want Viney, Oliver and Petracca at every stoppage, but then get infuriated when they all fought for the same ball and dished out 1 metre handballs. Now we have a much better balance with Langdon, Jordan and Salem behind and outside the contest, and Oliver and Petracca doing much more work to get on the move away from the contest. For mine 2021 looks like a better ‘team’. I don’t feel like we are playing on emotion or a wave of confidence. The only team that’s beaten us beat our system by playing a very highly skilled game, but also with a very high risk/high reward game plan (take the game on down the middle with absolute precision foot skills). 9 times out of 10 that doesn’t work, but it was literally the only way they could beat us - and as such they played with the freedom of a team that didn’t have anything to lose. Full credit to Adelaide, but I don’t see it becoming the blueprint to defeat us like it was in 2018. In answer to your question - I’m all in on 2021 from what I’ve seen so far. Long way to go, but the sample is encouraging, and looks sustainable over the long run.

Am I right in assuming that theirs no one sitting in the first 2 rows at Adelaide because of COVID?

Gees its frustrating watching Adelaide. They played out of their absolute skins against us. Such good ball use. This week they are terrible.

Did they ever. Higgins has 2 goals a senior AFL player should kick. To miss them both was unforgivable.

We are an interesting supporter base. The moment I realised I loved the club was when Jimmy ran over the mark in the prelim in 1987 - it was horrible, but solidified my passion. I was 9 and sitting about 10 rows back from where it happened at Waverley. The history of the club for 23 year before 1987, and the 30 odd years since then, has been steeped in heartbreak. That year Robbie didn’t get to play in his grand final, Jimmy went on to become a legend of the club, and we lost them both far too early. Troy Broadbridge, Sean Wight, even the tragedy of Liam Jurrah. All of that doesn’t even take into consideration on the field we’ve massively underperformed, and bitterly wasted generations of players and potential. Our supporter culture has been built on disappointment. It’s important for us to change the narrative about our footy team too. We aren’t perennial losers. We are The Melbourne Football Club, with the longest and proudest history of any sporting club in the AFL. This team is the best I’ve seen - because we aren’t riding a wave, we are grinding a winning culture. I’m excited for us all. As Goodwin said ‘expectation is good. We need to learn to win when the pressure is on us’. Let’s not go to water as supporters. Keep the faith, yell louder, open the gates of hell - like only Demons fans can.