The heart beats true

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.

Listen up Dees fans. There will be ups and downs, but don’t EVER write this team off. We are a very good football team. Nobody wants us to win. Commentators and journalists want to maintain the narrative about our football club - soft, shaky, lazy. But we aren’t any of those things. We are hard and fast. Stick fat, stick together, and never ever doubt this current group. Go Dees.

You were saying?

I thought you’d given up hope? Still here I see.

Ok bye. Enjoy your weekends. Seriously some ‘supporter’

Hipwood is just trying to block in every marking contest. Someone has to make the umpires aware of it. It’s killing us.

The holding and obstructing of Lever is ridiculous.

We look lost at stoppages

They can’t play better, and we are going at 60%. Clean up around the ball, lift our intensity, and the umpires start being consistent with stoppages (some are given forever, while others they want to ball up after 1 second) and we’ll be right.

To be fair I could have guessed from your username ?

Be 9 when Merrett comes over.

I’m still traumatised by that Port game.

We played so poorly there last year.

I’m genuinely surprised at the level of criticism aimed at some of our players. Fritsch has been outstanding this year. To hear some people say he can’t be played anywhere else when his first season he played exclusively off half back is odd. He’s a very talented football player. And Gawn was ‘fumbly’ and out of touch on the weekend - but somehow picked up 9 votes from the 2 blokes paid $500k each to understand the game. I know we are in unfamiliar territory here Dee’s fans, but it’s ok to appreciate what you’ve got.

I’m going to go out of my way here to defend Angus Bradshaw. His role for the last 6 weeks has been almost exclusively playing the defending wing, which means he has to be hyper aware of his defensive positioning - especially for the switch. You’ll also note the amount of times he’s caught in between players and has to run back and throw his hands up to defend a player coming in to mark. That’s him doing exactly what he needs to do for the team. It’s a very unsexy position, but listen to how often the commentary is around how well set up we are. Angus is a huge part of that. I think he’s done his job amazingly well, and we should be very proud of him and his team first attitude.

That player I’d imagine. Everyone else is a secondary contact so needs a negative test only.

We don’t know it’s a groin. We actually don’t know anything. We also don’t know what Oliver is likely carrying, what Gawn is clearly carrying, how Goodwin’s mental health is, and where Burgo is with his decision for next year. You should write the club a strongly worded letter requesting a status update, and be sure to let us know what you learn.

Dare I say that the club isn’t keeping the supporters in the dark. Instead they aren’t letting every opposition club know what’s wrong with one of our most important players, and therefore how to target him.

From The Age article: ‘The league was pleased that Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin chose not to make an issue of the umpiring and these contentious incidents in the dying minutes of his team’s first loss for 2021.’ And as such I COMPLETELY expect we get looked after for the rest of the year. We’ve lived up to our end of the bargain. I’m looking forward to it.

Last Friday’s medical report from club doc Laura said Jack Viney was 2 weeks away. So I can only assume that means he’s not playing this week.

Seriously. Catch a grip. 2 months ago before the season started almost no one had us playing finals. Now we look set to play finals. If you focus on what you don’t have life will be long and hard. If you appreciate what you do, and believe that tomorrow can be a better day you’ll often have a smile on your face. This team makes me smile a fair bit.

I felt for him last night. His performance deserved to be credited as dragging us over the line. His will to win was awe inspiring. I knew he was a great footballer but what I saw in the last quarter last night really showed he’s at another level.

I agree with the first part but can’t see any of the other smalls adding more. Salem for Jetta, Weed for Viney if he’s fit. If Melksham is sore then Sparrow deserves a crack. I do think we are too predictable going forward with the big blokes (Weed and Brown). Move the ball around and we look a lot better.

Given I’ve had 24 hours to calm down… We are going ok. I’m very interested to see the next 2 weeks. We’ve put ourselves in a great position but need to work hard before the bye to give ourselves some confidence. Good teams have down days. I’d rather them in May than September. I really think as a supporter group we need to have some faith. The boys have done their job to date, and they deserve our continued support and encouragement.

Nah, you don’t understand the interpretation of the rule. You often hear the umpire state ‘insufficient intent’. That means the player wasn’t doing enough to keep the ball in play. Spargo’s hand (which I don’t think makes any contact in that video anyways) doesn’t matter if the player is hand balling purely to the boundary line. If anything that video proves there’s nobody there for him to handball too. Deliberate.