Lucifers Hero

Getting to 40,000 will not only be a fabulous achievement it will also make it a lot easier for PJ to get our major sponsors eg AHG to renew their contracts which expire this year. We need them on board as well as more members. Maybe 40,000 will help PJ flesh out some new sponsors!

37,662 today. So up 65 in a day. I think fans can see the improvement and maybe the StK loss hasnt dented membership intentions too much. Maybe Jesse kicking 7 offset the loss. We have a good series of home hames at the G coming up. And some G away games. Jesse alone may get members in! Then add other exciting players like Viney, Gawn, Brayshaw, Oliver, Petracca etal. Plenty of reasons to sign up! FWIW i still think we will get the 40,000!

Etihad tenant teams have been pushing to get more home games at the G. Especially Carlton and Essendon. Compare their ES vs G home games a few years ago to now. To accommodate that other vic clubs play home games at ES. However, the rub for us is that the likes of Hawthorn Richmond and Collingwood play heaps of away games at the G which we don't. Geelong have SS. So they all get more home ground advantage games than us. Our total games this year at the G is one of the lowest ever. Atmo we have no negotiating power with the afl. What little we have is used up trying to keep the ANZAC Eve and QB games. It might change if The 4 Vic Powerhouse clubs stay stuck at the bottom of the ladder for a few years?

http://m.melbournefc.com.au/news/2016-05-02/aflca-votes-round-six Jesse gets 8 AFLCA votes. Only Melb player to get votes. Fair representation of the game. Jesse has learnt that his on-field sulks aren't necessary to have a great game. Good on him for quickly learning to change his behaviour.

Yes, gsw and gcs were getting most top end talent but wb, port and us have done ok from the draft in that time. Poor excuse from Richmond. They took the wrong road with the fast track. And it has come back to bite them. Other teams have found gems in the middle/late draft picks. Richmond have drafted poorly. They now have a very very average list. And ironically are bottoming out! To now say the members wouldn't accept a bottoming out earlier is gobsmackingly disrespectful to fans. And rather stupid to announce that to the world. I would be livid to have been conned like that.

You know, i dont think that zone defence per se is a problem. The problem is when they all 'press' forward up the ground. We haven't used the press up the ground in all our games. Whether it was coaching to use it yesterday or player initiative who knows. Either way we aren't good at using the 'press forward' and should stick more to zone defence until we get better at defence in all parts of the ground. Look at WCE 'web' for an effective zone defence which doesn't press forward. Not saying we should copy it. Just saying zone defence structures don't need the 'press forward' to be effective.

Ouch! Big loosers are the AFL! 4 of there so called 'power clubs' are in the bottom 6! What's more can't see Ess, Pies, Blues or Tigers getting out of that 6. It gives me great joy to look down the ladder at them?

In preseason and vs gws we didn't press up the ground. 4/5 of our backs rarely stepped out of the d50 arc. Our mids defended the middle really well. So we didnt leak out the back and were always in a position to rebound from hb even when behind on the scoreboard. Whether the game plan has changed to press up or players making poor decisions and not sticking to it is the unknown. I would guess the latter. We need to rebalance our defensive structures but not make wholesale changes to the players out there.

Match ups will be the key. Ablett wont be to keen to see Viney line up next to him as last time they met Viney put him out for a year! So not worried about Gazza. The other is Lynch. Dont know we have a match up on our list for him. Certainly noone showing any form. Would expect Hunt and maybe Harmes to be rested. Also game is at Metricon...hope the coaches are 'educating themselves' (as Roos promised) on that venue and choose the team accordingly. An important 8 pt game. Big opportunity to put a game and %age between us and the bottom 9.

Saw this in an Age article about Cloke in the vfl which also discussed young Tyler Roos; "Carlton development coach Josh Fraser has labelled Tyler Roos, the son of Melbourne coach Paul Roos, as an "emerging young player". Roos, a VFL-listed Blue, made his debut for the Blues on Saturday against the Pies as he looks to make his way into the AFL ranks. "He's still evolving and developing as a young player," Fraser said. "He showed a willingness last week to be able to work from contest to contest, he finds the ball and uses the ball really well, he's got some outside run and he's only going to get better and better," he said.' Good rap for the young man. Great thay his debut game went well. He may yet mske it yo an AFL list. Its a shame his father couldn't be at his debut as he was coaching us.

Such an irony being 9th. Had we won we would have displaced Hawthorn in the 8. That would have been a beautiful thing.

The losses would be easier to take if they were against the bettet teams. Perish the thought that we become like Nth and Rich who get themselves up for big games but forget to turn up for the 'easy' ones.

Nup. Were lucky to win last three games by less than a goal and had umpire help. Just getting old (er) and cant keep up with young fast teams. 13 goal victory to gws! I reckon 90 rotations must really hurt hawks and their game. We play them twice. IF we turn up we are a chance.

Giants giving it to Hawks at qtr time. 7.3 to 2.1. Doubt the luck the Hawks have had the last 3 weeks will save them this time. Are we seeing the changing if the guard?

A BIG positive was Hogan's 7 goals! Nothing wrong with his kicking style, Ox. A rare highlight from a rubbish game.

Agree that we need to keep winning. Leading up to the QB game we play: StK. GC. WB. BL. PA. Hawks. Pies. I think we should win at least 4 or 5 of those and give the others a run for their money like we did Nth. So unless the wheels totally fall off we will get to 40,000

I suspect that was the deal struck with the afl for not getting a 'home' final last year. They get more games at ES and prime time free to air games in 2016. More wins, more members means more everything good. Our turn will come.

The pleasing thing is we have won back a lot of lost supporters from the Neeld years. And, found some newbies! 37,528 is about 630 in a week. Great result. At that rate we can get there by end of May. QB weekend at the latest. I think we have this

Not everyone! Some of us have never rated Dawes over Pedersen let alone seen him as any sort of great hope.

I actually think Watts has taken his spot. Dawes was ever only the 3rd tall at the pies. Watts totally owns that spot now. Dawes can't ruck even for short spells. So i don't see him as a replacement for Pedersen. With Petracca coming in probably as a forward i just don't see a spot anywhere for Dawes. So for mine he needs to rely on other player injuries or extended poor form. Even then he is well down the queue.

One of my favourite posters going back to your 'sloonie' days. A real spitfire! Like your work JC!

I feel our only definite losses are Hawks, (twice), WCE and Swans. All other teams we have either beaten in the last 2 years or look flakey in some games this year so all (13 games) are winnable. It will be close.

Good pick up. Much easier to have that structure now that our forwards and mids have a defensive mindset. No more 'brown's cows'!

Now 37,174. Moving at a nice clip now: 174 in 1 day! A few really good wins and a very watchable and enjoyable brand if football has done wonders.

I read this thread and thought he just added 'idiot' to his character traits. Then read the interview transcript on MFC website and i am prepared to cut him some slack. He took the fallout on the chin. The easy thing to do was just hide in the background and quietly take his 2 weeks. RFC probably made him do it but it was good that he took public responsibility. He wont live the incident down. He has set himself up for much sledging on the field from all teams. His punishment will last a lot longer than 2 weeks.