Join @binman & I on the Demonland Podcast Monday night 6th March LIVE @ 8:30pm for breakdown of the Practice Match against Richmond.

If you have any questions or comments leave it below and we'll include it in the show. Please keep it to Practice Match vs the Tigers as we'll do a more in depth Season Preview in next week once George returns.

Listen & Chat LIVE: https://demonland.com/podcast

Call: 03 9016 3666

Skype: Demonland31

General comment but you can agree or disagree: the inclusion of Pickett, Rivers, Spargo, and to a lesser extent Sparrow into midfield rotations and stoppage structures indicates a natural maturation of those players and of the FD to avoid the sins of last year where we seemingly had depth but no adaptability or flexibility of the roles that the depth players could play.

As an ‘interstater’ I could only watch the game on TV.  While there were some standout players (for me they were Tracc, Max, Maysie, Nibbler, Hunter and Bowser) the aspects that impressed me most were how well our boys seemed to be ’on the same page’;  how ‘even’ we appeared across the field; and how fit we seemed to be compared to the Tigs.
Are these reasonable observations(?) and if so, how well does it place us for what is a very tough draw in the early part of the season proper?  
IMO, with the draw we have, it would be a great indicator of how far we can go in 2023 (barring significant injuries), if we are 3 zip after 3 games.
 

Very happy to have these back again for 2023. Love your work.

I only saw a replay of the game, but it looked as if our kicking had improved greatly, but also the movement by hand - do you think this is a continuation of the long handball theory from the back end of last year 

The in depth analysis is so much appreciated - the pods are getting better and better. It would be great if you could somehow get Goody on, to have a chat with @binmanabout the loading and tactics theories. I’m sure he wouldn’t give much away, anyway, but would be fascinating to hear how close you guys are in your observations.

6 hours ago, Deeoldfart said:

As an ‘interstater’ I could only watch the game on TV.  While there were some standout players (for me they were Tracc, Max, Maysie, Nibbler, Hunter and Bowser) the aspects that impressed me most were how well our boys seemed to be ’on the same page’;  how ‘even’ we appeared across the field; and how fit we seemed to be compared to the Tigs.
Are these reasonable observations(?) and if so, how well does it place us for what is a very tough draw in the early part of the season proper?  
IMO, with the draw we have, it would be a great indicator of how far we can go in 2023 (barring significant injuries), if we are 3 zip after 3 games.
 

Nothing much except to echo this question!  We seem to be off to a good pre-start and the team seems more cohesive than last year.  Would love to hear any analysis which confirms or denies this gut feel

Should we be blooding JVR early/ getting Schache in the mix as it's probably more unlikely than likely that T-Mac and BBB will see out all games of the season?

Clearly the Gawn/Grundy pairing is working so far in particular with their forays up forward in both practice matches (3 goals between them in the Match sim and 6 goals between them in the Praccy Match). In addition having the presence of one of them a kick behind the play whilst the other one is resting forward is a bonus as it is a strong marking presence down the line if the opposition gets the ball out of our forward line.

Demonland poster @old55 posted the following Hit Out statistics from this match in the Post Game thread and I thought that it would be interesting to hear @binman's take on this.

Hitouts: Richmond 37 Melbourne 24

Nankervis 24, Soldo 13, Gawn 12, Grundy 11, TMac 1.

Clearances: Richmond 33 Melbourne 32

Centre Clearances: Richmond 18 Melbourne 11

Stoppage Clearances: Richmond 15 Melbourne 21

How about an analysis of woewodin’s work 

Compared to other younger players 

5 touches 2 marks 1 tackle only a short time on the ground. Impressive?

Hope I can listen

Keen to hear your thoughts on how you thought our forward line functioned. We once again kicked over 100 points. 3 Goals TMac,3 goals apiece to the resting rucks and only 1 goal to Big Benny (from a free kick). People in the post match thread were critical of Ben Brown. Keep up the great work.

 

Great to have the poddy back for season 2023.

How did you view Judd McVee's game this week? He was the talk of the town last week after the match simulation against the Saints. He got his hands on the ball a fair bit and seemed very composed for a first gamer.

This week he was given the daunting task of lining up on one of the modern games greatest players in Brownlow medalist and three time Norm Smith Medalist Dusty Martin. He was out bodied, illegally I might add as there is photographic evidence of his jumper being pulled harder than a nuns stare in Sunday school. Judd wasn't as prolific this week with a game low 4 disposals and 1 mark. Is he still a lock for Round 1?

Welcome back fellas. Great to have the podcast back in weekly rotation. I'd like to sing the praises of Jake Bowey for a moment.

Clearly he fell out of favour late last year and I think it was @binman last week who mentioned that it would probably more from a development perspective than anything else. But boy oh boy has he come back with a vengeance and stamped his card for Round 1.

19 possies and his disposal is just elite. 100% Disposal Efficiency. Chef's Kiss.

36 minutes ago, Singa said:

Clearly the Gawn/Grundy pairing is working so far in particular with their forays up forward in both practice matches (3 goals between them in the Match sim and 6 goals between them in the Praccy Match). In addition having the presence of one of them a kick behind the play whilst the other one is resting forward is a bonus as it is a strong marking presence down the line if the opposition gets the ball out of our forward line.

Demonland poster @old55 posted the following Hit Out statistics from this match in the Post Game thread and I thought that it would be interesting to hear @binman's take on this.

Hitouts: Richmond 37 Melbourne 24

Nankervis 24, Soldo 13, Gawn 12, Grundy 11, TMac 1.

Clearances: Richmond 33 Melbourne 32

Centre Clearances: Richmond 18 Melbourne 11

Stoppage Clearances: Richmond 15 Melbourne 21

Nice one Singa, it will be interesting to hear because the thing that stood out to me in this game more than the sheer weight of centre clearances was the quality of ball delivery into 50 from the clearances we did have. 

First of all thank you for covering these pre-season games. It really is great to have you back talking about the Dees. I cannot wait for the season to start and I hope we can make up for last season's disappointing end.

My question for the panel: Is the River's in the midfield experiment over? In the match SIM game last week River's attended a number of centre bounces but this week he only attended one. It didn't appear that he was involved in many of the around the ground stoppages as a true mid either and seem to be back playing his usual half back rebounding role.

I get that these preseason games are a chance to throw the magnets around the board a little bit and that is why we got to see him play some midfield minutes in the match sim after being teased about this new role by our trackwatchers. I also get that this weeks practice match was probably more a true reflection of how we are going to play come the real stuff in a fortnight.

Having said that I would still have liked to see Rivers in the middle a bit more especially because we still did have a variety of players attend centre bounces this week with Clarry 20, Harmes 20, Trac 15, Kozzy 13, Sparrow 12, Nibbler 7.

 

What did you think of Oliver swapping into a role across half back to allow Gus midfield minutes?  I think we all expected the midfield to forward rotation with Trac and Kozzy, but the Gus/Clarry one was a surprise, but it looked effective to me.

Two questions from me boys:

1. Is it better to use Grundy more in the FWD 50 while Max goes more to support our backline? I feel Grundy is a better goal Kicker than Max.

2. Who is the most underrated player in our list? I feel Fritsch gets almost no love around the league, he's easily a top 8 forward.

Go Dees!!!!!

22 minutes ago, Vipercrunch said:

What did you think of Oliver swapping into a role across half back to allow Gus midfield minutes?  I think we all expected the midfield to forward rotation with Trac and Kozzy, but the Gus/Clarry one was a surprise, but it looked effective to me.

Perhaps a follow up to this one.

There is certainly merit in spreading the midfield load around so as not to burn out our three stars (Trac, Clarry and Vines) but how confident are you in our second and third tier mids that it won't be costly against some of the contenders? Granted we won't be going with many all no-name brand centre bounce attendances but we don't want to be robbing Peter to pay Paul.

To echo the thoughts/questions of others, can you please discuss the midfield function generally and more specifically how the less or non-regulars performed in the middle - Kossie, Harmes, Sparrow, ANB, Rivers Spargo, Brayshaw and whoever else was in there? I see a bit of a gulf between the regulars and the rest, although Kossie could be anything.

Edited March 6, 20232 yr by Roger Mellie
Ha ha, pipped by Lefty

28 minutes ago, Roger Mellie said:

To echo the thoughts/questions of others, can you please discuss the midfield function generally and more specifically how the less or non-regulars performed in the middle - Kossie, Harmes, Sparrow, ANB, Rivers Spargo, Brayshaw and whoever else was in there? I see a bit of a gulf between the regulars and the rest, although Kossie could be anything.

I'll present them together.

We seem to be swamped with running backs now. Is Hibberd still in the frame or has Bowey, Rivers, Brayshaw, Salem and even McVee now in front of him? 

What a fantastic array of pre-season questions / discussion points.  We are so lucky to have our Demonland pods!

As a point of interest, does anyone know how many, and which other fan sites have them?

2 hours ago, Deeoldfart said:

What a fantastic array of pre-season questions / discussion points.  We are so lucky to have our Demonland pods!

As a point of interest, does anyone know how many, and which other fan sites have them?

I believe most clubs have a fan podcast(s). I'm not sure all of them are associated with a website. Web forums are a dying breed with the advent of social media for better or worse.

9 minutes ago, Demonland said:

I believe most clubs have a fan podcast(s). I'm not sure all of them are associated with a website. Web forums are a dying breed with the advent of social media for better or worse.

Demonland IS social media.

Well, it is for me. My only social media. 

i don't have accounts for Twitter, FB, Insta, Tik Tok etc etc.

I have a FB account, but only because i created one when i first heard about it, way back. But have never used it. 

22 minutes ago, Demonland said:

I believe most clubs have a fan podcast(s). I'm not sure all of them are associated with a website. Web forums are a dying breed with the advent of social media for better or worse.

Thanks @Demonland.  Definitely for worse imo, but I am very ancient (verging on prehistoric).

Edited March 6, 20232 yr by Deeoldfart

the intensity was great - but it’s a hell of a long season