The Demonland Podcast will air LIVE on Monday, 20th May @ 8:30pm. Join George, Binman & I as we dissect the Demons disaapoiting performance against the Eagles at Optus Stadium in Round 10.

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I don’t want to sound overly dramatic because we lost tonight but do you think the window might be closed or quickly closing on this specific iteration of our team. It feels like our current ladder position 7th is probably a accurate reflection of where we sit and I can’t see that significantly changing this season.

Do dees need to go hard at the trade table end of season and move on some premiership players in order to get capital to go bring in some new high end talent. Similar to what we did with Hogan leaving and May coming in at the end of 2018.

Edited May 19, 20241 yr by Garbo

What is happening with our midfield at the moment? They are consistently getting beaten all around the ground and none of them are having much impact at the moment. It's hard to be too critical of these guys because they've been the premier midfield group for the past few season but something is just off.

@binman you've been telling us for a long time that our one wood is scores from turnovers. I don't have the final stats in front of me front of me but at half time we hadn't scored from turnover. Any thoughts on why we struggled in this area this week?

I wish the podcast was live right now.

Need something cathartic.

Should we start contemplating a mini rebuild?

We've got some great young guns but also a lot of veterans that are past it. Premiership window looks closed.

We need also a revamp of the coaching staff, specially forward coach.

What was the panel's thoughts on McAdam's debut in the Red and Blue? I was a little bit disappointed that he failed to make the distance with a shot from 35 to 40.

8 minutes ago, smurf said:

What is happening with our midfield at the moment? They are consistently getting beaten all around the ground and none of them are having much impact at the moment. It's hard to be too critical of these guys because they've been the premier midfield group for the past few season but something is just off.

Oliver and his off the field issues.

Brayshaw retired.

Sparrow not up to the level.

We are short playing off JV and Petracca.

And we need Petracca forward because our fwd line sucks.

14 minutes ago, Garbo said:

I don’t want to sound overly dramatic because we lost tonight but do you think the window might be closed or quickly closing on this specific iteration of our team. It feels like our current ladder position 7th is probably a accurate reflection of where we sit and I can’t see that significantly changing this season.

Do dees need to go hard at the trade table end of season and move on some premiership players in order to get capital to go bring in some new high end talent. Similar to what we did with Hogan leaving and May coming in at the end of 2018.

What players do you have in mind?

Can we get Reid please 😅

I had a bad feeling that losing Langdon for personal reasons would hurt us and it really did on game day. I hope he’s back next week. 

I know the season is long but it’s hard to be optimistic about our chances when you get a bath from the Eagles off a 10 day break. I just don’t think we’re genuine contenders anymore.

What do you think of Tracc having a laugh with Jayden during the game

and if true

Langdon going to London for a wedding?

I've been impressed with TMac's renaissance as a defender this season but he got torn a new one by the in-form Waterman today. I think the move of Petty forward has been a complete bust and I think we need to swap them. Petty back and TMax forward. I don't think we'll make those changes but what do you guys think?

We'll be making a few changes this week I think.

Lever with concussion will be a forced change. If Langdon's personal reasons is not too serious then he should be a walk up start. Rooey should be over his concussion so he will be back.

What changes will we make this week?

Does the panel think we are a genuine top 4 contender still?

It’s looking more and more to me that we are lacking depth and have too many inconsistencies in our game to be truly considered a threat this year.

We also seem to have no answer when Max is targeted by the opposition and in turn why do we hardly ever tag a major midfield ball winner such as Reid this week and Walsh last week?

Edited May 19, 20241 yr by DeeZee

I was really happy with Salem's return game. It's good to have another option in the middle that slot back to help the drives of half back. One of very few shining lights.

This one really hurts, just thinking back how hard we fought against Cats and Blues, then we get comprehensively beaten by a team sitting 3rd last.. we don't seam to have many tricks up our sleeve to throw at the opposition when it's not going our way.. and we still miss absolute sitters in front of goal that kill any momentum we're trying to build... 

A discussion on our skills and lack of pace. Couple this with the new game plan. Is it premiership worthy? 
 

Edit. Add to this our lack of athletic agility. Oliver and Viney. ANB (although he has been fantastic) T Mac. lever. BBB. You can add others. 

Edited May 19, 20241 yr by Demonsterative

Getting a bit sick of opposition coaches coming into our games with a plan to nullify some of our weapons. Obviously everyone is going to do whatever it takes to cancel out Max's influence and there is not much we can do about that. The Eagles tagged Oliver and curbed his influences. Why did we put no time into Harley Reid? Why did we not wise up to their kick out strategy? Early in the game they were pulling May out of the 50 arc but then when Lever went off they had the luxury not to have to do that. Just sick of us not seeming to have a gameplans to negate a team and we certainly had no plan B against the Eagles.

Credit to At The Break Of Gawn in the postgame thread:

"Oliver and Petracca have only once finished in the top 5 disposal getters together this season (against the Dogs). 

Jack Viney has not had more than 25 disposals in a game this season."

This was once a midfield trio to be feared and these numbers are a major problem. Is this a blip or has the decline come sooner than we thought?

4 minutes ago, layzie said:

Credit to At The Break Of Gawn in the postgame thread:

"Oliver and Petracca have only once finished in the top 5 disposal getters together this season (against the Dogs). 

Jack Viney has not had more than 25 disposals in a game this season."

This was once a midfield trio to be feared and these numbers are a major problem. Is this a blip or has the decline come sooner than we thought?

Viney is 29

Petracca 28

Oliver 27

Oliver has never been the most athletic player.

Trac and Viney are bulls, but that means they don't really have speed so can get exposed on open field.

It would be sad if at their age they are in their decline (I don't believe it),but it also begs the question on the development and training by the coaching staff.

Do you think they used the 10 day break to absolutely smash the players fitness wise? There's only 2 reasons I can think as to why we performed so poorly. 1st is the boys were flogged during the longer break to load up and were completely cooked. 2nd is we just aren't good enough this year. Yes we have beaten some good teams but the gap between our best and worst is large, very large. 

If it's the fatigue factor then the High Performance staff need to realise that we need to actually bank some wins during the season to make it to the finals. Perhaps they thought "it's only the Eagles, we'll be fine" which shows they weren't taking it seriously and got found out. If it's the 2nd reason then, well, there is always next year.

Lever out messes with us obviously but good teams should be able to adapt to that and cover somewhat. 

Credit needs to be given to the Eagles as well. They played very well. Cleaner, faster, tougher. Harley Reid can become a Dee anytime. Waterman turning into Prime Wayne Carey at home games doesn't help us either. 

We were at the game and if you haven't made the long walk to the Optus stadium train station in opposition gear after being pumped by the Eagles then I suggest you try it at least once in your life. Very humble in defeat, similar to Collingwood or Carlton fans. (Andy please convey the appropriate amount of sarcasm when reading the last sentence) 

Thanks guys.

Since the joys of Adelaide and the big win against the Cats we have lacked intensity. If not that exactly, then we have lacked intensity relative to our opponents who have come at us like bulls at the proverbial. Have we been complacent?

Boys what do we look at in the mid season draft ? Forward or mids ? 
we have no depth in our team any more i feel like if we keep dishing up this sort of football we will not be playing finals 

binman said he wanted us 6-2 for a top four lock we are now 6-4 where are we going wrong can we delist BB now for another pick in the mid season draft ? 
 

also why did we not let Tomlinson go we could have got something for him instead saying he is a required payer yet we don’t play him 

Edited May 19, 20241 yr by DEElirium

Also the eagles had the luxury of playing exciting footy they had nothing to loose as they where never expected to win the game so they took it on all night they played with dare and dash and where exciting to watch they caught us napping and made us look second rate 

Eagles monstered us in contested marking all around the ground. That's why we didn't generate many turnovers imo. 

Waterman and Reid played like the second coming of Carey and Judd 2.0. 

We didn't play our best but please dont talk about loading Binners. 

After 10 matches I've come to the conclusion that the trading in of Jack Billings has been a bust. He was billed as being a good user of the ball and I have not yet seen that on a consistent basis. I get that he is not a high possession player but that means that he needs to deliver on the meager possessions that he accumulates. He lacks penetration in his kicking and he is just not taking his chances in front of goal to be a worthy addition to the team. I would rather blood some young and hungry talent like Kolt or Doggy Brown Jnr.