AFL has become intolerable with the constant need to feed the machine.

Awful

I don’t know how you do it living in Vic. Thank goodness I’m in northern NSW.

Would Like to go back to the old days of slow news cycle. And Sandy Roberts and Drew Morphett commentating. I’m only 46 btw! 😂

1 hour ago, binman said:

Yep.

Bottom line is we need to trade in at least one highly skilled half back flanker/mid who can reliably hit targets by foot.

And we need to draft in such a player too

To do both we need capital.

And to get that we need to be prepared to bite the bullet and trade out at least one player who we can get a decent return from.

Makes little sense to trade out any of our young guns like mcvee, jvr, Windsor etc.

So we need to trade out at least one high value best 22 senior player.

Realistically Tracc, Fritter and Rivers are arguably our only such players (I'm not including anyone we've recently resigned or maxy as there's no world in which we'd trade him)

With his contract Tracc would be tricky to trade, and unless he wants out there's not really a scenario where we come out winners by trading him (that's to say even if we brought in another gun he's unlikely, on net, to have more impact than tracc).

That leaves Rivers and Fritter.

And for mine as much as there is a contradiction in trading out an elite kick to bring in another Fritter is the obvious one to trade.

As you note DC he would fit perfectly into a club like the hawks, lions or even pies that have plenty of elite kicks in their midfield and back half. And he's still producing high quality footy.

Taken together, he has good trade value.

You’ve got to give something to get something, and I don’t think we can afford to go into 2026 with largely the same list as 2024/2025

It might not be Fritsch but it’s the kind of conversation I hope the club is open to having if the right offers present themselves

Edited July 16Jul 16 by demoncat

6 hours ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Cool - let's swap him for Cam Rayner.

that's silly of you QBD. you are normally a moderate. We want Cam and one of the brothers

If it’s not Fritsch it will be someone else. I would imagine we will see one or two established players traded at the end of the year.

It won't be happening if at all until after the next six games.

We beat FIRST AND SECOND with these boys and should have beaten third. What's the rush....

Getting a late first rounder or early second rounder for Fritsch is not that appealing. It would get pushed back with academy bids and free agency compensation. Also it supposedly a weaker draft this year. So I don’t see how trading Fritsch makes us better next year. So unless we concede as a club we are rebuilding and just keen to bring it more young players or we have established goal kicking talent that we think we can attract through a trade, it doesn’t make sense too me. Even after a poor year he is still on track to kick 30 plus goals ! hard to replace those players.

Will be interesting what moves we make during the post season

3 hours ago, Billy said:

Supporters always want to see the band stick together after 2021, we all love Clarry, Trac, Fritta etc etc, but there comes a time when we have to start moving on some of our premiership heros for the benefit of the list moving forward

Mods - we need the 🤔thinking embark

3 hours ago, Willmoy1947 said:

From what was heard Mitch will not be at 7 next year along with a few older stalwarts.

BT?? Please. And Derwayyne

3 hours ago, monoccular said:

Mods - we need the 🤔thinking embark

BT?? Please. And Derwayyne

Sadistical logic.

We ran into Fritta a while back and I am very confident he wants to stay at the Dee's.

FWIW Goody was asked about this on SEN this morning. He laughed it off and said "he's not going anywhere".

Frittttata will stay at the Dees

Footy journalists are just creating mud and throwing some … some sticks but often it’s just rubbish

14 hours ago, DemonJack 14 said:

Getting a late first rounder or early second rounder for Fritsch is not that appealing. It would get pushed back with academy bids and free agency compensation. Also it supposedly a weaker draft this year. So I don’t see how trading Fritsch makes us better next year. So unless we concede as a club we are rebuilding and just keen to bring it more young players or we have established goal kicking talent that we think we can attract through a trade, it doesn’t make sense too me. Even after a poor year he is still on track to kick 30 plus goals ! hard to replace those players.

Will be interesting what moves we make during the post season

They might trade him for a 2026 or 2027 future pick if either of those drafts are less diluted and more talented than this 2025 one.

You also need to factor in that the club may want him out but the player wants to stay, which it sounds like he does want to stay if you've read snippets around here.

I agree that Fritta's body of work over 8 years rather than the last 12 months makes it more appealing to keep him rather than trade him for a draft pick. And even factoring in his last 12 months, not that long he did kick 4 goals against Sydney in round 0 2024 and 5 against Hawthorn in round 2 2024 and that freak goal on the boundary that sealed the Geelong win last year. Plus he's kicked 11 goals in his last 5 games which is 50 goal pace per 23 games to suggest that his form is trending upwards.

It's a keep for me but I'm open minded about the offers for him.

What do posters consider to be more challenging, playing midfield or playing fwd? Add to that playing fwd in a team that plays the way we do. I missed a lot of sundays game due to work commitments but some of what I saw in the second half was we seemed to open the fwd line up a bit. In the upcoming trade period our chances of landing a dominant key fwd are zero and our chances of landing a serviceable one are remote. Having both Fritsch and Melksham in our fwd line makes us dangerous so long as we’re playing a certain way. Trading Fritsch would be madness.

On 16/07/2025 at 12:16, kallangurdemon said:

I will wait for Ghostwriters insiders report .Go Ghosty !

It'll probably involve a bloodstained note using cut-out newspaper letters saying "Fritta. is. not. going. anywere.".

At 28 and based on his body of work this season I would not be making a massive offer (give up a first wound selection) if I was a rival club.

17 minutes ago, Jibroni said:

At 28 and based on his body of work this season I would not be making a massive offer (give up a first wound selection) if I was a rival club.

Kicks 60 goals down at Kardinia Park. Goes to the Pies and tops their goal kicking list.

He is worth maybe as much as Trac and Clarry because he doesn't have their contract constraints.

To a good team, he is a beautiful cherry on top of a cake who has proven to be a big game player.

If the shoe was on the other foot, every Melbourne fan would be screaming to chase him as he's a goal kicker and exactly what we don't have but desperately need.

He can play another 5-6 years, especially if another club doesn't want him to play higher up the ground and sticks him near the goal square.

I am not advocating we trade him, but IMO he is one senior player who has perhaps more value to other clubs than he does to us.

The 'article' offers so little basis that I just snorted and moved on.

Then the conversation here got a little more interesting about what we actually want to do as far as turning over the list and looking to fit new structures, so I began to look at our list on footywire and realised something.

They're cycling through our list in alphabetical order of junior club. Obviously excuding no-brand players or 'too much of a reach' stories.

Once Pickett (Woodville West Torrens) was done, they had to come back to the start to Lever (Calder) and Fritsch (Casey).

That would make the next junk articles about Demon's moving or being disgruntled;

Jacob Van Rooyen (Claremont)

Harvey Langford (Dandenong)

McVee, Rivers and Woewodin as a job lot (East Fremantle)

And then we're back to the cycle of Petracca -> Oliver -> Petty -> Viney -> Salem -> Sparrow.

22 hours ago, Howard_Grimes said:

Would be happy to move him on for both club player, have stated exactly why many times and mentioned Fritsch as a player I thought would be good to move.

Also, people seem to forget you can trade future draft picks so worrying about next year's draft class is a non-issue. It's also a non-issue because as we've seen so many times, the direct pick you inheret from a trade is not always the one you go to the draft with. So obviously it gives you options to move up, trade for another player etc.

And the fact remains, these things need to happen for clubs to move forward.

I'd welcome it, I think Bayley has been unbelievably underwhelming for a couple of years now and his lack of defensive actions and team first actions have been seriously bad and I'd go as far to say have rubbed his team mates the wrong way. Another one who Goody has let slide on multiple occasions, which I haven't agreed with.

Time to evolve this list.

Oliver next.

There's a couple of popular sentences, right there

Has lacked effort this year which is disappointing...

But as a few have suggested he'll probably slot in nicely in a team with a bit of forward structure and a midfield that lowers their eyes 👀

On 16/07/2025 at 15:46, JTR said:

Anything actually come from the club or Fritsch himself, is this just another media thought bubble claiming to be news?

Listening to SEN this morning JTR they asked Goody Re a Fritsch trade and Goody said no way we need forward’s he is a required player. So I think it is just another media B/S.👍😁

4 minutes ago, DeeZone said:

Listening to SEN this morning JTR they asked Goody Re a Fritsch trade and Goody said no way we need forward’s he is a required player. So I think it is just another media B/S.👍😁

That addresses the need... doesn't actually address the commitment. Just saying.

The Circus WILL come to town , players will come, some go. No omelettes without eggs as they say.

Time will tell

On 17/07/2025 at 15:30, Little Goffy said:

The 'article' offers so little basis that I just snorted and moved on.

Then the conversation here got a little more interesting about what we actually want to do as far as turning over the list and looking to fit new structures, so I began to look at our list on footywire and realised something.

They're cycling through our list in alphabetical order of junior club. Obviously excuding no-brand players or 'too much of a reach' stories.

Once Pickett (Woodville West Torrens) was done, they had to come back to the start to Lever (Calder) and Fritsch (Casey).

That would make the next junk articles about Demon's moving or being disgruntled;

Jacob Van Rooyen (Claremont)

Harvey Langford (Dandenong)

McVee, Rivers and Woewodin as a job lot (East Fremantle)

And then we're back to the cycle of Petracca -> Oliver -> Petty -> Viney -> Salem -> Sparrow.

IF ...

Jake Melksham has booted 14 goals from the past three matches and is on track for a career-best season-goal tally ...

THEN ...

it's fact he's in career best form. Will be 34 by the time the 2025 season is finished. Will definitely be playing in 2026. Wonder if it will be with Melbourne.

Aaaaand that completes the letter C.

Tell you now. Melksham will be here.

1 hour ago, Little Goffy said:

IF ...

Jake Melksham has booted 14 goals from the past three matches and is on track for a career-best season-goal tally ...

THEN ...

it's fact he's in career best form. Will be 34 by the time the 2025 season is finished. Will definitely be playing in 2026. Wonder if it will be with Melbourne.

Aaaaand that completes the letter C.

Yes read that and chortled ... Purple fielding some bait. All a bit me too ...

The short answer is of course, yes he will be.