It’s really promising.

But as a I said for a few weeks - we will get absolutely torn in half by the best teams.

And that’s ok if you live on a plane of reality as a Dees fan.

15 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

They lost Curnow when we kept Clarry and Trac,

??? All three players left during the 2025 trade period.

4 minutes ago, rpfc said:

It’s really promising.

But as a I said for a few weeks - we will get absolutely torn in half by the best teams.

And that’s ok if you live on a plane of reality as a Dees fan.

Turner, Bowey and a fit Rivers along with Lever, Turner and Petty is where I see us landing once everyone is fit. You’ve then got XTaylor and Lindsay as well as Kolt to add defensive/mid running, along with what appears as a very fit midfield group. I think we can attack and defend within the parameters of what we’re currently seeing. Tomorrow we will learn more as GC have serious talent across the board.

One other thing I reckon is this side has a bit of the John Northey’s about them. There’s a bit of us against them vibe and they’ll fight it out to the end and that’s a fantastic trait to in-still into a team. Hats off to King thus far.

30 minutes ago, Demonstone said:

??? All three players left during the 2025 trade period.

We let Clarry and Trac go a year later in the timeline. We could have gotten rid of them at the end of 2024.

As I said, they've been 12-18 months behind us, but with Curnow they went early in comparison to us, but we've still got a head start on them as we've sacked our coach and now completely cleared the decks. They've still got Cripps and Walsh toddling around.

As a long suffering Demons fan, I’ve always felt we’ve been a better team moving the ball faster!

Many times as a Demon supporter over the years I’ve called out run, so I’m feeling encouraged by seeing us running and moving the ball quickly this year!

Steven Kings playing style is enjoyable and as the players get used to it just might take us close to finals which I wasn’t expecting this year!

1 hour ago, rpfc said:

It’s really promising.

But as a I said for a few weeks - we will get absolutely torn in half by the best teams.

And that’s ok if you live on a plane of reality as a Dees fan.

Interestingly after the first quarter against Freo it was 10 goals to 9 goals.

We made the appropriate adjustments. We're not that far off the good teams

Shout out to Big Rick too

1 hour ago, rpfc said:

It’s really promising.

But as a I said for a few weeks - we will get absolutely torn in half by the best teams.

And that’s ok if you live on a plane of reality as a Dees fan.

I'm not sure about that.

I was really impressed by our defensive system against the Blues.

And even more impressed with our pressure, intensity and contest- suggests to me that we're not just an outside team.

Amd I'm not the only one.

I heard Simpson say on SEN that before the blues game he had us pegged as an outside team that would score heavily against bottom teams but get beaten up by the top teams because we couldn't match their contest work.

He said that he was super impressed with our contest, pressure and ability to match the blues at the contest and stoppages. Said we clearly more than the one trick pony he thought we were.

Edited April 3Apr 3 by binman

1 hour ago, Adam The God said:

We let Clarry and Trac go a year later in the timeline. We could have gotten rid of them at the end of 2024.

As I said, they've been 12-18 months behind us, but with Curnow they went early in comparison to us, but we've still got a head start on them as we've sacked our coach and now completely cleared the decks. They've still got Cripps and Walsh toddling around.

Cripps and Walsh are our claz and tracc.

Great ball winners, contested beasts, rack up huge disposal numbers and metres gained by foot - but slow and average kicks. Very blunt instruments not particularly suited to thevway the game is being played atm.

Every team still needs some blunt Instruments- I just wonder whether, unlike say 5 years ago, clubs want their highest paid players being blunt instruments.

35 minutes ago, binman said:

I'm not sure about that.

I was really impressed by our defensive system against the Blues.

And even more impressed with our pressure, intensity and contest- suggests to me that we're not just an outside team.

Amd I'm not the only one.

I heard Simpson say on SEN that before the blues game he had us pegged as an outside team that would score heavily against bottom teams but get beaten up by the top teams because we couldn't match their contest work.

He said that he was super impressed with our contest, pressure and ability to match the blues at the contest and stoppages. Said we clearly more than the one trick pony he thought we were.

I agree we definitely outpressured and outhunted the Blues from about halfway through the 2nd quarter, I still think our midfield has a bit of the Hawthorns about it: an intense group of hard running players who don’t rely on a couple of big names to get it done….Koz maybe being the exception if he keeps playing in the midfield like last week!

1 hour ago, binman said:

I'm not sure about that.

I was really impressed by our defensive system against the Blues.

And even more impressed with our pressure, intensity and contest- suggests to me that we're not just an outside team.

Amd I'm not the only one.

I heard Simpson say on SEN that before the blues game he had us pegged as an outside team that would score heavily against bottom teams but get beaten up by the top teams because we couldn't match their contest work.

He said that he was super impressed with our contest, pressure and ability to match the blues at the contest and stoppages. Said we clearly more than the one trick pony he thought we were.

Yes I heard that, damned with faint praise. Essentially, he was amazed Gawn and Steele were able to adapt to making the stoppage bigger and have our half forwards roll up and exploit our ‘speed of gameplan’ advantage. I think that can be neutralised and brutalised by the best teams as we make errors.

I can see it being great to watch and give us a chance to kick goals against anyone but it is essentially a desire to open the game up - almost by definition we are going to have more A1-D1 contests (1-1 contests) to win and execute well from. I just think that we are not there yet and we can expect the best teams to have more than enough opportunities to get a hold of us.

2 hours ago, Roost it far said:

Turner, Bowey and a fit Rivers along with Lever, Turner and Petty is where I see us landing once everyone is fit. You’ve then got XTaylor and Lindsay as well as Kolt to add defensive/mid running, along with what appears as a very fit midfield group. I think we can attack and defend within the parameters of what we’re currently seeing. Tomorrow we will learn more as GC have serious talent across the board.

One other thing I reckon is this side has a bit of the John Northey’s about them. There’s a bit of us against them vibe and they’ll fight it out to the end and that’s a fantastic trait to in-still into a team. Hats off to King thus far.

Yes hats off. It’s been great to watch. And we may be the baby bombers.

But more accurately I think we are trying to find the balance of a gameplan that we are completely committed to from the jump. And that advantage will ease as we give more teams an opportunity to see what we are doing.

And I am not so much worried about ‘the defence’ - it is the over committing of the mids, a turnover and an easy hit up to defenders with zero pressure on the ball.

It’s expected, I am comfortable with it, but I can genuinely see Dees supporters getting there eyes bigger than their stomachs here.

On 02/04/2026 at 13:40, layzie said:

But this year's one is only based on 3 games 😜

It meant that game specifically (2nd half) was fastest ball movement ever recorded since they started rec the data 8yrs ago

Edited April 5Apr 5 by Tolstoys Nudge

I still don't know exactly what the statistic is claiming to measure, but at this point I'm willing to believe it.

The three component numbers which indicate HOW a team moves the ball: Fast/slow, long/short and direct to goal/lateral. These categories are named...

- Time: How long it takes to distribute the ball once it gets in your hands

- Distance: How much distance you take with every disposal (direction does not matter)

- Distance to goal (DTG): How much distance you take directly to goal with every disposal

Just now, DiscoStu17 said:

The three component numbers which indicate HOW a team moves the ball: Fast/slow, long/short and direct to goal/lateral. These categories are named...

- Time: How long it takes to distribute the ball once it gets in your hands

- Distance: How much distance you take with every disposal (direction does not matter)

- Distance to goal (DTG): How much distance you take directly to goal with every disposal

So, last year, we were above average – fast ball movers by kicking long but not necessarily accurately.

This year we are playing on, moving the ball by hand and short accurate kicks quickly.

5 hours ago, Tolstoys Nudge said:

It meant that game specifically (2nd half) was fastest ball movement ever recorded since they started rec the data 8yrs ago

I wouldn’t be surprised if today was a bit faster.

On 02/04/2026 at 09:09, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

Answers my question (above). Thanks.

It's a very interesting analysis. I look forward to hearing how the media manage to either interpret or mis-interpret it.

Melbourne were flying under Northey back in the day. The smashings we gave North and the Swans in the 87 finals were epic, borne from really fast ball movement.

The team back then were the fastest team to play on from a mark or free kick.

The powers that be then changed the rule were you couldn't play on fron a free kick it killed our momentum and game plan.

Interesting to see where this goes.

The eye test would suggest that we are moving the ball quickly. Apparently we were last year…….. my eyes didn’t see that though.

4 minutes ago, Melbman2 said:

Melbourne were flying under Northey back in the day. The smashings we gave North and the Swans in the 87 finals were epic, borne from really fast ball movement.

The team back then were the fastest team to play on from a mark or free kick.

The powers that be then changed the rule were you couldn't play on fron a free kick it killed our momentum and game plan.

Interesting to see where this goes.

For the unaware, it might have looked like it was compulsory to play on after a mark (or free kick) in the 80's. But that practice originated from the 70's and continued into the 90's

Not every time and not all the time but it was a big part of the sport and was one of the main reasons why we saw open forward lines and the explosions of scoring during that time

Fast forward to this year and we're seeing that style return (at least in part)

Trying to ice the game is still possible but requires a full-on team defence. And 'hitting the boundary' has it's drawbacks as well with the new rulings

I'm loving the new style of footy but there's going to be a lot of blowouts

On 02/04/2026 at 09:38, M_9 said:

I saw in another thread that at least one poster wanted Salemi dropped. Whilst I don't agree with that move, you do wonder if King has asked him to speed up his play. Salem tendency to kill the momentum appears at odds with our new game plan.

Yep that's a great point. I also felt he was something of a transition momentum killer in the past few years imv.

I also thought he was too conservative with his kicks (mich of 24 & 25), which were mostly 15 - 25 meter round the back/ laterals.

So far this season he also appears to have brought back a level of physicality in his general play, especially with tackles and contested loose ball stuff.

Edited April 5Apr 5 by Demon Dynasty