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Had a random wednesday off from work so popped down for a bit as well. Couple of other observations - very big technique focus, across the board. - Salem did everything. He seems good to go - agree again re newton - he must be very close. so too ANB. he seemed to be doing a fitness test (he had a glove on, dont know if that is stylistic thing or an injury related thing) style drill along with Brayshaw, but he seemed to be out there longer. ANB looked fine and I would be staggered if he and Newton weren't in the 25 named on thursday and given we are travelling back from interstate, if we make changes for people to be rested i think those two might come in given the way they were training. They both also did did the run through's with a group of players who all played in the seniors last week (incl Viney, Jones, Tyson, Petracca, Garland, Jetta, Pedo). Salem did those too. - Gawn just dominates at training. at any stoppage where two teams were practicing, whichever team had Gawn would win the stoppage. Every time - Hullett is massive. Rawlings was really pushing him and Weed. Good to see - Tommy Mac doing some really good work along with Jetta on coming across as the third man. Oscar Mac did an agility test at the end of the session and seemed to come out of it well. - Watts actually has presence at training now. its amazing the difference from a couple of years ago. - Highlight was petracca being pulled back onto the track by Viney at the end of the session to do some one on one contested ball work. it was amazing to see, and would make any dees supporter as happy as a pig in mud. petracca held his own, but geez viney goes hard and doesn't care about size of his opponent.

Stopped by for a quick look at about 10:40 for just under an hour. Couldn't see Lumumba, Kent or Hogan (obviously in WA). Clarry and Matt Jones doing run throughs. Salem, Viney and Brayshaw in full training. A lot of time divided between their groups working on craft. Forwards marking on the speccy bag and kicking goals. Ben Kennedy the highlight. He really launches at the footy and took a heap of mark of the week contenders. Macca and Wattsy were having a laugh about some of Macca's kicks being on the money and Watts' marking attempts. Mids mainly doing stoppage work. Ben Newton looks a little quicker and stronger than last year, I think he'll get a chance soon. Backs working on their spoiling and intercept marking. Vanders trained fully and did some extra touch work at the end. JKH was doing everything as well. Grimes trained with the forwards from what I saw. Don't want to derail the thread but maybe if Kent is sore then Grimes could be an option on the wing/rotating forward to give us a hard working defensive player and push Harmes forward. Just a thought, might be as simple as just wanting to try something different for him. If Hogan is having the week off - I'm not sure he is - then there wasn't any indication from the player group or Weideman or Hulett themselves that they were in line for a debut.

I don't think Dean will be a club spokesman anytime soon.

Dawi03, who runs Demonology has announced that he is giving up running the site come year end: "Bad news is Ive decided I will be finishing up Demonology as there is too much work to do ie live feeds etc and general maintenance for no reward. So we will roll on till the end of the year. Hope we can continue you win!! Its a Grand Old Flag!! " His reasons are the time and the financial demands that running the site require of him. To quote: "Cheers mate. More important things in life unfortunately. The Mrs cracks it every weekend when I am trying to stream then upload the win. And would rather spend time with the little one than worry about the site. I think the chat is moving a lot to Facebook anyway " "The stream isn't time consuming. The running of the site is time consuming. And frankly I'm over it." So at the end of the year it will be Demonland alone for all us tragics! We all need to be aware of the time, energy and money that Andy and Nasher have put in and continue to do so. They also have partners and families who rightfully demand their time. They cannot do it all alone, and we should all be prepared to help out that little bit, when needed. And as Andy has shown any excess funds are directed toward the club. Let's keep making Demonland a win-win for everyone.

The only solution here is to move the whole club to Perth.

I spoke to Vanders, one more week of full training and then play, had an ankle that just wouldn't behave, all fine now In the marking drill they grabbed the boxing coach (can't remember his name) who was minding his own business leaning on the fence to man the bag Liam Hulett had 3 goes at killing him. Agree about BenKen can really get airborne when he was leaving training he stripped of his top pullled on his backpack and marched off leaving the Trac to politely enquire " what the [censored] are you doing" The whole mood of the squad was focussed and upbeat Agree with Newton, another one whose core has been rebuilt whilst he was off legs

nutbean, you are completely and utterly wasting your time.

Hogan being allowed to visit home occasionally is often cited as one of the reasons he and his family are very happy with the MFC.

The club was rapt that it got Toumpas who the football community in general rated highly. What it shows me now is that our recruiting is so much more targeted. We have non-negiotiable attributes like football IQ and skills, competitiveness, body size and then look at positions that can be played, coachability, family background (ha ha $cully would never get in) etc. We are less likely to be concerned about where the mock drafts and other experts rate players. We rely on our own analysis. The club has hardly put a foot wrong since the days of Lucas Cook, Gysberts, Strauss and Toumpas. I have always believed the pressure on a club to go with the orthodox picks in the top 5 or 6 is huge. Number 1 for example has been average since Hodge IMO. ANd a raft of good players have come at pick 7. I reckon in years gone by we would never have picked Oliver but we wanted him and went out of our way to ge the picks to get him. Great stuff.

Smart work by our footy department to get him to sign the week he's concussed too. Left off some 0's no doubt. #ruthless

When we open threads to discuss a specific article it may be an idea to link that article so other posters have some sort of idea as to wtf you are on about...

This has been done to death surely We've learnt and moved on as a club Let's move on also......

fantastic interview. Whilst he spoke I reflected on where we were and where we are now, we have a lot to thank Paul Roos for. We were below a laughing stock, we were irrelevant. Three years on we are exciting and the talk is all about future rather than past. Cheers Roosy

Most human beings have this thing called empathy. I know some don't - we all have our shortcomings. It doesn't mean any of us want to win any less, in case that's what you were wondering.

No matter how good your team is, there'll always be the 38th best player on the list. How you react to them, and regard them, is a measure of your knowledge and maturity as a supporter. Constant denigration hardly ever looks good.

I don't even know why Hogan needs to go and visit his family in Perth, he has all the family he needs here at Demonland.

I'm bemused that some on here still don't get what we've got with Tyson! He is only 22 (ANB is 20). Recruiting him is only marginally shaded by the Vince deal, and he has at least six more years with MFC after Bernie retires!

Very good get DA - it sure does! The complete relevant excerpt: "...Kent wants to secure his future in Melbourne beyond 2016. “I want to play some good footy and get my name out there (i.e., in context of bolded sentence, in (= at) Melbourne). Obviously, I’d love to stay at the Dees for as long as I can. I’m out of contract so there’s no pressure on me to perform or anything like that, but it’s in the back of my head and you think about your contract"...". Still not sure about that last sentence - possibly a misspoke as supposed earlier. It's not like he isn't performing!! Possibly he meant that if he hasn't given good reason for a new contract already, this year won't add much?

We're reading too much into it I'd say.

Interpretation is a funny thing. No idea how willmoy got from that sentence, to the sentence he wrote here. Thanks - that actually makes sense.

That makes so much more sense, thanks ManDee

AFL season 2016: Who'll win the trading game? "Melbourne won't be sweating too much, right now. The Demons had played a big part in a lot of drafts when they decided to send their first-round pick this year to the Gold Coast, in a deal that allowed them to keep Clayton Oliver from Essendon. They got a second top 10 pick from the Giants, and grabbed another key forward (Sam Weideman) to tuck away for future use. They knew they had enough good young kids. They backed themselves in to improve, to move up the ladder, to have no regrets. So far, so good."

My recollection of this trade period was Essendon was all over Oliver. We needed to get a pick ahead of them when we realised he wouldn't bet there by the time our first pick came along.

My Dad presented me with a certificate for being the best at Vic kick. He gave it to me following an awards night. They must have misplaced it on the night.

Demonland is proud to announce that we are now sponsoring Jayden Hunt and Josh Wagner. We look forward to many years following these two young players. Thank you to all of you have have contributed to this website through Subscriptions, Donations and Merchandise as I've always promised that any excess funds will go back into the club.

I don't GAF how much they paid him. Loyalty or family connections have nothing to do with it. Jack Viney is now elite property and will be paid as such.

From a poll on the Herald Sun website today he polled 78% of votes as being the best ruckman, Goldstein was next best at 17%. So much universal love for the big man.

There are 3 levels of Sponsorship. Gold, Silver and Bronze. They vary in price and rewards for the sponsors. Most players have Gold, Silver and Bronze sponsors and some only have one or two levels. Hunt and Wagner both had the Silver level available so I took it. When I went to the Season Launch dinner I sat on the sponsors table with Maxy as my family are Silver Sponsors for him. Wagner was placed on our table and at the time he did not have a sponsor. I don't believe the players get any financial benefits from the sponsorship. I might be mistaken but I believe it is just another fundraising activity for the club. The donations and Demonland Memberships are a way for the users of Demonland to help contribute to the costs incurred in running the site. I recently had to double our server capacity and hence the monthly expenses wnet up and I hope users have noticed that the site hasn't crashed on match day for the past few weeks. I have always said that if there is anything left over in the kitty I would donate it back to the club. Part of that helped to pay for the sponsorship of these players. The rest was out of my own pocket but I'm happy to share that with the Demonland community so that we can support these guys through their careers at the Demons.

I often get asked how much it costs to run the site and it is not cheap. You might have noticed that we are no longer crashing on match days during our peak activity and that is because we doubled the specs of our server. The hosting cost approximately $170 a month and the message board software is approximately $500 a year. All up that's about $2500 a year and that does not count the time that I, Nasher and Whispering put in to the running of the site not to mention the moderators who do a thankless task. So if you would like to keep this site going and want to contribute see my post above for the options that suit you.

don't post nutbean don't post nutbean don't post nutbean

Okay, Emma.

I thought Emma Quayle's summation was pretty good. It was in the context of an article about trading future draft picks. I think we traded next year's first round draft pick for these reasons: It helped us to get the pick that we used on Oliver (ahead of Essendon) It helped us to get another top-10 pick that we used on Weideman If we rise up the ladder, two top 10 picks in 2015 are better than one top-10 pick in 2016 If we do, the 2016 first round pick wouldn't be worth much more than the extra 2015 first-round pick we received (#9). Make the 8 and our 2016 first-round pick is #10, at best. It's better to have a good pick 'in the hand' and developing rather than another new recruit for 2017, especially with a tall like Weideman.

So with a LARGE sample size of 5 games. I'm going to make a big call that this guy will be as important as any player going forward. In wins against Collingwood, Tigers and GC, he's had 13, 11, 12 kicks. In losses against North and Saints, he's had 3 and 6 kicks. Wagner is a deadly kick and usually sets up plays coming off half back. My prediction. If he gets 10+ kicks a game and maintains a disposal efficiency of > 75% I think we'll win more than we do lose. I plan on monitoring this and seeing how accurate it is. I think the AFL world is yet to realise how good this kid really is.

So what you are saying is that the entire football industry that watches and comments on under age football is blind or on narcotics. I certainly agree that he has been a major disappointment but ... "He was drafted by Melbourne with the fourth selection in the 2012 AFL Draft, after playing for Woodville-West Torrens in the South Australian National Football League. He made his SANFL senior debut late in the 2011 season and he played in Woodville West-Torrens' 2011 premiership side in only his fifth game.[1] He was the captain of the South Australian team at the 2012 AFL Under 18 Championships[2] and was named in the All-Australian team at the conclusion of the tournament.[3] " Played in a senior comp in 2011, Captained his state and made all Australian and he didn't have "attitude" ? People have pointed to his hips and said that should have rung huge warning bells - why doesn't the same apply to Max Gawn who had a knee reconstruction prior to being drafted ? Some are rewriting history about a very very talented under age footballer who has become a very very disappointing AFL footballer.

Just signed up my almost 8 month old lad to a baby Dees membership.

KB's comments leave me extremely cold saying we need more close-ups. Does he really like the handball going out of frame to be taken by an unseen player (or opponent)? I'd like to get some feel for what is ahead of and around the player like you can when you are at the footy. If the camera pulls back, KB says he only sees "ants"? He needs a bigger and better TV. http://www.sen.com.au/news/afl/05-16/kbs-take-channel-seven-must-improve-afl-camerawork

2012 ^ this thread. Now ^ And you rated him tough... Very easy to change your thinking in hindsight SWYL. Once too often I'd suggest.

The unrepresented percentage stated would NOT prefer that you said nothing. I for one appreciate most people's points of view.

I read that too and wondered what she was trying to say. Perhaps, Melbourne in a master stroke of trading, swapped picks in order to get future champion Clayton Oliver before evil Essendon.

A few reasons I guess: we don't argue about the good ones because everyone agrees. We argue about fringe players because that is where people differ. the performance of the team relies on 22 contributors each week. People rightly or wrongly believe the last few can make a defining difference. many like me feel a loyalty to those who went through the disaster that we were. I think players like Grimes and Garland have seen their careers curtailed or ruined as a result of our mismanagement and inept behaviour. Those players stayed loyal to us to their own detriment so the few that remain (like Garland and Grimes) deserve better than having posters vilify them and many, like me, would love to see them be part of our future success and reward them for their past support. I don't think I've seen anyone here get upset about someone saying (respectfully) Garland isn't up to it but I get upset when a vendetta using elevated language is run against him and when posters like jnrmac lie about the players performance to make them look bad and support the posters view. I know that we all crave team success and it's how we are measured but many admire the lesser lights and just want the best for them. You knew all that but I just felt like saying it.

It was a clear weakness, and one that MFC didn't attempt to rectify. Port have put A LOT of work into Toumpas contested ball efforts, and overall inside game. It is starting to pay off, he is making slight improvements. I think eventually the penny will drop. In hindsight it is easy to say MFC drafted the wrong player, but I think we also have to acknowledge that we didn't handle Toumpas as well as we could have. He had weaknesses, and MFC didn't attempt to rectify them, and if they did, clearly failed in doing so. I hope Toumpas makes it, and I see big improvements this year, I like the kid. Good luck Jimmy.

I am an MCC member and I also take the MFC membership. With the proviso that one is financially able , I see my MCC membership as a payment for easy walk up to games, good seats, good view and access to finals and the Grand Final. I see my MFC membership as giving money to watch the club I love play.

during highschool I played junior football and still hold two records; most red cards recieved and I was the only guy ever to take off my boot and try to stab someone.

Im an MCC member that basically pays an extra 70 bucks a year so i can get a scarf. We aren't tight haha.

Footy is not such a complicated game. If you are prepared to work hard the results will mostly take care of themselves. I have been watching the game for 40 plus years and that much has never changed. I just watched the "goals" again and picked up some unbelievable ( and probably unheralded) workrate in the goal that Garlett kicked after receiving a dolly handball from Kent in the 3rd Quarter. The ball is thrown up on our half back line - a bit of a scramble but Oliver's quick hands gets the ball out to Kennedy who kicks long to Hogan. Hogan contests, the ball hits the ground and Hogan butters up with a great tackle and who gets the spill ? Oliver - he delivers another beautiful handpass to Bugg in space, to Kent, onto Gartlett into the open goal. Count the time between Oliver's first handball to Kennedy on the half back line and his 2nd handball to Bugg on the half forward line. He impacted the first contest - had to have sprinted 50 metres to the next contest and impacted it in a big way. That is exceptional workrate and if our team brings this to the table each week the results will follow.

Im a student, mcc and mfc member and it is god dam expensive. Working weekend i only get to 3-ish games a year so it works out to roughly $250 a game... (first time ive ever thought of it like this and i kind of wish i hadnt now)... i dont think its fair to criticise mcc members for their loyalty. As saty mentioned the majority of the mcc are members and as the club continues to rise the likelyhood of increasing that number will rise. Its more important however to reach a broader audience as thisnis where more growth lies

That's gold, Jerry. Gold!

How good would it be to see him holding up the premiership cup one day...?

The club is very confident that: Hogan will re-sign to a long term contract this calendar year. Despite reports to the contrary discussions with his manager are on-going and positive. We got close last summer. Dion Prestia will request a transfer to the Dees at season end. This means we will probably have to give up player and next years first round but in my mind this is utter gold. Dion is massively underrated on this site. Do not judge Dion by last weeks performance...... he played injured.

I suspect we might be a destination club simply because a lot of midfielders don't want to be on the opposite team to Jack Viney