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I've resisted commenting hoping it would just go away, but seeing this thread sitting near the top of the forum each time I come on Demonland is stress inducing. Oliver is about as close to untradeable as you can get in my opinion. I rate him right up alongside Petracca, only difference is Oliver has been top shelf from the minute he walked into the side as an 18 year old.

Persist with Fritsch????? He is only our most consistent forward the last two years, and probably the best mark in our team. He is a great young talent and I really don’t get the haters.

Look everyone's tradable. My starting position is Cripps, Weitering, McKay, Walsh, pick 7 and 2021 1st rounder. Every day they don't accept add another player. Am i doing it right Adrian?

https://twitter.com/7AFL/status/1316897501333528577?s=20 Best wishes to Jerri & Nathan & the family.

Some very harsh judgements of Oliver on here. Forget the bnf, spots 3-5 were separated by a miniscule amount. He was in the AA squad. He was at the top of most KPI's for a midfielder. He is 23 yo. Anyone looking at him as to why we missed finals are way off the mark. He is a key reason we ended up 9th. If 18 of his teammates trained and played like he does finals would be beyond doubt. If they lift their game his would go thru the roof.

Hearing Yze is working very hard go get him accross and he's strongly leaning towards coming. not quite 100% but very close to it.

Geelong has a culture that is better than probably all 17 other clubs, that's undeniable and a testament to their management and leadership. They've also got some unique attributes that Melbourne-based clubs can't offer (e.g. not being in Melbourne, "country" lifestyle and associated cost of living benefits, etc.). We're not the only club who missed the finals who could use Jeremy Cameron. You also don't know what's been done by the club behind the scenes: again, the key issue is that the world doesn't work in a way that says we should be able to convince any given player to show up and play for us. IMO this is baseless, @Lucifer's Hero. Suggesting we were May, Lever, Langdon or Tomlinson's "only option left" is ridiculous and unfair. Suggesting the only players who come here don't "really want to play for us" is ridiculous and unfair. Complaining about paying "overs" is also unfair. How do you think Carlton has attracted Saad and Williams? Bucketloads of cash! Almost every club, if not every club, pays "overs" to attract A-grade talent from other clubs. May was in AA form this year. Lever is a previous AA squad member. Langdon showed enormous promise and made us a significantly better side this year. Those three acquisitions have been great. It's revisionism IMO to suggest we haven't able to attract good players over the last few years.

Inside mid - tick Butcher - tick Would have to give up first rounder - tick Sign me up

Keeping things simple why don't we just trade our two big macs to North for their curly fries.

Feel free not to click on the link to this thread. That is your freedom of choice.

Jesus I hate Geelong. They got their hyper priveleged nose out of joint because Viney stayed with us. Cry me a frikn river. Unimaginable that a player , having had time to think, would choose to stick with his club rather than go to them. It must be they got used FMD. Hope Viney cuts them a new one next time we play.

Like others on here, the cynic in me questions why Collingwood wants Nev. Sincerely hope it is not that dirty word - tokenism. There. I said it. I don't trust Collingwood. I would rather have Nev stay with us.

I have been reading Demonland for many years & felt compelled to join to make a comment about Neville Jetta. He is my favourite player! Nev is a proud Nyoongar man who has had to battle his way back onto the list over the years & then to be recognised as one of the best small defenders in the AFL. Neville was in the All Australian squad in 2017 & in 2018 won the 2018 Jim Stynes Community Leadership Award. 2020 was anything but a usual year & with shortened turnarounds between games, & no VFL to display form, niggles to 'older' players disadvantaged them. With the AFL reviewing list sizes some heart-breaking decisions may be required. I respect what Nathan Jones has done for the Club, but would find it disappointing if Nathan was offered a contract to enable him to reach 300 games & Nev was not offered a contract. We need people like Nev & 'Flash' in the football Club to complement what 'Wheels' is doing. Neville has been inspirational both on & off the field & he should be offered a new contract with both a playing & non-playing aspect to it. Eddie Betts is likely to be offered a new contract by the Blues as a player & a mentor & Neville Jetta should be offered a contract too.

So putting this on the front page of the Hun killed it. Taskforce coming back very soon with recommendations. One option building over the AAMI carpark on Gosch's side. Either way, likely to have a location for our future base soon.

And yet you still come on here to put in your 2 cents worth everytime you continue to bore everyone with the same comment. If this thread riles you up old man feel free to ignore it. If people want to continue to discuss this then they have every right too. Its a football discussion.

My heart goes out to Rhyce. I've been in that dark place resulting from work nightmares ... as have others close to me. I hope he finds peace.

I guess it depends on how you are defining 'best''. Schwarz was the best player i have seen at the dees outside of Flower, prior to his firsts knee injury. The only player to come close is Trac this year. So i would have Schwarz at the top of my list of bets platers at the dees in the last 33 years. And even after his two knee injuries he was a star for us. And incredibly consistent. Barely played a poor game. Easy to forget he won the bluey in 1999 in a bloody goody team. Don't get me wrong i agree Oliver is a star but personally i have Stynes, Nieta and max ahead of Oliver too and to be honest also, after this year Tracc too. That was the best season of football from a dees player since Nieta's in 1995.

That’s costing $100K. How many people at the AFL have lost jobs this year? It’s an insult to them and their families.

Dear Simon, please take notes on what it takes to play wet weather football. move the ball forward at all times, do not over handball, keep it simple. Thanks. Demonfans.

I really don't know what this is all about but I'm certain of one thing - if Kennett is involved, altruism won't be on the agenda.

I think our current inclusions stack up OK against Carlton and St.Kilda so far. Hibberd, Melksham, Lever, May, Preuss, Langdon and Tomlinson. I expect we'll add at least 2 more this year.

Very sad to hear, been through this once ourselves a few years ago and I thought once was sad enough. At the time I felt a little numb and wasn’t sure how to handle it until I realised how hard it hit my wife. Just being there and supporting is all you can really do in tough times. Best wishes to the Jones family.

Really tragic news for them, having been through this twice myself (well my wife) I know this happens so much more than is widely reported, so I respect how brave they were to put themselves in the spotlight and hope they are getting all the support they want and need.

This really is outrageous considering the cost cutting required for the AFL’s clubs to survive this Covid19 ravaged season. Many good people in the football industry have lost jobs and been forced to make personal and financial sacrifices for the good of the game and these have been spread out across the board. From early on, Melbourne has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic for reasons that have been well documented but this one is extremely cutting*. On Thursday 3 September, the club had to fly up from its Maroochydore hub to Cairns for its Round 15 game v Sydney which was played in the evening. My understanding is that we had to undertake the grueling same day flight in a charter with Fremantle for “cost saving” reasons. The Dockers played Richmond a day earlier so we were required to go up on the same day as the match. We also had our game v Freo four days later. A win in either match would have seen us in the finals. This isn’t making excuses for two poor performances when a finals appearance was at stake and clearly, we know there’s no such thing as a level playing field in the AFL but I find it offensive that after being forced to travel in those circumstances to save the competition some coin and after the job losses and cost cutting in 2020, that the AFL is wasting $s in getting MCG grass to the grand final. Gil and his mates must really be smoking it if they think this is the right thing to do. At the very least, they should be taking it out of their salary. ‘Ridiculous waste’: MCG turf relocation leaves footy fans divided * no pun intended

God, if Geelong win too, I hope Dictator Dan lets us out to play golf next Saturday.

Love to see port win tonight. Wonder who Lynch will have a dig at tonight. I laughed when Hardwick said about the players being tough. Digging our knee into a players neck is not tough.

i think either game could go either way however i'll tip port and bears probably a subconscious choice based on want

It seems pretty clear Jamie Elliott used MFC to up his offer at Collingwood last year. It's reasonably common.

Fritsch is a forward for me and a natural one at that. If only he could kick straight. He had within 8-10 shots at goal for the year of Dixon, Kennedy and Lynch. And he played one less game than all of them. It's no stretch to say he should be kicking between 40-50 goals per year. That ability is too valuable to be wasted behind the ball where it's far easier to play.

So two of the clubs that benefited from the dilution of the talent pool, and compromised drafts while they were at the top, are now arguing we can't support this many teams any longer, because they have finally started to bottom out? Sounds legit.

I can see that my 'Fritsch in defence' thoughts are about as popular as COVID, so I'll try to give a bit more information to support it (although I may still skip doing so for COVID). Fritsch has received Brownlow votes twice: two votes in a tight win against Carlton at half back (26 touches, behind T McDonald who kicked 6 before being injured), and two votes in a close loss to the Eagles 2 weeks later (kicking 4 as the second tall forward). He stayed forward in every game after that and we lost them all, despite him kicking goals. He kicked goals as a key forward, with Weid and TMac both missing, rather than as a small forward. In games he has played as a forward from 2018-now, we were 13-14 with him in defence/not forward, and 16-18 with him forward. We won the game he missed this year against St Kilda in a dour defensive slog. There were some excellent articles in the 'Game Plan' thread and I saw this table from one of them, which showed the top 4 teams and their contribution of goals from different players. It shows a 'barbell' of goalkickers, where goals are mostly kicked by the talls or smalls, with few being kicked by the mediums (mostly midfieders). This makes sense, because it's so much harder to get space inside 50 in the modern game, so the goals are kicked from big marks (eg, Charlie Dixon, Tom Hawkins, Tom Lynch) or crumbing forward (eg, Robbie Gray, Brendan Parfitt, Daniel Rioli). Then have a look at ours: We kick twice as many goals from mediums as the others, and hardly any from the talls and smalls. 4 of our top 5 goalkickers were mediums (Fritsch, Petracca, Melksham, Hunt - nobody else kicked double figures other than Weideman). Fritsch kicked 22 from 16 games as our leading goalkicker, so it's clear that what we're doing isn't working. Our best wins were when we lost the inside 50 count because we could kick goals in transition (where mediums thrive) but couldn't kick goals when teams were set against us (where the tall/small setup is better). We can solve our tall issues because we have some talented players like Jackson, Weid and Petty (and possibly Brown). But Fritsch doesn't help our small forward problems because he isn't a small forward, but instead he'd be a fourth tall forward! He has shown promise as a smooth moving and flexible defender who can intercept and provide drive. I think that's the role he best serves the team in.

I’d love Ben Brown. He had a very difficult year personally, and a change will do him good. He makes it that much harder for a defender to roll off him and go third up as he’s tall, quick and wants to lead - so you have to be brave to leave him. He’ll make Weed gain confidence by giving him the second best defender, and bring consistency to our smaller forwards roles. It’s an absolute no brainer on one condition - there isn’t an injury concern. If we do our due diligence and he looks good then I hope we snag him.

They nicknamed a black man “chimp”. He has witnesses to corroborate this. Collingwood and AFL have handled this terribly and will be shown up badly. It’s another reason why I dislike the suits that run the game. They proclaim how woke and right-on they are but as soon as the rubber hits the road it’s a different story. There’s no doubt Lumumba is a temperamental character but he’s dead right here. I’m forward to seeing Collingwood and the AFL squirm.

So what happened to the investigation announced by Collingwood in June? What is "everybody's truth"? What does Eddie mean by that remark. Lumumba is pursuing the telling of the truth as he experienced it. Is it so hard for a club to say sorry and acknowledge wrongs if they were done? Denying everything doesn't make things magically go away. It only causes more hurt to the person who experienced the discrimination. This could have been settled before without court action. It seems Eddie doesn't want to admit his perfect family club is not so perfect in its treatment of certain individuals. Notice Lumumba doesn't indicate he suffered the same experience at Melbourne. A sad situation for all. Collingwood should take more ownership of what went on and just apologize. Sometimes that is all victims want to hear.

OMG how I love your posts Chook!

Honestly don't understand the palaver. Sounds completely believable he is frustrated. Have little doubt its true. And would hardly be shocked if he wants out if we dont make tge finals next year.

I feel the MFC should give North a hand. Among other things they now have no coach. We should loan them our coach for the next two seasons. Seems only fair to me.

If this club starts losing players of Oliver’s caliber it’s all over. If you don’t agree you’ve got no idea

Coaching is a tough gig. All the best to him. Would prefer Roos to come back to us though.

The way it’s written on the AFL website implies that the media and wider industry have known this for a long time. Also states if he does come back it won’t be as senior coach and implies Voss may be taking over. North’s season just went from bad to terminal. I really feel for all involved. Hard for the club, difficult for supporters, and next to impossible to evaluate for players.

One of the reports noted that Oliver's managers have strenuously denied all these rumours.

It wasn't directed at you mate. It was directed at half the posts on Clarry this season and since the season finished. I don't particularly care how the coaches voted in the BnF. It was as clear as day that Oliver was our second or third best player by some margin and well ahead of Viney. Jack then has the arrogance to come out and say the midfield plays selfishly, but seems to excuse himself, easily our most selfish mid. If we lose Oliver and keep Jack, our club is going nowhere.

I wouldn’t put Melksham and Fritsch in the same boat. Melksham was putrid this year. Apart from some wayward kicking Fritsch who is really a medium forward had to take up the slack of the big forwards and put his hand up when basically no one else would, especially Milkshake who had a very lazy year.

Yep. Don't mind it, at all. I don't know if any of those potential targets are the answer, but we've got to try something in this space. When things go wrong, our focus seems to be on how many talls we have. I think the key is minimising our medium forwards. You can have three tall forwards, but then you've got to surround them with genuine smalls. Too many times, we'd have Hannan, Melksham and Fritsch in the same forward line, then blame it on the talls when it doesn't work. Also, If you have more talls and more crumbers, your strategy looks better. The extra tall forces at least one intercept player to play a man and the way you enter becomes a lot less significant. You can lower your eyes because without the extra zoning defender, there's space to lead into but you can also bomb the ball in, get a contest and bring the little guys in. This is where I think we too often blame the kicker. If your structure doesn't keep the defence honest, your asking far too much of the bloke with the ball. Fingers crossed, we can get some solid talent into the forward line over the off-season.

The AFL in its current guise is unsustainable. The suns are a waste of time and money. A drain. GWS not much better. All the while, Tasmania, a genuine footy state and capable of supporting a team with a leg up is ignored. HQ full of suits, consultants and hangers on that contribute zip to the game. I mean, half those roles have gone as a result of the pandemic and you wouldn’t notice. The AFL is run by a few for the benefit of a few. All that money flows to the top to pay an elite group of administrators and players. It’s wrong. I’d much prefer to see a model whereby much more funds were distributed to local footy clubs and facilities, coaching for kids, grassroots. The game is for the people not for a few to enrich themselves. It would be a silver lining if the pandemic forced a re-think and a more egalitarian model. Won’t happen though. Too many powerful clubs and vested interests. Too much money at stake. All that'll happen is a couple of clubs get squeezed out and their share divvied up amongst the remainder.

Essendon forcing Daniher to stay (after they already had a chance to trade him last year) would be the most Essendon thing ever.

No need for that.

Nev is another who spent most of 2019 injured and the lack of a VFL comp in 2020 prevented him from finding form and consistency. 2020 is a poor measure of his performance. I wouldn't be too quick to trade him out especially if it was for some rubbish pick. Sometimes a players team value and cultural value cannot measured. I don't mean indigenous cultural value albeit that is important. I mean cultural value in terms of role model and standards both football and community contribution.