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Another season’s done and dusted and we at Demonland would like to thank all of you our contributors for your participation in this difficult year for the Melbourne Football Club. In particularly, I would like to thank Nasher for keeping the site together and to our feature writers George on the Outer, Whispering Jack, The Oracle and all of our other contributors for keeping Demonland going throughout season 2020. Also a big thank you to Whispering Jack, grapeviney and George on their tireless and often thankless efforts as Moderators. And now, we look forward to the future. Bring on 2021!

All looking good. Expect him to nominate melbourne any time now. Both parties are seemingly very excited.

Brown and smith are coming, hind I think will as well, and there are two other players who’d walk into our best 22 that haven’t been mentioned on here that I’ve been asked not to name. But I’m sure demonlanders won’t complain when the names are revealed. we’re desperate to get young macrae through the door. looking at a similar restructure to our list as the saints had last year introducing a lot of speed to their side

Do supporters realise there's a limited pool of players moving club each year ? Do they realise their club is restricted to those limited choices ? Do they want their list to improve ? You may not be overly excited by Polec, but do you think he'll make the list worse ? Who else do you think is available if you don't want him ? Ball butcher Phillips ? Who else ? Not to mention I reckon some people posting here have no great grasp on opposition players anyway. They see them fleetingly yet make concrete opinions based on small samples. Yet when one of their players is set to be traded, like Preuss, they're suddenly worth a pick in the 20s. What if I said to you we can recruit the player who's kicked the second most goals in the AFL since 2017 without giving up a heap ?

Yep, this. Completely agree. Great post. Smith and Polec could well have a revolutionary impact on our game style. A bit like Port's forward dynamism at the top of 2019 having brought in the players they did in the 2018 draft. Geelong changed their forward make up too leading into 2019 with similar results. If the likes of Oliver and Petracca are teaming with ball users like Smith and Polec, we'll look a very different team. We definitely need to exploit our midfield dominance more and hopefully Yze plays a big role here, but as for the rest of the field, my big concern is the forward half. As I've said previously, Brown will make Weideman a much better player. I also think we need to use Viney, Harmes and Petracca through the forward half like Richmond use Martin, Caddy, Prestia, Edwards etc. The other variable that recruiting Smith and Polec could bring is enabling Salem to become a more damaging player. It makes us more unpredictable from half back too. I'm liking where all this is going though. A backline of May, Lever, Tomlinson, Rivers, Salem, Smith, Hibberd is a good one. Lots of decent kickers in that mix too. We know we have midfield stars and in time, there's no reason why Petracca couldn't be as dominant in big games as Martin has become over the last few years. If we can keep this list together, improve the systems to maximise the talent we have and compliment all of this by improving the bottom 6-8 players with decent role players as you say, I think we can win the big one. And soon.

I like learning from experienced players that have played in premierships and been part of a rebuild. Players that have seen the whole journey up the ladder. And I particularly like listening to Luke Hodge. He talks sense and is straight to the point. Very recently he said that the difference between being a good team and becoming a flag team is recruiting role players. Obviously, the stars are already in place, but a handful of stars aren't enough if you don't surround them with players who can help complete the task. Think Hale, Poppy, Guerra etc. at Hawthorn. You really need 22 players performing their role to a high degree. 21 or 20 will leave you short and cost games. Richmond are a perfect example of how lesser lights who perform their role to a high level make an enormous difference. You only need to look at the top 20 of our B&F. There was a chasm between the top 12 and the performances of the rest. In reality, to win more games than we lost shows how good our better players performed, because they weren't being supported. I blame the lack of quality role players, but also the coaching panel, game structures, etc. I think we've got the core group of stars or very good players already on our list, but we're lacking quality role players to take us forward. A great core group, but not great/quality depth. Not every player we're looking at recruiting this trade period needs to be a star. They'll ALL have deficiencies that Deespencer can pick apart, but if we choose wisely we might just bring in players that can have a significant difference to our overall fortunes.

If this is your response to someone who tries to engage in a decent discussion with you, even when you don't deserve it, then I don't know why you're here. Binman, for the record, makes plenty of sense and does so on a far more regular basis than your good self.

What on earth are you talking about? Brown is lightly built? He is taller and heavier than lynch. Riddle me this - after winning a flag in 2017 without a big key forward why did they then go after and land lynch, a big key forward who instantly became their highest paid player? Another question. Giiven how critical big key marking defenders of the ilk of mcgovern, may and vlaustin ate in modern footy who do you think are best placed to negate their influence? Mid size forwards like say hannan? One more question, related to the second. Geelong best big key marking defender one of the best in tbe AFL was arguably the best player on the ground in tbe first half. But was unsighted in the second half. Which forward do you think was most responsible for that, and in particular stopping him marking? Again, going to Hannibal's point about players doing a job and playing their role, perhaps to your surprised lynch metrics and kpis were unlikely be goals kicked, or even marks taken. His kpi is no doubt halving contests and making sure the ball hits rhe ground where his smaller teamates can do damage. Which they did. And as a result won a grand final

I think bringing in Brown would just require us to re-think our mid-size and small forwards. Brown is a clear upgrade, and a big one, on every other player in our forward line. And has better consistent form than both Jeremy Cameron and Joe Daniher. The problem is that none of our mid-sizers like Fritsch, Melksham etc. are good at locking the ball in our f50. It’s why Kozzie is so important and why we should think about playing Viney and Harmes forward more.

@Skuit One thing I've learned about Demonland is that Andy and co. can't keep people like HFF, Elegt, Olisik etc at bay because these types will always come back in another form. It's the same on any forum. They aren't really breaking any rules, even if they post with the skill of a monkey with half a brain most of the time. Best thing to go is to stick them on ignore. You cut out 90% of their contribution (with 10% taken up when someone quotes them) and you can focus on the wide array of diverse and interesting supporters that do frequent this site. There are many of them, you included, and it's why I enjoy this site. I hope you stick around, mate. Don't let the others win. Cheers.

Hard to argue with stupidity mate. Brown would be a great addition to the club.

No they haven’t as far as I’m aware ET but when the time is right I’ll be sure to let you know first so the best news breaker on demonland can break the story ;)

You'd expect Baker to be a roll player on his sort of dough.

Nah mate, I can coach ;)

My favourite post of the weekend, it brings hope.

HFF clearly has a bit of an agenda against Brown from pages back where he mentioned that he didn’t like that Brown cared about social (political) issues and was interested in more than just kicking a footy. Every criticism since has been developed from that mindset and I don’t think it’s worth engaging with HFF on this topic.

Agreed, Hard fought game but instead of the thread being about a great game a troll comments about the 2009 draft and others still wallowing in self pity chime in. Ffs get over it it's 11 years ago. As for the game after poor first halfs Grimes, Broad and Balta all improved. Tigers played Nankervis behind the ball in the 3rd quarter and Balta moved forward. Others are correct in the assessment of Dusty just putting his head over the ball and not looking for frees. Standard set for us to chase Best Tigers -Dusty, Edwards, Short, Graham, Cotchin Cats - Duncan, Guthrie, Stewart, Menagola

Sure, the Grand Final is a different kind of game, but you've gotta win enough to get there though. No coincidence two teams with big gun forwards made it.

Irony in a nutshell!

Can we just get over the missed recruiting of Dusty....2009 Time to move on crew. If we had of picked him he would have gone to GWS instead of Scully, there is no way known he would have stayed around in the basket case that was the Melbourne Football Club of the time... Look ahead to 2021 now.

Tall forwards sure get you to grand finals though. There were two Coleman medallists and an All-Australian KPF playing tonight. Do Geelong make the GF without Hawkins or Richmond without Reiwoldt/Lynch? Don’t think so.

Use your loaf, man. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

I don't get this just a 'lead-up' forward business either. For starters, so what, if he's kicking 60 a year? It would imply he's the best lead-up forward in the game. I'll take that for pick 23, in a team constantly criticised for not kicking to leading targets (which is a two-way street, and requires the ability to offer a lead in space). But more importantly, he does have a well-rounded game by most measures: a great mark and set-shot, and can bend and snap the ball. Can also ruck. Then there's his aerobic capacity. I left a reminder in another thread - but it's worth repeating for the record here - that he also averaged the most kms of any AFL player last year, at 15.6km per match. That's how you fit Brown, Weid and Jackson into the same team. Another mobile roaming tall who can mark a ball would be a godsend after the exit of Hogan and decline of TMac. I think people just see him as a bit soft-footed as compared to a big traditional one-on-one KPF, and so come up with any reason to say no.

WTF does that have to do with his being taken on or not?? What century/decade are you even living in?? How about we get Max to rid himself of that hipster beard as well! Sure, it's reasonable to comment on the excessively long run up (but if it helps him to kick accurately, then I certainly don't have a problem with it), or to comment on his staging (not that I've really noticed it so much), but sorry, I find those concerns about a person's appearance (which has no bearing on their footballing ability) to be so out of step with reality.

This has been written about Brown so often that it's become an assumed fact, but what does it even mean? All full forwards lead at the ball carrier when they have the space. Tom Hawkins, one of the best contested marking forwards in the league, is arguably coming off a career best season. He averaged 1.5 contested marks per game. Ben Brown averages 1.6 contested marks per game across his entire career. Brown is a damn good forward and much more rounded player than most give him credit for. If he gets back to anything even close to his best form with us, he will improve our forwardline immeasurably. If we could get him for a second round pick, that would be one of the biggest steals at the trade table in living memory.

Yep. The need for players to play their role, something players reference all the the time, has never been greater. Makes it hard to assess performance in some instances. This is true of both the mid range players and the best. For example most fans including me thought Oliver had a better second half of the season than the first. But the bluey numbers don't reflect that (or perhaps his rumoured robust exit interview). Maybe that is related to role? I agree the big issue for the dees is not the top 12 players, it is the next 28

Good post. I'm a bit in the boat of not having a great grasp of opposition players. Hard to if you don't watch them regularly. I have watched more non dees games this year than I ever have (last few seasons I pretty much only watched dees games). And in doing so it is a good reminder that the pool is pretty shallow and players i might have think have a particular skill set, say elite kicking (something i look for) make their fair share of errors. Saad and Williams are two good examples. The related thing that annoys me is complaints about over paying for players we need, at least for mid range players, like hibbetd or tomlinson. Bottom line if a club does not draft and develop the right mix of players it is st the mercy of tbe market. But from a market perspective Brown is a no brainer. We need a decent big forward. And can get one for a decent price. Where's the issue. On polec he too is a bargain but to be honest whilst I like his skills he is one of those players I haven't watched enough to make a judgement. Cant imagine goody would like a player who was not picked because of his defensive efforts, but we need skill because of the stupid decision to focus so much on contested ball winners so hw might be worth the gamble m given the low cost. On Brown it is ironic we need a big forward and we are looking to trade tmac. For the life of me given his weight and lack of mobility this season, why they didn't plsy tmac out of the square. But be that as it may Hannibal, your assertion in 2017 that tmac was no forward (which I argued against then) has been proven to be correct. Yes he kicked goals in 2018 but that was with Hogan in the team and in large part a function of his mobility and our quick transition. But he has never looked a natural forward and has little forward craft. Unlike Brown who looks every inch a natural forward.

Been well reported we'd ruled out Hogan I thought?

Understand what you’re saying mate! My general rule is if it’s been posted previously it’s fine to mention it.

Not disputing that Old Dee. But if you're selling the club as a destination, and can showcase a whole lot of added extras, it's going to help. The money thrown at Geelong is pretty substantial and that flows to club sponsorship, facilities etc

If he plays for us next year and kicks forty goals he can wear his hair any way he chooses.

I'm pretty sure there was stroking involved

Fair enough. I know then not to bother engaging in a discussion about football with you then. Though to be honest you don't have to be a Rhodes scholar to make sense of my questions.

Interestingly Martin effectively put himself on the market about 5 years ago. Very little interest from other clubs so he stayed at Richmond.

That's a crumby post

He’s too hot and cold. We need to improve our bottom 6 - 8 players with solid, consistent contributors. No issue with him being traded.