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Ok, so getting back to footy... This is second hand info, passed onto me by someone who has spoken to family of players. Harmes has been chased by North this trade period. Roosy has been making a few calls to him trying to entice him over with his preferred role of being a run with/inside mid. Don't know how much he considered it, wasn't told, but Harmes had been pretty disappointed with Goodwin during the year for not communicating. He had a meeting with Goodwin yesterday and apparently put it all on the table a bit. Made it clear he wasn't happy with where the culture was at and that there was different rules for different players. Goody didn't agree with all of it but at least heard him out and it was apparently a pretty productive meeting. What's come out of that is Goody has told him he won't be traded and that next year he will go back to a run with role where he drifts forward. The feeling from the family member was that it was an improvement from what they've seen with Goody's listening and they put it down to mostly Richo's influence and possibly a bit of Yze's. Not exactly earth shattering news, but thought I'd pass on to try and get us back on track a bit.

I think this is a classic case of confirmation bias. Here is what I think: we are short of small backs. Jetts is cooked (sadly), Hibbo is very close to the end and beyond that we have Salem and Rivers who are AFL quality small backs and I suspect Rivers may well finish elsewhere. Lockhart is a WIP and I'm struggling to think of other small backs. we have an abundance of mids. Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw, Petracca are all ahead of Harmes for inside mid stuff so the FD decided that they should see how Harmes goes in the HB role. That's not mismanagement. He trained there all PS and appeared to do well. We played him there for most of this season but most would agree it didn't work. If the info from LN is true the FD have recognized this and will move Harmes back to the role he plays best and they will no doubt look to fill the HB role with someone else. I've read this forum for a long time and couldn't count the number of times I've seen posters suggest players play in different position. The FD tried to utilize Harmes more effectively off a HBF and it didn't work. So they change it back. That's damning, not. So where is this Goody's "mismanagement and people skills". I accept that Harmes would probably prefer to play elsewhere but like the vast majority of players he'll willingly go where he's most valuable to the team. So he didn't complain. Goody recognized the experiment didn't work so he's changed it. Good management in my book. LF where have you heard "different rules for different players"? My reading is Goody is pretty ruthless. Hogan and Watts will testify to that. Goodwin's job security relies on success so he is hardly going to play favourites at the expense of team success. How often have I seen on DL "he needs to have five or six weeks to show what he's got" and yet when someone doesn't perform and continues to get a game it's "Goody's favourites". I think the concept of "Goody's favourites" is rot, but it's just a view. I like Goody and so I'll support him here. I can't see he's done much wrong. Mahoney too. 2021 is clearly critical to their futures as a disappointing year will probably mean the end for both but I'm fairly accepting of last year. We just aren't as good as the top teams and we were consistent in our performances against the rest except for Swans and Freo where we were cooked and were dealt a terrible hand by the AFL. And finally on Dr Evil. I've got close contacts at the Club and hear things from time to time. I heard Smith was 100% ours. I think he was until Chris Scott clearly gave him a better offer and Smith changed his mind. It happens. BTW, if I hear something I'm not sharing it on a footy forum. If I do the information I get will dry up and my view is we all find out in the end. I mean really, what does a week matter? We'll know by next Friday what's happened. Having said that I enjoy the rumours and treat all of them as rumours regardless of the "certainty" of the poster. Edit: much of what I've said has been posted as I typed. Apologies for not referencing those before me.

I've seen enough to know he'll make it. He's a footballer, he's 198 and he's aggressive.

I've said this before, if you're coming on a football fan forum and you're not taking every single thing you read with a grain of salt, you've only got yourself to blame. and if you're getting upset or annoyed at posters for getting it wrong, grow up. I almost never share the intel i get on the public forum anymore because it's genuinely not worth the BS that comes with it.

With longer quarters and a longer season in 2021 we'll need more players in the midfield rotation than we had in 2020. If we push Petracca and possibly Harmes, Oliver and Viney forward for periods then we'll need midfield cover coming off the bench. The 22 should have at least 7 mids including wings, maybe 8 if some are is pushed forward periodically. Petracca, Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw, Harmes, Langdon, TBA wing. There's easily room for them all and more. I'd be OK with retrying Tomlinson on the wing. I have Petty ahead of him in the backline and I think on the MCG in longer games his height and stamina can be used to advantage. He's an average footballer but he can play a number of roles at an acceptable level so he provides useful depth for in-match injuries.

Ah thanks for clearing that up. Makes sense to me, I think we all saw the Harmes back experiment failed. I do think we need another HBF though. May, Lever, Salem, Rivers, Hibberd, are backline locks with Hib near the end. Tomlinson will play a role, making 6. You need 7 in the 22, and preferably another couple. Lockhart doesnt have a contract yet. Unless we think Hore or Smith could adapt to whatever Harmes role was, we have a hole. I actually think this is a bigger hole for us than the wing, because when Hib goes we've got 2 spots and no one pushing through, while a few players can push onto the wing defensively if needed. It may be a reason Neita has been persisted with: no game development but has a 21 year olds body, not an 18 year olds so may slot in quicker. I always thought Harmes looked good on the HFF, with good hands overhead and an ability to find a bit of space. So the Harmes/Petracca swap @MadAsHell suggested sounds good.

“2 minute Peter”? I was going to say that was a cheap shot but 2 minutes is actually pretty good going tbh.

There's a thousand page thread on Goody (which I haven't read) so I don't want to derail this one. But I'm "big picture". Goody has shot two Bambi's - Watts and Hogan. Both were excellent calls and both took a lot of guts from a young coach. And we've attracted so many good people - Burgess, Richardson, May, Lever, Langdon and others who all had opportunities to go elsewhere. They woundn't have come if they didn't have faith in Goodwin and the rest of the Club. And apart from 2019 our performances have reflected or exceeded our ability. 2019 was understandable if you take the view that players are humans who when injured or unfit or lack match practice won't perform at their peak. Some don't accept this. And this year, while disappointing, was understandable when our draw and travel was compared to others. His performance in 2018 was exceptional and coaches don't get worse with age. And I've met him briefly and he's impressive.

No mate, Harmes didn't go in and tell him he had to play in the midfield. He's not that type of personality. Goodwin was the one who instigated the role change for next year, Harmes didn't push for it. Sorry if I didn't make that clear enough. As far as I heard, Harmes didn't complain once about being asked to play backline.

Crazy these are the so called experts we are supposed to tune in to listen to, yet he says something like “is Hibberd still on their list”. I understand they need to cover 18 teams, but the average Demonland poster could give a better summary.

Rubbish. The reason people like @CHF have to hold back is because a small minority of posters on here are threatened by posters with information, for whatever reason. So they create a standard where everyone but them must have every bit of intel they post come through. I’ve spoken to 10 plus posters with information that used to post it but don’t anymore and they always name the same few posters as the reason.

If we're looking to have Petracca play the Dustin Martin role of splitting his time between the midfield and forward line, Harmes could be the guy to interchange him with. Start each game with Harmes forward and trac in the middle. When they switch Harmes can then clamp down on an oppositions best midfielder at the time. That allows us to then have Oliver, Brayshaw and Viney rotate amongst the other two midfield spots and potentially have short shifts in the forward line also.

Using Harmes as run-with and drift forward is consistent with Pert's comments that coaches need to maximise the strengths and attributes of our existing players. My translation: stop playing them out of position. I'm not surprised about the culture of 'different rules for 'different players'. I've heard this several times from outside sources in recent years. And it was something fairly obvious to many DL's especially when it came to team selections.

Such a weird dynamic on Demonland this year, more than any other year imo. Some sort of sad [censored] measuring contest.

These days, no-one expects a wingman to be the hard man of footy, but having watched Baker closely my two main issues are that he's incredibly soft and has virtually zero hurt factor with his possessions (yes yes he kicked two goals). Jimmy Toumpas was probably the softest outside player I've seen at Melbourne. Baker is in that category. Toumpas notoriously had shocking contested possession numbers in junior footy, which should have been a red flag, but even Jimmy's percentage of CP at AFL level just shades Baker's. Tom Scully is as outside as you get and his percentage is almost double. This isn't reliant on total possessions, but percentage of, which is an important distinction. Put simply, Baker isn't list worthy. If we don't go all out to solve our (opposite) wing issues I'll be dismayed. And I'll know there's zero chance of a flag in 2021. Talk about a wing and a prayer... EDIT: I hasten to add that my views on Baker first came from visuals, the good old-fashioned eye test. The stats came about because I was curious to see if what I was seeing was borne out.

Hey Kysaiah - nice post - sure, good people on both sides - but Trump ain't one of em.

Right? It’s almost like Mahoney trades to a strategy and not for the entertainment of the fans.

Treloar turns 28 in March 2021 so the 5 seasons left on his Pies contract covering his 28 to 32 year old seasons. He's had recent history of significant soft tissue injuries. His contract pays him above market terms based on his ability and recent availability and it runs for another 5 seasons till he turns 32. Hard to see how Pies can shift him unless they agree to cover ballpark $1,000,000 of his contract over remaining 5 years. Or a combination of Pies subsidy and Treloar agreeing to take a pay cut (Why would he?). Pies have next to no hand. Treloar can say no to a trade and force Pies to honour contract or tell them which Melbourne based club he has agreed to go to and with which they make a trade. Salary dumps are common in salary cap sports but a salary cap dump of a contract that has 5 seasons to run requires a special kind of stupid. What a salary cap cluster seemingly caused by above market contracts post 2018 Grand Final and unplanned for trading back in of Beams. The later requiring the disastrous extension for Treloar to push back money to fit Beams in. Overpayed Grundy and signed him till 2027 ie his 33 year old season. Pendlebury in 33 year old season in 2021 and I'd suspect he is still in upper echelon of player contracts despite being past his prime. Good luck Pies. OK. Not really.

Hey dumb dumb, if the Democrats were going to rig this election do you think they would: 1. Lose house seats 2. Not take senate majority 3. Get Mitch McConnell, that absolute [censored], re-elected 4. Are you smart enough to understand anything I said above, or are you a typical Trump supporter who just flings poo at the wall like a monkey hoping something sticks? If not, please name for us the 6 democratic states you speak of who “stopped counting” (hint: Arizona and Georgia are Republican states) This slow death of Trump is the highlight of 2020 and the meltdown yet to come is the sweet finale of the TV show I’ve been watching for 4 days titled “make America sane again”.

Can't say BB. All I can say is I wouldn't make it up, not even for a 'rumours' thread. Not my style.

Surely recruiting a specialised winger such as Isaac Smith or Tom Phillips isn’t worth 4 extra wins to get us into next years second qualifying final. I would’ve thought the elimination of picking and choosing which games (see the Cairns and Port Adelaide disasters) to turn up to and picking and choosing which quarters to go to sleep in (see the early season MCG games and the Dogs game) are our main obstacles of finishing top 4 or even the top 8. A platoon of Baker, Tomlinson, Hunt and VDB playing the “non Langdon” wing is far from ideal but it’s only 1 position out of 18 on the field and shouldn’t cost us the destination we want to get to next year. I.e playing in at least week 2 or 3 of the finals.

Biden to win Nevada and Arizona and Georgia.

Exactly patches all info and rumours are good up to the reader to accept of not or dismiss Shooting messengers on here has become an artform

The ‘I have info but I can’t share it’ mentality is worse than getting it wrong!

Just for [censored] and giggles. Pick 26 + 43 = Pick 16 on points value. Pick 26 + 43 + Preuss = GWS Pick 10 - Values Preuss @ pick 49 Pick 26 + 43 + Preuss = GWS Pick 13* - Values Preuss @ pick 64 *Assuming GWS get pick 13 for Cameron

I would rather not at this stage as I have witnessed how others have been jumped upon and have had to defend themselves. I will post further if anything more solid that a whisper comes up.

Not only directed at you but I don't understand why so many people don't rate Mahoney. Every year he does a heap with the hand he's dealt.

I worry about Joe Biden. I sure hope he has top notch security around him at all times. He is a prime target for a deranged Trump supporter to take it upon themselves to avenge the perceived "cheating" that has occurred. Did anyone see the footage of the fleet of Trump supporters in their pickups trying to run a Biden/Harris coach off the highway before election day? Scary stuff. Trump has stirred up many people's basest hatreds and emotions with inflammatory language. The big problem is these people carry guns. Unsettled times ahead.

This is no joke, I was in a meeting with a Labour powerbroker a few years back. He apologised as he had to take a call from the State Premier. The upshot of the call was that that funds were being allocated not to healthcare (as the powerbroker wanted) but instead to Kardinia Park redevelopment. The powerbroker challenged the Premier "How the F is that going to help the health of people in Geelong?", Premier's response "Mate, there's no votes in health".The powerbroker's response to that comment is unprintable.

Just about had enough of this bloke. Him and the EFC go hand in hand together, all this 'look at me' bs. Was umming and ahhing most of 2019, then again during 2020 (whilst he was in Aus). Now he arks up again about another possible stint, lol. Save me (unless he wants to put the scum through the ringer again - that i have no problem with ?)

I actually think he could play as a defensive wing, similar to the way Brissy use Robinson. Set him up at the back of stoppages, while Langdon can actively try and run forward more.

Log in to read updates on Ben Brown and all I’m getting is Oskar Baker chat. Out of interest, what’s the relevance?

We have proven ourselves to be ahead of the curve on the points system, and trading draft picks. Any criticism of Mahoney in this regard is Trump-esque.

The good ole USA. They certainly do things differently over there.

Don’t blame u CHF. As always the minority ruin it for the majority here. Thanks for sharing.

I am hearing a lot of whispers about a number of players. My last post was the most solid I have heard from a usually reliable person. I will stress that it is still only A RUMOUR.

I am hearing that the rest of the trade period is starting to come into focus for the MFC now that there has been more detailed discussion on a number of situations involving players. I understand that we have a bit more clarity on what might be on offer for both Hannan and Preuss and that marks a way ahead for us on a couple of other deals. I hear we are looking more closely at Phillips.

i totally agree. Mahoney is great. He's always proactive and at least i can sleep at night knowing that [censored] is going down. I don't know if people are conveniently forgetting that he got pick 6 and 23 for Hogan who is now worth only pick 56. Sure, a bit of luck was on our side with that one but if you're going to criticise Mahoney for every pick then at least acknowledge the good he has done.

Frost, 42 (very little difference with 50), 61 (no value) and a future fourth-round FOR 50 and Hawthorn's future second-round selection (23) We then spent a future second and redeemed a future 4th with Langdon. Which allowed us to do the Pickett trade and keep a 2nd, 3rd and 4th this year. So we aren’t trying to get more picks, at this stage we are just trying to get better picks. A core part of Mahoney’s job is to try to get players in whilst still giving Jason Taylor something useful to work with at the draft. I think that’s worth bothering with.

Cannot hit targets we need that like a hole in the head. Grossly over paid by Collingwood I hope they are stuck with him.

it's handy to be in a marginal seat at state and federal level

People wonder why i hate them so much.....

Give them a cuddle for me.

OMG. How dumb is The Dumpster? Dunning-Kruger on steroids. Telling all his white-trash followers to come out and vote on election day (never mind the virus - doesn't matter to him - he's already had it) and then screaming 'I won' when the first day's results put him in front. Yesterday's 'press conference': broken man blues. Even his hair transplant knew the jig was up. Dumbest politician since Dan Quayle. Craziest since George the Third.

Or the old booga sugar if you will.

Well i must be on my own here because I personally think he's a much better pick then Shaun McKernan. His contested marking is one of his biggest strengths alongside his hit out to advantages. In fact I rate his contested marking the best at the club if we were to recruit him. I remember I watched the Collingwood and Essendon game in full length this year and he gave Grundy a serious tough up. Physically bullied him at the contest. Not only that, he provides a far better marking option up forward then Pruess. Interesting article last year on Phillips when he arrived at Essendon. https://www.essendonfc.com.au/news/305864/why-sheeds-could-be-right-about-phillips

We are looking at a few avenues to do this both during the trade period and during the draft with pick swaps. Best chance of it happening would be during the late stages of the trade period when there is a lot more clarity. If we do not get into the first round during the trade period I would not be surprised.

We've finally landed the big fish!

It was good that Pert joined the hub full-time when they went to Queensland. He sat in meetings, went to training etc etc. Very valuable insight into how the off-field work translates (or doesn't) to on-field performance. Pert made some interesting comments (@11.00min) when asked about Goodwin. He said there was a lot of support for him, he was very good 1:1 and a good teacher. He then talked of the need to win finals not how Geelong or Richmond do but by making the most of the strengths and attributes of the players we have. Hudson asked him if this was not already happening. Good question Huddo! Pert didn't directly answer the question but talked about the coaching challenge and focus ahead. It is coaching 101 to have a game plan that suits the talents available not the other way round. It was Roos' mantra from the start of his career. Somewhere along the way, I feel Goodwin lost sight of that. I and others on here have lamented that Goodwin has a game plan he wants to play but doesn't have the players for that style. Having listened to the interview several times I thought Pert was saying the same thing. Pert has set Goodwin the challenge to focus on a game style this preseason, that brings out the best in the players we have and makes the most of their strengths and their attributes. To me that focus appears to be the foundation of our current list management decisions (which is as it should be) and puts Mahoney's comments about using existing players for the wing role into a broader context. I hope that Goodwin rises to the occasion and look forward to what the game plan looks like. And hopefully he settles it and the players into it, in the preseason so that we don't have the major changes during next season. We all saw it this year: 'chaos' then 'control' then 'chaos' again then a mixture. We aren't Geelong and we aren't Richmond so I really like the focus Pert is asking for. How refreshing it would be to have a consistent game plan, consistent team selections and consistent implementation with everyone on the same page.

I hate this response. EVERY clubs CEO gets interviewed at some stage. It's inevitable. Why we need the 'blah blah blah' and 'it's all talk' stuff is beyond me. We know we need to perform on field, but this stuff is always going to happen regardless of whether we're first or last on the ladder.