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True, but he is also a cheap backup option with plenty of versatility. I don't think we would get more out of a rookie pick.

Well the home and away season has come and gone, very quickly, I might add. Just want to give those who keep this site up and running for very little return a big genuine thank you for all their work. I've had a few health issues this year and often this site has been more than a place of info, venting and knowledge. More often than not it has been a great source of amusement and laughter with not a few some posters having great senses of humor( is that grammatically correct Demonstone?) There have been many times this site has been a huge valve release during a game, keeping me to drinking healthy levels of alcohol intake and less comfort eating. On a more serious note or a lesser one, many posters have given me much free amusement ( aside from my paltry donation to the site) and even more made me laugh out loud even if I didn't feel like it. It also seems we have been less cranky with one another this season with less sniping and more positivity. Maybe a flag after 57 years will do that. So thank you again to those keeping the site going and to those who have shared their unique humor, wit and time over the six months. May we blessed with at least another one of the same fun up until the siren sounds our 14th flag. I wish I had cut and pasted a highlights reel for some of the top posts and we could have handed out some awards, for there have been some posts up there with ... Jesaulenko You Beauty 😃 maybe next year. Cheers fellow Dlandees. Litd.

The umpires killed us

Blue team by one point at some stage T Mac receiving some love from Jack Photos by MFC

We're in seventh heaven. Jacko here to potentially win another flag with us and then he leaves and we top up our list with another draft of young high end talent which will only help our chances of competing at the top for longer whilst our core are coming into their prime to hit their prime. I don't think supporters realise how good this situation is for us with where our list currently stands. I think Freo are paying way overs for a player who in my view won't be what many believe and they or West Coast will be paying up big time for him. It's an unbelievable position to be in, I have no emotion in regards to him leaving. Wish him all the best. And already can't wait to see what we'll do with our list for the 2023 season.

Reports indicate that we won but could have prevailed by more had we not eased off in the last half.

Thank you for not banning me.

I once had a tradesman over at my place who also must have seen some Demon's paraphernalia and asked if I go for the Demons. We had about the Demons for about 20 mins and he told me that I must go to Demonland to read about the Demons. True Story.

As reported on AFL.com.. 2 year deal supposedly. To be honest I don't mind this? Especially if he spends a full summer training as a forward where I think we could see some huge growth hopefully next year. He's the perfect prototype player for this game with his speed, versatility and strength. Gives us an option to throw down back if need due to injury etc.

All class from Ooze

Judge Gordon Lewis passed away earlier this week. He was not a Melbourne player or supporter but in the 1980s was critical to our ongoing existence. In the mid-1980s, before he became a County Court judge, he was Commissioner for Corporate Affairs (a job that no longer exists). In that role he wrote to the then head of the VFL, Jack Hamilton, to advise that seven clubs, including Melbourne, were trading while technically insolvent and if the VFL did not provide him with a plan for the future, he would have to wind them up. The plan the VFL came up with was expansion into WA and SA (although, in the end, it became Queensland, rather than SA) with the money for the new licenses and other expanded revenue streams, such as national TV rights, saving the seven clubs. Judge Lewis subsequently said in interviews that he had no power to do what he did and he was sticking his neck out by giving the VFL the opportunity to rectify its problems. If he had done what he was legally required to do, he would have wound us up and we would have disappeared before the end of the 1980s. So, when we (rightfully) praise Jim Stynes, Joe Gutnick and others who have helped Melbourne survive, it's worth remembering that Judge Lewis was also integral in the survival of the Melbourne Football Club. The Age published a story about this about 10 years ago which I think was covered in Demonland. Someone with search skills better than me might find that thread.

He loved football. My favourite story about Gordon Lewis is that in the 1960s he used to provide the now defunct Herald newspaper with the results each week of a country league competition. The Herald published the results every week. The only problem was that there was no such league and he made up the results every week. (Which also goes to show that fake news is not a new phenomenon.)

He’s proven he can play at AFL level at various stages over the years. His athleticism and versatility makes for excellent depth. The contract wouldn’t be worth much, so I have no problem with this whatsoever. Cant have a list full of stars or future stars. Gotta have workers like Joel too.

Joel will be 27 by the start of next season and has played 26 career games in 7 years. His potential is irrelevant - his lack of durability and propensity to injury makes him the absolute definition of a list clogger. We are just hoping for something that simply isn't there. Time to move on and find someone who can get on the field most weeks.

G'day all! It's that time of the year again! Cue the mandatory Melbourne finals pump up video! Very happy with how this one turned out! Feel free to share any other retrospective/pump up/hype videos that you come across here. Go Dees!

Way too verbose

Great idea for a thread DS. I love bagging Geelong

👏 👏 👏

I joined DL in April 2021 so it’s needless to say I’ve not been here for the 💩 times, only the good and great times. 🏆 Andy and co. provide an awesome service and I’m forever grateful to be a part of this site. 💕 There’s some absolutely beautiful souls on DL. But if I may, I wanna thank one in particular, that being the young Dees diehard who introduced me to DL in the first place. He’s a longtime member of DL who reads the content but never posts (hey hey 👋 you know who you are. 😘). How did we meet? I’m glad I asked. 😁 So, I had a tradesman at mine doing a repair. When his work was finished he came into the kitchen with the paperwork, saw my mini shrine (my pantry wall) and uttered those five magic words… Who’s the Melbourne supporter here? Well, what ensued was the biggest Dees-nerd sesh ever there was. We gushed about our beloved Club for like 40 mins or so. He told me about DL and I joined that very day, probs before he even left my driveway. 😆 THANK YOU ANDY AND CO. ❤️💙💖❤️💙

I must say this has been a real fun thing to complain about. Good job everyone 👏

Reckon Hibberd and Melksham will be keen to sign one year extensions. Both clearly can go around again, even if not in our best line up next season. Good to have around given we are in the window and need proven depth.

Handy depth Train Joel as a forward and the Weid and a backman. You never know. Might work

No idea how Blicavs keeps getting AA, Brayshaw extremely unlucky.

here's something I prepared earlier... In our sessions, we will talk about the role of awareness as a first step to helping us make changes that will be beneficial to our performance. In particular, we focus on a particular type of awareness called mindfulness. The term mindfulness has its roots in eastern spiritual and religious traditions, however psychology has recognized its importance, and has removed the spiritual and religious context to help improve physical and emotional well-being. This approach can be useful no matter your religious or spiritual (or non) preference. Mindfulness is nonjudgemental (compassionate) present-moment awareness of what is going on inside of us and around us. We often live our lives focused on something other than what is happening in the moment (in sport, focus is having your eyes and your mind attuned to the exact same task)- worrying about the future, ruminating about the past, focusing on what is coming up next, rather than our present task. Importantly, it is useful that we can do things without paying attention to them. We can walk without thinking about walking, which allows us to talk to the person we are walking with, without having to think. However this ability to do things automatically without awareness, also allows us to lose touch with what is happening right in front of us. We can develop habits (such as avoiding embarrassment), that we are not even aware of and that may not be in line with our broader goals. Sometimes though, when we DO pay close attention to our thoughts and feelings, we become very critical of our thoughts and feelings and either try to change them or to distract ourselves because judgemental awareness can be very painful. For example, we might notice while we are about to compete that we feel sweaty or that our heart is racing and then think “ I’m an [censored], what is wrong with me!! If I don’t calm down, I won’t be able to perform to my peak!!” Being mindful falls between these two extremes. We pay attention to what is happening inside and around us, we acknowledge events and experiences as what they are, and we allow things we cannot control to be as they are, while we focus our attention on the task at hand. For example, when competing we may notice the same feelings of stress/anxiety that came up earlier, take a moment to reflect, “There go my thoughts again,” and gently bring our attention back to our task. This second part of mindfulness – letting go of the need to critically judge and change our inner experience- is particularly tricky. In fact, often being mindful involves practicing being nonjudgemental about our tendency to be judgemental! At x we believe that being mindful is a personal experience that can bring flexibility to your performances and life and will work collaboratively with you to find the best ways to apply this approach. A FEW KEY POINTS: Mindfulness is a process: We do not achieve a final and total state of mindfulness. It is a way of being in one moment that comes and goes. Mindfulness is losing our focus 100 times and returning to it 101 times. Mindfulness is a habit: Just like we learned to go on automatic pilot by practicing it over and over (like learning to ride a bike!), we can learn mindfulness through practice. The more we invest in time to practice it, the easier it becomes to have moments of mindfulness, especially in the crucial moments of your performance. Mindfulness activities come in many different forms: People engage in formal mindful practices like yoga, meditation or tai chi. Although these practices can take hours or days, we aim to make mindfulness easy to fit into your busy lifestyle. People can be mindful for a moment, attending to their breath at any point of the day and noticing their experiences. ALL FORMS of mindful practice in beneficial Mindfulness brings us more fully into our lives: Sometimes, especially early in treatment, we will practice mindfulness in ways that seem very relaxing and removed from the stressors of our daily lives, however the ultimate goal of mindfulness is to keep us more fully in our performance (and lives) and to improve our overall performance (and life satisfaction). Mindfulness can allow us to pause and ready ourselves for some event and bring us more fully into the task, so we perform at a higher and more consistent level, without being taken away by our thoughts and feelings.

The demon machine had been idling along pretty much all year. It has been well maintained and only required minor tweaks and modifications throughout the journey. Come finals, it’s going to be a different beast. Pedal to the metal and drive it like it’s stolen. Out best performances are about to go on show……again. LET’S GO DEES Watch out Swannies, you are about to become road kill

🤣 “I was having a swim down at Prahran pool just before this and ran into a mate and he’s good friends with Steven May and James Harmes and the boys, and they said, ‘If we can keep Maysy and Harmesy and Melky and Hibbo off the p--- for four weeks we’ll waltz into a flag,”

Of course he was having swim, one of the two things he loves

Stay relevant Jack..

How good was that day.

Hibbo retire? He is playing cracking footy!

Clarry just turned 25yo. He is entering his prime with 3 AAs and 2 Coaches awards He is an unstoppable beast should finish with 8 AAs and 3 flags maybe a statue too?

Could he also pinch hit in the ruck the way the blues use silvagni?

I come and go, and rarely with any depth to the former, but I'm always watching, informed or entertained or both. I don't know if it's been noted elsewhere, but the forum recently notched up 2 million posts. Another testament to your evidently sustained and worthwhile work, @Demonland! Thanks!

Could someone explain why (edited name ) Robbo is using this occasion to raise the Zorko/ Petty incident? FMD!!! He is the chief football writer for a major paper. The standard of "journalism" in this country is a joke.

Last and only player to go back to back in this award until now was a bloke called Gary Ablett Jr Accept it people, we're witnessing greatness.

I don’t disagree with you but given the choice between the mooted picks and players I would prefer to keep Jackson. So people are ok to be disappointed.

It would have to have been dicey for a moment there… I, on the other hand, only have 1 warning point. Most of my latent personal attacks on other posters are written in a way that go way over their heads…

The topic title wasn't "Let's have a whinge about all the Geelong players in the AA Team".

I found @djr points about metres gained very interesting in the “Premiership metrics” thread and wanted to compare the MG metric of 2021 and 2022 to maybe get an idea of how much we benefit from the loading during the finals and to see if it directly correlates to our loading period and how it varies throughout the season. In this thought experiment I’m assuming MG is a direct indication of fitness, which it isn’t, but it makes way of understanding simple. Interestingly my analysis suggests we gain an extra 5-7.5% in physical performance from loading. I came to this conclusion simply by looking at the average MG from rounds 1-8 of both the 2021 and 2022 H&A season, in both seasons we had the highest MG at this time of the year. I'm using these rounds because you would assume that we are the fittest at the start of the season and hit the ground running from our work in the pre-season. I assume we can only maintain this peak fitness for about 8 weeks as from round 9 onwards it drops by roughly 3,5% which doesn’t sound like a lot but in a sport of inches it can have significant effects. The time of the drop off also coincides with the time period we think loading begins. We saw a slight uptick in MG from r20 onwards this year however not last year which is interesting. This may indicate that we truly only hit our peak a week after the H&A season and as many have said are aiming to peak on Prelim final day. The numbers are: 2021: r1-8 - 6167 MG 2022: r1-8 - 6269 MG 2021: r9-17 - 5956 MG 2022: r9-17 - 6022 MG 2021: r20-23 - 5823 MG 2022: r20-23 - 6149 MG In finals last year our average metres gained per match was about 6628 which is an increase of 7,5% on our early season MG, an increase of 13,5% from our last 4 rounds and an overall increase of 9% on the season as a whole. The extra 7,5% in performance goes along way in outrunning our opponents and what we did against the lions should be the norm throughout the entire finals series with maybe an extra few % come the first QF against the swans.

My puppy barked at a magpie today. Definitely means Pies don’t win the flag if you ask me.

I’ll remind you of that the next time you pull me up for using the wrong ‘there’.

Fritsch unlucky. Had put together back to back excellent seasons. Will hopefully have another premiership medallion to make up for it

If Clarry doesn’t win the Brownlow after back 2 back coaches awards, it just cements how bullll**** the award has become

wowee, we averaged 829 mm rain per day! 🤯

Apparently Oliver and Petracca don’t use the ball that well. Okay then.

"How can I get a Seinfeld reference into this thread about Moore Park?"

said all perusers of Demonland.