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The AFL put forth the flimsiest, weakest ‘argument’ and it was painfully obvious that it was a token show of doing the right thing re head trauma. They couldn’t have argued more pathetically if they tried.

You are right, but the AFL’s case against Maynard was pathetic

How many of you can answer this question?

McGuire’s middle name ain’t humility, that’s for sure. Nor is it decency, sensitivity, tact, respect, the list goes on. And why the hell was he the MC at RDB’s memorial last year?! Some posters on here said it’s because he’s so good at the job but I don’t care how good he is at MC-ing, they should’ve appointed a Melbourne or Carlton person, not him. It was bad enough when he first walked out onto the stage, just his mere presence. But he mentioned Collingwood at least eight times (we were counting) at points in proceedings when there really wasn’t a reason for it. That egotistical fat-head POS makes me sick. End of rant. As you were. 😁

It's a re-set, because it involves, I would say, a reasonably significant shift in game style, but it will hopefully also be a progression on 2024's first half. An emphasis on faster attack and slingshot. I hope we look to move the ball inside 50 more centrally like we did in '18 too. Having said all this, you could make an argument that we're rebuilding on the run, but still relying on our mature stars to play important roles, whilst giving the merging group more responsibility. JVR, Jefferson, Turner, McVee, Bowey, AMW, Kolt, Howes, Windsor, Langford and Lindsay are all going to be important pieces of our 2025-2027 puzzle. Jefferson, Howes and AMW may not make it, but I'm hopeful they will, particularly the latter two. I'm quite happy for the football world to have little faith in Melbourne until the halfway mark of the season, just as was the case in 2021. Hopefully the players use this as fire to get themselves going next year and show everyone that we're still a serious football team and club.

Agree with that, we have the the potential to improve all 3 parts of the ground in 2025, got a good group of youngsters too which is where a lot of it'll come from Mids: Clarry back to a version which closer resembles his previous self Rivers is an explosive goal kicking midfielder in the waiting, will take his game to the next level in 25' Agree re Langford, looks plug & play Backs: Petty back Salem not injured by 28.12.24 - world record? If we get a full year out of him (wishful thinking) our ball movement will improve a lot Windsor and potentially even Xavier Lindsay off half back give us a lot more speed Forwards: Disco Turner the break out tip for 2025, only played 18 career games, will surprise a few Another pre-season into JVR, Kolt helps As a Jefferson believer reckon he may surprise a couple too

Players deserve protection from grotesque injuries. You do not need to jam your knee into an opposition players side to spoil or take a mark. It should always be a vertical motion as opposed to horizontal. Just watch how Jeremy Cameron marks high balls. Moore drives his knee into players week in week out. He’s caused several really significant injuries and the fact the AFL isn’t discussing this just shows how asleep at the wheel they are…..Oh but Kozz gets 3 weeks….give me a break. It’s laughable.

I REALLY believe Dees could finish anywhere between 1st and last

It should be . Around 20 years ago, he emceed a show where the viewers did a tests to determine their IQ. His came in as a routine 100 and was obviously expecting more. He looked like he was eating a **** sandwich. Tough but fair and all amusing..

I may be on my own here but really would like to see Roy George on our list, but the club may want Jai Culley and atm there are no spots for either of them. It may take a mid season retirement to open a spot. I am hoping no other club will/can select Roy earlier, if he doesn’t first agree to go there. Interesting to see how this pans out.

I think Kolt has a good season next year

I don’t think Kolt is competing with disco for a spot. I think it’s very possible we play JVR, Turner and Johnson in the one side. The other option will be JVR, Turner and Jeffo and then JVR will ruck. I think Kolt will be best 22 and will be in a half forward role.

The author’s living up to his surname. 🤭

Rubbish in what way? Players need to be protected from serious injury just as they are now protected from concussion. You can no longer allow ruptured spleens, collapsed lungs and broken ribs without at least looking at the rules. I don’t want to see the high mark outlawed, I also don’t want to see players out of the game because of avoidable injuries. Moore does not need to lift his knee. He owes a duty of care to Petracca as Chol does to May. It’s not hard to expect players to leap without driving the knee into players backs.

No mention of Turner which I find surprising. I predict a strong year from him.

The Hawks are my sliders for this season. They surprised everybody this year, but now teams know what they are about and will be digging into their gameplan. They won't get the unexpected wins against teams that underestimated them again. I expect them to drop out of the 8. 2026 will tell us whether their team and gameplan are the real deal or not. Also, I can't see us missing the 8 unless we suffer more major injuries. The media pile-on fails to acknowledge that we were essentially playing without three of our best mids. Trac was gone for half the season, Oliver was a shadow of his usual self without a real pre-season, plus playing injured, and of course the loss of Gus not only cost us on-field, but was a massive psychological hit to the team. While we don't get Gus back, the other two are in full flight and training well. Having them both fit and firing, plus natural improvement from the young mids, we'll see a different team next year.

I still can’t see how Kozzie got weeks, for a contest, that at worst, would have been a bump to a 200cm player’s stomach, until the very last split second, when the taller player went to ground, at a time when the smaller player couldn’t pull out of the contest. I think it was a pathetic decision and when contrasted with the Maynard bump on Gus, knocking him out early in a final and the resultant lack of any penalty is just bewildering, other than the fact that the Tribunal Chairman and MRO are admitted Pies supporters. Neither of them should have officiated in either case.

Casey, Tullamarine, Diamond Creek, Mernda to name a few

I think Sarah Jones is much better...has humility and respect. An EFC supporter, she doesn't throw it in your face. I would be happy to see the end of the boys club.

There is a vast difference from putting your knee into someone and putting your knee on someone, a la for a ride and timing is everything too presumably to achieve both. When I was just starting, I used to look at Jesaulenko's marks all the time.

I am a Roy George fan as well 'Red' and would happily take him if there was a list spot up for grabs. I think under a full time professional environment, he is someone i could see thriving in the AFL system especially under the guidance of Whelan and Pickett.

Swap the Pies for the Dee’s and I think it’s on the money

Great post mate, which suggests that the retention issue stems from game style. That is not to say the game style was poor, it won is a flag and had us regularly in top 4, but it meant repeat entries and long kicks to contests, leading to loss of possession and into a contested situation. I'm glad we're implementing a more attacking game plan again (ala 2017-2018), but these stats will likely shift markedly again when a new game style is employed. Again, DE and kicking efficiency are junk stats.

Disco is my breakout tip too

I'm not sure the tribunal and MRO being Pies supporters was the factor in the Maynard case though, because if my memory those people actually initially handed down a reasonable (yet possibly still slightly lenient in hindsight) penalty. I lay the blame more so with Collingwood for taking it to court to challenge what was clear to everyone else in the game an action that shouldn't be accepted and the AFL for not having the gumption to counter challenge Collingwoods legal action or threaten Collingwood into submission before it went to court in the first place by whatever means. The fact the AFL changed rule in the off season was an admission of guilt that they had essentially Fffed up. As for the McGuire behaviour after Maynard got off - don't even get me started. AFL Power club politics at its best.

Until Jeffo proves something he’s just another big guy without the requisite appetite.

I didn't include time on, but I adjusted the minutes of each player. (It is really the percentages that matter.) Oliver has historically played 80-90% game time. I am not sure if he will be able to do this as he ages but who knows what a full preseason could yield. I think Langford will be a centre square midfielder. Hopefully he can play well as a forward and his marking becomes an asset, but it is not easy to win the ball as a forward in the AFL as you are often outnumbered. I look at Ryley Sanders season this year, who showed AFL qualities as a midfielder but got squeezed out by the Dog's midfield depth and could not play another role. I think Rivers is an A-grade half back and a B-grade midfielder. His ball use was much better at half back this season because he had more time. He will develop his midfield game but I doubt he will ever reach Brownlow contention level. I am also not sure he offers a massive point of difference to Oliver, Petracca and Viney as a midfielder. I am not against the trial of Rivers in the middle, but my expectation is that we will get more from Rivers playing at half back.

Every. single. team. carries players that are either playing injuried or have missed chunks of pre season. We're the number one supporter base for making excuses for the sake of making excuses.

Aidan Johnson ahead of Disco Might be time to bring back public executions for the author

No it's not the point. So much rewriting of history. #demonland myths As I have noted several times recently, we tried to implement a different, more transition based game plan last season. We faced several barriers to doing so successfully, in short: - it takes time to implement a new game plan (particularly one so different to the one drilled into the team over the previous 5 seasons) - injury meant we almost never had our best 23 play together - we didn't have enough of the right type of players, in particular enough elite kicks who could be relied on to hit high risk kicks (exacerbated by injury to our best players) - and perhaps of most significance, we were clearly not fit enough, for any game plan, particularly one that demands so much all team running We could only be ‘in games when we played an unwatchable, unsustainable to win big games, style'? That's just not true. There was really only one game where we reverted to a defence first method in a big game to maximise our chance of winning - our heartbreaking two point loss to port late in the season. Two rounds prior we came out firing, with exciting all out attack against the Giants, up nearly 5 goals at the end of the first quarter before running out of puff in the second half to lose by two points. In another big game, our round 16 match against the ultimate premiers, we blitzed them in the second quarter, kicking 8 goals. Very watchable. Another heartbreaking loss ensued after once again running out of gas in the second half. Another big game was our early season win over Port at a sold out Adelaide Oval where we beat Port at their own transition game (coming on the heels of smashing the dogs - our third highest score of the season - and hawks with a fast, exciting, transition game). Not a big game given we couldn't make finals, and our opponents were woeful, but our highest score of the season came in round 23 when we played a fast, exciting transition game to smash the Suns. Yes we were often low scoring and terrible to watch. And we got hammered more often than we had in the previous four seasons combined. But not because of an 'unwatchable, unsustainable' game plan - we just couldn't consistently implement the new game plan we were working on, or defend against that game plan when used effectively against us (hence the number of big losses). Ironically, we would have likely won more games last season, albeit not enough, and certainly not have been opened up as often, if we had stuck to our previous defence first method.

Dees Pies and Blues will finish top 6 imo Sydney to slide a bit. Hawks to majorly slide Freo to push top 4

Yep He’ll be a Dee barring some late winds change — ie upheaval or sudden major decline that looks unrecoverable.. but can’t see that as even IF absolute worst happened & we lost Trac, Clarry, Max next year and even Kos, I honestly blv the haul we’d gain in conjunction with our young talent means it’d be a 2-4yr skid at most! But my current feeling is that this group now is closest thing we’ve had talent and fitness wise to our 2021 group, line by line, 90% doing 90% of pre season etc so of course that can all change but KW a demon is about $1.27 for mine 😉

To his family, we still miss your boy. Ripping lad from all reports, and an absolute hero of a man who gave his life to save his wife. He must have come from super stock. You should be so proud.

Like almost any of this — it’s complete garbage & based on nothing more than tipping, thus given avg BEST tipsters avg 60% success rate (and that’s tipping week to week with exposed form mind you) the odds are this ladder will be about 40-55% accurate at best!!!

Re-arrange. They chafed last year and produced a nasty rash

Definitely a rebound year if we avoid serious injuries. Reasons? 1. If Oliver and Trac are fit and in the right frame of mind, the positive effect will be enormous. 2. Langford an excellent draft pick. Looks AFL ready. 3. Johnson has point to prove and could provide much-needed relief for the overworked Max. 4. Further improvement likely from Turner, Windsor, McVee, Van Rooyen and Tholstrup. 5. Petty back where he belongs. 6. Viney still going strong. 7. Pickett provides the X-factor every team needs. 8. Little mention of Harry Sharp so far, but if his all-round skills improve he could just develop into a surprise replacement for ANB. At 22, he has outstanding speed, Langdon-like aerobic capacity and his best years ahead. I accept that we still lack a truly dominant key forward and that some of the predictions above may come unstuck. Still, what is there right now not to be optimistic about?

We can win the flag. Media don't want us to.

This article is a bit pus. No mention of Windsor who had a brilliant first season. Turner. Kolt likely to have an impact this year. Petty back into defence. I reckon they'll be angling for him to take over from May in 2026. And. It's not just about our forward line. All elements of our game plan need to be transformed and our coach has finally stated this. From the backline right through. No mention of this either. Maybe he's getting content for this article from a super coach forum. We can rebound if we can nail down a fast transition game style. We have the talent (pending no serious injuries) I think the players will love to embrace something new. I'm heading overseas for most of September in 2025, so expect us to run deep into the finals. 😁

The difference being we couldn’t score, and it was the same problem over and over

'The Demons still think they're in the premiership window, but missed the top eight last year'..... This is what [censored] me about the media.... quick to go on about our straight sets and missing last year but fawning over the pies and cats after they both missed the finals directly after the wins... we missed the 8 so are bad - pies missed the eight and are one of the favourites for the flag.... [censored]

2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 1st game 16/03 H 07/03 A 18/3 H 16/3 H 20/3 H 22/3 A 23/3 H 25/3 H 25/3 A 25/3 H 4/4 H 22/3 A 31/3 H 31/3 H 27/3 H Oct week 3 19,068 21 15,211 20 21,980 22 19,026 26 16,654 22 17,625 25 Nov week 3 30,000 26 20,215 21 25,028 22 26,064 18 23,037 26 20,509 26 20,223 25 - 16,287 11,922 Dec week 1 36,074 11 28,005 7 30,096 7 28,354 07 27,914 9 24,402 4 22,433 3 22,105 11 18,217 3 18,747 2 17,541 3 Dec week 3 36,516 21 38,000 23 28,447 21 31,759 21 29,053 22 29,426 23 26,217 22 24,097 23 23,542 25 20,623 20,166 Jan week 3 36,516 40,000 21 29,764 21 33,226 21 30,068 19 30,200 20 27,027 19 25,112 23 24,558 21 21,873 22,402 22,396 Feb week 1 40,823 7 30,141 7 34,327 7 30,577 2 31,141 3 28,013 3 25,647 1 25,416 4 22,962 8 23,422 23,457 Feb week 2 44,552 19 41,56214 32,157 14 35,148 14 31,310 14 31,537 10 28,759 17 26,290 12 26,039 12 23,650 12 21,448 12 Feb week 3 42,463 21 32,954 21 32,735 21 36,070 21 32,075 21 32,137 17 29,217 24 26,639 18 26,641 17 23,650 18 24,195 16 25,253 17 Feb week 4 49,850 28 44.526 28 33,458 28 32,985 28 36,973 28 32,948 28 32,679 24 29,450 26 27,066 26 27,736 26 - 25,277 Mar week 1 50,054 7 44,903 7 35,874 7 35,726 7 37,979 7 34,034 7 33,520 3 30,524 7 27,619 4 28,582 4 24,801 5 26,023 27,806 Mar week 2 48,880 14 52,738 14 49,667 14 37,083 14 36,063 14 39,537 14 34,691 14 35,080 16 32,623 16 29,510 16 30,421 15 26,751 14 26,791 14 28,068 Mar week 3 54,028 21 55,528 21 51,513 21 41,055 21 37,571 21 41,513 21 36,513 21 35,756 21 33,146 21 30,257 21 - - Mar week 4 54,981 28 56,572 28 54,164 28 41,325 28 37,888 28 44,008 28 38,089 28 37,025 28 35,117 26 31,035 26 32,324 28 - 29,588 31,087 Apr week 1 55,258 7 57,558 7 55,595 7 42,088 7 38,115 7 45,537 7 39,402 7 38,554 7 35,535 1 32,001 1 - - 32,235 33,359 Apr week 2 57,002 14 58,385 14 56,841 14 43,421 14 38,246 14 46,133 14 40,160 14 39,005 14 36,157 8 33,301 9 33,175 14 - - 33,753 10 Apr week 3 58,651 21 59,220 21 57,289 21 44,934 21 38,286 21 47,174 21 40,557 21 39,281 21 36,731 20 - 34,548 20 Apr week 4 60,241 28 59,545 8 57,802 28 46,093 28 38,431 28 48,080 28 40,636 28 39,634 28 37,597 30 34,068 29 May week 1 60,416 7 60,673 7 59,144 7 46,896 7 38,521 7 49,837 7 41,640 7 40,083 7 37,766 6 34,352 7 35,205 5 - 34,489 35,205 May week 2 62,072 14 61,324 14 60,000 14 46,896 14 38,591 14 50,107 14 41,825 14 40,380 14 38,102 13 - - - 34,961 May week 3 62,310 21 63,750 21 60,303 21 48,784 21 38,673 21 50,422 21 42,057 21 40,549 21 38,327 23 34,871 20 May week 4 62,606 28 63,869 28 60,782 28 48,784 28 38,673 28 50,520 28 42,352 28 40,749 28 38,479 31 35,017 22 June week 1 62,815 7 64,135 7 61,652 7 50,085 7 38,766 7 51,770 7 43,593 7 40,934 7 38,547 6 Jun Week 2 62,942 14 64,492 14 62,095 14 50,085 14 38,985 14 51,770 14 43,791 14 41,022 14 38,653 14 - - 35,403 Jun week 3 63,655 21 64,751 21 62,646 21 Jun week 4 63,984 28 64,929 28 62,738 28 July week 1 64,157 7 64,976 7 65,472 7 July week 2 64,214 14 67,122 14 65,756 14 July week 3 64,286 21 67,177 21 65,816 21 Final July 31 64,645 67,673 65,902 53,188 39,774 52,405 44,191 42,102 39,211 35,953 35,911 33,177 35,345 36,937 Post 31 July End 31 Oct 65,717 70,785 66,484 54,495 40,531 52,446 45,178 42,233 2025 Progressive total in Red Actual dates in Blue Date of first game of season Home or Away Previous Years

Great support and effort to the club. Well done. Ps are you related to Vagg?

Riffing on the season, 'tis re-birth?

Why the love for Johnson??

I'm one of the automatic renewals. Haven't been able to see a game live for umm... I think I saw one in 2010 or 11. But I pays me money because I want my team to survive. I'd be a 30+ year member but for the year I didn't pay up after they gave Woe the flick.

🎊🎈🎄🥂⭐️ 🎁😘 ♥️🎅🏽 MERRY XMAS Y’ALL!

MCC/MFC Dual memberships may have been automatic renewals some time ago but MCC members face the same economic pressures as everyone else and unfortunately they are very much like GA members, they more than likely leave their dual memberships to renew just before the season starts. Also Dual members are not on any type of rollover and they have to be made every year.

I think the other one is if we are looking like playing finals around end of June/July. If that is the case there will be another push with people locking in finals tickets etc.

I've already paid for the GFG and my digital membership but I usually dont pay for my MCC/MFC dual membership option until closer to the season. Spread some of these payments about a bit.