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Date: Wednesday 14/11 @ 8:30pm Listen and Chat LIVE: http://demonland.com/podcast Got a question for Josh then let us know.

Wow. The star pulling power that Demonland has is impressive. I noticed that Maxy also gave Demonland a bit of a shout out in his B&F speach. That these players and officials of standing keep rocking up to give interviews is a real credit to the manner in which the moderators and administrators at Demonland run the forum. Well done guys.

This is from Bernie https://www.playersvoice.com.au/bernie-vince-beginning-not-end/2/ A great read. My two favourite parts are: the section on RISE OF THE DEES where he reflects on how things changed from when he arrrived. when he told teammates he was retiring: "Michael Hibberd didn’t make it any easier. He was crying in the front row the whole time I was addressing the boys. I was looking at him thinking, ‘Mate, are you walking away as well?’ The boys joked that he was only crying because he was losing his drinking partner...But it was lovely. It will stay with me forever". That Bernie and Hibberd played together for only two seasons speaks volumes about the comradeship built among the players. Bernie's love for the dees really comes across. He is another player who came to us when we were a basket case and ploughed thru the tough times and gave his all. Love everything about Bernie! Will miss him but glad there are plans to keep him around the club.

Finished 4th in the 2018 B&F in a great year for the club. Clearly the FD still rate him. Explain that to me? One injury to the starting midfield of Oliver, Viney, Brayshaw, Harmes and he's straight in there. He has challenges ahead to adapt to a new role on the wing and probably half-forward but he's too good not to be in the 22. He's be in any club's best 22. The FD will find a way to use his talents and he'll need to rise to the challenge of adapting to his new role. If he can adapt to a new role there's no reason he can't play 2-3 more years - he has been incredibly durable.

You're a hard man , have you ever lost someone ? have you ever had to care for someone as they passed away , how about living with cancer ?? I am 51 and lost my wife and now live with cancer , its something you NEVER get over. Statements like yours make me so bloody mad, come sit with me and my kids ask them how they feel , when they don't have a mum anymore , or watched me ... I hope you never ever have to find out what its like. Don't pity me and say sorry , I don't need it , I get up everyday and do what I can , my kids keep me going , go to a cancer ward and see for yourself. I too believe we won on the trade and wish Jesse all the best , as i have when I have spoken to him. Mark.

Frost before Omac for me. Frost was in the top 5 one on one defenders in the AFL in 2018, losing only 17.6% of contests. Omac was just above average losing 26.7% of contests. FYI, Lever was ranked 2nd in the league at 15.4% and May around 10th at 21.4%. Our one on one defending was good last year and will be better in 2019. Your welcome to quote the actual stats to jnrmac ? My crystal ball prediction is we'll have a bad loss at some stage in 2019 when our forwards and mids are not defensively switched on, and demonland will go into meltdown over how bad our one on one defending is.....

Now it’s all over I hope on a human level he can find some peace and the club kicks on to bigger and better things. I find I am less sentimental as I get older but will always have a bit of a soft spot for Hogan. He was a key component in our rebuild towards becoming a force again. If we do reach the ultimate success sooner rather than later he will deserve some credit for taking an awful lot on his shoulders as a young man for our club and not breaking as others who came beforehand did. Good luck to him and he’ll always be welcome back in my eyes.

People can rate trades now, but it is just opinions and gives us something to talk about. No-one can argue they are right or wrong until later. For example, my opinion is Plough is not just wrong on our trading but also Richmonds. He had Richmond as an A. I don't see it. Richmonds biggest problem in 2018 was they suck at contested ball and clearances and covered that well for most of the season due to being the best pressure team. Collingwood exposed them in clearances in the prelim. Richmond have done nothing to address that. They had to create salary cap space to get Lynch and shed 5 of their better depth players. Maybe some player discontent as well. Time will tell but I think we did better in the trade period than Richmond because we addressed some shortcomings. Richmond strengthened an area that they were already good (2nd highest scoring team). I hope we play both Max and Preuss on ANZAC eve to totally destroy Nankervis, starve the Richmond forwards, and expose what a useless critic Plough is....

Frost was good on Hawkins in the Elimination final, the times that Hawkins marked it were classic lapses by other players failing to fill the hole directly between Hawkins and the kicker. No KPD could've stopped that - it's another illustration of how up field pressure and positioning is key to defensive success.

It’s unheard of, really. He averages just under 10 games a season, so he’s been afforded a slack that very few players would have had. Hopefully things finally come together for him. Fair to say I’m not optimistic, but best of luck to him.

http://m.afl.com.au/stats/stats-pro#/ Definitely Omac was getting the key defender until after our Geelong game when Frost went in front of him and got Buddy, Hawkins, Kennedy, Walker etc and yes a large part of it is our forward and mid pressure improved which IMO is the key to us being genuine flag contenders. But in that period Omac was getting the second forward so would have also had improved stats. Omac and Frost will both be in the 22 next year until Lever comes back in and it probably comes down to who is in better form at the time. Good position to be in compared to the issues we had when Lever went down this year.

you bet DZ.... to some extent it's funded by the Federal Government as part of a trade delegation. The Chinese funding comes from a billionaire Chinese property developer who has very very large agricultural holdings in Australia. The AFL also contributes. Gill quoted a figure of around A$4M .. not sure if that was the total cost or the AFL contribution. Peter Gordon said a year or two back that he would want a million dollars (cannot remember if that was plus expenses) to use a home game of the Bulldogs to play in China. Interesting that the Suns gave up as they are effectively an AFL run/funded club. Not a great move by the Saints just like ours in the NT. You take the money but you lose exposure in your home market. BTW anyone who thinks it's about increasing the viewing numbers in China doesn't understand the strategy. It's all about providing a corporate platform to engage Chinese government and business interests. I'm not against it but I would like to see a lot more transparent discussion about the business model. After all AFL money is "our money" in the sense that each dollar they spend lessens the dollars available for lower tier competitions, facilities etc.

I understand the pragmatism, but a big part of me wishes that Trenners was still on our list somehow. Glad to see he has been held onto by Port.

I really admire your honesty and preparedness to be some open about what you have been/are going through Mark. Inspiring.

That is what I said. I don't think he'd be amongst the centre mids unless two or more were injured. So he plays if there are injuries... He has been durable, absolutely. But the cliff comes quickly and there were certainly signs this year that he struggled to adapt to a new position. You're absolutely right that the FD clearly still rates him, because he's a consistent performer. The problem is our kids have gone past him and he's now become a make-shift wingman, which, like Tyson, doesn't suit him. I'm not convinced he can play half forward either, otherwise we'd have probably tried him there already, which we've resisted. It'll be interesting to see where they look to play him in 2019. No doubt, we'll get some sense as pre season gets under way. But I hope we treat him carefully for cultural reasons, because as MFC supporters, we know what a slippery slope that can be. I will say though that if we're challenging for a flag in 2020, I can't see Jones being a major part of that challenge. It'd be a coup for loyalty though if he was there to lift the cup.

I can't see us looking at Menzel. AFL coaches know the major source of scoring by far is turnovers. Any forward who doesn't apply forward 50 pressure and create turnovers is a liability. Menzel has never showed anything defensively despite probably being roasted about it by Scott. Not even a depth player. Both Smiths would get a run in the forward line by Goody before Menzel.

a big second from me on that post RBG !

Not sure why there's no thread about this on here yet... https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6306057/amp/Jack-Watts-text-scandal-AFL-star-messages-phone-leaked.html&ved=2ahUKEwjnoZmdpaDeAhUbTI8KHYLaCzwQFjACegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw05n6H7PIDz_JGhs13X-cEs&ampcf=1 DEMONLAND EDIT: THE MATTER OF JACK WATTS IS CLOSED FOR DISCUSSION I'll add that the reason the matter is closed for discussion is mainly because discussion on this issue invariably degenerates into unsubstantiated rumours that could result in legal action against the owners of this site and the offending posters. I'm not willing to take that risk nor do moderators need to be constantly moderating gossip, innuendo and such during the offseason.

He needn't have been worried. I reckon Mahoney planned his entire trade meet around bringing in big May, and as such, it was always a massive chance of happening. When you have a bloke who is willing to upset the nuffies, and take "unders" for a supposed star, and then pay "overs" for his target, he usually gets what he wants. I am confident everyone on 'Land will be beside themselves once they realise just how good this animal is....

That’s 64 points more than we actually lost by and the negative way to look at it. With the reverse logic an optimist might say we could’ve almost won it! Both statements are stupid. Fact is we lost by 66 points in the prelim and still have to improve.

I'd rather win the AFLX than have T Mac available for 6 meaningless home and away games.

That's the whole point, it's premature to make judgements about individual trades now. The thing I do make judgements about is trading philosophy. We trade for outcomes and have a reputation for getting the deal done. Dodoro and Bell do their teams no favours in the long run IMO. Play hard ball on Lever. Maybe May and GC don't have faith in us to get the deal done and lose patience and he ends up elsewhere.

Seriously? We win a flag in the next 5 years with Lever and May making significant contributions and they look like smart trades. Win more than that and they look like genius. Don't win any and you have a point. It's not about winning trade week - expect better of you.

I don't understand where you get the idea that Frost is too unreliable for diposal from the stats presented. Disposal efficiency is only 5% different between them and 0.6 clangers per game. I'd also like to see how that comparison would stack up for the second half of the year, when the stats might be reversed as I recall Frosty tidying up his disposal and decision making considerably. The other minor thing of note is that Frost actually registered in the stats for score involvement, where as O Mac didn't. Stacks up perfectly to me as I distinctly remember several great passages of play that were started by Frost deep in defense that went pretty much coast to coast and through the big ones. The most memorable were against GWS and that awsome torpe from full back against the Hawks. The stat comparison I'd like to see is meters gained @Watson11 - any chance you could pull out that stat. Anyway Binman, I agree with you regards Oscar still being the junior player and potentially still with further physical and game development in him, which I'm really hoping for. I quite like O Mac as well and I'm hoping that he matures into a player of similar quality and physical strength as big brother Tommy and it's a good position to be in for the MFC to have some decient backline depth. Main point for me is that I'm a little suprised how almost all the media seem to have O Mac ahead of Frost, when both it's such a close run thing and everyone seemed to acknowledge at the time how good Frosty was at the end of the year. I'm not reading too much into anything for any of our players that game against Westcoast and probably particularly not the backline ones, it's hard to single any one player out when so many made such poor mistakes - you could say Brayshaw is a dud based on that one performance, but you'd be wrong.

Bumped into the big fella today, still looked unhappy. Maybe it wasn’t us after all.

Please tell him to stay until we've at least won three flags. He seems like a bloody good footy boss.

Matthew [censored] was a [censored] player

I see Josh's role overseeing the football department mainly broken down in 4 areas: Coaching, medical/fitness, list management and culture. Shorting of asking Josh to explain his own role I have a number of questions based on what I think is important. Coaching: Does the club have a kicking coach? If not why not? Medical/fitness: Repeated foot injuries, what's the plan? Has it been reviewed? List management: I don't have a question here, whilst I think there's still work to do I'd give the team a tick on this one! Culture: How are the players, staff and fans embracing success and what's the plan to embrace it whilst not getting ahead of themselves?

Classic. I could actually imagine mark neeld, saying to a brand new recruit, yet to a play a game: 'you have done nothing for this club, zero, nada, ZILCH. You need to lift your game and harden the truck up'

No, for mine.

The reason why the AFL introduced the mid season draft was to replace the underperforming AFLX players

Our form at the end of the season was fantastic excluding our last match. So our success was celebrated and seen as a harbinger of further success in 2019. Lets hope we are not getting ahead of ourselves. To maintain all the good will bestowed on the Club at the end of the season, we need above all else, sustained success for a considerable period of time. And we have to avoid the peaks and troughs of the competition. Become Hawthorn like. We look to have set this up but coaches and players need to retain the hunger. We must never underestimate the competition or how circumstances or environment can impact on a club. So great signs, but sustained success with a flag is what we must achieve.

I agree with the wisdom of waiting a couple of seasons to rate a trade period. And given that, if we were to rate our trade efforts of 2015, 2016 & 2017 now, did we trade well..? Id say yes, and that gives me confidence that this years trade period will also bare quality fruit.

The gift that keeps on giving. ??????

That's a fair enough point but is that all you would have done? What I don't get though is why they didn't go hard for some hard nut insiders, because it is a major weakness. Why didn't they try and get Tyson or others that were available. In 2018 they almost concede they won't get their hands on the ball first around stoppages and just rely on pressuring the ball carrier so they can get intercepts in the defensive 50. How that strategy backfired in the prelim. It is a major flaw they have.

I don't see how anyone can rate trading until 1 or 2 years down the track. Until then it's pure supposition.

He’s a big May fan from memory. Unsurprisingly. May has a healthy dose of mongrel in him.

He wasn’t given much of a chance. Feel for him after working so hard to get back imto the system. Still, he played 10 more AFL games than you or I.

Was re-watching our game Vs Carlton the other day and that hit Bernie put on Daisy Thomas was an absolute ripper. Hard to imagine that Bernie won our B&F just 2 or 3 seasons ago. It's a shame Bernie dropped away so quickly this year. Would have loved to have seen this bloke play finals for us.

Only 2 exclamation marks. Picket cant decide how he really feels.

I think we should retire champs and refuse to participate.

He'll be entering his 10th year on a senior list. With his injury issues, this is a testament to his character that clubs have wanted to retain him for this long with such uncertainty over his body and fitness.

How times change and how thinking changes, in the space of about 10 weeks. How we are now described. Unbelievable, incredible, surreal. A destination club, are you kidding me? Not according to this guy! “I wanted to see where I can see myself having the best football career. They’ve got an unreal list, a really good young list, so I want to be here for sustained success. I don’t want to be here for just a couple of years. I want to play in front of big crowds and to join a big club, it’s a dream come true....it was just too good an opportunity to not pursue. They’re a ruthless team, a high scoring and exciting team, and it’s something that I want to be part of.” Love the comment, I want to play in front of big crowds and join a big club.

Didn't he watch the finals series this year and see how the Eagles unlocked the secret to beat/neutralise 1 big key ruckman (Gawn and Grundy). Great forward thinking by Mahoney and co with Preuss. This also guarantees we will be watching Big Max as a 34 year old too running around.

Wow, how quickly we forget. Only 5 years ago. Very sobering looking at that 2013 line-up.

when will these journos learn that jetta MUST be #1 player named when going from the backline?!??

LOL Spargo is nicknamed 'Chuck'... I've always had the thought of this lookalike.

I’m going to miss Bernie ?

How things change, a few years ago our full forward was 187cm tall! In fact Allen Jackovich and Russell Robertson were 187 (and probably still are). Yet today they are considered smallish! And Colinjazzknee at 190 is mid sized. I feel an affinity with Charlie Spargo!

We need more pace. Jake neade as a small forward for an end of the list option is worth it. He has something we don't have.