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The Norm Smith Curse is over. The Clarkson Curse has begun. Long live the Clarkson Curse!

In regards to Petty, I have it on good authority that we were planning on getting Hayden McLean with the pick that we took Petty at. MClean didnt get drafted and has worked hard to get on the Swans list and play some reasonable football. From what I recall (and I know all clubs say they were surprised to have a certain player fall to them in the draft) I think we had Petty in our top 20 picks of the draft, and they were shcoked he was there when he was, so they had no choice but to take him. I am extremely glad they did, as he is going to be a very good player for a long imte.

Ahhh life is great isn’t it! The fact it is Kennett running the show is even better.

I’ve been baffled by this [censored] since the succession presser looked like an ISIS hostage video. Blowing up the club for Sam Mitchell? Sorry, what has he done in coaching again? Goodwin did his full apprenticeship under Roos as he lay the foundation. Was never a guaranteed success, but it was a well executed, professional plan. What sort of [censored] bizarro world am I living where the club who’s success and professionalism I’ve envied for years is a mess, while we’re the toast of the town.

Nic Nat overrated as always, 13th best? He averaged 68% TOG and 1.6 marks per game. Completely overrated.

Many years ago me and a couple members here joined forces to produce a Robert Flower highlights dvd. I'm very pleased to say that my collection of Robbie Flower highlights has grown and as tribute to the Dees making (and hopefully winning) the 2021 GF, I have uploaded a highlights video to Youtube of the greatest Melbourne player in my life time. So if you have a spare 40 mins or so, have a look at it. If you are too young to have seen him play, you need to see this. If you are old enough to have seen him play and remember what he was like, please enjoy.

Magnificent. I was hoping the Cup would visit RDB Well done to whoever organized that. They did it!!!! Won the 2021 Premiership

This deserves its own thread ”Sit back in your favourite chair…”

LEGEND !! what a true legend of our game and our club 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 that was great. His excitement. His eyes lit up!! Ronald Dale Barassi meets an old friend. ❤️💙❤️💙❤️💙

Remember the days when we hoped Jones would creep into this? now Fritsch is #16 what a world

Thought this deserved it's own thread.

1 Brownlow vote is the clearest indication I have seen that the award is BS.

Hope the families of those we have lost too early in last 20 years have opportunity to hold the cup in a quiet situation.

Bontempelli went ok for a half. Could rotate off the bench as an impact player.

Clarkson has certainly left the Hawks in an awful state. Very little youth coming through and the senior players are mostly ones that have been traded in, so they have no core leadership to bring them forward. if the rebuild started in 2018 they would be looking good now to bounce back. I think Mitchell is doing the right thing to start a rebuild and you do need to be aggressive, but you have to know the marketplace. there is no one is salary cap space. I would not be surprised at all if Mitchell or O'Meara leave at the last minute and the hawks are paying a chunk of their salary next year. they both came to the hawks for success and now they are looking at years of rebuilding with an untried and seemingly arrogant coach

This is how to make the most of AFL Trade Radio

Now I can believe that it happened.

We have a 3 week drought.

I put Trade Radio on and then immediately turned it off. I decided that supporters of premiership winning teams don't need to subject themselves to this level of peasantry

next stop for the cup.......neale daniher then off to noel mcmahon

ah...........the family club 😰........cry me a river

the list is not 50 best players. It’s best players for the year, where he has acknowledged finals performances get a greater weighting. 6 goals in a granny, 59 goals for the year, and key cog in a successful fwd line = warranted 16th spot.

Im sure it will visit Neale too

He is look good for a 85 year old, when older people watch games of clubs they support they tend to ride every bump, handball and kick. When the team wins the premiership a tear comes in our eyes because we are relieved that they have achieved the holy grail and we are there to witness it even if it is only on TV or a replay. Unfortunately my father and cousin did not live long enough to see the mighty "D" raise the cup again.

Did you see Rons eyes light up when he came up the stairs and saw the shining cup. Wonderful stuff. It seems that Ron and his association with the cup has come full circle. And he carries the spirits of all his past team mates that have passed away over the years. A great moment.

Disposal efficiency has never been a useful statistic because it doesn't measure what you think it measures. It doesn't measure how well you kick and handball, it measures how well you can maintain possession of the ball. I haven't looked at the rankings but I'd be shocked if there any correlation between DE and performance. Teams like Geelong that chip the ball around to maintain possession will be high in DE because they don't take risks with the ball. We will be very low ranked because we play very fast paced, aggressive and direct football with numbers behind the ball. It has absolutely no relevance to how well a team kicks the footy.

Luke Jackson if he can wear a mouthguard

My take on the WA vs SA game with players I kept an eye on. Excluding Woewodin, which I did a write up on the Woewodin forum page. -Mathew Roberts: BOG in my eyes. Played mostly inside mid for this game. I don't think we should pick an inside mid with our 1st pick this year, but Cal Twomey has said previously that he can play on a wing also, which is an area we should consider taking with our 1st pick. He seems quick enough. Elite kick, with really good spacial awareness. Just looked a class above to most of them today. -Angus Sheldrick: Next best on ground today imo. More likely a 2nd/3rd round pick as I don't see too much upside. He's a small inside mid and very tough at it. Not flashy at all but very competitive. -Jack Williams: A big body already which makes him a pretty slow mover. He can go in the ruck also which is of benefit to us if we have a long term outlook with Jackson as a Ruck/Fwd and Williams as a Fwd/Ruck. I would like to use our 2nd pick on him if he gets that far and if we don't pick up Van Rooyen or Amiss with our 1st pick. Seems ok without setting the world on fire. -Motlop: Looks like a really good small forward. I don't think we need another small forward, but he shows class. -Burgoyne: Looked really good. Smooth mover, pretty quick and neat skills. I'll be shocked if Port don't take him Father Sun! -O'Loughlin: Looks nearly identical to J.Impey for me. Nice small defender with not bad skills. Maybe worth a look later in the draft.

As we all love the slide down the ladder of the Hawks I thought it be good if we talk about the current mistakes that Sam “I’m too good to let one of the greatest coaches ever have a dignified exit” Mitchell is repeating. We all know how them pushing out Hodge and Lewis and co broke their culture (could have learnt something there Sam)… And now they are doing the same with established senior players: https://www.afl.com.au/news/683923 Wingard on the table but he doesn’t want to be on the table… Mess. When TMac and ANB were on the table last year, they were told they should move on and it wasn’t a surprise and they should try to control their own destiny. Nothing concrete materialised and you know the rest. But Hawthorn are shopping people that have not been brought on that journey; something tells me the results they will get owing me sane that we saw from TMac and ANB. Discuss.

Woo Hoo .... Laminated Big Maxy 😎

Starting to look like they might even be doing it -worse- than the Demon's first rebuild 2007-11. Wingard, Mitchell and O'Meara are only in the 27-28 years range. They have a dozen other players older than that and many of them are also important to the team. It is a big risk to be trying to dispose of your remaining mature players when you are already about to lose a host of them naturally. But I guess that works both ways - if they don't hit the panic button and get whatever draft selections and young players they can, they will be in all sorts of trouble anyway. Looks to me like the only part of the ground they have reasonable prospects in from the younger players is defence. That's important (As we so happily know - Oh hey, did you hear we won the premiership? Yeah, we did that) but damn they look threadbare everywhere else. They've got just 80 games total into every player they have 21yrs or under (Demons: 220!) and that's a fair reflection of what's available in that group. I've looked at it and talked myself in a circle but the conclusion is; I cannot see a way Hawthorn can avoid a really awful and sustained slump. YAAAAAAAY! WOOOO HOOO!

Yeah from what i've heard we did seriously consider Parish with our pick, but Roos just loved what he saw from Oliver. and god hasn't that paid off (not that Parish isn't a gun) In terms of the other draft i think our top 4 were Petracca, Brayshaw, McCartin and Lever. from memory that's the year we tried to trade Jack Trengove to get another pick because Lever looked like sliding. It really is an incredible turn around in our trading and drafting, even the players we were seemingly interested in but didn't get like Georgiadis turned out to be good players

Only just, through tears of my own.

Absolutely wonderful stuff! It brought a massive smile to my face seeing Ron Barassi so happy in that video! On ya Ron! GO DEMONS!!!

Brilliant I hope that perhaps Ron, and ND can be the official flag raisers when we unfurl the our 2021 Premiership flag.

The cup seemed to make Ron a lot more energized, great to see.

He went off to Suffragette City with Major Tom and the Thin White Duke, where they were heroes, just for one day.

Where is Bowey?

Good to see Touk Miller get some love too. He can come to Melbourne whenever he wants.

No Dangerfield or Selwood, gladens my heart

Buddy isnt that high any more. And Aliir is not better than Lever.

Oliver will be our first to play 400 games.

For decades i have watched other teams get players of this caliber and use them to smash us to pieces as we watch on sighing. But for us to have not one but two elite midfielders and the best in the competition at that, i can hardly believe it every time they play.

I’m in the camp that thinks it’s a strong possibility that Mac Andrew will be selected outside the top 20. It’s one thing to say that he’s rated top 10, or even for a handful of recruiters to say it too, but at the end of the day he has to have a club with a top 10 pick actually prepared to make the selection in the knowledge they’ll have to wait 5+ years for a return. He has incredible potential, but for those trying to get an earlier return on investment it may be a dirty word. And we have the luxury of a flag to mitigate any pressure for a quick ROI. Other clubs don’t have that luxury and there will be pressure to maintain their positions. I’ve a feeling the cards will fall our way. But I also don’t think he’s clearly that much better than a lot of other players on offer.

Tex Walker shouldn’t even still be on AFL list.

I keep saying ( to my fellow golfers who have reminded me about 186 for years )that we had 2 Practice Matches against Geelong : 1 To see how much of a start we could give them and still win. 2 : To show them how much we could win by when we play fair dinkum. I wonder why nobody wants to play golf with me !!!

At this level, Taj plays a solid but unspectacular game of football, accumulating possessions without doing anything that stands out. However, I think on the basis of his year’s work as a regular in his team’s best players at Colts level for East Fremantle and in his state level appearances with WA Under 19s, that he’ll probably take the last spot on our list. The players who impressed me were Angus Sheldrick who is the type of player Goody would like and Jack Williams who has hitherto presented himself as a potential key forward but also took a lot of the ruck work in this game. I’m not sure about the relative strength of the other rucks and he’s not tall enough at 195cm to be a regular ruckman at AFL level but, if he’s around at #17, he’d be worth a long hard look for his versatility as I believe he could play key forward or back. There are others worthy of consideration for #17 as well - Jacob Van Rooyen who didn’t play would be great at that pick. SA midfielder Matt Roberts was slow off the mark but nearly won the game for them in the end. I think he’ll go top 10. And there’s a lot to like about Jase Burgoyne who is a Port Adelaide father/son prospect.

No apologies needed. I never lost faith in any of my boys. Love them all