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FWIW, last Saturday at the captain’s run Judd said that his decision on his future has nothing to do with who our head coach is/was. He said nothing has changed with the sacking of Goody, he’s always planned (and still plans) on staying. Then on Tuesday he said “just some loose ends to tie up, but yeah, I’m not leaving.” Incidentally, I don’t ask him about his decision, he volunteers the info. Ok, so I may’ve given him the odd death threat or two, but that was in the past. I don’t even need to give him the sideways stink-eye..: he knows. 😁

Having worked with someone in a not dissimilar scenario to CP5 - and went on to win a couple of premierships, the energy and effort expended each match was huge to manage his anxiety of re-injury and the potential cost of that, whilst being in a culture of - it's happened...just harden up. Coming back from a life-threatening injury isn’t just about healing tissue; it’s about re-wiring the brain’s threat systems. From a neurobiological point of view, those systems are designed to keep you alive, not get you back into contested footy. Even when the body is “ready,” the brain often keeps running protective patterns – subtle hesitation, altered decision-making, or a shift in how risk is assessed – and that can permanently change a player’s game. To me, that all looks pretty clear in how he plays now post injury. If Christian was 22, then maybe it would be different - the holistic view is, presuming he wants/has (IDK) a family, other interests, then mortality (be it philosophical or literal) would be consistently front of mind, be it game day, or training in terms of having to protect himself, subtly sometimes, and more pronounced at others. The challenge isn’t forcing the old version of yourself back, but learning to operate within the new reality. And that’s not failure; it’s the natural adaptation of someone who’s survived something most people never have to face

I hope Kalani isn't disheartened by Jobe's inclusion. We don't want a flat White.

He saw me trying to sneakily take a pic so he pulled the jumper down, crossed his arms to keep it down, and breathed in…

That was an amazing game. Bummer not to win but I’m proud of the effort after an emotional week. I’m happy. The opportunity to knock Hawthorn out of the 8 next week is still on. Bring it on.

My boy Luker won’t be debuting this season. He’s not as disappointed as I thought he’d be. He said they don’t want him in his debut going up against Barrass and Battle, or Collingwood. LOL… they didn’t specify filth players, they must mean the whole side.

Langford and Culley are 2 monsters that can mark anything and play forward Exciting for the future These tight games are invaluable for our young guys

Jobe Watson is a trained barista so makes sense as a lot of caffeine will be needed during the process

For those scratching their heads are you aware we have only won 8 games from the last 28 with 16 premiership player still on our list? It's not that hard

There are times when I really don't like Caro, and this is one of them. She makes stuff up, and most of her columns are now highlighted with "Opinion piece" I know Steven Smith and had a chat at a Gosch's training session before he went to Italy. He stated that he wouldn't assume the role at least until the AGM, as it would be too disruptive to take over on his return from OS. He was at the President's lunch on Sunday, let it slip that Italy was really hot and that he video conferenced into board meetings while on his holiday. Caro I call BS. She cannot have it both ways, either. You cannot say there is a leadership vacuum due to the president being acting and the CEO absent, then say Green is being dictatorial and overreaching. The fact is he was appointed to be president and until the AGM and elections come up, which may well be in December, he is the president, end of story. As for Keith Thomas, the moment he put his foot in his mouth, he was never going to be selected. Or did she neglect to say that? Her history of bagging this club, whether it be tanking, Goodwin and bad behaviour, inuendo re Oliver or any other opportunity to badmouth our club, indicates to me the best thing is to ignore her.

van Rooyen has has a terrible season but he’s played two reasonable games in a row where he’s been attacking the ball in the air and grabbing a few. We are relying on him for the future. Dropping him when he’s finally starting to get going would make the entire season a waste.

I reckon the responsibility for our midfield woes, today and all season, in large part falls to Jones, who is charge of stoppages and the other midfield coach (whose name escapes me - Sam ratcliff?). Our set up and structures have been woeful all season. I went to a player sponsor event last year and Maxy was on our table. I was talking to him about stats and whether he is into them. Short answer is yes (he noted every player has access to an app with the full stats the club keep, team wide and for each player - he showed me the app on his phone). I asked him if hitouts is the most useless stat in footy - leading question but he agreed. But of more interest he volunteered that by far his least favourite stat was hitout to advantage as it's dependent on the mids being in the right spot - that's to say he hits it to a designated spot on the clock (his phrase) and a mid is supposed to be there. In games that's mainly on the mids but it also comes down to how the midfield coach sets up structures etc and how well drilled and coached the mids are.

Great effort today. Play with that effort and game style and we'd win most weeks. Bad luck. Umpires didn't help.

The boys are all in their junior football guernseys. Some jarring sights here: Essendon, Richmond, Collingwood etc. guernseys. Tmac asked me if his jumper is too small (it is) but I said it looks fine. Nothing wrong with a belly hanging out from a jumper, right?

The recent conversation on Max's heir apparent (or lack there of) has had me thinking that I believe Daniel Turner is best placed to be our next captain. The growth in his game has been huge in the last two years. He's been forthright in his love for the club. Commands respect from his team mates. The expected timeline of Max having at least 2 more solid years in him fits in with Disco's development timeline. I think he may be the next Melbourne Football Club captain. What are the the thoughts of other Demonlanders?

Take a cold shower. Jesus. This site has become a cesspit of negativity and misery. Add whining stupidity. You'd be better off watching some porn, or reading a book. (It would have to be large print.)

Exclusive footage from inside the meeting with Bucks.

On the leaking angle, first person Goodwin called after Green and the board possie had finished giving him the news, was his manager... my total speculation is it's the managers, the confidants of players, coaches and the media are the source of most "leaks" in the footy ecosystem. Information is valuable, so gaining credits with Caro or Morris by leaking Goodwin's sacking leads is part of grooming Caro or Morris so that when managers want to influence the market for their players (i.e. do their jobs during contract negotiations) then their mates in the media will be amenable...

This is a pathetic post. Surely, we can discuss trading players without being disrespectful like this...

Hird a No 😂 What a load of [censored]. Nobody asked him, nobody would. What’s your next tweet Ralphy? Jock McHale and Tommy Hafey have withdrawn interest due to being dead?

I know you love Jefferson but by any measure Roo and Petty are better. Your blind hatred for almost our entire playing list is one of the most bizarre takes on this site. I have no idea why you even support us.

Jack Viney you have been so hard and gallant for a long period but we simply need you to start lowering your eyes if we are going be able to implement a slicker game style.

One of the games of the season.

I've just taken a quick trip forward in the time machine and recorded half a dozen of the many questions asked by the panel and the corresponding answers given by unsuccessful applicants. 1 - Where do you see the team finishing in 2026? "I'd say my biggest weakness is not listening". 2 - The position requires a responsible person. "I'm your man. In my last job, when anything went wrong, they said I was responsible". 3 - What is your greatest strength? (30 minutes later ) "I'm very comfortable with silence". 4 - Would you be willing to relocate? "Of course. Where would you like me to sit?" 5 - Why did you leave your last job? "It was something my boss said". What did your boss say? "You're fired". 6 - Can you perform under pressure? "No, but I'll give Bohemian Rhapsody a go".

Players that are unhappy with the position they are asked to play, makes me think of one man. Do what you have to do for the team. Maybe success may come along.

So just so I have this straight, Caro's argument is that Buckley shouldn't come to Melbourne because we don't have a proper training ground and we have some uncertainties around key roles at the club. And instead, he should wait to maybe get offered a job at a team that doesn't yet exist. How embarrassing for her.

When you say hes missed so much footy, exactly how much are we talking about? Because so far this years hes only missed one game this year off the back of two last year. So a total of 3 games in two years so far which is really a solid effort. The excuses were out last year with the broken hand and everyone said he only needed a full preseason and he will be back to full form. Did the whole pre season so he came into this season fully fit and ready to go. This isnt a criticism of Oliver off the back of yesterdays performance because he was actually quiet good, but honestly, we really need to stop finding every single excuse in the world for Oliver. He's been okay year this year, but not great to justify the 1.5ml we are paying him. Champion data alone has him ranked the 211th best player in the competition. That's only a slight improvement from last year. I watched Marcus Bontempelli yesterday who mind you is two years older then Oliver and missed the first 7 games of this year with injury and you'd excuse him if he was playing poorly this year because the difference in terms of input and class between he and Oliver/Petracca was stark. Can't be justifying excuses for Oliver this year when someone like Bont who only a few years ago Oliver was rated above him, has missed significant chunk of the first half the season with injury only to come out and put in a quality season so far where hes still rated inside top 10 players of the competition this year. I mean its not even guarantee that Oliver will be back to his best anyhow? The game is sliding away from having a contested beast inside your midfield and turning into a more quick transition, free flowing game. This is where Oliver has been caught out at times this year. I'm still in the trade Oliver camp at the end of the year and have been for a while, but I also now understand if a new coach wants to try and rediscover his form in some capacity.

Bloody loved the game by Tmac on Darcy. Tom seems to be improving with old age! Really want he and Melk to sign on again for next year

David Parkin was my coach for a season. He was doing his teacher training at my primary school so they naturally made him the football team coach. He said I’d make a good cricketer.

Thank you Picket, coming from you that means a lot

Roos: "I think Melbourne is a different kettle of fish," he told the ABC AFL Daily podcast. "I think they're way better than people are giving them credit for. If you get the right off-season moves, I'll go on the record, they could win a flag next year. Not the year after, they could win a flag next year. "They've got 14-16 premiership players on their list right now. They won a premiership in 2021, they're not super old, so I think this is a different one." "If I'm someone like a Nathan Buckley, I'm not taking this job to resurrect this team. I'm taking this job to win a premiership in the next two to three years," Roos said. "That's the mandate, for me." https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-11/afl-paul-roos-melbourne-premiership-coach-hunt-buckley/105639016

He missed half of 2023 with the hamstring, came back for finals and injured his knee but kept playing. Missed the entire 2024 pre season, for both publicly known reasons and also reasons a lot of the public doesn't and will never know. Came back to play round 1 2024, and broke his hand. His hand was so badly broken he couldn't lift weights for nearly the entire year. It was insane to not put him straight into surgery, but there were reasons why we wanted to keep him playing and focused on footy. It was not good for him physically, but actually it really helped him mentally which was rightly the priority. He also injured his PCL again at the back end of 2024. So essentially he's had no continuity with his body for 18+ months. He completed a full pre season this year, but as we know from guys like Tmac, Viney, Lever etc when you miss so much footy with persistent injuries especially entire pre-seasons, it takes a really long time to get back to peak fitness. The problem for Oliver is that to play his role effectively he has to be 100% fit aerobically. Not 99% fit, but 100% fit. Until 2023 we never saw him battle injuries that impacted his fitness. Yes he had ongoing shoulder issues, but they didn't prevent him from running, doing weights and so on, and he didn't miss entire pre seasons as a result. I think it is a credit to both him and Trac for doing so much work this pre-season to get through a whole year without any soft tissue injuries given how much footy they missed. Although in the grand scheme of things Trac missed 6 months, but was very fit prior to injury. Clarry has battled for almost 3 times that long with a variety of issues that impacted his fitness. As the year has gone on you can see that Clarry has naturally improved his fitness due to playing more and more games, and that has really improved his game. I agree that footy is moving away from needing multiple contested beasts, but you always need players who can win the ball and use their hands to release others out wide. That will never change, and it will be even more noticeable come finals. Viney is at the back end of his career and his skills will never get better. Trac has his own mental demons to deal with, and we have no idea if he will ever over come them. Clarry also has mental demons, but from a physical point of view he is only going to get fitter (unless injuries stop him of course). I am not sure who wins us clearances if he leaves, when we all agree that Viney and Trac need to play predominantly different roles in the future. Do I think Langford, Lindsay, Kosi and Windsor will be good mids? Absolutely. Will they ever get to the contested winning abilities of Clarry? That is a big unknown.

Losing always stings, but that game almost took me back to the 90s. Fast paced and one on one footy. A great spectacle, well done to both sides. I agree with Goody, we aren’t that far off from competing again.

Is Chaplin the right guy?

Can't we all just get along? We have a wonderful opportunity for a full Demonland reset. The Goody is NOT the right guy crew must be thrilled. The Goody IS the right guy crew (of which I'm a card carrying member) have moved on - the king is dead, long live the king! Let's all rally around our interim President, acting CEO and yet to appointed head coach (*cough bucks cough*).

Goody has been around footy long enough to know that you live and die by results. He would have known his job was not safe after a 0-5 start, following a bad off season where a review was undertaken and pointed to issues with Goody (amongst other issues), and after a bottom 4 finish in 2024 and two straight set exists prior. He maybe didn't think he'd be getting sacked 3 weeks out from the end of the season, but he is not a stupid man, and to suggest he didn't know he was in trouble especially after we lost to St Kilda in Alice, a [censored] side in Carlton and then that debacle against St Kilda the second time around, is naïve. The outcome of the review last year was that we were good enough to play finals in 2025. That was the expectations and Goody and the board agreed on that. When it became obvious we won't play finals yet again, despite Goody's strong belief that we are not too far away, his position became almost untenable. Does the board still believe we are not far away from success again? Perhaps. But with a new coach coming in, my guess is that they are open to going into a mini rebuild. The problem doesn't lie in the board and the coach not being aligned, the problem was that they were aligned on their expectations, and the expectations were not met. Had Goody said we needed to rebuild 2 years ago, it's very possible he would still be in the job today, but he was adamant we could play finals after a poor 2024 where perhaps injuries didn't help after a pretty promising start. 2025 was a no excuse year.

Goodwin is good bloke but is treating every media opportunity like a job interview He is acting like the board and us members knew we’d have a couple of down years and then go again. I’m fairly sure that was not the plan We all thought we were in contention still. So clearly that is a falsehood. I wish him well but let’s not rewrite history

Well nsc let me give you some facts re: Kade Chandler Goal kicking = 4th at Dees, same as the Bont Disposals = 11th at Dees, same as JJ marks = 10th at Dees, same as Rankine Score Inv = 7th at Dees, same Milkshake & Logan Morris Fantasy pts = 9th at Dees same as Cam Raynor Tackles = 4th at Dees, better than JJ and Sidebottom Contested Pos = 8th at Dees, same as Bergman, Watson, Fletcher So Kade may not be a Daicos or Langford but he is a very handy sml forward, gut runner and handy around the goals.

Dont ever make Howes the sub. I might be in the minority but I rate Howes pretty highly and I think over the last few weeks he's taken some really big steps forward. Him being the sub was genuinely an odd decision. Make Sparrow the sub if we have too.

Bloody chandler and his inappropriate and insecure hand gestures cost us that game.

Men’s and women’s teams both out on the park together. Training separately but geez it’s good to see them all out there. The boys are all in trakkies and puffas, the girls are in shorts and sleeveless guernseys. Just sayin’ 😉

DEES TO REWARD PRE-SEASON PICKUPMELBOURNE is rewarding Jai Culley with a new contract after an eye-catching fortnight from the former West Coast midfielder. The 22-year-old earned a lifeline at the Demons after the AFL briefly reopened the pre-season supplemental selection period in February, following knee injuries to Andy Moniz-Wakefield and Carlton's Jagga Smith. Now Melbourne is extending the Langwarrin product with a contract for 2026. Culley played 12 games across three seasons at the Eagles after being selected with pick No.1 in the 2022 mid-season rookie draft. After being delisted at the end of 2024, Culley joined Casey at the start of the pre-season when Melbourne didn't have a list spot available. The Demons then signed Werribee premiership player Jack Henderson after Shane McAdam ruptured his Achilles, but were blown away by how Culley handled that news from former coach Simon Goodwin. Culley got his first shot for Melbourne against his old side West Coast in round 21, where he kicked two goals from a wing and showed he can perform at the level, before finishing with 16 touches, 11 contested possessions and five clearances against the Western Bulldogs on Sunday. – Josh Gabelich https://www.afl.com.au/news/1388149/race-heats-up-for-in-demand-blue-record-in-sight-for-veteran-lion-luckless-saints-new-deal

Gotten better as the season has gone on because he is finally getting closer to full fitness after missing so much footy. Spent more TOG today as well than he has in a while. Oliver will be back to his best with another full uninterrupted pre season under his belt. I have no doubt about that. His quick hands in close are going to become more important the less we play Viney and Trac as midfielders and the more we try to get Kosi Windsor etc on ball to use their speed and skills.

Didn't quite get the win but that was for you Simon.

Max is unbelievable, I reckon he’s the best player Melbourne has had for a long time, since Robbie

To me, after everything had unfolded this year and after the off field mess we have had for the past 2-3 yeats, along with the media noise, if Goodwin did not feel his job was under pressure then he's delusional. Tim Lamb put it on record (video below) after the trade period that we would be a much better team then last year because once again a reliance on Oliver and Petracca to have injury free pre seasons etc etc.. if the talk from Lamb was to be better then last year then that would be aligned with Goodwins vision as well and obviously the goal was to clearly play finals. We failed horribly at that off the back of where the rort started which imo was the game against Norf this year. Players looked completely broken after that. The Saints game was pretty much the final nail in the coffin. Supporters, media experts could all see it was eventually come to an end. Was I surprised at the timing? Yes I was.. thought they would let him play out the year at least, but I can understand why they pulled the pin early because they clearly want to get on the front foot immediately.