Demonland

AFL's full statement on postponing Queensland's two Opening Round matches: The AFL has today moved to reschedule Thursday night’s season opening match between the Brisbane Lions and the Geelong Cats in Brisbane, along with Saturday’s Gold Coast SUNS vs Essendon match on the Gold Coast. Out of an abundance of caution and after ongoing communication with the Queensland Government, the Bureau of Meteorology and Stadiums Queensland, the AFL made the decision now to ensure the health and safety of clubs, players, officials and – importantly - the wider southeastern Queensland and northern NSW community remains the priority. The AFL will announce the alternate schedule for these matches as soon as possible as we continue to work with clubs and venues on possible scenarios. The rescheduled matches won’t be played during Opening Round. Home club members will be contacted by their respective clubs shortly, while all other ticket holders will be contacted directly by the ticketing agent, regarding changes to match arrangements. (GABBA -Ticketmaster, People First Stadium – Ticketek). “As I said yesterday, the priority is that we do everything we can to ensure the health and safety of everyone in and around any potential cyclone zone or community impacted by the forecast heavy rains and storm surges.” AFL CEO Andrew Dillon said. “It is a very uncertain situation that is unfolding, and our thoughts are with everyone in southeast Queensland and northern NSW that may be impacted. Ultimately, we hope this weather event doesn’t eventuate, but we know everyone needs to prepare accordingly and we don’t want our games to be a distraction to those preparations. “We want to make the decision now to give clubs and fans certainty in an uncertain environment and allow anyone from Queensland who would normally be involved in this game through coaching, playing, attending or working at the venue time to be home with their families and available in the community if required. “I want to thank our clubs for their support and patience, our broadcasters for being aligned with our view that the community and public safety must always come first, the venues and venue partners and our fans for their understanding. “We also encourage all our supporters in the Queensland area to please follow all the directions from the Queensland Government in preparing for Cyclone Alfred. “I also want to acknowledge our AFL staff in Queensland, at our office in Yeronga, and our game development officers around the state, all whom we are presently working to assist as needed.” Opening Round will continue with Friday night’s Sydney Swans vs Hawthorn match at the SCG, and Sunday’s GWS GIANTS vs Collingwood match at ENGIE Stadium.

How the captains voted Which other club is most likely to reach the Grand Final? (Nine captains correctly picked eventual premier Brisbane in 2024) 9 – Brisbane Lions 8 – GWS GIANTS 1 – Sydney Who do you think will win the 2025 Brownlow Medal? (In 2024, no captains nominated eventual Brownlow medallist Patrick Cripps) 6 – Nick Daicos 4 – Marcus Bontempelli 2 – Caleb Serong 1 – Patrick Cripps, Jordan Dawson, Harry Sheezel, Jason Horne-Francis, Zak Butters, Tom Green Who do you think will win the 2025 Coleman Medal? (In 2024, no captains nominated eventual Coleman medallist Jesse Hogan) 5 – Jeremy Cameron 4 – Charlie Curnow, Jesse Hogan 2 – Nick Larkey 1 – Ben King, Riley Thilthorpe, Mabior Chol Who do you think will win the 2025 Telstra AFL Rising Star? (In 2024, no captains nominated eventual Ron Evans medallist Ollie Dempsey) 4 – Sam Lalor 3 – Jagga Smith 2 – Sid Draper 1 – Bo Allan, Harvey Langford, Leo Lombard, Finn O'Sullivan, Isaac Kako, Connor O'Sullivan, Ty Gallop, Joe Berry, Levi Ashcroft Which clubs are you most looking forward to watching match up this year? 5 – Adelaide and Port Adelaide (SA Showdown) 3 – Port Adelaide and Hawthorn, Collingwood and Essendon (on ANZAC Day), Sydney and GWS GIANTS (NSW Derby) 2 – Carlton and Collingwood, Brisbane and Sydney (Grand Final Replay) Did you start out playing NAB AFL Auskick? What was the club? 15 – Yes 3 – No Clubs: Ivanhoe VIC Ulverstone Robins TAS Northampton WA Penguin TAS South Augusta SA Darley/Bacchus Marsh VIC St Ives Saints NSW Hawthorn Citz VIC Watsons Park Ashburton VIC Mooroopna VIC Cobden VIC Naracoorte SA Eltham VIC St Albans VIC Robe SA If you weren't an AFL footballer, what would you be? 2 – Fireman, soccer player, entrepreneur/business owner 1 – Author, Contiki tour operator, high performance coach, professional surfer, stay at home dad, teacher, travel TV show host, chef, cricketer, AFL Commissioner, calf model, professional gamer Who is your favourite footy commentator? 6 – Bruce McAvaney 2 – Dale Thomas 1 – Alister Nicholson, Matthew Richardson, Brad Johnson, Adam Papalia, Jordan Lewis, Anthony Hudson, Brian Taylor, James Brayshaw, Hamish McLachlan, Matt Hill Who has the best haircut in the AFL? 2 – Max Gawn 1 – Bailey Smith, Mabior Chol, Brandon Walker, Harry McKay, Kamdyn McIntosh, Lachie Jones, Aaron Naughton, Bayley Fritsch, Zak Jones, Dane Rampe, Gryan Miers (when he had dreadlocks), Griffin Logue (in 2019), Luke Davies-Uniacke, Sam Draper, Taylor Walker, Hugo Ralphsmith Name a past player you’d love to have in your team this year in their prime? 3 – Lance 'Buddy' Franklin 1 – Alex Rance, Tony Lockett, Anthony Koutoufides, Cyril Rioli, Nick Riewoldt, David Wirrpanda, Matthew Richardson, Gary Ablett jnr, Andrew McLeod, Chris Judd, Byron Pickett, Bill Hutchison, Billy Goggin, Matthew Scarlett, Robert 'Dipper' DiPierdomenico Who would you love to see perform at the Telstra Pre-Game Entertainment this September? 2 – King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard 1 – Tame Impala & Dua Lipa, AC/DC, Robbie Williams, Dido, Charli XCX, Led Zeppelin, Mumford & Sons, SZA, Oasis, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beyonce, Zach Bryan, Eminem, Justin Bieber, Kings of Leon, Chris Stussy

Don't be surprised if Scott requests that Melbourne play their Round 3 match against the Gold Coast in Darwin as compensation.

Has this been confirmed anywhere?

Well who are you tipping for the two NSW games?

Who are you tipping this week?

This was another preseason performance for me—brushing off the cobwebs from a technical and production standpoint. Just 20 to 30 minutes before we went live, I had to factory reset my mixer. I thought I had restored all the settings correctly, but unfortunately, I had selected the wrong microphone type, which I only realized about a third of the way through the broadcast. Throughout the stream, my cohosts occasionally reported that my voice was becoming robotic. Thankfully, this issue wasn’t present in the recording captured by my mixer. I’m not entirely sure what caused it, but it was likely due to either my internet connection or the link between my mixer and my computer. Another setting I forgot to reconfigure after the reset was separate channel recording. By default, the mixer saves a single mixed file instead of recording each channel individually. Normally, I have my audio on one channel, my cohosts on another, Skype calls on a third, and sound clips on a fourth. The online software we use allows each of us to record our own audio locally before sending it to the cloud. In post-production, I usually take my mixer’s audio and sync it with the high-quality recordings from my cohosts’ computers. This method ensures better sound quality than relying on the live feed, which is also saved on my mixer. However, because my mixer didn't separate the audio channels last night, I had to work with the single mixed file. Trying to manually stitch together that mixed recording with my cohosts’ separate audio would have been a nightmare. I would’ve had to spend hours muting their audio in the mixed file to prevent duplication. To make matters worse, the mixed file had inconsistent audio levels between me and my cohosts, requiring some post-production work. I have no formal training in audio editing, so I did the best I could—especially considering that the unexpected factory reset meant I hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. Long story short: never do a factory reset minutes before going live.

Would look really good in a Dees guernsey. This is what it could look like.

We're LIVE

Going to cut the questions off here. See you all tonight at 7:30pm.

Big loss for the Demons AFLW program and potentially for the AFL Mens too.

Melbourne traveled across the continent to take on the Fremantle Dockers in sweltering conditions at Mandurah south of Perth in a game that delivered the club both its highlight and its lowlight in the first minute. But first, let’s start by doing away with the usual cliches used in connection with the game. It was just a practice match and the result didn’t matter. Bad kicking is bad football. The game was played in severe heat, the swirly breeze played havoc with both teams resulting in the type of game where defensive structures were disrupted and difficult to maintain. The home side managed to get its composure together earlier and won the contest with five unanswered goals in the second term. And so, to the highlight which was the return of superstar Christian Petracca who started in the middle and had the opening kick and clearance of the game. He went on to finish with 33 disposals and 12 score involvements in combination with Clayton Oliver who continued his own football revival with a three goal and 28 disposal performance. Together, they got the team rolling in the second half in a team effort that dominated clearances and forward entries but all that was denied a better outcome through wasteful disposal and inaccuracy in front of goals. The lowlight also came in the Demons’ first foray into attack when key forward Jacob van Rooyen injured his back in a marking contest and was forced out of the game with back spasms. The die was cast when the team struggled to convert early, kicking five points in a row despite opening strongly and dominating in attack, during which time Jack Billings and Bayley Fritsch missed gettable set shots. It’s difficult to determine the impact of the loss of van Rooyen but one can surmise that his presence might have straightened up a forward line that repeated the trick of kicking five consecutive points another two times during the game to finish with a lamentable 11 goals 24 from 35 shots at goal against 16.13. It didn’t help when the Dockers were also having early trouble with conversion and the Demons were super defensive coming out of the backline, that they conceded three goals through lazy turnovers in the first half. The defence compounded in the heat and the experiment with the wings was more than somewhat exposed at this stage of proceedings. Steven May showed he has lost none of his lustre down back and Jake Lever will again be a force but it will remain a matter of conjecture as to where Harry Petty and Tom McDonald who were both missing fit into that mix. Fremantle had established enough of a gap to remain in control but to its credit and unlike its two woeful performances against the same opponent last year, Melbourne lifted and, though the agency of its midfield stars improved their game and started forcing the Dockers into error themselves. Tom Sparrow showed confidence and continued good signs, Max Gawn dominated the rucks and Christian Salem looked much better at this stage of proceedings than he has since the premiership year. Youngsters Xavier Lindsay and Harvey Langford were not as prominent as they were last week but showed they are clean with their delivery. Aidan Johnson and Harry Sharp showed some glimpses of form but left the jury still out while Daniel Turner kicked a couple late in the game. Simon Goodwin held Kozzy Pickett back because he had the extra practice match under his belt and when he finally came on, he amassed nine possessions in the final term. He’ll be missed in Rounds 1 to 3. The Demons travel home with an injured full forward which brings me to a practice match cliche that I left out - the one about getting through these encounters without injuries to key players. To my mind, “back spasms” feels more like a symptom than an injury diagnosis and therefore, it’s fingers crossed that JvR is free to play in two week’s time. The Dees need him to straighten up the attack and to help bring about some more team highlights. MELBOURNE 1.5.11 1.9.15 6.15.51 11.24.90 FREMANTLE 2.4.16 7.9.51 11.11.77 16.13.109 GOALS MELBOURNE Oliver 3 Turner 2 Fritsch Gawn Johnson Sharp Sparrow Windsor FREMANTLE Walters 3 Bolton Jackson O'Driscoll Treacy Voss 2 Brayshaw Johnson Serong BEST MELBOURNE Oliver Petracca Gawn May Sparrow Langdon FREMANTLE Brayshaw O'Driscoll Walters Cox Serong Chapman Jackson INJURIES MELBOURNE van Rooyen (back spasm) FREMANTLE Nil CROWD 7,458 at Rushton Park, Mandurah