Demonland

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

Not doubting him but I did hear that same thing about two other injuries this weekend from clubs which later released a statement that said that player was out for 6-8 weeks.

Join us LIVE on Monday night at 7:30pm as we break down the Practice Match against the Dockers. As always, your questions are a vital part of the show. If you would like to leave us a voicemail please call 03 9016 3666 and don't worry no body answers so you don't have to talk to a human. Listen & Chat LIVE: https://demonland.com/podcast Call: 03 9016 3666 Skype: Demonland31

After 6 agonizingly long months the 2025 AFL Premiership Season is almost upon us. The Demons return to the MCG to take on the GWS Giants and will be hoping to get their year off to a flying start.

The Dees were blown out of the water early by the Fremantle Dockers before fighting back and going down by 19 points in their final practice match of the preseason before Round 1. Remember it's only a practice match if you lose.

Why play Gawn!!??

Our set shot kicking has been putrid.

Kozzy is all class. We're going to miss him.