DistrACTION Jackson

Oliver forced to wear long sleeves as Demons face financial ruins. More to come.

I think Verrell needs one more year at Casey and another pre season before he will be ready for genuine seniors time. 2025 will be the beginning of the Verrall era.

I feel like the Kolt could be in line to move to number 10 next year all going well. He feels like the kind of player that will embody the courage and team first ethos of Gus.

I thought that was in reference to the VFL game, not the AFL one?

Can't see Petty playing any time soon.... they just need to get his body right for the back half of the year.

So that means min 3 weeks?

Correct. Our midfield and Defence has been really strong, but our forward line has been stuck together with sticky tape since the end of the 2021 season. Compare that to the Lions forward line from 2001-2004 of Alastair Lynch, Daniel Bradshaw, Jonathan Brown, Jason Akermanis, Luke Power and Martin Pike. Pretty fair difference in quality!

Crack down on players having kids.... interesting. Where are our father/sons going to come from though?

Pretty strange we've not heard anything or seen any social media posts??

Sanders has a much more mature body than Windsor, so no doubt will perform better this year, at least possession wise. I think Windsor's ceiling is enormous though as he puts on a bit of size and works on his midfield craft.

From my understanding we tried to get up higher in the draft but no one was willing to trade. You can only work with what is available. Windsor will be a beauty so not too concerned.

Yes. It is becoming a lot more common and there will be a lot more players being retired. I would be very surprised if Nathan Murphy is allowed to play on.

End of the year we will have a serious war chest. Gus - approx $600k pa TMac - approx $400k pa Brown - approx $300-$400k pa Tomlinson - approx $300-$400k pa We could have almost $2m in salary cap to play with, noting some of this will probably go to existing players.

This type of 'reporting' or 'journalism' is absolute garbage. Would I be disappointed with 1 flag - yes. Does it make us terrible one hit wonders? No. Bombers 99/00/01 - arguably one of the most talented teams assembled and won one flag. Port 04 - finished on top multiple times and won one flag. Eagles 06 - had one of the best midfields ever assembled and won one flag. Brisbane lately - multiple top 4s with one grand final appearance and no wins. This media idea that we should be some unstoppable force that wins 3 straight flags is rubbish. Our team is talented, but nowhere near as talented as the Lions, Cats or Hawks teams that won multiple flags. I really hope we get another one, but end of the day they are hard to win.

Wasn't sure where to put this, but so awesome to see Clarry with Trac and Andy Moniz-Wakefield working with a stretching coach outside of the club. Trac posted this on his Instagram if anyone is wondering. He seems to be really putting in the extras to get himself fit and ready for the season.

We actually used Kozzie in the centre square at the start of last year and then just stopped for some reason. I love seeing him pinch hit in centre bounces, his speed and agility means he is almost impossible to tackle. I feel like maybe they stopped because they felt they needed him forward, but realistically if he starts at a centre bounce 2-3 times a quarter he won't be spending much time outside the forward line. It also gets him around the ball and builds confidence, which a small forward can lose if the ball isn't near them much during a game. I would like to see our centre square setups to have 2 of the 'bulls' in Viney, Trac, Oliver and Sparrow and then include one of our more silky players like Pickett, Salem, Rivers and maybe even Windsor in the future.

Agreed. Was his first hit-out with us so should get better as he understands his role better and gets the cohesion going with other players.

You want Verrall, a 2nd year ruckman to play as a key defender?

Port were shown up. We just F'd up. I want the media to continue piling on, hopefully just makes the players want it even more.

When compared with the 2 wins the year before I was somewhat happier....

It's funny that as Melbourne fans we've gone from being happy we got 4-5 wins in a season, to leaving games we win feeling underwhelmed. Very confusing times.

A mate and I were chatting about it Sunday at the game and he just seems to have lost something. I do question if he is working as hard back and forth as he did in 2021. But then maybe what they are asking of him has changed.

I think you would need to look at the dreaded predicted score to see if those teams performed better than expected. Doubt they would have it for the practice match, but definitely would be available for the others.

I agree with all of this. I also think we lack those elite pressure forwards that a team like Collingwood have. In the grand final the Pies had Hill, Mcreery, Ginnivan and Elliott as small forwards. Their key forwards were Mihocek and Cox! Not really a scary proposition, but they all work together well.

Their list is not too different age wise to us, so they should be able to back it up. I think the biggest thing people don't think about is the difficulty of fixture once you're a top 4-6 team. They will have more double up games against tough opposition so it is how they back up from that.