Bang Bang Bang

Those crazy enough to have read 2013 pre season training reports would remember that Billings trained with us prior to being drafted. We would have taken him at 2 (glad we didn't) and there's the Alan Richardson connection. I'm not surprised we were the mystery club. Interestingly all three of our new players didn't have much noise in the weeks prior. I personally don't rate Billings all that highly, but we need depth and he offers a point of difference. Low risk and we are likely to get games out of him.

I stand corrected. Sounds like Hawks aren’t super keen on getting Gunston back despite a trade request.

Adelaide are deluded. He’s OOC and can easily walk to us in the main draft or PSD. Other clubs aren’t going to waste their time on a 28 year old role player who doesn’t want to play there. If it was Rachele then Rankine then yes but McAdam? What dorks .

It happens sometimes. Taylor Adams just did it and I think Jordan Lewis approached us in 2016. It doesn’t get to the trade request point without some reciprocal discussions though.

How does this work? Haven't we lost a truck load of players to delistings, trades and retirement? Who's going to replace them?

We got one of our best ever players with a pick swap. Dude come on, at least the other perennially negative nellies on here put some effort in.

One of the more bizarre MFC careers I can remember but all the best to Brodie. I honestly think it all worked out OK in the end. We tried something, it didn't work, and it was acknowledged and abandoned early enough. Brodie got to get to the club of his choice without a headache and we basically recouped what we paid for him. Salary off the books too. Getting him in the first place needs the microscope placed over it though. A lot of posters had doubts including me, it was looking like Preuss/Gawn all over again and it was. Not too sure what Goody was thinking last year. One star ruckman is more than enough to succeed, some premiership coaches did it with none.

I'm generally pro-Melbourne when it comes to this kind of stuff but this is truly bizarre. Something has to be cooking. Let's say we wanted to move up three picks for a player at 11 by paying WAY overs, then we could have done it on draft night. Makes zero sense otherwise.

So correct me if I'm wrong but our first pick is likely to be #7 on the night now with a Jed Walter bid and North getting 3 for McKay. Reid, Curtin, McKercher, Duursma, Watson all gone by our pick? Who does that leave?

Agreed, I think the market is a bit skewed at present. No current player is generally considered to be worth three first rounders of any kind... but unproven top draft picks are. Strange to me. We would have received less for Oliver! Think I read somewhere the Dogs are keen on Watson.

The guy is a beast. Dropped two legit rumours/facts well before even the best journos caught wind of it.

Perfect signing IMO. Won’t get a game if Gawn’s fit, but a good break glass option on the cheap. Can play a bit. I love the work goodwindees and Chook in Perth do on here, but also find it interesting that some other “ITK” posters didn’t mention this one or McAdam at any stage. Very interesting indeed.

True but I don’t think it can be fixed either way too much in December. Those kicks went through in 2021 and didn’t in 2023. Same players for the most part. Just got to hope for the best. I don’t see players like Trac or Max ever being reliable in front of goal for what it’s worth.

Our boys spent A LOT of time practicing goal kicking last summer. Brodie Grundy mentioned it on the Demonland podcast. Sadly, the pressure cauldron of finals football can’t be replicated and we just need to wait 12 months to hope it doesn’t happen again (assuming we’re good enough).

I know a lot of people are disappointed with our flag being won in Perth rather than on the MCG, but the way we won it is undeniably much more satisfying than what Collingwood dished up this September. Fair play to them though, best team in it all year and there is clearly method to how they win so many close ones. Flat that they won today but not as flat as Geelong winning one and life still went on. No Zorko medal is a bonus.

All these Lions players I hate, I love all of a sudden. Even Zorko is a good bloke today.

I much prefer the way Josh Mahoney (and now Tim Lamb) go about things. We pick our targets and always trade fair currency, if not a little overs sometimes, to secure a deal quickly. Some list managers (like Adelaide's here) are no better than the teenagers on BigFooty.

This is exactly how it would have gone against us, except we would have been up 14-7 instead of 31-2. I feel better now.

Tom Green is the most underrated young player in the comp. He’ll be better than Clarry IMO. So so good. From memory JT loved him and nearly took him ahead of Jackson at 3. GWS weren’t certain to match the bid. Oh well.

I think he’ll be a C grade midfielder wherever he ends up, just like he was with us, but replacing him should still be a priority. No hard feelings, played his role well in 21/22.

Even though it sucks for us, I reckon this finals series is good for the game. Two elimination finalists playing prelims and at least one a huge chance of winning one. It’s not inconceivable that both GWS and Carlton make the GF. It also will give teams who are going absolutely horribly at the Bye cause for optimism for a long time.

In 2021 we were the best team in it and won. In 2022 and 2023 we were not the best team in it and didn’t. I feel like it’s been kinda fair so far. We should have made the prelims at least once though, which is hard to swallow. It burns, in fact. Just glad we took our chances in 2021 after Bontempelli’s goal.

I think we have two more years where we can put ourselves in a good position to win a flag. After that, Max and May will be just about gone, Clarry and Trac will probably be starting to drop off, and our window might be starting to shut. I don’t think too much needs to change for 2024. Petty will be like a new recruit, and McAdam will replace Melksham (albeit it’s a downgrade based on 2023 form). Forget Grundy, it failed. Good luck to him. Don’t care what we get back. I think the 2024 Demons will be similar to the Lions of the past year or two. We will win plenty of H&A games, but they’ll count for nothing until we get to September. Let’s see if Brisbane can get it done this year. A lot will be said about Goody’s game plan and selections, but we’d be most likely playing in a Grand Final if we’d kicked straight against Collingwood. A prelim or more if we’d kicked straight against Carlton. Someone like Naughton, Ben King or Harry McKay would be nice but I’d rather roll the dice on Petty, JVR and Smith being the main guys and taking the great capital we have into the draft.

That's the problem with AFL and most sports in general - the entire 24 round H&A season counts for nothing when you can't execute in big games. 7.11 (+7 total misses) and 9.17 just won't it. That's the dictionary definition of a choke. Twice. We were never beating Geelong last year nor Brisbane this, but it still [censored] sucks not to even get a chance. The wins will be meaningless next year from March-August. Chokers tag well and truly on and we'll be a laughing stock over summer. Time to delete Twitter and stay away from footy talk as much as possible for six months I reckon. Last time I did that was 2017. May was massive and probably has another hurrah or two left in him. But we're running out of time. He's nearly 32 and still our MVP. In hindsight Petty going down injured can't be underestimated. TMac was beyond useless in both finals and Schache wasn't even trusted enough to go on the ground. [censored] [censored] [censored].

That's exactly why he wasn't upfront.