John Demonic

The rose colored glass mob in this forum have been blindsided by this, refusing to see that last years unaddressed deficiencies would be our downfall this year. (Although we all have to this 0-3 extent) The elephant in the room is that we should've missed the finals last year but had some fortunate circumstances go our way with Kennedy missing and GWS already cemented in the 8. We were continually destroyed by fast teams that used the wide expanses of the G all year. ALL YEAR I asked "when are we going to get a big win like in 2017?" Our big wins turned out to be False Dawns. A terrible Adelaide by 100, and WCE over there without their key pillars. The same problems last year with our defence and lacklustre forward entries, have now turned into the key reasons for our demise as other teams have worked us out. All of that papered over because wE MaDe ThE PreLiM. We beat up on the weak teams but continually failed against the better teams. Sadly the weak teams have now improved ten fold and we've been exposed.

? All you can do is laugh/cry.

Have we signed Luke Hodge to replace him?

The way I see this playing out is that We will beat the Bombers irrespective of the changes we make at the table. We're just better than them if our core players are on. The real problem is the false equivalence that a win justifies the teams selection, because we're just going to end up exposed week/s later against a better team when the FD are choosing the same players and leaving the same issues unaddressed.

We had Omac + Frost and Fritsch/Gawn as intercept last year. Why are we going Omac + Frost and May as intercept? Lever will come in and May will be lock down. 1 of Frost/Omac is superfluous to our needs long term, but we should still be going with Fritsch or Gawn dropping back. Having J Wagner as 3rd tall isn't really enough.

J. Wagner in frees up Hunt/Kolo and maybe even Hibberd to play more wing-time I suppose.

Not if we throw Marty Hore on him. Perfect matchup!

Probably the biggest that comes to mind is the 2017 round 23 match v Collingwood with him spitting the dummy at umpires and shouting at team mates. But i do notice his face looking quite furious with the ball delivery. It's no big sin, but i just don't see a player that rallies and inspires players to shift the momentum of a match. Just looks like a blamer to me. It's purely anecdotal though. Maybe others see him as a leader that demands excellence.

Off field he's a picture of equanimity and solid intellect, On-field he's demonstrative to team mates and sooky when it's no delivered on a plate. Hey, it works for Selwood so maybe it's fine. I'm just pointing out one of the issues i've found with him over the past few years.

He sooks too much when things aren't going his way.

This is an interesting one given how he has so far played in the last 2 weeks. He signed for 1 year in October last year. I wonder how much the Pies have budgeted in the cap for him under the presumption that he'll recapture his best form. I would assume they probably haven't budgeted what others would be prepared to pay if he has a big year. I still think he'll probably injure himself at some point this year however, or next year if we actually signed him on a decent contract

I'm curious, who is our intercept defender with no Lever? Last year we needed Fritsch there and then Gawn dropping back.

Just heard it on Sam McLures 'Just Between Us' too. "Eyebrows raised internally" at the asking price of 700k. Who knows what's real or parroted from the original rumour.

Spargo had no standout VFL games pre selection and adapted to AFL standard immediately. Why would we expect any different from an outside mid/wing who's not going to be near the ball enough to command selection with a standout BOG. Throw em in the deep end (if fit) and see how they swim.

Sunday Footy Show had a great segment with about 6 or 7 instances where our players either burnt each other or didn't even look for the handball or switch kick to a teammate with space to run into the 50 and just bombed it long. Followed with a segment on Petracca looking unfit and needing to lose a few kilo's. We all know it, just good to see a public blowtorch on our poor entries and some of the efforts. Hopefully will wake some of the players up.

Trevor Barker has risen from the dead.

.I like the look of Harry Himmelberg. Could be a gun. 1.94cm 23 year old out of contract, behind Cameron and Patton in the pecking order. Gets plenty of the ball, kicked 29 in 3rd year last year, first full season though. Good footy brain and takes a strong mark, a little like young McGovern. Shouldn't be too expensive to trade for.

We hadn't beaten a top 8 team until round 22. How do you explain that? Or is it filed neatly away in the denial drawer?

We barely managed to put it together in the first place, i've been saying it all off-season, we were lucky to beat Hawthorn as they missed so many shots on goal that night with Clarko possession footy controlling us until we kicked away. And we were lucky to get WCE and GWS who were already cemented in the 8 in r22/23. Until then we hadn't beaten a top 8 team. We all had a big laugh at the Selwood/Harmes infringement on the boundary, but why? Not because we were up by 10 goals but because Hawkins had a shot on goal reversed with the momentum swinging their way. Rose colored glasses about that final month last year. We've always had this massive issue of bombing it mindlessly into the forward 50.

So I should book a round the world holiday, settle down in a kibutz after meeting a girl, have kid/s and come back in 3-4 years when we have the nous?

Front row tickets to The Dusty Demise.

Haw v Coll Sounds like an odd pairing, i'm guessing they haven't ever played against each other in a grand final in vfl/afl history before.

This is an interesting conversation especially in the context of our own forward line not currently playing a third tall and stretching defenses.

Jesse Croadgan!

Which vpn? Seems like its a good one, or maybe that's just Finland internet? ?