Harvey Wallbanger

After today's VFL results my calculation is that if we beat Box Hill next Sunday we finish anywhere between 5th and 8th, depending on other results (Brisbane -away to Frankston, Collingwood - away to Port M and Richmond - away to Williamstown). If Willy win, they knock out Coburg from 10th). I'm backing both Frankston and Willy to win and we finish 6th - miss the wildcard round. If we lose, we finish either 8th or 9th.

6 Gawn 5 Petty 4 Culley 3 Langford 2 Turner 1 Bowey

Stats also confirm what an impressive game Petty had. Played like a good old-fashioned CHF today.

The finals series will again be played across five weeks and will conclude with the 2025 Smithy’s VFL Grand Final on the weekend of September 20-21. Finals series to commence with Wildcard Finals on the weekend of August 23-24. The format for the Wildcard Finals remains unchanged, with the team that finishes in seventh place on the ladder to play against the team that finishes 10th, while eighth will take on ninth. Unless we make it into the Top Six (and that's still a chance), we will play in the wildcard round - on current ladder position (almost certain to chnage though) we would play Williamstown at home and GWS would play Richmond. The two winners then slot into positions 7 and 8 and the usual Final 8 schedule then kicks in.

1.05 pm at Casey v Box Hill Sunday 17 August.

Lovely morning at Gosch's. Looking for subtle changes - the entire group walked over from AAMI together - they are usually more like Brown's cows. All 23 present, plus the carryover emergency, Sharp. The other two emergencies, Campbell and Jefferson are playing in Brisbane (Casey started very well!). Interim CEO and Richo present (as usual, constantly on the phone). TMac family present as usual with the Viney kids. No soccer game today. Trac doing his usual goal-kicking practice. Judd tells supporters "he's not going anywhere". Chappy embraced by a particular trackwatcher (guess who!?). Still some sadness in the air - the familiar strut/saunter of Goody not present. No prospective coaches spotted.

Out of the box, but maybe Petty does go back and Adams is the sub? Just a thought, given both are listed on the interchange? Reckon McVee is perfectly suited to playing on West.

Don't think so - Ed said the boys just wanted to play their soccer game away from the spotlight - that almost worked.......that decision did leave certain hardy track-watchers staring at the grass at Gosch's. Oh well.

So where does that leave us the punters/members - to read between the lines (lies)?

Ed said in his presser the zoom call involved the senior players and they then managed to get around to most of the other players"before it dropped"....... perhaps not all?

This year the points system for matching father/son and academy picks has been changed and the relevant discount of points to be used has dropped from 20% to 10%. Whilst that makes it more expensive for us to use points to match a Kalani bid - those changes apply in spades to the Gold Coast, so perhaps they could not have fitted Kalani into their plans, given their other targets.

Not a soccer ball in sight.....🙂

Started as a nice day at Gosch's but then a cold change swept in. Absent: Everyone Present: A few hardy Demonlanders and a lovely lady from the ABC called Kate who did a couple of interviews for Radio 774 to get the MFC fans' reactions to the news re the Senior Coach. I am sure someone has the technology to find the interviews and post them here. Guess who they were. Not Harvey W fyi.

So why didn't the Board announcement come first?

Fact No. 1 on the list - perhaps THE most important job of any Board - appoint a CEO, and have a succession plan for the current one. We will finally have a non-interim CEO almost 12 months after the last one departed.

What should it matter? You're absolutely right - ability is key, but we are talking about just 8 people with ability. Surely from a membership base of 40,000 adults, 8 people of ability (already red and blue) can be found?

Nice to see the Pod return this week. I wonder - will we cover both the Saints game and today's game?

She went from us (in Comms) to Collingwood in November 2022 and was with them in Footy Ops roles for 1 year and 6 months, before coming back to us.

2.11

The Club clarified in reference to an earlier article that Pert is no longer involved at the Club.

Start with the Stats File and then complaints about the umpires....😄 An hour done!

In theory the MFC should be "all ears". As a result of the "external" governance review last year there was "a clear recommendation" to establish a Member Engagement Committee - see Brad Green's letter in the Annual Report.

A very good point - the AFL has adopted different "cut-off dates" for annual membership counts and the AFL normally crow about the numbers in September based on the numbers at the end of the home and away season. In George's table (on page 1) he records 67,673 as at end of July 2023 but then also posts a post-July 31 number of over 70,000. Our Annual Report boasted 71,388 (probably a number as at 31 October - the financial year-end), probably because the Strategic Plan had a target of 75,000 - maybe bonuses depended upon it? As has been posted before on DL these "gross" numbers do not equate to the number of individual members, and of course the numbers include junior members.

BRAD GREEN (PRES) GEOFF PORZ (VP) DAVID RENNICK SARAH ROBINSON SALLY FREEMAN (re-elected in 2024) (below elected in 2024) ANGELA WILLIAMS CHRIS BARLOW STEVEN SMITH

Yes - saw that.