The Oracle

One of my wishes for the Demons for season 2025, apart from the usual pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (ie the premiership flag) , is that we rub Collingwood’s noses in the dirt. Even though we’ve been an improved outfit in recent years, they’ve still managed to have the wood on us. They’ve beaten us in 10 of the last 12 outings including keeping us out of the final eight in 2017, beating us in our only meeting in our premiership year, knocking the stuffing out us (and ending Gus’ career) in their flag season and humiliating us twice this year. On Kings Birthday they fixed up Tracc and in Round 25 we capitulated and lost Kozzy for next year’s opening three matches. Overall, we’ve beaten them 85 times and lost 156 games to them with 5 drawn. We owe them more than one. Both teams missed the finals in 2024 after finishing in the top four in the regular season, so both need to lift their performance in 2025. The way I’m reading it, Collingwood is going for age and experience with an old list, their key recruit being a class player in Dan Houston but he’s in his late 20s. The Pies have the oldest list in the business and they had slim pickings in the draft. Melbourne went more for youth and will go into 2025 with four solid first round picks from the past two years and a good sized cohort of Under 22 talent who were exposed to senior footy this year. The question is whether their aging squad is better than our youngish group and can we bridge the gap we’ve seen and overtake them next year!

Good question for the lawyers in our Devils Advocates group. If the player has launched legal action, wouldn’t it be a matter of public record?

If we can somehow manage to get to a point where we have two picks in the first 15, it would be very handy.

No doubt there are a few others who would be nervous about their positions on our list and those of a few others.

I think you are completely missing the point. People are pointing to players no longer there to demonstrate the difference in the quality of the team’s midfield strength this year compared to last and not because of regrets about their leaving. What disappointed me was that there are some development players on the Casey list who were close to being drafted in the past year or two but not selected. I refer to the likes of Brayden Laplanche, Kobe Shipp, Ziggy Toledo, Oscar Van Dam and Kai Windsor. The club might be better served giving games to players of this ilk than to a few on the fringe who struggled to get a touch yesterday.

In relation to the club lists, I have included Kynan Brown as a Category B rookie which leaves the club with 36 primary list and 5 Category A rookie list players. This leaves 3 Category B rookies. However, I am still looking for confirmation that this is the correct way to classify the list.

Close. According to the team list issued by the club, he’s wearing #46.

The most important thing to look at here is the weather report. Last time we headed up north for a game, we felt the heat and had trouble handling the footy. Let’s hope the team gets up there in time to acclimatize and get a decent training run on the surface of the ground. My Weather Ap forecast for next Saturday is sunny and 23 degrees.

And once you reach that pinnacle, there’s a lot more effort required to replicate further success. As season 2022 ended with Melbourne’s disappointing straight sets departure from the finals, I noted on Demonland here that the club had built up a stockpile of young talent who could be gradually nurtured by the club in the hope that they could make the grade at the highest level. I identified nine youngsters on the club’s lists of who, only Daniel Turner had worn the guernsey at AFL level. In Turner’s case, it was less than half a game thanks the injured incurred in the Queens Birthday game. Only one of that group, Fraser Rosman (delisted) has since left the club. Of the others, Bailey Laurie, Judd McVee and Jacob Van Rooyen have debuted at AFL level while Blake Howes, Andy Moniz-Wakefield, Deakyn Smith, Taj Woewodin and Turner continue to develop at Casey along with the new batch recruited in the 2022 drafts. We are in a healthy position not having put all of our eggs in the one basket.

Collingwood and GWS have completed the first trade of the 2022 AFL Trade Period with Bobby Hill finding his way to Victoria after missing out at the deadline in 2021. Having made a play for the small forward last season, the Pies proved able to secure Hill's services after parting with a future second-round selection. The Pies and Giants also traded third-round selections ahead of the 2022 AFL Draft, with Collingwood securing Pick 40 for the price of Pick 43.

It had to happen … SANFL Player Focus: Tom Scully (West Adelaide)

With seven weeks to go, five clubs - Carlton, Fremantle, Geelong, Hawthorn and Sydney - have list spots free that can be filled via the mid-season draft, with all other clubs having full lists. Gold Coast (for Ben King) and St Kilda (Nick Coffield) could place their respective injured players on the inactive list closer to the draft to open up a mid-season pick at their clubs. These numbers are likely to increase over time as more players are inevitably ruled out with long-term injuries and placed on the inactive list.

It descended on them a little while ago.

6. Stubblety-Oliver 5. Stubblety-Petracca 4. Stubblety-Harmes 3. Stubblety-May 2. Stubblety-Jackson 1. Stubblety-Brown