titan_uranus

Glad this conversation has moved down off the pinned thread. It needs to be front and centre. It’s an absolute disaster. And with North and St Kilda increasing, we can’t just stick our heads in the sand and say “well that’s what you get for missing finals”. This is broader than just poor on-field performance, which of course will have contributed.

Sam McClure “reporting”, with his usual disrespect of us, that “Petracca is looking around again, with Hawthorn a potential suitor, while Oliver remains hopeful he and the Demons can put aside their differences and start a new relationship under a fresh coach”.

Agree, other than the last paragraph. If going deep into finals was the main thing, North and St Kilda (and the Dogs) wouldn’t be increasing their memberships. What are they doing that we aren’t? We need to take a long, strong look at everything we’re doing on this front. Seek proper feedback from members, and listen to it. Get creative. Get modern. Get youthful. We’re being left for dead by clubs who have less recent on-field success than us. What will happen if North or St Kilda start playing finals?

Like it or not, these are the sorts of numbers that surely impacted our decision on Goody. Alarm bells ought to be ringing at the club. These are disgraceful figures. To win a flag and then within 5 years be the smallest Victorian club is an unmitigated disaster.

There’s a longer gap between Opening Round and KB than between KB and the final round, which is when we’ve played Collingwood the past two years.

49ers Bills Chargers

So Trac’s going to finish 2nd? Wowza.

Far out. They spelled Verrall’s name wrong in the graphic on social media today too. Our comms team is a basket case.

What happened?

A bit disappointed to see Sestan gone, but the other four are no real surprise, sadly.

Is this new? The Age reporting that David Rennick is stepping down and won’t be immediately filled, and that Green’s confirmed he’s stepping down at the end of the AFLW season. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/new-coach-new-president-will-demons-also-have-a-new-midfielder-20250907-p5mt1y.html

The Age is with @Dannyz (or maybe just reads his posts): https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/new-coach-new-president-will-demons-also-have-a-new-midfielder-20250907-p5mt1y.html “Multiple competition sources, who preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed the candidates are Nathan Buckley, Geelong assistants James Kelly and Steven King, Collingwood assistant Hayden Skipworth, Bulldogs assistant Brendon Lade and Essendon assistant Daniel Giansiracusa.”

Probably not, but seriously, what a disappointment they are. With a list that stacked they should be in prelims, not struggling to make finals and then eliminated first week.

Oh FFS, it’s a classic modern-AFL money-first-decision that a very large portion of the industry don’t want. You’ll get your way, and the AFL will continue to cook the goose which laid the golden egg.

How’s that equalisation going? Another Geelong prelim. Another Collingwood prelim. The likely two best challengers are sides who share 8 of the last 24 flags.

The first one was soft. Not the world’s worst free that the commentators are calling it, but still incredibly soft. Love that it’s Geelong that copped it though. The second one was there, no excuse for Guthrie for being a moron.

This was written in the stars. So easy to predict. Collingwood had no form to speak of but thanks to us and Gold Coast choking on that Friday night two weeks ago, they fell into the top 4 and got the perfect match up against an inexperienced, Rankine-less, under enormous pressure Adelaide. They would have been far less of a chance against Brisbane, Geelong or Hawthorn but now they get a week off and a home prelim. Ugh.

If that's the asking price, we're not buying.

No, it couldn't be that. Trac and Clarry are just bastards who screwed the club. How silly of you to even suggest they were top 5 players in the league when those contracts were signed and, at least for Trac, no one could have foreseen the freak injury which led to his major deterioration in form. /sarcasm

I'm an unabashed fan of yours. But I'm not at all a fan of your recent not-at-all-subtle whacks at Gawn. No good club plays two rucks, and other than Jackson in Gawn's time here we haven't had a player on the list who can play majority forward but ruck capably. Gawn is the greatest ruck of all time whose principal strengths are his fitness and his contested marking, which are wasted if he plays forward. If he "would not" play forward, he and Goodwin made the right call. The Grundy failure was a collective club failure, but pinning it all on Gawn is unjustified, and the ongoing suggestions from you and others (see @Ghostwriter above) that Gawn is unreasonably selfish are pretty disappointing given what Gawn has had to go through as captain over the last few years.

My read on Demonland is that posters have been very quick to forgive Clarry and cut him some slack, and very, very, very slow to do the same for Trac, and that includes you. No one controls their own mental health to the point where they choose to be ill. But Clarry controlled the behaviours that led him there, just as Trac controlled his behaviours that put the club in turmoil last year. Yes, Trac's behaviour this time last year was damaging to the club. But Clarry's off-field behaviour was also damaging to the club. Demonland holding a long-time grudge against Trac because he also happens to enjoy cooking is IMO grossly unfair. Also, who other than Houston are you suggesting pulled out of coming to the club? Have I forgotten someone? Regardless, and as @dazzledavey36 has said, with the benefit of hindsight we are much better off with Houston having pulled out.

Chiefs, Bengals, Steelers

When did Adelaide make an offer for McVee? And if the good mail on here is to be believed (and I believe it), why did they bother?

Yeah but of all the risks to take, punting on a young bloke who is off the rails from an off field perspective is probably the last one. Having a crack at fixing someone’s calf injury (Bennell), or trying something new on the field (Grundy), is a much different sort of risk than this.

When Twomey has mail, you can generally take it to the bank. He’s a reliable news breaker. But from the moment he decided to start doing a trade, free agency and draft podcast which runs from as early as February, it became clear that his major existence in the AFL media landscape is to provide constant trade/FA content. So if he wants to write about our new coach, it is perfectly consistent with his existence that he’d chuck in an otherwise unnecessary comment on trading Trac. And it’s no surprise at all that he’s advocating for a trade. That’s, again, the point of his existence. I’m straying dangerously close to @Clintosaurus levels of conspiracy theory here but it is in the media’s interests that more players get traded each year. The more trades/moves, the more content, and trade-related content sells, big-time.