titan_uranus

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.

I get the sentiment but that's just not how it works. Under the CBA, the clubs are required to release their players by the Wednesday after their final match of the season (this became a big talking point this week with the Dogs having to get an exemption to hold their players back at the club until the GC v Essendon match, whilst Essendon also had to get the rules changed). From Thursday onwards, the players are in their CBA-mandated, and tightly regulated, off-season. They're not required to do anything for the club, and the club can't require them to do anything. Some will want to stay involved and go to things like the Casey games. Some will want to get away from football for as much time as possible. I don't really think we should be casting aspersions against anyone who decided not to go to the game today.

This is the classic Spargo debate. He’s on the list, and I dare say has been offered another contract by us, because he can kick. He stands out from most of the rest of our list in that aspect. But it’s no use to us if he can’t get the ball, and he’s struggled at this for the last few years. We need to move on from players who hold an AFL quality trait but, regardless, can’t impact at AFL level because their other traits are too sub par. Another example is Sharp - elite endurance/running, but useless because he’s so poor at finding the ball and doing anything with it.

Gawn is a legend. A genuine legend of the game, let alone the MFC. Great result for Koz to get in too. Battle though, wtf.

Anyone know what this says?

Jeepers, Xerri, Naughton and Merrett probably harshly done by here. I'd like to think Gawn is the ruck with Jackson on the bench as the 2nd ruck/rover/unicorn sort of player. He'll be incredibly harshly done by if Grundy gets in off the back of half a season of good form (admittedly it was a very good half a season, but pre-bye Grundy was nowhere whilst Gawn has bee consistently good all season).

The footage with Gawn and May is quite interesting. For one, it does look like May is at best not listening to Gawn, or at worst rolling his eyes right when Gawn says "we need to learn how to win". But of course then remember that the club posted the video. So we had all the opportunity to see May's reaction before posting. And remember, too, that whilst seeing Gawn speak in the rooms is nice for us fans, the message was the exact same message he gave in his already-posted post-match interview (right down to the "there were three ways this game was going to go" stuff). We could have just capped the video at Chaplin's address. We chose to add in Gawn's speech. Did the club's comms team not see May's reaction? Or see it, but felt it was harmless? Or see it, and didn't care about it being shown to the public?

Some interesting stats in this article: Fox SportsWhat went wrong for AFL bottom 9... and who they must tar...What went wrong for AFL bottom 9... and who they must target to bounce back in 2026“The Demons improved their forward 50 connection after a dire first two months of the season. From Rounds 0-9, they ranked a lowly 16th for score-per-inside-50 rate. But after Round 10, the Dees promisingly climbed to fourth in the same metric, suggesting the mid-season changes made by Simon Goodwin were starting to pay dividends. Part of that rectified connection was their chain-to-score rate, which went from 14th to third in the competition in the same aforementioned periods. And from Round 10 onwards, Melbourne was one of the best punishment sides in the league, ranking fifth for intercept-to-score rate; exhibiting their ability to transition threateningly after forcing opposition turnovers. There are reasons to be optimistic about the trajectory of their game style, but it’s now a matter of which direction the new senior coach decides to take it.” “While Melbourne made strides offensively and in terms of its counterpunch ability in transition, it uncharacteristically had one of its poorest defensive campaigns in some time. The Dees’ 88.6 average points conceded was their worst output since 2019, while their score-per-inside-50 against rate was 48 per cent; their worst since 2016. And to cap it off, the club’s pressure rating of just 175 this year was their worst output in a season on record. It came in a sign-of-the-times campaign where long-time pillars Steven May and Jake Lever — who are edging closer to the end — combined for just 23 games played.”

Grain of salt warning! Jon Ralph: Mentions both Clarry and Trac (Trac’s management says he’s “happy and invested”).

Yeah we were in most games this year. But we struggled to run out quarters, and games. We lost 4 times when leading at 3QT and lost 13 odd games when we were within striking distance at 3QT. So whilst we were indeed in most games, I reckon our poor fitness contributed to us only winning 7 of them.

I reckon they’ll struggle to beat Brisbane or Hawthorn. If I were them I’d be hoping for a narrow Hawthorn win, which puts Collingwood 3rd.