FlashInThePan

I haven’t seen either of them live so I’m not completely sure. It did look a lot like the photo of Rosman on the club website. For my own piece of mind I’m going with your call of Bradtke.

Interesting to see that 81% of respondents to the survey recognised that we are too good right now. God I’m loving being top dog for a change!

I can’t get the image out of my head of Rosman running onto the ground after the GF win looking like a deranged puppy, arms flailing everywhere. I know it is completely unjustified but my first thought was ‘you can’t tell me that is an elite athlete’.

I agree, he has all the skills and attributes. I just don’t think he has had enough game continuity. You can never know until it clicks and you can see it but I tend to think he could be an amazing defender. His closing speed is stunning and he can play both tall and short. I’m really interested to see him after a solid block of games

In the 90s Chris Sullivan kicked a goal in the last quarter of ‘that game’ that gave us a 47 point lead, supposedly unassailable. Essendon piled on the goals and it turns out that 47 points in a final quarter is actually quite assailable… who’d a thought?

I have never seen a player with cleaner hands and better decision making with less than 10 games under their belt. This kid is next level. Anyone can bomb it long, players like Bowey are so hard to find.

Completely agree with this. Something was certainly going on with him at StKilda. We only need to look at how much better every player looked at Melbourne in 2021 when they started playing for each other. You can times that by ten when your team mates or coaching staff are against you. We’ll never know what happened there but it speaks highly of his talent that he still managed to do alright. I don’t think we need to worry about whether he is better than Viney or Sparrow or JJ. This next season is going to test our depth to the max. We are going to get a pretty good look at most players on our list. I’m really interested in how he develops under Goody, Yze and Williams with a team who actually wants him there.

Yeah, I get the same problem on occasion on my iPhone app. I usually just note the time in the replay and restart the app and then fast forward back to where I was and things are fine. Since the app turned up natively on my LG TV I haven’t had the same problem. Not sure if that is just luck or indicates there is a bug in the iPhone version of the app.

He is definitely good. Based on 2021 he is well ahead of both Sparrow and JJ. That being said we don’t yet know what the ceiling is for those two. His 11 Brownlow votes puts him well in front of even Viney if you rate that as a measure. i am predicting we will use most of our list this year and where fitness and injuries were the measure of success for good teams in past years, depth will be the measure in 2022. COVID infections are going to hit every team hard, players will not be isolating and infection numbers will be closer to European levels than 2021 Australian levels. It is going to make for a very different looking season. I’m guessing it is going to favour team’s like the bulldogs who are constantly pushing versatility (often, in my opinion, to the detriment of themselves). I suspect it will also favour team’s with good depth and players who are well drilled to swing into a role. i am also predicting that taking the whole list to Perth and spending all that time together is going to look like genius in 2022.

Spot on redleg. I think this is worth expanding on. The experience in the US in the NBA has shown that people, even stars, will be coming in and out of the team all year. Teams with a deep list and players who can play a number of roles will be well placed to deal with this. This next season is going to be way crazier than 2021. Even though there were venue changes and games with no crowds, that is going to feel like nothing compared to teams with non-isolating players who will inevitably get covid and be unable to play. Bring double vaxxed will help but as we are seeing with omicron people can still get it. i think retaining weid is part of a really careful list strategy to ensure we have multiple layers of coverage in all positions.

2 factors that play together. Population density and distance. Russia is a huge country but also has a massive population (144 million) versus Australia (25 million) land area is roughly 17m vs 7m square meters. A little under 2 1/2 times the land area and nearly 6 times the population. Also there is virtually no one in the central and east part of the country. You can tell from this post how bored I am. This footy season can’t come soon enough. Sorry 🤷‍♂️

Yes, just think about that for a second. Three of our four players who start in the centre square are all Australians in the same year. I’d have to go back and take a look but I’d guess that has either never happened before or incredibly rare. I agree with some others that the group needs to do it over a number of years to achieve greatness, but they’ve made a pretty damn good start!

The teams I listed were the starting midfield for the GF at the date I listed. You are completely correct, it ignores the question of depth and it ignores the wings. I’m not sure what is a fair comparison, my gut tells me we’ll need to stay right up there for a few years before we could be considered. We’ve got to be right up there though.

So, as a reminder: Bris 2003 had Keating, Black, Voss, Hart West coast 2006 had Cox, Judd, Cousins, Kerr Cats 2009 had Ottens, Selwood, Ablett Jnr, Ling Hawthorn 2012 had Hale, Mitchell, Hodge, Sewell Melbourne 2021 had Gawn, Oliver, Petracca, Viney Before I started researching I didn't think we could be put up with the great midfields of this century. Now after listing them, I'm thinking we are right up there. Cox is the only ruck who would give Gawn any legitimate competition, in fact the West coast starting midfield is the only one there I would say could provide serious competition.

Take a listen to this podcast on the afl site. https://www.afl.com.au/news/692297/listen-is-melbourne-s-midfield-better-than-06-eagles- They have quite a bit to say about the season in review and are asking the question as to whether we could justifiably claim our midfield as one of the greats of this century.

just mocked one up on a t-shirt site. Could easily do with the demonland logo

How good is a football team when a player like Clarry feels like another player on his team is carrying him?!

I’m pretty sure Carlton gave away about 10k memberships for free on the understanding that those members would hopefully Renew.

This is a really interesting question. I would definitely agree that players reach their peak for accumulating stats in their mid twenties or so. I think that is also pretty much what the Brownlow measures. Many players start to have more impact with fewer possessions as they head toward their late twenties though. Dusty is a great example of that, Burgoyne another.

That was a great day. Obviously nothing would equal being at the game for the win but I feel like the season is now complete, we actually did win it and now it’s time to move on. i feel like the club did a great job, I certainly appreciate the effort they went to in putting this together. Looking forward to being at the G next year as we win another, Go Dees!

I can’t wait to get into this chook, I’ve got it on preorder from Amazon, delivery on the 10th.

Obviously Friday is easier on most people but I do really like the idea of kicking off the season. I’ve never understood why Carlton and Richmond get the season opener every year. Clearly that is an honour that should be given to the previous season premiers so that every year we start the season by unfurling the flag. One thing I do like is starting the season against another side who has had the same shortened preseason as we have. I know Burgo thinks that preseason is too long but very often premiership playing sides start off a little slower than others due to the later start they have to the preseason.

I can only see improvement for port next year. Having Dursma, rozee and the other midfield guy back and uninjured will give them a big boost. The only question mark is can they shake off the mental demons that the prelim shellacking would have given them. West coast don’t have another year or two. The news hasn’t sunk in for them that they just fell off a cliff. They are currently just a dead man walking. i honestly have no idea about Carlton. Can Voss sure up that defence with one preseason? Even if he can they may be more competitive but they won’t be making the 8. Essendon are the team most likely to go up a gear for mine, Adelaide the other. Freo may be coming but not next year, history tells us that new recruits are too inconsistent to bank on in their first or second year. I rate what they are building but I think it is another year or two away. I just realised I am talking myself into no change in the top right… maybe tigers will knock out Sydney though.

I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m just trying to share news I’m seeing around and give people a thread to discuss it in. That seems to me to be one of the main purposes of this site. Getting past nearly all the major paywalls is absolutely simple and a number of links to chrome extensions that will do it for you have been posted in different threads. DM me and I’ll respond with a link to one. i wanted to paste more content but I know the mods don’t like it and I’m not sure how much content I can paste before it puts them at risk so I opted to keep it just to a couple of sentences that I thought summed up the general gist.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/news/afl-crystal-ball-jon-ralphs-big-early-calls-for-the-2022-season/news-story/86748afb46281d38bfdcd99a94ecb550 Spoiler for those of you unable to get a peek behind the HS paywall: