Demons1858

wasn't that hard to pick at all DS if you have been to a few training sessions before to compare with. if seasoned track watchers can't distinguish between the worst preseason a club has had in a long time and other preseasons then they are deliberately turning a blind eye or don't know much about the game

some people see themselves as an extension of the mfc PR machine and act accordingly. only criticising club individuals and decisions when it is safe to do so or not at all

rubbish, l went to training and quickly realised we would not achieve the heights of 2018 after a couple of sessions and posted a few times accordingly. all you need to do is count the number of starting 22 players doing match simulation / match practice to realise we were stuffed. would be great if that stat was/is in each of our training reports

My experience has been that its very hard to shift the 'membership' needle within a season even if a team gets off to a flyer. So there won't be any membership records next season whether we make finals or not. Brace yourselves for another tough season financially. All going to plan the cash will start rolling in during season 2021, after we make finals and acquit ourselves well in 2020.

pokies are disgusting, we were right to get out, but equally we should have grown revenue to cover ourselves by now. we have had worse years on field without losing so much cash. also don't like the way it was communicated suggesting debt was down just because they held on to the cash from the proceeds of assets. too much spin for my liking, they just need to own the loss and talk about how we rectify it going forward

think l understand what your saying, but all clubs are funded by sponsorship to exist and compete at an elite level. we can do more than one thing at once

l don't believe we get naming rights revenue and if we did it would have to be shared with the storm, rebels and victory l suspect

that certainly is the case but not having our own training/admin facility has/is a massive missed opportunity. each year that has gone by has cost us a few mill p.a. in missed naming rights revenue e.g. ricoh centre, ikon park, holden centre, gmhba stadium, city mazda stadium/ Swinburne centre, linen house/rsea oval. That revenue would provide stability and make us less reliant on onfield performances

Don't forget - we will be getting a few million bucks pa for the naming rights to our new training and admin facilities. Collingwood gets $3+ mill pa. Now all we need to do is design and build the thing

With 2 genuine wingers we should find the midfielders will spend more time rotating through the forward line instead of propping up the wings

a hunch is based on intuition, you can take it or leave it like most of the opinions in this forum! time will tell but the silence from the club if deafening.

firstly, a hunch is based on intuition and less about facts so you can take it or leave it! in any case, players with no obvious injuries that do long stints of light duties is a sign of something is not quite right. keeping in mind he has had all preseason to get his head and body right. if he still has concussion issues or has been told another concussion may have major consequences then the player and club (if in agreement) will naturally negotiate terms for the remainder of the contract. until then keep turning up to training so your contract isn't broken in case something falls through but play it safe on light duties.

There is no way in the world we looked a million bucks last year in training with the reserve team basically doing the vast proportion of the 'football' type training drills early and many senior players stuck in rehab / walking / bikes or resting. Was obvious very early on that 2019 was going to be difficult and we wouldn't be able to match the performances of the year prior, unfortunately it was worse than even l thought at the time

All l need to do is think back to crunch finals matches against geel and hawt in 2018 where he drove the team forward with huge tackles and pressure with no match practice in the lead up and lower midfield minutes. Injury would be the only reason you would replace jack and even that doesn't make sense but don't trust me read player ratings for yourself. Top 3 mfc players in both crunch games Jack Viney: 9: Couldn’t have asked for any more from a guy who hadn’t played a game for 62 days. Won 20 disposals and didn’t give an inch with 11 tackles. JACK VINEY: 8 Like one of those energiser bunnies, just wind him up and watch him seek and destroy. Imagine what he would be like in finals when fit ! We forget too easily sometimes.

For me, a yes to any training update which has the natural bias of the reporters whether respectfully positive or negative. Can we afford to be picky? No to misleading reports. Remembering that this time last year we were being told the mfc were going to make the top 4 when no one was on the park training

With KK he appears to be fulfilling his contractual obligations until extra medical reports come through and / or mfc and perhaps even afl insurance sort out a payout where club and player probably manually agree that its unsafe for him to continue. mfc also probably looking to get an extra player on the list if it happens. As l said its a hunch but seems to be following a familiar path.

Note that each club has a different number of players on their lists which makes looking at raw numbers a little misleading i.e. Esse has 42 vs GC with 49. I have transformed the numbers into proportions which while still not perfect helps with comparisons. Age, games played and capability are important factors in determining the potential of a playing list now and into the future. Age profile (driving strength & maturity): If you have a list with a higher proportion of players 27+ years of age you want to be challenging for a flag before you tip over the edge and need to bottom out to get youth in. Geel, WC, North, Coll, Rich, Port, Hawt, and GC lead in that order. For North and GC, this is a concerning given they aren't playing finals and certainly not challenging for a flag. Perhaps this is part of the reason North were happy to get multiple 2020 draft picks in from Melb in exchange for their round 1 2019 pick The Saints, Melb, Bris, and Carlton lead in the combined 18-25 year range in that order. Being in this range should suggest you are an up and coming team assuming recruiting, coaching and development are aligned. It seems that teams in this space can have a breakout year that defies their profile but doesn't happen consistently until the list ages e.g. Melb prelim, Bris prelim, perhaps Bulldogs flag Games profile (driving experience & know how): The age of your list will often drive the number of games your list plays. Players like Mitch Brown who are older but have played fewer games are pretty rare and seem to be rookies/depth players. Although despite having the 2nd lowest group 26 years or under we have the 7th highest games played in the combined 51 games or more group. Having not had much success and many quality senior players to hold our youth back in the past may be a positive in the future Draft profile (driving talent & capability): While age and games have an important role in list profiles, having high end draft selection to get A and B graders coming through the door is also critical. Picks 1 to 7 tend to play a significantly greater number of games than those from 8-20 which plateau, with further drops after that. Which is why teams looking to reshape their lists tend to push some of their quality older players out the door to get quality picks for a rebuild. It would have been good chart the proportions of players to be selected in different draft rounds across clubs but I don't have the data (i.e. round 1, 2, 3 rookie etc) but suffice to say we have had a healthy number of high end draft picks Overall: Experience which belies your age is the ideal mix when complemented with high end drafting. So while we have a relatively youthful list which often means you are only capable of a breakout year, hopefully our relatively high experience and talent will lead to sustained success before our time is due. Fluctuations (particularly for emerging teams) can also be driven by fixtures (based on the ladder position of the prior year) and injury levels (less depth)

I had a chat to Luke Jackson today while on a break from work in front of AFL house and he is a friendly, easy going, and level headed kid. Was more than happy to chat and spoke genuinely about the opportunities at MFC and is smart enough to know he is a good fit for what our team need and is super excited by it including working with Max. Was going to chat more until a friendly 3AW dude jumped in (who was equally as excited for MFC as he was also an MFC supporter) asked him a few more questions. He has also spent a fair bit of time in Melbourne through rep sides for basketball and footy so aren't concerned by the go home factor with him at all ...

Agree. Happened with other picks on the night also

demonlanders can rightly look at positives to come out of the mid season review with lots of what looks like positive changes: Richo, Burgess, Langdon, players genuinely coming back in good nick is the biggest one for me. likewise our most recent recollections are of a poor 2019 season where bad luck through injury was exaserbated by poor performances by coaches, fitness staff, and players so l think its ok to be positive or negative in posts. perhaps we just need to play the ball a little more in debate and avoid subtle and not so subtle jabs at each other in the process. l don't like posts defending the club and players blindly (eg l trust the club are making the right decisions or coming across as a spokesperson for the club) but also don't like overly personal attacks on players (eg omac) and the club when we know they are trying their best but out of form, returning from injury or trying their best to reach afl standard which few of us do

one thing l am pretty sure of is that by trading with Freo who now have picks 7 and 8 we would have ensured they won't get in the way of the player/s we are eyeing off at pick 10.

Agree, interesting that Craig Jennings was our game strategist last season and he has been moved on ...

Probably a similar number to those that played against Geelong and Hawthorn

I'm a fan of Josh and posted on here that we would struggle to make finals this year due to injuries before round 1, but even so, l felt he overplayed the injury card in his speech tonight. Surely we weren't bottom 2 material even with injury which were exacerbated by poor player management. Players carried leg injuries throughout 2018 and should have been allowed to recover so they were back for finals and 2019. And shoulder injuries don't stop you running. Would have been nice if they acknowledged some errors they made, but apparently we were just unlucky with injury and they did everything right but there was nothing that could be done.

People quickly forget he was more than handy in 2018 when fit. Our line coaches need an upgrade me thinks