Dee man

In light of the Melksham upgrade to the senior list, what's the actual logistical difference between the senior and rookie list? Is it purely financial (I presume that we can pay rookies significantly less?). I know that there used to be a rule where rookies could only play if a senior listed player had a long term injury, but I'm pretty sure that's no longer the case. I wonder why the club would upgrade Melksham for what will probably be his final season, when many clubs in similar positions seem to send their veterans to the rookie list and keep them there. Perhaps he was on lower pay last year because he was only available for half the season? Perhaps the club is upgrading him as a mark of respect? Anyone got a more concrete theory?

Great article. I love the resources at Wheelo Ratings and these ABC articles with Cody Atkinson are some of the best things in the footy media landscape, so well done. May I ask why the Sam Sturt intercept mark in the video in the article isn't considered a contested mark? What is the specific difference between a contested and uncontested mark, according to Champion Data?

Surely we rest Tomlinson for this game (or at least a half) to make sure we've got him fully fit for the AFL next week?

The fact that Brodie Grundy (and Luke Dunstan, for that matter) have left the club with nothing but praise for the people and club says so much more about the culture of our club than any of the vague platitudes that Goodwin and Pert gave for 45 minutes last week. Brodie seems like a first class human being and I hope he dominates at Sydney next year (except when they're playing us)

Thanks for this invaluable work! Based on what Tim Lamb said earlier in the week around draft picks we won't use, it sounds like we'll be using two picks in the draft (13 and 37), and it wouldn't surprise me if we packaged one of them with a future 2nd to move up further. It looks like the writing is on the wall for Baker, and Hunter's inclusion definitely doesn't bode well for him. It wouldn't surprise me if we re-draft him in the rookie draft, given that the club clearly still rates him a bit (otherwise he would have been chopped at the same time as Rosman). After losing Jackson, Daw, and Weid, we obviously need more backup ruckman. Unless we have someone in mind at the draft, you'd expect we'd use at least two rookie spots on rucks, possibly one on a developed ruck from the 2nds leagues or a delisted ruck. I wonder what happens if a decent backup ruck gets delisted by another club - would we increase our list size to bring in a DFA or would we take our chances in the rookie draft?

Take those players out of the team, and Casey probably don't win 20 games for the season and a premiership. Surely, team success is invaluable for player development?

I'm pretty certain we have the best win/games finals record of any team for the past decade. I read that we already led this a few years ago (2 wins from 3 games = 66%). Now it's up to 5 wins from 6 games (83%). By the end of 2027, it'll be 23 from 24 (96%).

Thanks so much for putting this list together, Deespicable. It was an excellent summer read, and I appreciate the enormous amount of effort that went into it. For some reason, I missed this final instalment at the end of last month, but I'm more than happy to give it a bump back to the top of the forum where it belongs. One thing I appreciate about your list is that you weren't sucked in too much by game played stats. While I personally have huge respect for guys like James McDonald, Nathan Jones, and Adem Yze (and were surprised to see them as low as they were), it's hard to argue with the names you ranked above them (and I won't even make an attempt, given that my Demon-watching days only began around 1997). As such, thanks for giving us younger fans an insight into some of the Demon legends from the 70s, 80s, and 90s!

I might be wrong here, but my assumption has always been that if a player didn't perform well enough in a certain game, then they wouldn't receive any votes from the coaches. Which would mean that the lowest amount of votes you could get in a game would be about 5/10 (and by extension, 5/40 if only one of 4 coaches gave them votes). I make this assumption based on two factors: It seems weird that coaches would bother giving out scores of 1-4 to players for a game when the purpose of the award is to reward and acknowledge good efforts. I recall a post-match press conference where an ex-coach (I think it was Roos) mentioned that it was the first game in which every player on the list got a vote in the B+F. It's possible that different coaching panels have interpreted the system differently, but you would assume it's been done the same way since this voting system has been around.

There's no half-time show or segments between quarters. After each quarter, it zooms out to the whole stadium, there's about 10 seconds of music, and then it's straight to the first bounce of the next quarter.

No cuts - they keep rolling after the team photos. There's a short Daisy/Goodwin interview in there, the national anthem, and the build-up to the first bounce.

Well done to Neville on landing this role. I know Collingwood was chasing him last year, so the quick decision doesn't surprise me. Collingwood need to do a lot to change their culture, and Nev is a good person to help lead that change. Given the soft cap, it will be interesting to see whether Collingwood bring him in as a rookie, similar to how Port picked up Goldsack last year. With that said, given what happened last year, maybe Collingwood has more space in their soft cap than their player cap!

That sounds about right. The version I got came out 2 days after the game was televised so they probably just loaded it with the absolute bare minimum. I'm happy either way, especially since I had a JB voucher I needed to use.

I've just checked again, and my version definitely doesn't have alternate radio commentaries during the game. When I try to select different audio options on my remote during the game, only one option is available. This is the version I've got - https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/afl-premiers-2021-melbourne-demons-2021-dvd