Dee man

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

I've got the DVD. It starts with the Bulldogs entering the field (so no pre-game discussion or pre-match entertainment). The post-match includes our lap of honour and the accompanying Channel 7 interviews and ends with us singing the song in the rooms. There is one video bonus feature - a 12 minute highlights reel of our games from Round 1 to the Prelim. There's only the Channel 7 audio. Otherwise, it's pretty no frills in terms of features. But the good thing is that the Demons kick 16 of the last 17 goals every time you watch it!

Given that the Magpies were the only team in 2021 we didn't beat, let's just hope that they don't sack their coach a week before we play them in 2022.

At the very least, the club could probably re-edit 'To Hell and Back', switch in a bit of 2021 footage and you'd have yourself a pretty spine-tingling documentary.

After 'To Hell and Back' come out, I remember someone from the club saying that a film crew had been following the club for most of the 2019 season and 2020 pre-season. I suspect that with COVID travel/budget restrictions, this project probably fell by the wayside in 2020 and 2021. Regardless, the club clearly has some excellent internal footage from this year, and combined with media footage I'm pretty sure there'd be enough to make a decent documentary.

Handy backup, undoubtedly on a cheap 1-year contract. Let's not forget that he got 2 Brownlow votes in his 2nd most recent game! That's the same amount of Brownlow votes that Angus Brayshaw, Christian Salem, Ed Langdon, Ben Brown, James Harmes, Alex Neal-Bullen, Michael Hibberd, Charlie Spargo, Jayden Hunt, Adam Tomlinson, Tom Sparrow, Trent Rivers, James Jordon, Jake Melksham, and Nathan Jones have received combined since the start of 2020! 😮

It's one of the many great narratives to come out of Saturday's win, and I think it does say a lot about the club's values, especially when no one in the footy media (or the AFL, for the matter) would have begrudged Melbourne for making that decision. As someone who really wanted Jonesy to be the medi-sub (prior to him flying home), I can't help but imagine what this would have been like were he the one on the bench. From a fan's point of view, I actually think this might have been an unwanted distraction during that perfect last quarter, which might have left a bittersweet feeling in an otherwise wonderful day, so I'm really happy in hindsight how it all worked out. I'm torn for Jordon, of course, but he looked like he was just happy to be there, whereas I think Jonesy would have been burning with a desire to get on the field. This will also hopefully motivate Jordon to be part of Melbourne's next 22.

One week to go now, and I must confess - I've got a bit of a numb feeling whereby the Grand Final and its gravity hasn't really sunk in. Maybe it's the pandemic and the lack of city atmosphere; maybe it's the distance between here and Perth; maybe it's the bittersweet end of the Nathan Jones fairytale; maybe it's the two-week bye; maybe it's the unfamiliarity of this whole situation; or maybe it's a whole combination of them all. Whatever it is, I'm yet to fully feel that Grand Final feeling, and I was hoping some Demonlanders might be able to help out, not just for me but for others out there feeling a bit the same way. So, what does this Grand Final mean to you? And what would a premiership, if you can dare to dream, mean to you?

I'm surprised this wasn't the goal they nominated. One of the best goals I've ever seen someone kick in Demons' colours. The ability to intercept a short kick, win the ground ball, get past an opponent, find balance and slot through an angle snap is just amazing. And if you look at the scoreboard, it was a critical goal in the context of the game as well. The St Kilda goal was good, but Kozzie does that kind of thing every week.

I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but that's what this part of the season is all about, right? Let's say we're in the Grand Final and Jones is our medi-sub. We're 30 points in front with a quarter to go. The starting 22 are all fit and firing, but Jonesy is desperate to get on the field for the greatest 30 minutes of his life. What happens next? Does Goodwin force the doctor to write a false report about a player being injured? Does a heart-and-soul player like Brayshaw sacrifice his spot in the last quarter to let Jonesy in? Do Melbourne fans raise enough money in a GoFundMe campaign to pay the MFC's fine for messing with the sub system? Does the AFL turn a blind eye because it loves a bit of romance?

The long answer is that players have set rotations and are always aware when they need to leave the field. In some cases, a player will know that they are expected to go off the ground during the next break-in-play and that happens to coincide with the break that occurs immediately after they kick a goal. There is a myth that players leave the field quite often after they kick a goal, but this is just a cognitive bias. The cameras will always stay with the player who just kicked a goal. Most of the time they line up back in their normal positions and we don't notice, but occasionally they will go the bench and because this seems weird our brains light up and think "that's strange" and remember the occurence. With that said, coaches (especially coaches on the bench) should have the awareness that when a player is hot, then they're hot, and they shouldn't mess with momentum. With a player like Kozzie especially, I think it makes a lot of sense to keep them on for at least another inside 50 entry after they've scored. Just look at Cody Weightman's goal shortly after he took that screamer - he clearly had a lot of adrenaline running through him and managed to follow up his superb mark with an important goal. I saw Port Adelaide sense this a few weeks ago with Connor Rozee, when he kicked 4 goals in the first quarter. After the third, we ran to the bench as part of a normal rotation but the coaches sent him back immediately. They recognised that he was running hot and sure enough, he kicked another goal minutes later.

Obviously a disappointing game today, but the 2 points was enough for us to lock in a finals spot. Given our percentage is similar to Brisbane and Port, today's result could be the difference between us finishing 4th and 5th if we drop 3 more games. If we drop 2 games, we should still finish top 4. If we only drop one game, we're likely to finish top 2. And obviously we stay where we are if we don't lose from here on in.

I don't think the crowd was the difference (and there was definitely plenty of noise in the last quarter) but it was a bit disappointing that only 17,000 turned up. I understand that numbers are down due to COVID nerves and Ticketek inconvenience, but it's a sad sight when Melbourne can't pull a decent crowd when we're top of the ladder and fans have been deprived of a home game for a month.