Lord Nev

With respect, I don't think you understood what I was saying at all given the content of your response. I'll just leave it there.

The company I work for had just purchased the last 'smaller' company it would need to before it floated, however due to the impact of what has happened we've had to activate our cooling off and pull out. We're backed by a massive worldwide equity firm and have had to take drastic measures, that should tell you how much this will effect the hospitality industry. Not just for now, but there will be a big shift in how hospitality runs going forward as well. We already have capacity limits and they may continue in different ways for some time, there will be also be a HUGE issue of 'surface awareness' for hospitality meaning the way venues operate will change in a big big way, then other measures like staff on visas, licensing, supplier impacts (some suppliers may not survive) and a host of unforseen aspects that will come. IMO hospitality will be dominated even further by larger groups and less 'owner operators' or singularly focused businesses will survive. Partnerships will be where it's at in my view. Building developments is a whole different area. There may be opportunities appear there, but the question will be on our finances to do it, which again won't be viewed kindly if we have risky business plans in the future.

100% there's a lot of opportunity for the club in regards to supporter engagement. It's definitely something we've improved on in recent years, there's been some great initiatives and some canny marketing, but definitely more opportunity there. Hopefully as we come out of the current problems and companies look for innovative solutions and value-based partnerships we can link up with some that can be of mutual benefit for these exact ideas.

I appreciate your passion, but this is just not a realistic business model for a hospitality venue in the current climate both of the industry and the impacts of covid-19. Cheers.

Yeah, there's absolutely a way the club could find a way to hold events during the season for supporters, perhaps where they use external catering partners or tap one of the sponsors on the shoulder (Sporting Globe if they stay on board) to have that mingling opportunity some are keen on. I just don't think we have the resources, finance or customer base to have an actual purpose built facility that we run all year. Personally, my preference is just to have more community-based events. Simple things like sausage sizzles at training (which MFC do already very occasionally), signing sessions for the kids at the Demon Shop or with a temporary merch stand, maybe some more installation type events (think family day but MUCH smaller), more of the online chats - especially ones for kids only (Gawn doing a couple early this year was a good start) etc etc. I just think there's ways we can encourage supporter engagement and build our customer base without something so financially risky, and to be frank a bit exclusive, as a social club.

Are you sure the shop was actually open to the public though? It may have just had the doors open due to the member pickups. The MFC website says the Demon Shop is currently closed to the public due to covid-19. Edit - Scratch that, just saw your post above.

The whole social club/function space idea was already at best 'risky', but in the current financial climate it's fraught with danger. I work for one of Australia's largest hospitality companies. We have (just) survived the current disaster only due to being backed by one of the largest financial companies in the world. Our business fell by 99%. We have had major stand downs and redundancies from the top level down to those who answer the phones and one of the biggest parts of the business hit was the functions team. My company has close to 180 venues between Australia and New Zealand with very specific resources aimed at the corporate, sporting and functions markets and we make it work. All our venues have functions capacity and can host them any time of the year. The hospitality industry in general is heading more and more towards companies like mine; larger groups with better buying power and supplier bargaining capacities. To think a Melbourne based football club, one of the smallest, who would attract customers at best 6 months of the year can all of a sudden enter that space and compete is just not realistic. There's far better options for us in aligning ourselves with existing businesses and utilizing those partnerships to benefit us. Not only does it benefit us in a cost/benefit way, but also in the very important database/touch points/customer pathways way where we can share it with companies with a greater reach than just our own supporters. I mean really, we struggle to get fans to games, it's farcical to think we would have enough business from our club's supporters to profit in any way from such an investment.

For mine (well, a bit of a mix of opinion and realistic guesses), I would have... B: Jetta, May, Hore HB: Salem, Lever, Harmes B: Langdon, Brayshaw, Tomlinson HF: Melksham, Fritsch, Petracca F: Bedford, T.McDonald, Pickett FOL: Gawn, Oliver, Viney IC: Jackson, Jones, Hibberd, Neal-Bullen Lockhart & Weid probably unlucky, wouldn't be surprised at all to see them play. Being conservative with Bennell and vandenBerg.

Apologies if already mentioned, but thought this was a great addition to the website (particularly given the staff/hours cuts atm). Who starts Round 2? Pick your best 22

Assuming he's selected, Neville Jetta will play his 150th game in round 2. Massive shame there won't be a crowd to show our level of appreciation and love for the great man. The Demon Army are currently considering different ways to celebrate him leading up to the game and perhaps on game day as well, so just thought I'd open it up here to ideas and perhaps even a bit of love for him to be shared. One idea kicking around is to have a mini-banner at training (bit like the one Gawny organized for Trenners a few years back) made up of comments from fans celebrating him, like a reverse of the 'mean tweets' banner. Fan numbers would be limited at training (if any are allowed at all) so would be a way to get fan sentiment across to a much loved Dee. Anyways, feel free to chuck some ideas in here Demonlanders.

Sorry mate, hear to talk about the actual footy rather than try to point score with personal battles. Cheers.

We're having discussions here. Not sure why you think people have to agree, we all see things differently. Nowhere have I got mad or made personal comments or anything like that. Play the ball and talk footy hey?

Fair enough mate.

Didn't say Tomlinson was any good in the ruck, but we've seen him playing that role already this year (to be fair, mostly in preseason though). Means Weid/Brown/Jackson can play forward of the ball giving us a much needed target there, rather than being high up the ground should we win it. Shorter quarters won't make the disposal of Hunt any better, and personally I'm still holding out judgment on Baker (as much as I like the endeavour of the kid). Bennell is exciting, but tempering expectations. vandnBerg is cooked. Anyway, was raising a question, not making a statement.

As mentioned in my post, I'm not suggesting we shift him from that role, I'm suggesting he could potentially play as a forward/ruck at times while mostly playing on the wing. Players rotate around at a high rate these days, I don't think we'll find Tomlinson playing 100% of his time on the wing.

Absolutely could be. The forward stuff was from people not currently involved at the club, they were more talking about him as a player in general. He definitely is unique. Thoughts on Tomlinson potentially playing as a forward/ruck at times? (Obviously penciled in for mostly the wing, but not many players stay in the one spot for a whole game these days).

All the talk I was told about by MFC people (non-current players mostly) was Jackson would come in, play forward, and was already rated higher than Weid in that regard. That was well before any word of him being drafted by us. Maybe that's the go? Certainly would give us some spark and unpredictability compared to TMac, Weid and Brown.

I work for a large business that has had a 99% downturn in business due to covid-19. We've done, and are doing, absolutely everything possible to keep up communication with our clients and customers and drive any kind of income we can. As we've seen here from just a few examples, Dees supporters are wanting to help, wanting to buy a membership, wanting to buy some merch, why are we failing in such a simple part of the business? Is it worrying, or just 'one of those things'? I don't know, but come on MFC, we're here wanting to contribute to the club we love.

Have been trying to contact the club for a month through various means and had no response as well. Partly about using my member voucher as part payment to purchase a bunch of merch, partly about additional membership options. Not complaining as such, understand staff have likely been laid off and/or stood down, but we surely need to find ways to actually accept money when people are trying to give it.

This the same Jon Ralph? "The Herald Sun’s Jon Ralph reports clubs including North Melbourne, Melbourne and Carlton have around half of their lists currently contracted into 2021 and beyond. In turn they have sizeable portions of their salary caps available to use. That is becoming particularly important with many players unwilling to accept looming pay cuts of as much as 20 to 25 per cent." AFL stars ‘not willing’ to take pay cuts may cause trade bonanza, with three clubs to benefit

Jordan Lewis lifts the lid on ‘brutal’ SAS camp that broke players and sparked a revolt

Good from the Dees... "A different type of podcast. ? Coming this afternoon."

So this is the 'ideal model' in your opinion, post-covid-19? Can't say I agree mate. All the fans of the teams that are gone won't just pick another team, they'll be lost to the game which means less revenue for the AFL on top of the losses this year.

Why would the AFL bring in 2 new teams and then recently start considering more if that was the case?