David Williamson

They won't play May in ones fresh from injury either. Once bitten twice shy as they say.

Complications after eye injury and surgery according to HSun. Very sad.

Terribly sad news. Thoughts with all of their families.

I actually reckon it might be the other way and we flew Pruess over as a bit of gamesmanship. I think Goodwin has conceded that we won't beat westcoast in the air and will endeavour to play the game on the ground. That's my take.. I don't think he got outfoxed, they'd have played Pruess if they'd wanted to.

He butchers it by foot and rarely kicks to advantage side of a contest. One of the easiest components of kicking a football. His technique is fundamentally flawed mostly by his ball drop. He's in the team as a valued runner and his competitiveness. He is not best 22 though, imo.

My feeling is WCE will be prepared for us to play the Port styled lower dirty/chaos style ball inside f50 and will play majority of defenders in front, if our guys can pick off a few targets inside 50 early, have a bit of luck and put some scoreboard pressure on, we could be ok. I think our midfield is actually in pretty good form at the moment, and this is being clouded by our poor forward 50 entries, I like Baker in, but would like to see him forward. Should be a bloody interesting game tonight.

MFC must just practice stoppage work all session, and from what I've seen the forward craft is just marks up at the end of training. I was a fan of this when TMc was clunking them, but it seems he is completely and utterly devoid of confidence.

I love how you talk about 'ignorance' but open with, "I think you'll find..." and your assumption quite specific, but completely wrong. Not a big clip, just funny. He got onto fasting from speaking with Cooper Cronk, he consulted the club nutritionists and they ok'd it but said to monitor the situation. It isn't something that has been pushed by the club. I fast myself, regularly, and it has amazing benefits if done correctly. One of the issues Viney has admitted is the unknown about gameday, and from a preseason interview said he would have to see how it went on game day.

Easily Max and not just for the reason that he is an elite player in the comp and one of our greatest competitive advantages, but also for the fact that we don't have a replacement and the club has traded in a complete dud in Preuss, would much rather we'd recruited another journeyman ruckman who at some point showed some remote form of footy IQ at AFL level, either that or a lanky bean pole like max 7 years ago.

Agree with what you are saying, but it's a combination of both decision making and execution. Both are poor and he really shouldn't be in our AFL side if we are serious this year.

Any side with Stretch is surely taking the Mickey. He is so fundamentally flawed at AFL level. He butchers it like we haven't seen since J Grimes. Absolute howlers. We are meant to be a serious football side now.

That was my thought exactly.

It's not a reality check if we lose. It would be a reality check if we had Watts, Jones, Salem, Hogan, Garlett etc. running around tonight and got done.

We're back out over $2 at $2.02 with Crownbet, Swans in to $1.83. If Hunt is ruled out Swans will hit $1.70 and we'll end up losing by 5 goals.

Don't agree with this. Jack lacked elite talent in the context of the modern game. Great leader, great person, bad kick, slowish, poor decision maker, and as someone rightly mentioned the combination of this had a compounding effect, where Jack being slowish brought more pressure on his kicking and decision making (and options) in open play. I was criticised over the past 4 or 5 years over at 'ology for being critical of Jack, the player, but I've maintained all through that period that we wouldn't play finals with Grimes in the team. He lacked an elite attribute physiologically. I don't think he'd excel if he came into the team as an 18 yo now, moreover, if he was at Geelong and Hawthorn during their golden eras, he wouldn't have played 100 games. Our most exciting talent either has power, skill or both. Think Hunt, Petracca, Oliver (wow) these guys all have elite attributes. Hunt ridiculous speed, Petracca power and x factor and Oliver with best hands at the club. Put Jack Grimes' brain, passion and approach into Colin Sylvia's head. You'd have a player there!

Now I know we got absolutely spanked today - however, if we are fair dinkum we will stop playing games in the Northern Territory. Having played there a few times myself I can tell you that at a lower league the conditions take it right out of you, I cannot imagine what it does to players going at AFL pace. Geelong lost this weekend and we got poleaxed. Roos won't use it as an excuse but it doesn't bloody help!! I think it would be well worth forgoing the sponsorship dollars from NT Tourism and focus on football, which Peter Jackson has said over and again in the last 12 months. Just my 2 cents worth.

All of this happened while I was not online and my head in MBA books over the weekend. It is a sad day(s). Just so you all know, my admin rights have been removed and hence can not do anything about this. Demonology was fun while it lasted, it seems this bloke has taken advantage of an ill man and we will just have to accept that demonology as it was will not likely exist again. Thanks for all of the good discussion to the regulars!

Thanks for the update WJ. Very sorry I couldn't make it last night. My sister's wedding ran over and being brother of the bride I was there til the very end. If there is some kind of private discussion/email doing the rounds I would be happy offer my assistance. I run a small web development business as a hobby and would be keen to offer my support in terms of tech knowledge and $$$ I suggest everyone look at www.ning.com as a possibility for the system to host the new Demonology. There would be some difficulty in crediting existing members post numbers and taking across old discussions, but i'm sure we would all live. Anyway, keep me in the loop - david.andrew.williamson at gmail.com cheers.

I'm trying to make myself available for this. My sister is getting married at Ripponlea on the same day. It's meant to be rapping up at 4 O'clock, then I need to take the wife and baby home to eastern suburbs. I'll try my very best. For those that have said why can't we just have Demonland, you need to understand that Demonology is an institution. Yes, occasionally the banter does go a little overboard, but there is a life and heart to the community we have over there that is lost on many Demonlanders.

Dees to win this one. 5 outs for the tigers Martin, Connors, Jackson, King and Grimes. Tigers are a middle of the road side. We will get them this weekend, just need to keep Reiwoldt quiet and work hard against their quicker midfield.

Those suggesting delisting Joel MacDonald want this club to be sitting at the bottom forever. He may not have the best disposal, but he competes and works hard every minute he is on the ground. We need guys like this that keep us in the contest. My main belief with our lack of progress over the last few years is that we are rarely 'in' games. We get blown out of the water and the rest of the game both teams just go through the motions. Guys like J Mac may not be able to help you beat Collingwood or Hawthorn, but he'll keep us 'in' games against the majority of other sides. We need senior bodies desperately, and we need to not moth in to the contest. Yesterday was a repeat of round one, Brisbane just punched holes through and press and when we clogged the centre of the ground they just did circle work. The game was so boring as a Melbourne supporter to watch.

See below. This is why I was confident that it would be 20,000+ (it was just in the end!)

Beat me to it. I just watched it too.

That would be the 2000 qualifying final vs. Carlton. I remember it well as I was sitting in the front row of the top level of the southern stand and the ball came very close to us. Loved the arrogance. I mentioned this to Schwarz this morning. http://www.youtube.com/embed/unvG_vnMj1o?rel=0

Reading between the lines, it was due to the instability he feels he caused when introducing his teammates to some bad eggs (3 now dead, 1 in jail and 1 out of jail and laying low). Thinks it had something to do with the form collapse in 2001.