demoncat

Speaking of Butters - he could be a bit of a watch in the next year or two depending on how Port fare and what happens to Ken Was reportedly not committed until Ken re-signed last year given their closeness - if their season comes undone and Ken gets given the boot, do we come hard? Contracted until 2026 at this stage

One of the DeeBrief lads said the same thing… You’d be silly not to throw everything at him if it was the case, especially with our lack of reliable goal kickers, but with him over 30 I wonder where it would fit in to our trade and draft strategy Are we still win now or do we have an eye to the future? Our performance over the rest of the season will probably answer that

I missed the whole ‘North taking him with pick 3’ fiasco so I have no idea how good he was meant to be or where he otherwise would have been taken But surely anyone taken at that pick must have something to work with? Especially if he’s in the right environment and has the right mentality

My understanding is: 1. the investigation is still ongoing and not even the club or the AFL (and thus the media) have access to any information until Sports Integrity Australia publishes a finding 2. he is only contracted until the end of this year, so he will no longer be on the list regardless of whether the investigation is still ongoing Mods - please delete if this violates the editorial policy

A good pick up and offers a point of difference from the rest of our tall forwards at Casey JT also has a great hit rate with recruits from WA so I’ll back him in, plus it doesn’t hurt that he’s friends with Kolt And to people thinking we were going to find a bonafide midfielder who could play genuine minutes this year - you’re dreaming We’ll be bringing in LDU for that 😉

Conveniently forgetting that we kicked 2.12 across the second and third qtrs - delusional…

Jeez Chris Scott is a piece of work - in what world was Holmes the best player on the ground? I almost forgot how much I hated the Cats before this weekend’s game - won’t be making that mistake again for the rest of the season!

And a goal to boot!

HUGE grab McAdam!

No, no and no IF we were to go after him the time would have been at the end of 2022 when he had just come off a strong year at Freo In hindsight that may have been a better choice than pursuing Grundy, but even then there were doubts about his competitiveness and ability to perform consistently He’s now two years older and hasn’t done his credentials any favours since crossing over to the Dogs Unfortunate for us because in an ideal world he’s exactly the type of player we’re in need of…

A big yes from me - he’d be a top four mid at our club from day one and would add enormously to our 25 and under brigade We’ve also lost significant midfield depth with the retirement of Gus and departure of Jordon and Harmes - and with Viney in the back end of his career there would be a clear role for him long term We couldn’t match the best offer of a club like the Saints, but if he’s looking for a consistent role in a successful team in Victoria, there’s not many other clubs that would be more attractive

Bumping this thread in light of the growing noise that Bailey will be leaving the Doggies at the end of the year: https://www.sen.com.au/news/2024/04/12/bulldogs-ceos-frank-admission-on-smith-contract-talks/ https://www.sen.com.au/news/2024/04/15/two-key-dogs-expected-to-stay-but-club-none-the-wiser-on-bailey-smith/ Would you want the Dees to go after him? 12 months ago I would have been a hard no, but with Gus retiring we’ve been exposed for midfield depth and despite some flaws Bailey is still a top end player who will be coming into the prime of his career and would add to our 18-25 age group of players

A disappointing loss but not an unforeseen one given it was our third game in two weeks and we were coming up against a Premiership contender desperate to make a statement My question for you all is how much of the loss can be attributed to being physically exhausted after our Adelaide road trip vs the systemic problems that were identified around us consistently losing inside 50s, contested possessions and time in fwd half in our last few games? In other words, would simply having fresher legs allowed us to better employ the ‘Red and Blueprint’ binman has been discussing? Or were those statistical losses in our previous games a canary in the coal mine that pointed to larger issues and suggested we were playing in a way that wasn’t sustainable? Look forward to the discussion and go Dees 🔴🔵

Thanks @goodwindees If I’m not being too greedy, do you have any info on where Max Holmes is at with his contract situation? He’s felt like the one that got away from us ever since 2020… Appreciate the info as always 🫡

A very good player and one I’m glad we’re linked to But if I had to pick one player for us to chase this off season it’s Max Holmes He’s an absolute jet and just the type of player who would compliment our existing team Just a shame the Cats beat us to the punch when we wanted to draft him in 2020 😭

Very much looking forward to the pod this week after what was one of our best wins since the 21 GF 🏆 I’m sure this is something that @binman will touch on in his stats file, but I’d love to hear some more discussion about how we set up in this game to score more from turnover and D50 transition To me this game perfectly reflected what Daniel Hoyne said in the clips from last week’s pod - that we’re prepared to wear some bumps early in the season (losing clearance, contested poss, inside 50s etc.) to improve our transition, ball movement and efficiency in F50 And I think we perfectly saw the risk reward element of that style of play - letting Port dominate possession and have more shots on goal, but putting ourselves in a far stronger position to score on the rebound (one stat we did win was rebound 50s) While it will take some getting used to, I think this is a necessary aspect we need to add to our game in order to take that next step (hopefully) come September - but I would love to hear what you all think Go Dees 🔴🔵

Marty Horse sub?

Well Petty better come in and kick six if that’s the case… seems one step forward two steps back with selection these days, although the TMac inclusion looks genius in hindsight, so who knows 🤷‍♂️

Don’t say it don’t say it… CULTURE PROBLEMS

Let’s throw the competitive balance of the league out even more…

Looks a much stronger team than last week (although we’ll be missing Bowey 😢) I’m guessing if BBB is listed then TMac has been bought in to play back? I do like the flexibility he offers and the fact that he can chop out for Max in the ruck Tomlinson stiff but perhaps it’s that flexibility that TMac provides that has him ahead as a preferred tall defender Taj to come on as sub to provide some run in the second half? Would love to see it

I’m as loud and one eyed at the footy as any Pies fan, and there are certainly some Demons fans who could afford to be louder and more demonstrative when the whips are cracking But this narrative from Roffey and Pert that we need to be louder - even if it’s not their intention - is a bit of a kick in the guts to Demons fans who are paying their hard earned to rock up each week At the end of the day people can support the club however they choose. Further - without wanting to put down our players - it’s hard to get loud when we’ve kicked 6 straight behinds and then the opposition waltzes down the other end of the field and kicks a goal to knock us out of finals… Win finals and our membership will grow, play exciting football and fans will cheer louder than ever

Both fair arguments and there is a part of me that agrees And while I do think we have one of the best lists, I don’t think it’s considerably better than that of Brisbane, Pies, GWS or Carlton (and we certainly have certain deficiencies in fwd and depth personnel as described) But I think the key difference is that we’ve seen the potential of our list in 2021 and that potential is considerably higher than what we’ve seen from these other sides (at least in finals) I think that’s what’s hard to get past for so many Demonlanders - when you win a finals series in the manner we did and you’ve got a list that looked ready to compete for many more years (as opposed to Geelong in 2022) it’s difficult to reconcile that with our recent finals failures (despite the legitimate reasons for these losses) It’s all a matter of perspective I guess 🤷‍♂️

Not to turn this into the ‘Is Goody the Right Guy’ thread, but I do think this will be a defining year for Goody Anything less then at least a finals win will be seen as an abject failure and rightly so given the calibre of our list Having said that I actually think Goody’s coaching was much improved last year and our finals exit was more about our fwd line injuries than any one coaching decision And there have been signs this preseason that he’s been trying to adapt our game plan to address our fwd connection and slow ball movement issues But at the end of the day the proof will be results on game day, and we’ve already seen another selection head scratcher with bringing Spargo straight in at the expense of Billings who was one of our best preseason performers The last thing our club needs is to have a Bevo situation where you’re beholden to a coach off the back of a Premiership win, but we also don’t need to throw the baby out with the bath water given we’ve shown a lot more consistency than most teams over the past three years Hopefully we won’t need to be having these conversations come the off season, but if you think this club has one of if not the best lists (which I do) then our results need to start matching it, and sooner rather than later

Agree with all of the above My point was more around that intangible feeling that some teams seem to have when they’re on their way to a flag - almost a sense of inevitability And yes I’m very aware that’s perhaps the least analytical way to look at the game 😅