demoncat

Joey Montagna said over the weekend that “he is disgruntled with the club and the club is disgruntled with him” Haven’t heard that reported from some of the more established trade/draft focused journos but interesting nonetheless Have seen some North fans saying they don’t think he applies enough pressure to maintain a spot in their fwd line which sounds all too familiar to us, but he’s definitely got more talent than most

Saturday was last chance saloon to have a chance of playing finals this year and what do our players dish up in the first qtr? 5.7 to 0.1 to have the game essentially dead and buried at qtr time Unfortunately I think our team has a serious mindset/attitude problem Whether its slow starts or poor kicking for goal when under pressure, it seems like the mental side of our game hasn’t been 100% right since 2021 I mean if the prospect of staying in the hunt for play finals isn’t enough to get this group up and about for the first bounce I don’t know what will And that’s incredibly concerning for the long term future of our club

I definitely agree about the state of the list I think at the start of the year I thought we were just a few tweaks and a good run of form away from making finals again, but now it seems a new list hole is popping up every other week However I don’t think this should be a reason to retain Goody because to me it doesn’t look like he’s willing to make hard calls on players and their positions to at least address some of these holes in the short term, or at the very least get development into our younger players for the long term Why isn’t Trac spending 50/50 mid/fwd? Why isn’t Jack spending more time forward (reckon he spent about 5 mins up there at the start of the game on Saturday)? Why isn’t Rivers getting a go in the midfield? Why are players like Windsor and Petty being played out of their best positions? I could go on - but the point is that while a new coach won’t immediately fix the holes on our list, they can cast a fresh pair of eyes over our players and make decisions about our list and gameplan accordingly I don’t think after all this time Goody has the willingness or capacity to do this, particular in regards to senior players

Love your work Roost 🤣

It’s getting to the point where we almost need a Jordan Dawson type to come in like happened at Adelaide a few years ago Jeez we’re missing Gus 😔

Might be post of the year 👏

I feel like you could have said the exact same thing going into last off season 🤣 Bigger change is now needed in my opinion

Delusional I don’t blame Goodwin for all of our problems but we simply can’t be heaping any praise on that performance It was unacceptable - full stop It’s this kind of delusion that’s killing this team and will stop us making the changes we need this off season

Yeah we’re cooked

Where is Windsor playing?

I agree it’s clear we don’t rate it but I reckon that’s been a problem the past few years and has left our depth exposed I reckon we had/have multiple areas of need that should have been identified and tried to be fixed with more picks from the draft, rather than moving up marginally or trading for NQRs like Billings, McAdam etc (I mean when was the last time we bought in a Hibberd or Langdon?)

Logan Morris and now Joel Freijah Every week we’re being reminded of the second round picks we traded to move up and grab Tholstrup in 2023 😭 (still love you Kolt)

Reckon he’s more hit and miss then ‘horrible’ - have seen him hit some absolutely lace out passes before

Gee I hope we’re a chance at Bergman - he’d look great in the red and blue

Haven’t heard it but @Ghostwriter confirmed that they were essentially told this at training today (thanks for the scoop 👻)

Wow - both big calls and ones that I back 100% I love Lever but he was brought back in way too quickly and has clearly been hampered by his injuries - McDonald should never have been dropped to make way for him Windsor has also struggled this year due to injuries (and being played out of position in my opinion) - reckon getting him playing on the wing at VFL could do his confidence a world of good

I’ve seen the same intel posted on Big Footy (yes grain of salt etc) but I have to say I’m very concerned that we’re not going to be able to land anyone of note this trade period We really failed to capitalise on being a club in the window between 2021-2023 in terms of bringing in more A grade talent - could be a long couple of years if Lamb and co can’t start to bring in more like McKay, Bergman etc

It’s a common misconception that he’s a poor kick for goal Other than an admittedly very bad form slump a couple of years ago he’s actually been quite accurate and, as the stats show, has managed a lot of shots on goal

I agree regarding smalls/mediums being more impactful and ball use being king - but I think that’s contingent on at least having competent tall forwards who can compete aerially and lead to space Unfortunately we don’t have many at the moment who can do this and it’s making our smalls/mediums less impactful and making it even harder for us to enter inside 50 It’s no surpirse that Fritsch had his best season when we had BBB and TMac providing a forward presence for him to work from Our mids also had better targets to kick to even if they weren’t hitting them lace out on the chest You only need to look at Brisbane this year to see they’re missing Daniher’s presence (although Logan Morris is now starting to compensate for that) So while I agree you don’t need a gun key forward, you definitely need competent ones, and McKay may be one of the only options available to us this year I say get him if we’re a chance

I saw some people doubting him in another trade thread and couldn’t believe it - he is the prototype forward we’ve been crying out for years I don’t think we’d have the cap space to bring him in (as it currently stands) but we’d be crazy not to go after him He’s a great mark, a strong forward presence and an option as a second ruck - plus he’d offer great protection to our younger forwards in JVR and Jefferson as they develop Would give up a future first and more for him

Link? He’s a gun and would be a dream get if there was any way to bring him in

I like Kolt a lot and think he could be a great mid/fwd type long term but this is looking like a bigger and bigger mistake by the club Usually I’m all in favour of trading picks to get up the draft order but in hindsight we could have had Caleb Windsor, Darcy Wilson and Logan Morris in one draft 😭 Even if we didn’t want Wilson there’s every chance Kolt would’ve been there a few picks later anyway

The reference to GWS taking Windsor is based on this - https://www.afl.com.au/news/1064937/cal-twomeys-2023-phantom-draft-top-30-late-picks-club-whispers It was noted in various instances by Cal that they were interested in Windsor and I’m almost certain that he referenced us taking Windsor at 7 (knowing of GWS’s interest in him at 8) on draft night or one of his media platforms And I can assure you I’ve see plenty of Essendon games this year pal - more than I’d care to admit! I like Caddy and think he’ll be a good player but based on what I’ve seen I don’t think he’s shown as much as Curnow did If he wins the Coleman in five or six years happy for you to come back and quote me - not that you need much encouragement to try and prove people wrong Dazz!

I mean I compared his potential and not his output to Gulden’s but whatever And someone else just posted his stats against Holmes in his second year, who also had similar numbers before becoming a midfield star (and I think is another example of the type of player Windsor could be) I’ll give it to you that Caddy has similar numbers to Curnow but that’s not what I said - everyone could see the physicality Curnow had from a young age which is a significant part of his game It was only his off field discretions which made him slip to into the teens of that draft Anyway I’m sure if we all listened to you Dazzle we’d be kicking it on Caddy’s head so it’d be a moot point discussion - meanwhile Windsor would be tearing it up for GWS (who were going to take him with the next pick if we didn’t)

I also think the timing of the draft played a part - we had taken four key position players in 2021 and 22 (Disco, JVR, Jefferson and Adams) You can argue that you always have to take best available but I think it would have been overkill to draft another KPP when we needed to start replenishing our midfield stocks