Skuit

A president of a sporting club has come out in public and said they'd like more supporters to attend games and express their support vocally. Can you not see the problem here?

And we've never missed a flag after losing round zero.

Wait. Is the MCG predicting no one will rock up for the Carlton-Richmond match? Big call.

I recently bought a Mash Five Hundred - part of the modern 'retro bike' renaissance. Pretty chuffed with it.

The club needs to come out and clearly state it's intentions to the media on JUH before it's too late and we miss our chance to be in a news article.

Maybe you should write the club a letter?Things can sometimes be overlooked in organisations with a lot of cogs, so it's possible the 'improve the forward line' memo just got lost in someone's inbox tray.

We lost by 22 points. We were 2 points behind at 3/4 time. I know you're newer to the sport, but it highlights our remarkable consistency and competitiveness in recent years if the three losses you cited (the other two by 11 and 27 points on the road) have you up in arms. Also, you might wanna roll the tape back on 2018 (from memory, the 'Is Goodwin the Right Guy?' thread was started around round 5.)

The humidity levels in Sydney were off the charts tonight. Gawn mentioned it felt like playing in Darwin, but generally when we play in the Top End it's during the dry, albeit still slippery. Anyone who has ever travelled from the southern states to play footy up north during wet season months though will know how insanely challenging it is if you're not used to it. The ball going straight through your hands is one thing, but you simply can't get enough oxygen into the lungs to keep pushing, no matter how willing. We weren't that bad tonight. Sydney handled the ball 10% better and had 10% more puff. For elite, fine-tuned athletes in a tough and tight competition, those figures make a huge difference. Especially when it was our first real hit-out for the season, and against opposition more familiar with the local conditions. People can scream 'no excuses!' all they want, but it's counter to what we actually know about elite performance in today's sporting environment. I'm not arguing that we don't have some concerning weaknesses, as all teams do, but wait until next week to making sweeping judgments. And in the meantime ponder our early season match against the Lions at the Gabba last year and how we followed up back in Melbourne.

It looks like your Boomer coffee plunger is lecturing your recalcitrant Gen-Y V's on the quality of caffeine/i50s over quantity.

My Melbourne Demons evangelical preseason mission to Mozambique is now complete - including an absurd 2.30am start for the Richmond scratch - and I'm hoping I may have converted at least one or two of the locals for the real stuff's much more time-friendly opening fixture. My concern however is that while grasping the complexity of the rules is difficult enough, even for AFL natives according to our match-day threads, getting their heads around the concept of Round Zero may be a bridge too far. Go Dees! See you crazies on the other side.

Champion!. Thank you greatly Clint.

Hi Demonland family. Could someone please advise which Fox channel the game will be broadcast on? I know that might seem like a strange question, but my google-machine skills have failed me thus far. Bonus round question: if I were to presently turn to said channel, what would be currently showing? On an unrelated note: does anyone recall the equivalent match getting cut short last time around when everyone got bored? I haven't google that yet because I'm already here asking questions now.

Time to learn up on Sebastianism for those into tea leaves.

List and profile-wise, our window is about the widest open it has ever been, although there's a cliff coming in a few years from now, probably in the dreaded four-to-six, with hopefully (but problematically) little in the way of draft capital over that time. The majority of our key players are right in their peak 25-28 y/o age career bracket, with between 100 to 200 games under their belts and premiership experience: Petracca Oliver Lever Salem Brayshaw Langdon Fritsch Apologies to ANB. We only currently have three blokes above 30 (or soon to be) who might still be considered important cogs: Gawn, May and Viney. This is a very low number compared to recent flag winners outside of 2021. A quick calculation puts that figure at at least a third of the premiership teams for Collingwood, Geelong and Richmond from 2019 to 2023. None of those players are easily replaceable and I love them all, but I think most of us appreciate that we can get on without a premiere ruck and Viney in the middle. Losing a back like May will disrupt our rock-solid defensive approach. In three to four years from now, should they stay (most are on long contracts), we'll have a very seasoned line-up of AFL superstars still competing. Then it gets interesting. At present we have just the following first round draft recruits on our list: Jefferson, Tholstrup and Windsor. They will build around other proven under-25 entities in: Pickett JVR Petty Rivers Sparrow McVee Bowey Chandler Is that latter crew, plus additions, enough to sustain us in keeping the window open beyond 2028? My summary, we are in the window for at least the next four years, but need a big midfield refresh to keep it open. The loss of Gawn and May will hurt but not be a big issue in the scheme of things.

Somehow, we managed to average around 90 points per game last year. That's about three points less than top spot. We finished clear top 4. Our highest losing margin was by under five goals to Essendon over in Adelaide. Seven out of our eight other losses for the season were by less than two goals. Much of that with a severely depleted forward line. As an MFC fan, the Demons are always incredibly frustrating to watch. Supporters of other clubs are also entitled to their opinions. The dysfunctional forward-line narrative is getting a bit much though.

Hi Herald Sun. I've included some edits in bold above free of charge.

Can't believe how many on here are privileging one well-rested day of their young children's primary school education over attending a Thursday night footy match here and there. What I learnt at primary school over seven years of Fridays: squat, or maybe some maths formulas which I don't use as an adult other than calculating team percentages. What I learnt following the Demons as a child: true life-long lessons on resilience and that the world sucks but if you suck it up maybe you will have something worthwhile to shout at. Go Dees!

Finally, the blame can legitimately fall on jack watts.

Eric?

Adelaide vibes.

We won a flag and have finished top four over the past two years taking the exact opposite approach - getting ahead of the game as to future trading and welcoming the likes of Clarry and Pickett as a result. I once tried to calculate the premium we had paid as to draft points by continually pushing our debt into the future, but there are too many intangibles, the extra year of development being one. I don't think there needs to be a fixed, long-term strategy: see something we like and put our chips in (make the right decisions and it becomes future draft capital, see Jackson), otherwise keep rolling.

Now? 3.6 from our last two finals at the MCG in front of massive crowds, and a fair bit of erratic behaviour.

Going to have to pull you up a little bit here Adam, although will concede Port have been erratic over the journey. By the second year of each of his stints coaching down back and up front, Basset’s division had established itself as a top two AFL performer on points conceded or scored; Port conceding the second lowest total in 2017 (and the third lowest in 2018 despite the club finishing 10th overall), and becoming the heaviest scoring team in 2020. While we know that personnel, injuries and the defensive/offensive balance of the head coach’s game-plan can impact such figures, the Power in the respective years prior to Basset taking on each of those challenges sat as the 10th worst defensive team in 2015 and the league’s 12th lowest-scoring team in 2018. So he has effectively twice during his career achieved jumps of eight to twelve ranking spots within two years of taking over, at both ends of the ground. Why those form-lines later dipped is anyone’s guess (although on the defensive side it could have had something to do with the departure of Darren Burgess), but the stats alone suggest Basset does have some innovative nous. I also have no idea about their personal relationship, but Goodwin and Basset have pretty compelling connections (and Goody apparently helped lure Nathan to Essendon under Neil Craig). He also seems like a straight-up good guy.

I'm [censored] pumped. Let's rock this!

That's fitting. I got off the train (worried about internet connectivity: Leipzig can wait) and arriving back in Kreuzberg now!