Hellfire Dub

I'm glad we tried him up front, but I fear he's lost confidence playing that role. He was really good in defence and I hope he gets moved back there and finds his form and Demon spirit

Entschildingung bitte, eh... Is this not Austria? I think I might be in the wrong place?

He's always been one of my favourite players. He seems to run like crazy and he's tough. My favourite trait is his kicking. Hopefully he can teach his teammates. He's normally clean and accurate, but sometimes his kicks are the sweetest peaches, beautiful to watch.

We're all like a doomsday cult, waiting until that glorious moment arrives on Wednesday..., or was the prophet Goodwindees talking about the third Wednesday in September 2025!?

14th. A strangely familiar and unwelcome position

Disregarding recent events, I'm glad our team has had guys like Petracca (and Nibbler) driving standards. His ambition has been a great asset to us until the fiasco around his injury. He's clearly the type of person who's pushed himself to the limits of his potential with the overseas training camps etc. Look at how far he's come. I remember when I first started reading Demonland and people thought he was pudgy and heavy and falling far short of expectations from his high draft position. I think his humility around the Norm Smith was knowing that his was an outstanding performance, but it was within a shared team result. So the brand thing and his earnings are a selfish motivation, but to be a professional athletes requires a certain selfishness and ruthlessness. An ambition and determination to improve and win. By contrast we can all name plenty of other players that were happy enough to turn up and go through the motions. I've never got that sense from him in any game I've seen him play. The injury and recovery would have caused the sudden realisation of his mortality and the short duration of his precarious career. He's also witnessed Gussy's career cruelly and unjustly ended. That must have driven him to maximise his income in his last few playing years. He's messed that up really badly unfortunately. It will have burned younger players, and those on the periphery and not earning his level of income. That's going to cause resentment. There's also an associated mental health issue after the trauma that may explain his rash behaviour. I'm totally prepared to overlook that aspect. We're humans and fallible and vulnerable and actions taken in dark moments can't be explained or justified when someone is well again. The guy is young and ambitious and wants to win premierships. Until this season he's believed that was possible with us. And he's right, it should be possible with us. So even though I doubt he'll be a Demon beyond 2025, I truly hope his concerns and recommendations are acted upon. He's got to have seen or heard of some unprofessional and concerning behaviours and shenanigans. Most of us regularly hear rumours and innuendo about our club and I've no idea whether it's justified, nor whether it's true of only us or of all AFL teams. I don't see our club management as proactive or exemplary. We've been in the wilderness forever without a home base near Melbourne as an example. I hear a lot of real nonsense management speak and not just the strategic post game interview where the same nothings are repeated ad nauseum. We need to be better and do better. There were excuses in some of the other years, but lots of the stuff this year was inexcusable. Poor football, poor effort, poor attitude, poor gameplan, poor management, poor communication. I'm sure Trac will have raised some of these things. Let's hope it brings about some change for the better. And more exciting football with plentiful goals for us, more finals, more Norm Smith medals, and more flags.

How many goals would be kick for us next season if we bomb it long and slow and high into the big defenders in the goal square?

I doubt his manager would dump him. They'd be taking a percentage of his million plus each season.

Thanks, I just wanted your cold numerical analysis. Like most people here I'm trying to figure out what all this means for us in football outcomes. Your optimism is appreciated today after a lot of negative news and is keeping the MFCSS at bay. I think we could and should play finals next year. That should be our minimum goal. I doubt CP5 will be anything like his best next year and I don't expect he'll play till the latter half at least. The long break might be helpful and it's largely dependant on injuries and trading in some good replacements. Some of the new kids are going well, but there are quite a few gaps opening up on the list. I hope we have the good trading and drafting period that we need.

Ah that's fair and exactly as expected. I'm not sure what odds you'd get on a Melbourne premiership in 2025 but you're proving my point perfectly. You often say something along the lines of "bookies know best" because they're not charities. With all the issues around Trac, Clarry, gus forced to retire, kozzy unhappy, the forbidden topic, nibbler leaving, petty playing forward, low goal scoring, being run over on turnovers etc. it's almost certain that we won't win a grand final. Far more likely we'll end up either just scraping finals or roughly where we are now. Your redemption dream is a massive long shot unfortunately and that's reflected in the odds. And if we don't improve it plays perfectly into Trac's hands. Justification for him to say nothings changed, we're unprofessional and the media will say it's fair for him to go elsewhere.

The story writes itself: Dees have a cracking preseason. The Max, Jack, tracc and clarry band gets back together. The young Turks (JVR, mcvee, Windsor, Kolt, disco and pick 5) make their own music. The dees win the flag. Tracc wins the Norm Smith. Redemption reigns. Traccs 'reach' goes nuclear. This stuff becoming fact. I don't bet, but my understanding is the odds accumulate for each event, making the outcome less likely? I know the post is fanciful and I appreciate your enthusiasm and all your hard work. Like you I'm celebrating that Trac remains for now and hope we go really well next year, even all the way to a glorious Flag with real fans there to celebrate. As for this potential wager, unfortunately for all of us I think it's unfair and I'd just be taking your money. I was asking yesterday, what safeguards are there for the team if any player takes the proverbial and gives a half @55ed effort or exaggerates some real or concocted injury that forces them to sit on the sidelines for most of the year? Especially one on $1.7m or thereabouts? I'm glad he's back but I'm genuinely concerned about his physical and mental readiness to play AFL in a few months time.

Nothing wrong with being optimistic. I love your optimism despite everything and I really hope you're right. I'd really love you too be right, but I fear we might be headed for another 2019 style rough year. Would you be confident enough to say if you're right, I'll pay for your grand final ticket and if it doesn't happen then you'd pay my Redlegs membership 2026?

Did you say similar optimistic things after 22 and 23? As a betting man, what odds would you give on this outcome eventuating?

Yeah that's a concern I share Old Dee. He could be in the bench or in rehab for a lot of the season

That's exactly the bit the jumped out for me. As in I'm committed to the red and the blue... It's what he didn't say such as: until the trade period/until end of 2025/on the proviso that we trade out trouble makers/change coach etc

What would be an issue that divides players and causes some to want to leave? Could it be the forbidden topic and future repercussions for players caught up in it? Or is it simply the restrictive style of dour football that will consign players to obscurity and mediocrity like Saint Kilda?

Given the brand stuff is going so well he could play for less money and free up salary cap for better trade ins

Okay I have two hypothetical questions that relate to this Trac situation: Can an AFL player retire to end a contract then take a year off and be signed by another team? What happens if a marquee player on big dollars decides to take the P1,55 for a year and sit on their backside and barely try in the AFL or VFL side? Are there performance clauses that can reduce their entitlements etc?

Yes that's the view I'm coming to. The problem with that is that AFL player contracts are now becoming as meaningful and eternally unbreakable as a Hollywood marriage. Trac could conceivably go to somewhere like GC on a 5 year deal only to [censored] and moan and engineer some reason to get to his beloved Demon slaying piescum next year. The AFL will do everything to help those clubs and let us twist in the wind because we won't even raise a whimper. It's a joke.

If all this is true then he should go to a really lowly club alright, not a massive filthy enemy team

14th Home and Away. Even the usual apologists are very quiet or starting to agree that we're failing to be acceptable, let alone exemplary. Negative "puke football" that fans don't want to watch and good players want to play. And it doesn't even win us home and away games anymore. Not to mention that we didn't even get to bomb out of finals without firing shots. At least 3 of our best footballers going or wanting to leave (that we know if so far). No discernible progress on a home base. Disastrous communications. The issues we can't talk about. Culture or questionably Sub-par Culture? Memberships and sponsors will start deserting. I wish there were some positives bar a few promising young kids. If we don't need a full review and changes already based on the above, then how bad does it need to get?

This brand stuff is absolute nonsense. Why do we have to hear about it or consider it? I'm not on social media and have never watched one of his cooking videos, but I love him playing football for us. (Except when he blazes kicks into the sky and misfires from set shots, although that seems to have improved lately). He is a footballer, paid to play football. That's all I'm interested in and we're being hoodwinked into thinking he has a right to burn contracts and his club because of some nebulous Brand BS. It's an irrelevance. I'm prepared to give him some grace as I've posted before saying I don't think his mental health is great. He's confirmed that in an interview about having insomnia and needing counselling. That's not the time to make big life decisions. He needs to bunker down and seek solace and support in the familiar. Then when he's better he can think about big changes. None of this augurs well for him unfortunately. And Christian whether you're playing for us or the enemy, you can shove your red hot brand up your hole. You'd have no money or brand without football and all the Demon fans who apparently mean nothing to you.

Haha, I know. I'm just referring to the reports of Trac being unhappy with his we play and the negative defensive first game plan of goodwin. Sometimes a defensive football system emerges that is briefly successful until teams work out strategies to defeat it, you know by scoring more than the defensive minded team. Two years left on Goodwin's contract, what is there five years left on Trac's?

PUKE FOOTBALL In the early 2000s in Ireland the tough Ulster teams of Tyrone, Derry and Donegal adopted a type of ultra defensive Gaelic Football where they held possession and hand passed excessively. Kicking was almost a last resort and games were notorious for being really low scoring. It was a rigorous system based on grinding out games and was very taxing to play and horrible to watch. It relied on aggressive contest and defensive pressure to choke individual players and give no time or space to run. Whenever they lost possession the whole team (sometimes excepting one full forward) rushed back to their defensive half and blocked up all the space. It forced the opposition to rush kicks from distance and awkward angles. TV Commentator and record seven time former Kerry champion described it as follows: "It was like kids playing in an overcrowded school yard. This is not the game that I love to play and be involved in, this negative, defensive orientated, stop-start, cynical gamesmanship and kicking being the last option. I fear for the future of Gaelic football if this is the way that its going to evolve and remember there’s no rule changes for the next couple of years. This sort of football that I saw today will not fill Croke Park. This game left a sour taste in my mouth and it’s not a case of sour grapes because the better team won today but I’ll tell you to describe today’s football, do you know what I’d describe it as…I’d call it puke football" As he predicted the systems got worked out after a couple of years. The teams who persisted with this negative style fell back into the doldrums. The years since were mostly dominated by teams adopting fast running, free flowing football attacking in waves with support runners to punch through contests with quick skilful passing. When it slowed down they relied on really accurate field kicking from distance to keep the scores accumulating. That was enough to defeat the low scoring defensive first teams. https://www.facebook.com/TheSundayGame/videos/pat-spillanes-famous-puke-football-comment-after-tyrones-defeat-of-kerry-in-the-/729250331524601/

As if the uncontested marks and free possessions we gave them, or the many missed tackles weren't bad enough, we kept kicking it straight to them in the centre of the ground. They kept running up and scoring from our turnovers.