The Taciturn Demon

Tyla Hanks?

At the start of this thread, a fair few people are assuming he'll be a forward. He kicked a lot of goals at VFL level in 2023.

I wonder if Latrelle's parents played a lot of NBA Jam growing up.

Is the thought with Duursma that North have just given up on him or is this just idle speculation? If the former, maybe there are obvious cases I'm ignoring, but it seems so unusual to consider trading a top 5 pick after two years and less than 20 games.

True. I also think he's quick enough. He just takes a long time to hit full speed.

I don't know how to reply to that except to ask who do you think the best kick at the club is?

I wonder who is the main person conducting those now Goodwin is gone. Chaplin? And if so, interesting to wonder what happens if Goodwin was keen on a player's season but Chaplin not so much. Or vice versa.

Coaches' votes: 10 Tayla Harris (MELB) 8 Tyla Hanks (MELB) 6 Kate Hore (MELB) 4 Paxy Paxman (MELB) 1 Lauren Pearce (MELB) 1 Sinead Goldrick (MELB)

Is this yet more evidence that the whole club was full on "We're about to make the top four again, baby!"? Sorry to be cynical, but this whole idea that Goodwin should feel hard done by because he was realistic about our chances of making finals while other decision-makers were over-optimistic fools doesn't ring true to me.

I thought the same. A little bit disappointing that we got were content letting him go ostensibly for those reasons but remained a team that rewarded butchery by foot.

Raise a Nippy's in recognition of a fine career.

This descended into Demonology circa 2005 very suddenly.

Doesn't really explain Langdon and D'Ambrosio, though... ... unless you think Langdon is a far more skilful footballer than D'Ambrosio... ... or if you haven't seen much of D'Ambrosio, what about Langdon versus Langford? Who's the better user? To me, what I see at the footy rarely lines up with what I see in DE stats. Kozzie is one of the most creative and deft users of the footy by foot I've seen in 35-odd years. His disposal efficiency stat suggests he's one of the very worst in the league.

Seems like late-career Robbie Tarrant to me. The 'buyer' would be desperately banking on a frankly implausible return to the form of several seasons ago.

Absolutely crucial.

The way it's measured is fatally flawed. And that means you get results like this: Disposal Efficiency in 2025: Tom McDonald 85.3% Ed Langdon 77.2% Massimo D'Ambrosio 70.6% Zach Merrett and Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera 68.8% If it measured skill, the least skilful player in the league (with over 180 disposals for the season) would be Nate Caddy. I don't even think it's somewhat useful or you can take something out of it. It's a complete junk stat.

Yes. And created a virtuous circle. Abuse lessened and gay people became more comfortable being themselves in public. That meant people who had once seen gay people as an abstraction - some unknowable entity to which they could apply any monstrous attribute they wanted - were now finding out they were in fact next door neighbours, friends, cousins, aunties, brothers and sisters... people they liked and loved. The change might have seemed like political correctness inititally. But I dont think you could have got such a resoundingly positive response to the same sex marriage plebiscite if we hadn't got to the point where those who might once have embraced bigotry now realised their former ideas were baseless and silly. That, insofar as another person's sexuality was any of their business, it had absolutely nothing to do with their value as a human.

That's so sad. Awful for anyone, of course, but goodness she was in stunning form.

Starting to warm to him. If he said the same about disposal efficiency and mentioned that Eddie McGuire was a clownish, blustering [censored], I'd be giving him a ten-year contract.

Also textbook intense pain followed by very little pain.

Leigh Matthews didn't kick three goals a week.

FIFTEEEN?! Good grief.

It's so deflating. She's a contested gun and the best handballer in the comp. I think Heath has improved yet again. I wonder if she can do something roughly similar.

Really good summary.

Hanks Hore Taylor Fitzsimon Harris Paxman