Go Ds

True. It's good there are practice matches. I kinda agree with your last sentence. But it's more the teams that know this info and a sample of one is often insufficient . If an opposition player is unfit, sick or injured they can make a player look way better than they are. It can even work the other way where a much-improved defender makes a forward look inexplicably ordinary (but will end up doing that all season). I know there's a correlation of sorts between pre-season form and the real one. But often it's hard to know which bits correlate (even for the teams' brains trusts)

It's so hard to know what to take out of these games. A lot of times in the TAB* when an unexpected horse won a race the punters would rush back to the form guides on the wall to check whether there was a factor they had missed. Usually this wouldn't improve one's punting; but the same during the year if, say, Kako kicks 40 goals or Geelong drops down to 12th we'll then overrate hindsight. As for watching these games I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes to have these kind of things, plus other sports, on in the background. I suspect if I was born in America I'd be spoiled for choice for nightly sports viewing (assuming I liked their biggest sports in this parallel universe.) * This is ancient history. I'd guess the only people still in TABs are tragics who either can't afford pay TV or are Luddites who even resisted using email for years.

Yep! My first 30 years were this neck of the woods. I'd say the famous beach houses/boxes nearish to where Dendy St meets Beach Rd would have a connection to a lot of these well-to-do and their holiday houses.

I'm pretty sure my late father told me that maybe about the time the VFL started in the late 1800s that Brighton, Melbourne was considered a country town and the rich would take the train there to stay in their holiday homes.

It can get things horribly wrong. I've asked versions of it about champion 80s sprinter Placid Ark and each time not only was its answer miles off it kept giving weird new answers (some even with bizarre declaration such as PA coming 1st and 3rd in the same race(!)) Then a few days ago I asked Deepseek about actors in Brit TV shows and even after correcting it over and over it did the same 'new-wrong-answer' routine as the previous AI did.

Hmm. I expect Hawthorn to drop, but rebuilding? They almost made the prelims. I'm assuming the prediction is that at least 12 teams finish above them. That's bold. Sydney is in the very unusual circumstance of having a new coach despite coming 2nd last year. It's almost a cliche now that sides thrashed in GFs have a horrible follow-up year. Maybe a new coach will help buck the trend. But maybe it won't. Thus there is some chance they're not finals certainties. (Off their '22 GF thrashing they arguably shouldn't have made the next year's final (remember THAT Adelaide behind and the umpire not bothering with the replay?) so maybe this time they do miss.) I can also see GWS off two harrowing 'snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory' straight-set finals losses and their Mad Monday controversies being vulnerable. And I'm sure many of us are asking if Melbourne were that inconsistent. Before the first worrying signs we were 6-3 with a 1-point loss in there. Even after the Freo debacle and Petracca's last full game we were 7-5. Often from there sides will go deep into September, such as ... I dunno ... Brisbane who were 4.5-6.5 en route to their flag. Football is so hard to predict even computers can be made to look stupid. Hopefully at Melbourne achieve that this year.

Footy is not the be-all and end-all in my life but I realised how grateful i was when it came back in that weird Covid-affected 2020 season after a few months of humdrum footy-less winter. We're now at that stage of pre-season I'm getting excited for the new season. I've heard the podcast; i saw some of the other match simulations, I saw ours. Cripes, I'm now even looking forward to watching some of the early footy panel shows! Hurry up March 6 and March 16 (and thanks George, Andy and Binman for being another step in the pre-season wind-up.)

I sure hope you don't accidentally post your honeymoon snaps. 🙄

Did @binman mention Arden St? Someone did on the latest podcast. AFL Tables is a very handy website. It looks like 1985 was when the last VFL/AFL match was played at that venue. https://afltables.com/afl/venues/arden_st_gm.html

A couple of things: There are plenty of times when players are rested/injured there is a silver lining. Maybe I have misremembered but when Gawn was injured in 2017 I got the feeling the midfield knew they had to step up, and step up they did! And that accelerated their progress into becoming the best midfield in the league circa 2021. If Gawn gets rested maybe it will help someone on the fringe of the leadership group to show he'll be a great future captain. (And similar to Rivers last year and with some in 2017 Gawnless games may improve players or team strategy.) Also re Gawn I don't think being nasty works well anymore for coaches. I hope Goody and co will tear strips off players when absolutely necessary. But I'm glad he doesn't seem to fly off the handle. I know personally I hate being aggressively criticized (choose some other method.) As long as Gawn is critical when needed I think someone whose worst season when captain still managed almost 50% wins and whose best year at the helm had him holding up the premiership cup is welcome to continue as captain. Finally how often does 14th or 5th last finish with so many wins? (Or with 10-10.5 wins in 22 games). It wouldn't have taken too many tweaks in that final round for Melbourne to finish a few places higher. We would have still been exactly the same standard with these scenarios. But suddenly our draft picks are 2 or 3 positions worse and maybe even our fixture this year is noticeably harder.

A couple of things: There are plenty of times when players are rested/injured there is a silver lining. Maybe I have misremembered but when Gawn was injured in 2017 I got the feeling the midfield knew they had to step up, and step up they did! And that accelerated their progress into becoming the best midfield in the league circa 2021. If Gawn gets rested maybe it will help someone on the fringe of the leadership group to show he'll be a great future captain. (And similar to Rivers last year and with some in 2017 Gawnless games may improve players or team strategy.) Also re Gawn I don't think being nasty works well anymore for coaches. I hope Goody and co will tear strips off players when absolutely necessary. But I'm glad he doesn't seem to fly off the handle. I know personally I hate being aggressively criticized (choose some other method.) As long as Gawn is critical when needed I think someone whose worst season when captain still managed almost 50% wins and whose best year at the helm had him holding up the premiership cup is welcome to continue as captain. Finally how often does 14th or 5th last finish with so many wins? (Or with 10-10.5 wins in 22 games). It wouldn't have taken too many tweaks in that final round for Melbourne to finish a few places higher. We would have still been exactly the same standard with these scenarios. But suddenly our draft picks are 2 or 3 positions worse and maybe even our fixture this year is noticeably harder.

My thoughts exactly. Are clubs still making a small fortune with the ***** pokies? They seem to especially suck the money out of the pockets of the fiscally challenged, which is disturbing. BTW did I see that a new Demonland podcast has landed? I look forward to listening to it.

Markets often overreact. I hope not but if Harvey's first or second real game is ordinary he will drift ....maybe more than he should. Also I agree with changing the title. Maybe to "Good AFL bets this year"?

As someone who started betting almost 40 years ago I kind of disagree. That said I don't want to encourage others to bet AND there is way, way, way too much betting advertising (and betting 'infomercials') on TV. Way too much!

At 16? Wasn't he smoking at 16? 😂 EDIT: It's in 16 years. But it's still probably the same

I gleaned that. 😄 Maybe 5 or 10 years ago someone wrote an article (in a newspaper I think) suggesting that AFL teams should go out of their way to find attractive local ladies to win the hearts of interstate recruits and thus stop them wanting to return home. Sure, love doesn't work as smoothly as that, and Harvey is local anyway. But it was an interesting and amusing idea (and probably sometimes these interstate romances happen anyway.)

And "What do you do here?"

Maybe all the 18yo women Demonlanders can step forward and help you out. 😁

Umm, I'm assuming there was a similar article 12 months ago and McAdams' predicted 2024 rating was a lot higher than his eventual output.

I must admit it is pretty easy to criticize. Honestly I don't mind any of this. It's not nasty, grubby or lazy rumour mongering. Of course some of this is wrong and we're welcome to criticize .... and the writer gets paid.

Tom Campbell is TC? Not very original. I'm sure many of us remember Tony Campbell. He was probably the emergency in the 1988 grand final team and had such a pained look 2 days beforehand at training as some of the general public offered well-meaning platitudes re his disappointing news. You'd never guess his nickname.

And why are the reports not written in haiku?! 😂

No offence to anyone but so many here were sold on other options. I'd trust the club's judgement overall so hopefully Henderson turns out brilliantly. Welcome aboard

Outside 50? I'm sure a limit of maybe 35 or 40m kicking range is essential. But if a player can kick passes of 30m with amazing accuracy, successfully mark or tackle whenever the ball is within 10m or convert every ground ball into a teammate's possession maybe long kicks don't matter.

It seems an odd number but if we manage to steal a good prospect from under the noses of other clubs' recruiters none of our exchange will matter.