Whispering_Jack

One of my childhood heroes was Bob "Tassie" Johnson (2 December 1937 – 29 October 2015) who played with Melbourne from 1959 to 1969. The 189cm tall Johnson was originally signed to play for the Demons in 1958 from North Launceston but missed the entire season as they refused to clear him. Melbourne introduced two future captains in 1959 after its surprise defeat at the hands of Collingwood in the 1958 Grand Final - Hassa Mann and Johnson who gained the nickname “Tassie” to distinguish him from the other two Johnsons at the club, “Big Bob” and Trevor. Tassie played mainly at full back but was sometimes used in other defensive positions and in the ruck. He was a prodigious kick and his long drop kick outs after a point often penetrated into the centre of the ground. His achievements were many: 3 × VFL grand finals for 3 x VFL premierships: 1959, 1960, 1964 Melbourne captain: 1970 Melbourne Team of the Century (full back) Tasmanian Team of the Century (full back) Melbourne Hall of Fame Wore # 8 (most games for Melbourne in that number) Games - 202 Goals - 20 Finals - 11 Finals Goals - 2 Debut - Rd 1, 1959 v Richmond (PR) Final Game - Rd 20, 1969 v SM (LO) Debuted in 1959 at the age of 21 Retired in 1969 at the age of 31 Father of Tony Johnson (1981-83, U19's/Reserves) Awards/Achievements MFC Captain (1969) MFC Vice Captain (1967-68) 1966, 1968 2nd MFC Best & Fairest 1960, 1961 MFC Outstanding Service Award 1960, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1967 Victorian State Rep. 1968 Australian IR Rep. MFC Team of the Century MFC 150 Heroes Selection MFC Life Member MFC Hall of Fame Tasmanian Team of the Century Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame First Tasmanian to play 100 VFL games NTFA - North Launceston * 35 games & 30 goals for NL (1956-57) VFA - Box Hill Captain/Coach (1971) played 4 games (3 goals) One of my fondest memories apart from his premierships and his outstanding performances in defence was that he often featured on World of Sport in a segment that highlighted long kicking and the style of each player’s kicks where the judges would lift up a placard with a number up to 10. Tassie always did the Demons proud in that competition.

I’ve taken this fantastic Track Watch Report and accompanying photo from Cameron Burt on The DeeBrief Facebook page. Hope that’s okay and I haven’t breached any copyright ©️ ! 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 📝 @coachcavcam ventured down to training today: ▪️Hendo, McAdam, Vines and Tom Matthews didn’t train. They all completed an off field strength session. ▪️Bowey, AMW, Roo and Jeffo spent a huge part of their day running laps. Jeffo dealing with concussion from a couple weeks ago. ▪️Each drill Jared Rivers ran was about containing, keepings off and tackling. He produced three bloodied faces with those drills. Roo, Onley and Heath. ▪️CJ’s run and carry is so exciting, but just has to tidy up his foot skills. We’ll have a fun player to watch. ▪️Koz and Max stuck out massively in all simulation. Culley was really good, too - a big body. ▪️T Mac the best defender today. Chin super vocal in the front half. Onley is a big lad, who could surprise and Latrelle has such silky skills. ▪️Vibe of the session was hard work. It was drills ran by different line coaches treated as a circuit. Drill after drill rotating. Finished with some match sim and some transition work. Lots of running, they were cooked! ▪️Leading back at the ball carrier was a focus of the transition match sim drill. Big thanks to Cam Burt for this 🙏

They’re training tomorrow so that should tell us a few stories about how the injured players are faring.

Paul Guerra getting lost in a Victorian alpine region is a good omen for the club in terms of how the Demons are expected to fare in the coming season. The last time Melbourne people got lost in the Victorian snow country, it was in the 50s when we were winning premierships.

The great Norm Smith in his playing days

On the subject of Where Eagles Dare, here’s a great article from Code Sports ~ Inside Melbourne’s pre-season camp to Bright and the top of Mount Porepunkah Pretty ballsy of Steven King to lead his team to the site of the year’s biggest police manhunt. I assume he was assured that they were in no danger and that JvR sitting on a bullants nest was the most risky episode of the pre-season camp.

This happened a long time ago but it would have been a sensation today with social media making it a gripping story of life and possible death.

Kodah? In what universe do people make up names these days?

Did someone mention Round 17, 1964?

Two of the greatest ever Demons …

This is from a Facebook site VFL Rewind Radio Program about David Schwarz, one of my favourites, a player who could have been anything, give or take an ACL or three. And when he came back from his surgeries, he was still a champion. David Schwarz - 173 AFL Games. Melbourne BNF winner, One of the great centre half forwards of the 90’s. Very strong & Powerful. David signed at Melbourne Demons at just 14. David was a star at a young age playing junior footy for Sunbury before Melbourne invited him to come play and he first began in the under 19’s before making his AFL Debut in 1991. Image today one of the brightest AFL stars quitting to go work in a country town, well David did it at the back end of 91. He decided momentarily that footy wasn’t for him and spent a good part of quarter the year away from footy. Thankfully he was talked out of it and came back in round 2 in 1992. 92 was a breakout year for the Ox playing 22 games and averaging 16 disposals a game. 93 was a challenging year but 94 is when we seen his best. He kicked 60 goals in 94 and looked like he was about to challenge Wayne Carey to be one of the great centre half forwards of the game for years to come. This is unfortunately where the word knee enters the conversation. David first did his ACL in early 95 and defied the odds and came back 16 weeks later. In that return game he kicked 3 goals but sadly the week after he ruptured the ACL again. After taking the rest of 95 off he headed to Albury to play a practice game and did his knee again, resulting in missing the entire 96 season. It was a different time back then with knees. It’s not like today where we know it’s a 12 month absence including rehab, players often came back earlier but run the risk the ACL ligament hadn’t repaired fully. Round 11 1997. Pretty much 2 and a half years of no footy and David come back and performed well kicking 18 goals from 10 games. From then on David became a regular again until his retirement in 2002 with 1999 arguably being his best year after the knee injuries winning the Melbourne Bnf. In 2000 in Queens Kings Birthday Vs Collingwood he had a grear game kicking 2 goals and having 20 disposals. In 2000 David wouid take his Dees to a grand final and he had a great year kicking 31 goals He was a leader on the field, leading by example with his toughness. David retired in 2002 on 173 games. In his prime he was one of the toughest players we ever seen, injuries sadly stopped us from seeing his best but it was great he got to 173 games and finish his career off. Well done on a great career David

Cue @binman

The Casey Demons must be holding their 2026 recruiting cards very close to the chest. They had a very successful drive last year picking up the likes of Jai Culley, Riley Bonner, Mitch Hardie, Deakyn Smith (returned), Riley Baldi (returned), Wardell Lual, Tyson Sruk and a few others but this year, there have been no announcements. In fact, what we are seeing is a bit of an exodus with a few departures. Code Sports had a feature this week on “The first 100 recruits of the VFL off-season revealed” which contained not a single Casey Demons recruit for 2026. There must be a reason for holding back the names of the incoming Casey players - hope the wait’s worthwhile.

A little known fact I’ve uncovered about Riley Onley is that in 2024 as an underage player, he represented Victoria Country in the National Under 18 Championships on three occasions. In so doing, he was a teammate of Harvey Langford and Xavier Lindsay which means that the Demons might well have recruited three future midfield stars from the one interstate representative team.

Paul Amy is now reporting on Code Sports that Ethan Stanley is now set to join the Hawks as a train-on player.

You've been snookered by the club which has issued the real numbers (see above).

2026 Melbourne numbers — 1. Steven May 2. Jacob van Rooyen 3. Christian Salem 4. Harvey Langford 5. Xavier Lindsay 6. Caleb Windsor 7. Jack Viney 8. Jake Lever 9. Jack Steele 10. Daniel Turner 11. Max Gawn 12. Koltyn Tholstrup 13. Jai Culley 14. Changkuoth Jiath 15. Ed Langdon 16. Bailey Laurie 17. Jake Bowey 18. Jake Melksham 19. Xavier Taylor 20. Thomas Matthews 21. Matt Jefferson 22. Blake Howes 23. Shane McAdam 24. Trent Rivers 25. Tom McDonald 26. Jed Adams 27. Max Heath 28. Brody Mihocek 29. Tom Campbell 30. Harry Sharp 31. Bayley Fritsch 32. Tom Sparrow 33. Latrelle Sumner-Pickett 34. Kalani White 35. Harry Petty 36. Kysaiah Pickett 37. Kade Chandler 38. Oscar Berry 39. Ricky Mentha Jnr 40. Riley Onley 42. Aidan Johnson 43 Jack Henderson 44. Luker Kentfield 45. Andy Moniz-Wakefield

Nah, agreed that the list is full and we're all likely to be done and dusted with our changes, but on the basis of what happened last year, we'll keep this going through the SSP, just in case ...

At least this is something ~ melbournefc.com.auLive Updates | Community & Pre-Season CampMelbourne has headed up the Hume Highway to Bright for its annual community and pre-season performance camp

Isn't that whole area a beautiful part of the world? Hope there were some Demonlanders out at McNamara Reserve, Myrtleford this morning to report on today's training session.

From SCOOPS All things footy 24/7 ~ List of train on opportunities at AFL clubs: Oskar Ainsworth and Tex Wanganeen - St Kilda Thomas Burton and Marcus Krasnadamskis - Richmond Jaidyn Stephenson, Balyn O'Brien and Mitch Zadow - Port Adelaide Tom McGuane - Adelaide Chris Scerri - Fremantle

The starting order for next year’s National Draft based on 2025 finishing positions with the current points system. This is subject to possible further amendment as it was compiled on information accumulated from various sources that still need to be cross-checked. As time progresses, we can expect plenty of changes all the way through to next year’s draft. ROUND ONE 1 West Coast Eagles (3,000) 2 Richmond (2,481) 3 North Melbourne (2,178) 4 Essendon (1,962) 5 Melbourne (1,795) 6 Port Adelaide (1,659) 7 St Kilda (1,543) 8 Carlton (1,443) 9 Carlton (1,355) received from Sydney Swans in 2025 10 Western Bulldogs (1,276) 11 Fremantle (1,205) 12 GWS Giants (1,140) 13 Melbourne (1,080) received from Gold Coast Suns in 2025 14 Adelaide (1,024) 15 Hawthorn (973) 16 Collingwood (924) 17 Geelong (879) 18 Brisbane Lions (836) ROUND TWO 19 West Coast Eagles (796) 20 Richmond (757) 21 Carlton (721) received from North Melbourne in 2025 22 Essendon (686) 23 GWS Giants (653) received from Gold Coast in 2025, received from Melbourne in 2025 24 Port Adelaide (621) 25 Hawthorn (590) received from West Coast in 2025, received from St Kilda in 2025 26 Port Adelaide (561) received from Carlton in 2025 27 Sydney Swans (533) 28 Western Bulldogs (505) 29 Fremantle (479) 30 Hawthorn (454) received from GWS Giants in 2025 31 Carlton (429) received from Gold Coast Suns in 2025 32 Adelaide (405) 33 St Kilda (382) received from Hawthorn in 2025 34 Collingwood (360) 35 Geelong (338) 36 Brisbane Lions (317) ROUND THREE 37 West Coast Eagles (297) 38 Richmond (277) 39 North Melbourne (257) 40 Adelaide (238) received from Gold Coast in 2025, received from Essendon in 2025 41 Brisbane Lions (220) received from Collingwood in 2025, received from Melbourne in 2025 42 Port Adelaide (202) 43 St Kilda (184) 44 Sydney Swans (167) received from Carlton in 2025 46 West Coast Eagles (150) received from Hawthorn in 2025, received from Sydney in 2025 46 Western Bulldogs (134) 47 Fremantle (118) 48 Melbourne (102) received from GWS Giants in 2025 49 Port Adelaide (86) received from Gold Coast Suns in 2025 50 Adelaide (71) 51 Brisbane Lions (57) received from Hawthorn in 2025 52 Sydney Swans (42) received from Collingwood in 2025 53 Geelong (28) 54 Carlton (14) received from Brisbane Lions in 2025 ROUND FOUR 55 West Coast Eagles (0) 56 Richmond (0) 57 North Melbourne (0) 58 Essendon (0) 59 Hawthorn (220) received from Melbourne in 2025 60 Port Adelaide (0) 61 St Kilda (0) 62 Carlton (0) 63 Collingwood(0) received from Sydney Swans in 2025 64 West Coast Eagles (0) received from Western Bulldogs in 2025 65 Fremantle (0) 66 Collingwood (0) received from GWS Giants in 2025 67 Gold Coast Suns (0) 68 North Melbourne (0) received from Adelaide in 2025 69 Sydney Swans (0) received from Hawthorn in 2025 70 Collingwood (0) 71 Geelong (0) 72 Brisbane Lions (0)