Whispering_Jack

Training will resume shortly ~

This was Melbourne this morning on the Plume Ap which measures air purity around the world. Usually, it registers well below 50 and on a really fresh day, under 20. The city that routinely registers the worst numbers is New Delhi - it’s measurements from this morning are in the next panel below.

Anyone traveling to the big smoke to watch training?

The golden haired recruit from our country zone promised so much but, due to injuries, he never quite delivered at Melbourne. He did meet the Queen though (and long before Harry and Megan). Ross Dillon: Dees and Redleg royalty

He was no champion at Melbourne but he gave it a crack. A legend at Norwood SA. Alex Georgiou – the Competitor

One aspect of the team’s performances that was often commented upon until well into the season was its general inaccuracy in front of goal compared with that of the opposition. This was particularly noticeable in the final quarter for game after game. The Adelaide game was a perfect example but there were a number of examples until the wheels fell off completely in the last seven rounds. I was discussing this with someone from outside of the club who is well qualified and highly thought of in the fitness field. His observation was that he attributed it mainly to lower levels of stamina at the end of games brought on by an insufficient fitness base of the group due to a lack of a proper pre season. Once the tiredness sets in, it also affects the mental side of things as well. This is something that we’ve known for some time but what we underestimated was the severity of the problem. Because so many of our players had limited preseasons it hurt us badly.

A valid question and I’ve often wondered about that myself with the conclusion that it’s unlikely he would have reached the same heights at Melbourne as he did in his career at the Blues. We weren’t much of a side until John Northey came along and that was well past the halfway mark of Johnston’s career.

There’s a Demonland connection there because Redleg and I were his managers at the time (early 1979). Jonno, who kicked 70 goals for Prahran but was residentially tied to Carlton) was struggling in his early practice matches with the Blues and was named on the extended bench for a “probables” v “possibles” game which means he was most likely not in their best 40 after allowing for injuries etc. He was lucky to get a run because a couple of recruits from Bendigo didn’t make it down to Princess Park but he only had a few kicks in the first half and looked deflated at the main break ... then ... Jezza, who was a playing coach, pulled off the coaching move of his career by putting Jonno on a half forward flank and playing against him at the start of the the third quarter. Jonno kicked four goals for the term and, in the words of Springsteen, “that was all she wrote” - they were never going to clear him for any price (they wanted Robbie’s brother Tom Flower who had kicked 5 goals against Collingwood in the last game of 1978). We missed out on quite a few good players back in those days because we couldn’t match the professionalism and the commercial might of the big clubs like Carlton, Collingwood and Richmond. A decade earlier, we cleared a young Prahran player named Kevin Sheedy to the Tigers because Norm Smith didn’t think he was good enough and KB also came from that neck of the woods.

Troy Broadbridge, who played 40 games for the Demons passed away on this day 15 years ago. Troy married Trisha Silvers on 18 December 2004. Eight days later, while spending their honeymoon in the Phi Phi Islands, Thailand, he drowned after being swept out to sea by the tsunami that followed the Indian Ocean earthquake. Trisha survived. The red headed defender was a terrific team manager. He will always be remembered.

I think you’re going to find that everyone else on the list is behind Pickett in X factor. On what I saw at training, the closest to KP is probably Kade Chandler.

Correct. And not long afterwards, some doofus ate the banana.

Why am I not surprised that this sensational piece of news from the world of art has been totally overlooked here?

Keeping the lid on it Saty. ?

It’s been a long time since I attended an MFC training session - mid January of this year in fact. I remember it well although I thought it was somewhat closer to the start of the season. Despite the significant numbers in rehab, I still waxed lyrical in my report on the session, believing that the team was building its way through the preseason and on the way to bigger and better things. All would be good for the first bounce, I thought. In the end, I was wrong. I completely underestimated the effect of having so many of the club’s key midfielders missing in action during the preseason. Jack Viney (foot), Angus Brayshaw (back) and Clayton Oliver (shoulders) were all on modified training programmes for most of the summer and Nathan Jones was troubled by hamstring issues at the time. When these players were taking their first tentative steps onto the field in full combat in the opening round against Port Adelaide, the realisation of just how important it is to complete the hard yards set in very quickly. Combine this with an injury scourge that went through the club from go to whoa and it’s not hard to figure out why the wheels fell off so early in the season and why it was impossible to recover fully. But that was then, this is now and the time for excuses is over. When I came down to Gosch’s there were still quite a few team members off the track but the rehab group doesn’t appear to be so problematic, especially as I was assured that some players are being rotated around and a tough session awaits the group tomorrow in some top secret location where the players will be going through a “closed session” to finish off the year. Others have already given their impressions of what transpired in the heat of the morning so I will simply give some views about the new faces. I begin with Ed Langdon, the running outside midfielder who comes out of the shadows of near anonymity that comes from playing at Fremantle. He was moving well and his disposal whilst not under match pressure was passable. Another man from Freo was quietly going through some light pedestrian work on the far side boundary. Harley Bennell was being barely more active than we spectators in the early days of a much hoped for career revival after years of calf problems, but he was doing a little more than last week and, in a brief moment of kick to kick, he showed that he still has the ability to hit targets from 40 metres with bullet-like efficiency. Of course, he has a fair way to go. The other newcomer from interstate was Adam Tomlinson, still in rehab from a calf injury. I didn’t see much of him so I can’t really comment. I’ve already been convinced about how beneficial a basketball background can be in the development of footballers. That became patently obvious when Luke Jackson sublimely grabbed the ball off the top of a pack and ran into goal. Don’t get carried away by this yet but it’s fairly obvious why club recruiter Jason Taylor says the club has had eyes on this former national junior basketballer for three years. Jackson was the first player on his interview list in February and I can understand why the club didn’t frig around playing games with the Giants at the draft hoping they wouldn’t pass on Tom Green. This kid can play a little bit. His mate from East Fremantle in Trent Rivers also goes alright - he’s solid, moves and kicks well and isn’t all that far from being AFL ready. Finally, you couldn’t miss our X Factor recruit Kysaiah Pickett wearing the number 36 made famous by Aaron Davey. Pickett has the lightning speed and run down attack of the man we knew as Flash and he promises to bring some excitement to the MCG in a place that last year was dull, colourless and boring.

Former Tiger who played during their lean period from the late 50s who was finally rewarded with a premiership flag in 1967, the year before he retired. RIP

So that’s it - a definite #6.

Lithuanian-born and lightning quick: Irish prospect stars at European Combine Nineteen year old Deividas Uosis is a Lithuanian-born footballer who could be the next successful Irish AFL export. His parents emigrated to Ireland when he was four and the youngster has played a number of sports including Gaelic football. Uosis was under the eye of scouts from Adelaide, Brisbane, Essendon, Geelong and Melbourne at the weekend AFL Europe Combine where he impressed with his athleticism and skill.

Why son of former tennis star chose Demons over basketball

Not specifically about JKH, but I am amazed at how some amateur clubs are managing to pick up players straight out of the AFL who are prepared to play for nothing while some very ordinary players by comparison can pick up good money playing in suburban competitions.

Would likely be grandchildren, not father/sons.

Will Phillips was an outstanding under age player in the Oakleigh Chargers NAB Boys League premiership. Anyone know anything about Ollie Lord?

This post rekindles some memories from the 2008 National Draft which Demon fans would know for better or for worse as the “Jack Watts Draft”. It was during the National Under 18 Championships of that year when Watts from Brighton Grammar and the Sandringham Dragons starred on the MCG at centre half forward for Vic Metro against Vic Country. Late in the game with mark a minute-and-a-half left he was three or four deep in the pack but clunked the mark and kicked the goal that won the game. From that point on, Watts was regarded as one of the likely number 1 prospects for the national draft, jockeying for that position with WA ruckman Nic Naitanui. During that period, he had a rival in schoolboy ranks in another key forward draft prospect Mitchell Brown who was also at the Dragons but attended Mentone Grammar. In August, 2008, it was Brown representing the Associated Grammar Schools who upstaged Watts for the Associated Public Schools in the annual match between the two schoolboy competition representative teams. The AGS won easily and the star of the game was Brown with 8 goals at full forward. It has been claimed that over the preceding 12 months, he has grown from rover size to 193cm. Early in the season he missed the cut for the Dragons and even played for Old Mentonians in the VAFA. His goal tallies for Mentone Grammar before the APS/AGS game were 7, 7, 6, 8 and 7 and he was eventually invited to join the Dragons in mid-season playing with them for the last five games. The eight goal haul pushed him to the forefront of recruiters’ minds and, after originally not being considered by most as a top-20 selection, Brown was selected by Geelong with their first round selection 15th overall in the 2008 AFL Draft.

I was looking for something else when I came across this interesting thread about Steven May.