Whispering_Jack

More good news ~ No.11 pick on track after PCL injury, star Dees nearing full fitness

I’m old enough to remember when Robbie Flower burst on the scene as a spindly bespectacled 17-year-old from Murrumbeena in 1973. His spectacular 272 game career with the Demons is a well documented one. We lost him 10 years ago, all too young at 59 years of age. There was some excitement in the early 2000’s when his son Brad appeared on the scene with the Oakleigh Chargers but he lacked the height and size to make it to the big time and only got as far as the odd game at Sandringham VFA, mainly with their reserves (circa 2002). Now, the grandson Jett Flower has been picked up at Coates Talent League level. Unfortunately, there’s no grandfather/grandson rule but we wish him luck!

The AFLW trade period is set to kick off on Thursday, with the official pre-trade draft order for the first four rounds:- ROUND ONE 1 Collingwood 2 Gold Coast Suns 3 GWS Giants 4 Sydney Swans 5 Carlton 6 West Coast Eagles 7 Western Bulldogs 8 St Kilda 9 Geelong 10 Melbourne 11 Essendon 12 Richmond 13 Fremantle 14 Hawthorn 15 Port Adelaide 16 Adelaide 17 Brisbane Lions 18 North Melbourne ROUND TWO 19 Collingwood 20 Gold Coast Suns 21 GWS Giants 22 Sydney Swans 23 Carlton 24 West Coast Eagles 25 Western Bulldogs 26 St Kilda 27 Geelong 28 Melbourne 29 Essendon 30 Richmond 31 Fremantle 32 Hawthorn 33 Port Adelaide 34 Adelaide 35 Brisbane Lions 36 North Melbourne ROUND THREE 37 Collingwood 38 Gold Coast Suns 39 GWS Giants 40 Sydney Swans 41 Carlton 42 West Coast Eagles 43 Western Bulldogs 44 St Kilda 45 Geelong 49 Melbourne 47 Essendon 48 Richmond 49 Fremantle 50 Hawthorn 51 Port Adelaide 52 Adelaide 53 Brisbane Lions 54 North Melbourne ROUND FOUR 55 Collingwood 56 Gold Coast Suns 57 GWS Giants 58 Sydney Swans 59 Carlton 60 West Coast Eagles 61 Western Bulldogs 62 St Kilda 63 Geelong 64 Melbourne 65 Essendon 66 Richmond 67 Fremantle 68 Hawthorn 69 Port Adelaide 70 Adelaide 71 Brisbane Lions 72 North Melbourne

Great work Meggs ... not just the review above but for all your hard work throughout Season 9. Hate making excuses but fixed-ya is the word that best covers the season for us. What a stitch up. And still, we came close to participating in the finals. 2025 is looking good for both our Mens and Womens teams.

We’re already a month into the MFC preseason (if you started counting when the younger players in the group began the campaign along with some of the more keen older heads) and in less than a few hours’ time, most of the list will be hitting the track for another grueling session at Gosch’s Paddock. If you haven’t been following our training threads, today’s Herald Sun article Demons ponder big man reshuffle to fix forward funk by Jay Clark has a crack at bringing you up to speed with the goings on at the club. In the hard paper edition the article is on page 63 and it’s entitled “Dees go for Petty change”. Clark writes that “Melbourne could make footy’s first big positional switch of the summer and return Harrison Petty to a key defensive role next season”. This is not an official call for Petty who struggled to have an impact up forward last year - Clark says he will be trialled in both forward and defensive roles over summer. He adds that this opens up some scope for “marking targets Daniel Turner, 2022 first round pick Matthew Jefferson and VFL recruit Aidan Johnson to partner ace goal kickers Jacob van Rooyen and Bayley Fritsch”. Clark also points out that it’s a crucial year for the club in fighting off possible poaching efforts for Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver after they explored moves to leave during the trade period but he confirms the gun midfielders “have put those issues behind them”. Accompanying the article which also mentioned the team-building exercises at last week’s camp in Victoria’s high country are the following pointers to highlight some of the preseason moves at the club:- “Harry Sharp on the wing With running dynamo Alex Neal-Bullen heading to Adelaide, the Dees recruited Brisbane grand final emergency Harry Sharp to add run to an ageing midfield. The 21-year-old showed his aerobic prowess on Monday when he decimated his new teammates in a 2km time trial and he is likely to be given first dibs on the opposite wing to Ed Langdon. Caleb Windsor to defence With Sharp and potentially No.11 pick Xavier Lindsay joining the Dees’ wing stocks, second-year Windsor is likely to move to a running half-back role used to great effect by Fremantle’s Jordan Clark. The club is aware that with Steven May and Tom McDonald both on the wrong side of 30 and Jake Lever often copping knee niggles, having pace around them is essential. Midfield reboot It’s not just the arrival of No.6 pick Harvey Langford that has the Dees excited. Both Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver set tongues wagging at Gosch’s Paddock on Monday. After a horror 2024, Oliver seems to be keen to re-establish himself as one of the league’s best tacklers, while Petracca looked fully engaged instructing the first-year players.” Well … that’s your history lesson about the preseason so far. Of course, most of the above has already been covered in our own preseason training threads. Now it’s over to our track watchers to fill us in on today’s action …

Season highlights for 1981 - it wasn't a great year for the Demons so this is not for the squeamish.

You may be aware that the elections for four vacancies on the Melbourne Football Club Board are now open and we urge all members to acquaint themselves with the candidates and their policies and exercise your right to vote by Sunday 15 December 2024. There are some very highly qualified candidates - please choose wisely. I personally would have liked to open this site for more debate on the candidates but the rules present further electioneering and our experience on previous occasions has been that opening the site for discussion places too much pressure on our capacity to moderate discussion and fact check the volume of postings to ensure fairness to the candidates. Please view the following and good luck to all candidates - Candidate Profiles

I was at that game against North Melbourne when he booted seven out of our eight goals - an incredible performance. Later on, he was an outstanding junior coach at Ormond and he went on to be the coaches advisor at AJAX juniors where he was successful and innovative in that role.

Do you know the basis on which he’s eligible to become a Cat B Rookie with Melbourne?

Many thanks for posting. The fact that he's at training suggests that in addition to being in our NGA, he's also eligible for drafting (unlike Tairon Ah-Mu).

Fantastic to read the original knee slapping humour as above - keep it coming please BUT this is a serious thread and we are looking for support from lawyers, paralegals etc and to give you an example, this is a report from one of the Devil's Advocates functions that was held in 2016:- Devil's Advocates Dinner 2016 (June 2, 2016) The annual Devil's Advocates Dinner took place last night hosted by Dr Turf and with headline guest speakers Rod Grinter (fresh from appearing the night before on Open Mike) and Jade Rawlings followed by an entertaining auction conducted by Phil Kingston of Gary Peer Estate. The Doc was in fine form and good humour and both guest speakers were entertaining in the question and answer format. Balls was far more open among friends and the legal fraternity (especially since the statute of limitations rules out any possible repercussions from the events he discussed) than he was with Mike Sheahan and the Foxtel viewing audience and threw an informative light on some of the happenings during his illustrious career of 134 games including the time when Terry Wallace embedded some of his teeth which infected his forearm and put him in hospital (Wallace played the next week but his voice is now at a higher pitch) during the time he somehow found himself out suspended for 6 weeks over the incident, the 1987 Preliminary Final (which we shoulda won), a pre season trip that landed him in hot water and the coaches who he played under including RDB, John Northey and Neil Balme. He spoke of his great friendships with teammates of the era including Garry Lyon, Jimmy Stynes, Brett Lovett during a period in which the club was relatively successful without pulling off a premiership flag. Rod is the President of the MFC Past Players and officials and he spoke of the initiatives this group has undertaken such as the Ron Barassi Club (which recently honoured the great RDB on his 80th birthday and is setting up a fund to look after former players who might be in need). In the near future the club will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the 1956 premiership - details available on this site. (I hope to be able to put together and post a tribute to 1956 before the event). Jade Rawlings had a superb career at Hawthorn before being hawked around to the Bulldogs and finally spent his last playing season with his brother Brady at North Melbourne. He has had a brief stint as a stand in coach at Richmond after his friend Terry Wallace was boned (it was really Wallace's night after the Grinter interview but readers here should know that Plough was once a Demon fan). In fact, Jade has worked with a number of sacked coaches at various clubs including Melbourne where he worked with Mark Neeld who he said was afflicted by a number of unfortunate setbacks during his brief time at the club. Rawlings is very positive about the club now under Paul Roos and soon to come under the coaching mantle of Simon Goodwin and strongly defended the club's defensive set up and personnel - they all have a purpose and we will be a strong club in the end as a result of what is being done with our inexperienced team of today. He went through most of the players in the team and their futures at the club and ended on a note that we can expect Chris Dawes, Jack Grimes and Jack Trengove at least in the 25 named (including emergencies) for Saturday's game. My only disappointment was that Max Gawn's name wasn't mentioned in discussion which I suppose reflects the fact that we've already become accustomed to the fact that he's one of the dominant ruckmen in the game today. Phil Kingston was in great form and raised a good few grand auctioning off some club goodies. He was so good in his role that he proved that even members of the legal fraternity can be dummies. Kudos to family lawyer Ralph Glezer who organised the night.

Graduates with LLB's or the old RMIT or law clerks courses etc are good.

The Devils Advocates, a Melbourne Football Club supporter group comprised of members of the legal profession who support the Demons is making a comeback in 2025. The group has over the years raised a substantial amount of much needed funding for the club through its annual dinner and other activities. It’s open to members of the legal and paralegal community including judges, academics, senior counsel, barristers, solicitors, law clerks and all those involved or working in and with the legal profession including law students. The annual dinner was previously one of the highlights of the season with interesting and sometimes controversial guests, insider news from players past and present, lively discussion, a fundraiser/auction and good food and drink and has been sorely missed since it disappeared from the scene at around about the time the Covid pandemic set in. Despite the perception many of the public might have, us lawyers are very giving people and what better time than now for us to give back to the club. One only has to look at the recent announcement of the club’s financial outcome to appreciate how much the legal profession took out of the club over the past year - so now is the time to give back 😀 Seriously though, if you’re one of the people in the group mentioned above and want to be involved in our Devil’s Advocates functions and help the Melbourne Football Club’s meteoric rise in 2025, please contact Colin at [email protected] to be placed on the Devil’s Advocates mailing list.

I've been involved with various facets of junior and senior sports administration for more than 40 years and I've come across a fair share of "ugly parents" as well as many supportive parents without whose encouragement and the sacrifices made by them in term of money and time, many great sporting careers would never have happened. Unless you know the people involved and their full story, it's unwise to jump in and comment on any specific case. I think Jeff's a proud parent and wish him and Kalani good luck - it's going to be an exciting time ahead for them. For my part, I look forward to the sight of a red and blue #34 jumping all over certain Collingwood players on a Kings Birthday in the future.

From the Herald Sun’s online article on the AFL draft: The draftees who could line up in Round 1 2025, best SuperCoach rookie picks:

From the Herald Sun’s online article on the AFL draft: The draftees who could line up in Round 1 2025, best SuperCoach rookie picks:

From the Herald Sun’s online article on the AFL draft: The draftees who could line up in Round 1 2025, best SuperCoach rookie picks

A summary of the 2024 draft crop. 2024 AFL Draft Review: Melbourne

2025 Melbourne numbers — 1. Steven May 2. Jacob van Rooyen 3. Christian Salem 4. Judd McVee 5. Christian Petracca 6. Caleb Windsor 7. Jack Viney 8. Jake Lever 9. Charlie Spargo 10. Daniel Turner 11. Max Gawn 12. Koltyn Tholstrup 13. Clayton Oliver 14. Jack Billings 15. Ed Langdon 16. Bailey Laurie 17. Jake Bowey 18. Jake Melksham 19. Harvey Langford 20. Xavier Lindsey 21. Matt Jefferson 22. Blake Howes 23. Shane McAdam 24. Trent Rivers 25. Tom McDonald 26. Jed Adams 27. Marty Hore 28. Will Verrall 29. Tom Campbell 30. Harry Sharp 31. Bayley Fritsch 32. Tom Sparrow 33. Tom Fullarton 35. Harry Petty 36. Kysaiah Pickett 37. Kade Chandler 38. Oliver Sestan 39. Ricky Mentha Jnr 40. Taj Woewodin 41. Kynan Brown 42. Aidan Johnson 44. Luker Kentfield 45. Andy Moniz-Wakefield

The club gave up on that many years ago although it was reported recently that we did look at a couple of Irish lads who were invited to the Draft Combine in October.

This article on the AFL website discusses the changes in draft bidding on academy and father/son picks. Change is coming: How Lions' bids would look in 2025 Worth considering the repercussions in the case of Kalani White. Of particular interest is how Gold Coast could handle the possibility of drafting more than two first round picks in light of the points changes.

Agree ... he should never have been off it.

Paul Amy on X is reporting that Deng Andrew, brother of Mac and Riak, is fighting for a place on the Northern Bullants list. A long way from Casey.