Whispering_Jack

The Melbourne Football Club has designated December 5 as the most likely date for its celebration of the 2021 Premiership at our Home and The Home of Football - the MCG. Melbourne chief executive Gary Pert announced: "This event is incredibly important to us, as it is the first chance our players, coaches and the wider club will have to thank our supporters for their amazing support and loyalty." The Grand Final team and the remainder of the playing list, coach Simon Goodwin, the coaches and football staff and the premiership cup will all be there but what would you like to see on the day? I would like to see some structure on the day rather than people randomly walking around the hallowed arena for hours. A specific event with a program including vision of season highlights, presentation of the players, speeches (but kept to a limit), special presentations to retiring players - especially Nathan Jones and Neville Jetta and tributes to Demon greats who passed away and missed our first premiership in 57 years. I have also suggested elsewhere that thought could be given to combining the evening with the club best and fairest presentation which is usually held indoors on an evening at the Crown Casino with a lavish dinner. However, it’s a night that’s limited in numbers and given Covid-19 restraints, it’s likely that a much smaller number of attendees would be admitted. And of course, children usually miss out on the best and fairest because it goes on well into the night. A video package could be put together and shown on the MCG screens with highlights of every game and the votes in say four quarters each of 10 minutes to keep us football starved fans entertained before presentation of the Bluey to the winner. And because footy’s a team game, that event could be followed by the presentation of our heroes - the 2021 AFL premiers and end with a welcome to the new members of our list including Luke Dunstan and the recently selected draftees to celebrate going forward into the future and our quest for next year’s premiership to be played at The Home of Football - the MCG. Note: in true football tradition, I’m taking things one premiership celebration at a time.😀 Over to you …

Why not have the B & F Count at the G in front of 30,000 to 40,000 fans on the big screen at the G on 5 December at the premiership celebration function?

Kevin Sheehan reveals his top NAB AFL Draft Prospects: Tall forwards/rucks There’s such a shortage of tall forwards and rucks that Shifter’s covering both categories in one article.

The two stars Demons father-son prospect models his game on

Whatever. I think it has to be done by tomorrow.

Cal Twomey's Phantom Form Guide: Top draft prospects' October ranking

Pair of clubs named as keen suitors for Demons’ “athletically amazing” NGA talent

Both. Andy Moniz-Wakefield Midfielder “Age: 26/10/2003 Weight: 73kg Height: 180cm Club: NT Thunder/Allies

I sense the Redleg campaign to get him to Melbourne is nearing an end?

Playing for Melbourne would be a “dream” for father-son prospect

Sent to me by my brother-in-law who received it from a friend who runs at that park most mornings.

Doing it for Dad: Family tragedy fuels Bazzo's AFL ambitions

This is a very engaging Mac Andrew interview on You Tube

You only need one club to nominate him in the top 20 to secure him away from Melbourne and the only club that I’ve seen being specifically mentioned with Andrew is GWS by Matt Rendell when he said he was hearing that the Giants were going to use their first pick (#2) to draft him. They also have pick 13.

I just posted the You Tube vision of the 1975 SANFL Grand Final on the Norwood Connection thread. Ross Dillon was playing for the Redlegs in his familiar # 24.

I came across this footage of Norwood’s 1975 grand final victory over Glenelg. Ross Dillon wearing #24 kicks the goal to put the Redlegs in front late in the game.

Friday in the park C58013BB-E4E7-422E-AD3F-DB193D1DCDA1.MP4

Well picked up Rumpole and Chelly on your knowledge of Richmond’s list and ruck stocks. I think I might check out the other clubs in line to select a long term project ruckman in this draft. I’m always prepared to stand corrected but my position with respect to Andrew remains unchanged. On what he’s shown to the public in his eight matches played in 2021, he’s a mid 20s draft selection. I will strongly question the competence/sanity of any recruiter who picks him in the top 10 and moreover, I question all this hype surrounding him. I see one commentator has questioned whether the noise surrounding the favourite for number 1, Jason Horne-Francis is good for him. At least he’ll be playing AFL in an early round in 2022 and not in 2 or 3 years time which is the expectation with Andrew. The pressure of something like that will be similar to that experienced by Jack Watts when he went #1. Hopefully, he lands at a good club.

I’ve always believed 2020 was a bit of an outside opportunity lost in a season dominated by Covid19. After a couple of wins in the pre-season, the Demons looked fit and primed for a good year but along came the pandemic to temporarily scupper the season only hours before our opening game in Perth. Several weeks later, when hostilities resumed and, playing 20% less game time, the Dees staved off a late rush from Carlton before their third round match was postponed due to a positive case in the opposition Bomber ranks. Some “honourable“ defeats followed at the hands of the ultimate grand finalists before we moved into our first northern hub and started seeing some signs of the forward pressure that was to become synonymous with Melbourne 2021 against the Suns and the Hawks at Giants Stadium. Then it was up to the Maroochydore hub for the rest of the season and a difficult stint against leading teams Brisbane at Metricon and Port Adelaide at the Gabba. The first of these games was a narrow defeat but there was no energy in the side after a four day break and the inevitable thumping led to an intemperate blast from the club chairman. From then on, the team won six of their last nine games to miss out on the finals by half a game. Close results in several games, some not involving the club could have made the difference but it wasn’t helped by a heavy schedule brought about by the need to navigate the “frenzy” without respite due to having to make up the lost game from Round 3. Without the bye which all other clubs (bar Essendon) had, Melbourne was forced to travel in short time from Alice Springs to Maroochydore for an early wake up, hours of travel to Cairns and a same day game in high humidity vs Sydney and then four days later vs a rested Fremantle. The decision by the AFL to send us to Cairns and to play such a schedule proved disastrous with the Demons’ pressure gauge running on almost empty in both games. We now know that it was pressure, pressure and more pressure that was synonymous with the premiership team twelve months later. It’s all water under the bridge - we have our first AFL flag and there’s no need for excuse-making. However, it’s an interesting exercise to consider the sliding doors moment had we played the Swans game at the Gabba instead of in Cairns. A different outcome could have seen us in the finals and we know that when the home and away season ends, a whole new season begins to decide the premiership team. Last year, teams in the finals had a week’s bye to refresh after a heavily packed in schedule of matches. Both grand finalists had to play through all four weeks of the finals due to them losing their qualifying final matches. How well were the Demons equipped to take on the other teams had they played in a final series in October 2020?

Thirty-two years ago, we were world champions but it was still nowhere near as good as four weeks ago.

The debate about draft smokies was supposed to have ended some time ago. Back in the early days of the draft some thirty plus years ago, it sometimes happened that players were hidden from the sight of other clubs enabling them to be snapped up deep into the draft — they were the smokeys who’s selection left club recruiting officers grinning with excitement. Some examples of smokies - • Hawthorn recruiter John Turnbull used his close contacts in Western Australia to draft East Fremantle’s Luke McPharlin in the first round with pick number 10 in 1999. McPharlin had played only a handful of games with the Sharks’ Colts team. • Legendary St Kilda recruiting officer John Beveridge (father of Luke) was so desperate to draft Noble Park’s James Gwilt that he didn’t sleep the night before the 2004 National Draft out of concerns that other clubs might have been aware of him. Gwilt was taken with pick 63. • Jayden Hunt was better known as a schoolboy sprinter than a footballer and had missed a great deal of football due to injuries while undergoing a growth spurt. When drafted by the Demons at 57 in the 2013 National Draft, he was the only player in the draft to not play any football at under 18 level. Herald Sun journalist, Sam Landsberger, labeled him a “draft smokey”, noting he was "plucked from relative obscurity". Over time however, with more sophisticated recruiting methods and clubs throwing more money and staff into the arena, it became progressively much more difficult to hide away that special player from the rest of the world. About seven years ago, long-time AFL list manager Chris Pelchen declared that there was “no such thing as a draft smokey”. “While players may sometimes slip under the radar of various clubs, the extensive recruiting networks operating in 2014 make it extremely unlikely that any player is known to only one team. Obviously, a player's ranking will vary from club-to-club in each year but the need for players to nominate for the draft, combined with full-time AFL staff managing the talent pathway throughout Australia, means that the likelihood of a "smokey" in the draft has all but disappeared. You just can't hide talented players any more!” Thar was before Covid19 came along. Over the past two seasons, the entire football scene has been dumped on its head. While Western Australia and South Australia have been able to weather the storm, it’s been a different story in Victoria, the sport’s heartland which normally provides more than half of the nation’s draftees in the National Draft. This year, we saw a limited number of games in the NAB Boys League level and a couple of practice matches at Country vs Metro level this year. There’s every chance that recruiting scouts might have missed on seeing some players with future AFL potential. I wonder whether we might see one or two of them picked as smokies that are truly rare hidden gems in a month or so’s time?

Chris Doerre’s early two-round AFL phantom (and I have to admit that it gave me a little bit to giggle about). ESPN's early two-round AFL phantom draft

Taj Woewodin has finished in third place for the East Fremantle Colts Best & Fairest (The Len Anderson Medal). Placings were:- 1. Tom McGrath 163 votes 2. Josh Browne 160 votes 3. Taj Woewodin 149 votes Voting was on a 5,4,3,2,1 per game basis

Kevin Sheehan reveals his top NAB AFL Draft Prospects: Medium defenders