Demonstone

Welcome back Luci. Good to see your smiling avatar again! Once you get a couple of the answers, all the others will fall into place.

Ronald Ryan was executed in February 1967. His remains are buried in my home town of Portland.

Not sure if you're serious David, but check the post above yours.

Time to put you all out of your misery. The team has been selected on the basis that the jumper numbers of the first two players on each line add up to the jumper number of the third player. eg Frawley (8) plus May (1) equals Johnson (9). I have made numerous allusions to this throughout the thread, with hints such as ADDITIONAL, PLUS, SUMMER, (dim) SUM, NUMBER, PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER, ADD UP and CALCULATED. The photo clue is BlackADDER. Simmonds and Baker were both nicknamed "Snake". A type of snake is the ADDER. Well done to all those who were able to FIGURE it out.

@Timothy Reddan-A'Blew has added a plus to his ledger by submitting the correct answer. @reynolds46 has also calculated correctly.

Dom Tyson likes this post.

Not if you posted it on an old PM, Tim. I delete those as a matter of course. PS: @Dee Zephyr has cracked the code, as I suspect @Timothy Reddan-A'Blew has also done.

If you look for a connection other than the players' names, it will all add up.

Now that's a cryptic comment, David! He wouldn't want to be next to May, perhaps? We can add @Allus Monk to the list of those who have worked it out. Below is the final clue. My cunning plan is for the solution to be revealed later this morning.

"Demons' Putting Better Than Background Music".

Well done to @tilly18 and @youami and @Jumping Jack Clennett for identifying the answer. I'll leave it open for a while longer in case others are looking for a way to kill some time on this Public Holiday. If you read the OP carefully, you'll find a couple of hints seeded therein. Also note that I didn't claim that these players all have something in common, unlike most of my previous teasers. Who else can put two and two together and solve the puzzle?

I'm surprised that there have only been two correct replies so far. This teaser appears to have made people feel even number than usual. See you all in the morning.

@Mazer Rackham can be added to the list of solvers. That makes two of them!

It's a talented team that would also love to eat out together, I'm sure. However, they'd avoid places like Entrecote. You'd be more likely to find them enjoying some delicious dim sum at a local yum cha. That now makes a total of FIVE hints! Not all have been flagged as such, however.

Clue #2: Although this is a football team, they'd be more suited to Summer.

Congratulations to @Jjrogan for being the first to solve today's mystery. For everybody else ... Clue #1: Troy Simmonds and Phil Baker would approve of this team.

Want to try that again?

In response to @george_on_the_outer mentioning my quizzes in today's training thread, here is an additional one. You thought I'd run out of ideas to torment you with, didn't you? On the plus side, this is the penultimate teaser in my arsenal. As usual, your challenge is to work out how I came up with this team. You will notice that it is a very strong side indeed, consisting solely of past and present Demons. In response to pleas for leniency, I would rate this one as reasonably simple. Answers in a PM if you please! B: James Frawley Steven May Alan Johnson H/B: Jake Lever David Neitz Jake Bowey C: Robert Flower Greg Wells Adem Yze H/F: Christian Petracca David Schwarz Angus Brayshaw F: Max Gawn Allen Jakovich Russell Robertson R: Jeff White Nathan Jones Kozzy Pickett I/C: Bayley Fritsch Jack Viney Todd Viney Ben Brown

Or, as they're saying in MCC circles, "Harley unlikely".

We should pick him up just for his name alone. Who cares if he can't play?

I can't imagine he'd ever walk again, let alone play football.

You missed my smart alec point, @stinga. Just as Jordon is continually misspelled as "Jordan", Sestan is already being frequently spelled as "Seston".

Looks like Sestan is the new Jordon.