Its Time Again

I’m unexpectedly here. Down from Sydney and the timing worked out nicely. You can read about training but it’s something else being here. The main group are doing repeat 150metre sprints over and over. As they finish they jog back through a group of trainers who throw balls at them or ground balls which they pick up and pass back. Or at other times they go straight into shots on goal but very rapid and then jog back for the next 150. When you are right next to them you see just how brutal the running is. A lot of the running is in pairs with equally matched runners. I love what I’m seeing. They are clearly training them to execute skills straight off maximum exertion. It’s real game simulation rather than just running around recovering then do some gentle kicking. As you’d expect nowadays it’s super organised. No particular standouts in the running. However I did see ANB kick a goal straight through the middle. Halle bloody lujah. Preuss and Gawn were doing their own run throughs. I hope they get on they’re spending a lot of one on one time together. Preussy is a monster. Now running shoes off and footy boots on. The whole group have gone into a tight huddle in the middle. Someone has started up a chant and the whole group repeats the chant as one. Different phrases over and over. Finished by chanting I have no fear and jumping up and down on the spot. Incredible sense of commeraderie.

Good un you Axis. I wish more on here would stand up. Most of us, especially those of us interstate who can't go to training, just want to get a sense of the training and most importantly for me who's training and who's injured. I take most poster's comments on players with a grain of salt. I just don't understand why all you posters who dislike Saty so intensely don't just put him on ignore instead of derailing these training threads all summer with your boorish personal attacks on him which he then responds to in kind. It ruins it for the rest of us and brings down the quality of Demonland. It happens every year. Last year the Admins stepped in quickly and the rest of the summer was ok. It shouldn't be necessary.

Would love to know if it's all been spent just on the Yarra Park idea. I've heard opinions from various people who work in the planning area that it is very unlikely to get up. That's a hell of a lot of money to spend on a very speculative proposal. All political parties have come out opposing it. What worries me about this site is that we might be throwing everything in for the location not necessarily the long term suitability. I mean, I'm sure they are thinking about it but if we ended up with a facility like Richmond's at Punt Rd that would be an incredible result. Obviously without the Grandstands. But Richmond spent a fortune doing that up just 5 or 6 years ago and they have grown out of it already and are looking for something else, possibly in addition to rather than replacing it all together. So if that's too small for them why is ours going to be big enough for us. Look at what Essendon have built and Hawthorn are about to build. They are massive facilities with 2 to 4 grounds to train on including indoor facilities. We will have a piece of parkland fully open to the public that we will have restricted access to part of the time as the public will have access to it as well.

Making a Profit is a headline that doesn't tell much of the real story of how the Club's going. One of the big figures in there is a significant increase in the money being spent on the footy department. Interestingly one of the biggest increases has been taking over the operations of Casey. I didn't realise that was going on. Also the AFLW and VFLW teams have had a significant increase in expenditure. Interesting to see at what level this investment comes back. I guess the main income generator would be memberships. Wonder if AFLW memberships are included in the Club's overall membership. I assume they are. Great to see chunks being taken out of the debt. Still a way to go. $227,000 was spent on the new facilities project. Love to know what that was spent on but obviously it's getting very serious. If this wasn't spent then the profit would have been that much greater. In the coming years a lot will be spent on that project so the amount of the profit will be a bit irrelevant. I didn't look but up to last year the valuation of the Bentleigh Club has never been adjusted from the purchase price. It has to be worth a lot more now. There was a link to the financial report but it's been taken down.

If he's directly opposite it will take away his view into the Park. I'd be dead against it if I was him as well. His building would be the only group of people who will be effected by it. On a much more interesting note. The Club's accounts show that they spent $227,000 on this project in the past year. That's serious money. Love to know what it was spent on.

Thanks for the great pics. Trac is clearly looking more cut. No baby fat there anymore. Hope for his sake he's been able to lose a bit off his legs. But there looks like there's been real progress there. Fritsch looks like he has more muscle definition in his arms. Might end up being one of those rangy physiques that has plenty of strengh. Like a Michael Tuck.

Saty as always many thanks from an interstater. Couple of questions. Does Fritsch look any bigger. Does Petracca look any thinner. What injury is Hunt rehabing from. Thanks.

Does anyone know what happens if we have to match a bid that falls in this range. Obviously if its a pick before 54, 54 alone won't be enough to match the bid so we'd have to give up at least 61 as well which means we'd be down to 3 picks for the draft. We've got 91 but picks have no value after I think it's 74. So we might have to go into deficit and use a later pick from next year. I guess we'd have to use 91 on a player at that point. Probably upgrade T Smith. Maybe that's why they didn't upgrade him before they might wait and see what the bid is and whether we have to use 91 to fill the list.

Scrapping your fingernails across a blackboard trumps watching Bachelorette.

My MIssus and daughter turned that Bachelorette thing on last night. So I exited stage left and went upstairs to read and realised this had just started which I'd never heard live. Then when you asked people to ring in, I thought I could do that. No one will know. So I phoned in. Unbeknown to me a friend was listening and mentioned it to his wife, who rang mine and said do you know what your husband's doing at the moment. So I get sprung for doing something secretly upstairs while she's downstairs by someone somewhere else. Can't win.

It's looking that way. Will be fascinating to see how this is going to pan out. We have a minimum of 4 places to fill on the main list to make it 38 and we only have 4 useful picks. If we do that we will have to rookie 4 players to go with the 2 we currently have to make the total minimum list of 44. They have to be drafted which means the last 2 will be very late in the rookie draft. No matter how good JT is that's going to be a major stretch. Which makes you wonder if they think those gambles would be better than 1 or 2 of the remaining DFA's. Maybe there's some pick trading planned perhaps with some of next year's picks to grab one or two more decent picks. Although that could have happened by now if it was the plan.

ET you must get that a lot. Good to see you haven't taken it too personally.

Hopefully Hunt hones his skills and becomes one of those outside mids or perhaps the other one with KK. If Jeffy rediscovers his magic we could be the compete team you'r looking for.

Woops apparently Bell has gone to Melbourne.

5 & 23 for Hogan could end up being a good deal if Mahoney weaves his magic. Crows are desperate to move up the draft order so we trade them to Crows for their 8 & 13. 8 is very fair for May & we still end up with 13, a first rounder. 5 = 1878 points 23 = 815 TL= 2693 8 = 1551 13 = 1212 TL= 2763. The difference is only 70 points which is what pick 67 is worth. So maybe some horse trading of late picks. Our 65 for their 73 which ironically they have from us as part of the Lever trade last year. Bet none of us knew that. That gets us giving them 10pts over. Good enough. KK is weaved in to the pick 8 plus next year's 3rd rounder or whatever. Then we use 13 in the draft or we get a ready made gun from somewhere that magically appears at the last moment which FD have been sitting on . Alternatively Hogan stays we get May for nothing next year as a Free Agent and get a first rounder for Hogan and end up with more than if the deal was done this year. Although by then Hogan will be sniffing a Premiership and won't go and we'll get May as a FA. Win Win.

Why?

Not much better. We've done ok with pick 53 but I don't know of any good picks at 65. Pretty much unuseable therefore no better than PSD. Clearly FD wanted to move him on. Same as Swans moving on Rohan for pick 61

Pick trading between 4 teams will get it done. We've done stuff like that before.

Are you suggesting you're going to visit him and make an offer he can't refuse. But which way.

I reckon we could get both for the price of one.

Totally unrelated to my secret sauce. On a sesame seed bun. Was just changing it when you posted this.

I'm going to have an exclusive. I'm going to be able to tell you all exactly what's going to happen with every trade. It will be 100% accurate. I've got the inside info straight from the people doing the deals. I can assure you anything you hear or read before then unless it comes from Mahoney is going to be total BS. I'm going to disclose it at 8.30pm on 17 Oct. And no I'm not the Trade Whisperer although a lot more accurate and useful.

Wonder how they reconcile that value with what the market has actually been doing over the past few years. For instance Judd picks No.3 (Chris Masten) and No.20 (Tony Notte) and now two-time Coleman Medallist, six-time leading goalkicker and premiership player Josh Kennedy.Treloar for picks 7 & the next years 7. Lever for 2 first rounders. And there's a few more. You can't compare either of them to Hogan. One is a very good midfielder but not in the top 10 midfielders in the league. The other is an intercepting 3rd man up backman who isn't even a key back. Hogan is significantly ahead at this stage of his career on all statistics against all the top key forwards in history including Dunstall, Lockett, Carey, Kennedy Franklin etc etc Key forwards are much more valuable than any other key position players. A backman just has to punch and react to a forward. A forward has to be able to read the play and know where to lead and then be able to mark a ball on a lead and in a pack. Hogan is a freak can do all of that plus elite athletic ability and agility so can play all ground. We'll be looking on him in years to come going Jeez he used to be an MFC player. Who are they kidding. So much of the journalism nowadays is so ill informed. Can't believe they get paid to deliver that standard of work. Most of us would be sacked if we performed our jobs to that standard.

We can't do this at this stage. Under the rules we have to use our first round pick next season. We have to use a first rounder or it might be 2 first rounders in a 4 year period. We've given ours away the past 3 years so have to use it next year. At this stage I'm not sure what they are going to do. We have 6 delistings or transfers from the main list so far and that doesn't include Hogan & possibly Tyson. We only have 4 picks. I believe we have to use a minimum of 4 draft picks a year. Possibly we'll upgrade T Smith & I guess Keilty although that would be a surprise. We could do that with the really late picks that would otherwise be junk picks. But it doesn't leave us with anything to trade with as well as go to the draft. Looks like we'll have to do some horse trading for picks.

If I'm Freo I do whatever it takes at the high end of overs to get this across the line. Hogan is a once in a generation specimen. Big bodied forward with elite athleticism to run in the midfield. He hasn't reached his potential yet. He's regarded as the player with the most upside on our list. If I was them and I had to give up pick 5 and Cerra who they've only had for a year of development and who is ultimately a flight risk and which means they go to this year's draft which is one of the strongest in years still retaining pick 6 they'd have to seriously entertain it. I don't know if the Brayshaw connection will push us towards him but Cerra sounds like he's elite and on another level to Brayshaw. I don't really know either of them other than reputation. What do people think.