Its Time for Another

Thought about that but that would give you the dimensions of the entire arena surface not the dimensions on the field of play inside the boundary lines.

Love your work. There was a lot of that wind around Domain on Saturday night but it didn't seem to harm us.

This is why I had a look. It's interesting that we are doing better on narrower grounds this year but worse on our home ground. It seems to me that zone defences like ours and Eagles are much more suited to narrower grounds like Domain and Etihad and get opened up on wider grounds like the MCG. They might be good in theory but might be causing us to have such a bad home ground record this year. You would wonder why we're doing it if that is the case as IMO any game plan should be developed for the final game of the year. The Swans also tend to play a zone defence because of the smaller SCG so we shouldn't be disadvantaged tomorrow night although we seem to get opened up on wider grounds and Buddy has the capacity to rip us a new one with more space. Ironically the SCG probably doesn't suit his strongest attributes.

I compiled the list below of all grounds dimensions. I didn't know a lot of them and was quite surprised by some of them. For instance the MCG is virtually the 3rd shortest ground in the comp but the widest. The Gabba is virtually the same dimensions as the SCG. Domain, Blundstone and TIO are virtually the same length which is 20 m's longer than the SCG & Gabba. Simonds is 26m's narrower than the MCG which is more than the difference between the shortest and longest grounds. I've done my best to verify the accuracy of these measurements. I even rang some of the venues. They all might not be 100% accurate. The AFL website has them on there but some are definitely not correct and I verified that with some of the venues. AFL Ground Dimensions MCG 160 x 141 Etihad 159.5 x 128.8 Simonds 170 x 115 SCG 155.5 x 136 Spotless 164 x 127.5 Adelaide 167 x 123 Domain 175.6 x 122.4 Gabba 156 x 138 Metricon 160 x 134 Manuka 162.5 x 138.4 Aurora 165 x 135 Blundstone 175 x 135 TIO 175 x 135 TIO Traeger 168 x 132 Cazaly 172.5 x 149

Revenge. Sweet revenge. Hurn is out this week as a result of Viney's bump. A little message to the rest of the comp from our Captain courageous beware the consequences if you want to take me on.

Yeh especially when he was coaching them.

Where are the AFLCA Votes posted?

I believe he had a trigger clause in his contract which enabled him to extend this year on ridiculous money. I don't think he is contracted next year. His salary will halve wherever he is. Firstly, NO, because he's the wrong demographic for our list. Too old now and doesn't bring enough. At his best he's a great player. He hasn't played at his best in his nearly 4 years at the Swans. Had one great game in his career. That prelim with the Crows.

I like most of us share the frustration. This year seems to be worse than quite a few of the past decade. In my case it's because I finally had an expectation that we would be better and be legitimately challenging for finals. I realised after the Freo game that expectation wasn't justified. Since then I've let go and it helps a "little bit". One of my frustrations like many others is the selection decisions this year. Giving so many games to players who haven't contributed and have had to be carried. We have been lucky to field a team with less than 3 non contributors this season. But there could be a good explanation for that. It could be that Goody and Macca are choosing to coach and develop for the long term and not just to make finals this year. There are players like Weid who will be the future of the team and need games if they are to develop. IMO he played him for too many and Pedo should have been in earlier but that's part of the challenge. You could argue it's gutsy coaching. The fact is we don't have a competitive 22 yet. Goody has to find the last 6 or so players to fill in the gaps and he has to do that this year. No point in waiting til next year.

Hard to justify on the back of his form in the Carlton game. We have been carrying way too many players this year who haven't been performing. It's one of the reasons we've had such a bad start. Unfortunately the Weid was given a good run but was a waste of an important player. Pedersen should have been there. Hannan, T Smith, JKH. All getting games but giving the team nothing. You don't necessarily run into form in the firsts. Sometimes it's much better to find form at VFL level where the game is played at a slower pace and you can work on deficiencies and confidence. Fingers crossed he comes good. His best in his first year was very exciting. We desperately need him firing.

So since PJ arrived memberships have gone up close to 9,000 which is nearly 30%. I wonder where we can get to over the next few years with some sustained success. Starting next year, doesnt' look like its going to be this year. As an example Buddy has been at the Swans for just over three years. In that time their membership has gone up from 35,000 in a Premiership year in 2012 to 56,000 3 years later. Apparently Buddy had paid his entire 9 year deal off within the first year with his impact on memberships, attendances, apparel etc. In the next few years if Jesse gets his act together he might start having a similar impact although there is and has only ever been one Buddy. The guy does things no one else has ever done. Worth the cost of entry.

Very much doubt Reid will be leaving the Swans. Tippett triggered a clause in his contract which meant he is on big bucks this year care of his original contract. Swans would never have paid him that sort of money for his output. He'll either have to play for half the money next year or more likely get traded out. Swans will need Reid more than ever and have put years of rehab investment into him. His kicking has improved massively this year and he's an exceptional overhead mark. Swans will need him but not sure where he would fit in for us unless the decision is the Weid is a dud. We've got Watts in there plus Hewlett coming through and Smith in the background. We tried to trade Trengrove out to get the pick we would have used to get Lever so we wanted him really badly in that draft. I'm sure we're still very keen. Who knows. Not sure what we'll have to give up for him. Not sure he's worth our first rounder.

40,000 is so close now you can smell it. 366 to go! We'll hit it sometime next week. 39,634 today. Still tracking towards a total of around 42,000. Another tick for PJ.

Bruce Doull will be coughing in his tea cup.

He probably does want to move back to SA..............when his career's finished! That is more likely to be the end of next season or at a pinch the season after. Doubt very much it will be the end of this season. Unless pushed by a very unconvincing contract extension offer. One of the most likeable footy personalities I've seen. Has been an awesome ray of optimism in the darkest days when he first arrived. Go Bernie. Hope to see at least another 1 or maybe 2 seasons. Job done by then.

George I've sent tied up all weekend and grabbed the chance this morning to read the match reports in the main sites. This is as good if not better than any of them.

Watts on Riewoldt could be a very interesting choice. Has the height and pace and would be deadly on the rebound which would make Riewoldt more accountable and less likely to keep streaming into forward 50 with no defenders within 30 metres

Plus a properly fitted mouth guard is a lot more compact and doesn't effect your breathing nearly as much.

What, you think their Rucks aren't an even bigger problem not to mention their forwards.

The figure I'm sticking to is 42-43,000 based on the increase over last year and the fact that in the past few years the major increase seems to happen right at the beginning and is just maintained not increased through to the end. However, I'm a bit more optimistic this year based on an expected improvement in our performances in the pre season and early part of the season. We'll see. There's still a lot of previous members who didn't sign up last year. As PJ has said in the past, the Club broke their confidence and has to win it back. I would say they should have gone a long way to doing that now and those people have a lot more of a reason to come on board now.

Will be interesting over the next two weeks compared to last year. This year we have maintained an increase of around 3,200-3,500. Last year, the first week of March memberships jumped over 1,000 and the 2nd and 3rd weeks jumped over 2,000 each week. Everybody must get back on deck in March. We've had a great start to the pre season comp which you'd hope would translate to more memberships than the same time last year. If we do we could be around 38,00 by the end of the 3rd week of March. We'll smash the 40,000 Holy Grail if that happens.

Really interesting article. Thanks for sharing. This is why I love Demonland. You get info here you don't get anywhere else. It's a great footy community.

Bit difficult if you've got a reserved seat.

Agree with this, however, my point is the structure of where the numbers are around the ball. We have too many in close which means some can't do anything whereas they could if they stayed out as receivers. The Bulldogs are already set up like this. It's not brain science and I'm just a bit surprised we aren't doing it already. Hopefully you're right about them addressing it. Despite saying this, now that I've watched the replay I must say it looks better than it did on the day. Probably because being there you can see what's happening or not happening off the ball. But seeing what was happening on the ball on the tv was pretty impressive. It was more attacking, play on, fast ball movement than I remembered. We are definitely distributing the ball out of contests better, thanks to having options in the right places to extract, whereas just a few seasons ago we didn't have anyone to go to in those positions. I still treat the Saints as a yardstick of our improvement in the competition. So round 1 is going to be interesting. Bring it on.

I was down from Sydney so went along. First time back to Western Oval since Rd 22 1987. Sadly still the highlight of my Dees following career. And I waited a long time for that highlight. Just a few observations. Firstly it was the first pre season game I've ever seen. I was incredibly impressed at the standard of the game for a first hitout. Still played at a ferocious pace. Obviously a bit rusty but still full on. Unlike many I have to say I was a bit disappointed at the way we played. While there were some great passages of play on the rebound where we moved the ball well and scored We seemed to go backwards a lot. A few times kicking from around the defensive 50m arc all the way back to fullback then getting stuck back there or worse turning it over. Jordin Lewis is going to be a huge asset. I'm more interested in the leadership he will bring. He showed how he just knows what to do in crunch moments. Eg saving the win by putting himself in the opposition goal square in the last 2 minutes when they were attacking and saving a couple of goals. Old habits die hard. I noticed his point of extraction from stoppages is to flick a hand pass backwards into space. Sam Mitchell would have been standing there whereas we often didn't have anyone set up for this so we would end up being under pressure and some of this great setup would end up being to the Dogs advantage. I know the stats say we did well in clearances but it was clear being there how much better their structure is setting up for clearances compared to us. They don't get too many sucked in to the contest and have a ring of players outside ready to distribute it around to then clear it with an attacking kick to space. Hopefully we'll learn from seeing this. I thought we would be doing it by now so a bit disappointed to see we aren't doing this setup and have too many too close to the contest. We are going to be competitive with any team at contested ball. Like plenty of others have said Clarry is special. Very special. Will be our best midfielder. No disrespect to Viney etc. The Weid is already solid enough to compete. He's bigger than Gunston & Watts. His 3 standout skills to me are his judgment to grab the ball at the highest possible point, his footy IQ and his kicking. He isn't nvolved enough yet but that's not entirely his fault. I was on the outside wing and he lead up there quite a lot in space and was repeatedly ignored. I suspect this probably happens a lot and we wouldn't know. It looks like he might have to earn the teams respect more to get the ball to him more. JKH an example of why you can't rely on training form. He just didn't seem to be able to get involved. AVB disappointing too. Doesn't seem to have the footy IQ to know how to get enough separation on his opponent. There are subtle overall improvements compared to a few years ago that I'm beginning to take for granted. Like level of competitiveness. More consistent 4 qtr performances, although there was a drop of composure at the end of the game. There's steady improvement not a leap yet which I guess I'm still waiting for. We are better but talking finals is premature. A lot of teams will be better this year. I'd only start discussing that after the halfway mark. Sorry if this is long winded but I've got a lot of time today. Being driven back to Sydney by my daughter on L's doing a max 90kph and regular stops. Go Dees