whatwhat say what

yze's brought mfc goalkicking accuracy to rfc

filth side looks very strong, although i'd say murphy is a big missing player for them fascinating that after his series of head knocks he's not been medically retired

on the scg you really don't need that many talls tho as i said, i expect schache will get the gig but based on 7 praccy terms of footy, verrall showed more both in the ruck and up forward for mine

based on 7 terms of practice... 2024 opening round 23: B: McVee - May - Tomlinson HB: Rivers - Lever - Bowey C: Langdon - Petracca - Windsor HF: ANB - JVR - Billings F: Pup Brown - Fritsch - Chandler Foll: Gawn - Salem - Viney I/c: Howes - Verrall - Sparrow - Woewodin Sub: Laurie unavailable: spargo - brayshaw (sob) - hunter - oliver - melksham - mcadam - plugger mac - petty - pickett - sideshow bob i personally would prefer it if we went smaller and had no tomlinson in the backline, but i suspect the intention is to run with that structure i also somehow doubt this line-up will happen as it'd mean four debutants to start the season which would be pretty unusual for us; for instance based on @Demonland's latest training report schache is still favoured over verrall if we ever debut a player as a sub i for one will be really disappointed; hate it when clubs do that

Sam Edmund on SEN says Clayton will feature in the VFL scratch match prior to the AFL scratch match.

he seems a total space cadet but boy oh boy can he play footy

10 months would have him returning to playing by july that's achievable and anything earlier would be a bonus

no, but from all reports he is significantly ahead of schedule

milkshake will be back mid-year, not 2025

gotta use the pic of him with the cigar holding the premiership medal aloft "always an mfc champion"

jon ralph, who tends to just re-write media releases, says that the afl - unsurprisingly - doesn't have a protocol to deal with a player medically retired with a significant amount of time left upon their deal BRAYSHAW UNCERTAINTY The AFL is expected to have discussions with Melbourne about the salary cap implications of Angus Brayshaw’s retirement given he has five more seasons left on his contract. The league medically retired Brayshaw and while the Demons spent Thursday farewelling their premiership star, his position will clearly set a precedent for all clubs. Brayshaw could agree to accept a smaller figure on a contract of between $700,000-$800,000 as part of an agreement with the club or the AFL could grant the Demons some cap relief. Rival list bosses agreed there was no set protocol for medical retirements given most players to retire recently including Marcus Adams, Paul Seedsman and Paddy McCartin did not have long-term deals. The AFL’s intervention into Brayshaw’s career will give the Demons the best chance of reducing the cap implications of his deal until 2028. reads to me like we're going to be carrying the hefty salary in our cap for the extent of the remainder of the deal - that would be very, very annoying indeed

he had a heap of opportunity and was shown to be good but not good enough to be an a-list midfielder good depth, which is what he'll provide at the swans too

this is all so sad

throw the chequebook at these free agents in order of preference: hugh mcluggage (bears) ollie florent (swans) tim english (footscray) andy mcgrath (peptides) will haywood (swans) cam zuhaar (north) ben ainsworth (gc17)

I am now the same too many key players down to start

Fudge

There seems to be a significant misunderstanding between ‘forward connection’ and ‘goal kicking accuracy’ The latter is the biggest issue, for mine

it's not like we're claiming a moral victory after the 8th worst test loss of all time

mebbe if we'd been beaten by 100s of points that'd be true

5-13 for mine, but voted 5-8 to show some relative optimism too many injuries in the pre-season

caruso's defensive work on robinson first rate tho

prior to this last three years, no one born before 1962 has seen the dees finish top 4 at the end of the home and away season in three consecutive like everyone, i want to 'bank' this successful era with another flag (or four) but to at least see us being consistently competitive is a far cry of anything we've witnessed over the last 60 or so years

there's a clear difference between a player performing strongly at under 18 level as a tall forward and doing the same at afl level

i think kornes says a lot without thinking jvr + petty = the ideal tall forward structure the fact that petty is signed up until the end of 2025 gives us the whip hand; if the crom offer of ~7m for 7 years is still there at the end of 2024, then we can re-assess our trade options accordingly