beelzebub

1 hour ago, Matt Demon said:

Culley injured, arm/shoulder. Using his jumper as a sling as he walks off into the rooms.

Bugger

3 hours ago, DEE fence said:

I’m normally someone that misses out on those ‘Woodstock moments’ but I too made it Footscray. 87 if I forget about one certain event there are many treasures to take from that year, smashing Collingwood twice being one of them.

Then you will remember the roar when the scoreboard showed the Roy's had gone down.

Im not thinking well end up in the 8 but we could. Reckon we'll knock on the 'traditional' door at 9th.

Had forgotten about the silly new finals 🙄🥴

9 minutes ago, DistrACTION Jackson said:

Well we also lost Petracca and Oliver, who outside of Viney were our other two main midfielders. So we had to get some sort of leadership/depth to cover that.

I agree re depth. Neither imo were leaders

19 hours ago, DubDee said:

Fans continue to write off Viney and he just keeps coming out and shutting them down.

Players get injured but he will be back, as driven as ever

He has averaged >20 games a season over the past 5 years

Not sure writing off is quite the intent but it might be the observation.

Many have suggested you can't really play Steele and Viney at the same time. Imho.. that's the key. We went and got Steele. Wonder why ? 🤔

We knew Jack has a horror of a history with his injury...... and we went and got Steele.

2+2=

Mate....maaaaate...

To date you've been brilliant but this is sublime..

You just juxtaposed two of my great loves... The Dees...and Queen !! ❤️

Let it be known...yes we will we will Rock You... Buddy playing on the street ...or the wing... will make a big noise ..

Go Dees

4 hours ago, Fritta and Turner said:

As I exited Richmond station and was walking towards Punt Rd a woman asked me what bus do you catch to the MCG? Was keen to answer 31 but.....

One thing I have noticed about training this year is that the coaches are setup and in position well before the players hit the track.

Very strong wind blowing across the ground.

TMc first out with the Roo.

Absent White, McAdam, Bowey and May. (Ghosty still on holidays)

Henderson not wearing a rehab outfit and got a massive cheer from the squad as he ran past the group.

Viney and Campbell in rehab tops; Viney watched on and Campbell walked. Everyone else in training gear.

Vineys brother conducted a wrestling/grappling drill. They do look alike.

CJ had some strange velcro bandage? on his leg for a very short time.

CJ, Kentfield, Petty, AMW, Melky, Steele, Salem sometimes ran the boundary

Rivers had some minor discussion with a trainer and did some extra drills.

Ed did some weird stretching exercise in the goal square which turned out to be 'watering the sands...'

Tom Matthews took part.

Chappy yelling out positioning advice to XT during a sim.

Fritta played like his opponent was Easton Wood.

Kossie is so good sometimes I reckon he should not participate in some of the sims.

Jeffo looking better and better at each training session. Playing with confidence.

As the kids are back at school the track watchers have a veteran look about them.

I like people that have eyes 👍

Good call

1 minute ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Its not a beat up mate.

Its simply noise and distraction we dont need. You honestly think Kingy is shrugging the shoulders and having a giggle thinking how much of a beat up this is.

A rookie coach putting his best foot forward after making significant cultural changes in the off season and yet again we find ourselves in the news for the wrong reason one which is completely out of his hand, but its still negative press being placed upon us.

In the news.. oh yeah..

Think about it

My God... are you that dim ?

Daz...tis the off season.... time to grasp at straws mate.

Disregard the noise... it's fugazi !! 🤔🤣🤣🤣

( the irony eh )

51 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

Something strikes me about Kings standpoint.

If your mind isn't in the game 100%

Then 100% you won't be in the game

To emphasise a point...

And yes...purely observational.. and derivative of reports.... I get the impression King's thinking is when you're out there your mind needs to be concentrated on the game... no let up. It's not nearly about you being the very best forward, very best mid, very best back , very best any ducking thing... but it IS about being in the game, in the moment, switched-on..

Mindsets often beat presumptions.

18 blokes moving as a team.... playing with one...ONE.. method... They'll prevail.

Classically.. a champion team.beats a team.of champions.

That said... now revisit our trading and drafting.

Penny dropping ?

3 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

F M D.. what a beat up...

Kingy wasn't planning on Maysie at all

If...OK.. if no bigger

Apparently a hand has 7 fingers 👉 😉

28 minutes ago, old dee said:

Will locals go to a practise match when they have to book via Ticketmaster?

Nupp

3 minutes ago, Kev said:

I think kolt will make it.

Perhaps a Viney type of player. Turning a game on his endeavours and bringing pain to the opposition.

Something strikes me about Kings standpoint.

If your mind isn't in the game 100%

Then 100% you won't be in the game

Wendouree... yeah nahhh

13 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Thanks to the trackers.

Id like some insight into how Steven King is like at training. What's his demeanour like? Does he actively engage with the players? VPulls them aside, vocal. etc..

Thanks.

My obs.

He'll very much engage when he feels fit.

He'll stop things and reset. He'll explain what he means and how to do it.

He'll bollocks a player if he feels warranted

He'll sidle up later and take a player through 'whatever'

Make no mistake, King has empowered his delegates ( coaches etc ).... but this is HIS show....

Further... I think he knows what he's doing

Further to the further... I sense the players think so too. There's a vibe..

We're ON !!

34 minutes ago, DeeZone said:

.....

were founded in 2026, a MFC Premiership year.

Take it we can Texta in 26 for a flag eh 😉

Go Dees

21 minutes ago, Greg Schneider said:

Yep we’re in trouble I reckon

Maybe not 😉

An idea for many... disregard 25

26 will be different.... better...

Emphasis on DIFFERENT

7 minutes ago, Dannyz said:

Deakin have poured a heap of $$ into their facility for Geelong footy club at the Waurn Ponds campus. Couldn’t see them wanting to be involved with us.

How would Deakin be involved with us ? 🤷

Its not about punters financial literacy. Mine's fine, thanks for caring.

This is, never was about money.... that grows on trees and is accessible when required if..IF ...the deal stacks up.

We obviously don't have that deal. Thats the problem imho. We have intent, a few nudge nudge winks... possibly a backroom "well if you do this we'll do that etc"..

But there is an impediment... I sense it's not just a what but more a who.

This isn't that [censored]hard... not really... its a [censored] oval or two and a warehouse with a glorified atco hut attached.

We can't be anywhere close.....or they'd all be lining up to chirp.

This has been derailed.

I wait.

If anyone can post the latter bits... marvee 👍

Reading what I could did prompt the little grey cells.... particularly about 2 things but they in turn nudge a 3rd.

The writer was a little surprised that Windsor is progressing well now through the middle. Strangely I'm not. Recent vision seems to indicate he's more than ready and ought to do well. We'll need it.

2nd.. The Langdon conundrum. A valid insight. Im wondering if we didn't see Langers as a negator purely as a result of the footy brains trust running out of methods to curtail oppositions ? I much prefer seeing Ed in full flight. He can be a very good and dangerous user of the ball.

This then leads to how King will instruct our game. Are we going to back ourselves play an attacking style and make them.worry more about us... or go all negative Nancy?

Without wanting to dredge up much this is i think where we started to come unstuck. The brains trust ran out of ideas or ability to keep OUR game flowing so we concentrated on stymiing them !!

What I've seen so far suggests we'll attack games...

I'm truly very dubious about stats . The notion that Kozzie doesn't seem to rate 'high' on defensive tackling to me is bordering on illogic. He is elite in attack... his role is to attack not defend. You invariably only tackle as a forward if they have the ball. This isn't the reality of Kozzie imho.

Im happy for him to have 3-4 goals ... 3 to 4 assists ans sfa tackles. I.e... the opposition is trying to get him and thats the way we want it 😉

10 hours ago, Demon Disciple said:

Does it matter? Given the revolving door and the place, by the time it eventually gets approved, many more will probably have come and gone

Is the door even revolving..... or is it closing

4 hours ago, Redleg said:

No, made late last year.

Whats the current demeanour of the MRC now a change of folk 🤔

On 29/01/2026 at 20:22, Its Time Again said:

"Lots of good stuff my thumbs accidentally erased 🙄🙄"

+

Don't get me wrong. I loved Trac and think he is the most dynamic player I have ever seen play for MFC and I choke on my weeties to say this but including Robbie who I saw play his first and last games and most inbetween. Robbie was pure poetry in motion but he wasn't an explosive contested beast with so many tricks and Trac will always have one of the greatest GF performances of all time. However Trac won't go down as one of the most elite players of all time because of his lack of effectiveness. Think Robert Harvey. I'm guessing he will end up with another Premiership and if he starts hitting targets i50 and kicking goals accurately I'll agree with you. But he hasn't done that for us for 5 years. Not to mention the off field issues.

Someone else is going to take his place in the team and I am very confident at the end of the year they will have delivered more i50 kicks marked and retained than the star they are replacing. Same goes for Steele replacing Clarry. Have a look at Langford's retention stats i50 they are incredible. His percentage retention was 42.9% compared to Trac's 37.8%. Wheelo supplied an interesting stat on average equity gained from kick i50 which is more nuanced because it includes things like

. how the kicker won possession (i.e. proxy for pressure);

• the location where the kick was taken;

• the location where the kick ended up; and

• who took next possession and how.

Langford ranked first in the team, Petracca ranked 17th.

I'm sure Langford will play more in the guts but there are plenty of candidates for that kick i50 who I am sure will do better than Petracca.

I couldn't watch a lot of games last season mainly because of how Petracca and Oliver were delivering the ball i50. Our key issue. We're not going to be worse for their departures we're going to be better. Virtually no one in the fourth estate has worked this out.

Thank you to Wheelo for all these great stats. If you want to see them in more detail go over to the Stats Files. He compiled a list of them on Petracca and Oliver and how they compare to other MFC players and other players in the league. It would have been sobering reading if they were still here.

Onwards and Upwards

Go Dees

I'm inclined to 2nd most of this especially the idea that we may actually be better off without Trac and Ollie. Have no doubt this will be a bitter pill for many.

But just for a moment I invite people to look at our games, remove the emotion, remove, the bias and just critique the games via effort and effectiveness. ( because thats really all you ever really should do ) .

There were any number of reasons we failed over the last few seasons.

They pivot about thee two metrics ( above ) and then they're either tempered or expanded by a third. Cohesion.

Tbh.... saw sfa of that last one for quite a long time.

What I've been gladdened to see is its creeping back in ( if training is any guide )

This will be what brings us back... cohesion.

Not about playing one particular style of footy..... but playing with one shared mindset.

Go Dees

16 minutes ago, Demonsone said:

Not a great gambling man but you can see this road leading to a dead end

Or in the vernacular of the location......'scratched'

Im not trying to be in the slightest revisionist or sensationally argumentative for the sake of it. I detest statistics as invariably flawed in concept and deprived of reasoned context.

Classically only the scoreboard matters and in reality thats the one that dictates my perceptions.

I, and a number of other punters here watch and look. We track (npi...well... ) what players do and note all the little things ( as many as can )

Where this goes is .... what effectiveness does any player have ?? I'll stand by my impression that neither of Trac or Ollie are nearly as much of a loss as some suspect. Maybe if this were the start of 22 and not 26 that view might be different, but it's not and that's the crux of it. They are both very handy players on their day and I have no doubt will be good pick-ups for their new clubs.... but are we left with gaping holes?? Far from it. Im actually going to go as far to say had we retained them it may have proved an impediment to developing the team. Neither were what anyone would call ball delivers of excellence. They fit an older mould. Ollie is really the enigma of the discussion. His ability to read the ball and play was amazing...but in recent times the follow up of putting it to our advantage had all but deserted him.

Trac... at the risk of arrows I will say his efforts post injury were not the same as before. I get that. But his effectiveness is his role as he'd become accustomed had slid... markedly in my book... a just 'is'. Happy for others to different.

With the 2 players as was we played a particular way.. with almost (lamentably ) predictable outcomes.. This prevented other players progressing and developing craft .

Now this would be fine if we were thumping teams and playing finals. But we weren't. We were God awful plain.

Sometimes to improve you need to prune hard. This is what we've done and Im very optimistic of the results ( eventual ) going forward.

In short we wont miss them as we'll play a better style of football with others bringing their abilities to the table.

30 minutes ago, george_on_the_outer said:

It is just incredible that after a "feasibility case" run for 12 months, and a "business case" for another 12 months, that we don't even know where the foundations are going to be laid (if at all)!

We are being treated like mushrooms...kept in the dark and fed BS.

🤔Almost like the place is run by Amateurs 🙄