Adam The God

I reckon McQualter has no idea as a senior coach.

I know they have very little experience across the park, and even less so now that their former skipper packed his bags for Brisbane, but the players play like they've got next to no idea how to move the ball, their defence is a mess and their midfield cannot defend.

30 minutes ago, Demonstone said:

??? All three players left during the 2025 trade period.

We let Clarry and Trac go a year later in the timeline. We could have gotten rid of them at the end of 2024.

As I said, they've been 12-18 months behind us, but with Curnow they went early in comparison to us, but we've still got a head start on them as we've sacked our coach and now completely cleared the decks. They've still got Cripps and Walsh toddling around.

20 hours ago, binman said:

Spot on jnr

Three of our biggest issues last season were we weren't fit enough, the athletic profile of the team was not a good fit for the amount of high-speed running and spread the go fast, transition and turnover game demands and how woefull our kicking was.

As ive noted elsewhere, leaving aside any of the fugazi and cultural stuff, Tracc, Claz and May are all dead slow, not great runners and poor by foot. They are not a great fit for King's game plan (or Goddy's last year).

They've been replaced by better athletes and better kicks - for example Sharp, who if selected last year was inevitably the sub, but under King is thriving and has been one of our best players, in large part because he is perfectly suited to King's game plan.

It was actually fascinating watching the blues as Voss is actually trying to implement the transition game plan, but despite trading in a bunch of players with decent athleticism, he faces the same barriers Goody did - too many bulls and clearance players and way too many ball butchers.

As I've said before, Carlton have been consistently behind us by 12-18 months in the last 5 or 6 years.

They took ages to copy our contest first, defensive set up in 2023, when it was already going out of fashion.

They lost Curnow when we kept Clarry and Trac, so they've sped up their retweak, but they need to sack Voss and keep transforming their list.

I hope they don't.

And as it stands we're getting the break on them by pulling the trigger on Goody last year and Clarry, Trac and May.

3 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

We were second last year

Fox Sports

Is that where we finished though? Because that article was written mid year.

5 minutes ago, Go Ds said:

Daniel Hoyne was on First Crack Preview saying Melbourne's ball movement vs Carlton was the fastest Champion Data has seen in their 8 years, i.e they play on almost at all costs. I'm sure there'll be a follow-up story or clip online eventually but this is interesting to hear.

Sounds like an evolution of 2025, only now the shackles are off with a different mindset framing from King.

It was a bold move to sack Goody, but it was definitely the right one.

The appointment of King looks good at this stage, but a week is a long time in football, and I expect us to yo-yo a bit this year.

1 hour ago, Little Goffy said:

I paused for a moment to clear my head and realised that our defence gave away just five goals in three quarters of football.

I don't care if the opposition is withering away at the contests or dropping their heads, letting through barely more than a goal each quarter is a serious effort for a defensive unit which faces the main downside of a new game style.

Credit to the old guard of talls;

Lever 11 intercepts, 4 1%ers, and 400m gained if you don't mind.

McDonald 8 intercepts, 9 1%ers,

And despite some anti-highlights which mobilised the haters

Petty 7 intercepts, 9 1%ers

Howes stuck to his task, Lindsay got his job done, and Salem recovered with maturity after starting the game like a dog on fire.

I actually thought there was growth with Lever within the game.

I've been critical of his ability to move the ball on quickly and aggressively and questioned his ability within this system.

I watched the replay this afternoon and there was a moment very early in the second quarter where he moved it on quickly, but went wide instead of corridor. Now maybe that was the plan, but it seemed too safe and counter-intuitive.

By the end of the game he was playing real direct, slingshot stuff. I loved it. As soon as he intercepted, he looked to see if we had outnumbers forward of the ball, and we often did and moved it that way aggressively.

It was a great game from Jake, and we need more of it, especially without Turner for a few weeks.

Gold Coast will be a big test.

On 30/03/2026 at 22:21, monoccular said:

Langford Sparrow Rivers will provide grunt and class, maybe Kolt too who must be learning lots from the best in his tagging roles. Lindsay

Windsor,, Sharp, Kozzie and maybe even Cuzzy for run and flair. Who knows about Onley and or Taylor?

There's been a fair bit of discussion on this thread about the eventual make up of our future midfield.

What I'm hoping is that we basically have the bones of it there already and that King can extract maximum value from a group that isn't necessarily 7-8 A graders, but that they can play as a team of A graders if that makes sense.

That's one thing I've admired about Geelong over the last decade. Often pretty ordinary list with a few stars, but together as a team these guys like Guthrie and Close etc become valuable cogs in ball movement.

I also think we're another two young guns away from being able to start targeting FAs for list demographics and needs (ala May, Lever and Langdon).

But in the meantime, if King can maximise output from the current group, we'll be very well set. And importantly, we'll be able to attract these FAs because we'll be a sexy outfit.

On 30/03/2026 at 07:07, BLWNBA said:

If anyone needs a laugh:

They're pretty soft aren't they? Both won the most flags in the competition and they've had two decades of hopelessness. Try 35-40 years of it.

3 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

Ken Hinkley emphasised this on SEN yesterday. This was in regards to Carltons midfield woes.

Kenny pretty much said that to play as an inside midfielder, you have pretty much be ready to go straight away which i think he meant physically and maturity.

There was discussion around Jagga Smith that whilst he is playing as a starting on baller and racking up numbers, the influence on games isn’t there yet because how young and physically immature he is.

Has very little hurt at this stage.

And I was a big fan of his.

1 hour ago, watchtheeyes said:

Great game from Sparrow! Stood up when we needed him!

Tom was brilliant. His best game ever.

Am I right in saying he and Kozzy both had PB disposal counts?

It's huge that Rivers is dropped and Tom plays like that. So he had more room to show what he can do. He was still rock solid defensively, but got involved in transition and scoring chains. His DE was up and down, but hopefully this game gives him the confidence to push on now.

In the second half Carlton stopped, but we started winning centre clearance. We had 1 for the entire first half, a quick kick from Max in the second quarter.

We also fumbled less, won key contests and exploited their lack of speed around the ball. Catching Cripps twice in the third really set the tone and we were looking dangerous even just prior to 3/4 time.

Super impressive mental effort to chip into that deficit too. Particularly, as they got back out to 20 points again after being only a goal up.

Well done, redlegs, and congratulations to Maxy and TMac. I'm glad we got the win for them. And against Carlton. So sweet.

1 minute ago, Tom Dyson said:

Play like this and I’m certain we’ll hand Essendon their first win.

Goodwin broke these players, never seen a group more in their heads than ours.

Haha, Goody's still copping it.

This is King's team now.

Time to stop the excuses and wait until we have enough experience in the midfield and Bowey back in defence.

Viney back into this midfield would be very helpful.

4 hours ago, Bowserpower said:

Quotes like Bullock's are correct but often used out of context. The government can't run out of money like a business can but it doesnt mean debt is meaningless. Inflation, exchange rates and financial stability still impose limits so its not like the debt doesnt matter.

Yes, inflation imposes limit. It is the limit! Not government debt. And in case you hadn't noticed, Australia and most of the world have been operating in a floating exchange rate environment for almost 50 years.

Again, multiple central banks have done papers on exchange rate pass through being small to non existent, mostly because most import items are actually priced for the domestic market they're sold into.

As it stands, we have next to no financial stability because nuffies like Chalmers and the RBA refuse to use fiscal policy to reduce inflation and they use NAIRU, a mythical, imagined number to manufacture enough unemployment to hopefully reduce inflation. That is not price stability. That is hitting and hoping, and crushing working people in the process.

They could do what Japan has done for the last 5-6 years and provide oil importers the excess import margin in exchange for price caps. An anti inflationary fiscal expansion. I won't hold my breath that Chalmers and co will use any sort of fiscal policy to reduce inflation.

Instead, what we've seen since 2022 is inflation driven in part by interest rate rises, which feed through the rental component of the CPI.

And back to your original thesis, no, government debt does not matter. It only matters politically, while we let it.

4 hours ago, Bowserpower said:

Well no, government debt is a financial asset for whoever holds the bonds but that doesnt make it private savings. In fact a large share is held by institutions and foreign investors.

Because foreigners have the choice between non interest bearing AUDs they accumulate in trade with us or interest bearing AUDs in the form of debt. Which one would you take?

And again, Australia hasn't issued foreign denominated debt since 2004. So all its liabilities are in AUD, and Treasury is the only source of the AUD currency.

Banks are allowed to create credit in AUD (the vast majority of the money supply), because they have exchange settlement accounts with the RBA in order to do business in this country. They use the reserves/AUDs in those accounts to carry out daily interbank transactions to ensure the functioning of the private banking system.

But given you've mentioned exchange rates as a limit, it's pretty clear your thinking is still fixed in the Bretton Woods era, like most mainstream economists.

41 minutes ago, Bowserpower said:

Your claims are simplified and misleading.

Saying that Commonwealth debt is issued after spending isn't accurate in Australia. Spending and borrowing are linked through the budget financing process and the government still needs to maintain enough cash in its account at the RBA to meet payments.

Michelle Bullock - "we actually have the ability to create money, if you like. We can continue to meet debts and we can continue to pay... ultimately the Reserve Bank is guaranteed by the government".

41 minutes ago, Bowserpower said:

Saying that without debt interest rates would fall to zero is simplistic because even if bonds didn't exist they could still set an interest rate by paying interest on bank reserves.

I don't think you read what I wrote. I said it will fall to zero if debt isn't issued or the RBA doesn't pay an interest rate on Exchange Settlement balances...

41 minutes ago, Bowserpower said:

Lastly those trillion dollars cant be private savings. This sounds like a political interpretation.

Where are these dollars then if they're not private savings? Floating about at the local park, I suppose?

1 hour ago, Kent said:

So in April 2006 we had zero federal debt

on the 20th anniversary federal debt has ballooned to 1 trillion dollars

That is $1000 Billion for the people who dont figure

Sure no problems at all

You realise that Commonwealth debt is issued after spending (it doesn't fund the Commonwealth) and is issued voluntarily to manage interest rates. Higher interest rate environments lead to higher bank profitability - multiple central banks have conducted studies on this.

Treasury ran a Debt Management Review in 2002 to end the debt market altogether but because it's corporate welfare to the banks and shadow banks, they complained and government agreed to keep it in operation.

So those trillion dollars are private savings.

If there was no debt issued after government spending, the inrerest rate would fall to zero/nothing or whatever rate the RBA had agreed to pay on Exchange Settlement balances. And private banks would lose profitability.

And of course, then neoliberal politicians would have nothing to scare people like you with.

Seems like a really lovely bloke.

Glad to have you Steeley. ❤️💙

Also, how was Lyon's patronising and arrogant press conference. "They played off side a lot, and we knew they would, but we let them do it too often".

You mean we managed to move the ball quickly and efficiently, getting the ball out into space.

It was not like we had a bunch of Joe the Gooses.

He's a dill.

6 hours ago, DiscoStu17 said:

Some interesting team stats I was just looking at.

It looks like the Saints had more of everything, except 2 crucial stats – we had more bounces, and more tackles.

Either we are being very efficient, or they are squandering the ball.

They had a lot of cheap possessions behind the footy.

Their defenders and half backs use a lot of dinky little possessions that have very little incisiveness.

We only had one player over 20 disposals (Windsor). That's efficiency given the scoreline.

1 hour ago, lorn said:

King has cured us of Long bombitis

Lots of brilliant lowering of the eyes wasn't there? Really great to see.

What King has been able to do in a very short time is McCrae-esque.

3 hours ago, Bowserpower said:

Facade or not they are good indicators of the massive debt the state is in which has grown by over 400% in the last decade.

If you think the government has a license to print license to print money then that is wrong.

All federal spending is currency creation. All that spending occurs via the RBA crediting exchange settlement accounts, which create deposits in the private banking system.

The state government is different, however, it is a currency user, it doesn't create new liabilities when it spends, but does have access to cheaper debt, and can afford $20 million dollars.

As former RBA Governor Bernie Fraser once said, "governments have responsibilities that go beyond".

But bang on about debt hysteria as if it's like a business or household.

2 hours ago, Bowserpower said:

A debt of $160 billion projected to be $187 billion in 2 years. A downgraded credit rating yet again. A public service that keeps expanding for little to no reason and on top of that youre suggesting to buy back a toll road which turns over $13 billion a year?

Ok...

Credit ratings are neoliberal facades.

As Phillip Lowe said during COVID, "triple A credit ratings have more politiclal symbolism that economic importance".

Again, if the political will for the community is there, this is a solid, low cost project to create a vibrant Caulfield hub around the racecourse and the school, which will be good for local business as it increases traffic to the area.

15 minutes ago, Dee Viney Intervention said:

Not quite sure about the first paragraph. No other state is quite in our position and if the commonwealth was underwriting Victoria Glasgow wouldn’t be hosted the Commonwealth Games.

Agree that $20 million should be a drop in the ocean for the state government and it absolutely should be framed as a community use project. It is obvious where the hold up is coming from.

I think we will eventually get there but more patience is required.

Currency users like the Victorian Government in theory have revenue constraints, but really, these are political constraints.

If you think for one moment the Commonwealth would let Victoria collapse in the liabilities (AUDs) it issues, I think you're mistaken.

I think the Commonwealth Games are not worth hosting. Political decision made.

Caulfield has community benefits and is worth funding.

14 minutes ago, Wells 11 said:

Any details emerging from that would be great to hear Mr God...if they are shareable.

I'm not privy to them and wouldn't share publicly if I did know.

14 minutes ago, heath55 said:

the state government is broke - not sure how much they'll be able to leverage considering they've pulled PSO's from train stations & are closing police stations earlier - there's not exactly ample funds to be handed out

The state government is not broke. It is guaranteed by the Commonwealth and the RBA owns most of the semis issued by the Vic gov.

Anyway, we're talking about a contribution of perhaps $20 million, which should be framed as a community initiative. Right now, public land is used by a select group of people and with our proposal, we'd be opening the space up to the public.

Frame it right and the proposal is a drop in the ocean.

Meanwhile, perhaps the state gov should bring back into public ownership some of the tollroads it helped build with federal funding and Kennett sold to foreign companies for 99 year leases.

17 minutes ago, Redleg said:

I posted that staying could be the best leverage to get Caulfield done.

I didn't know that the CRRT had an MOU with us yet. If they have that is great.

If the State Government role is only some funding and they are asking us to not make any announcements at this point, for obvious reasons, that is also good, if we have an airtight commitment for the funding from them, or any new Government.

If the AFL is now involved in pushing us to Waverley temporarily, that could well be as a result of an agreement, involving them with funding also.

A lot of unknowns here, but the public use of the words "interim for Waverley until Caulfield is done" is a great sign that it will happen.

We have met with the federal government as well, as to how that meeting went, I have no idea.