Little Goffy

I guess the question is; how many of our players underperformed in 2025, and how much of that was a factor of issues related to Oliver, Petracca and May?

Was Petty forward persisted with because of some issue with May?

Was the plateauing of Sparrow and Rivers even partly due to midfield 'politics'?

How about our movement inside 50? How much of that is Petracca insisting on being the main man, nevermind Oliver being our number 3 ranked for inside 50s but not even top ten for goal assists - oh look, I found the stat Stephen King brought up in 12 minutes!

How much of Simon Goodwin's stagnation as a coach was a product of distractions caused by managing these three and the layers of club politics that swirled around them?

I'm playing devil's advocate here a bit, but there is an upside to them going, even if we get 'unders' in trades, and setting aside the 20% or so of our salary cap it frees up.

Clearly St Kilda's salary cap squeeze is having an effect, with Marshall wanting out to Geelong, a club which does not have that problem.

Not sure it makes too much difference to Heath's preferences, though. He'd just be behind De Konig instead of Marshall. Plus... it is St Kilda.

At Melbourne Heath would be behind only The Gawn and competing only with Tom Campbell for opportunities, and would have a clean run at the succession given Campbell's age. I'd argue we would also love to reduce the amount of time Gawn has to spend jogging around the ground, so the role of a genuine full time forward-ruck is very much there.

IF the trade actually happens and IF Heath develops into a solid ruck, then it is an optimal scenario for everyone involved.

I always hated that there was a Collingwood player I respected so much.

Good job on the club for solving that problem.

Upsides;

Can support and guide the young forward line while not directly competing for the spot for our 'true' tall forwards.

Brings character and intelligence into the culture and provides support to the new coaching group.

Is one of those players who continue to work at it, support the team structure, and require opposition attention even when having a quiet day.

Presumably, not a huge salary.

Downsides;

Might play limited total number of games [because old]. Although the only time he has missed any substantial number of games was 2024, with a ruptured pectoral tendon. No history of chronic problems or recurring hamstring twangs. Touch wood.

20 minutes ago, BDA said:

half the league are Irish

8 minutes ago, BigBadBustling said:

Slight exaggeration there, but yes, a lot of Irish, where there are links to Aussie Rules. Not a lot from a rugby union background though

This is Australia, so half the league are half Irish. Which means if a quarter of the league is all Irish, and quarter of the league is not Irish then once you mush it all together the remaining stew would be half Irish.

Right now a significant portion of the League is just Maeve Chaplin.

hrmmf. Got a little sloppy to let our play break down a few times under pressure and eventually paid the price.

Has to be our top priority.

Good fun seeing Hore literally sit an opponent on their r's and winning the free kick for it too.

Also enjoy the 'F-F-S Tayla' lip reading after the weird collision in defence.

Main downside to this game is the Essendon uniform. Basically a trussed hernia.

13 minutes ago, Demon Disciple said:

Looks like a nice day in Sydney.

I absolutely love that the next sub-heading on the AFL.com.au article is 'Rivals monitoring sun'.

I had just thought 'Geez, I hope he used properly tested SPF'.

Jack Steele sees out his two years as a 'Daniel Cross' culture setter and midfield depth.

The poor guy is basically St Kilda's Nathan Jones, except they are well out of love and in need of a new start.

He's not fast and would be only a midfield grinder - certainly not the magic beans - but if the Trac and Claz show happens and the Flanny & Humpy show doesn't happen we'll need good, uh, soil, for our existing home grown beans to grow in.

I wonder how he feels about Alan Richardson?

Note that personally I am ambivalent about this and merely raising it as a thing lurking in the background, not actually spruiking.

Ugh. Ye of little faith.

Once you embrace what the old gypsy lady told me in a dream, you can very easily see the many paths back to potency.

We are already locked in as 2028 premiers, so the key is to watch events unfold with an awareness of how they can be a part of that path.

4 hours ago, DubDee said:

Apparently Humphrey hasn't said a word so far

😉

Keeping his cards close to his vest.

11 hours ago, Jaded No More said:

If I was a betting woman, I reckon Clarry ends up at Sydney or he stays put.

Sydney with Goody and away from the fishbowl of the media would work best for him.

I know most fans don’t care what happens to players once they leave, but I care deeply that whatever move Clarry makes, supports his overall wellbeing. It’s more important than footy.

Poor Goodwin, like being dumped by your partner and moving to a new home for a fresh start, only to find your teenage brat already has a key.

11 hours ago, KozzyCan said:

Don't think it's that complex. Hardwick is looking at the age profile of his team and knows he needs more senior players. To get one who could also play the Dustin Martin role in his new team makes complete sense. They have so much young talent around that they know they will have to lose a bit of it here or there.

The only thing that will make the suns more marketable is competing for flags.

Whoa, Petracca is a great player and his 2021-2023 rivals Martin, but Martin 'does it himself' in ways that Petracca lacks the mobility and skills to do. Trac is a powerful component of a unit, while Martin actively changes the scenario and allows multiple other players to be 'good ordinary' role players. Martin is more like a 200% Melksham.

That said, at his best 2021-2023, Trac's contribution was as effective for the team as Martin's was for Richmond, and plugging even post-spleen Petracca into a midifeld with Anderson, Rowell and Touk Miller is an awful prospect for all opponents.

It is just as well Gold Coast will have their depth thinned a little since both Flanders and Humphrey are obviously coming to us. (wink wink oink oink)

Just going to add a bit of a pre-season and rookie draft supplement because a few solid names have been left out.

2010

Bachaer Houli, Michael Hibberd, Luke Dalhouse, Jasson Johhannnissen, Jeremy McGovern

2011

Sam Frost, Rory Laird, Jack Crisp, Mark Blicavs, Harry Cunningham, Jaeger O'meara (mini)

2012

Dane Rampe, Jack Martin (mini), Jesse Hogan (mini)

2013

James Harmes, Charlie Cameron,

2014

Jack Sinclair, Jayden Short, Adam Saad, Jason Castagna, Nic Newman,

2015

Tom Papley, Dan Houston

24 minutes ago, Demons25 said:

Jackson, Jordan, Harmes, Neale-Bullen, Oliver, May, Pertacca, Spargo - that's 38% of the 21 Premiership team that will end up playing GOOD football at other clubs. It hardly screams great club culture does it?

NONE OF GEELONG'S 2022 PREMIERSHIP PLAYERS HAVE PLAYED FOR OTHER CLUBS!!!!'

Yeah, but how important can they really be if you can't even spell three of them?

Adding all the mooted trades to the existing delistings, we would actually be going into 2026 as an exceptionally young team.

May 33, Trac 29, Oliver 28, Billings 30, Spargo 25, Fullerton 26, Hore 29, and then fragments from the younger delistings.

Realistically that's an entire year taken off our average age, even if a few we bring in are a bit over-age.

I'm fascinated by what our new midfield and wings might look like.

Viney and Sparrow the only full-time insiders with the traditional body type to grind in the pack.

Salem is a mature body and has always been chunkier than he seems. He's not fast enough to be in the open all day, so maybe the role move is finally on.

Picket and Rivers have both spent time in the middle, sometimes with great effect. Both could spend significant time there in '26 and bring nice diversity of match ups.

Of the youngsters;

Culley might be a big enough body and able to contribute as a taller inside mid more often in 26.

Langford you'd imagine will spend incrementally more time in the thick of it but you wouldn't want to rob him of his creative role too quickly.

Lindsay and Windsor have also shown they aren't going to shirk it when it is their turn, but you wouldn't want them bashing around for too much of the day.

Tholstrup might enjoy time in the chaos of it, but that can only be called a loose maybe as far as becoming a regular in the inside mix.

Unless we have some special secret weapon coming in under the radar, it looks like our midfield will be defined by two heavily defensive insiders, then Pickett, Salem, Rivers, and a five talented kids given permission to take turns in there to be bold and have fun.

Oh. I'm okay with that, actually. Especially if it is going to free up around 2mil in salary cap each year even after we subsidise some of it for new clubs.

What the... when did I become an expert at talking myself into optimism? My own mother wouldn't recognise me.

The club has suffered heavily for trying to be extra nice to high maintenance players.

Break ups are always hard but the extra time and attention available for everyone else with May, Trac and Oliver out the door will be priceless.

Controversial statement; in the end, losing Gus and Nibbler will have hurt the club more than losing these three.

5 hours ago, The end is nigh said:

This is the end of culture, we now have environment

Awesome, I'm still in the game. Just need to switch from my anthropologist host to my ecologist hat.

At this point his environmental management plan resembles a widespread controlled burn!

Is this 'veil of negativity' clean out version 2?

Feels genuinely odd being thanked by someone (or more accurately an entity) to whom/to which I feel genuinely grateful to.

One day I'll be rich and will slip you a fifty.

For now, just bask in the glory of knowing Demonland is one of few online activities which survived the birth of my son. Does that make you family?

8 hours ago, Redleg said:

This is probably nitpicking, but can we please use another word/phrase than “dead” to me.

Especially in these times we can use another description.

An alternative for these times, hmm...

"Biologically cancelled."

Wait.. I had an actual reason to be on this thread!

The removal of the sub rule and introduction of a 23rd player; How will this affect Max Heath and in particular Tom Campbell. Do we expect to see Campbell adding his mighty jawline to our forward mix for long periods to ease our total rotations, covering some rucking in the forward line to minimise the risks of Gawn taking a shot on goal?

And in all seriousness, would the list managers have known this fundamental change in the value of a variety of players was coming?

If Trac went to Freo maybe we could get Andrew Brayshaw in and finally be able to put some players back into the 'Brayshaw's Mum' development program.

How we kept her off the soft cap books is a mystery almost as troubling as the Bellarine farms.

I'll take Butters, Walsh, Zac Bailey and Ben King.

Not one of - all of.

Enough run to overwhelm anyone anywhere, and a lump of a forward waiting for the ball to arrive.

Probably about $6m/season between them, but hey who is counting?

39 minutes ago, Mouseymoo said:

Just had a little squiz over on that "ontrac5" insta page: 543k followers and each post has engagement numbers of on average about 30 comments and maybe 10 shares. If I'm being generous.

That means only 0.0036% of his audience engages with his posts.

I smell BS on the legitimacy of those numbers and think his social media savy misses has cooked the books most of those followers are bought or bots 😂

There's something really iffy about a spouse whose actual job is full-time social media marketer of their partner.

"Honey, I need your nonna to come up with some trendier classic family recipes".

To do what his instinct wants to do he needs to be that little bit stronger and that little bit fitter.

'Needs a good preseason' is a cliche but Tholstrup is emblematic of just how much more we should hope for and demand from our 2nd to 4th year players going into 2026.

If they catch that energy as a group, we go big and player movement is all just blah blah blah blah.

1 hour ago, Older demon said:

On SEN, Trac decided Sunday and with the club's permission, to visit Adelaide and test the market. That's all it is atm, but it did slip that Trac has had a chat with Hardwick at Gold Coast.

The subtle MFC message, and from Gary Lyon, is that he will cost you, or to quote Gaz, "Pony Up". The message is that MFC want a player in the deal, and if the deal doesn't suit, Trac stays where he is. I have heard 3rd hand that Trac won't go to Adelaide, but may look good in a Suns jumper. It is no surprise that GC states that Humphrey is not negotiable so I guess we know who Melbourne wants, and of course, Flanders may be more gettable.

In the words of Sun Tsu, be patient, always hold the high ground and do not compromise

"The expert at getting the enemy to make his move shows himself and the enemy is certain to follow. In doing so he moves the enemy, and lies in wait for him with his full force"

Trac, go get us a Josh Kennedy.

16 minutes ago, Greg Schneider said:

Pick 10 2017 and a future first 2018 for Lever. Are you insinuating the 2018 draft was weak? The first round was brilliant

For some reason that draft became a personal curiosity for me. It wasn't weak as such, but a funny 'shape'. The top dozen were looking great (and have for the most part fulfilled that promise) and then it got very even. After all, Sparrow and Jordon are among the most games played outside that top dozen or so.

I'm sure we were banking on improvement, which thankfully came, but also there were three academy picks in the first round, and Gold Coast got pick 3 as compensation for free agent Lynch, so our traded pick ended up being pick 19, Liam Stoker for Carlton.

From Pick 14 to 32, ten players are already delisted, and only five have played a hundred games, which includes Tom Sparrow. The late first round into the second round was kind of a soft belly.

Not all of that could have been predicted, but the probabilities would have been considered.

Anyway, just for amusement's sake, how much would you expect a discount to trade picks from 2001 for picks in 2003? Now that's a banger and a clanger!