Little Goffy

I'm currently (in a quasi-professional capacity, what a strange world) reading good ol' boy Clausewitz's On War and came across a quote specially designed for this thread and the Demons 2021. ... "it is the noiseless harmony of the whole action which we should admire, and which only makes itself known in the total result. The inquirer who, tracing back from the final result, does not perceive the signs of that harmony is one who is apt to seek for genius where it is not, and where it cannot be found." There was no moment of genius or extraordinary innovation in the Demons 2021 that set us apart. We simply got to the point of acting as a unified group on the necessities which everyone kind of already knows about.

That we absolutely deserved the premiership we won gives me a little thrill every time.

Hibberd seems like an ideal post-2020 'playing assistant coach' type. All the enthusiasm and all the determination. Provides support which lets the coaches within soft-cap limits focus on their most crucial duties. Plus, he's proven himself to not be easily written off.

What I find noticeable is that he never rushes it. Neither of those kicks and few if any of his other shots from play seem hurried OR hesitated. It's actually really impressive despite being completely undramatic. "No dramas" Clayton, that's our guy.

I'll be looking forward to your musings. I imagine a lot of the details of those games will feel very different now - particularly the mid-season wobble and scoring problems which now just looks like a process of getting our proverbial together but was a bit alarming at the time.

We just got Luke Dunstan for nothing and Dunstan is one accurate kick per game short of being as good as O'Meara. Expensive and unnecessary. But at least I get an excuse to bring out my favourite picture of him;

Starting to look like they might even be doing it -worse- than the Demon's first rebuild 2007-11. Wingard, Mitchell and O'Meara are only in the 27-28 years range. They have a dozen other players older than that and many of them are also important to the team. It is a big risk to be trying to dispose of your remaining mature players when you are already about to lose a host of them naturally. But I guess that works both ways - if they don't hit the panic button and get whatever draft selections and young players they can, they will be in all sorts of trouble anyway. Looks to me like the only part of the ground they have reasonable prospects in from the younger players is defence. That's important (As we so happily know - Oh hey, did you hear we won the premiership? Yeah, we did that) but damn they look threadbare everywhere else. They've got just 80 games total into every player they have 21yrs or under (Demons: 220!) and that's a fair reflection of what's available in that group. I've looked at it and talked myself in a circle but the conclusion is; I cannot see a way Hawthorn can avoid a really awful and sustained slump. YAAAAAAAY! WOOOO HOOO!

Anytime I think about St Kilda's history it is that period from late 70s to late 80s which really makes me grind my teeth. After their 66 triumph St Kilda played in a whole string of finals and another grand final in 71. They had become a serious and competent club again. But then... I don't even know how to describe it fairly. The fact is the club's culture was destroyed by people, including senior administrators, who were far more interested in the social status and opportunities to get laid which being part of a football club gave them, rather than actually pursuing a premiership. 'St Kilda party boys' was just the tip of an incredibly toxic iceberg. If "footy boys culture of the 80s" was the tip of the iceberg, St Kilda boys culture would be the iceberg, and then in that visible "St Kilda boys culture" would be the tip of another iceberg that descended all the way to an organised and prolific pedophile ring using the club's junior leagues as it's happy hunting ground. I really hope today's St Kilda can go through a process as rejuvenating and honorable as our Demons have been through. I wouldn't even mind if they snagged a premiership in the next five years or so - I'm sure we'll have at least one bad year eventually!

Yeah, massive touch wood and all, but as I recall it Oliver hasn't missed a game since debut. Goodwin has only coached one game without Oliver in the side, and that was as a stand-in for Essendon! 124 games at 24 years is a good start. Many of our other mid-age players have had injury interrupted starts to their career or took a while to find their feet at AFL level, which makes 300 a little harder. Jones himself had 12 seasons missing only one or zero games, which is just incredible and shows the kind of injury and form run it takes to hit 300. If I had to take a guess from the kids I'd actually suggest Trent Rivers. Think Kade Simpson - never got an All-Australian nod and took ten years before he won his first club B&F, but he just kept on being excellent and deservedly notched 342 games. Contradicting what I said a moment ago about the difficulties of reaching 300 after an interrupted early career, I wouldn't put it past Lever to just keep going and going. Ten years from now he will have lost a few steps of speed but he will also only get wiser and harder. I can see him doing a Fletcher-style run. Maybe not to age 40 but enough to clock 300 games. Plus, his injuries cost him form more than so many actual games total; missed about 20 games from 2019-20 overall. This exercise has put me more in a frame of mind of thinking about just how many realistic 200-gamers we have on our list right now, and even more than that, just how many of those still have a hundred games in hand waiting to play!

When I was feeling melodramatic and giving in to corny feelings and all that just before the grand final I built a notion in my head of the three values of the club as they appeared; "Enthusiasm, humility, love". So I'm slightly relieved to see the latter of those mentioned in the OP. Mind you, at the time I also lost 20 minutes of my life creating a 'Gawndalf' photoshop thing. They were stressful times, all right! Anyway, there's something truly beautiful about seeing two of the absolute best players in the game have a really potent working relationship. The touch wood part is of course that they don't end up alienating the other very good midfielders we have by their side, but just on instinct I don't feel like that's likely to be a problem.

Something just made me think of Luke Ball. It's a similar situation except that in Dunstan's case he's been pushed out, there isn't the slightest hint of mercenary, and as of yet the St Kilda coach hasn't bagged out the ex-player. The situational contrast with Ball is making me realise how mad the Saints are to push Dunstan away. When they lost Ball they had four diverse midfielders each with 15+ Brownlow votes that year; Goddard, Montangna, Dal Santo and Hayes.

Any sense of inferiority or cringe is certainly washed away by beating Geelong three times in a season including denying them them the minor premiership with a shot after the siren and then absolutely belting them in a preliminary final (83 points? Seriously?). But. Given that I don't think our team has quite peaked yet, and Geelong are dancing on the edge of a list cliff which they've been pushing their luck on for years already...

Tell you what, I wouldn't want to be the coach assigned to manage the rebuild three years from now.

Nice work, Daisycutter. There have been times this year where people were using this thread to discuss football matters and it was seriously derailing from the original esteemed purpose. Premiership Bananas. The way it should be.

My early gut feeling was that we would target one of the multiple 'hard' medium defenders as a succession plan for Hibberd. There are I think four of them predicted to go from 15-25. I'm even more comfortable with that guess now, and I'd be really keen to know who The Great and Wise Jason has his eye on. Alas, we'll have to wait. Of course, the chances we'll actually finish with 17, 37 and 49 are minimal.

Well, I absolutely didn't think this would happen. To the point where I didn't even give it much thought. Lots of respect going around for Dunstan's character, so that's a good starting point. Free Agent, reportedly fairly low salary. Tick. My gut feeling when I saw the news was that St Kilda must be mad to be letting him go. Good sign. The question marks are on his kicking and his durability. We might be able to help with both as it seems we've got a pretty good system in place for improving these things. I like it. I like the comfort of knowing that we have a little more depth in the engine room. We were very lucky/well managed with injury this season and it is a comfort to know that we aren't just assuming we will have a run like that every year. Very cost-effective pickup, a definite quality AFL player. I'm genuinely concerned about St Kilda, though. In particular the burden placed on Jack Steele. If they break him it is a crime against football as well as the death of their competitiveness.

My main concern is that this season we only ever lost games to teams that finished the season below us.

If there's a way to view it without giving the scumrag any revenue, let me know.

I'm thinking back, and did people really 'hate' the Lions during their epic period? I recall mostly amazement and respect. Even with the salary cap bonus they received. Random other thoughts; - Obviously beating Essendon and then Collingwood twice meant everyone had a bit of gratitude for the lions services to football in general. - Another element is the sheer level of respect for that team and the fact that in a couple of those years they overcame significant injury problems and even a form dip dangerously close to the finals in 2003. - Will people really hate us if they are enjoying our football whenever we aren't playing their team? - As far as I can see, none of our players are very annoying. We don't have anyone like Toby Green or Dustin Martin who gives people the ****s even when they are being brilliant. We don't particularly duck or dive, we don't drop people behind play, we don't even do much trout-faced imploring for frees. - Our coach doesn't sook in the media or try to play politics with tribunal results. As a club, even on the occasions we've contested tribunal decisions we've done so in a low-key manner without grandstanding. - It seems to me that our only serious risk of becoming hated is our residue of silver-tailed entitled coterie ******* which includes an unfortunate smattering of smarmy politicians who might campaign with a Demon scarf to try to be more 'relatable'.

I'd argue our most urgent need is another key forward prospect. I think I posted somewhere else that I'm quite pleased to see several respectable 'Hibberd' types on the draft projections between 15-25. I think moving up the board that far is a realistic goal and being able to secure a disciplined medium-sized defender is an opportunity we should grab. That would likely leave us with only very late picks after that, and I can see them being used on a collection of tall kids with good attitudes who can be given a few years to develop. Some won't progress, some will. For the first time that I can recall, we have a brief moment of luxury where we can give them a little time to mature. That all points to a pretty quiet trade period unless some bonus opportunity comes up.

I think there's something to be said for winning a premiership before a bunch of player hit their absolute premium contract periods! If enthusiasm and the opportunity for greatness in a great team is worth even 10% off contract expectations, that's a couple of extra players in our best 22 we wouldn't have been able to afford if we'd spent another two years being 'really good' but not quite breaking through.

I'm always a little staggered whenever anyone makes a decision based on money after the point their income breaks $10,000/week. All just seems a bit silly. " I'm a 29 year old who has already paid off a lovely house and has a million dollars worth of other personal savings. I know I'll be coming home to my wife and kids miserable and distant every day, but the extra 10-15% on the contract makes it all worthwhile."

Maybe it is a silver lining to the game itself being in Perth. We will have full license and good cause to go nuts celebration in the preseason (fans only of course) and to really lose our minds in round 1.

So... my wife knew the result before the game even began. As they were bringing the premiership cup out, not only did the ribbon on the Bulldog's side of the cup slip down, but after they tidied it, it slipped down again and was left there on display. Game over. Not only did it predict the result it even predicted the progress of the game.

Even taken with many grains of salt, I noticed one thing I liked about Twomey's projections. There are a few respectable medium-sized defenders mentioned in the late first early second round I'd make a confident guess that we'll be trading up to the end of the first round and making sure we get Jason Taylor's favorite out of the four candidates; Tom Brown, Darcy Wilmot, Campbell Chesser, Josh Sinn. After that, it'll be a late draft party for minimum salary cap and the joys of speculating.