Little Goffy

The trouble with delisting Oscar McDonald is he is our third best key position defender. Necessary depth at this time. Even if Tomlinson does move primarily to defence I can't see him as a true 'key defender' A similar argument could be made for persevering with Tom McDonald except he is on at least double, perhaps three times as much money as he's worth if all he is is a depth player who might regain form 'some day'. If we're delisting from defence, surely Joel Smith if finished back there. He's either moving to the forward line in 2021 or out the door.

I think players like Harley Bennell are (yet another of the many excellent) one of the reasons supporting the case for significantly upgrading the resources and profile of the second-tier competitions. There are many hugely talented players who are a joy to watch but who lack either the 'completeness', temperament or fanatical level of professionalism needed to play at the top 0.1% level. Imagine the magnificent teams you could assemble from the not-quite crowd.

Had an impressive 2018 but didn't back it up. He's practically a Demon already. What really bakes my potatoes about Ronke is that he laid ten tackles to go with those 7 goals. It would have to be one of the best single games by a small forward, ever. I can't recall but wasn't it also 7 goals, no behinds? If it was the draft and we were talking about a kid who had only shown glimpses but those glimpses were the best TAC games ever, and he was still available in the third round... For what it's worth I think his 2020 was written off by injury, take that as a positive that he hasn't had the chance to show maturity, or a negative that's he's buggered his hips or somethingand will never get back the agility he needs. I say pick the kid up cheap and feed him to Burgess and see what gets spat out.

Yes, they would be wanting some strong bodies to support Cripps, absolutely no would they be offering up either of their two potentially gun key forwards. After McKay and Curnow they've got McGovern and Casboult then fringe players. Their game style also loves being able to push a long leading tall well out on a long lead to then bang it to another tall target inside 50, so there's plenty of room in their forward line. What Carlton would like in the middle is a couple more Ed Curnows on the cheap, not any need for more outright guns. A couple of years ago we might have been able to slip the Dom Tyson for something handy, but right now we actually don't have much in the way of strong, mature-bodied midfielders who are supportive grinders rather than centre of attention.

Jack Viney plays his best football when he is assigned a clear defensive task and then counterattacks when the opportunities come. It focuses him and also minimises the weakness of his 'impulsive' ball use because the occasions when a tagger gets the ball are rarely part of plan A. Put him on the opposition's best and/or softest inside ball user and tell him to dominate that opponent. When he's not doing that, put him up forward and tell him to hunt at will and to be as impulsive as he wants. Do it right and we'll be talking about Mitch Wallis as the proverbial poor man's Jack Viney.

Demons are into Ben Ronke as part of deal for Preuss.

No, no, I am just noting that there has never been a time when there have not been rumours about Jesse Hogan. I know nothing and, I expect, that's as much as almost anyone else!

Rumours about Jesse Hogan. Less well known of Newton's Laws and one of the least useful of the 'universal constants' in physics.

My spouse-person refers to T Mac as 'Luther' from Umbrella academy. I would certainly understand him wanting to leave if the changes to his body shape are due to being injected with chimp-serum. That's Essendon-level stuff.

The tackling is definitely an issue and more generally we make quite a few mistakes or ineffectual efforts when we are in that close physical zone as defenders. Throwing ourselves at players we should be impeding, over-committing to tackles, or simply chasing to where the opponent is instead of moving to intercept. This is definitely something that can be coached, so, add to the shopping list 'tackling and pressure coach'. On the principle of send a thief to catch a thief, someone like Sam Mitchell might be an interesting person to approach as a specialist consultant.

Brayshaw's mother needed hypnotherapy to coke with the anxiety about him back playing after his concussion run. McCartin's mother would have to be given opium every quarter time break if he was back on the field. I like the club taking risks on players who may or may not succeed, but I can't embrace being responsible for that level of genuine risk at the more human level.

No, no, it is all perfectly Netflixable! It's a series, not a movie. Season One just ended on a cliffhanger. Will he? Won't he? What really happened? Will a tentacle monster explode out his head? Stay tuned!

I think the lack of playing time in the 2s has bern especially difficult for Hannan as the main thing he seems to lack is the sustained concentration/awareness of the state of play and where to be to get involved or force opponents to cover him while other gaps open up. He's not stupid, and he's had some magnificent moments of making the most of being in the right place at the right time. We've currently got a traffic jam of mid sized forwards who are inconsistent but not write-offs and their shared weakness is lack of defensive effort, whether hunting inside 50 or pushing back to interrupt rebounds. Whichever of that group does that best will find themselves a lock in the best 22 and will, by necessity, find themselves drifting up the wing defensively as well as ready for counterattacks. To the extent that means 'Hannan on a wing' I agree with the OP, because I think he's got all the 'tools' to really capitalize if he can gain the wisdom and fitness to push hard to the right places.

I guess the issue with Preuss is that he is only a ruckman and isn't going to be able to contribute much or get a lot of games as a forward target. Jackson looks like a credible future option, with chop out support available even if Gawn needs weeks off while Jackson is still young. Given how much we need a big body up forward it would be a perfect result for all involved if Preuss moved to somewhere that needs a ruckman only, and in the backswing Melbourne can find a physical forward/ruck who absolutely does not need to be a star, just has to fill the role. A ruckman who isn't a star can't afford to be sentimental and we need to be able to offer maximum opportunity to any forward/ruck who can deliver what we need.

Most ironic post 2020.

A: Part one: Who are the best midfield stoppage coaches in the AFL system? Part two: What does it take to get them to MFC?

First rule of MFCSS... wait three to six weeks... The shock would be someone actually finding a usable toilet at Manuka. Also... I just can't get past the story being 'deliberately leaked'. I mean, really.

There will be quite a few they are holding onto just to have some options around trade time. -Some- of those may be of interest to fill our 18th to 25th spots, so to speak. But no, they will not trade the younger Curnow or Mr McKay. I don't think they'd even do it for another Judd, after seeing Josh Kennedy personally outscore them so many times in the last ten years!

It's a pretty rubbish effort from him, but on the other hand the club has played him out for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of marketing content, free publicity and so forth, so he's probably still in credit on the whole 'look at us, we're turning around the life of a troubled kid' story. Imagine how many times we would've had to sack Garry Lyon and the players of his time, or Jack Watts, or... or... or... and so forth.

Alex Neal-Bullen might disagree. But, seriously, very little information around on what actually happened, but it would NOT appear to be some kind of boozy kebab-and-strip adventure so maybe we should pause a moment. From The Australian (first time I've quoted them as a source on anything for a while!) "It is understood he had made arrangements to organise a bigger car for his young family as the Demons prepared for their last game of the home and away season against Essendon. Bennell, 27, ran out of petrol on the trip and was found by police, who drove Bennell to the petrol station to fill up. He was breath-tested by police when he was found on Saturday and is understood to have had some drinks at the hotel on the previous night" Being breath tested, you'd think if he was particularly boozy the drink-driving would be part of the story, so he must have blown under .05.

Anyone else keeping count of the number of times we go in or out of finals? I think that goal to English makes three changes.

And not a single 4-day turnaround, either. I'm saving a proper chart for after the season so there's no sour grapes but I have a hunch that not many teams have won this year off 4-day breaks unless the opponent was also on 4 days. Nobody could look at our season and think 'oh, well, they had it soft so they don't really deserve where they finished'. Except possibly one of our throwing a sook-session.

Gee, Sydney upsetting Geelong would be handy, save us the trouble of travelling to Perth for the elimination final and we'd be hunting a Geelong that has shown it gets ahead of itself almost as much as we do. Could be fun. I'm just trying to distract myself from 'our' game today.

Geezus that is trivial.

I have to admit I'd completely forgotten just how much range he can cover with his set shots. Which is an odd thing to forget because he's delivered some true beauties. Still has a question mark on him but he's certainly a complex opponent for defenders to match up on. People seem obsessed by his half-back-flank 'destiny' but if that's the way we want things we would still have Frost.