Little Goffy

I don't know what made you wake up this morning hating Joel McDonald, but his selection wasn't even a podium finish for poor selections just in that draft period, and coincidentally that very same draft also includes our best draft choice ever.

B-

That's also what we got last time we drafted a Pickett.

I'm not even kidding. Our 2019 Jackson, Pickett, Rivers was rated a 'B-' draft.

To get an 'A' you need to pull of amazing hauls like Carlton's 2019 of Kemp, Philip and Ramsay.

It is all lining up for a 2028 peak, just as the gypsy woman said.

Concentration started to slip in the last, and there were too many contests and loose balls we were second to get to.

Great effort, needed just a bit more for a bit longer.

a moment of defensive panic and overdoing it

Well, at least now we know we must attack and attack again

top stuff Shelley Heath with the two pursuit tackles.

Worth switching on just to see tiny Nat Edwards trying to interview Tahlia Gillard on field.

Righto, let's broaden some horizons!

And now we've had a little light fun, time for something rarer than an actually easy Demonstone quiz. I was pretty pleased with myself for finding this a few weeks back.

Wolf Hunt, presenting the voice of a young wolf trapped in the encirclement created by a mass hunt, breaks the rules of tradition by crossing the lines of flags and ropes set up by hunters to deter the wolves from escaping the closing hunters. Generation after generation of wolves are massacred because they never break the rules, but this one breaks free of the rules and suddenly finds itself free of the massacre as well.

And that's a story he told in Soviet Russia in the late 1960s.

At 195cm and named Onley... and here's me in a strange mood lately of being obsessed with nicknames.

Welcome to Demonland, 'Big If.'

1 hour ago, demoncat said:

Already preparing our 2029 premiership team

You think we're going to go back-to-back? 😉

Gold Coast are going to get very nervous anytime he says he's going to head home and go fishing in a tinny loaded with

• His best mate

• His junior coach

• A million dollars

I'd pay the club a bonus if they set up that photo.

2 hours ago, biggestred said:

JVR will be fine, especially when we arent bombing it onto his head in the pocket as a "game plan"

I just had brutal flashbacks to Lance Whitnall constantly having to hit the brakes on a lead and run back the other way because the garbage Carlton midfield was apparently watching the game via satellite on a 3 second delay.

We should recruit him as an assistant just to yell at midfielders to think about their inside 50 kicks.

He's known to have a good footy brain and it would be good for the soft cap because I suspect he'd pay us just for the chance to unload.

Good on the Demonland community for turning this into a proper discussion, but yeesh I hate it when people start these threads with a tone of 'the club is so dumb and I am so smat'.

We've invested heavily in young talls in recent drafts and it is unfortunate we're currently in a wait and see position on the progress of Jefferson and Van Rooyen. Especially frustrating with JVR because early on he was really looking like exactly what we were hoping for.

The 'if' scenario is a good one, though. If JVR and Jefferson can just become solid role-players in their respective styles, that's actually a really nicely matched pair of talls, which can complement throwing in an extra whether that third is a bullocking beast close to goal or something more mobile.

The likelihood of Max Heath spending a lot of time forward will give us a bit of genuine height which we haven't had since.... um... wow have we ever actually had a notably tall tall forward? Ben Brown for a couple of seasons and then?

Isn't Ben King a free agent next year? So there's a potentual solution if things really don't improve.

Heh, if we have Gold Coast's first pick next year, does that mean we also get the compensation pick?

I'm joking of course; we'll obviously be trading the death ride pick back to Gold Coast for Bailey Humphrey.

To think we could all have been watching crocodile dundee

One thing I noticed from the limited available highlights is he does have a bit of the Melksham ability to kick the ball effectively across sharp angles. That'll be a mentorship for sure.

The end of 2026 will likely see a total of four small forwards or alleged forward-mids retiring or delisted, which would have left just Chandler and Mentha alongside an increasingly midfield-destined Kysaiah. Chandler appears to be developing towards the Nibbler role across half forward, rather than a crumber or chaos-maker.

By the end of 2026 Pickett and Tomato (I'm committing to 'Tomato' right here and now) could be our only true small forwards on the primary list.

Let's imagine a future forward line with everything going well in the new young cohort -

F: L Pickett Kentfield Jefferson

HF: Matthews Van Rooyen Chandler

Rotating: K Pickett, Tholstrup, Culley, Werridee.

I can see that working and can see that L Pickett and Tomato would be necessary cogs.

But no doubt a 'courageous' draft move, to go for two relatively unquantified players in a notoriously difficult to quantify role.

4 hours ago, Demonland said:

Latrelle with the precision moustache to match Kysaiah, Xavier looks like he just got back from the proverbial 'visit to Turkey'.

Gotta admit, them Pickett's are a good-looking family.

There's still a couple of Sams available, and this round we pick before Richmond so might even get one.

Sam Swadling is clearly a suitable hard worker and accumulator in the midfield.

Jevan Phillipou is the best non-Sam midfielder still available, and I suspect would benefit immensely from both the freedom provided by having Viney and Steel taking responsibility in midfield, and also from the mentorship towards accountability alongside his attacking power.

I'm very keen on Thredgold because you need a focal point of solid reliability in defence even if your overall game style is built on dynamism, and I've always hated seeing us lose games because an opposition tall simply dominated every available match-up.

Ludowyke is there if we decide we really want to stack up young tall forwards (Van Rooyen, Kentfield, Jefferson) and see which ones can make it.

Speaking fully rationally, I think my preference goes;

Phillipou, Thredgold, Swadling.

It's quite a jump from his early projected draft position, but then again so was the presumed alternative Nairn.

One clear factor is that with Kysaiah spending so much time in the midfield, even when he does go forward he can't be dashing around like a terrier, and that means that our forward line hasn't had a super-fast agile threat in it for a while.

Chandler isn't 'slow', but he isn't dangerously fast. Mentha, Henderson and Sharp? We clearly have a need.

Something that caught my eye in one of the profiles is that his SANFL u18s numbers included a disposal efficiency of 88%. That is extraordinary for someone who spends much of their time in and around the forward 50.

The highlight reels all feature him dashing and twisting and turning and finding space and kicking goals, but clearly he is also capable of using the ball in general.

Feels like if you can put an AFL-grade level of fitness into him, and he learns to enjoy pursuit tackling, then he could be a major weapon.

Thrilled!

I had been keen on him but assumed he was no real chance to be available for us.

And I'm setting my auto-correct to turn Xavier Taylor into 'Xtra' and everyone else just has to live with it.

Hmm, is it just me or are Harry Dean and X Taylor the only key position prospects taken so far (speaking at pick 17)

Xtra is only 192cm, so even he isn't necessarly a KPD.

Probey and Derpsma are both notably tall but not really key position types.

Now I'm just casually monitoring in case we trade up to get Lindsay or Thredgold.

1 minute ago, picket fence said:

MASSIVE MISTAKE!!

1 minute ago, Ghostwriter said:

Sooooo happy we’ve got LSP!!!!

Well, this ought to keep Demonland chatting for a few days.

Good for our sponsors. Plenty of engaging content.

Wow, Richmond just going maximum Sam.

How will I protect my poor little boy?

I'm very, very happy about us getting X Taylor.

I guess there's no chance Taylor will trade down the order to target the other Taylor?

2 minutes ago, Mickey said:

Which was the really dodgy one? EnergyWatch?

EnergyWatch was the too-good-to-be-true white knight sponsorship which then allegedly backslid on the actual payment schedule before having to be dumped as a sponsor for reputational reasons... in so far as their CEO/Founder went on a series of bizarre noxious rants.

Just now, Mickey said:

These smaller companies are also probably run or owned by Dees fans. And my understanding is they can usually use sponsorships for tax purposes.

For what it's worth, I was pretty sure MA Group are in this category, were already a sponsor and have just upgraded.

And lets not forget the great Kaspersky heist!

'Business to business' related sponsorships seems to be a growing part of the sports sponsorship market.

The top-level sponsors are mostly consumer targeted and there's a whole lot of smaller sponsorships by food and drink brands, but mixed in there's... gets google out...

Akambo 'Institutional grade managed accounts and asset consulting'

Nueva 'Business IT security'

FujiFilm, which lives on as business media services

2Construct, civil construction project management

Sleigh group: A dedicated localization company, into a technologically focused language services company

Melbourne vehicle management - manages vehicles, probably in Melbourne

McLardy McShane, specialists in tax-optimised contributions to your personal sporting obsession via business promotional expense deductibles.

MA Services Group could make their sponsorship money back just from the schmoozing opportunities in a sympathetic corporate box.