Little Goffy

Let us say that, when available and in form, we might look to Nathan Jones, Tom McDonald, Max Gawn, Jack Viney, Jake Lever and Stephen May as conveivable captains, and Jetta, Hibberd, Brayshaw and Lewis as other leaders. Unfortunately only one of those players has had an actually good season. Most have had a terrible time through career-worst form or just plain old injury mess. Jones, Brayshaw and Viney could all be argued to be in that twilight zone where they keep plugging along being ok, but not much resembling what they'd want to be and are capable of. What I find interesting is that all of those nine unfulfilled players have had poor years for mostly individual reasons of injury, age and form. 2019 Demons - a test case of what happens to a football club when 90% of its leaders are significantly under their best.

Funnily enough, and other people have alluded to this, we have a big fat wad of capable 23 year olds on our list. Led by best-22 locks Harmes, Petracca, Brayshaw, Salem and Lever, and followed up by Hore, Smith, Nibbler, Lockhart, Kolodjasnij and O.Mc. I'm not too anxious about the overall age profile of our list, though it is always good to have kids coming through. Realistically, we need to MAXimise our next five or so years before our group of important 26-27 year olds fades away, but we aren't looking at any impending rebuild disaster anytime soon. Having said all that, I would like to see a quality draft crop in 2019, and I'm less and less inclined to trade lavishly to get 'ok-good' players, even when they suit a desirable role.

Why not use pick 3 to grab Langdon, Hill, and a certian unnameable freo key forward in one go. All problems solved at once. Speaking of North, Nick Larkey is a big lump of a lad who hasn't really et the world on fire but his kicking accuracy leads the league at an astonishing 83% (20 goals, 4 behinds). I'd rather make a realistic pursuit of him than follow the absurd fantasy of chasing Brown.

Keep the salary cap room for Lachie Whitfield in 2020. Pump the draft for all the speedy good kicks available. Trade up and down, and even on draft night, to get to the right spots to grab them at appropriate value. Ta da.

Is there just something about the Fremantle football club that makes players leave mid-season? https://www.afl.com.au/news/2019-07-31/dockers-utility-to-quit-club-after-fractured-relationship It is starting to look like the club where football careers go to fade away. I wont suggest we should look at picking up Kersten because the prospect of another player with chronic foot problems will just trigger everyone. Footywire, which I rate as pretty reliable, has Kolodjashnij as being out of contract at the end of this year. Did we recently re-sign him for a couple more and footywire is out of date, or is this a kind of Mandela effect thing?

What do people think of maybe trying to grab young big boy Fogarty off the Crows, you know, for next-to-nothing plus irony, as a disgruntled kid who isn't getting a game, is being played out of position in the twos, and wants more opportunities? An additional strong body, and there is no question at all about his willingness to compete and provide a physical presence. I'm not the first person to raise it... https://www.fiveaa.com.au/shows/rowey-bicks/There-Are-Concerns-The-Adelaide-Crows-Could-Lose-A-Young-Gun And Crows fans are fixing on his non-selection as one of the examples of how the coaches have lost the plot. https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/darcy-fogarty-afc-pick-12-in-the-2017-draft.1182615/page-166 I'm sure the Crows would try to play hard, but eh, it has the advantage of being a trade that would for us be useful, but not really a necessity or urgent. Also, I would just love it if the grand total of Adelaide's gains from the Lever trade turned out to be some lesser pick we give them for Fogarty, plus the increasingly minor pick upgrade they get due to their deal with Carlton (which they secured with our 2018 pick) and their current slide.

On the bright side of the Lever deal (and I agree we paid a bit over, but the motive of seking tall defenders and genuine leaders is earnest enough). They used the picks to get Darcy Fogarty in 2017, who has had impressive moments but is mostly spending his time int he SANFL, and the pick they gave Carlton in the wacky on-the-night trade in 2018, which became Liam Stocker. So, using those examples it isn't as if we missed out on major rejuvenation of our list. We also got back pick 35 in 2017 (Harrison Petty), and a bit of loose change. Some trivia about the 2018 draft - the entire second round combined has only played 25 games to date! (Including 2 to Tom Sparrow). - only three players outside the first round have cracked double-figure games in their first season (congrats to Marty Hore) So, I'm not sure it can be argued that 2018 was the draft to load up on. Realisitcally, there were only about a dozen players looking likely to be top-quality players (including three academy selections), and we would not have been expecting to be in the top dozen picks. Could it actually be that we anticipated the thin crop?

Poor Sam. Does anyone else sometimes look at his expression on field and just think 'this guy knows he is cursed'? He clearly is cursed, but good on him for carrying on despite that.

Noah Anderson?

Isn't there some kind of secret code about ruckmen? Same as 'never hand-ball to a ruckman running past' - 'never let a ruckman be captain'. I'm just being silly of course, but it doesn't happen often. It would be interesting to see how Gawn responds, because at the moment he's got all the fun and the candour that you want from a champion, and I wonder if having the role as a formal representative of the club might actually limit that a bit? What are the key things you'd look for from a captain these days? - Consistent good form and effort on field, and in training. - Visible and memorable media presence and positive relationship with fans. - Makes teammates feel more confident about themselves and their place in the club. - Helps teammates understand their role and responsibilites as professional footballers. - Communicates effectively as a representative of the players to coaches and club. I'd generally say Gawn meets all of these, though some are insider details we can only guess at. Viney and McDonald might have met all these criteria except they've had such poor individual years, for various reasons.

We do that exactly, except for the horns part. So close to the original that I must give a nod and imply a secret handshake.

Yep, Fritsch is clearly most effective as a forward, he just has the habit of making himself useful there. Not often spectacular or genius, just keeps things going. Frost, on the other hand... yeah I for one am not comfortable with the amount of risk that comes with having him deep in defence. But there's no doubt he brings a lot of the initiative and spontanaeity that can help keep things unpredictable going into attack. On a wing, that crazy pony has space to run around.

I worked out a complete gameplan drawing inspiration from a combination of Macedonian combined arms, the Roman cohort organisation, the aphorisms of Sun Tzu, and modern blitzkrieg breakthrough tactics, and the anthropology of pre-historic weapons and warfare. I'm not kidding. So now at least everyone knows I am just as frustrated as they are, even though I'm usually the one saying it will all be ok in the end.

Ugh. According to the AFL match page St Kilda's transition game has been far more effective than Melbourne's. The Saints have won 41 defensive half intercepts and launched 37 points from these, while the Demons have won 50 defensive half intercepts without generating any resulting score. Before I saw this I was merely bitterly disappointed, now I've got that feeling of futile anger that lurks in the depths of your gut.

Well. It looks like we now know exactly where we will finish on the ladder. Very odd, on percentages we are effectively three wins ahead of the suns but two wins behind the blues.

Bizarrely, the 3AW commetators think he is among the best on ground, which even from their own comments doesn't make sense, they are noting the turnovers.

After a couple of dud tunes, we have another for the victory playlist - James Brown, Get on Up: Starts with a goal to Fristsch, finishes just after Smith nails his. So all our goals have been thanks to two mighty smooth songs so far.

I'm playing some music alongside the online radio commentary. "160 million dollar Chinese man" from the Ocean's 11 soundtrack just got us three of the coolest-sounding goals ever. I'm gonna keep the funky rhythms going because clearly I've foud the answer to all our problems.

And that's just specifically for whacking Simon Godfrey! Hall and Everitt immediately come to mind as other candidates in the Godfrey-smashing game. Maybe it is part of being listed as All-Australian in the 2000s? Kind of like the current policy of Browlow medallists being allowed to whack people in the face, except back then it was compulsory. So... just leaving a thought out there... if jnrmac is going to the trouble of digging up ancient footage of misdemeanors and only bringing the one of Goodes... that kind of implies that there might be some... um... 'ulterior motive', shall we euphemistically say.

Ease up, Scarlett did specifically and in a bit of detail talk about how he now realises that he had been given a wrong impression through media slant, hype, and so forth. He also says that now that he's seen the actual interviews and comments Goodes made he 'has a lot more time for him'. Seriously, a guy comes out and says 'I acknowledge I had a wrong impression' and you still leap on the tiniest phrase to infer that 'you're probably a racist'. [censored] move. Pull your ego out of it and let some actual healing happen.

The only thing better would be to trade with Adelaide and then offer Carlton their own top pick back.

It is pretty simple. Nobody saw it coming, everyone is confused about what happened, and to the extent that anyone can see where the problems are, they are practical and itemised and the general mood (outside this forum) is that the club is competently run and very actively setting about correcting the problems. I know, right, maaaaadness!

Darren Burgess saw this thread and signed up.

Yep, the idea that Goodes was some kind of unique sinner is just contemptible. Generally when people come up with an excuse so obviously contrived and inadquate, I take it as a simple confirmation they can't come up with any actual good reason. How many times does it need to be said: Goodes was booed beyond anything experienced by any other player in the modern game, because racists put a LOT of effort into pushing an agenda which grossly misrepresented the things he said and did, and enough people were fooled by (or personally keen on) that agenda to create an avalanche. People who were fooled, can now look to the scum who misled them, in media, in politics, and in forums, and say: 'what you did was wrong, you manipulated me into doing something that I now understand was wrong, I will not forgive you or trust you'. As for the people who were genuinely keen on the racist agenda... well...

I despise managementese but hopefully he's looking at 'work cut out for him' and thinking 'opportunity laid out in front of him'. Assembling an agenda of actually achieveable goals based on Demonland gripes for the last six months, his checklist would read something like: Item 1: Reform our mdifield capability by adding the proverbial yard of acceleration and a bit of agility to our young beast group such as Petracca, Brayshaw and Oliver. Item 2: Maximise the advantages of the group of relatively light, not-quite-tall mobile players like Hannan, Fritsch, Hunt, Kolodjashnij, Smith and Hore. Item 3: Help a few older players stay refreshed and nimble, particularly with helping Jones in the necessary reshape to play on usefully in 2020, and also Hibberd and Jetta as particular examples. Item 4: Ensure our key position players have the 'right kind' of confidence-building weight and muscle, whether adding or subtracting from the gross amount, and get Tom McDonald back to the front of the running trials. Item 5: Above all else, bring in a risk-controlling program to develop the 'protective' strength and flexibility of our host of players going through recovery or with patterns of injury. There we go, easy. And now I have a baseline on which to judge the poor guy. Does he know what he is in for, if we do anything but triumph continuously for the next five years?