Little Goffy

See, this is the kind of thing that turns people from "one or two games a year" supporters to regulars. It's a great feeling seeing other Demons. Hell, up here in Canberra it's a great feeling just seeing anyone in AFL colours. One of the best things you can do for the club, short of large cash donations is just BEING VISIBLE. So congrats, and bonus points for annoying Eddie McMiwwionaire.

Yeah, it's not a satisfactory situation, but it can be changed. We will be viable next year (oops, it's this year now) substanitally because of the AFL/MCC support. So we have that time to set things right. The sponsor shortage is of course critical, at both the major and minor sponsor levels. Really, with first-rate corporate salesmanship we should be able to get a total of 2 million a year more than we are at the moment (adjust as you see fit for the 'Global Economic Crisis of Doom'). It's the consistent growth in visiblity of the Red and Blue, resilience and community among the supporters, and simply the bulk acquisition of supporters (Hi Casey! You have no idea how happy we are to welcome you!) that are going to make the long-term difference. And for anyone playing with figures in their heads, I find the round numbers of $10 per attendance and $100 per membership to be a pretty good match for the figures. Although in small crowds each extra person is worth more; as much as double.

Next year we would be doing poorly if we failed to break even due to a couple of short term benefits - Player payments were close to 100%, including two highly paid veteran status players. Now we are right on the minimum limit (around 92%). Save approximately 750k. CEO is now, presumably, stable. Sacking Harris and then MacNamee and then going through the two recruiting rounds is an expensive process, despite Peter Spargo's magnificent effort of filling in as CEO for free while the search for Schwab was on. Throw in the numerous incidental costs of the massive changing of the guard at board level. Save as much as 500k. (not kidding) Note that the financial loss for the year included a write down of asset values at the 'associated venues'. This $1mil is not recurring. I'm not sure exactly what is going on with the Debt Status, presumably it went down to $2mil and has now stepped up again a little? Whatever the exact situation, Debt servicing costs will drop a bit for the future. Save 100k, as a conservative estimate. Continued changeover and recrutiment costs of new football department staff (recruting manager, multiple assistant coaches, massive change in fitness and preparation staff) will begin to stabilise as the new panel sets off on it's big adventure together. Also might as well inlcude the costs of negotiating the Casey Fields arrangements, which as we all know has taken a massive amount of effort. Call it 100k, again conservatively. The increased funding from AFL/MCC is a significant boost. Discounting the existing funding arrangements, the $2mil is still a big sum. Let's call it an increase of $1mil, because that gives a nice round number of - $2.5 million improvement in financial position. Minus the Waverly funding and other issues as mentioned. So, we can reasonably expect to hold it steady on the turn next year, with hard work. Longer term, the club is doing important work. It is already noticable that our media relations have/are improving. The effort going into Casey Fields is going to be MASSIVE and MASSIVELY WORTH IT over the next few years, for example - How much difference are things like the Demon Heartland project going to make? Well, if one donation gets ten people in, that is effectively adding one extra person in the crowd to every home game for the season. If 1,000 people donate, there will be 1000 kids at every home game, just through Demon Heartland! How quickly do you think that will start to influence the football culture down in Casey? Other than that, an extra 4,000 members at this time of year, of which 2,000 are new members, can't be all bad. At this stage the success/fail for the year off-field hinges on the major sponsor, and starting to build up a collection of minor sponsors. And, of course, a bit of improvemnt on field wouldn't hurt... At least we know we can't go backwards in that respect.

Short Version Well, here's what still seems to be up. I'm glad I caught the original when it was there. Sustained sillyness. no wonder we have 2,000 completely new members! EDIT: Through AFL/Bigpond site, the full version - Here it is!

A few people have mentioned that it's interesting that weve built up a long list of aboriginal players in recent drafts, with three more this draft. Even more significant that a lot are from truly remote areas. Bennell, Jetta and Jurrah are all in the habit of long trips for games, so they wont be whinging about Casey been 'way out'! Side note - Like Wonaeamirri last year, a couple of comments about them being very quiet guys - really nice, friendly, but hardly saying a word. This is a strong cultural thing, because deference and respect is complex and important in a lot of traditional aboriginal communities so they don't talk much when they are around strangers who they don't know what the appropriate relationship is - you should try doing social research in the top end! - but it settles quickly once people have a good idea of where they stand with people. It is also a very good reason to have a good number of aboriginal players on your list, rather than isolating them one or two at a time. Given that the group we've got - Whelan, Davey, Wonaeamirri, Jetta, Bennell, Jurrah - all seem to be pretty good prospects, this could be another factor in building the tight-knit group we're trying to build.

'Practice what he preaches'? I've never heard Cameron Bruce preaching about the importance of being a solid wad of meat. He's always been a fitness / athleticism based player. Yet somehow manages to lay whole bunch of tackles, cop a fair share of bumps and niggles when tagging, and still play every game this season. I'm guessing it's more about balanced development to suit a person's natural body type. I'm sure it would also be possible to add twenty kilos to Cale Morton in time for next season, provided we're happy to see him spend a quarter of every season for the rest of his career sitting out with soft-tissue injuries, and moving with all the acceleration and agility of Strauchnie.

Exactly. If any Collingwod support tries to get mileage out of 'them' giving 'us' the Queens Birthday game, make sure you agree completely that it is totally unfair, and that the only way to restore equitable treatment would be for Melbourne and Collingwood to swap fixtures every second year...

The only argument I see for co-captains is for playing with coincidences. The Brads have it now and pass it on to the Jacks in a few years. That said, I think I'm pretty much on the same line as the bulk of people here. I maybe favour a two or three year appointment of Green, with Mclean as a very visible Vice Captain.

Good on him. I hope this means he got a sniff of interest. Maybe the bombers will give him a run - he was an Essendon kid once upon a time. And I hope he does well if he gets picked up... but not too well! I certainly wouldn't be booing him.

He's not in the list of '150 Foundation Heroes' or the Debt Demolition Donors list in the MFC Magazine. So if he has contributed then it wasn't through those means. But honestly I'm not that comfortable with any suggestion that a person 'ought' or 'should' give their money to one thing or another. He may have other priorities (the article mentioned research into eating disorders, for instance) that come first, and that is his call. Still, a close read of the '150 heroes' list was an elnightening experience - some names I recognsed included. Well, most of the new board, for a start. And several of their family members, too, by the looks of it. This new board is seriously immersed in the job, and it looks like they have real family support to get stuck into it. Another small positive sign. Garry Lyon Brock Mclean Chris Connollly David Neitz Ron Barassi Steven Febey Greg Healy Paul Hopgood Anothony Ingerson Jim Stynes Brian Wilson If anyone has the time and knows past players better than me, maybe they can add to the list?

Watts going on! -upon debut

Fevolas live the high life. Umm... price check on aisle three for... Three whole floors of inner city New York apartment building, luxury fittings and great view. Now, what would that cost by the day? I'd say well into of five figures for a 'several day' stay. Where does it go on the salary cap? It's kind of hard to fit an entire penthouse into a brown paper bag, and last I heard Fevola wasn't even an 'environmental ambassador'. Then again, it is the top floor, maybe it's on the books as altitude training. Another item for the "Carlton are so obviously rorting the system it is an embarassment to the entire AFL" file.

Surely our 'revenge' on both Carlton and Chris Johnson is that they will have to spend the next two years in eachothers company. That, and round 21, where we get to put Dunn on him and make him cry. I would suggest CJ is the player Dunn was built to destory - not too fast, not too quick thinking, not as tough, gets nervous under pressure, thinks he's taller than he is... Also, round 21 will be our chance to slide Carlton out of the eight, with one round to go. Count on it.

Not next year, but I choose to dream - "Demons Shining Light - 100 Watts" I'll be bringing along novety oversized light bulbs for him to sign on the day.

'Mclean to Lead and Feed the Speed Dees'

The Melbourne Football Club has suddenly become one of the AFL’s fastest sides, with almost all it's new draftees specifically noted for speed and agility. In fact, ALL of our draftees also had ‘good skills’ comments next to their name, and perhaps most impressively all have had ‘smart player’ and ‘reads the play well’ comments thrown around about them too. The draft selections are an unmistakable vote of confidence in our existing tall forward group – just the hole at FF/CHF has been filled – or perhaps more accurately, we now have great material to fill it but it might take a while to do the pour. The flood of skilled, agile and fast midfielders is likely to push players such as Matthew Bate, who has often been used as a utility, forward much more of the time to do the leading, marking and long kicking that were the most promising features of his game not so long ago. Adding to that, it has been well noted that the Demon’s much discussed game plan was falling down before it ever got to the forward line, as there simply wasn’t enough speed and skill to execute it. This draft shifts the balance significantly on that front, too. Mclean and Jones will go from being the too-slow workhorses to being very explicitly Scott West style players, feeding a fleet of skilled runners and using their endurance to get to every possible contested ball. Nathan Jones in particular could see tremendous benefits from not feeling a need to do everything himself, and having a single clear task to dedicate his effort towards. This draft is also a major vote of confidence in Mark Jamar and Paul Johnson. Perhaps Stefan Martin will end up doing some ruckwork after all, because there isn’t a lot of ruck depth on the list right now. I’m sure this is an area where many Demons will have their fingers crossed - is it a vote of confidence, or just a choice to take the risk here, rather than try to cover all areas in one draft? Two new aboriginal players mean we now have five on our list: Davey, Whelan, Wonaeamirri, Bennell and Jetta. Without descending into stereotypes, there’s no denying that many indigenous players take seriously an obligation to provide mutual support, and having a substantial group of indigenous players across a range of ages is a definite positive factor. The more the merrier. The delay to the Pre-season draft will give the club some time to interview a few people and conduct ‘due diligence’ on character and determination. Then draft Casey Sibosado. If he had any arrogance issues or whatever the hell it was that made 16 clubs overlook him, being snubbed at the draft should help squash that. And for the future? I would tip that a relatively small number of players will exit the club next year (end of 2009), as the feature of that draft will be shallowness – increased age requirement and the ongoing siphoning off of players from Queensland who choose to sign with the Gold Coast team will shrink the pool significantly. A trade to advance a pick might happen if we have a player not getting opportunities because of a full best 22, or a ‘best set’ in their area (a speculative example would be James Frawley, should our defence continue to improve and especially if Rivers comes back in at full steam) The year after that (end of 2010), some players - remember that we re-signed a whole swag of young players for two years - may be up for trade to the new Gold Coast club, hopefully at inflated prices as Gold Coast will have lots of good draft picks but be in need of some ready-to-go players. Obviously I wouldn’t want it to be anyone I rate especially highly, but there’s no harm in helping a couple of OK to Good players make a fresh start and stretch their career. Brad Miller is even from the area. And we'll need those traded picks, too. Because by the end of 2010 the Demons won't be playing around with luxuries like number one picks anymore.

Carlton announced Bryce Gibbs before the season was even over... amazing they could be so sure that they would get the number one pick that year. Kreuzer they started hyping as a certainty well before the event. There's no harm in showing a card when everyone will get to see it first up anyway, and it's not like we're undermining the sancitity of the draft. A nice idea, adding a bit of value to a sponsor event and also letting a few fans feel a bit more included. Another good little step.

The thing where they got him to tell the players... It would have been better if they'd got all the players to tell him that they were staying.

Let's see, who's available. Neitz wouldn't need to be a special announcement, he'd be staying more than arriving. Buckley. Well, for me, no thanks. West I respect and I'd appreciate him on our staff. Leigh Matthews would be, well, weird! James Hird was pretty busy last I heard. Alistair Lynch as a forward coach? But it's probably Strauchnie.

Wow. I'm stunned. I didn't know it was possible to tank a corporate information video. I say we out-green the bastards just to stick it up 'em!

Robbie Warnock, dude, Robbie Warnock at Carlton. We've got Matthew - you know, the one who has actually had to do a job on his own for whole games, rather than just look good in flashes.

Brock easily. Not to say I don't like Jones or anything. But Mclean A) Gets to more contests B) is better at getting the ball or forcing a 50/50 when he's there C) uses the ball better when he's got it and D) is a more effective on field leader. Jones could yet be a first rate player, but Brock simply is one.

Uhh... because he only found out that he was allowed to nominate AFTER the normal deadline for nominations, not to mention he's been given a whole host of bizarre compliance requirements to consider before making his decision. Seriously, it'd make anyone re-think their career if it involved having someone watch you [censored] three times a week.

Hawks would still be in debt, and even this year barely turning a profit, except for a couple of million in poker machine revenues and about the same through the sponsorship+game subsisdy from Tassie. On field, yeah, there are lessons to be learnt from Hawthorn. Off field, well. In short - that's not the club I want Melbourne to be. Three quarters of poker machine revenue comes from 'problem gamblers'. I'd actually be pressing for us to cut back our small poker machine holdings - the revenue for us is minimal and I think there would be more value in having a clean reputation in that area. We may even find community groups willing to support our efforts to offset the lost revenue.

It's true. I was at the Canberra game, sitting near the bench. There was a little row of early-20-something girls in front of me. At one stage they actually made starled noises of pleasure when Brad Miller jogged past. Embarassing for all involved, but they'll remember him.