Little Goffy

I'm devastated. Nothing says 'on our way back up soon' better than a burrito. Sure, I would've been very happy, and known for sure that everything was going to be ok, if we'd gotten that sponsorship. But I really can't relate to the total doomsayers that slink around here. And as for James McDonald as captain being a turn-off for sponsors... a) You don't have to be captain to be a high-profile symbol of the club, Mclean, Davey, Robertson and a couple of the young guys will fill that. and B) Our consistent commitment to develop a positive ethic, dare I say 'role model values', at the club would be a major positive in the eyes of sponsors. and c) Seriously, bugger off, do you think a club captain should be chosen on the basis of who been on wheel-of-fortune the most?

When you think about it, having - a model citizen (McDonald) who is completely selfless on the field (McDonald) committed to supporting other players off the field (McDonald) displays exemplary consistency (McDonald) dedicated to training both hard and smart (McDonald) humble enough to give future leaders space and opportunity to develop (McDonald) consistent displays calm, measured courage (McDonald) and never, ever drops his head (McDonald) while being the most decorated player on our list (McDonald) and having the total support of the playing group and coaching staff (McDonald)... Seems like a reasonable call... I don't think you'd find many players at Melbourne who pass McDonald on any of those counts, let alone most. I don't think you'd find many players in the AFL at all who pass McDonald on more than a couple of those counts. Bring on Junior's Juniors I say.

Yep, three times in five years now, we've started the pre-season comp against the reigning premiers. Also, did anyone else notice that we play 8 games against the top 8 in the first eleven rounds. The only non-finals teams we play are Richmond (9th, of course), plus West Coast at Subiaco and Port Adelaide at Aami.

Hmm.... Paul Johnson is a quality player who can make a determined contribution around the ground. Not quite the 'extra midfielder' like Cox, but someone you'd be delighted to name as second ruckman - I'll keep on refering to him as our 'heavy utility' until it catches on, I swear. Mark Jamar is an interesting one. In the weeks immediately after White's demotion his stats, not surprisingly, jumped in a big way. Still not a huge number of disposals, but he seems to be able to keep going in the ruck position all day - has the bulk to crash and crash and crash. And we've all enjoyed his occassional launch into the air for a mark close to goal - is he can do that once or twice a game for a season (and put it through calmly), then that's a valuable asset. On the 'neutralise' argument, it's interesting to note that Jamar lays a phenomenal number of tackles for a ruckman - easily the most of any current ruckman (or any ruckman I've heard of) at 3.6 per game, the same as Nathan Foley or Kane Cornes. Seriously, one extra goalsquare mark per game and Jamar is a more than handy player. I'd still like a third option - Jake Spencer, the Meese, even moving Stefan Martin to part-time ruck. Somebody. We'll see what happens. Tall defenders good, small defenders question mark. Inside midfield progress highly unpredictable due to returns from injuries, development of youth, and Scott West. Outside midfield is hard to say, again due to youth. The area primarily recruited for in this draft just gone, and Morton looks the goods. Small forwards (counting Wonaeamirri, Davey, Maric) looks great to me. Tall forwards (counting Miller, Bate, Robertson, maybe Newton, plus eventually and hopefully Watts and Jurrah) is also hard to predict. Most of these seem servicable rather than excellent. So all up, what with injury returns, youth, major changes to coaching staff, radically improved facilities and substanitally different pre-season training routines, the final summary of our list has to be - #$%# knows.

You'd be hard pressed to find a more honorable person in the AFL than James McDonald. On charatcer, he's an ideal captain. On dedication to the game and team ethic, he's an ideal captain. Last year he was an good player, the previous two years he was outstanding. Not particularly troubled by injury, either. He'll be a great captain, and fits with the Demon habit of one long term captain and one relatively brief one, over the last quarter-century. Then we'll see. I'm quite happy with it.

WHOA! As if that's right. Joeboy, you just lost all credibility on these forums posting garbage like that. The Melbourne Demons, training at a stable and quality venue, on a regular schedule, for weeks on end? HA! I suppose next you'll be saying that our January membership figure is higher than Carlton or Richmond's... Just thought I'd throw that in.

I think the tricky part is fitting people into the right places. I think Warnock is pretty specifically a Gorilla Keeper. Frawley is mostly a Gorilla Keeper but looks like he'll be a decent third tall as well. Rivers is obviously an interceptor of some quality, zoning off from a third tall forward when he judges appropriate. Garland is an agile guy who can handle the mobile CHFs and play on third forward as well, but is not ideal for the Gorillas. Martin looks like he'll be a Gorilla Keeper but, like Frawley, has a bit of speed to him and might handle the CHF and third tall roles. Rivers and Garland are certainies when fit and holding the form we can reasonably expect. Frawley, Martin and Warnock will fight between them for managing the goalsquare forward and one other. BUT, i think one of these guys will miss out each game. Still, they'll all get a decent number of games into them because there will of course be the occassional niggle, and some horses for courses selections. It also complicates things that we really can't say what form we ought to expect from these guys. Wheatley isn't really a tall defender as far as juggling these positons go - attacking HBF onto the wing. And he's a whole other story. Will soon be competing hard for his spot if any of those draftees get a good stretch together. Sadly, because I appreciate him, I think he will be next year's Jeff White - eased out to make way for younger players, who in this case may even be outperforming him soon.

Just for a moment then the thought crossed my mind - what if it had been a Melbourne supporter? The rage on here would be out of control. As it is... Much like the Richmond Spitter, we should at least take this opportunity to show the kiddies that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable. We can do that by regularly and loudly reminding Hawks fans of the shame in their midst, every time they start talking themselves up... again... and again... Or we could just shift the little f'er off to a bird-[censored] mine on Nauru.

Looks like he'd have plenty of voice on field and could do a lot of damage very quickly if not given constant attention. I can see him easily fitting into either a back pocket or a forward pocket.

Going through all the possible worst case scenarios freshens me up a little because they seem less realistic than the prospect of some kind of solution being found. In particular, the Casey Fields set up makes a huge difference, the quality of the field and arrangements out there is so much better that the scrappy mess we've been dealing with for two long. And it'll make a huge difference to the supporter base as we develop that City of Casey connection, especially since we're going about it in good, positive ways (specifically the Demon Heartland project, for example). I'll bet that Casey Council is already feeling a bit of relief that they have made a good decision and will be dealing with good people for a long time.

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'