Little Goffy

2 hours ago, Demonland said:

Last training session of the year. Farewell 2025. Bring on 2026.

Well golly gosh darn it. And also [censored] [censored] [censored].

I arrive in Melbourne Friday morning and was kind of hoping.

Are you sure they can't throw in an extra session for me?

Seems a good kid. We should try to get him.

Just like the gypsy woman said.

Good timing for Bowey at a personal level too - he'll want to renegotiate his next contract given that he'll be a reigning premiership vice-captain going into 2029.

18 minutes ago, Edward Langdon said:

We were never a chance to win the game after our slow start.

To think otherwise is Disneyland stuff.

Collingwood were far the better side that night aside from the last few minutes and richly and heartily deserved that win.

I guess we never had a chance against the might and poise of Mason Cox. Presumably that's why you started the thread about how we should get him?

On 29/09/2025 at 01:36, Norm Smith's Curse said:

In that case he might get along well with Judd McVee - who according to wikipedia - is a well known eft wing activist:

McVee was drafted by Melbourne with their first selection and eighteenth overall in the 2022 rookie draft.^[2] He made his debut in the fifty point win to Western Bulldogs at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in the opening round of the 2023 season.^[3] He wore number 41 in his first two seasons, until changing to 4 before season 2024.

He is a well known left-wing activist with ties to The Australian Greens, frequently campaigning for the minor party. ^[4]

In one of the more bizarre moments in my Demonland journey, I just noticed that the claim of McVee's political activism has a 'reference' which points back to Demonland's 'Welcome to Judd McVee' thread, which contains no such inferences.

Everyone go donate to wikipedia. Cleaning the cobwebs out takes time and we need to keep their staff in place or we'll end up with wikAIpedia and we're all stuffed then.

2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Collingwood were all over us even before Brayshaw got knocked out.

I absolutely do not subscribe to the common theory around here that we beat Collingwood had the incident not happened.

Collingwood were the better team on the night for three quarters, were mentally more switched on from the get go, took their opportunities as evidenced by only kicking 6 behinds for the game and deserved the win.

The semi final result V's Carlton was completely flushed down the toilet and a game the club really let itself and its supporters down.

Wut?

Here's the replay.

https://www.afl.com.au/video/1026065/match-replay-collingwood-v-melbourne?videoId=1026065&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1694131800001

The game starts at 0.00 time with Max Cox jumping early and driving his hip into Max Gawn's head.

Hill gets a quick pair of goals early, then thanks to Brayshaw's effort, Collingwood's lead is back to 1 goal after just 50 seconds after Hill's second.

After the incident -

12.08 on Brayshaw, "Such an important player for Melbourne, as well. His flexibility - he can go inside, he can play half back, half forward.."

Another commentator; "So with Brayshaw missing so little football, this team doesn't know much footy without him, so its going to be really interesting for Melbourne losing such an important player for their team."

Bailey Laurie is the sub trying to fill those shoes.

Melbourne gradually regain composure, in particular our midfield which clawed back from their worst quarter for the season in the first, to win the contested possession count by 24 after quarter time.

Collingwood do not kick a goal in the last 40 minutes.

The final margin is seven points.

Ten second in and the Jordyn Allen highlights reel has me satisfied. Running across the 50 and nailing a goal is premium gear in the women's game because the opportunities to try will be there for so long as there are the reduced numbers.

Looks like she has good awareness, can think fast and understands position in terms of momentum rather than just location.

afl.com.au/aflw

"I fractured it in four spots at the start of the third quarter, but Josie (Bamford), one of my good friends, I showed her. I was like 'I think I just broke my hand' and she looked at it just like 'Nah, I think you're fine'. So, I kept playing,"

I like her so much I'd be awkward around her at parties.

I'll take "Things GWS thinks they can laugh off" for $1000, thanks.

What is having nil community support.

And for the bonus round;

What is chronic failure in the face of every advantage.

1 hour ago, Demonstone said:

Given the horrific events at Bondi, I'm pulling the pin on this one early. It doesn't seem the appropriate time for fun and light-heartedness.

The players in my team were all taken immediately after MFC's first pick/s in their respective drafts.

They could have all played for Melbourne.

Oddly enough, you could still have included quite a few Demon players.

Latrelle Pickett, Bailey Laurie, Angus Brayshaw, Jack Trengove.

And, in a mind-bending way, Jordan Gysberts, who was taken one after Jake Melksham, and just to mirror that, Ed Langdon who was taken one after Oscar McDonald.

That horrifying moment when you look at one of these and think the answer has instantly clicked.

Either I'm brilliant or that wrong answer is going to stick with me and I won't be able to think of anything else.

Yeah, I've done some checking. Not even going to PM Demonstone with it. Not worth the inbox clutter.

Doooooomed.

1 hour ago, old55 said:

Lachie Neale, Matt Rowell, Caleb Serong, Max Holmes, Jordan Dawson, Tom Green, Will Day all apparently not much chop then?

Hey now, Zak Butters kicked a goal in 2025, and I bet it was a really good one, too.

But seriously, just adding some noise to your point - there's a completely even spread of goalkicking from the collection of the top midfielders. It point to a role and a style, not to quality.

0.3 to 0.4 - Bailey Smith, Andrew Brayshaw, Finn Callaghan, Zach Merrett,

0.5 to 0.6 - Noah Anderson, Tom Green, Patrick Cripps,

0.7 - Nick Daicos, Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, Hugh McLuggage

Above that it is who? Chad Warner, Marcus Bontempelli, Isaac Heeney and Kysaiah Pickett?

For all that, Clary only just scraped into the top 100 for score involvements, and that does point to a problem when it is a prime mover in your midfield.

By the end of 2022 he had two Coaches Awards, three All-Australian nods, four Melbourne B&Fs and at 150 games was on target to hold the all time records for contested possessions, clearances, handballs and a few other sundry stats.

He had 110 Brownlow votes before his 150th game.

In his 150th game he clocked 3 brownlow votes.

In his 151st another 2 votes.

Since then, in total for two and a half seasons, just six more.

Not sure there has even been a more dramatic 'two halves' of a career than what seems to be forming for Oliver.

But he will have fun and be well used at GWS, given they had a key list need for clearance support for Green, particularly with both Coniglio and Kelly out with injury again.

Our 21st century has been marked by a great many players who were very good for a long time but only touched real greatness for relatively short periods.

Picking some out from the Daniher era is easy - Robertson, Johnstone, Yze, White, Green, Bruce, McDonald, Woewodin and Davey might even have played a game together as a group except for those last two not quite overlapping.

All of them could be in All-Australian contention in their better seasons, but none of them were in that range consistently.

Now of course we have had two really dominant players move on from the club and we'll be left to wonder if they will really be 'Demons' of the 21st century. Do people still think of Callan Ward as a Bulldog?

Gawn is the best ruck of the modern era, and Pickett is now at a level where he will be in the conversation as best 'small forward plus midfielder' every season.

Then it is up to the kids. Will 2028 be the dynasty-starting premiership?

1 minute ago, Timothy Reddan-A'Blew said:

Well, Disco now has another 5 years to work into captaincy contention! 😊

Clearly he saw this thread and was inspired.

2026 will be a huge year for a number of our young-but-not-junior players. New coach to impress and big shoes begging to be filled after some prominent but leadership-deficit departures. Pickett, Rivers, Chandler, Sparrow, Turner and Petty all have a chance to make it a career defining year. Bowey also if he can make best use of his recovery time and then come back strong.

You could contrast it with McDonald and Green, both of whom rose to the occasion as captains but both of whom could have benefited from not being thrown in the deep end so late in their career.

At the very least as a club we have a short window now to identify and prepare leaders to avoid the Grimes and Trengove scenario, both of whom had the character to be leaders but could have benefited from not being thrown in the sewerage end so early in their career.

Who will be our 2028 premiership captain?

At the very least that is top shelf trolling.

But on the other hand, if he joined the Pies he'd start next season as their best player under 23. (His birthday is just after the start of the season so he scrapes in, while Daicos is a January baby.)

If he can survive on their list for a couple of seasons he will become a core midfielder even if he doesn't really improve much.

The key question is still unanswered;

Will Tomato be ripe by the end of summer?

Any updates since last training?

To be fair, a lot of that is players recovering from old injuries or conservatively managing 'hamstring awareness' in Gawn's case.

Bowey is a terrible blow but we've all seen what he can do when coming into the team late in the season.

Any mention of concussion, especially for a young player, makes my skin crawl but on the other hand just a few seasons ago a knock like that would barely have been mentioned and he'd be back at it with only marginal precaution. It's a bit like [censored] statistics going up dramatically when they actually get reported properly - there wasn't an increase, it is just that we are noticing them now and responding.

Touch wood and wash your mouth out, but we shouldn't be crying about our injury list at this stage.

I'll be watching intently to be reassured that the new regime embraces the long-term view of injury management. Not just conservative timelines - I'll echo other people's comments on the training thread in saying I'd be more than happy to see players doing their own 'in-season pre-season' to build up fitness before being returned to the side from long layoffs.

Hmm, I wonder how our team has changed for 2026 since the disappointment of 2025.

I think we've hugely boosted our leadership depth in direct contrast to a couple of stars who were more 'consumers' than 'producers' in that area.

The thing I'll be particularly interested in for '26 is how a bunch of currently mid-level players respond to being out of the shadows.

Consider;

Midfield Sparrow and Rivers

Forward line Van Rooyen and Chandler

Defence Petty and Turner.

We may even see a little refreshment from the likes of Salem, Fritsch, Langdon and Lever who are all just young enough to believe that if they help push the rejuvenation through then they can still have one more run at the top.

I put the case to you - that is nine players (not including Turner) we could say were meaningfully short of their best form in 2025. Seven of those were premiership Demons, no less.

Absolutely beyond doubt we can attribute our string of close losses and bed-wetting quarters to the lack of assurance which should have been provided by these experienced players.

It's a bigger variable for 2026 than even the progress of the kids.

I miss Melbourne so much sometimes.

I'm seriously considering pushing my end of year plans forward a week just to add this to the schedule.

Picturing a Demonstone quiz live. A Ghosty hug booth. Picket Fence giving 'summer slithera safety' training while wearing a guernsey with Clarrie's number and name still on it. And all the Demonland mods getting soused on fine wine and absolutely mouthing off with the details of every scandal ever because they can't be sued for ranting in a park.

And if you like, there'd even been a big area where people eat their snags and speculate merrily about whatever comes up.

And any time there's a lull, the Ashes will be there, doing it's sacred duty.

It's all a bit silly.

Campbell, McAdam, Johnson, Henderson all drop out of the numbers without affecting our starting team. But pick out best 4 veterans and toss them out, we are completely knotted.

Do that with Collingwood and ... as I noted the other day, they have more people in their top-10 best and fairest aged 33 and over than 23 and under. That's a struggle.

On the other hand, with Brisbane if you tighten it to best 22 and they still go alright, with Ashcroft, Ashcroft, Marhsall, Morris, Fletcher, Wilmot and Lohman all 22 and under. Thanks to an epic run of father-sons Brisbane were able to get the proverbial sit and push up another level. Their Ashcroft bounty was a bit like the timely injection of Selwood or Rioli, or indeed our Jackson-Pickett-Rivers draft which lifted us.

Brisbane also provide the highlight of how silly an age profile is for predicting the future; if you can bring in a steady stream of good draftees and elite 26 year old players and leaders from other clubs, who cares?

I'm picturing Steven King and Jason Taylor doing a promo where Steven says what set he wants and Taylor figures out which pieces of Lego are need to make it and calls them out individually.

"Pick one. White brick, six dimples."

Yeah, nah.

There's nothing to it but a list of every gripe and negative media spot from roughly 2017-2025, bookended by a bit of 'oooh here's a self-help book for sports people' and an astute comment from Chris Fagan about the importance of preventing a sense of entitlement creeping in after a premiership.

It's just breadcrumbing, and did not have any new information or insight. Exactly the same content in the same order could be rescripted to create a video of 'How Melbourne's dynasty was stolen by the white ants'. Neither, of course, would have much merit.

I'm a bit annoyed about the 45 minutes of my life that consumed. (I run youtube at 1.25 speed, ever since I noticed it made Gerard Healy sound normalish)

If Ghosty forgives, then I can forgive.

But he's still a Freo player with a bad haircut and funny ears and his eyes are too far apart.

He looks like someone mis-clicked when they were creating a character in a computer game.

Oh, come on, everything means that in Scotland.