JJJ

Was watching and thinking the same.

Selection integrity. I am sure there are some players who would agree with that line Red.

Some of the Dogs senior players would drive him to his new team just to make sure he was really gone. If you think Clazza is unpopular with his teammates, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The Grundy fiasco was all on Goody and the list team. Arrogantly thinking Grundy was a like for like replacement for Jackson. That was a huge error in judgement. Huge. There were plenty of pundits and experts alike who thought it was a terrible idea to bring Grundy across. And they were correct! As a matter of fact, placing any blame at the feet of Max is flat out wrong. I can’t believe you would bring that up in this context. Grundy’s recruitment only adds to the narrative, one which I believe in, that we wasted our talent. In this case recruiting a ruckman instead addressing real areas of weakness.

He will soon enough. If I were him I wouldn’t be in a hurry after my coach hung me out to dry after the North game. But that’s just me.

You say there is a refusal. Based on what? A lack of buy in from players, particularly senior players who have experienced success, doesn’t just happen. That’s a further indictment on the coach if true. I am not admonishing the players of responsibility but as I have stated earlier; these players know what it takes and yet they’re potentially not fully onboard with the coach. It could be that the message is old or the players talent is on the wain in which case you either rip down the playing list and start again or you try a different approach with the same players. I can tell you categorically which option the club has chosen. Also, nothing I have said is hyperbolic. I’ve merely pointed out that we’ve wasted a playing list that will be difficult to replicate any time soon and that in my opinion, a lot of what is occurring now was sown over the past 5-6 seasons. Who is to be held to account? The answer is pretty easy.

I am going to listen to Goody’s presser for the first time in years. Interested to hear it and then see how our performance aligns to his external messaging.

People should stop with the Hawks comp. The issues they had early last season do not reflect ours. They were reaching a little on their game plan in terms of execution. Even against us, they tried to maintain the ball too much and eventually succumbed to our pressure. But they never rolled over or stopped running and trying to create. Currently, we don’t win our own footy, we don’t spread when we do eventually get the footy, we don’t chase, we don’t shepherd, we are poor at tackling and defensively we are lacking. These are pretty much all nonnegotiable’s. They are intangibles that are a sign of a team that, to put it in Goody’s language, love each other. On top of that, our players look confused, lacking confidence and are making skill errors at an alarming rate. I can get over the the skill execution if I think we are adhering to my previous paragraph as I think the worm can turn if you do those intangibles. To me this is a leadership problem. That includes coaching and senior players. Goody, if he isn’t in the gun, absolutely should be. He hasn’t instilled the basics and doesn’t enforce them clearly. Otherwise we’d see more changes at selection. We’d see repeat offenders held to account. He also has failed numerous times to change our style. He has historically played favourites. Now it’s those favourites that are hurting us the most. Regarding on field leadership. It was time for a change in October last year. Max, Viney et al don’t need to have C or VC next to their name to be leaders but it sure would help players like McVee or JVR or Rivers or Chandler to be acknowledged and empower them. (They are some names the club thinks have potential in that space) We have a massive void which is so obvious to see, it staggers me that it hasn’t been addressed. But ultimately, if you trace the above back to its root cause, it all leads to the same spot. Our coaching and match committee. Our coaching and match committee and decisions they’ve made in the previous 5-6 years which have brought the club undone from a performance perspective.

Evolve or die…. We are wasting some of the greatest Demons of all time.

It’s a shame that this discussion is happening at round 2 but for some, who have been wanting to rid the club of Goody for a while, losing to North in the way that we did, this is the last straw. It raises an interesting few questions though; Is the list good enough? Is the game plan one which will make us competitive? Has the coach got the game day nous to change tactics mid match? Has the list development brought through the next generation? People can argue the above all they like but the TL:DR version is most likely, ‘No’ ‘No’ ‘No’ & ‘No’ From that you could argue Goody should be fired. He has his fingerprints on all of those 4 areas. But it’s not that simple. How about the culture of the playing list and the attitude of the players, professional footballers, towards the coach and the messaging and adherence to game plan? Does that fact that a lot of players openly love Goody help? Do you need to have a father/son type relationship with your playing group? In regards to the above 2 paragraphs, I think we all know the culture has not been that of a high performance elite sporting organisation. What we had was 4-5 generational talents drive us to success. Transgressions were ignored as long as we were still performing. The lack of adherence to any changes to the game plan is either woeful coaching and instruction or complete indifference from the senior leaders to the new plan. Either way that is pretty damning. Additionally, any good working relationship needs some level of tension. It seems like there isn’t enough respect or tension between players and coaching staff to get things done. 3/4 time on the weekend was the perfect time for Goody and the playing group to make a statement against a young, well coached hungry side. That was a huge fail. Epic. On balance, Goody deserved to have this season to right the ship. Whilst not a fan of him, I couldn’t see a scenario where the club would sack him. Give him the opportunity to either make some fundamental changes to the way he coaches and communicates with players and develop the younger players. If the players have genuine care for Goody and each other, they’ll turn up on Saturday. Maybe that will turn the ship a little. My thoughts are that the writings on the wall, but for now, we should back him in.

I doubt it will be uploaded anywhere. It was good but more than a few expletives etc. Aside from his pure admiration for Jimmy, his ability to use the stories and direct the punchline directly at the current playing group is pretty effective. I can also confirm the attitude of the players was pretty upbeat about 2025.

They could make a set that represents Clazza’s goal in the 21 GF! Lots of smiley faced MFC players and sad faced Doggies!!! With a James Bradshaw figure shouting, “Bang! Bang, bang, bang!”

I just want to be able to buy a 1/5 scale Maxy Gawn LEGO kit! And an entire list worth of Demons Minifigs…..

King was at training pre Christmas with some random I didn’t recognise but he was making a lot ooh’s and ahhh’s whenever Claz did something. Clearly loves Claz and I’d imagine wants him to do well.

A few club staff at the open training session last week were talking to me about how connected the group is this preseason. I also overheard one of the fitness guys telling the trainers to keep the positive talk going but also make sure the players retrieved the footy’s themselves. ‘Keep them up and about but make sure they are constantly moving’. Building resilience in a positive space.

With life getting busier and busier these days it’s easier to pass on going to the footy every week. One of the reasons I like to go these days is my kids. They love Koz. As do I. But I am realistic. I’ve heard from multiple great sources that it’s unlikely he’ll be a one-club player. I am hoping to be wrong on that front.

MDU

I chatted to Langford briefly. When he fills out he will be a massive human. Nice kid. I had a good chat to another youngster and he mentioned that his parents get their gossip from Demonland…. All the players were pretty good and happy to take plenty of photos with kids etc. The running session didn’t reveal much of interest. All the players looked comfortable enough.

I think we need our A-Graders to play like A-Graders. But we also need some new blood in that category. JVR, McVee, Windsor, Rivers and maybe Tholstrup have shown that they are capable. It would be nice to see at least 2 of them become A-Grade. It would also be nice to think that the player occupying positions 16-23 every week will improve. Players like Woewodin, Chin, Sparrow, Bowey and Howes need to become more consistent and damaging to the opposition. Whilst I am optimistic about 2025, I am realistic as to the amount of improvement and work that needs to be done.

It’s a bit early to say that about AMW I’d reckon. I think he’s shown enough that he has the next 2 seasons to make it.

I’ll admit to not having watched any of the kids this year so the following is based on YouTube highlights only. When we drafted Rivers, the thing that stuck out to me as one of his strengths was his willingness to hit the contest with speed. I see similarities with Lindsay. It’s not always successful but when it is it breaks the contest wide open. Combined with his skills and evasiveness, he seems like a very very good prospect. The rest is up to him and his application which I also believe to be top notch.

We were told that the amount of trade offers for teams to either get back into the 1st round this year or move up was unprecedented. All the way from the end of trade period to the draft. They were happy to take players up until picks in the mid 50’s as the pool of talent is deep. They were hoping that Hotton was still on the board when they picked. Richmond went way early at 12 compared to where they had him. There were a couple of players that weren’t in their top 30 which was interesting. Reid and Armstrong were the most easily identified. The other thing they talked about was the poor performance of WA in developing players recently. Reflected in the downturn in indigenous players. Somebody asked about the testing of players and they basically said the speed and jumping measurements weren’t much use when compared to agility and endurance. It was pretty good. Ive been to a lot of post draft MFC events and thought that this event was better.

It was a club picking late on the first night of the draft. Hence they were pretty happy to talk about 8-10 players in detail.

I was lucky enough to attend a function last week re the draft and the scouting report on the kid was exceptional. The club that was hosting the function had: O’Sullivan & Ashcroft grouped. Langford & Smith the next 2. Draper, Lalor & Lombard. Travaglia, Tauru, Lindsay & Kako They said Langford is the meanest player in the draft. Super competitive, good skills, great hands, very clean with the ball but by far the best quote was when they said he’d rip the arms off his opponent to get the footy back. Bit like Megatron ripping Jazz to pieces (awful film). They would’ve picked him at 2. Didn’t have a lot to say about Lindsay other than he was very evasive, highly skilled, deceptively tough and took ground when in possession.

What’s his 1-Wood? Speed? Kicking? Versatility? Can he tackle well? Can he defend against other mids? Is he quick enough to burst from a pack? Can he buy time to size up his options? Can he mark overhead? He may need to start as a fwd/def. My knowledge of this years draft is very poor. The above are genuine questions.