JJJ

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.

In his exit interview he raised that he’d like to one day captain the club.

A lot of enterprise businesses see CFO’s and COO’s as logical candidates for future CEO’s. Running a $50-70m dollar business on an interim basis should pose no problems.

This is a positive step. We need to clear the air and get the club pulling in the same direction. Whether you were hounding for him to go or staunchly defending him, we can all now agree that the club and Pert have decided to part ways in a move that is best for the club.

Coaches rate him. He is very vanilla. Would love to see him add a couple of strings to his bow in the form of better running power, a bit more size and hitting contests at speed. His kicking technique is pretty sound. Natural improvement in his DE% should come naturally.

Gloating? On Demonland? Why? We all support the same side and want the same outcomes. There is a lot of work to do to get to the end of round 10 with 8 wins. If you genuinely think we haven’t got fences to mend internally and credibility to restore within the competition, well I don’t know what to tell you.

He is training hard.

The AIS used to use interval training and some other methods to measure recovery time. I always thought that would be a better measurement for AFL. Sure you can run flat out for 2km but can you sprint full length of the field and back, recover for 20 seconds and do it all again. That’s effectively what Lingers does.

I don’t think playing a meaningless round 24 game would dilute their hunger and appetite for putting in the hard yards. If it did we’d have other problems.

It’s really hard to understand why he was targeted. My mate in Adelaide told me he is a medium lead up forward. Given we have Fritsch in that role I was confused. When I saw him play for Casey I was shocked at his fitness levels and intensity. Then when he was selected to play with the big boys, I interpreted that as a desperate, ‘throw [censored] against the wall and see what sticks’ exercise. One of the many unusual decisions by Goodwin and the match committee to play a guy who had shown little in the VFL and looked undercooked.