Romey

With GWS rumoured to be considering a salary dump with Nick Haynes, I wonder if we could accomodate taking him and their top draft pick off their hands? (Like the Cats did with Jack Bowes last year.) If we could find the $1.2m required for the final year of his contract, we’d get an 192cm All Australian defender to free up Petty to go forward, and pick 8 to package with pick 5 for pick 1 from West Coast to get Harley Reid. This allows Patracca to play forward more. Haynes is 31 and his existing contract back-ended so his ongoing salary probably more like $600k at a guess. Surely something worth looking at if Grundy leaves and others retire.

One curious statistic on the weekend was the 16km differential between the total team distance run (Data curtesy of the Telstra Tracker - Swans 287.5km v Dees 271.6km.) Despite the Dees having 3 of the top 4 runners on the night for every player on the field the Swans ran about 1km more than their opponent. This is usual and as there were only a handful of games in the AFL this year which had a greater differential although of these examples, the team that ran less did not always lose.

Maybe we should offer to pay all of Grundy’s salary in exchange for a fourth round draft pick. Then the Pies free up more salary and we head into the draft with two first round draft picks.

Just on game day “entertainment”, has anyone ever actually won a prize for one of the competitions on the field at quarter time or half time?

Another great piece of analysis on our game from the ABC for all of you data nerds - this time on clutch players and the art of winning close games. A glowing endorsement to Cameron Zurhaar who tops the league table in terms of % of his team's close fourth quarter scores. Imagine what he could do at the Dees! Though not mentioned, Petracca and Oliver rate amongst the best in the league for share of first possession at stoppages, with Petracca lifting significantly in final quarters. Also interesting to read that this year for every 100 times a team wins the ball in a game, they score about 71 points. That rises to 91 points from 100 won centre clearances. It goes to show the importance of our contested game style. Inside the Game: Taylor Walker, Patrick Cripps, Cameron Zurhaar, Liam Baker — the clutch players of the AFL - ABC News https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-11/who-stands-up-in-clutch-time-in-the-afl/101317946

Last year one of our greatest strengths was our ability to finish games strongly. This article explains how this has dropped off over the past 10 weeks. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-10/melbourne-demons-need-to-fix-their-second-halves-afl-finals/101313826

Last year one of our greatest strengths was our ability to finish games strongly. This article explains how this has dropped off over the past 10 weeks. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-10/melbourne-demons-need-to-fix-their-second-halves-afl-finals/101313826

Why Petracca, Oliver and Gawn could just be the best Demons yet

An interesting article on the abc website today dissecting the funding of AFL clubs and the impact of prime time matches on finances, crowd attendances and sponsorships. Lots of data to unpack. It’s easy to understand the logic as to why the popular Victorian clubs get the blockbuster time slots. Fun fact. The Dees had the third highest memberships in 1988… just 2,000 off Collingwood who had the most. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-14/are-afl-clubs-getting-a-fair-deal-off-field-finances-money-footy/100987862

I hadn’t thought about that but it is a great idea. Potentially you could have both – a tighter arc that rolls into Punt Road heading north and a fork to some traffic lights at the bridge to turn south as well. Win-win all round!

I wonder if any thought has been given to extending the bypass arc into the empty land to replace the road next to Gosch’s paddock? It could be done without any significant traffic disruption and could connect the facilities to the oval.

How about these stats for Langdon. More than 50% more sprint efforts than the next best person on the ground.

According to Cal Twomey’s late mail on the AFL website.... Melbourne has an eye on Werribee VFL defender Kye Declase, who trained with the Dees over summer, and has also shown some interest in marking defender Daniel Turner. Does anyone know much about these guys?

How about Toby Bedford for Langdon. He has the tank and has been in good form.

According to Pert in the article below the Dees will be training all year at Casey. I thought it was just for the preseason? “So we’ll train all of the pre-season and all of next year out there. The ground is MCG-sized and in amazing nick.“ (Gary Pert.) AFL club Melbourne welcomes A-League’s Melbourne City to Casey Fields https://www.news.com.au/sport/football/a-league/aleague-southeast-melbourne-to-become-the-new-home-of-melbourne-city/news-story/a2797f235610c79d22d1d0a391246806

I’d be curious to know where he ranked our three picks overall. Presumably higher than what we got them for but by how much?

Call me an optimist but I still can’t get past the fact that we have a guy on our list that averaged 2.65 goals per game over 20 games in 2018. Had he done that this year he would have won the Coleman. In fact over the past 5 years the only players who have averaged more than this in any given year are Kennedy, Franklin, Riewoldt, Hawkins, Brown and Cameron - that’s pretty impressive company. I’d rather play him at Casey all year in the hope of him regaining that form than trading him for a second round draft pick and trying our luck with someone else. The fact that he can also play defence and wing is all the more reason for keeping him.

True, however one key difference is that there is already a sporting precinct in Yarra Bend so open space would not need to be re-purposed like at Footscray Park.

I know this topic has been done to death but I am surprised this option has not been mentioned as a possible venue for our new training ground. As the bird flies Yarra Bend is about 3 km from the MCG and is a huge expanse of land that is not highly used by local sporting clubs in winter as far as I am aware. While not an ideal place for a social club, it could allow an Essendon Tullamarine style facility. Beautiful surroundings too. Thoughts?

It’s only a minor calf injury according to Foxsports today. https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-2020-harley-bennell-melbourne-calf-injury-preseason-supplemental-selection-period/news-story/fac103e87e9f9eb5c636c0ebaa4b65e3

Hopefully nothing too serious. https://www.sen.com.au/news/2020/01/25/report-bennell-suffers-injury-setback-in-bid-for-afl-lifeline

I do find it interesting that with the bidding system a relatively useless low draft pick can actually become semi-valuable. It is conceivable next year with the high proportion of F/S and academy picks that a pick in the 50’s or early 60’s becomes a pick in the 30’s.

I thought this warranted a new thread. It gave me a lot more confidence in our decision. AFL.com.au canvassed recruiters and list managers from 12 clubs about who they would have taken if they held the third pick Who would you have taken with pick # 3 - recruiters

With all of the picks used for the academy players so far I see that our fourth pick in this years draft has moved up to 74. No doubt this will move up more tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if this ends up in the 50’s or 60’s.

As possibly the youngest player selected in last years “super” draft at pick 33, I wonder where he would be placed in this years draft if he had of been born a few days later? 12 months on he has now played a full season of VFL and worked his way into becoming a starting mid by the end of the year with decent possession numbers. Maybe that makes him the equivalent of a first round pick this year?