binman

"I think most of us are pretty confident that Harvey Langford will turn out to be a Fairstar." That's harsh - his turning circle will surely improve.

Yep, tend to agree. And as much as i hate to say it i think tracc is a perfect fir for them and won't surprise me if he get back to his AA best. And they looked super fit last year. A really interesting thing about the Suns, at least to me, is their game plan. Hardwick has them playing a style not a million miles from that of the Tigers under him - contest, defence, and most notably bucking the trend of short and medium kicks to transition the ball and instead doing what the Tigers did under Hardwick - kicking long and focus on winning the subsequent ground ball or aerial contest. As evidence of that, in 2025 the Suns were number one in the AFL for metres gained per kick - diametrically opposite to the Lions who were 17th for metres gained per kick.

Does anyone know if we are at Gosh's tomorrow? (i did look on our website, no doubt it's there somewhere but i couldn't see it and i dont have an hour to look!)

Agree (pre-season predictions are generally of little value), and that's particularly true of the dee's 2026 season. And i'd argue that it's even more difficult these days to predict how teams will go because the collective fitness of a team has become one of the most significant determinants of success - i'd argue only behind injury and the strength of the list in significance. It of course all but impossible to gauge a team's collective fitness during the preseason, particularly of teams you don't support and to a lesser extent in the first third of the season (the phase where teams are still getting the full benefit of the preseason). The analogy i think of is baking a cake - all the ingredients are mixed up; it goes into the oven and looks great as it cooks and comes out looking delicious. But you don't know how it tastes until you try a piece. That said, I'm pretty confident the Lions will once again be a premiership contender as their list is so strong, they list is settled and they clearly have one of, if not the best, high performance programs in the AFL that has mastered the art of being in optimal condition on Grand Final day (look at vision of their players in the last 2 grand finals - they all look incredibly cut, and clearly more so than even a few weeks prior. And they have run over both their opponents, the Swans and the Cats and clearly look fitter and stronger). As for Melbourne, I think it's great that the consensus seems to be that 12th is our ceiling as it means the team can go out about its business without the weight of expectation and fans will enjoy the wins more and be less likely to jump on the club after losses. As I've noted before, there are too many variables this season (eg new senior coach, tweaked game plan, impact of Claz and Trac going, new players, new CEO, new Prez etc etc) to make an informed prediction of how we might go. That said i'd be very surprised if the club did not think the finals were a realistic goal - and i will not be surprised in the least if we do make finals, I think we have a very underrated list, even among dees fans, with some serious talent under 25 years old. In Koz, Bowser, Roo, The Duke, The Bison, XF, XT, Latrelle, Jeffo and the Kolt we have ten players under the age of 25 who were first round draft selections. And I'd argue that Riv (24 - and taken at pick 32) and Disco (23 - mid-season rookie draftee) both would've been worthy first round draft picks. The jury is still well and truly out on Jeffo and the Kolt, and of course two of those players are yet to debut, but still, that is some serious young talent spread between 19 and 24 years old. We have obviously lost some top end talent with the loss of Claz and Tracc, and it's not unreasonable to argue we are a bit thin for talent in the 25 years and older bracket. But we have the best ruck in the competition, in Fritter one of the most consistently productive forward in the AFL and if Lever, who is still only 29, can stay injury free he is a top line defender (i'd love to say ditto for Steve May, but I'm not convinced he'll get back to his best). We didn't have great first half of the preseason in terms of the number of players in rehab. But against that most players in rehab have had relatively minor injuries and have been able to continue build their aerobic base. Bowser's injury is no good, but he is the only long-term injury we've had thus far. If we have decent Jan and Feb i think we will be in pretty good shape, pardon the pun, come the season in terms of our collective fitness. The other factor is, as i have argued previously, i just don't think the competition is particularly strong outside the Lions and perhaps the Crows. There isn't much separating 10-12 teams IMO, and i think there's a chance we will beat some teams that at this stage pundits have us well ahead of us (eg the Dogs, Freo, Pies and Hawks)

That's great as one of my big frustrations with the team over the last couple of seasons is how many times we fumble - sometimes it felt like Koz and Bowser were out only one touch players.

Every era has great live bands, and nostalgia can colour assessment, but geez it's hard to go past the 80s for live rock music in oz, particularly Melbourne with its symbiotic relationship with the Seattle grunge scene. As an example of how brilliant the 80s were for great live pub rock, the first three bands I saw live (all before i was legally allowed in the venue) were: The Hoodoo Gurus in 1983 at the Lizard Lounge in Perth (pre Stoneage Romeos - they all had huge, Leningrad cowboy style quiffs, tight jeans and pointy boots) Hunters and Collectors in 1983 at a pub in Kew that is closed now, can't remember its name - the pinnacle? (crazy gig as hunters were still in their industrial noise stage - lots of banging and clanging steel pipes with big chains, discordant horns and Mark Seymour in ultra testosterone mode) Paul Kelly (I can't recall if it was Paul Kelly and the Dots or not - I don't think so as i think they had broken up by that time, but it def wasn't the Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls) in 1983 at a pub on Church Street in Richmond that has also since closed (can't recall its name). Three great gigs. Three legends of Oz rock.

Blimey, what a gig! Two of Australia's Best ever rock bands, both legendary live acts, at a pub. And in the Oil's case right before they went next level huge. Wow. The closest I've got to that us seeing Nivrana at the palace in St kilda a few weeks after Nevermind was released. That gig was off the charts amazing.

I loved Midnight Oil, but never saw them live (I started regularly seeing live gigs in about 1983 - by that stage they were huge and ive never liked going to stadium gigs). But i saw Rob Hirst play with The Backsliders (who i love) and The Break. Amazing drummer.

I just read that Rob Hirst passed away at 70 from pancreatic cancer. Devastating. Vale Rob Hirst. A phenomenal drummer and force of nature.

Melk and Max last season make my point - which when a player has to rehab during the preseason alot depends on the nature of the injury in terms of how much of an impact the injury had. IIRC both Max and Melk were able to keep running and cycling- ie weren't off legs. So coukd maintain their aerobic conditioning. Whereas kolt and mcvee I think had injuries that impacted their ability to run. And never got close to optimal fitness, particularly kolt (who by the by I think needs to pull his finger out if he wants to make it as AFL player- from what I glean from track reports he seems to have a good preseason thus far. I hope he doubles down I'm the next 2 months).

It's not about Maxy not being able to work on ruck craft, it's the extent to which his injury impacts his physical preparation and conditioning during the preseason and therefore his season. Players get one opportunity to build their aerobic and strength base - their preseason. Each player has a bespoke, granulat conditioning program with specific kpis that is planned to the minute. Any injury disrupts that program. So whilst Max's broken finger isn't a massive deal in the scheme of things as he can still run and maintain/build his tank his program has been disrupted - eg he likely missed a session for surgery, can't do things like swimming and his weights/strength program will have been disrupted (ie can't do any weights or strength work requiring both hands). The Premiers set up their flag in the preseason.

Awesome. At some point over the weekend I always wear my dees guernsey I'll make sure I'm wearing it during Marlon William's set. I can almost guarantee that if you look out at at the crowd and see some wacka in a short sleeves dees guernsey it will be me!

Yep. Another factor is how many of the players who have had short term injuries have still been able to do cardio work. For example, it's not great Max broke a finger, but at least he can maintain his aerobic fitness, eg on the bike or running laps.

Yep, a lot depends on the next 2 months. Last season we had a dream run up 'til xmas, then a horror run in January and February. Fingers crossed the opposite is true this season.

Be still my beating heart: 'Kysaiah looked sharp as he spent most of Wednesday’s pre-season session at Gosch’s Paddock working with the midfield group, while cousin Latrelle is showing some great early signs since being selected at pick 12 in November’s national draft. Latrelle put some genuine tricks on display during drills, while also setting up Bailey Fritsch for a goal during match simulation. Latrelle looms as a round 1 chance alongside No. 11 draft pick Xavier Taylor, who has also impressed over summer with his ability to play tall or small in defence and his willingness to take on the play when he wins the ball back.'

Yep.

Ditto. As a kid i liked State of Origin because Robbie would always get selected and always seemed to be one of the best players in any given match.

Not sure about that - the last season of the F1 Drive to Survive certainly highlighted Christian Horner's personal trials and turbulations

Agree with much of the above, except for the notion that our players would often bomb it long. We def turned it over a lot but we were not a bomb it long team. There are plenty of stats that can be misleading - one such oft cited example is disposal efficiency (eg inside mids dispose of the ball under more pressure than say a half back flanker who get the opportunity to chip kick the ball around the back half under little pressure). But some stats are less misleading, one being metres gained from kicks. If in 2025 we were a team that often resorted to long bombs, you'd expect to see that reflected in the data - we'd be near the top of the table for metres gained from kick. But we're not - in fact we were 12th in the AFL for metres gained per kick (26.2 metres gained per kick). By way of contrast teams there are number of teams above us on that table that many would imagine don't bomb it long (eg Freo is second for most metres gained per kick, the Pies 5th, the Hawks 6th and the Crows 7th). The premiers were 17th for metres gained per kick (25 metres - only 1.2 less metres gained per kick than us). Interestingly, i think I'm right in saying that last season the average metres gained per kicks increased across the board from 2024 as teams started kicking longer to get over the top of zones, look to win the contest head of the ball and mitigate the impact of turnovers (ie better to turn it over in your forward half than miss a short kick at HB) - so perhaps we needed to bomb it long more often!

Yep. With Viney, tracc and Oliver we arguably had the worst kicking midfield in the AFL.

Spot on about Collingwood's defensive issues. The fast, transition footy Mcrae implemented at the pies (designed to counteract the zone defence, contest heavy method that was in vogue) is now the template for how AFL is played. The method requires the back seven to push up the ground, making it super hard to maintain an effective zone defence whilst also putting a huge emphasis on defenders (and mids, wings and HHFs) needing leg speed to get back on turnover. Given they won flag with a so so defence, and didn't have super quick back seven, somewhat surprisingly the Pies actually had the best defence in the AFL for most of last season. They mitigated their lack of defensive leg speed by being the slowest in the AFL to play on after a mark or free kick, allowing their defence to get set behind the ball. But late in the season, injury age and their lack of speed all compounded and their defence fell apart, and they got opened up on turnover. We had exactly the same issues, though ours were season long. And unlike the Pies our defensive structures were all over the shop. Which meant, that for all the noise about our forward line, our biggest issue was our chronic inability to defend on turnover. Given Basset was our defensive coach he was bloody lucky to escape any real scrutiny as were a mess defensively. Goody could have mitigated those issues by setting the defence deep and not playing fast. But instead, we went fast - in fact we were one of the fastest teams in terms of ball movement from the back half and were the quickest at playing on from a mark or free kick. Obviously, King's method will be more of the same. But King won't have to worry about having our two best mids being butchers, which will mean fewer turnovers to defend. And i really like the mix of defenders with real leg speed he has at his disposal, in particular Disco (who is sneaky quick and zones off aggressively), Xavier Taylor, CJ, and AMW (who, if fit, will be a key for us). And having Taylor and CJ means King won't have to use Windsor as transition defender, which is great because he never looked comfortable as a defender.

#Goodwin myths

#Goodwin myths

An incredible band. Brilliant songwriters, the Finn brothers both. Great hooks and melodies. I was too young to see them live. But i can only imagine the response at the Matthew Flinders hotel in in the mid seventies given the first time I went there in 1985 it was well and truly bogan central.

Apologies for my overreaction rjay.