speed demon

I'm with you @Sir Windsor. If Trac wants to leave - at 28yo and coming off a major injury - trade for the right price. That's business. If Oliver wants to stay - as a vulnerable person who seems to be getting his life back on track - keep if he's committed and capable. Trading wouldn't be business it would be an erosion of trust between the playing group and the football department. I strongly doubt it happens.

Yes, it is quite the jump but in my experience it's one that individuals or their family may take during the stress of the event. Unfortunately, these embellishments can be unhelpful - and are worth dispelling - as they enhance the psychological trauma of the experience. In this case, a clearer perception is "could have been fatal if untreated but very unlikely to have been so given access to necessary interventions".

For the reasons you identify, I agree Trac is no longer worth the value of his contract (and that's before factoring in his further degradation in value due to destabilising the club). If he were a committed MFC player, I would wear the loss and support him. As we have with Oliver. If he truly wants out, then we have an opportunity to balance our books, restore unity and regenerate an aging midfield. It feels crazy to be writing this but it now seems a trade is best for both parties. My only concern is the ability to get an acceptable deal done.

Thanks for your excellent training reports @WalkingCivilWar. Love how you compassionately personalise the players. Your insights enhance my enjoyment of following the club and serve as useful reminders that our players are just young people making their way in life.

@58er you are quite correct. These figures are not for 2024. Exact membership numbers for 2024 will not be reported until September. These figures are from the 2022 season. I should have been more explicit about that. I've ran the numbers for 2024 sourcing average game day attendance data (up to and including round 19) from https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/attendances and estimated club membership (as of 30th July 2024) from https://www.aflonline.com.au/afl-news/current-afl-membership-numbers-for-2024/. Interestingly, we again come in third, despite a poorer season this year than 2022. My overall point is that the popular narrative that MFC supporters are fickle and don't turn up is false and should be contested. Of course, there are individual supporters who are fickle and our attendance numbers are lower at night games in the depths of winter etc but this is true of all clubs. On a comparative basis, these numbers not only disprove the stereotype but actually show the opposite; proportionally Demons members are more likely to show up to a game than members of 15 other clubs! * A limitation I've just realised is that the numbers I've used are for average attendance are for all games not just home games as in the 2022 data.

"For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, clear and wrong"

Moralising about football attendance is absurd. There are endless reasons why supporters may or may not attend games and who are we to judge others we don't know. Media potshots regarding MFC game day attendance is an annual event that plays to a stereotype that is unsupported by the statistics. Ignore. Any ire from the low attendance should be directed at the AFL's scheduling.

I generally agree with this. Though, so long as Oliver abides by team rules off field, I expect he'll be given until next season before his contract is evaluated against what he does on field.

I'd rather the opposite; start with last week's line up and sub in Fullarton if not working. I'm also more interested in seeing what Fullarton can offer at AFL level than Laurie or Billings.

You're right, it doesn't work like that. I come from an athletics background. An athlete can stay in peak racing phase for about 4-8 weeks. In the past week we have seen the big names in athletics start coming into peak form for the Olympics in 3 weeks (e.g. Faith Kepyegon's 1500m WR and Jess Hull's 1500m Aus record). Stay up for too long and the aerobic fitness base degrades and performance drops. Need to start the cycle again. But don't trust an internet random's comments. The DL interview with Selwyn Griffith is so insightful. He describes how the players are unable to do enough training during the season to maintain their fitness. Hence the importance of an excellent pre-season and why Oliver is not going to get back to - and sustain - pre-hamstring injury form this season.

Thanks for this. Watching Jako as a kid, I had the impression he wasn't a great kick due to the number of behinds he kicked (208 goals, 173 behinds). Looking back, I realise I was being too harsh. Disinclined to pass, he took a lot of low percentage shots; 39% of his kicks were scoring shots (not including many OOTF) and averaged 1 handball per game! Moreover, I didn't realise how skilled he was on his left. Would have made him unpredictable to a defender; could turn and snap on left or right from anywhere inside 50m.

Shout out to Turner. Key role in the win; stepped up as the key forward allowing JVR to ruck. Always looked promising but held back by injuries and a lean physique. Now he has the body of an AFL KPF. Contests well, kicks straight and loses his opponent inside 50. Solid long-term prospect.

Great call in the opening post. The rebuild is happening and looks promising.

I'm a doctor with experience managing these injuries. I thought I'd make a few comments to quell speculation. SEN reported Petracca had surgery. That wouldn't be for a "small punctured lung" (that's treated with a tube inserted between the ribs to inflate the lung) or four fractured ribs, so I assume it was for the spleen. It's uncommon these days to need to operate on splenic injuries as our interventional radiology colleagues are excellent at performing a minimal invasive procedure (angioembolisation) to stop the bleeding. That Petracca needed surgery suggests this was nothing short of a life-threatening situation. Surgery in this case is usually via a long incision in the midline of the abdomen. That in itself takes a long time to recover from (eg no heavy lifting for six weeks). Then there is the time needed to re-again AFL-level fitness. As a young and fit person, I'm sure Petracca will be fine in time but it wouldn't surprise me if this was the end of his 2024 season.

Good post. Furthermore, if you do coach in the way you describe, fans will dislike you for not being engaging. You may improve the team but a thread will start on DL "Is BDA the right person for the job" and get thousands of posts. Sponsors will dislike you for not giving their brand more air time. You may make finals but dissatisfied sponsors means an unhappy board. Most significantly, the AFL and media will definitely dislike you for failing to produce content. You will no longer be afforded the privilege to stand or fall by your results and the forces that be will eventually affect the outcome they desire. If people don't like listening to "talk, talk, talk" I suggest you do what I do: don't listen to it. Don't criticise Goodwin for talking, like it or not, he's just performing a requirement of the head coaches role.

Anyone know why Kayo is showing a replay from the Neeld era?

My guess is a player well-conditioned to AFL football would be able to adequately recover after five days under optimal circumstances (eg in Melb likely better than in Adelaide). The bigger issue is, doing so requires a big reduction in training load between matches and, particularly when repeated, this has a negative impact on maintaining fitness. Of course, a short break one week usually means a longer break between games the next week and thus the opportunity to do extra training to partially offset previous reductions. I'm sure the high performance team have meticulous plans for all this load management. Getting it right for 20+ individual athletes would be a huge task. With the Carlton game likely being predicted to be a tough game a long way out, I'm guessing the players will be allowed to recover to optimise performance (perhaps if we were playing Nth Melbourne they may have pushed the training a little more).

Thx for clarifying @deanox. We can debate the merits or otherwise of the voting system but what it does is reward players who consistently play their role as assessed by the four people best positioned to understand each players role. We can infer from the result that Nibbler and Pickett both did a great job of playing their role this season. If that caused you to choke on your Cornflakes, maybe you have some reflecting to do. I thought Pickett's offensive output may have been a little down this season but his defensive work was better. Especially using his pace and agility to close down space and deny opposition ball movers freedom to run (eg Saad v Blues and Quaynor v Pies mid-year come to mind).

Thx @Timothy Reddan-A'Blew Kudos to the club for sticking with him. If he can stay injury free and do a full pre-season reasonable to hope for an even better 2024!

Agree with all this. I've no doubt we'll be galvanised and extremely motivated this Friday. My bigger concern is whether this can be balanced with being focussed and composed. I think we lost to the Pies due to lack of composure; didn't handle the Pies early intensity, blazed away going into F50 and some shanks on goal when the game was to be won. The emotion of the week needs to be channeled into playing the best football of their lives not just coming out breathing fire.

I accept Maynard may have not acted consciously in remodelling himself as a cannonball. In that case, he did so instinctively and that instinct needs to be re-trained by disincentivisation.

If Maynard is genuine in his apology to Brayshaw for carelessly making high contact leading to severe impact, I look forward to him pleading guilty! Apologies @ElDiablo14 missed your early post - hard to keep up with this thread!

In 2017, cardiothoracic surgeon Patrick Pritzwald-Stegmann was punched in the head by a patient at Boxhill Hospital. A month later he died of his injuries, leaving behind a wife and two young children as well as all the people that could have benefitted from his knowledge and skills over the remainder of his career. Violence towards healthcare workers was already on the increase but the response had been inadequate. Following the enormous publicity around Patrick’s death (as opposed to the non-existent publicity about daily episodes of violence with less extreme outcomes) the Victorian government invested an extra $20 million in security for public hospitals and initiated the “violence against health workers is never OK” (depressing that some people need to be informed of this message). Of course, the problem still persists. However, these changes had an immediate and lasting beneficial impact. Although, thankfully, the two cases are not on the same scale, there are parallels here to the Brayshaw/Maynard incident. This is perhaps the highest stakes concussion in AFL history. In the early stages of a final between Victoria’s best teams watched live by over 800,000 people, a reputed enforced cannonballs into the head of a helmeted player with a history of concussion. A player whose fiancé’s father died affected by CTE. A generous interpretation is this was an attempted smother performed carelessly. An alternative view is this was an intended hit masquerading as a smother. The outcome of the final was influenced, a player’s season is likely over, his career possibly ended prematurely and his long-term well-being jeopardised. The AFL, in the middle of a billion-dollar class action for compensation for the impact of concussion, is in a fierce spotlight. Lawyers watch with interest. Parents wonder about their children playing AFL if actions such as Maynard’s leading to outcomes such as Brayshaw’s are not disincentivised; “maybe soccer instead? Weren’t the Matilda’s great!” Will the AFL shrink away or take a stand? The recent appointment of Laura Kane, footballer, lawyer and advocate, as executive general manager of football is opportune. Like Patrick’s death, the Brayshaw/Maynard incident will be an inflection point in institutional responses to occupational violence. The tribunal’s finding – and the AFL’s response – will shape the conception of “duty of care” in football in Australia.

Thx @layzie Well written article on the broader significance of this issue and the varying perspectives different stakeholders take. However, what’s with the final paragraph? “Crying shame if Maynard gets rubbed out”?!!! Did Cornes hack the Guradian?

Gawn is not rucking solo for four weeks and TMac is not playing as the only tall forward so Grundy comes in. When Grundy is in the forward line, what about cutting our loses and having him tag Weitering? At least Grundy will get led to the ball and he should be effective at neutralising the aerial contest. May give our other forwards better opportunity to score.