FarNorthernD

God bless his cotton socks, but I am pretty sure when the Collingwood players saw Godders kicking on the run goals from just inside 50, they knew it wasn’t going to be their day

Perhaps we can do our own version of this comp? At least we wouldn’t be putting up Nathan Carroll as a potential best ever defender. Can’t wait to see if Simon Godfrey is on offer as a mid.

The whole thing is tragic. Misspelling Sean Wight’s name, the choice of players and then the shameless marketing grab for your personal details. They need my date of birth to enter ?? FO!

How did it go WCW? News? Vibe? Did you leave the night injury free?

Ten minutes into the last - Judd McVee channels his inner Mary Fowler and hits a running Petracca on the chest, with a perfectly weighted, long pass who then kicks truly from 50. We go 30 points up and extend our 8 game winning streak over Carlton.

And the US. There can’t be a lack of athletic 6’ 10” centres who miss out on the NBA.

I remember he had a purple patch about half way through his first season. He was kicking opportunistic goals from everywhere and I thought we had found a real player. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. Having said that, not too many AFL players can retire with an iconic elimination final sealer on their highlight real.

Salem is so overrated here

Hopefully they have learnt from the Pies/Hawks game and won’t be going at anything less than 100%

In that era I would consider anything under a 10 goal loss as a moral victory.

Hang on Fremantle still have pick 21. Where have they been hiding that? I want that too. C’mon Freo, hand it over.

Titus O’Reilly’s take on the incident. You don’t have to read too hard between the lines to realise he may agree with you WCW. “I’ve got a lot of sympathy for Zorko; there’s no cleaner player in the AFL”

Definitely not a bad thing. He will feel right at home playing with Oli Sestan too. Neither Brett Lovett or Allan Jakovich had a high jumpers body but they went ok

Great chart D.I.O. I do tend to get outraged as to how this club seems to be habitually shafted in both men’s and women’s fixtures. Luckily though the AFL can’t predict what teams will go backwards and what others will stagnate. That draw shouldn’t end up being as difficult as it initially looks. Apparently we also go interstate more than most Victorian teams too, but that’s almost a good thing as the team seem to travel well together. I am really forward to this season

A while back this draft year was touted as a ‘super draft’. Does anyone know how strong and deep it is looking now?

Jeepers! Buy Gold Coast Suns shares. 5 of the starting 18 are from the Suns academy which is the same number as all of Victoria. Lucky one of them is coming to us

Well I am the odd man out then. I don’t mind Barrett and listen to his AFL Dailey program when I remember

Darcy is one of my favourite non Demons. He looks like a burger eating, cigarette smoking suburban footballer who has mistakenly wandered onto an AFL ground. I hope his injury isn’t bad

Coincidentally that was about the same time I finished writing Goodwin’s reluctant, but heartfelt, resignation speech

I did not pick that. At all Go Dees!

Wonder how Max and Brodie are feeling that the opposition ruck got 7 coaches votes? Hopefully fired up

Woewodin is such a brilliant Melbourne name. I hope he goes on and plays 300 games for us

2023 List Rucks Pearce 184cm, 30yo, 57 games, Premiership Player * Watt 186, 35, 24 Harris 177, 25, 61 * —— Zanker 183, 23, 52 * Mids Purcell 161, 22, 38 * Hanks 157, 22, 49 * West 162, 25, 25 * Mithen 159, 24, 59 * —— Heath 160, 22, 41 * Paxman 170, 34, 64 * Wing/Fwd/Back Heath McNamara 166, 20, 22 Bannon 177, 20, 36 * B Mackin 170, 23, 10 * Paxman Forwards (tall) Harris Zanker Ivey 175, 30, 36 Campbell 184, 19, 1 Forwards (small/med) Hore 170, 27, 54 * Fitzsimmons 169, 20, 26 * A Mackin 170, 26, 0 Fowler 167, 19, 2 Backs (tall) Birch 175, 25, 65 * Gillard 190, 19, 16 * Sherriff 174, 24, 38 * Colvin 175, 31, 25 Wilson 177, 22, 26 Gall 183, 18, 0 Taylor 183, 24, 0 Johnson 175, 30, 4 (non playing ‘23) Backs (small/med) Heath Lampard 170, 25, 53 * Gay 166, 26, 46 * Goldrick 168, 32, 31 * Chaplin 167, 20, 12 * Strengths 1 Good luck getting a gig in that backline. Easily our strongest line and the most miserly in the comp having conceded a smidge over 18 points a game. We have the best small defender in Shelley Heath who kept Courtney Hodder, one of the best small forwards, to just 2 kicks (0 points) in the Grand Final. We also have the best young. developing tall, Tahlia Gillard, who held the competitions highest goal scorer scoreless in the same game. A dream pick at draft #42 Tahlia has a 15/1 winning record Add Birch, Goldie, Gay, Chaplin, Lampard et al and you are going to win a lot more games than you’ll lose. Strengths 2 We have amazing flexibility within the team. Zanker, Harris, Hore, Gay, Bannon, Lampard, Fitzsimmons, Paxman and Heath can all play multiple positions across the ground. Strength 3 This is what separates us, Brisbane and Adelaide from everyone else - depth. Every team has good players. In fact our top end talent possibly isn’t as good as some others but no one is going to match our bottom dozen players. Strength 4 I’ll be honest, the first time I heard the words Demon Spirit uttered I thought they were wankie leadership course buzzwords that had been enthusiastically co-opted by the marketing department. How wrong was I. It was endlessly talked about in every interview with the girls. They believed that not only every woman in the side, but every woman on that list had buy in with the group. From the outside looking in it looked like they had total belief in one another. And in a sign of how deep that shared sense of belonging and loyalty was, the Demon Spirit award was won by Rhi Watt, who was injured and didn’t play a single minute of game time. Weakness 1 Our forward line could do with a quick and skilful quality goal sneak. Perhaps Aimee Mackin has been recruited for this role? Weakness 2 Our first choice mids are all between 157-162 (5’2”-5’4” in the old) and whilst that didn’t hurt us last year it would be great if we could develop a couple of bigger body mids Opportunities 1 Our flag side featured four players 19-21yo and ten in the all important 22-26yo bracket - in other words there is still room for significant improvement Opportunity 2 There was no proper draft at the end of last season. For the first and last time that will mean the the other teams don’t have the chance to bring in new, young talent. There is bit of a status quo about the lists To counter this the AFL (in their infinite wisdom) and to even the talent pool across the league, let the weaker raid the stronger clubs. Brisbane, in particular, have been weakened but so have Adelaide who are both our major competitors. In a testament to the unity and Demon Spirit of this list we did not lose a player to another club. If anything this has left us relatively stronger which was probably not what the AFL had in mind. Smiley face here Threat 1 Post Daisy. We will probably only know about half way through the season how significant of a loss her absence is. Let’s face it she is irreplaceable Threat 2 Post flag. Will complacency creep in? Summary We will start the season as deserved flag favourites. We are brilliantly coached, have a deep and talented list and a united club. Other clubs will rise to challenge us - North? Bulldogs? - and there are so many variables, both known and unknown, that it is impossible to be overly confident At the very least we can all be pretty bloody excited by the upcoming season. I am!! Go Demons!!

With the wet weather having a fresh Spargo to come in could be a big advantage

Don’t think MANY criticised the decision to drop Tomlinson, just that he was stiff. He played particularly well last week and is unlucky to miss this week although you may disagree. I think MOST here are can understand the horses for courses/wet weather/match up logic but still can feel some sympathy for him