deejammin'

Me too, especially when it was moved into Demons news about our new signings.

The better question is how many did Morton earn?

Its also worth noting we have had a lot of success with the Rookie list, Jamar, Davey, Mckensie, Nicholson, Evans, Magner have all been good for our club and if we pick up two young kids and give them time we may well uncover another primary list player.

I agree with you in the sense that we need to be more competitive against all sides this year, and I will be hoping we could be in a game for 4 quarters against Hawthorn, unlike our recent efforts. However in my opinion Hawthorn will be one of the top 3 sides in the AFL in 2013, with Brian Lake bolstering one of their most deficient areas, a number of key players entering their prime, Hodge potentially playing a full season and with the full list seriously hurting from last year looking to make amends. I am far more concerned with us beating teams like Port, WB, North, Essendon, Brisbane, Richmond and even Carlton before we even consider seriously challenging Hawthorn.

Great post DA, I agree, I think there is more than one option for almost every role, although the talent is admittedly far deeper for some rather than others. I don't see any players gifted games though, even if someone like Jamar has a down time you would think Spencer and Gawn would be breathing down his neck. its seems like this could be a great time for our footy club. I can't wait for 2013.

Thanks so much to everyone for the reports. One of my favourite things this time of year. Can't wait to get to some training sessions myself. Also, noticed Dunn rucking against Spencer in the photos on the club site. Does anyone know if this is a new role for him? HBF pinch hitting in the ruck would be a new one.

Well, the primary list is complete, still very light on for Senior and Veteran players but with a lot of quality players to move into the Senior category next year, as well as having added some quality experience and leadership to these groups we've done all we can do to balance this area of our list this year. Our young potential is massive, guys like Toumpas, Viney, Hogan, Barry, Kent and Evans all have the potential to be a great group in the future. Also the meat mof our list looks far more balanced and competitive than the last 3-4 years, it will be tough to figure out what our best 22 is until we start playing some games. I think overall this has been a great off-season for the club and am more confident than the last 2 years that this could be a genuinely good season with some solid competitive performances against good sides and many more wins. I saw EQ do a similar evaluation to this in her reports and I thought it could be useful to have a full primary list split this way, also I know that players like Tapscott, Howe, Blease will spend time through the midfield but I would expect them to rotate through forward flanks hence why I list them there. Also while I know Gillies and Watts and big boys I think they are more likely to play running roles than key position defence which is why I am classing them as flankers: Key Position Forwards: Clark (Back up ruck), Dawes, Pedersen (Back up Ruck), Fitzpatrick (Back up Ruck), Hogan (2014) Medium Flankers/Small Forwards: Byrnes, Davey, Blease, Tapscott, Howe, Midfielders: Trengove, Grimes, N Jones, Sylvia, Mckensie, Rodan, Viney, Toumpas, Barry, M Jones, Kent, Taggert, Evans, Bail, Jetta, Couch, Magner Rucks: Jamar, Gawn, Spencer, Medium Flankers/Small Backs: Watts, Dunn, Strauss, Nicholson, Gillies, Terlich, JMac, Tynan Key Position Defenders: Frawley, Garland, TMac, Sellar, Davis *Bold = Rookie

I'm of the opinion that we have turned Picks 3, 4, 13 and 26, into three top 5 draft picks (Toumpas, Hogan and Viney), a second rounder (Barry) and a premiership centre half forward originally drafted at 28 (Dawes). That's an incredible return! Regardless of whether you like insiders more than outsiders or whatever if even half of these players make the impact we expect them to MFC will be a far far better side than we have seen for a very long time. Well done FD.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Thats all.

Hard not to get excited about it, I mean: Huge Potential: Hogan, Viney, Toumpas, Barry Solid Proven contributers: Pedersen, Gillies, Rodan Experienced leaders from sucessful clubs: Dawes, Byrnes, = Soooooo much better than where we were at pre this time of year (PS Wines would still be an incredible result also, and if we can sneak a gem with one of our other picks it will be a very exciting time)

Hogan, Viney, Toumpas, Barry, Dawes, Pedersen, Gillies, Byrnes, Rodan = **&((%^& Awesome!!!!!!

Thanks BH, Opkick and Steamin' for your reports and pictures. Sounds like Viney had a bit of a blinder in the running. Thats great news! Also good to hear Trenners is looking spritely, if he can get his depth back into his kicking and a little more acceleration added to the hard yards and 1%ers he had this year 2013 could belong to him. Also I understand the constant reports on Clark, but I hope we can all just relax a little bit, he was always a bit ahead to this point in his recovery, he's wearing normal shoes, and doing running on the low grav treadmill, maybe there will be minor setbacks, but lets not jump at shadows.

Actually its a fair comparison, .6 goals difference over their careers is not that large and considering they play the same role in two of the best teams from the last 5 years its pretty apt. In terms of the comparison for 2012 Roughhead played 6 games as KPF whilst Franklin was out mid-season, Dawes didn't do this at all, Cloke played every game. Also Dawes played with a broken knuckle for the majority of the year, Roughhead was relatively injury free after coming back from his Achilles pre-season, finally Roughhead played in a team that kicks far more goals than Dawes' Collingwood (Collingwood 350, Hawthorn 435), its a chicken and the egg argument but Collingwood plays a far more defensive low scoring style than Hawthorn so Roughy has an easier time getting goals. As for more than 30 goals most 2nd KPF kick below this, and with Mitch in the forward line thats what you would expect Dawes to be. Only the very best teams 2nd KPF kick more than 30 goals (Roughhead, Tippett and Podsiadly being the only 3 this year), and the premiers had only one goalkicker over 40 goals in Jetta, the KPFs for Sydney all kicked around 30 goals and less (Goodes (arguably 3rd KPF) 37, Reid 31, LRT 27), yet they did pretty well. All Dawes has to do for us is create a contest, kick enough goals to help us win games and support Mitch Clark. Saying he hasn't kicked over 30 goals is irrelevant to whether or not he will be successful, football isn't about KPF kicking all your goals anymore.

In which case should we go back to our respective posts on Menzel?

Not to burst any bubbles, but also to alleviate any fears here are the two Grand Finalist's players over 193cm: Basically they have the same amount as us, and all are similarly heavy. Basically it seems like this is a normal amount of talls for an AFL list. Also it seems that AFL players in general are getting taller, just in doing this excercise it became aparent that players under 180cm are relatively rare (the swans only have 2!) and also that several teams have players in the 190-194cm range playing vastly different roles, eg Grundy is a KPD at 192cm while Goodes plays largely as a wingman/midfielder at 194cm. Basically all the teams are tall, they just contain a range of body types and abilities suited to roles. Hawthorn 2012: Bailey 206cm Lowden 204cm Hale 201cm Grimley 199cm Boumann 196cm Franklin 196cm Roughead 193cm Birchall 193cm Gunston 193cm Schoenmakers 193cm Sydney 2012: Pike 200cm Mumford 199cm White 197cm Reid 195cm Walsh 195cm Roberts-Thompson 194cm Everitt 194cm Goodes 194cm A. Johnstone 193cm Richards 193cm

I would like Hogan to be #3, having grown up a G.Lyon fan it would be great to see a big forward in the great man's number. I would like Hogan and Dawes in #3 and #5, I"m a romantic, so Colin Sylvia to move to #1, Viney to have #12, Byrnes in #10, Rodan #33, Pedersen #15, Gillies #27, Wines? in #23, Barry #45 would be good too for the great M.Whelan.

Hi I really liked the interview too, seems very confident, I loved it when he said "get this club back to where it belongs", it sounded like he meant it. Also I think the emphasis on respect for the coaching group seems to me to imply he may have had a few problems with old FIGJAM.

Sad for it to end this way for Bartram, a true Demon. Thanks for the memories and good luck with future endeavours.

Thanks for the info BH, how is Trengove's kicking going? Is it back to his first two years or is he still struggling to get depth?

I would like to see Dawes in 5 with the Ox handing him his jumper. It would signal the first time since Neitz/Schwartz we have two seriously good bullocking forwards. Exciting!

Yup, but many tend to forget these things when they become very good famous players. Goddard is just one example, Dane Swan is another. Anyway, thanks to all those who have provided details on training, I can't wait to hear some more reports.

Which Goddard wasn't, and this seems to be the role Watts will be playing. Goddard was lamented by Saints supporters for at least 4 seasons before all of a sudden they all loved him and he was a superstar.... Hopefully we see this happen for Jack

I don't think we could have had the same amount of success as those teams for the reason you mention, our older players weren't as good as the members of those teams. However, Hawthorn for example hung onto Richie Vandenberg even when it was clear he wouldn't take them to a premiership, as he was a great leader and a hard trainer, had we hung onto guys like Junior rather than moving them on it may have helped our younger players with good examples and I think we would be further ahead of where we are now. That was my only point, not that we would be winning premierships.

Beat me to it Binman, I would think after trying to bulk him up to KPF standards over the last couple of years the focus will have shifted back to getting the most out of his aerobic capacity so that he can play the role you describe, 3rd up defender with stints on a wing.

The tone in the review of our club's offseason is not very complementary, I'm not sure exactly which part of our trading they dislike, but someone certainly doesn't like our strategy. Wines and Viney would be good.