Jaded No More

Thank you so much for all the training reports from everyone throughout the year, but most especially @Ghostwriter and @Harvey Wallbanger Your contribution to this site with fantastic reports week in week out, make visiting Demonland worthwhile, even when this place is losing its marbles.

No McClure was. With his -10% hit rate, hence the scepticism.

Extremely pleased that I believed we were no chance to get the Friday night game, and therefore went ahead and made plans. Not sure I can end this miserable season watching the Pies beat us. Again. It's been hard enough already.

Rivers and Bruce haven’t been at the club for years. It sounds like Buckley is seeking out information about the day to day running of the club. Neither of them would have a clue. It sounds like someone who departed recently and worked under this current FD.

Fingers crossed it’s Burgess!

For all your news needs please contact Tom Morris c/o Clarry’s dumpster.

I do not condone any use of vilifying language on the footy field, be it around race, religion or sexual orientation. It is vile and unacceptable. But on the same level, so is sledging someone's family, or making fun of opponents being seriously injured. What Zorko said to Petty was deadset disgusting. You just don't bring families, kids or partners into any type of on field sledging. At all. Ever. Likewise how did Willie Rioli get only one week for threatening to harm an opponent? I do not support nor condone what Rankine said. It is unacceptable. But it's no more unacceptable than Houston telling him he will knock him out again, like that's some sort of badge of honour. Thank god we didn't get Houston. A lot of talk and not a lot of output for a highly paid snipper.

Very special moment. Let’s hope he follows in his father’s footsteps and becomes a great player. Kudos to the club for developing and supporting him for so many years. This is the one piece of history and nostalgia that I hope remains forever in the league. It’s such a unique initiative and it makes our game great. Well done Kalani. 34 is waiting for you!

Buckley will be 70 by the time Tassie is competitive. For someone who has never won a flag, I’m sure his patience for success is not that high.

What reason would the club possibly have to delay announcing that he has re-signed? We leak like a broken sieve, if he had signed I can't imagine we'd be able to keep it away from the media for more than a few minutes. Tom Morris is hiding in Judd's bushes probably

Grundy was a square peg that we tried fitting into a Jackson gaping round hole.

The Pies had a cry to the AFL about the umpiring in their game versus Adelaide. So you just know they will get every soft free on Friday. Warning: do not enter a 2m radius surrounding N Daicos

If you listen to recent interviews with players, they praise the actual facilities, and when you look at some of the videos the club has taken there, you can see it is a well resourced facilities that is large enough to accommodate not just our AFL team but our Casey side and the AFLW team. It was recently revamped thanks to the generous donations of our supporters. See article here: https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/1491830/thurin-high-performance-centre-opening

Casey is a brand new state of the art facility now. We spent a lot of money to kit that place out. It is a very nice training base. The issue IMO is not the location or the quality of the facilities, it's that we are not in one single location. If we trained exclusively at Casey, then players who wanted to drive less could do what Gawn, May and Lever have done and move to the very affluent Mornington Peninsula. Not exactly a terrible place to live. But it's the fact that we are all over the shop, that unfortunately means that no matter where you choose to reside, you are stuck travelling to either training base, which are on opposite sides of the city. Nobody will convince me that the locations of some of the other club's training bases is better than Casey. But when you have a singular work place you can adjust your life accordingly. When you are spending half your week in Richmond and the other half in Cranbourne, that is quite difficult.

I 100% believe Ghosty, but I also 100% believe that Judd is delaying signing for a reason. I don't know what that reason is, but regardless, it's more noise that we just don't need. From everything I've heard he wanted a 4 year deal and the club was happy to give him one. He's had a contract in front of him for months now. For a kid that was picked up in the rookie draft during Covid, and has had a very average season, he sure is taking his sweet time to put pen to paper. If he was struggling to get a game, I would understand, but he's been picked every single week and rushed back from injury into the senior side. If he's feeling hard done by because he wants/was told his role will change this season, than frankly tough luck. A lot of players have made compromises to their role this season, including much more senior players like Petty, Trac and Viney. It's a team sport.

Are you really comparing Judd McVee to Nasiah? 😂

The delay in signing is starting to stink. Another BS we don’t need right now.

He must miss Tom Hawkins

We looked woefully slow behind the ball, which I think is why Tmac was taken off. He would have a better match up this week in Membrey, and I imagine May will play on McStay.

It is well documented that the sort of foot injury he sustained in late 2023, takes 18-24 months at a minimum to recover from. It is one of the worst and most debilitating injuries to sustain, especially if you're someone who needs to be able to jump off the ground at the contest. It is 10 times harder to come back from than a standard ACL. Petty is now 2 years post injury and it looks like he has gained some confidence in his body as a result.

My guess is they wanted to get him to his 250th, which is fair enough. He is still a decent defender, but without Lever there to help cover the hole, he has no speed left off the mark to be able to compete with the fast breaking forwards. And he can't bend down either. 2026 will definitely be his last in the AFL.

I think tactical. Hopefully not his last game. Deserves much better than to be subbed out to end his career.

I am personally happy that he's sticking with the Saints. At least for now. It's good for the game when smaller clubs keep their stars, and he is one hell of a star.