Demon Dynasty

Yep he missed the news of Clazz being managed then digs up some crud... "Look at me i'm still relevant!" As if the club's gonna feed this non-event any morsels

Absolute master class from Ross tonight using the sleeper hold in the first half then ye olde pile driver in the second

Absolutely this. If it wasn't JVR in this week as a bare minimum you had to leave Melk out for AJ I would've gone with AJ for Melk as he brings the chop out for Max PLUS the attack at the drop and pressure / manic tackling at ground level that JVR generally doesn't. We harp on about getting our old mojo back in terms of pressuring inside 50, locking the ball in and/or repeat entries then add a medium forward when we already have one with neither of them renowned for their tackle pressure inside 50. So we are happy to water down the pressure instead of maintaining what we found in the last few weeks that saw us get back on the winners' list? Strange days indeed.

Highly unlikely Roost. He's a good bloke Pendles. A large-ish fine and a slap across the wrist

He who shouts loudest jay We are too often the mild mannered gent

For those who may have taken this the wrong way (not the first or last time on DL i'm sure), that was meant as a compliment to Ghosty ie; Tom is riding off the back of her reports

Stickier than filling the divot with sand that's for sure

Disco

More like Ghosty gave it to him involuntarily!

That would explain Chappy's "slippery" comment then...

Under normal circumstances yes. But now we have Clarry regressing and missing. Not saying Culley is the immediate answer either but a week or two can be a long time in AFL footy. Don't expect too many goals at Casey if they continue to play Culley as a fat side winger. May help improve his two way fitness though.

I agree in terms of post his LTI SN I'm more referring to his body of work prior to that. Which has also been pretty patchy for sure.. Post his return from LTI... mostly bog ordinary. The coach needs to be more ruthless and let players coming back from LTIs or periods of horror form, find it and earn it back, with serious stints at Casey. RUTHLESS is what helped us win the 21 flag

And would probably see us chasing another Rabbit with no doubt many other funding / community hurdles to overcome over many years. And no guarantees even then. No thanks. Most non-demon media hate the MFC so anything to put (or suggest) a further spanner in the works that holds back our potential success. Re Mt Scopus... Truth or just scuttlebutt from Eddie eveywhere? Even if true, surely there's room and scope to have an inclusive development happening here that works for both parties? We seriously need to knock down any closed doors in the next few months and get Caulfield locked away. By the time we wait for their works / development to finish, something else might pop its ugly head up.

Sharp & Spargo vying for a similar role. Sharp is still learning. Spargs you know what you get. Moments of brilliance and solid fierce tackling inside 50. Linking up in other parts of the ground. Mixed in with a fair amount of time where his impact with ball goes missing. I'm not sure the FD even knows where Culley is at and what he can offer yet. He's played almost every posi imaginable at Casey so far on limited games and game time. Hopefully they can settle him in to one or two specific roles there over the next block of games so that he (and the club) can finally assess where his strengths (and weaknesses) are at. His height and athletic build are ready made for AFL. I'm not a betting man but my gut feel from my short time watching is that he'll play seniors before the years out and could be a genuine surprise packet through the middle and/or drifting forward on occasions a la CP5.

Intercept marking improving. Very slow to assess & react in terms of moving the ball on. He'll need to get up to speed with the modern game style or maybe he is but lacking confidence in his ball skills by foot. Maybe a bit of both? Either way he has a bit of work to do me thinks.

Any chance you can get a pair of these to Rick and Maysie next time you see them pls Ghosty? Rick in particular. He probably won't get to as many intercepts but at least he'll never do another ankle...

If wishes were horse... i mean horses

Team & Player Ratings to Rnd 7, 2025 vs H&A Season 2024 Well well well fellow Minions. What do we have here! Team Rating now tracking at 2022 & 2023 levels AND..... up 3.2% on the 2021 Premiership Season Rating *Provided most of this crew stay on the park, we get Lever back mid season and Simon & Co. picks a team roughly within or close to our best 22 from below, i am super confident the Demon worm has turned! Don't book any holidays in for September, cancel any plans you may have in train... *WE ARE FINALS BOUND! * Played less than two full matches < Subbed out at least once or more > Subbed in at least once or more Stats courtesy of footwire.com & wheeloratings.com

Quite a half of footy from our Flag hero Harmes

Hey DZ. Agree, it appears on the surface we are seeing a substantial lift, however hard to gauge against the last two opponents. It might be just what the doctor ordered though. Sometimes you need a bit of a break from the top end oppos for some of your out-of-form players to work their way back to their best. Which then adds more belief and confidence. Confidence being the elusive tonic! One of our big problems of late is getting all our stars playing at or near their highest level. So we've had Tracc & Viney way down on their usual output till about last week. While Clarry was doing ok to very good during that period. Then all of a sudden Viney & Tracc start to find their form, but Clarry then go missing in a few quarters. Consistency across the park amongst almost the entire 22 has been so hard to find since about mid way through 2023. As others have stated, Thurs night was also a diff game than the the Tiges appeared to park the bus almost from the get go by stacking the back half. A different set up to the Dockers. Let's hope the Eagles haven't taken too much note of that next week!

May has also had plenty of sleepless nights during the off season and leading in to matches. He hit the ground running and, aside from twisting his ankle while pirouetting in a contest on the wing vs Lynch on Thurs night, hasn't put a foot wrong so far.

Round 7, 2025 MCG - Demons vs Tigers Well this was either an outlier against a pretty poor oppo or we may have lift off. Maybe a bit of both? Our best Team Rating for two years. Last bested in Rnd 7, 2023 vs North with a whopping Team Rating of 78.8 Tracc also hitting very good form with a Rating up 20%+ on his excellent 2024 Rating prior to his stint on the sidelines. The Capt way out in front and easily BOG with an outstanding No.1 rating of 6.55 Welcome back Knuckles McVee, finishing well within the top 10. McVee's 4.01 Rating this week was well ahead of who he replaced. That being Howes' with a Rating of 2.80 from last week. Not a bad performance from Howes even so but not in the league of McVee. Our top 6 rated players a whopping 37% in front of the top 6 average from 2024 The bottom 6 rating on the other hand, quite disappointing, down 31% on 2024. The worst of those being Kolt -27% on his 2024 Rating and Spargo a worrying-36% vs his 2023 Rating. And although he does not have a comparative Rating, Fullarton holding up the ladder with the worst Rating for us on the night (not counting the Sub). Lifting that bottom 6 a few rungs would be super handy. Question is who have we got in the McGoos that could make a significant difference at this point? The main one at present is Bonner who's cutting it up but he's also not on our list. Given we are trying to get back our pressure mojo inside 50, AJ might be one option to consider for Fullarton. While he may not set the world on fire he does attack in the air and pretty competitive / fierce at ground level also. He can chop out in the ruck to a minor degree. Better than nothing. Had a pretty reasonable match at Casey on Thurs morning. Worth re-considering? Melksham might also be due back. Possibly for Spargo? *AFL average % in50s Goal is 23% Demons < Subbed out TOG % > Subbed in TOG % Tigers Combined Player Ratings Stats courtesy of footywire.com and wheeloratings.com

If my memory serves me correct, this is one of the main areas that apparently all teams strive to be rated at or near the top of the tree and a key trait required for Premiership contention. Lasted only one match unfortunately with the Tiges beating us from this zone last night yes? Our best Team Pressure Rating for the year. We've even won the last quarter although it wasn't at AFL average (185) which might partially explain why the Tigers won the quarter. Max off with roughly 8 minutes to go obviously another big factor