Demon Dynasty

As much as Jetta has been a very good defender in his time, personally i think Jetta is now cooked godees and this appeared to be the case pretty much the entire season. Hope i'm wrong but this particular in smacks of desperation stakes (ie., Lockhart isn't an option). No way he is anywhere near Hibb now. What's up with Lockhart? Must be injured as i'd be playing him 10 times outta 10 if the choice is between the two at this point.

He made two other points in that discussion when questioned. He stated that if he was in charge or had some say over what was happening on Monday night what would he have changed? He said he would have thrown out the zoning once the heavy rain set in and gone man on man to make Freo accountable and worry them off the ball / switching and racking up easy possessions. He was also asked about his playing days and what the general feel was like about what the issue was at the Demons (ie., inferring what was it that made them such an easy beat without actually saying such). His response was something like... "Get them on the outside. We always felt if you can get it into the outer ring, set up for that, we could then run it away from the contest and were a very good chance of winning".

We have form here though OD. I recall at some point we put a bit of a caveat on a Daniher extension to his contract at some stage around the end of 2004/2005. I can't recall the exact details/dates/timing but at the time i'm pretty sure it was Gardner who came out early in a season saying something along the lines of "we will need to see a big improvement between now and turning towards finals (ie., about round 12ish i think he said when pressed) before we agree to an extension of Neil's contract". This was after like 4/5 losses from 5/6 matches or so early in the season. Within about two rounds (ie., about Rnd 7), and we had clocked up a massive two wins in a row, for some reason that hurdle suddenly disappeared and the extension was announced! I remember thinking at the time .. "what was the rush here? How are we losing IF we wait a little longer to be more certain?". Fast forward to the present and we now have Goodwin talking about ruthlessness. Yes i realise he is mostly (or 100%) referring to the team itself. However, it's pretty hard to bring this if the history off the field alone suggests the complete opposite. As we've seen far too often over many decades at the MFC, we like to talk the talk a fair bit.

Just what are you expecting PF... improvement!?

Yep that makes sense. The headline grabbers need a headline

Gws clean out....no doubt we'll be having our own soon...

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Sometimes you have to go big and be bold to get results. Even if he only performs for one season or even just one finals series and it all clicks. That might be the one season that sees us land an elusive flag. From the Sun's player ratings post their premiership... TOM BOYD 9 Pay rise? Early goals huge, contested marking enormous and did it all banged-up after throwing himself at Mummy last week. Whether it was Peter Gordon or Jason McCartney, it was the trade that broke the drought. Tom Boyd showed why he went pick No.1 and why he’s worth the money. Picture: George Salpigtidis"... Sometimes one player can make the difference. I recall Hogan sledging Boyd as he sat out a match one day at the G against us after copping a sledge himself. At that stage Boyd was getting pilloried by the press at the time for being an over paid bust. Well he who laughs last longest. One has a premiership medal around his neck, the other struggling over in Perth. It pays to be bold i reckon. At least you never die wondering. Can't see it happening but i'd be making this our No.1 recruiting goal and leaving no stone unturned to get it done.

They seem to have a preference for Parfitt over Knarkle to this point. Parfitt recruited similar time. 66 games vs 10 for Knarkle so far. Parfitt probably a slightly more inside bias vs Knarkle. Could be just injury issues. ACL in June 2017. Hammy last year Rnd 8 or so in the VFL. Hammy in July this year early in the 1st quarter against Brissy. At this point he may have a future but is injury prone and, aside from prospective longevity in the game, probably not dissimilar to Harley in terms of what he offers us on the outside. Harley obviously injury prone as well. Given our frailty on the field performance wise can we afford a potentially brittle rookie who is prone to breaking down this early in his career? Caveat emptor for all recruits is needed but i'd be putting a big red flag on this one prior to pressing the go button.

I suspect partly talent but mostly well directed, skilled and drilled in a very basic but effective game style SW. Did you hear the pre-game interview with Rattan? His assessment of Meth's strengths and weaknesses as well as the approach to the changing conditions etc. No wonder they are doing very well this season. Oozs confidence but also hints of a guy who assesses & analyses in depth and it plays out on the field. I'm not saying they are world beaters but they're in very good hands. And how smart was that little double tap kick off the ground by Butler a little while ago for the goal off the ground! Our blokes would be either attempting to pick it up in slippery conditions or jump on it and probably get pinged for HTB. Outside of natural talent that shines through on occasions, we are a terribly coached/drilled/skilled team in general. Awful to watch.

The Cat's cut him pretty quickly. I would be worried as to why. They don't suffer fools gladly down there. Would need to do some serious homework / background checks first imv.

The chances to play accountable footy this season against the likes of the Cats in the early part of the year and other games like the one just gone have long passed us by HFF. You rarely get second chances at this level and i'm not even sure Goody has the will or the wherewithal to bring this into the group. We are easy beats for very good reasons.

Working a treat so far Andy. Noice work. Any chance you can add a delete option for the weird double postings that occur for some reason or errors as per previous version a few years back?

THIS ? Always ahead of curve and on the front foot ...NOT Still an amateur club on and off the field that folds like a cheap suit. We are irrelevant / expendable to the AFL and that's how we're treated.

You should be getting Goody & Bartlett's salary for the remainder of this year Kallang as a reward for going above and beyond. Even beyond that of some of the players me thinks! Half to the misses might help somewhat to compensate for her suffering and alleviate you of part of yours...at least for a day or two anyway.

Yes we lost to the lowly Saints earlier at the G in Rnd 15 by two points. A game which we never truly looked like winning. The MFC has an uncanny way of pulling out a loss when you most expect it ie; when it is expected to win. It is worth highlighting that the Saints had only won two of their thirteen matches prior to beating us in this match, losing 75% of their matches by an average of 6 goals, including Rnd 7 earlier in the year to us by over 6 goals. Their first win was their opening round encounter with the Lions, who only finished one place above the Saints in 15th place. And their only other win to that point was against the even worse Suns (finished in 17th) the week before, by a miserly 2 points. The Saints finished the year in 16th place. We were in 6th place prior to this match and only one game behind 4th place (Collingwood) and Port (5th) at that stage with the 2nd best percentage (127%), only bettered by Richmond (135%). We then fell two matches behind those sitting from 2nd through 6th (Collingwood & Port moving two matches ahead of us after dropping this), pretty much killing off a chance of securing a top 4 place and the double chance.

It's just another Goody Goody num num. He finds a player's strengths, in fact sometimes he seems to find the team's strengths in terms of playing certain players in particular roles / positions that suit. This might last for a week or two. Maybe even three. And yes there will be required changes for match ups or injuries depending on the week & the opponent. But how many change ups can a player / team handle before the wheels start falling off? And far too often we've seen far too many of these madding changes under this bloke. I heard an interview with a Docker player after their win last night. And one of the question was "what are you enjoying most about this year under Longmuir?" or something to that effect. His response along the line of... "being able to play the same position most weeks allowing me to settle in and learn the role. That's given me alot of confidence when i run out each week". How do you reckon our blokes are coping here under SG's constant change ups?

Regrets signing a four year deal? Maybe changed his mind and was hoping to play with bro at the Dockers earlier than 2023? Biding time till then and picking and choosing how much effort will go in to the next few years? Self preservation if you like. Enjoys playing through the middle. Hates playing anywhere else? Picks and chooses when he goes based on where he's being played and in what role? Who knows. We may have a few who sook it up if they don't get there own way but i'm just speculating from outside the four walls. This all comes down to screening players at selection IMO and making sure we are picking players of character who truly want to take their game to it's highest level. Only picking those who show a genuine drive and taste for wanting to taste individual and (most importantly) team success. We also have too many quiet types imv. We need more outspoken players who will speak up on the field and urge others on to greater heights & perfection. Players who will do all the team things including shepherd, block, run to support, run back to defend, remonstrate more for frees, intentional OOB decisions. Pushing for that one little edge over their opponent and extracting the max they can out of every contest. I just don't see enough of this in our blokes. A few exceptions like May and Ed but most just seem to be happy jogging around picking up their weekly pay cheque and doing just enough to get the odd game.

More enjoyable doing this if we were showing some sort of cohesion and purpose NVROD. Sadly i think the hap hazard performances might be the result of systemic failure within the FD & morale of the playing group in general. I'm a true believer in body language and from what i'm witnessing in the box, on the bench and from the game day footage inside the rooms, my gut feel tells me things are not going well inside the four walls of late. The wheels have well and truly fallen off.

By the time we get around to considering it a possibility Choco will probably be retired...

One out of left field and i don't think he'd cost a packet. Might allow us to afford the payout and move on in the short term. Premiership coach. Seems to be a decent man manager at least. Probably better as an assistant only but would be a substantial improvement on the present and should be able to get the best out of this group. Possibly a bit of a modern day Northey type? Loves his footy, loves anyone involved in the game and presently coaching Werribee. Also running a kicking skills program on the side. That on it's own is a necessity for our lot! Maybe even a mentor / game day mind set / skills coach for the boys...

Weighted Averages up to and including Rnd 16, 2020 Player 2020 Weighted Score 2020 Rank 2019 Weighted Score % Change vs 2019 % Change vs 2019 w/ 20% time adjusted 2019 Rank Change in Rank vs 2019 Clayton Oliver 4.093 1 4.880 -16.13 4.84 1 0 Christian Petracca 3.608 2 2.843 26.91 58.64 9 7 Max Gawn # 3.027 3 3.437 -11.93 10.09 4 1 Jack Viney 2.952 4 3.258 -9.39 13.26 5 1 Steven May 2.752 5 2.618 5.12 31.40 14 9 Ed Langdon 2.740 6 - - - - - Christian Salem 2.693 7 3.658 -26.38 -7.98 3 -4 Angus Brayshaw 2.589 8 3.131 -17.31 3.36 6 -2 James Harmes 2.262 9 4.039 -44.00 -30.00 2 -7 Jake Lever 2.248 10 2.519 -10.76 11.55 16 6 Michael Hibberd 2.244 11 2.339 -4.06 19.92 19 8 Tom Sparrow 2.150 12 1.275 68.63 110.78 37 25 Adam Tomlinson # 1.932 13 - - - - - Trent Rivers 1.904 14 - - - - - Harley Bennell 1.850 15 - - - - - Bayley Fritsch 1.720 16 2.809 -38.77 -23.46 10 -6 Oscar McDonald # 1.682 17 1.956 -14.01 7.49 26 9 Tom McDonald # 1.675 18 2.297 -27.08 -8.85 20 2 Jay Lockhart 1.650 19 1.819 -9.29 13.39 30 11 Oskar Baker * 1.650 19 1.714 -3.73 20.33 29 10 Alex N-Bullen 1.640 21 2.120 -22.64 -3.30 22 1 Nathan Jones 1.638 22 2.907 -43.65 -29.57 7 -15 Mitchell Hannan 1.506 23 1.433 5.09 31.37 36 13 Jake Melksham 1.488 24 2.181 -31.77 -14.72 21 -3 Aaron Vandenburg 1.485 25 - - - - - Luke Jackson # 1.463 26 - - - - - Sam Weideman 1.416 27 1.895 -25.28 -6.60 27 0 Charlie Spargo 1.375 28 1.513 -9.12 13.60 35 7 Neville Jetta 1.355 29 2.264 -40.15 -25.19 18 -11 Braydon Preuss # 1.325 30 1.643 -19.35 0.81 33 3 Kysaiah Pickett 1.198 31 - - - - - Joel Smith 1.085 32 - - - - - Mitchell Brown 1.067 33 - - - - - Toby Bedford 0.925 34 - - - - - Jayden Hunt 0.844 35 2.092 -59.66 -49.57 23 -12 Average Team Score - Top 22 50.699 59.623 -14.97 6.29 # Hit outs to advantage not captured * One match only, not an average Stats courtesy of footywire.com

Rnd 15, 2020 Cazaly's Stadium - Demons vs Dockers Pretty much a repeat of the Rnd 3 match vs the Cats with SG effectively giving up the forward half of the ground and keeping a spare behind the ball early, almost as if he had conceded the match from the get go. And that we did, with the Dockers constantly peppering the goals early and probably should have had a bigger lead at quarter time given the breeze and the amount of time in their forward half. IMHO this is a strategy only worth using to ice a quarter, a game or to maybe prevent the opp from scoring further after a 3 to 4 goal run on. This is NOT the way you want to play assuming you want to win games at this level, aside from those reasons listed. I'm not sure why SG believes this is the way to set up at any stage in a match otherwise. That he does so from the get go beggars belief. But, we've seen it before so i guess history repeats when the coach doesn't learn from his past errors. After the monsoon started, we then continued to look to handball more often than not and look for sharp passing up the line. We also left the fat side open much of the time (our forward half robbed to have the spare down back enhancing this insane strat) inviting them to switch much of the time, which they did. All this happened right from the first bounce, allowing Freo to rack up easy possessions out the back. They had the ball, we didn't. Brought many of their players in to touch and they got their tails / confidence up. Terrible terrible coaching on our part at this level. For an ordinary club at VFL level this wouldn't be acceptable for long, let alone AFL level. After nearly 4 seasons i can only assume he is a VERY poor coach with little understanding of the "why/how & the who" that's required to set up the team to win on a regular basis. A great example of this is to leave Lockhart out and bring Pruess in, leaving us short a small defender down back (weather forecast MFC....anyone home!?) and playing Walters in to some long missing form. Awful awful coaching at all levels including match day selection. The MFC has never heard of using a last minute emergency to cater for the conditions? Our worst team score for the season and our 2nd worst bottom 6 score for the year behind Rnd 8 vs the Lions. Rain obviously playing a part so not taking any stats too seriously here but our team score, allowing for this season's 20% less game time, was a massive 22% off the awful 2019 average and 30% lower than 2018's. Against one of the worst performing team's this season. Finals on the line and can't get over the line two weeks in a row against two bog ordinary teams. Amateur hour from the MFC.... yet again. Player Score Rank Christian Petracca 3.600 1 Jack Viney 3.450 2 Max Gawn # 2.825 3 Trent Rivers 2.775 4 Clayton Oliver 2.450 5 Aaron Vandenberg 2.300 6 Bayley Fritsch 2.150 7 Oskar Baker 1.650 8 Ed Langdon 1.550 9 Jake Lever 1.525 10 Steven May 1.525 11 Sam Weideman 1.375 12 Jake Melksham 1.175 13 Michael Hibberd 1.125 14 Adam Tomlinson 1.000 15 Joel Smith 0.950 16 Kysaiah Pickett 0.950 16 Jayden Hunt 0.650 18 Christian Salem 0.650 19 Toby Bedford 0.600 20 Braydon Preuss 0.225 21 Alex N-Bullen 0.000 22 Team Score 34.500 Top 6 17.400 Bottom 6 3.075 # Hit outs to advantage not captured Stats courtesy of footywire.com

There is no point selecting a new coach until you replace the present hierarchy who failed the club by extending SGs contract for an insane 3 years. That decision alone tells me they are not up to getting the next candidate right either. The club (and it's awful willingness to except mediocrity culture) needs fixing from the top down. Barring a few individuals (underlings) who i'm sure have the right intentions and trying their best, the top brass / hierarchy needs replacing before we start the search or you will only get another poor outcome and we'll be back here in 5 years discussing the same conundrum. Just as we did with the late Dean Bailey, just as we did with Neeld, just as we are now doing with Goody. Actually it will be longer than 5 years. 2 more years of failure under SG. Appoint new rookie/inexperienced coach touted by Pert / board as the new messiah. 2 years contract. 1st year promising so they extend for a further 2 years. Fail. Pert and Co. given the boot / walk after failing again. Appoint new CEO / board / FD and running with same coach for part of the next season/then a caretaker coach for the last part....1 year further. That's 7 more years of ineptitude and failure before resetting the top hierarchy (a la PJ era with help of AFL....again) and starting all over again Have to break the never ending cycle (culture) of failure. Fix the head first or be back here again in 7 years with nothing to show and pretty much the entire existing playing list...done and dusted or gone to other clubs.

Not just Mahoney. Pert needs to go as well. He's been a disaster from day one with his first major effort the signing and anointing of SG into a rediculous extension that has committed this club to 3 further years of failing. This club has stuffed up its coaching selections/contracts on plenty of other occasions but this ranks up there with the best of the worst decisions it's witnessed. The fish rots from the head.