Demon Dynasty

Well done Clarry. A class above. The best is yet to come son

What game are you referring to Bing?

What many don't realise Sam and i made this mistake when i was a young fella as well.....time waits for no man. The same applies to a club/team that has a few shining lights that you could potentially build a shot at a solid finals stint at (over a few years) and potentially a rare GF appearance (or two if lucky!). Good leaders and/or players like Big M & Clarry. And to a lessor extent the likes of a Harmes, May, Lever (if those last two can stay on the park and come in to a season super fit), T-Mac if we ever bring in another genuine KF to see him as our No.2 KF again, Tracc if he comes on, AVB if he can ever get back (not holding my breath) and even Viney if he regains his 2017 form again. Fritschkreig thereabouts up forward and Melk if he can get a roll happening with fitness and form. The likes of Hore look promising down back and if Frosty cleans up the disposal a tad and improves again. Nothing lasts forever and by no means are many of the above world beaters or match turners but if you move with some urgency and clever trades plus a few very skilled and talented youngsters though the draft to add some run, excitement, marking/scoring abiliy and X factor. You just never know. Sometimes you have to move super quick and clever in the off season when you see the window slightly ajar. It can close just as quickly as you glimpsed it being open in this game with a strong gust of wind blowing the wrong way and before you know it we might be so far away again we will be waiting another two or three decades for it to open in a serious way again. 2020 has to be a serious bounce back if we are to flush out some of the excess and fodder at the next trade / draft table and have a chance at a serious finals stint from 2021 to 2023/24 with the current crop still in their prime window and some decent depth at Casey pressing up to keep those in the 22 honest and pushing themselves to greater heights as well. Without that quality of depth we will continue on struggle street with the odd dead cat bounce every odd year imv.

The age factor is there but let's say we got him very cheap DS and Weid (just speculating) is a bust after another 8 games or so of trialling in 2020. No Bull Smith. We are starting to plumb the depths a little in terms of support for T-Mac in the KF stakes. And what if he Tommy doesn't cut the mustard in 2020 or incurs a new injury? Not saying he will and hoping otherwise but need to look at the "what ifs". Especially MFC luck with injuries, anything's possible. If we got two reasonable years and an improvement on what the Weid brings at the moment? All stats point to a fair upgrade in comparison. Might be the difference between a bounce vs a slim finals shot next season? Two years max on small coin and we have some KF depth/insurance. Maybe a win win? Normally i wouldn't even consider JJ but beggars can't be choosers and in JJ's case there's no begging. He wants out!... https://www.afl.com.au/stats/stats-pro#/Compare?playerIds=CD_I294828,CD_I993806&comparisonTab=h2h

Probably correct there D11. A very loyal servant and apart from the first half of this season (injured or compromised pre-season?) he usually trains the house down and pressures/tackles runs his butt off on game day (many first half games an exception this season though). He also gets on the end of alot of ball. Ranked No.1 last season in uncontested. To give some idea of how far he (and the team in general) dropped off this season he fell 17 places this season to 18th! Fairly limited footballer with ball in hand though and out of the 38 players who graced the field this season he ranked 26th with effective disposals. Last year he was ranked 19th so a slightly better result but that's probably about as good as you're going to get with him on the delivery side. However, i beg to differ on the faith part as, imv, we've shown significant faith in him and doubt he would have survived on many other lists (22), barring the regular bottom quartile clubs of late. As a depth player on a few more clubs a little higher up the rung? Sure. A one year extension would have been more than sufficient and review at the end of 2020 to free up room IF he doesn't improve substantially on this season's ordinary performance. Not sure why or where the two years came from but maybe theré's some method to Taylor's madness.

dl4 that might be because (like many Demons) you have been exposed to too much Melbourne with so many average or sub par players we've seen over the years and are still seeing. You and others (and i'm not having a go at you it's just what happens at lessor clubs in any team sport) think this is ok because it's the norm. Josh would have been delisted from most other lists by now bar maybe the GC, Norf, the Blues or Aints. Corey hasn't been in the systen long enough and an extra year makes sense.

Welcome to the MFC...Barry Allen!

St Kilda star Josh Bruce requests a trade to Western Bulldogs Josh Bruce gets a handball in front of Caleb Daniel . Pic: Michael Klein Josh Bruce has officially told St Kilda officials and teammates he wants to play for the Western Bulldogs in 2020. Bruce is contracted for next year at the Saints, but has agreed to terms on a four-season deal at Whitten Oval that will see him through until the end of 2023. Courtesy: Fox Sports

Havent seen that confirmed as a lock. Is that another exclusive Mr Leg?

Keith of to the Doggies. Things starting to move a little at Adelaide. Will obviously ratchet up across the board from next Monday... ADELAIDE defender Alex Keath has requested a trade to the Western Bulldogs. The 27-year-old informed the Crows and other interested parties – including St Kilda – of his decision early on Thursday afternoon.

The best puff piece of the lot so far imv. There were some rumblings about so all's well that ends well. Kudos to the club if so and they calmed the waters. Plenty of work ahead for Burgess, Club & Tracc. I still rate him as being A grade material but will need to take a big leap in 2020 obviously. There were glimpses of A grade form in patches during 2019 but these were tampered by some terrible team performances overall, which would have impacted and will hopefully be significantly rectified in 2020. Could be a bit of a bell weather for the team overall imv in 2020. A big start to 2020 for club and player, get him locked and out of the Pies clutches by mid season hopefully.

A few whispers around suggesting Frost may have re-signed and announcement pending soonish.

Range the last legit small forward we had just retired and prior to that it was the Wiz nigh on two decades ago? And you just rock up round these parts askin for three or four huh!? Get a grip big fella....ya hear me!? GET A GRIP!

Thanks Dazzle...just choked on me toast

So you're saying he's very much a required player for us then WW?

Why do some have a list as long as an arm and the Cats and ourselves only have one listed Dazzle?

Even the champs make occasional stupid errors AF. Might be a late bloomer being so tall and a bit unco early. Not saying he''s a champ or must keep player but certainly better than some further down the list that i would move on before him.

Changes to the coaching FD have nothing to do with the state of the list EO. Not.sure why you would bring that up. We can't bring that many in if we aren't delisting many. After this year's disaster i have no doubt Mahoney and Co. are going to struggle somewhat at the trade table and i don't envy them. We are hardly a destination club at the mo. Even the lowly Saints & Blues appear to have surpassed us on that front. If we get Langdon, Tomlinson and one other B- (or thereabouts) in, had we delisted O-Mac, Jwags and ANB then, if needed and we can't find replacements via trade, we could have topped up with speed / skill via the draft. Also, according to many scribes, we just lost pick 2 as well. We are effectively lower than the lowly GC sons. Beggars can't be choosers EO. Only my opp but as long as we have the likes of the three above on our list, this club will struggle to get beyond the odd random finals appearance (at best). P.S. totally in agreement re my pessimism vs yours! I admire your positive outlook and anyone else's on D'land. All power to you guys if you see things differently. Just calling it as i see things and my trade / draft knowledge is very ordinary indeed.

Yet the complete reverse happened this year R&B, with very little cohesion / understanding as a team as there was clearly not enough time spent on the track by enough players at the same time due to injury etc, nailing whatever it was Goody intended. This trade period was an ideal opportunity to make significant change and clean out a very ordinary list devoid of genuine forward talent, outside speed & finish and over stacked with too many see ball get ball plodding mids. Very few of who can hit the barn side of a door, one of whom is now on the verge of retirement. It doesn"t take seasons of playing together to become a very good team imv. A premiership team yes but we are a mile off that atm. But to make finals you do need the right mix of quality seniors, mature age players with decent experience in the middle, a few quality rookies, very good depth and one very good pre-season with minimal injuries throughout the year (always helps!). Ideal opp to bring in a few more fresh faces with a bit more quality, especially speed and foot skills. The likes of ANB, O-Mac and Jwag aren't the sort of depth that will make a difference on most game days when the injuries hit us at some point. Then there's the huge question mark over AVB. MFC has again missed the boat of opportunity. This was the time to be bold and aggressive and we seem to have sat back on our laurels once more, with the exception of a bit of tinkering between the arcs on the outside assuming Langdon & Tomlinson are in. Neither appear to offer any great change on the speed and finish front so i'm not sure we acheive much at all with those ins, other than a bit of extra depth and hopefully making it harder for some of those we shouldn't have re-signed to break in to the 22.

There is no way of truly knowing either way whether he has or hasn't peaked AF. Whether he's at the MFC or elsewhere, only time will tell. He isn't a turnover king at all AF. He had 21 players ahead of him this season. Does he leave his man behind and the opp score either directly through his opponent or by having a spare up forward when he does turn it over up the field with a few caught out in offensive positions? Seems likely eh. Unfortunately few others down back capable of escaping their opponents much of the time, which probably means they also aren't capable of running in support once he gets on one of his Frostball runs. Is that lack of run / support more to do with a coaching game style (team rules) issue / or more a confidence / belief thing i wonder? Or maybe personnel related...just don't have the leg speed in general? That would mean an adjustment to ensure he finds a target by hand or foot much earlier into his manic runs or a few others need to run in support maybe (or if we don't have them we need to recruit a few in)? Can't be that hard to fix surely.

You have my vote Werridee. Looks much more at home inside the Arc. Haven't seen anything exceptional from him down back (so far) that makes me think he is more suited there.

That ultimately comes back to good coaching and training methods / systems across all lines and excellent coaching at line level also AF surely, with coaches who know their business well and are great at communicating what's required etc. Along with most putting in a full pre-season training as a unit together and ultimately finding some cohesion as a regular 22 (give or take a few changes but nothing like we've seen this season obviously). If he can't carry out what's required and improve accordingly (vs set roles / requirements KPIs) within a reasonable time frame then like any other player he goes back downstairs until the coach / FD consider he is ready for another attempt / trial run. It might take a month or more of adjustments/fine tuning/coaching at Casey. Maybe more. Isn't Frosty's development in this regard as much a test of our FD's skills and abilities as it is of Frosty himself? If we let him go and wipe our hands i think this says more about the entire club than it does about the individual himself. And let's assume Frosty moves on for whatever reasons (and i personally hope he doesn't), what's to say the same issue won't come up once again with another player who shows similar potential but also needs a few minor or more significant alterations?

Not all stats D11. Some are actually utilised by clubs / coaches as performance measures. Mostly ones that we rarely get to see. Intercept marks would be one they would be looking at that is publicly available along with contested, pressure acts, tackles and some form of 1%ers (probably something more advanced than the public option). Coaches / clubs would most likely also have their own player KPIs that they're expecting or hoping a player will achieve which probably alters from game to game depending on match ups / role being asked (both offensively and defensively) i would assume. Some coaches can't stand stats and others might be a little more open. In the end it comes down to the eyes of course. Most clubs have a game day analyst looking at all this anyways and who probably have a bit more of this stuff going to a fro between line coaches and their relative players (defenders / mids / forwards etc) rather than the head coach. But yes i agree KE% is pretty useless in isolation. Champion has a kick rating that we never (or rarely) get to see that measures how well players do under various circumstances such as kicking to a target under pressure (both short kicks/ medium to long kicks etc), kicking to a target on a lead etc. Unfortunately DE% and KE% is all we get publicly. It's just a very rough guide as to how a player's trending IMO and needs to be looked at in terms of only comparing like with like (ie., defenders vs defenders etc. if there is such a thing nowadays given players tend to push into different areas of the ground at times, dragging their opponent up the field or looking for kicks on the wing etc). Just to make your day, here's the kicking efficiency % of all MFC players for 2019 (excluding KK who i missed for some reason) who played two or more games for the year at round 9 vs where they finished at the end of season. Obviously backmen are going to get plenty of cheapies out the back plus relatively easy kick out results etc which makes their numbers look better. Mids under more pressure generally and expected to be lower etc etc...

I would have hoped so D11. We lost the prelim (ie; not a GF which is the ultimate play off obviously) by 10 goals and a number of scribes had our list as primed and ready for a shot at the title pre-season. Champion data had our list ranked No.1 also as you probably know. Did i think we actually would? No. Pre-season i had us placed somewhere between 10th to 14th (or thereabouts). Probably sub-consciously due to all the pre-season interruptis chatter. 2018 was a high level and there were always going to be a few who weren't going to match their 2018 levels for whatever reason but i don't think anyone expected such a mass drop as we've seen from so many this seaaon. And especially not with such extreme variances. 5% to 10% sounds reasonable from some vs 2018 but for so many to drop as much as we see here? Very few would have foreseen that sort of calamity.

Don't get too caught up in the Stretch improvement % EH. Very flakey comparison as i only had two games of data to go on with his 2018 average (ie, barely an average). However, he is ranked no.7 overall in 2019 (9 games a healthy sample), which on the surface you would argue probably worth keeping for run & carry depth on the outside. The problem here is, and it's only my view, he doesn't run & break lines much from what i've witnessed. Quite accurate with disposal though and we don't have too many of those. Does he pull the trigger enough with his kicking beyond short safe kicks and take his opponent on often enough, at least to keep the FD & coach pleased to have him as depth etc? Tackling pressure is up there ranked 10th on the list this season on averages so no issues there, especially given his size. Ranked higher than Salem, Tracc, Jones. Score involvements off a little ranked 17th. Maybe not working hard enough both ways given he is effectively playing a winger type role between the arcs? i50s ranked 17th and r50s 16th. Frost on the other hand...at least worth trying to hang on to if possible. Just as an aside Frosty gets criticised alot for turnovers and even i have concerns. I know on another stat thread here champion data had him ranked poorly due to scores from his turnovers. Ok so he's leaving his man, taking him on and breaking lines. Turns ball over. His man is often free and goals or goals through him. But is this also a reflection of our mids inability to run defensively and help out? Or alternatively an inability of say a Lever or May to cover off due to interrupted seasons? Surprisingly Frosty is ranked a lowly 22nd in the team for average turnovers. Lower is better here so he can't be as bad as we are making out surely. Of all genuine defenders only Jetta (81.7%) and Lewis (77.6%) had a better DE% than Frosty (74.0), equal with O-Mac. Keep in mind that Frosty was also our 3rd best intercept defender (7.4) this season just behind Lever (7.9) & Hore (7.5).