Demon Dynasty

No Jamar, No Gawn 1 extra rotation down in the mid field (ie., lost McKenzie but replaced him with?) No Key Forwards and few dominant (alternative) forwards who can kick a bag between them Good Luck, we're going to need it

Stuie, how's your masterpiece coming along mate? Or is this the finished product?

Ok.....i'm a believer! Thx D

WYL i understand the anger given your major commitments. But remember the Board (or the effectively now the ex McClardy/Stynes led) board had a chance at moving him on in 2011 but reneged and then contrary to what many pundits were thinking at the time, re-signed him for 3 years after 186. To me this is the tipping point where it all went ass end up for us! The Board backed the executive instead of sticking with their original decision to back the players/coach and the effect of the blow back from that fateful weekend is there for all to see. We just need to back PJ from here and hope he (with the assistance of the AFL) get the composition of the Presidency/Board right and can also land us a proven coach, beef up the FD around him with his advice/assistance etc. In the meantime i think we're in good hands with Craig at the helm. So you could say a small part of what went on previously has worked in our favour. Some might say a very small part i realise. Also Neeld hasn't left us (Craig and/or a new coach) completely barren. There's a core group of proven AFL senior talent there at the top end. With Clark to come back next year (fingers crossed) as well as a sprinkling of decent middle game players coming through and a few decent rookies such as Toumpas and Kent developing and a solid defence (as it now stands), i think we can still be a force in the next 3 to 5 years provided most of what happens from here is on the money. The club probably won't survive another derailing. I believe PJ is slowly going to get us back on track. Time to get the train rolling again. And no i don't think that begins today i'm afraid. Craig will need 4 to 5 weeks with this dispirited bunch and a return of some key forwards (along with the realisation by Craig that we need to play Magner as a direct replacement for McKenzie...ie., we are still leaving the mid field rotations way to short. McKenzie is not the answer and neither is Magner in the long term. But he is an extra rotation and a better option than anyone else to add to the mid field right at this moment) before he/we start to see any significant turnaround IMO.

Red, in the end many members (at least those in favour of the no-merger alternative) were IMO either duped, deceived and/or abandoned. Duped by a President that forgot to seek the members' tacit approval before proceeding. Deceived by connections within (and without) the Board (eg., Bill Guest) who used questionable methods to obtain proxies from non demon supporters under duress. He was even filmed doing so at his workplace and was quite happy to boast of his efforts at the time. Abandoned by most past players of the club who met at Jolimont HQ one night at the request of the late Ian Ridley, and signed off on giving their tacit approval to a merger with the Hawks. Yes, a few select players from this group changed their mind in the last week (or in some cases on the day of the vote or a few days out from the vote) ie., Barassi/Tunbridge/Wells. However in reality, those members/supporters against the merger were, in the main, abandoned by past players and greats of the club in favour of merging. Regardless of the voting shinanigans on the night at Dallas Brooks, unfortunately this is a stain that can never be reversed or re written from our history. However it should be noted that 2 past players stood tall for the club and vehemently rejected the merger. Brian Dixon and Alan Johnson. I'm not sure where Alan finished up but he was there at the beginning with Brian in the early formative days of the "alternative" push. So we can at least say we (as in the no merger alternative group) were not completely abandoned. Obviously Brian and others within the alternative then managed to garner the support of Diamond Joe. And so history was made. The one positive that i take from it all, is that it was only a 53% vote (approx 440 votes i believe) in favour of the merger with the pro merger team tipping the scales (from all reliable reports) with the injection of up to 1,000 dodgy proxies (taken out of the vault as you say). Yes there were pro merger last minute membership votes in there as well from all reports so it's hard to know who won the battle with last minute votes etc. But my understanding of the alternative "magic" votes were that they were mostly from existing "real" members who showed how passionate they were about the club by dipping into their pockets to purchase extra memberships through family and friends who were Melbourne devotees but not necessarily members at the time. Much like present day Carlton supporters! What i do know is there's no way any club or it's supporters/opposing members would have accepted, in any way whatsoever, such a narrow margin regardless of how it was achieved, nor begrudgingly moved forward with the planned merger. The one major positive from this unfortunate and ill considered proposal/period was that the club has now changed its constitution so that a merger can only take place if 75% of members vote in favour. Sadly we had to go through much pain, much expense and excessive hand wringing/nashing of teeth to achieve what should have been written into the constitution 16 years earlier when separating from the MCC as a public company in 1980. In general, this is a painful ugly period of our history and i agree, very much misrepresented by what is mostly an ill informed, poorly researched bunch of footy journos who love to stick the boots into us whenever they get the chance or there's a slow AFL news day.

Great work on the background red and blue G. Appreciate the work and effort. Personally i think the Jones boy should be front and square. He's earned it. Clark is all good. Dawes on the right replacing Jones. The 2 young Captains are a Neeld legacy at this point. And while i think Grimes could be a good captain in the future (definitely VC at the very least), i wouldn't have him or Trengove up there at this stage until the new coach, whoever he is, has settled on his own leadership group. You can be pretty sure Clark, Dawes and Jones will be in it. So all good there. I've looked and looked but still can't see what others are seeing re the big Jimma. Must be well hidden

Nic Nat, Cyril.. hmmm. Don't remind me. As for the rest, when we fix our development side people will be saying this about teams that overlooked players that we chose instead. We've got some major catching up to do for sure. But you never know, if things turn around fairly quickly on the field, some of these same parrot journos will be praising our selections in years to come!

Hey Gorg, there's nothing wrong with a bowl of spaghetti, as long as the quality of the ingredients are first class and the chef cooking it has decent pedigree. Personally I think we have the basis of a decent FD, subject to a few significant changes here or there. I just think it was led by a pretty poor Chef. In the interim we have Craig who is ranked No.6 on the rankings of present/past coaches' wining % in regular home & away games who could have been a chance at the job, at least prior to some existing ones ruling themselves out. This ranking also includes the likes of Malthouse/Lyon, those who definitely won't be available but are still coaching. Craig has a marginally better record than Williams, Worsfold & Eade. And a fair way ahead of Ratten/B Scott and well ahead of Hardwick, Voss and Knights. Craig might be our caretaker coach, but don't let that title deceive you, his record entitles him to be taken much more seriously. Give him & the boys enough time to settle (say 4 to 5 weeks) under his experienced eye, decent support around them from the rest of the FD, a few key players coming back in from injury and I'm betting we're likely to see something amazingly different to the dish served up in the last 18 months and a renewed enthusiasm/outlook from many. I'm looking forward to sampling the new menu. For our club's future and all our sakes I can only hope it's as good as the spaghetti marinara I'm hoeing into right now down at Pier 35. Delicious!

I also don't think there's any rush OD. Definitely throw everything into trying to get who we want, but with Craig in place (at least till the end of the year) i think you're spot on about getting everything together at board level first. In fact i think it would be a pretty hard sell getting Roos to come down before he gets to assess all that so in some ways going too hard too early on him might well be the worst plan of attack for us until things are in place. Can you imagine him coming down for an interview/discussion ....welcome to the Club....well the interim one, President is still coming, and a few Directors and..... In addition i wish we had signed PJ for more than a year. He is presently the Key player/powerbroker for us in any search/discussions and yet whoever he might be speaking to has no idea whether he'll be part of the furniture beyond his first season. Williams/Eade might be a tad more forgiving as they're already based here and appear to be more available and willing than Roos has indicated so far. I prefer keeping Craig over Eade anyway (just at this point), subject to him wanting it badly enough and seeing how the boys perform under him during the remainder of the year. A bit on the fence with that. Believe it when i see it.

Now now gentlemen! Do i detect a touch of sarcasm here

Where did you source or hear him say he was "interested in the MFC position" Tone? Totally contradicts my memories of his responses during that period. He may not have been contacted by the club but i recall him being asked twice about the MFC coaching role prior to Neeld being appointed. When asked on the first footy show panel (Chanel 7 Sunday Footy) if he was interested i recall him throwing his head back and laughing "No no no". Then i think it was 3AW he was asked again about 5 days later (Friday night game i think), he said there's no way he would coach us "with the present imbeciles that were running the show there. There'd have to be an amazing change at the top" or something along those lines. The word imbeciles was definitely used. Usually not a sign of confidence in an organisation you might be considering joining.

You're probably using stats that include finals. This just included regular home and away with finals stripped out.

A list of possible candidates winning % (regular season) for the MFC position that have been mentioned at some point by D'landers/Media etc as possible and who haven't ruled themselves out so far (in order from highest to lowest %). Coach / Win % Sheedy 58.88 Matthews 58.41 Roos 58.06 Craig 56.69 Williams 56.03 Eade 55.59 Ayres 55.21 Blight 54.63 Ratten 51.29 Pagan 50.31 Laidley 50.00 Daniher 48.58 Hardwick 41.56 Knights 38.64 Voss 37.88

The G Part looks good guys. I have a feeling you'll be changing 1 or 2 of those Captains though once the new Coach has a chance to settle in. Sorry fellas but I agree with WYL's view that we should never leave Jimma off the banner. Literally gave the club his heart and soul and led the demon demolotion. Imagine where we'd be now without that 5 mill!

Collar shmollar. Get that crappy maroon off the Demon's jumper and go back to keeping our eye on the RED & the blue. Too Lionesk for mine. Bloody Cam and his heritage fixation!

Honor before honors. Jones has earned his place so far. Don't like the pic though. Something that show's him in action....all G&T. The Fox and Checker on either side maybe as DeeVoted mentioned. I would include Jimma but maybe hovering inside the MCG banner as a silhouette, watching over his Demon brethren. From there i'm not sure whether we have any "past players" or just go with new. Maybe 2 or 3 past Champions with special significance but limited to 2 or 3 greats only. The rest new. Whoever we place on there from here though....i think it should go to a straight out poll, with nominations from the Mods. And please, no complicated Rangey style polls....just yes or no!!

That's looking more ballsy Stuie. Like it. Just wondering, do we really need to keep telling everyone (including ourselves) that we're the oldest club in the land "Est 1858"? Not saying it has to go....just wondering. So in summary i like the background, the V, the Demon. If i could suggest as some alternatives to mull over..... 1. Reduce the Font size on the word "Demons" somewhat 2. Instead of "Melbourne Demons" up the top of the V just have "The Demons" 3. Running on the bottom border of the Red V, insert...."Melbourne (down the left border) FC (up the right border)". However, this could clash with "The Demons" banner of course. If it does, alternatively it could be placed on the bottom V just under the Demon beast even if this means lifting him up a little. 4. Remove the "MFC" logo as we've included the full name of the club in No. 3. above Of course feel free to ignore everything i've just said as well!

DFA your passion for the club is great and it sounds like you want to get very active and involved in terms of helping and fund raising etc. I think at this point however, many died in the wool supporters and just mainstream ones are suffering from something i would term "Major Failure Fatigue" or MFF. I think many supporters just want to see "A competitive AFL level effort" which will bring them hope. Then we need to see this hope turn into results on the field in terms of wins, at least against other bottom of the ladder clubs or out of form ones. From there they want to see sustained and real improvement each year until we reach finals....etc etc. For most supporters that is reality. They want real on field results and sustained success. Especially after so many horrible years in the wilderness. They've dipped into their pockets so many times they're all out of desire to dip some more until the club starts returning something on their previous investments. A bit like a shareholder if you like. If a company keeps coming back and asking for "more, more and even more" each time, while spewing out woeful EOY results over 3, 4, 5, 6 years +.....well i think you get the picture. What i'm trying to say is, never give up....but just don't expect too much excitement around the place right now. Many Demonoids have probably already invested significant folding stuff already and want to see "something" in return before they consider dipping into their coffers again, at least in terms of contributing outside of normal membership/club fund raising pathways anyway. Also many people might be a little hesitant of a satellite type program that's run outside of "official" club sanctioned programs i would think. So it might be better to take any ideas direct to relevant club people responsible for marketing. One aspect that i'd like to see the club try and get up as a possible option in the next decade, once we're back on track and seeing some success, is to locate and build an all encompassing Club facility. Bricks & Mortar, with a training oval, club rooms, stats of the art training facilities as well as admin/office inclusive. As much as i appreciate the AAMI set up, it still doesn't feel "Club like" or have that club feel to it IMO. It's a bit of this, a bit of that with the admin/office staff sitting up the road at the G. Ideally this should be at the G i guess so that we're training on our original home ground. The G should really be our "Skilled Stadium" albeit we share it with others. But unless we had sustained premiership success in the next 5 to 10 years i can't see that getting off the ground. Eddie would not be pleased! But then again....stuff Eddie lol

I dont think the MFC can afford to appoint any coach with a questionmark hanging over their head and I don't believe the AFL will give the likes of Ratten, Knights, Harvey etc the nod of approval. We have an interim coach who has a better record than them in regular home & away as well as a better record than Worsfold, Williams & Eade. Even if we fail to land a big fish like Roos or next in line like Choco, and provided he truly wants the job at year's end, we don't need to panick select and go for 2nd or 3rd bananas for 2014.. Craig is a significant asset, and subject to the performance of the boys under him in the 2nd half of this year and his feelings about putting his hat in the ring for next year, we already have ourselves a solid caretaker and the noises he made yesterday puts us in a better bargaining position heading into the search phase.

You can say that again Tone. Actually don't, there's been enough repeats on here!Speaks well and delivers a clear message from the heart. My gut feel is the players will play for this bloke once they've had a few weeks to understand and train what he's asking from them. One of the few positives to come out of a messy 2 years. The board (Schwab?) got this part right at least. Credit where credit's due. If it came down to no other choice but Eade and Craig, i'd take Craig...subject to him wanting it badly. No doubt he'll be assessing this himself in the next few months. Looking forward to the next 11 weeks.

Source Dazzle? I suspect this as well but i'll believe it when i see it. If they start playing for him pretty much from the get go then who knows..... he might put a pretty good case forward for hanging on to a significant role for the long term at the MFC, possibly even as coach next year! And before Soxy or whoever his name is (et al) start jumping down my throat, i'm not saying he's my preferred option for coach either. Just saying he might end up being hard to overlook depending on what happens from here. P.S. For those interested he has a better winning % in regular home and away (56.7%) than Williams (56%), Eade (55.6%), Ayres (55.2%) and Ratten (51.3%). Better than Worsfold as well but i haven't included him here as he ruled himself out of the race today. Edit: Spelling

I'm not that concerned what Craig does or how he conducts himself with the players. The results will be there for all to judge in the team's performance on the field on game day. I'm willing to cut him some slack over the next 4 to 5 weeks while he settles in. After that we should start to expect some decent improvement and even a few wins. If we get something happening straight up and a nice surprise before he settles it'll be a bonus for me. I also don't expect massive hammerings against mediocre or lowly rated clubs such as those suffered under MN either.

Dangerfield is one that would disagree with you..... http://<iframe class="fiveaa-video-player" type="text/html" width="615" height="385" src="http://www.fiveaa.com.au/embed/video.aspx?id=112575" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Nice attempt Stuie. I like the present emblem for Flags. Something like yours on the players' jumpers and all the other club paraphernalia. I have to say i prefer this Demon version though..... quite similar. The only thing i might change here is the established bit down the bottom. I'd prefer to see something like The Mighty Demons, Home of The Mighty Demons or some reference to Demon in there. If you can imagine this in the old bold true red and a slightly lighter navy blue in order to avoid any Bumbers lookalike colours....

Fair enough RP. I'm sure he's a good bloke at heart. Heyy I wasn't holding it out there as fact other than I did hear he was a mate of Don's. Was just hypothesising. What's wrong with re establishing the old boy's club anyway!? :-)