Demon Dynasty

Poor effort, such as last week, is way below what's expected at any level, and unecceptable at a professional level such as AFL. At best yesterday's "effort" may have been better but it's still a negative. Why?.... Because, as Dawes clearly stated in the one of his answers to an "effort" related question... "the effort was there but so it should be at AFL level, we competed hard, we put ourselves in a position to win, but we couldn't win so we can't accept that, now we've got to train ourselves to be better so that we can start winning games". If last week's effort was a negative and this week's effort was just "there", then what Dawes is clearly saying is that the current level of effort and training is still not up to AFL standard and we still aren't competing at an acceptable level. A level that will allow us to win games of AFL football. In my mind that still constitutes a negative relative to the level that is required to win games. We lost by 6 goals. Yesterday's effort may have been an "improvement" on last week, but certainly not a "positive". QEF

Would need to see it again to know whether he came off the mark or not. At the game it looked like one of the worst pieces of football i've seen from any AFL player for a long time. But i could be wrong. As i said, need to watch the footage. Everyone around me (ie., 9 out of 10 were Toiger supporters), including our supporters were laughing at that bit of play. Sorry to JM, i wish him all the best and all, but to me he isn't an AFL footballer's bootlace. Great tryer, and gives his all but he's lost out there and i have no confidence when watching him play that we'll ever win a mid field battle, against pretty much anyone other than a few of the other bottom dwellers Viney, Sylvia, Grimes into the mid field rotations. Trengove/McKenzie out. Trengove is lost in there as well at this point. And that's nothing to do with fitness etc. He just is. We might luck an occasional win against the doggies or GWS on a good day but against any half decent midfield.... Until we find some extra class mid injections in the next year or so (2 or 3....hopefully 1 being Viney), IMO we are toast no matter who we're up against. I think Evans will be 1 option as a decent outside mid which is at least something. And M Jones possibly another who we can rely on after another 2 or 3 pre seasons. 2 Posts from last year pretty much sum things up from our point of view on this (Apologies to those Rangy haters out there lol)...... You might dispute much of what Rangey says but he couldn't have been more spot on with regard to the mid situation Then there's OD, he's seen it all and then some lol......

6. N Jones. (I think I forgot how gutsy this bloke is amongst all the turmoil we've witnessed of late. Not his best game but he sure fights hard for the guernsey. Even my Tiger buddy couldn't believe we didn't make him Captain after witnessing that 1st half). 5. Terlich (stopped the Tigers early, created some run & options/overlap. Pushed hard to defend/find his opponent even up the ground/tackled well. For a handfull of games he's an exciting prospect & a shining light). 4. Garland. (Played small for most of the match. Refused to lay down and took the game and his opponent on. Needs to work harder at closing down space when the opposition start chipping it around) 3. Davey. (The only classy consistant ball user in the team at present. Found space well and chose most outlet/lead up options with the maturity and finish of old. Chased well until the last quarter. Subbing late in the 3rd might be the go here) 2. Magner (hardness and ability to stay in the contest for approx 3 quarters was impressive. Hacks the ball forward a little too often instead of looking for the quick outlet handball or lowering the eyes on occasions. Did hit 1 or 2 lead up targets though which is better than none. One fumbled clanger handball receive in the 3rd cost us a turnover goal to King but didnt notice too many other clangers. Nice 1st up game after such a long stint out.) 1. Jamar. (Toiled hard and got to a few more contests today. A few nice palms to our advantage too. Positioned himself well as an outlier during the press and marked well. Kicking is still pretty ugly though. I would be working hard to get Davey and Byrnes more often at the drop to give off and use the ball i50 more wisely/accurately. I think the Spencer experiment is over in the short term but at least having him hanging about at Casey turns the wick up a little on the Rush. Appears to be working).

You can't write a player off at this age or early stage. Rediculous. Nor know how he'll develop in the next 3 to 4 years in a such a poorly skilled team such as this. However, If we ever manage to get our act together with recruiting/developing other players around him in the next few years then who knows. I haven't seen enough of him yet so this is pure speculation but based on what I've seen so far I'd be looking at developing him as an outside mid along with Evans who pushes forward when possible to provide another avenue to goal. The closest player he reminds me of, albeit a million miles away right now, is something akin to a Burgoyne. Don't hold me to that though pls. This is the MFC we're talking about.

I'd like to see McKenzie get a game. He's a big missing link in this team atm...cough

If I can just add.... Kick goals Win

Can someone tell me if wr have recipricals today pls?

Heyy I'm meeting up with an old mate who's black & yellow thru and thru. Every club has their knucklehead supporters and fair ones Demon. They're no different to us imo. But you're right on the head count. Heading in on train now & if I was being very optimistic I'd be betting about 8 to 2. I feel like an alien who's landed on the wrong planet

They have one decent advantage over us. A home ground advantage, which they can build on (slooooowly), at Shytihad. They always beat US there and tend to play ok there against other bottom bouncing clubs. Sadly we don't even have that anymore and even the Blues are knocking on our door to take a slice

Now i reckon if you paid him $750k a year he would've felt alot less homesick D26...hmmm ? And that 750k would've been a great investment i reckon. Rather have him on our team than their's. And imagine...."THE BIG SHOW" in Melbourne on a Friday or Saturday night. Bring a few extra members into the club and a few extra supporters through the gate me thinks! Might have cracked 20,000 last week against the Sons!!

You mean a game plan that's been successfull once (2010) under MM at the Pies with a 3 pronged power running HB line and where they were happy to mount many of their attacks from using Shaw, Neon Leon and O'Brien. Neon has obviously departed and unless Shaw and O'brien are on the money and running full tilt all night then it's unlikely it will be successful. The cats had no one to run with O'brien early tonight as they are 1 quality defender down with Rivers out. They also miss Chapman through the middle and up forward and the loss of Stevie Johnson was a massive blow in class/finish this evening. In 2010 the Pies also had a class ball user on the outside pushing forward in Didak who delivered the ball i50 with precision to their forwards. We have neither the amazing 3 pronged running half backline that the Pies had then and nor do they. Nor do we have a class ball user who can create/find space a la Didak/Pendlebury and finish off the good work up the field by delivering it on a platter to forwards or alternatively kicking goals themselves. We also don't have the quick/slick ball use around the stoppages that they had back then nor do we have the general disposal skills, 2nd/3rd efforts or pressure acts that they had back then. Nor their ability to spread or apply an effective forward press. We may hug the boundary like they liked to do back then (and still do but to a slightly lessor degree), but that's about as close as we've ever gotten to looking anything like the Pies to this point Chook. We're not worthy of a comparison with the Pies of 2010, nor any team in the AFL at present, as we are presently not AFL worthy.

Sorry Masterl You're still not close. But a good attempt to cover your tracks. A coach doesn't look for "pure" disposals alone from a player. It's "effective disposals" he wants. In other words give me disposals but make sure they're to our side's advantage more often than not. You could have a player running through the middle who gets a little more of it than say Beamer did tonight, but he might negatively impact his own team many times by average or terrible ball use regardless of numbers. McKenzie is a great example of that for us in terms of ball use or horrible ball use as the case may be. A coach would take 15 to 20 quality (effective) disposals anytime over a mid that might get 20 to 30 but destroys 10 or 12 of those and has no damaging attack side to his game. And i know who i'd rather have minding say Watson if it came down to a choice of say Beamer, Jones, Trengove or McKenzie. In addition you might want to watch the match over again mate. Beamer does alot of the grunt work in and under, as well as pressure acts and causes occasional turnovers from opposition players that go unoticed by some. Beamer's hard work and work ethic in and around the ball also allows other "outside" players a run at the ball. Also some of these acts and heavy work don't count on the stats sheet but the Coach and/or his crew are watching/observing these during the match and reviewing them post. They see the extra effort and pressure acts and it matters and counts in their eyes. BTW, how do you know Neeld challenged him? According to Dermie, who said he spoke personally with Beamer last week, Beamer never spoke one on one at any stage with Neeld last year. He was left out in the cold. Both stubborn mules it would seem but surely it's beholden upon the Coach to break the ice?? And even if this is what Neeld wanted, maybe via a message he sent through carrier pigeon, Beamer was built for grunt by Bailey and built to get the ball out of and away from a clearance. He was somewhat heavier than he is now at Brisbane when with us prior to Neeld (approx 88/89kg 2011/12 vs 86/87kg now). Brisbane (Voss) asked Beamer to work at lightening up pre season in order to assist him in getting to a few more contests and to be able to run back a little the other way defensively. But at least they gave him an extra pre season to do so

Who hasn't Watson taken a mark against in the forward line this year? He's beaten most opponents in one on one's in a marking contest. He's bloody good. That's why he won a brownlow Haha....does very little? You must watch the game differently to some Master. Did you see the tackle he put on Watson at one point in the 3rd and then wrestled/won the ball off him on the ground? The run out the back. Read Luenburger (and visa versa) beautifully and kicked a non too shabby goal around the corner. Justy a few examples. Some people are hard to please. Or is it that we've had so little success for so long you just don't recognise a decent game form a solid player when you see one like a few other Demon fans on here i reckon. Seriously ....laughing here

Heyy Mods, Is there a poll at the end of season for the dumbest post of the year? Just wondering

Agree, Garry should butt out. I don't want his involvement again at all. He's had 2 goes at it already. You seriously want to give him a 3rd run at it? He was heavily involved in the appointment of a 2nd untried coach and had the opportunity to recommend/go after/hold out for a more experienced one. Oh but that's right, he had to push things through pretty quickly in order to get back to his real profession, earning mega bucks in the media. As pretty much everyone already knows, he was invited to do so by the Gardner led Board the 1st time around and then for a 2nd time (after the first attempt failed) by the present Board. The present board needs to go before the search and appointment of the next coach IMO. I have ZERO confidence in their ability to recognise a decent candidate from here (or Garry's, Lucifer forbid he should be asked to assist again!). Any decent appointee (with half a brain) would also be shuddering at the thought of heading in their under this Board's scrutiny/mis-management and would be unlikely to give any serious consideration to joining under their watch anyway. Another reason to replace them ASAP. However, if there's no other decent ticket with substantial footy nous involved putting themselves out there to take over, we are stuffed. Everyone better start chanting and calling on Lucifer for assistance on this one...the thought of this present board continuing is IMO just as scary as Neeld staying on as head coach for any longer than needed!! Craig in to take over as caretaker for the rest of the year. Neeld as Mid Field line coach if he still wants a gig. Neeld is dead in the water, has completely lost the bulk of the playing group (with a few exceptions) and this player group/club gets ever closer to armageddon the longer he continues. A big pat on the back to the Board, Garry, CS & CC for the mess we are now in. Well done fellas. You couldn't have done a better job at f#%king things up!

Agree his finishing let him down a little but he wasn't helped coming off the HB and wing in the 2nd and last quarters, into a wind, with some of the Casey forwards playing from behind and some letting their opponents doing the leading up. Go figure

Correct. Only 2 ex players, Brian Dixon with the assistance of Alan Johnson, were openly/publicly opposed to the merger and were involved in the formative stages of the anti merger campaign/union prior to Diamond Joe entering the fray. No other ex players publicly/openly expressed their opposition to the merger until roughly a week or so before the infamous vote at Dallas Brooks Hall (Wells and possibly 1 or 2 others) and on the night of the vote itself (Barassi). Side Note to Supermercardo: You might wish to update your "mergers" page on the Demonwiki site which mentions "Brian Dixon" and "Robert Flower" as the most prominent opponents of the union. This should read "Brian Dixon" and "Alan Johnson".

Aside from Jones in the mid and the occasional camio role by Grimes, tell me exactly how many mid fielders we have who were more capable than Beamer? Albeit his best was still only occasional and B grade at best, like the best from our other mids. I Point being, don't cast aside a soldier who can contribute (on occasions) until you find/develop/recruit a better one. That takes time. Meanwhile, that soldier still has a role to play if you can win him over. Did Neeld try hard enough to gain his confidence & get the best out of him? Only Beamer and Neeld would know that. One thing I do know, and that is, as the spiritual leader of many in that group, I would have fought damn hard to win him over and ask for greater, both on and off the field. And given Beamer a reasonable time to show it. Another fail from Neeld? You decide

I doubt if Scully ever had intentions of staying regardless. Gave the impression of a journeyman as soon as he entered IMO. Unless we had him locked down under a 3 to 4 year contract I doubt he would have ever taken his stint at the Demons as anything but a short term stop over to something more glorious ($$$$$$). Even if he hung about, was another skinny outside mid at best. Might get alot of it at times due to his tank but unlikely to ever be a serious A grader in terms of the damage he might cause. Certainly no savior for our mid field anyway. aA handy outside/link player at best.

Because they are DEEmoralised Jnr. That's what losing game after game after game does. And, as RR has explained so succintly below, they were told they weren't very good in most things to start with and lacked solid leaders, hence the 2 Jacks appointment by the Coach (with influnece from CS & CC via the rediculous Red & Blue Print). MN made them believe alright. He made them believe they were, in most areas, Shyte!! What we see on the field is what negative belief does to you. This is a product of the coach. This hasn't quite infiltrated every single player.....yet. Players who have immense pride and professionalism, like the Jones boy, will never go down without an immense fight. But he has maturity, experience and many pre seasons under his belt to assit in whethering and seeing off such storms. Players like Garland, in the mid point of the experience chart, showed some fight up till Sunday, but also showed signs of dropping off for the first time this year. Confidence can return quickly. But only IF you start stringing some wins together against opposition that isn't considered as bottom dwellers (like us). With the number of losses and the degree of them we've had in the last 18 months.... despair, darkness and depression could quite easily start to set it in once you start to lose hope. And some or maybe more of these blokes are starting to lose hope, and faith, in one another IMO. Young inexperienced players will lose it or gain confidence more quickly, but only if they aren't or are (as the case may be) lead in the right direction by strong leaders who stand tall when the chips are down and show them the way. I believe we've only had 3 of those "leader" types on the field in recent times (at least until the injection of Dawes who might also add something given time) in Jones, Clark and Grimes so far. Two of those leaders are now gone and will be for many matches. When you watch our players, generally as a whole, they look lost, shoulders drop, hands on hips (very easily), once things start to turn sour on the field. This is where players like Chip, Garland, Sylvia, Byrnes, Rodan (if he was left in the team and given a reasonable shot at getting his mojo back)!! and others needed to stand up. Until now we've only seen glimpses of leadership from Sylvia, Chip tries at times but hasn't extended himself for many matches now. Garlands "effort" has been reasonable until Sunday. Byrnes has been off and on. Rodan , well i can't judge as he's never been on or in for long enough. I think his form is a long way from what's required but i have seen signs of him at least willing to do the 1 percenters at times. And the Jones boy stands up....or has until now.....pretty much most of the time. But he's on his own atm here IMO. Which is a huge unfair burden on him, at least until Grimes and Clark return anyway. Hopefully others who you would expect to stand up, start doing so soon so he's not trying to do so all on his own. We are a rabble but we didn't arrive here by accident. In addition MN seems to have voluntarily left "experience" out with the likes of Rodan (179 games), Davey (163) and Jetta (38) in favour of (for example) Kent (1), Strauss (19) and Nicholson (23). That's a reduction of 337 games experience. However, had we included those 3 players the Demons would have had an average of 65 games per player in experience vs the Sons' 60 games. That's an improvement, for every player (on average), of 15 games! Instead we had on the park approx 50 games per player, on average 10 less than the sons. In other words had Neeld chosen differently....there was NO "experience" excuse available to trot out. And potentially (and i emphasise potentially), we may have had a betterchance of pinching that game. And a win for this flailing club would have to be better than a loss at this point surely. The former 3 may not have the form to justify their place either, but who's fault is that? Might be their's, might be the coach and FD, might be a bit of both. But i think it was an easy "out" to ring in the youngsters and reel out the "Inexperience" excuse on the part of MN. Or at least it was optional so the decision to play such an inexperienced team, was MN's. No one elses.

Jeepers.....and just when i was getting a bit of hope back that we might start making some common sense decisions around the place.... thank guys But seriously, all the best to Magnet. I know the Jones boy was tweeting for the Magnet to get a guernsey soon. Hopefully this might lift his spirits a little. Not expecting too much until the mid field rotation numbers improve. Although if we throw Rodan and Tapscott into the mix it does give us a few more soldiers until Sylvia/Grimes return. Get Blease into some form off half back, perseveer with Evans to add some bite to the outside. Develop M Jones as another potential inside mid in the next year or 2 (slowly). There is hope yet for the mid field. Still needs lots of bolstering and new injections though. A long way off being competitive over a long 22 weeks.

Ok. Wonder how that's going then. Fair enough TD. Well i for one would love to see him back in any capacity, although i'm pretty sure he's beyond a senior coaching role (from his point of view i mean, just being realistic). But even as a motivational/mentor type assistant maybe. He had a way of getting the players to focus on game day and perform to their best most of the time. I'd have him back in a heart beat if he was willing and the right role could be found. Much admiration and fond memories of Swooper's era.

You mean....he might have topped this one!!?

Lol.... yeh we had a pretty strong unit there eh. Good times pants....good times mate. Let's hope we can repair the gaping holes in this sinking ship and start the bail out.....soon

Nut are you suggesting this club should become ruthless and do whatever it takes to get the best personnel off the field? Surely not. I don't think I could handle us doing this in order to become competitive once more. It would spoil the moral fibre and ethical fabric of everything we stand for surely. Besides, no other clubs are all that ruthless in getting their men! Tut tut, mind your tongue sir!