Demon Dynasty

The Demons have to work extra hard to get the ball into the hands of our best line breakers/ball users and who also have footy smarts. At this point that is Evans (line breaker/runner/ball user) and Byrnes (ball use), IMO our best potential ball user on the park today along with Terlich.

Rohan Bail is a joke, what the hell was he doing running into an open goal and then acting like a [censored]

i guess its not his fault hes in the team though

Like alot of our young boys, they panic whenever a tad of pressure is placed upon them. And no it's not Bail's fault he's in the side. He's far from ready for AFL level/tempo footy. This comes back to the Coach and FD. I would have Magner/Couch in this team well before the likes of Bail and Strauss. At least until they've learned their craft in the Magoos for a while longer. Also i really don't see a plus for having Nicho in vs Blease. Blease offers a change of pace and elusive ability that allows him to escape his man that Nicho doesn't have atm and Blease also has a more penetrating kick IMO.

What is amazing watching it back was the players who kept us. With Farmer, Neita & Woey were being well beaten, It was the likes of Walsh, Collins, Leoncelli & rookies in Bruce & Green who kept us in touch at 3 quarter time.

That's a coach & FD getting the best out of young players and few average ones. Getting them to lift on a big occasion and play for each other. Motivation and the will to win are 2 amazing ingredients if you've worked hard at your skills and fitness pre season. You can't JUST train and expect to turn up and it will just happen on the day.

You need to do special things and make extra efforts on game day to win the big ones or pretty much any match in the AFL now.

Robbie Flower by the length of the straight. However, If wishes were horses & he won't, can we at least have someone who's pleasant to look at.....no offence to Don. My candidate (for our first lady president) is Candice Swanepoel !!!

As you can see she's also a fully fledged Demon already.....

Anyone have any thoughts on Stark or Clisby. It looks like Clisby has good size for his age. I have always seen rookies as the offcuts or looking for a needle in a haystack. I never really give much thought to rookies, so any thoughts? I know Stark was taken pretty high in the rookie draft. Anyone think these guys have a good shot at making our 22 in the future?

It would be intresting to know the percentage of rookies that end up playing 50-100 AFL games.

My Thoughts on Clisby....well best you have a listen.....

http://www.thevoice.com.au/video.html#/videos/Week_1/TheVoice_AU_s02_Ep3_clip1302_1636

If you are honest you would understand we don't have the personal to beat the blues, this week no high profiled recruits Clark, Dawes, Watts and on the grape vine Sylvia and Jamar may be missing, add to this Carltons midfield is miles better than anything we can put on the park and the speed they have through their small forwards is amazing, so how do we beat them, here are my ideas

Forward set up: Play Max Gawn deep forward, instruct him to always be Goal side of his opponent and not to go past the centre square, try to draw his opponent as deep as he can forward. Howe plays in front of him approx 15m far enough away that Max's opponent cant get to any marking contest he is in. Once again Howe play goal side of his opponent and always stay inside our forward half, once again try to draw his man deep inside our 50m arc. Blease and Byrnes play the forward pocket role but push on to the wing but not past the centre line. All other forwards are playing as midfielders so we have a four man forward half and two extra midfielders running around. Run the footy with our spare midfielders if Carlton drop players back, don't have spare men in defence have them around the footy.

My plan, crowd the footy and bang it long forward don't think just kick it as far forward as you can, try to clear Blease and Byrnes so they can use their speed to run onto the footy or if we can get it long enough to Howe with Blease and Byrnes working hard to the drop. We do to them what they will try to do to us put the ball into space and use our speed forward of the ball. Try to get the footy into the hands of our long kickers, Dunn, Tapscott and if Sylvia plays him, work hard to get the footy of half back in these guys hands.

This is pretty much along the lines of what i was thinking Dr. Although i would go one further and have a plus 1 situation at HB looking to cut off the quick inside kick from the middle and giving occasional chop outs to Chip/Garland when the ball looks like being kicked longer deep in their 50. I'd be looking to try and free up Dunny in this role. Solid unit and can roost the ball into our Forward line quickly on the rebound, isolating Howe one on one for the big grab. You then have Byrnes to feed the front and square crum around Howe (CHF area) and Davey (who isn't playing???) crumbing at the feet of Gawn if we make it deeper. Not having Davey in this match to play a purely crumbing forward role alongside Byrnes is IMO mind bogglingly dumb. But nothing that Neeld does, or doesn't do, selection or match up wise on game day now astounds me anymore.

Also run Sylvia into the mid field to have a plus 1 there all day. Playing as defensive sweeper and, as you stated, all other mid role players starting on the defensive side in a semi circle of the ruck dual and hitting the ruck contest on the move, gang tackling anything that has the ball without any red on their guernsey. Kent to play down back to cover Dunny's role and provide some run and overlap along with say Nicho and Strauss.

Allocate at least 1 nominated stopper (say McKenzie) to cover Carlton's spiritual leader (shares this role with Judd) and IMO their only real hard man, Robinson. I'd want him to be kept quite no matter what, hassled, harrassed and if the opportunity arose, taken out in the nicest possible way provided it wasn't behind the play. He labelled us as "Bruise Free" footballers so IMO he has to be taken out of the match either through a hard tag or a solid bump at some point.early. This might be a task we allocate to a heavy man bod like Sylvia. Run off the line and target Mitch early similar to Dermy on Dean Cheron. This club desperately needs to start making statements on the field and stand up for itself. Even if it means weeks on the sidelines, it's time to DO something.

Generally i'm in agreement with your strategy. It's the only way we have any chance of winning.

If we try and play the Neeld way, i believe we'll be looking at an 8 goal loss (minimum) or possibly something much more ugly. But at this point i'm targeting roughly 8 goals under Neeld's method. My worry is that Neeld (and hence some in the playing group) might see an 8 goal loss (or thereabouts) as a positive, even before the bounce

Please enlighten us on what is required from the final siren to game day the following week. It is a professional sport not just the 4 quarters we see each week.

Do you really think Neeld sits on his hands all day long and plays angry birds?

Benson, with the pathetic on field performances so far this year, that might not be such a bad idea. I think if the player's ran their own training session, pre game day match ups and changes on game day, they would do better than the pitiful performances in most matches we've seen so far. Some against sub par opposition. We're unwatchable, not even AFL standard. A club that's been in existence and the founding member of the game.....we kicked 1 goal 3 and 1 goal 1 in the 2nd halves first 2 matches. We've won 2 quarters of football out of 20. And that was against an under manned start up team in its 2nd year.

Neeld's responsible for appointing 2 junior players as Captain against every logical and common sense train of thought, and pretty much the judgement of every football commentator, many of whom are past greats of the game. His first MASSIVE blunder.

Winning games of football starts at the leadership table, then the midfield, drilled skills skills skills, lots of run, talent, guts and hard work combined. We stuffed the leadership issue to start with, insulted pretty much every senior player in the club at the time and from which i believe we've never recovered.

The leadership had to come from either Mitch or Jones boy who would have been able to shoulder it and lead by example. To appoint 2 young blokes just learning the game, undersized with little experience can't be expected to carry a club through hard times and lift it out of obscurity. It's too big an ask. Just let them focus on their development, skills and positional roles.

The next mistake, this year, was to leave a severely under manned mid field stock, even more under stocked, by leaving Magner and Couch on the rookie list. Not our saviors by any means but we need them in there. It's a numbers/contest game in there. The more personnel you have through the mid who are capable and able to hold their own, the longer you'll stay in a match and possibly give yourself a chance of winning it. For Neeld and Co. to leave our mid field so atrociously under manned is for me....enough said about their know how and capabilities.

Another example if you needed one.....and this is only one, but IMO it stands out like dog's balls.......

Of all our mid field options for Sunday's game against the Lions....who would you match up on Beamer (probably their top mid on the day albeit 3rd string to Black and Rich if they were fit) to start the match? One of our best, most experienced in Jones/Sylvia? Maybe even Mckenzie in a shut down role as he doesn't offer much else offensively? No.....let's roll with....Trengove to start the match!! Beamer has 5 kilos, 7 years and 87 games on Trengove. Trengove's done nothing like the pre season work that Beamer's done given his injury issues. But no, that's who we're rolling with! And guess what, Beamer gets the first "easy" clearance from the centre, pops it over the top to Brown....and PFFFT.....they're off to the perfect start in the first 30 seconds. Well FM....who could have guessed that was coming!!

I was all for Neeld at the beginning and wanted him to do well. But having witnessed every match at the G this season, and after reviewing the game (again) against a junior, less experienced Lions team with 6 teenagers in it on Sunday, i am convinced that Neeld will have to have a massive change in direction with regard to how and what he's drilling into this team...and his match day/strategies/game style etc in order to turn this around.

At the same time i don't think sacking him is appropriate before season's end. Not unless we have a massive coup with a big name coach beforehand but i don't believe in fairy tails. Although i would hope the board/president are, at the very least, starting to consider our situation seriously as to what our options are towards the end of this year.

Brian Royal sent packing and a midfield coach with very good credenials to come in

Might be time to go after Simon Black. Has to be close to retirement. Not sure if he's interested in coaching though.

This guy needs to go, he is starting to speak like a Nazi leader from world war 2. The way the AFL handled the Tanking issue.......

When this once great club does a Port...AND does so over consecutive seasons, making finals, record memberships and starts to dominate it's opponents on the field etc then we can start having our say. Until then I wouldn't be asking for Vlad's or anyone else's head at the AFL drake.

Put some runs on the board then we can start having our 2 bobs worth

Magner. Why hasn't it already been done? Seems like a total no brainer. I'll be shocked if he is not playing this weekend.

Prepare to be shocked Roost. I Have a gut feeling Neeld isn't a Magner fan. Just the way he played him in the defensive forward type role late last year. Then onto the rookie list. That's a statement imo. Be lucky to get a game this year and who knows if he'll be with us next year. Deserves a spot and I can only hope Neeld comes to his senses on this immediately.

Last thing we wanna do is rush mitch back, get magner in there he has well and truely earned a run

I have a feeling Mitch was rushed a tad as it was. I cld be way off the money but the Dawes injury early may have placed a degree of extra pressure to bring him back ASAP to offer a KF target and also the fan factor. Pure speculation but it is quite possible a top team with other forward options MIGHT have gone a touch slower on a stepping up to a full senior appearance. I have to defer to Misson et al & Clark himself on this. They wld obviously be the best judges. No need to rush him from here though. Be happy for him to sit the rest of the year out if it meant a full pre season coming into 2014. If it goes again this year the set back could be career terminal.

I know stats can be used in a myriad of ways. But we do have 5 rounds of data to go by now which is not a robust number in a data analysis sense but it is base minimum, where one can at least begin to garner and discern general direction and look for trends. And things don't look good to say the least. We are bottom quartile in many aspects of the game although there are some positives in the high rankings but mostly to do with hit outs and rebounding out of our and their 50, contested marks is a positive too.

High Rankings

Ranked 1st in Contested Marks Per Game Ranked 2nd in least Opponent Rebound 50s Per Game Ranked 1st in least Opponent One Percenters Per Game Ranked 5th in Team to Opponent Contested Marks Per Game Diff. Ranked 2nd in Team to Opponent Rebound 50s Per Game Diff. Ranked 5th in Team to Opponent One Percenters Per Game Diff. Ranked 5th in Hitouts Per Game Ranked 5th in Team to Opponent Hitouts Per Game Diff.

Low Rankings

Ranked 18th in Kicks Per Game Ranked 16th in Handballs Per Game Ranked 18th in Disposals Per Game Ranked 14th in Marks Per Game Ranked 17th in Points Per Game Ranked 14th in Tackles Per Game Ranked 18th in least Opponent Kicks Per Game Ranked 18th in least Opponent Handballs Per Game Ranked 18th in least Opponent Disposals Per Game Ranked 17th in least Opponent Marks Per Game Ranked 18th in least Opponent Points Per Game Ranked 12th in least Opponent Tackles Per Game Ranked 18th in Team to Opponent Kicks Per Game Diff. Ranked 18th in Team to Opponent Handballs Per Game Diff. Ranked 18th in Team to Opponent Disposals Per Game Diff. Ranked 17th in Team to Opponent Marks Per Game Diff. Ranked 18th in Team to Opponent Points Per Game Diff. Ranked 12th in Team to Opponent Tackles Per Game Diff. Ranked 18th in Inside 50s Per Game Ranked 16th in Goal Assists Per Game Ranked 18th in Contested Possessions Per Game Ranked 17th in Uncontested Possessions Per Game Ranked 18th in Effective Disposals Per Game Ranked 16th in Clangers Per Game Ranked 14th in Marks Inside 50 Per Game Ranked 17th in Clearances Per Game Ranked 18th in least Opponent Inside 50s Per Game Ranked 17th in least Opponent Goal Assists Per Game Ranked 15th in least Opponent Contested Possessions Per Game Ranked 18th in least Opponent Uncontested Possessions Per Game Ranked 18th in least Opponent Effective Disposals Per Game Ranked 12th in least Opponent Clangers Per Game Ranked 14th in least Opponent Contested Marks Per Game Ranked 17th in least Opponent Marks Inside 50 Per Game Ranked 17th in least Opponent Clearances Per Game Ranked 18th in Team to Opponent Inside 50s Per Game Diff. Ranked 17th in Team to Opponent Goal Assists Per Game Diff. Ranked 18th in Team to Opponent Contested Possessions Per Game Diff. Ranked 18th in Team to Opponent Uncontested Possessions Per Game Diff. Ranked 18th in Team to Opponent Effective Disposals Per Game Diff. Ranked 15th in Team to Opponent Clangers Per Game Diff. Ranked 17th in Team to Opponent Marks Inside 50 Per Game Diff. Ranked 18th in Team to Opponent Clearances Per Game Diff.

Stats: Courtesy of Footy Wire

Early days but we are also 10,000 down (on average per match) in attendance numbers versus the average in 2010 (that's approx 27.5%), 7,000 down on 2011 (approx 20%) and 2,000 down on last year's match average (approx 6%). Shouldn't read too much into the attendance numbers until we've reached the half way mark and played the QB round as most matches have so far been against interstate teams.

Our current membership is down approx 8% on 2010's final figure, 17% on 2011's and 13% on last year's. I realise membership wont close for a month or so yet so this may improve somewhat.

I will revisit all these numbers again after QB round and see where we're at.

One of our old boys, Ralph Lane, will be on with Finey at 9pm tonight. 1116 SEN if anyone's interested....

His background below (courtesy Demonwiki)......

http://demonwiki.org/tiki-index.php?page=Ralph%20Lane

Most are "gifs" so the URL of them can just be pasted in the "image button" in the 'Reply to this topic' dashboard.

Youtube videos can be posted by pressing the "code button (< >)" and then doing:

[ youtube ] YOUR YOUTUBE VIDEO URL [ /youtube ] (no spaces)

I like "gifs" because i find "text" to be so stale and unable to portray the emotion, tone and (obviously) facial expression required when discussing topics, especially if you want to get a certain point across.

Emoticons are ok, but gifs are much better in assisting with this.

Plus they are bloomin' funny.

Hope that helps!

I'll give it a try TFS.

No wonder i couldn't get them working.

Thanks for the run down. Much appreciated ... Cheers

The club has allocated positions a limited umber of positions in the guard of honour for the players on the QB weekend.

Sign up a youngster with us next Monday/Tuesday night & we will allocate your youngster into this memorable experience.

This will support our need to boot up membership in these tacky times & boost the moral of our volunteers.

Do you have a youngster that would like a membership & this unique opportunity? Cost is $50 - 60 dependant on age.

Email me if you would like a call next week. Geoff [email protected]

Not a bad idea but not sure why we should honour the players with a PUBLIC display "guard of honour". Kids should and can still be encouraged but couldn't the club arrange for an alternative that would be just as rewarding (for them) like a meet & greet with a select group players in the rooms pryer to the match or something behind the scenes?

If we were unfurling the Premieship flag I could understand.

I'm with Frankie on this... honour before honours!

We can't catch a break. This season is one from hell.

Good Times ...would you please refrain from rehashing old posts from last year...or the year before or ...freakin hell...whichever year!!!!

The MFC website hinted at this after last weekends match. Dissapointed but not surprised. Magner is surely a must to come off the rookie list now ?! But nothing wld surprise me at the MFC. Probably leave him there for the rest of the year. I just hope they bring Gillies, Sellar and Joel back in real soon. I'm salivating at the prospect of having all 3 plus Pedo in the same team!

Coming from someone with MFC respect and influence that's quite damning for Neeld.

Cue the D'land Neeld haters/removalists to rejoice in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1:

Heyy song.....how the hec do u imbed those vidz pls mate?

Without doubt, Magner was one of our most reliable players last year, and one of the few good news stories at the MFC. He tired as the season wore on having shouldered the brunt of the midfield load with Jones.

He must feel cheated given the effort he gives and the fact he is stuck at Casey. It's poor man management, pure and simple.

It sure is Swooper. Low on mid field numbers/options = low on reasonable rotation options which places a heavy load on those that can run and hold their own through there which is very few for us at this point. Jones a definite obviously but the only other players who you could say might offer a neutral outcome through the mid atm is Grimes and Rodan IMO (once Rodan achieves some sort of AFL match fitness and rhythm....and that's IF Neeld gives him more than 2 or 3 quarters of match time and more than 1 week on the park before shunting him back to Casey....again!!!!). Yet we leave Magner on the rookie list. However, Pedo, Gillies, Sellar and McDonald who, IMO would struggle to get a game at any other AFL club, continue to get matches!

As is Neeld's ability to seemingly ignore and reward effort. If you remember Couch was in the best players at Casey for 3 or 4 weeks running early last year (i'm almost certain anyway) and yet he failed to get a call up. Not even once! I can't say i've seen Couch play at Casey as he was out injured for the 2 matches i went to last year, so maybe he's just not up to this level, but surely given our poor mid field options and some of the players we've seen tried there over the last 14 months, Couch deserved at least one crack at it for 2 to 3 matches??

Neither Magner or Couch are our saviors through the mid by any means. But it would sure limit the damage and possibly win us the odd game or 2 against poor opposition like the under done, junior Lions who still managed to send us packing yesterday. Development......what development??!!

Dude. Name one game against solid opposition that he played well in.

It didn't happen all that often Roost i agree, but at the same time it didn't happen too often with any mid fielder of ours, Beamer or no Beamer in the middle. IMO if you can't find a ready made better replacement then you're better off sticking with the soldier you know. Beamer was like many in our mid field, stagnant and a bit of a one trick pony in terms of bombing the ball long into the 50 meter arc. He also suffered from what most of our team suffer from around the ground..... the "I'm pretty happy with that first up effort...what do you mean i have to go again if we're to have any chance of winning the ball and this match?" syndrome.

But there were "glimpses" of what Beamer could have been in rare matches. Matches when he hit the pack on the run with momentum and timing and the center line/Ruck appeared to be organised for a change with each soldier knowing where to run, who to block, where to position themselves pre ball up and each playing his part. Rare yes, but on occasions it magically appeared. One such evening (and i'm almost certain he had a better game against the Bummers under Bailey in 2011) Beamer stood up and got the team rolling that night IMO. He contributed all night, played his part, didn't get rolled and although he wasn't BOG, he was amongst the best players. He had 14 kicks, 9 Handballs, 6 tackles 2 marks, 1 goal assist, 11 Contested possessions and 12 uncontested. We beat an as yet undefeated Bummers team and started the rot which saw them fall off their almighty perch that season. This match and the 2011 one below were 2 of the biggest highlights for me and my son in a long line of watching so many painful uninspiring years of poor performance against pretty much any team that was rated. Some of the best nights i've had at the G. It's what gets memberships, sponsors and new supporters on board (provided it aint a one off lol).

The video below shows the highlights from 2012. Only one of Beamer in it but it's still there.....

http://youtu.be/uiB_w8Z8NuI

And yes there was Round 11 2011. I have a feeling he was even better in this as i went with my son and no one gave us any chance of beating them this night. I remember Beamer having a pretty big impact. 17 Kicks, 11 Handballs, 7 Marks, 5 tackles and 2 goals. Again, i doubt he was BOG that night but he was solid and scored the highest Dream Team points....

http://youtu.be/j3DS3otd2xs

How the hell we've gone from the above (and last year's win albeit a bit of a scrap) to 154 in the space of one season.....well that's another VERY long, pretty scary story lol.....

You can't chase if you're nowhere near where the ball is going.

It IS why we are getting smashed. We are allowing our opposition uncontested link up play as we are nowhere near them to make a contest.

Spot on Stuie. Watch and listen to any top clubs, when they lose a close game or just get over the line, or get pumped like the Pies last week on a rare occasion, they will often mention, among a few other things, that "we gave our opponents too much latitude or/room/space". By not placing intense pressure on the ball carrier for 4 quarters these clubs (and top line players) no too well what the consequences will be.

We fail to place enough pressure on the ball carrier for long enough in almost every quarter. Combine this aspect with our slowness in general, terrible skill set and a lack of footy smarts in the top paddock and u have a recipe for perpetual pumpings. In addition the Neeld way of hugging the boundary (bombing it long to a fairly predictable spot) for most defensive sets and then trying to win the ball and run it around the long way is sucking the oxygen and any run we might have out of most players in the first half. Might be a part of the reason we get pumped big time in most 2nd halves.

The biggest worry for me is that we have a pretty stubborn coach who might be unwilling to alter the recipe. He appears to have put the cake in the oven which is baking its way to oblivion. Hopefully he notices the burning smell before it's too late.

Really???? I repeat this earlier post just in case you didn't see it the first time:

For those that think we did OK I give you this:

The Lions finished with 418 disposals – their fifth-most disposals ever recorded in a game.

This is not the Lions of triple premiership fame but the Lions with 6 teenagers in their side compared to our ----------- none.

Zero pressure on them all day. F'n hopeless.

Also....

Contested Possessions

Lions 150

Demons 119

You'll get the usual posters before this week (and probably still will) who will come back with the line ....."because they're too SLOW!"

But nothing could be slower than what we saw from McKenzie/Trengove and unfortunately Jones in the mid today. And i'm usually a big Jones fan. Yep he tried his guts out as usual but he had a shocker i'm afraid. The 3 of them just played dumb non thinking....sloOOOOOOW Motion 1970's style football. Even without Black and Rich we couldn't contain the Lions mids let alone beat them on the scoreboard (the ultimate judge) in just 1 quarter. That's right folks, against one of the poorest performing clubs in the AFL so far this year, we did not win 1 quarter of football up against a B grade mid field....and B grade is stretching it!!!

Magner and Couch would have been worth a roll into the middle at some point this season even just to provide some grunt and a few extra numbers/AFL size bods to help share the load of the rotations through there. Especially on a hot day at the Gabba. Would have them anytime in this team in preference to Pedo, Bail and Seller. Time for Taggart to get a call up too i would think.

Extremely poor management on behalf of the Coach and FD.

I'm afraid we are a party to witnessing and barracking for one of THE dumbest professional (and i use that term loosely) football clubs ever, both on and off the field, and i'm afraid we've done so for nearly half a century now, excluding about 6 to 8 years of decent competitiveness under Northey/Balme and 2 or 3 under ND.

But then again after witnessing and supporting this club for most of that half century i should no longer be surprised at the depths of dumbness we will plumb.

There's only one thing i want to see released onto this team ATM.......

http://youtu.be/2OlCnPKr4Q8

Even though it's probably true I don't reckon the coach should be saying that. He can think it but to tell the whole world that a 5-goal loss is a positive, he's taking the mickey isn't he. Disappointing. Should have at least worded it better (assuming the MFC twitter feed is accurate)...

Surely it wasn't... a reliable source told me it was hacked by Dr Who on behalf of Professor [censored]

Neelds Zone Defence in through the middle & even down back for extended periods early in a match just doesn't make sense! Why does Neeld continue with this method when its clearly bleeding goal after goal.

Too many players are just too slow in leg speed. Trengove and McKenzie 2 great examples yet Neeld leaves one of our quickest on the bench for pretty much 3 quarters. Insane coaching.

SKILLS SKILLS SKILLS! There were some good exponents early but in the end we just make too many blunders by hand/foot and too many blatantly poor optional choices.

At least we were in the game at half time but there were some worrying coaching aspects out of today's match against very mediocre opposition. No Black or Ritch either & both usually tear us up. Could have gotten very ugly had either of those 2 been in today.