Demon Dynasty

Can Byrnes have an impact!?..... NOOOOOOOO!!!!

Carrot you copped a Collateral Stuie-pid !!!

Casn Fitzy do SOMETHING Finally!? YEEEEESSSSS!!

Another Quality Scalp to one of our Key Defenders, Garland over The Roo Frawley over Buddy 2 matches ago

Major Stats Update to 3/4 time Differentials Contested -12 Uncontested -11 Clangers +3 Contested Marks -2 Marks i50 -5 Hitouts +17 Rebound 50 -4 Tackles +4 1 Percenters +8 Inside 50 -1 Effective Disposal % Demons 73.2% Saints 75.8%

Has had a fairly good year though. Young in terms of games played. One of our best disposers by foot normally. Against the Hawks (arguably the best atm) he had 9 effective disposals by foot and 5 by hand with only 1 clanger by foot and 1 by hand.

On both sides Bing Clangers only +2 against us at half time. Not sure about this quarter yet

Probably playing a decoy up forward.....apart from that one lol

Average Effective Disposal % (for the team) to half time Demons 77% Saints 73.4%

Haha. Eat your words Parkin. Reckoned Watts was playing as if on the way to another club, Watts then kicks a goal from 50

Dissagree. It's the one aspect that's held together during the perfect storm. Never went away. Just needs a few injections of pace and decent ball use (we already have one in Terlich). Need one more though. Could be Blease for pace but defensively not so good and ball use is pretty ordinary atm.

Half Time Stats Summary (Differentials) Contested -16 Uncontested +15 Clangers +2 Contested Marks -1 Marks i50 -1 Hit Outs +8 Clearances -2 Center Clearances -4 Clearances from general stoppage +2 Rebound 50 -4 (not necessarily a negative result though.....could mean more time [compared to previous matches] being spent in our 50! Possibly first time for a long time time) Tackles +2 1 Percenters +8 !!! Bounces (play on) -4 i50 Even

Too early to say that Clint. Jimmy 5 games/ Morton was 70 games or so in and still dishing up softness

We're building a decent defence here. That's a major positive from all the carp in the last few years. Must keep Frawley at all costs. Dunn the exception, needs to be played forward off the bench or not at all. Must learn to move the ball quicker by hand through the press though. Terlich and Garland get this. Most others in defence are too stop start too often.

Wouldn't mind it flicking about in the Red & Blue

Has Fitzy had a possession yet or has he just come on?

Or just playing the game. More than likely has 3 or even 4 suitors sniffing around. Why would he want to make any decisions this early IF he's decided to get back into it? Can cherry pick what's best for himself and family.

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!