Demon Dynasty

Arghh. Ok O.D. But i wont be beatin my own drum regardless of whether it turns out something like the way i'm seeing it. I'm just pi$$in into the wind from the top stand i think. Hec, I was wrong on Bater and MacDonald (being picked) and game hasn't even started lol! At end of the day it's just an opinion/feeling based on many years of watching from the stands and tv. Many more learned and experienced footy peeps (and some good local/ex footy players etc) on this site that would cut my opinions/views to pieces with more solid/sound reasoning and experience/knowledge (including yourself maybe). And sometimes they do !!

All pretty good points Dee Cheers B)

I would have thought Bennell's role is not to "Go in Hard" for the contested ball. Nor is he built for it. We already have a number of players who are built for that and whose role is to bang in/contest/link etc. He's an outside run & carry player (poise, finish/class player when he's on) in a similar vein to Davey...without the mature body. Not saying he should come straight back in but he wasn't the worst of the worst players against Wet Coke, yet he's paying the price. Not convinced he's suited or needed at the confines of Shiityhed either. Bring him back at the right venue AND opponent/match up...but only once he's shown something in the Magoos for 2 - 3 weeks. Has great potential but needs to work harder and longer at doing what he does best. Not sure that he stinks lol. I have more faith in him and believe he'll become a solid/valuable/consistent contributor for the Demons at some stage going forward. If not you can remind me of this post in a few years lol. Agreed... Cale needs time in Magoos to gain some confidence and improve on a number of aspects of his game before he gets another shot with the big boys. Shows class/looks super in spurts but always appears a little undercooked body/speed/contest wise when the heat is on.

Possibly spot on here Jumbo. However, you think it's worth testing this and asking him to step up this week? (provided he isn't carrying a severe injury of course) When else is an appropriate time if not now? At least we'll have a better idea after this weekend whether he has the smarts or whether he needs further development in the Magoos. Maybe even the next 3 - 4 weeks as a baptism of fire, subject to weekly review/match up requirements and form of other alternatives in the Magoos. I'm not convinced that Martin is THE back up yet either. Just putting this forward and interested in your's (others') views.

Lol OD. Yep. Pretty crappy case i put forward eh. Was off the cuff and just a gut feel. I did give some detail. Said it'll be scrappy! Having said that, amazing things can happen once the "belief" factor creeps in, especially if the boys still feel a lil like they're under siege! And now, the pressure valve's been released (aka last weeks thrashing).....look out! I wouldn't wanna be playin em right at the moment if i were an opponent (Pies/Cats excluded as their belief/skill/execution/experience factors are massive obviously). Re your points: Martin: 99% sure he'll play even if only 85%-90% fit. Lets see what he's got, albeit expectations shouldn't be too high if carrying something and given he's still very inexperienced. Trengove: Agreed. Another massive loss. Joel MacDonald is at least an "ok" option to provide a contest and link man. Grimes: Will be badly missed no doubt. Bennell in for pace, poise and finish (i hope!). Not saying MacDonald or Bennell are equivalent replacements. But at least they have some experience and can play in spurts. Martin in the middle. Dunn to help him (us) out around the ground. Random 3rd man up to assist as required. Engine room is humming (The Key IMO!) Bobby provides the junkyard contest and finish inside 40. Air Jurrah the unexpected brilliance inside 40 also. Flash to fire again, albeit more difficult on shittyhed to work through the zones/space etc given the space constraints. Consider a surprise move up forward in brief spurts here to unsettle opposition. Bater, Tappy, Sylvia, Jones to pepper the sticks from 40 - 50+. Too many offensive options for North. Wanna to provide some crumbing & finish up forward. Big game needed! Apart from ruck stocks down, biggest weakness/danger is defence versus their talls. Can we hold em to a losing score? Bring the intensity, attack and tackling we brought last week (even 95%), and decent form from Garland/Warnock and co. and I say yes we can... 4 - 5 goals...stickin with my first call. (If you're correct OD i'll tips me hat to ya!) B) Mighty Demons Forever

You guessed wrong. 6' 1" That's where i played up till bout year 11 til i became too short, or was it that others just got way taller lol. And before you go crazy on me, no i'm not sayin school age footy is anywhere near senior or AFL level. Not by a country mile. Nor am i sayin he can with broken ribs of course. If so he wont play anywhere for some time. General soreness or mild bruising shouldn't be an issue though. As i said in another post...there's always the Dermy option of wearing a padded vest lol. All i'm sayin is, he'd have to have a very serious injury to not play given the parlous state of our ruck stocks atm. Dunn did quite well as a fill in against Crow eaters. Martin with assistance from Dunn and cameos from others as 3rd man up to help out just as we did against Crow Eaters

The Trengove saga only helps to increase the "seige" mentality amongst the players and builds character/determination. We win by 4 - 5 goals in a gutsy scrap at Shiityhed Stadium B)

Jackson, If he doesn't play, i'd suggest that the pic you have on your profile thingy will be what he sees from Bailey as he's getting his marching orders! Like i said in an earlier post, unless he's got a damaged spleen/kidney (or worse), he'll play B)

If the AFL was truly concerned about concussion and facial injuries then they could easily make all players wear some sort of helmet to reduce the incidene/severity of concussions and avoid/reduce the possibility of serious facial injuries (eg., Johnno Brown/Hird/Dunstall/Neitz/Sylvia) etc. Had umpteen opportunities/examples yet i've never heard anyone from the AFL proactively raise this as an option to clubs

A truly professional football club should be able to handle both B)

Whatever it was, it doesn't warrant 3 weeks for a first up offence. Appeal for a reduction in sentence for first offence or take to courts just as the Swans did with Barry Hall, which effectively won them a premiership! Even Dermy, Rhys-Jones, Dipper or Mathews wouldn't have got 3 weeks for that touch up. Every tackle should be carefully scrutinised by the MFC from here. Any "pin one arm" tackle which ends up in a concussion should receive no less than 3 weeks!!! Anything less and we seek a post sentence review if the appeal process fails etc. Lets take em on Demons!

Stynes in for Jamar!! Article refers to Martin hurting his ribs. I'd say unless he's ruptured a kidney he'll be in!! I remember Dermy wearing that stupid vest for the Pies when he had same. Ended up ripping it off half way through game i think lol. Anyone got his number? Host of the Fox Footy clip referred to JT as Drac! DRACULA Trengove ... A real Demon of the night! Mwahaha!

Geddy has a point, Redlegs has many excellent points. More investigation needed. I can understand the rough charge and verdict being upheld but not the severity of the penalty for a first up offence. Seems very harsh in light of the offence. And yes QueenC, one rule for some. I wonder how Pav got that cut under his eye against the Blues last year? Must have been his cat. Clearly reckless conduct under the AFL definitions and guidelines, yet not even a reprimand

Regardless of percentages of members/non-members attending etc.... As i said, i don't think you'll see any significant improvement in these types of games (specially on Mothers day matches) until the success arrives and/or membership breaks 40,000 / 50,000 marks. No coincidence that there was a Monday night match scheduled for Saints/Blues. Wanted to avoid too many teams playing on Mother's day with numbers likely to be down versus normal schedule

Yep. Unfortunately, as many have already stated infinitum on this site, the truth is it took a clanger to motivate them. But respond they did. Impressive effort....so far. I'm wondering whether they responded as they felt it was us against the world. The seige mentality can be quite a motivating factor for some players/teams. Don't know how long that lasts though. Lets hope it's more to do with FD/Coach/players drawing a line in the sand after the wet coke match. B)

I wouldn't get too skitzed over this guys. Agreed. Looks better and is better financially if we have more attending whenever possible. However, numbers will only improve significantly with success IMO. Until we have a halcyon type period with a premiership or more, we aint gonna break too many attendance records i don't think. But for Sundays's game. Say we take off 2,000 to 3,000 to allow for Crow eaters. You get about 17,000 to 18,000 Deminions. That's about 50% of our membership base atm yeh. If we somehow managed to get 70% of our membership base attending, which would be most unlikely at most standard home/away games other than say Queens b'day. That's still only 25,000 Deminions (approx) and add 3,000 Crow eaters... max say 28,000 at this point of our membership tally. I think 30,000 is break even (approx) at G isn't it? So we still miss financially even with an unlikely and probably unrealistic 7 out of 10 members attending. Yes, i'd prefer 28,000 attending any day of course but i think you get my drift here. However, lets say we have some major success over next 3 years (wishful thinking!) and membership improves to 50,000 (woo hoo!). Worst case scenario: We have another Mother's day game against Crow eaters or Dockers etc. 50,000 @ 50% + say 3,000 crow eaters again. 28,000 (approx). Ok, at the end of the day it's probably still a marginal fail financially, but it's a realistic number and looks a whole lot better for us on tv coverage and in press/radio reports etc. Now lets take it to another level. Say we're on a winning streak and game aint played on Mother's day and we get say a more conservative/realistic 60% of membership base attending versus crow eaters/dockers etc. Do the numbers... 50,000 @ 60% = 30,000. Add the 3,000 crow eaters. 33,000. All of a sudden we're in profit territory when playing interstate clubs here. More so when playing Swans/Lions, who tend to attract greater numbers than other interstate teams given they're old base of followers here. And the impression on tv etc. Looking a whole lot better me thinks. Obviously the numbers look even better versus another Vic team using the major success scenario.

Yeh. Fingers crossed Rojik. Hec, we might even get Thomo to see the light from here! I reckon deep down he actually Bailes and wants to keep him on! Common Thomo....outski! P.S. Not with you on the don't mind losing bit. Seen enough of those in 70's, 80's, 90's and Naughties to last me a lifetime!

Yeh. 2nd that. Bennell for some pace and silky skills to cut through the zoning etc at *&(*hed stadium for Grimes. Was unlucky to be dropped i think. Wasn't great but wasn't at the bottom either i didn't think. I wouldn't be playing with the line up other than injury/match up requirements. Gotta send the right signals after such a solid win, just as you do after a shocking loss. Bater needs 3 - 4 weeks at least in order to get a feel again of what's needed at AFL level. Players always say there's a big jump from VFL to AFL in terms of the speed with which everything/everyone moves (Lingy an exception lol....even tho he's one of my all time favs and a gr8 player regardless of speed! Love watchin that guy. Feel like i'm in a time warp back to the 80's!). B)

Yeh. I heard that. Was good too. I was more referring to the K.B. session. Maybe i should remove the "all morning" bit lol. But thanks 16. Appreciate the feedback

Such short term week by week thinking is dangerous. Players, and eventually the coach/coaching staff will start planning/playing for survival. Then it ceases to become a team effort. It's every man for himself. Personally i believe the culture of excepting mediocrity has now changed across the Club collectively (ie., supporters, players/FD/coach and board) and we have finally (i hope) drawn a line in the sand. As Bailey said yesterday, we've set a new benchmark and we need to aim for it every week from here. Not saying we wont see any further lows/and unpalatable defeats. But i doubt we'll see capitulations like last Thurs or 2nd half Dawks game. The level of intensity, attack and application over 4 quarters that everyone expects, needs to be 1st class from here. We should have a better understanding of where the boys are at by round 11/12. Stick tight demonoids. Looking forward to forking (that's "pitch" forking Mods!) some Roo arse on a big fiery pit of hell this week!! Mighty Demons Forever! B)

Agreed. Put em either side of the Fev and tell em to "Watch and learn". As long as they're only learning what the Fev's doin ON the field and not off it!

Yep. Good point. I guess it depends on who's hosting/on the panel eh. Speaking of which, i thought Caro was gonna go for Gary's throat there at one point. Only thing that saved him was mother's day. Ok, this topic can be closed now.....MOD!!!

50 minutes of KB and Patrick on S.E.N. this morning and not even a mention of our game. Tigers/Bombers all morning. Wouldn't know there's any other teams that've played this weekend listening to this thing.

Did anyone hear interview with Bails BEFORE the match on 3AW yesterday? Was pretty impressive. Sounded like a premiership coach in the offing. Lets hope the boys and Bails can continue the intensity and effort on a weekly basis from here. The big tests will be how we go away (west of our border) and *^&^hed stadium (next few weeks). The Roos usually lift against us. Love rubbing our noses in it. Bout the only highlight ive seen there against em in last few years was Juice's screamer

Heyy..... someone mention my name? Ok...so he was a tad Rusty. Nuttin wrong with that first up is there!?