Demon Dynasty

I would hope this to be the case most weeks DZ. But yes, our top 6 rating (up nearly 18% vs the season 2024 average) def supports the fact that many of our top line experienced boys excelled on the day. The stuff that can turn a 50/50 or worse on the day into a W!

Round 18, 2025 MCG - Demons vs Kangaroos A solid win to mark Goody's 200th. No doubt Dicko would've been very happy with that result. Finally something that resembled a four quarter performance. Lots of one percenters and team oriented moments. Keeping in mind this was against a very young team with 11 rookies running around. Also our team score only matched that of last season which was obviously nothing to write home about. A number of positives though regardless.... First time i can recall Fritta playing selfless team / percentage footy for what seemed like a long time. I'd be showing the positives in this regard over and over for the next two reviews. Let that side sink in as a "please bring more of this every week" reinforcement! Not sure if Salo was my No.1 but he had a fair bit of it with zero turnovers which has pushed him up the rung here. Young Langers break out game coming in at No.2 !!?? Where would we be without Koz and the Milk man. That was one for the ages from Jake the Snake. I'm not sure i've seen a better game from him in the red & blue outside of his come back assists vs the Blues a few seasons back and possibly moments of brilliance from the 2018 finals. Vintage Macca as well! As to why he was left out in the first place, who knows. But he certainly makes a huge difference. Would love to know the W/L ratio when he's been in/out of the team this season. > Subbed out TOG % > Subbed in TOG % Stats courtesy of footywire.com and wheeloratings.com

Player & Team RatingForm Guide - Rnds 7 to 11 vs Rnds 12 to 17Probably best to look away if you don't want to spoil your weekend. What a route. Bar May, Sparrow & Fritta, the rest went in to free fall over the last 5 weeks in comparison to Rnds 7 to 11 and ended up in the bin. Maybe the team all had a dose of influenza A, or B at the same time. Maybe covid! Even Max has dropped away massively. No wonder we are 5 - zip through that period. It would take a miracle to retrieve this for our match tomorrow vs North. My guess is there's a high probability of another 6 to 10 goal loss coming up. Just too many way off their best for whatever reason in the last five weeks. We will need a minor miracle from Lucifer to get over the line me thinks. Maybe they'll pull something out for Dicko. Stats courtesy of footywire.com and wheeloratings.com

Sharp very Sharp tonight!

Hardie worth considering for a spot next season? Accuracy in front of the sticks among other attributes

When is a mark not a mark haha

Apparently you get frees just for taking on the tackler if you're in the yellow and black

No.15 pulling another rabbit out for Werribee!!

Mentha putting his hat in the ring. Superb goal

2nd Q Howes 8.5 Adams 8 Smith 2 R. Bonner 5 Lual 4 Freeman 1 K. Brown 5 Billings 6 Woewodin 4.5 H. Sharp 7 Fullarton 2 Laurie ?? Henderson 1 Kentfield 1 Hardie 3 Verrall 6.5 Culley 4 Spargo 3 Baldi 4 Mentha Jnr 4 Ireland 2 Yze 4 Sruk 1

Bonner is worth looking at for next season. The bloke can play and has some serious moves / wheels. Too good to be only on a VFL list.

Free against Howes for trying to mark the ball with a player coming at him front on. Only had eyes for the ball. If anything a free for front on lol

Brown questioning Spargo's kicking ability over 45. Obviously hasn't seen enough of Charlie's set shots at goal over the years 😄

1st Q Howes 7.5 Adams 7.5 Smith 5 R. Bonner 8 Lual 3 K. Brown 6 Billings 8.5 Woewodin 4 H. Sharp 8 Fullarton 5.5 Laurie 3 Henderson ?? Kentfield 6 Hardie 7 Verrall 5 Culley 3.5 Spargo 4 Baldi 4 Mentha Jnr 7 Note: No discussions entered into.... throwing darts is a less than perfect exercise

Team & Player Ratings to Rnd 17, 2025 vs H&A Season 2024 * Played less than two full matches < Subbed out at least once or more > Subbed in at least once or more Stats courtesy of footwire.com & wheeloratings.com

Erratum: Subbed on and Subbed off %s are either incorrect or missing. Correct figures are as follows... Tholstrup < 49% Sharp > 25%

Lead the no-merger rear guard with Alan Johnson. As passionate on the club staying independent as any player at the time (and there weren't many...he was swimming against the tide) and no doubt that was a part of his DNA given the flag / NS glory years. There was fight, grit and character. At all times a genuine Demon through and through. I spoke to him after a rally in the city around that time and was very inspired with his feedback. Never got to watch him live but apparently an absolute stalwart from all accounts and reveared by many. Vale Dicko!

Self inflicted DS given the ability that was on this list in the immediate years post 2021. Memberships down approx 15% - 16% on 22/23 tells the tale. Under any reasonable pressure from an oppo over more than about one or two quarters or so (at approx AFL average pressure rating) this team is incapable of winning most of the time. We are also incapable of bringing that pressure (in a team sense) for more than about one quarter (sometimes two) in most matches. The course of most games has become super predictable now. The method in which we use the ball, constant panic playing on & turnovers etc means we have become (for mine) almost unwatchable bar the wizard moments we see from Kozz and Melksham's forward craft. Hardly inspiring.

Fair point DZ but in the end whatever is happening it is not resulting in many wins. We are sitting on something like a 27% win ratio over the last 22 rounds or so yes? That's nearly two seasons now. Something does not feel right within the four walls given the quality (on paper) that we had on this list. I say that in past tense as i feel Goodwin & Co. have now blown any chance of a serious retrieval from here. Not with a fair chunk on this current list anyway. That's not a general criticism of all players either. Some of whom were great servants and whose time has now passed them by in terms of being at their peak.

Couldn't agree more rufus. We are too laconical in general. The will to win is something that appears to be optional and the picking and choosing an acceptable trait. Players also racking up weeks, sometimes months, of horror performances yet still getting a game or just dropped for a week or maybe two max to work on something and then straight back in. Ruthless should be our first and last trait in every much but since about half way through 2022 it appears that only select players do this with some others cherry picking when and where thrown into the mix on occasions. Not expecting top line performances from every player every week, especially rookies, but you would hope for minimum levels of white line fever from 80% or so most weeks. Should've been at least one more GF appearance from the 2021 list post 2021 but alas. Too many happy clappers and back slappers on and off the field and for whatever reasons Simon has been unable to get the best from them (other than random blocks of H&A games) since the flag.

Possibly because their pressure rating was also well below AFL average in that first quarter D Rev.

Round 17, 2025 Adelaide Oval - Crows vs Demons With another season down the gurgler and now running out of attachment room on this site i'm just going to post the Demon Player Ratings for the remainder. Not sure i agree with Chandler in third place. Too much emphasis in the rating on tackles? He had a massive 10 for the match but was also the only player on the day with a negative meters gained result (-1) Adelaide basically decided to turn up the wick at about the ten minute mark of the second Q (once they thought our lead was getting a tad out of hand) and we couldn't go with them. It's a pretty easy formula against us for most teams now. Coast along and just play at a decent level for a while, then when you need to, put the after burners on (ie; ramp up the pressure and intensity) for a quarter or so and it's game over (for us). Player & Team Ratings > Subbed out TOG % > Subbed in TOG % Stats courtesy of footywire.com and wheeloratings.com

I think you'd need a much larger data set to be able to say that WW. Three hit outs and one happens to go to advantage and you're claiming he is a success here. He doesn't get that many hit outs in general and averages about 1.2 to advantage per match. Having said that, most ruckmen (Max one of the exceptions) don't add much value in general just with their pure ruck work. Around the ground and clearance efforts, that's a diff matter.

Yes almost identical to that although we did not have the rolled gold opportunities to score a second shot at the cup back then as we did in 2022 & 2023.

We still have 'Small Club' syndrome and MO imo Brownie. This club has never been able to step down of the porch and go [censored] with the big dawgs for more than a few consecutive seasons. We are constantly taking one step forward and two back both on and off the field and unable to maintain any momentum from our very short-run successful eras. Aside from the Peter Jackson era, we've lacked serious leadership at the top for many many decades and have far too often accepted mediocrity as our go to calling card. We are doing the same right now in accepting so many pitiful on-field performances in the last two seasons.