Demon Dynasty

Our boys Hogan & Bedford ....noice!!

Its amazing what one poor kick into the corridor can do ughh!

One of the great rrat finals goals on the left foot! Toby!

They were always matching any bid. They had eyes on him from a long way out and alot invested. Took time for Tom to find his feet at this level. The athleticism of Jackson helped us win the cup in his second season.

Wash your mouth SthSea. He looked a million dollars post the injury with us and definitely worth a pick in the late teens!!

Yep Buddy style! That's the pie'ce de re'sistance for me.... SOLD!

They answer to no one Jack. The other clubs might jump up and down a little but in the end they just do what they like and change things to suit their preferred narrative (at that time).

It's just one giant franchise run, overseen and massaged/directed by the AFL circus masters i'm afraid. Anything goes as long as the AFL believes it will further their desire for a close competition with the big clubs taking the lion's share of the limelight and the spoils / silverware. All the clubs are now in on the act and the players complicate. The franchisees are hardly going to take on the franchisor if they don't like something. They just suck it up as they're all on the gravy train. No club is going to go out of its way to upset HQ when it controls the purse strings, the fixture, the head of the MRO etc.

Him & White were the glue down at Casey. Talk about blood and guts. Sounds like he wasn't happy at all with the final game. A pretty ordinary ending to the season at both levels for us it would seem. Will be sorely missed. Was a thorn in every other club's side. Goody luck Jimmy and thanks for the amazing efforts & memories plus the 22 Premiership year.

Def needs looking at

Yes 100%. More of the same will see more of the same or worse. Top 4 is not an automatic inclusion every season just because we feel we're in the window. Look at the Cats this season. While we don't need radical change to the defensive side i'm hoping Goodwin reviews much of everything else we do from the CBs forward and even the way we transition off HB. Needs to be open to some fresh ideas and thinking imv and release the shackles. That includes new blood across the lines that have some freedom to express and tweak things. Same with the players to a degree. Would love to see highly regarded 'not long out of the game' forward and mid coaches coming in for a significant overhaul in this area. Other clubs have caught us up and we need to be quick on our feet to keep up let alone stay ahead of the game.

Good get SW. We now have an oppo coach at a big club with full knowledge of the Goodwin playbook. We'll need to make a few tweaks to both staff and the style / methods as well as significant improvement to forward craft, followers, and the general ball movement / mid-forward cohesion as has been thrashed to death on here for the last two seasons.

I really like the look of Sanders. Reminds me a little of Tim Watson. Great football brain combined with oodles of power and some finesse coming inside 50 as well. He's within reach for us yes? However looking like the Norf are going to shift the draft posts with the help of the AFL bah! https://www.afl.com.au/news/1036986/top-draft-prospect-ryley-sanders-approved-as-member-of-north-melbourne-kangaroos-next-generation-academy

Great career move for him. Well done Ooze and good luck at the Tiges, except against us! Thanks for helping to crack our first silverware for some time!

I reckon he (and the FD...it's a big experienced team we're talking about here) managed the first half ok but then botched the 2nd with Clarry out for so long. That put a stack of pressure on Tracc & Viney to lift their output to cover off. Plus a bit of JJ and Harmes coming in to assist. But for mine the Harmes option (on a couple of occasions) was the wrong one. Goody was probably deceived somewhat by some ok to good performances at VFL level and probably still had recent strong flashbacks of his 21/22 efforts and figuring he may get back to somewhere near that. Fair enough. Unfortunately for Goody and all of us, Harmes was nowhere near his 21/22 and after the first recall should never have gotten the next call up. For mine it was Dunstan in for at least a few matches while Clarry was out. Even ahead of JJ. But especially ahead of Harmes. Why do i say that? Dunstan like for like was about as close as we had to Viney in terms of extracting and distributing the pill. The physicality required in this position must be immense week in week out. At that point Dunstan was the most likely bull to switch in for a week or two. Harmes not a regular extractor anyway and wouldn't have provided the relief required to Viney regardless of form imho. Even a couple of Dunstan assists, spread out spasmodically over about 6 to 8 weeks, may have been better. Especially as we knew Clarry was a long term fix. Imv Viney was the bull, the extractor....the ball getter we needed to protect as much as possible in order to keep him as fresh as possible coming in to finals. We live and die by his performances much of the time, just as the Doggies do with Libba's form/abscence. The game against Hawks, Libba missed the second half from concussion. They lose by 3 points. The week after they lose to the lowly Eagles by 7 points. Came back the week after and vavoom they beat the cats at the Cattery by 4 goals. That little window of his abscence sees them miss the finals by two premiership points. One more win and they're in instead of the Swans. A coincidence? I think not. In the QF against the Pies, Viney was a massive 55% off his H&A Season rating. Recovered well against the Blues, posting a rating 20% higher than his H&A rating, but by then we were pushing up hill in terms of missing our chance at the weeks rest via the Prelim and going in to our 2nd consecutive final without the likes of JVR and Gus.

Hope all the "why didn't Goody play Grundy!?" landers see this. Even then i suspect some will keep asking 😅 Would love to know the 'Schache, no Schache' reasoning though. Very costly imho.

Mono i know you're very forgiving but just say what you're really thinking 'Decapitated' is fine

That about sums it up. Jefferson appears to be a pretty big work in progress and too early to tell if he'll make it for mine. Improved a little in the back half but when exposed as a main forward in the final he didn't give a yelp. Needs time to develop though. Be interesting to see what shape he comes back in for the start of 24. He might be two pre-seasons away IF he makes it. Assuming we're playing McVee, Salo & Bowey, then Howes would have to fit in somewhere other than HB yes? Personally i think he's very suited to the wing which means he would have to bang the door down big time to push out Hunter or Langdon. Goody seems pretty fixated on these two. While both were very serviceable at times in 2023, i didn't think either of them were consistent stand outs and occasionaly they were poor. Both are pretty ordinary with ball in hand coming inside 50. Adding to our inside 50 connection woes. Howes and Woe might be able to push their way in to one of the wings here but i don't think we'll see either of them do so early on. Unless there's an unfortunate injury or suspension window. Woe might get some mid time though so opportunties might arise for him here with JJ & Harmes now likely to depart. I'd love to see both get some serious game time at some stage before the buy though as i feel they'll offer some improved connection plus some much needed run & carry. We need to get some more overlap play into the team. Transition in 2022/23 a bit stale/slow for mine. Particularly on Hunter's wing as he has no run & carry ability.

This latest straight exit's having some massive side effects on some My 12 yo cheapo Chivas is sure getting a good work over

Noughton's a hard worker and leads well but his accuracy is questionable the last few seasons.

I agree. If there was a genuinely dangerous KPF out of contract or FA with 3 to 4 solid years left then sure. I'd be all over him. However when looking at what is out there, you have to keep in mind that apart from the worst performing clubs, when you're salivating over potential gettable forwards...some of the other club's are delivering the ball to them in a decent or better fashion. Hitting up leading forwards quite a bit opens up the forward line for others to do damage out the back etc and also those leading forwards are often taking marks within range and converting. Put those same players in our mix and i'm not so sure they're as dangerous! Need class and speed coming out of the middle which gives the forwards better looks and also sees them shooting at goal from higher percentage areas of the forward 50. That class and speed will also hopefully result in one or two of those mids hitting the scoreboard on the run from a fair way out on occasions. Adding extra fire power. This is especially important for us as we presently don't have anyone coming off the square (mids, wingers or HBs) that do this from around the arc other than Tracc once in a while. People often ask on these forums "Why is it that the oppo always seem to have space for their forwards to work in and ours is always so crowded". Ok so the answer isn't simple and involves a number of things including speedy and more direct transition. Something we've lacked somewhat this season as we are more often heading down the line rather than corridor. Ok so that's one aspect. But i feel the other aspects that see us with a crowded 50 are... 👉🏼 Forwards (not all of them... Joel played his part in this series imv) not working their leading patterns hard enough and/or high enough to present. If we aren't doing this as much then of course that's an extra defender able to impact inside our 50. Leading more often sees their opponent following creating less congestion. 👉🏼 Mids/Wingers not taking the time to scan the 50 or lower their vision when coming towards the 50. Instead just blindly kicking/bombing the ball to a congested area or worse, to a 2 v 1 etc. Gives the impression of crowding when in reality we're just making it easy for the oppo to send the bulk of their players to the usual drop zones and defend with numbers. 👉🏼 As per the last point but after marking outside the 50, again just rolling onto their preferred and blindly bombing the ball down the line or into a pocket when players are sometimes free laterally that will open up the ground and / or sitting out the back free on the fat side We need quality mids / wingers who, when coming towards the 50, can scan/look and then deliver with some finesse to the favoured side or spaces that forwards can run in to and mark more often on the lead. As well as kicking some running goals from distance. Some will argu speed on the ball will achieve much of this. Yes to a degree. But i would argue you also need leg speed to provide time leading to extea time to pull up, steady and execute towards decent options more often and or shoot at goal a little more accurately. When we find those mids/wingers, and provided the forwards have some forward skills / nous, talent and work their arses off, everything will (should!!) start to click.

Ablett Jnr. as the new foward coach pls. Need the mids / forwards to come together as a team. Our method and delivery into 50 much of time must be a forward's worst nightmare. Some run & class coming out of the middle. It's non existent at present unless Kozzy gets on the end of a few and Goody rarely plays him here so new blood is needed. Spargo is about it as far as the delivery goes and he just doesn't get enough of it to make a big impact regardless. McAdam hopefully a big upgrade on Chandler.

Initially no. Eventually probably yes. Rookies always have ups and downs early. Another pre-season or two . Puts a bit of size on. With 50+ games under his belt and a bit of luck with injuries he'll be a ripper.

Was AA BDA Appears to have lost a fair bit of agility and leap he had prior to the injury. Suspect the Pies didn't just let him go for salary cap space.

In hindsight a completely wasted list space which no doubt hindered our chances, particularly in the back half and finals where he played mostly bruise free footy. Such a pitty we couldn't convince him to stay. Reckon we make at least one more prelim with him at his best the last two seasons and who knows from there. Silly decision on his part to go back so quickly when more silverware was on offer.