Demon Dynasty

Round 5, 2025 Adelaide Oval - Demons vs Bombers Although a reasonable improvement on last week's Team Rating of 50.6 vs the Cats, this match was our second worst team performance to date (statistically speaking) in season 2025. The Bombers had 18 players with less than 100 games vs our 9. The resulting performance (or lack thereof) indicating we appear to be a mile away from AFL levels / standards at this point with no sign that we are arresting this year's capitulation. The Bombers now the third side we have played who have posted a Mega 70+ Team Rating this season, along with North in Rnd 2 & the Cats last week. Langdon easily our best rated player, finishing a close 2nd just behind Draper on the night. His 2nd best Rating since joining the Demons in 2020. His Best was Round 8, 2022 vs the Saints where he posted a 6.10 His output on the night included... 22 effective disposals at 88% efficiency (AFL average approx 74%), 2 marks i50, 2 one percenters, 3 clearances, 5 rebounds, 6 inside 50s, 1 tackle, 6 score involvements, 7 intercepts, only 1 turnover, 474 meters gained and a goal. Our next best... Big Max and Clarry. The main offenders who stunk it up in this match were... Windsor -51% vs his 2024 Rating (foot issue impacting, did he also tweak it again on the night at one point?) Viney -49% Sparrow -48% Spargo -41% (vs his 2023 Rating) Van Rooyen -31% Tracc -26% Melky -23% & T-Mac -17% (to be fair his first off week so far this season). Six of the eight worst results coming from seasoned campaigners. No chance you are winning on the back of that many posting those sort of results. Turnover Kings.... 7 a piece by Tracc, Viney & Pickett. Spargo and Gawn 5 each and 4 each from Windsor, Langford, Bowey and Rivers. Clarry lead the tackling front with 9. The next best, Chandler with 6. No respite this week as we face the team that first cracked us open post the flag in Rnd 11, 2022. Freo's form appears to be a mile ahead of ours and probably near the top of the tree, at least in terms of precise ball use and forward conversion. They're also super effective by hand with the most meters gained (on average) with each handball, whereas we appear to go the old fashioned ring around the rosie. Inviting more and more pressure, resulting in our inevitable turnovers, which are prevalent, even when under not much pressure at all. I would like to think we can clean this up somewhat (along with other skills and multiple aspects of our game) on the training track but we've had 4 weeks to do so to date with no progress at all. If anything we appear to be treading water. Demons < Subbed out TOG % > Subbed in TOG % Bombers Combined Player Ratings

Apparently there is Love Brownie. Lot's of sweet wonderful luurve...

Are you sure he said 'in' and not 'on'

Absolutely. He has championed the club all the way. Let him enjoy his last season or more free wheeling it. Question is though, who is there that's capable and suited to taking the mantle at this point?

Add to that "they broke our spirit" line. I've never heard of any player, let alone Captain, say this in over 50 years. I seriously think we may need to rethink the whole structure and hierarchy of the team as well as the FD. NO player, especially a leader, should ever concede that sort of inner feeling regardless of how apt it might be to the individual concerned or the playing group.

Fair enough.... thought the post clearance ground ball was 'loose ground ball gets' (ie; uncontested) Thanks wheelo

Post clearance ground ball and contested differential -38! Contested marks -9 Only produced one quarter of AFL level pressure (Q3) And this against a very ordinary oppo. Completly unwatchable in all facets of the game excluding the odd quarter here and there. If it was just a 4 to 5 week period you would sit back and just say we're in a slump. But we are now into about 20 weeks of embarrassing levels of football now with no signs of a turn around. Even if things got going for more than a quarter or so, we are incapable of kickkng a winning score, or even defending against pretty average oppos.

Most fans probably just want to see an AFL level competitive team roll out most weeks and win a few games here and there as bare minimum. Especially against trash teams like Norf, Essington & WC. Not the local old boy amateurish hour we've been dished up with in the last 19 games or so. We are presently unwatchable bar the odd quarter in a few random games. Can barely kick 6 to 8 goals. 8 or 9 apparently a good day 😆 Rubbish game style with constant turnovers and bog ordinary effort from far to many with too much always left to too few. Dysfunctional forward line with one KF that is so out of form he would probably struggle at Casey right now but keeps getting a game and told to just keep working on his game at senior level. Pls forgive some supporters for realising they are more than likely in for more under-performance and low / losing scores that pretty much won't win a game against anyone other than WC, and even that's a big ask! Our methods / game style, whatever they are, aren't working. We can't bring a pressure game and force turnover for longer than one quarter or so, poor skills, constant clangers, ball watching and too many getting sucked into contests allowing the oppo to spread, run & carry into their forward half at will as we chase tail most of the game. Senior school boy stuff! That Membership is down 18% from the 2023 peak tells the tale. We are quickly heading back to being a laughing stock and irrelevant once again and all you want to blame and pot is member behaviour. Hilarious.

We've lost any potency we once had to put serious pressure in for extended periods or run back in support / intercept a kick behind the ball etc. Once the ball clears their congested area of immediate contest they basically jog around ball watching and looking to run down the odd tackle in traffic if they happen to get close enough. Although it improved from a low base tonight, our pressure game has also been poor for much of this and last season vs what's required if you're to compete with the better clubs. Teams are just toying with us on transition, around stoppage and on the spread once the ball is out. We're also now playing amateurish footy around stoppage (again) with too many getting sucked into or ball watching at the contest. If the oppo gets first use, which is usually about 50%+ of the time, alot of the time they can easily find exits out the front and then they're off to the races easily as one or two too many of ours are still back at the stoppage / contest area.

Bowey gets to the right places, works his butt off but also has very poor vision, often panic kicks and kicks to a 1 v1 , a 2 v1 or to the non favoured side of player / or on his head etc. He almost never looks inside when running forward either. Everything in straight lines. Easy to defend and rarely tests or asks questions of the oppo defenders. If he cleaned the vision, delivery a decision making up he'd be an outstanding player.

And sadly he has been completely brain washed onto believing that the old method of clearance / contested & bashing ball forward to get as many i50 entries as you can (and trying to get repeat entries through more crash & bash / pressing high etc) is still the way. Max has had it drilled into his poor bonce so many times and continues to believe that "weight of numbers will win the day and is the Melb way" and that eventually the wheel will turn. "Just take more learnings from losses and work harder each week". All that this constant (Simon's inability or unwillingness to change things up effectively) has done is, over time, made us the easiest team to plan, train and play against on game day. Unfortunately we have become an oppo coach's dream fixture. We make most teams look like potential premiership contenders. Even the dud ones like Essington and Norf.

What leads woe!? Count them on one hand. A few others that were timed poorly or in Rooh's case... running under the ball. Rooh mostly runs away from the ball carrier and gives them nothing to hit up. A very good senior school footy team would occasionally play their forward method better than ours. Our ball watching and inability to man up is incredibly poor. In that final quarter when we needed to get the ball back but refused to break out of the ridiculous back half zone. And that's on the coach. The players are no doubt following instructions. It's got to the point that the players really need to start changing things up themselves in game and not listen to what the coach/es are telling them to do. You're 20+ points down with 10 min to go and still zoning off / guarding grass as if you're 2 to 3 up coming into half time. What's Simon thinking with all of this? It's certainly not going to win any games of footy other than against another shocking team in a similar hole like WC. I doubt we'd beat them on the road either though. Looking more and more like adding another spoon to the cutlery drawer.

This may have been posted elsewhere but still appropriate here... The astonishing numbers that show how far the Dees have fallen - https://www.afl.com.au/news/1295850 And FWIW a look at the Player Ratings of 2021 vs 2025 from this article as well as my own ratings from these same seasons. Keeping in mind that this article might be using the average data from the first three or the first four rounds. My Ratings are averages from the first four including against the Cats...

Don't tell me we've got the smiling assassin again!!??

It's been trialled before