poita

I see it is now an "investment" to attend one of these events, rather than an "expense" or "cost".

Not sure about that. The ones I know think that the club is on a full on tank to get Harley Reid at year end.

Three of them within an 8 week period at the back end of the year - good luck trying to keep players fit on the fringes of the team.

Fingers crossed the Casey Demons get to play on Fankhauser Reserve this season.

There is no chance that reserved seating allocation has sold out. The southern stand reserved seating area was less 50% full for most games last year. More likely they have reached the limit for Grand Final guarantees, which must be purchased by anyone wanting a reserved seat. If there is anyone with half a brain at the club they will release further reserved seats without needing to buy the GFG as well. There are many people who cannot justify this level of expenditure on a yearly basis - and let's be honest, we are hardly winning premierships at the rate of Geelong or Hawthorn over the past 20 years. As an aside, I am a 38 year member who has had a reserved seat for as long as I remember and who has automatic rollover and monthly direct debit of my membership. After being forced into buying a GFG last year to keep my reserved seat, I cancelled the reserved seat and automatic rollover at the end of last season. At this point I am yet to receive any communication from the club to rejoin as a member. If they are not prepared to put any effort to keep supporters who have spent many thousands of dollars on memberships over a long period of time, then I cannot comprehend what our membership department has been doing in recent months.

If I was in charge of this club I would be asking all and sundry why a fan hosted website such as Demonland gets infinitely more traffic than the official club site. The forum is important, but it is also the best place to get the latest information. I know I always come here first if I want to know anything related to the club, and the official site is almost a last resort. I'm sure the club's sponsors, who have paid good money to have their logos plastered all over the place, would prefer that the club site was the first place people went for accurate, timely information regarding the club.

Still don't have updated player pictures or profiles on the website. Over three months since Kyah Farris-White joined the club, and nobody can take a photo of the kid on their phone?

Anything less than 1 finals win would be a clear fail. Even 2 finals wins would be a bare pass given how narrow our window is. We wasted the past 12 months, we can't afford to go another year without genuinely contending for a premiership.

The number of games gifted to Sparrow and Jordon last year was mind boggling, and Goodwin's reluctance to change up personnel last year was his number one failing. Dunstan is in no way a superstar, but he would have given far more than either of those two (particularly Sparrow) on a number of occasions. He also should have been given an opportunity when Oliver missed against Port. Presumably Dunstan won't see much game time again this year, and will be delisted at year end. That would leave us without any experienced midfield depth, which would be a horrific fail of list management.

Kate Hore is the vice captain, so I would expect she will step up as captain. As for Daisy, words cannot do her contribution to the club and the game justice - she is simply the best of the best.

If these are the best two options available to us, I'd rather we keep a spot open for the mid season draft.

Might be about time for the club to update its website and welcome the new recruits. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/teams/afl

It's a tough situation for the club as we are forced to take 3 draft picks, so have to delist 3 players to make room. Clearly Duffy, and probably Brown, are good enough to be on a list somewhere. Hopefully they both commit to the next VFL season and work their way back into the system, as Maeve Chaplin did this year.

It shows that you go very quickly from having the core of your side "in the window" to being in a Hawthorn situation where you are dumping players to find draft picks. We're not there yet, but couple recruiting 28 year olds with taking only 2-3 national draft picks each year, and we look pretty old very quickly. We'll start next year with 19 players aged 27 and above, 15 of whom are arguably in our best side. That is more than Geelong have on their list. It's a big effort to find that number of best 22 players over the next five years or so, even if Petracca and Oliver can play on to age 40.

Yep, great idea, but that's a terrible design.

He is the sort of guy who should have been made to earn a new contract as a train on player, rather than being gifted a 2 year deal based on hopes and dreams. Meaning: show you can get through a couple of months of training without breaking down again, and you can have a spot on our list.

What is the situation with salaries in the AFLW now? Is it possible that Fremantle, with a list that didn't make finals this year (albeit with heavy injuries), is in a position to offer Paxy significantly more money? It's great that we kept this list together to win a premiership, but maybe some of these players, particularly the older ones, now start thinking about their personal livelihoods. And if our list does get attacked, clearly we are going to prioritise retaining players such as Hore, Harris, Hanks and Purcell who have got 8 - 10 years of football left, over 34/35 year olds.

Don't really care about the who, very much care about the when. No Wednesday or Thursday night games, and a bare minimum of Friday and Saturday night home games please. I'd be happy if Anzac Eve was our only home night game for the year.

Not sure what it says when the AFLW B&F winner, Ally Anderson, is not named in the All Australian squad and finished 11th in the coaches award. Olivia Purcell finished 5th in the B&F, squeezes on to the bench in the AA squad and finished 15th in the coaches award. Meanwhile Jasmine Garner wins the coaches award easily, is captain of the AA squad and doesn't finish top ten in the B&F. Most likely the AFLW umpires are completely clueless as to who the better players are, so are just picking the few players they recognise. Well done to Liv Purcell and Kate Hore on their great seasons. Not sure why they were kept away from the main celebrations when they still participated in the AA team photo.

That would be a totally dumb idea for a club that has tied itself up in knots in recent years trying to game the system. As good as Jake Bowey was in 2021, let's not forget that Bailey Laurie was the other outcome from our pissfarting around in 2020. Laurie is a long way from a pick 22 at this point, and effectively cost us a first round pick in this year's draft. We have a strong hand in a strong 2023 draft. I'll be very disappointed if we don't keep all of those 2023 picks.

Serious question, would we have any interest whatsoever in Emile-Brennan if he wasn't in our NGA? As with Moniz-Wakefield and Mac Andrew, people are putting on their rose-coloured glasses regarding players who really don't fit our needs, if indeed they are even an outside chance to make it as AFL players. I get that a NGA player can be a free hit, but Emile-Brennan is going to chew up a heap of development resources to get him even remotely close to AFL standard.

A small ground is not necessarily a bad thing - it might lead to some more goals being scored. That said, it's a terrible look for the game to have a grand final played in the far outer suburbs of Brisbane at a partially completed ground. How are they possibly accommodating 9000 standing spectators? On that basis the capacity at Casey Fields is about 10K as well, with it's five toilets and one entrance.

The AFL's rank hypocrisy and double standards when it comes to betting is off the charts. It serves them right to have to deal with problems of this nature that are 100% of their own making.

North have gone under the radar this year due to their tough draw and low ladder position, but they are absolutely a top 4 side. Their only losses were to Melbourne (2 pts), Adelaide (14 pts) and Brisbane (7 pts). They've won 1 final on defense and 1 on attack, so they seem to be getting everything working at the right time of year. We are going to need to play well to win this one (and kick a lot straighter than we did in round 2).

Do the teams get to wear novelty jumpers and pocket some additional dollars selling related merchandise to impressionable toddlers, or are the gimmicks limited to the fixturing? I hope the theme songs are re-recorded by whichever flavour-of-the-month pop star is in the country at the time, and the umpires are all dressed like circus clowns.