poita

I take it by "around the mark" you mean finishing 14th again? Assuming we'll see improvement from May, Lever, Tholstrup, Sparrow, Kentfield, Moniz-Wakefield and Howes is delusional in the extreme.

I think this is a good outcome for both player & club. He played an important role in 2021, but hasn't been great since. A fresh start might get him back on track.

I posted this in the pinned thread earlier, but this might be a more appropriate location. In a year where 14 clubs achieved record membership numbers, and some increased their number by more than 10%, our result is more than 10% below our 2024 number and more than 17% off our record from 2023. That is disgraceful. What's even worse is that, despite barely winning a game for 6 years, North is on track to surpass us next year. That would leave us as the smallest Victorian club, despite winning a premiership in the past 5 years. What can we do about this? More flexible membership options, with better value provided. Every year we pay more for less. In particular we need to remove the GFG from the reserved seat package. Better member communications and social media presence. Engage with the supporter base. Should the club have a presence on Demonland? Deliver a better brand of football that people actually want to watch (more wins would be nice as well). Change the prevailing narrative that we are a divided and unprofessional club. Provide realistic opportunities for members, particularly kids, to engage with players (ie don't hold open training sessions on school days). Publicly advocate for the club and the players. I can't stand Chris Scott, but he never would have let the AFL get away with suspending May. If we are going to cop [censored] fixtures (eg West Coast @ Marvel), find a way to embrace these and deliver something of value to get people to come along.

Might be about time to ship whatever is left of that club up to Darwin for the 20th side.

I'm glad that Billings was told ahead of time, and not blindsided on the night, now give him the respect of a proper announcement that acknowledges 172 games over a 12 year AFL career. This club has made an artform out of embarrassing itself over the past two years.

In a year where 14 clubs achieved record membership numbers, and some increased their number by more than 10%, our result is more than 10% below our 2024 number and more than 17% off our record from 2023. That is disgraceful. What's even worse is that, despite barely winning a game for 6 years, North is on track to surpass us next year. That would leave us as the smallest Victorian club, despite winning a premiership in the past 5 years. What can we do about this? More flexible membership options, with better value provided. Every year we pay more for less. In particular we need to remove the GFG from the reserved seat package. Better member communications and social media presence. Engage with the supporter base. Should the club have a presence on Demonland? Deliver a better brand of football that people actually want to watch (more wins would be nice as well). Change the prevailing narrative that we are a divided and unprofessional club. Provide realistic opportunities for members, particularly kids, to engage with players (ie don't hold open training sessions on school days). Publicly advocate for the club and the players. I can't stand Chris Scott, but he never would have let the AFL get away with suspending May. If we are going to cop [censored] fixtures (eg West Coast @ Marvel), find a way to embrace these and deliver something of value to get people to come along.

Well done to Gawn, a much deserved winner who definitely should have more than 3 B&Fs. Congratulations also to Petracca, Pickett and Bowey who were clearly our next best 3 players over the year. As for the rest, the less said the better. If you agree with the coaches' assessment that he was our 5th best player (and I don't), Salem's votes equate to 404 / 23 games =17.56 / 4 coaches = 4.39 out of 10 on average. That was a failing grade when I was growing up. That the others were even worse is an indictment on the group. It is actually a real concern that our coaches rate Salem, Chandler and Langdon amongst our better players for the year, because all three were pretty ordinary for the most part. It makes me wonder whether as a club we are valuing the things that are going to bring us success in the next few years. Hopefully a new coach will change this.

Okay, that's a start. Hopefully several more still to come. Interesting that Billings is not on the initial list. Goodwin clearly put a line through him, but maybe the other coaches think differently.

I don't mind Campbell as a backup for Gawn, but there is no way that any young, sane ruck prospect receiving good advice would come to Melbourne to sit behind two 34 year olds next year. Playing second ruck at VFL level is not a great way to develop. We are really making it very difficult to get Gawn's replacement to the club before his body gives up on him.

It's actually a disgrace that they don't make these events more accessible to the fans. You can get an 11 game membership for less than the cost of a ticket to the B&F in what was a dismal season for the club. Anyhoo, I expect Gawn, Pickett, Petracca & Bowey to be the top 4. It gets harder from there, but the top 10 generally play most/all games and Viney always polls better than expected.

This would be the first thing I would do if I was the list manager. Yes, he is a waste of a list space and a waste of money, but mostly because he sets a disgraceful example for every other player on the list. I've never seen anyone less interested in doing the things required of an AFL player.

Culley has so much potential, he just needs to tidy up his defensive positioning and work rate. A full pre season with the group should help in this respect.

That would be insane if true. A 25 year old permanent small forward who kicked 2 goals in 9 VFL games this year after being dropped from the senior side. He is actually older than Spargo. Surely we can do much, much better.

Not sure about the wisdom of bringing back Colvin, one of our slowest players, into a team that already looked overly tall and slow last week. Pisano is a real worry, although the 2023 draft class looks to be quite weak. A top 5 pick should be finding the ball much more easily than she does at present.

I assume Heath is no certainty to play this week, in addition to the 9 confirmed outs. It's one thing to have a lot of injuries, but ours seem very focused on the midfield and half back line. That's pretty tough to cover, and I thought we looked overly tall and slow against Collingwood as a result.

I don't expect our players to be Rhodes Scholars but, after ten years in the AFL system, surely it's not unreasonable that they can engage in a conservation with a journalist without tipping a bucket of poop on the club or its employees. Or do they all say whatever they want in the hope that the club won't ask them to do it again?

For that price he'd want to win the next six best & fairests and captain the team to its next premiership. We need to add half a dozen quality players, not one potential superstar.

Given that both Petracca and Oliver screwed the club as much as they possibly could, it is not surprising that they remain towards the top of the list. Other star players have struck a better balance between taking a fair wage and allowing their clubs to add other quality players. Cameron is #17 ($950K - $1.05M), Dangerfield is off his big contract and is not on the list.

Negatives: one of the oldest and most experienced lists in the competition finished 14th for the second consecutive year, winning 4 less games than the year before. Opportunities to rejuvenate the list will be massively limited by the lack of coach, no first round draft pick and ridiculous contracts held by fading senior players. We're a shambles off field, with no home base, and are therefore completely undesirable to any prospective players, Positives: Langford is a gun. The win against Brisbane. No more Goodwin.

Don't all MCG tenants share the rooms? I don't think any club has designated rooms, so I would be very surprised if there were honour boards there. I agree that these are most likely cricket related. That said, it would be great to have a place that members can access to see all of this kind of memorabilia.

Lever hasn't been fit for the past two years, why would next year (at age 30) be any different?

Noah looked really good on the weekend, albeit against fairly ordinary opposition with little pressure coming out of the middle. My concern is how he would fare against AFL level opposition in a senior side where we almost never hit a leading target on the chest. That said, I'd be more than happy to pay McAdam out and give Yze a rookie spot instead.

I really hope the MFC support the Casey alliance and make all eligible players available for the entire finals campaign. I'm a firm believer that playing as many high stakes games as possible against experienced opposition is much more valuable for young players than getting in an extra week or two of pre season running.

I'll be interested to see if Sydney have one last crack with their experienced core group, or if they take a step back and try to get some more games into their fringe players. If the former, you wonder whether the likes of Roberts, Sheldrick, Cleary or Campbell might look elsewhere for more significant opportunities. Not sure if any of these might suit us at the right price - Campbell certainly hasn't come on from his first year, but has some ability. They also have a number of more recent draftees who are yet to get a go.

So right in the range of where our third round pick would have fallen if that moron Lamb hadn't (indirectly) thrown in into Essendon's hands as part of the Lindsay deal. There are always negative consequences to that guy's meddling, even though he clearly thinks he is the smartest guy in the room.