Cranky Franky

Brisbane get a priority pick whereas Melbourne did not despite Brisbane winning more games in the preceding few seasons.

What an open accountable and transparent competition we have.  Well done AFL.  

Just to remind us how lacking in integrity and transparency the AFL is Brisbane get a Priority Pick.  Melbourne were denied a pick a few years ago despite having a worse record than Brisbane.  Nice work Gillon.

The way that a number of WB players stepped up in this year's finals - think Johannisen, Hambling, Picken & a few others reminded me that in some finals series it is not the stars or the established players that do the job but ordinary players who get on a roll & play above themselves.

In 1976 when the Dees got on a roll to make the finals it was nondescript players like Ted Carroll & Terry Wilkins who played out of their skin & got us going.  In the run of 1987 Duursma, Tony Campbell, Newport & Chiron were all inspired. I know some will think this is trivial but I find it an interesting point.

Maybe next year Spencer, JKH, Garland & Harry O will fire up & get us on a roll. 

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All looking good so far but next year is critical as he will get more attention.  Many players have had "breakout seasons" only to go backwards the next year.  

17 hours ago, bingers said:

He was "lucky" to play 60 games. Good on him. 

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Alistair "Big Jack" Nicholson played over 100!! And was on the list for 11 years!!!!

Making his debut in 1997 in the number 8 guernsey, the large figure of the man known as "Big Jack" was a strong presence in defence for the Demons. Nicholson, a specialist key position defender, was most suited to full-back and was much maligned during his career, described by critics as "old, slow and useless" and "unfashionable".^[1] However, Nicholson was shown a lot of faith by coach Neale Daniher, and was signed on until the end of the 2007 season.

 

"Big Jack" ???  I only heard him called Big Al or Sideshow Bob.

9 minutes ago, ArtificialWisdom said:

I'm not so much criticising the decision but you surely see the reasons for keeping him. I stand by my opinion that he would be useful depth next year given his run and spread. We lack that in any sufficent quantities, spread in particular. However, I am also not all that torn up by him leaving, I suspect most who thought he would be good depth would be similar.

Yes spot on - a good depth player & versatile to boot.  Still handier than some still on the list who are lucky enough to have contracts.  I reckon the Casey capitulation would have sealed it for some of the borderline players. like MJ.

39 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Don't disagree with you there Mr H but I did notice on a few, probably 3 occasions, he could have forced the player with the ball over the boundary line and he was tentative at attacking the contest. The player kept the ball in play and got away. OMac has been guilty of the same thing. 

Not sure of they are being instructed to 'corral' them, whether they are nervous about being pinged for deliberate or whether there is a lack of urgency etc. They are both young and will learn but for mine they are slight flaws they both need to fix up.

Totally agree with this.  Terrific first year.  Also needs to be a bit more physical & aggressive at the contest like Hunt & Jetta.  Sometimes his approach is a bit timid & he reminds me of Garland.

1 hour ago, Satyriconhome said:

Agreed but it is par for the course for post season Demonland, the Capital of Hindsight Country      

Yes but as many Demonland posters are extremely self righteous its interesting to go back over the record to see who got it wrong.  I've stuffed up plenty of times in my calls.  Most supporters just want us to win more games & Stevie J would have certainly helped us do that in 2016.  There are a number of premierships that have been won with "discards" - you just need to pick carefully.

Most Demonland posters at the time thought he was useless. 43 Goals so far.  Can't help thinking he would have been very handy in helping us win a couple more games & teaching the likes of Petracca how to kick straight.

11 hours ago, picket fence said:

Oh Ok so now he was signed for Depth eh?? Ok I understand perfectly now! Jack Trengove is in the 30-35 Core of Depth?? 

Still does not cut it for me!

Might be a good bloke and all but good blokes aren't going to get uis to a premiership! 

Just to remind me again, how many games did he play this year??

And he is expected to improve and keep pace with a quickening game??

He was ready to go to Punt Rd was it??

Cheezus no wonder we haven't  won any  Premierships in 50 years!

 

Picket Fence You are obsessed with pace.  Not sure if you noticed but some of the best players going round are not at all quick.  Its more about quick hands, peripheral vision & ball use & BTW if you can tackle well that is handy as well.

Glad to see almost everyone disagrees with you about JT.

Melbourne now has Petracca, Oliver & Brayshaw to rotate through the midfield so they can learn the game which has meant that Bernie has to play back.  Agree that his second half of the season has been poor.

24 minutes ago, Akum said:

Players shouldn't be expected to make coaching moves during a game. If Kade Simpson is the spare man in their defence, it's not up to the players on the ground to make the decisions about whether to cover him, who covers him, and what other adjustments need to be made. These are all decisions that should be made by coaches, not players.

On the other hand, nothing wrong with these decisions being decided in advance - "if they play a spare man in defence, this is who covers him and these are the other adjustments" - and then it's up to the players to work out when that predetermined plan needs to be activated.

It seems to me that both coaches and players are drilled to the extent that they have become robots & can't think outside the square.  I remember a time during games when full back Danny Hughes was thrown into the ruck & went on to win a B&F ditto Alan Johnson from wing to back pocket.   Rod Grinter going from half back to FF & won a game for us. Tony Campbell from FF to FB.  These days if plan A doesn't work you do nothing.

I'm not going to criticise Paul Roos because overall he has been wonderful for the Club but the match day coaching yesterday was terrible & arguably cost us any chance of a win. 

Selections were poor.  With Garlett out the obvious move was to bring in Kennedy Harris or Ben Kennedy for their crumbing ability & I thought Salem was the obvious replacement for Harmes. 

Also why on earth drop Pedersen who has been handy & is a strong body in wet conditions.

To the game - Carlton have 3 dangerous players Cripps & Gibbs on the ball & Simpson in defence who sets them up.  None of these 3 had a hard tag.  Vince who was scratchy in defence should have gone on to Cripps. As is was we were beaten in the clearances & centre bounces.

The team failed to adapt to wet weather & continued to overuse handball usually until they turned over the ball.

Melbourne allowed Carlton to have a spare defender most of the day which resulted in them taking lots of uncontested marks.

Dumb, dumb, dumb match day coaching.  And seriously in this day & age why do our players have the wrong boots on & keep falling over. 

The point is that unlike most players on the list who have had to show their wares at Casey Oscar virtually came straight into the team.

In his last couple of games he has probably played to the level that Dunn has shown although Oscar has arguably cost us a couple of games in the process.

Why they rushed him & also persisted with Frost up forward still has me scratching my head.

Yes Footy Records.  To Django thanks for your interest.  I'll give it a couple of days & respond on Monday.

Hi people  I was cleaning out my shed & came across about 30 of these programs from that era. I'm happy to give them away to a Melbourne supporter who collects this stuff but please not to someone who will then sell them on Ebay. 

I'm sure Oscar has been put on this earth to annoy Melbourne supporters.  Last week he looked like he was injured & would miss a couple of games then he makes a miraculous recovery & plays anyway.

Coaches are only s good as the cattle they have.  The more pertinent question is which recruiting team has done the best job since Jimmy Cardwell.

Only about 6 weeks late.  Its a worry when supporters are ahead of the Brains Trust.

Most posters on this site have totally missed the point.  This was about payback from Eddie after Caro suggested in an article that after 20years he should have a succession plan in place.  Whenever Eddie or Collingwood are criticised instead of addressing the issue Eddie always goes the man (or woman).  Caro is generally a good journo but she has sold out to the AFL by being their mouthpiece at times.  She also goes pretty soft on Richmond.

In any case there seem to be very short memories here on Demonland because there were dreadful things said about her in the past when she has criticised the MFC.   

Jack Trengove I mean.  We are all wrapt to see that he has made a successful comeback & we all wish him well because he is a great bloke & fantastic club man however on the basis of 2 games back is there a spot for him on the list next year ?

He still looks pretty slow and if he's only going to pick up 20 odd touches a week he is going to struggle.  Remember Brayshaw, Salem & probably HL and ANB will come into the team at some stage.  He looks too slow to play in defence or up forward 

7 minutes ago, Redleg said:

I am staggered, given the conditions today, that Grimes wasn't played. A hard experienced body would have been a plus. 

Fully agree.  Paul Roos has done a fantastic job but him & the Brains Trust have made some dreadful selection blunders in the past 2 years.  A couple of big bodied experienced players should have been brought in for todays game and Grimes should be in for sure.

Lets hope we don't have a repeat of the Port game where Roos admits afterwards that they lost the match at the selection table.  

10 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

Who are these flankers?

I can name 1 that I'm confident on. Bernie Vince. And we should have options so we can play him on the wing or in the midfield if required.

Jetta's a back pocket. Lumumba (regardless of everything else) is about to turn 30 and probably close to the end after next year. 

I like both Hunt and Wagner, but they could both go either way. And right now they are best 22. Mitch White is our next best and he's the only depth. Melksham presumably comes in to this group next year, but we are still looking at only a couple of young rookie pick ups as our best depth. Chuck in the very speculative Joel Smith I guess at that's it for small/medium defenders at the club. Viv Michie has played at half back this year. If we were stacked with half backs he wouldn't get a game.

With the right training and physical development Frost, Tom and Oscar can physically handle any tall forward in the league. Joe Daniher is 200cm but doesn't have a lot of strength. Walker is strong and athletic but is 194cm. Jon Patton is 200cm, strong as can be but moves like a glacier. 

We could do with a better key defender, particularly an experienced one as Dunn and Garland are battling and we apparently went hard for Cale Hooker, but there's only so many out there. If we bolster our backline in other ways it will make it a lot easier for the talls to develop if we head down the draft path. And if they don't come on we can trade in later. If we find players to make us better the spots to fill shrink and players will be more likely to come to us.

Who are the flankers ?? You are kidding me.  The current ones are Hunt & Wagner.  Then at Casey you have Grimes who can't get a look in despite outstanding form.  Then Garland and Mitchie who has done ok.  Then White who is also playing well.  Then Lumumba and Salem who are out injured.  Plus Bernie Vince & Jones who Roos has been playing at half back during games.  That makes 8 decent HBF. And lets not forget Milkshake.

Midfielders & HBF are the 2 areas we have well & truly covered.

Frost, Tom & Oscar are a long way from being able to deal with quality tall forwards that's why Riewoldt & Daniher & Pavlich chop us up every time we play them.  We couldn't handle Jack Redpath, or Justin Westhoff or Darling or Kennedy

The Club should be chasing 1. Key defenders  2 A back up ruckman  3. Goal kicking small forwards.

Hibberd - you must be joking - we have about a million 187 cm half backs atm we don't need any more.  What we need desperately is big solid key defenders that can play on Joe Daniher & Tex Walker.

Both Hunt, Wagner (and Oscar too) need to work on awareness and how to dispose of the ball when they are tackled.  ATM all 3 are pretty clueless & it seems to come as a great shock to them when their arms are pinned so they are prone to give away frees.   More time in the gym & more work on that aspect of their development & they all could become real guns.