Lucifers Hero

👋 Love your user name!! An apt play on the Bulldogs' 2021 anthem which we pinched after beating them in the GF much to their displeasure!! Hoping it is a good omen this year.

The latest is a 'test email' from the club re non-receipt of barcode email last Monday, by bigpond customers. I believe it was sent just to those that asked a question of the club. In a phone call from the club it seems the problem affected MFC and Carlton and was related to how the AFL classified the emails. No other info available. Club is doing everything to ensure it doesn't happen again. Thank you for your patience as we work through the issues with Bigpond email accounts. We have been advised by the AFL of a way for you to receive our finals ticketing emails. This is a test email to ensure that this method works. Please reply to this email if you receive it. We really appreciate your assistance with this process. Kind regards, Membership Services

The downside is they will both be FA's when their contracts expire. Lets hope they will still want to stay!! If they want ot go the club is unlikely to play games and force trades etc...

Updated for Jake Lever's 4 year extension giving him another 5 years at the club. Repeat of chart changes noted in an earlier post (so it doesn't get lost as the thread grows): I've also prepared the chart to track list and draft pick changes. Regarding draft picks: I have assumed Grundy and JJ are gone. Other incoming picks could be if Harmes, Tomlison etc choose to go. We need to take only 3 draftees: Promote Turner using ND89. Draft Brown with a later pick. I doubt he will go as high as ND34 so my guess is we will use a pick from a player trade or more likely the JJ AFL comp possibly a 3rd round. One (or maybe two) elite players in the top 5 or top 10 by trading up whatever draft picks we need to to get the player(s)we want. We have a draft hand which is as good as any of our golden draft years (2013 to 2015 and 2019). A huge opportunity that will set us up for the rest of this decade.

I haven't. Not up to it today...maybe in a few days I'll wade through there. If anyone would like to take that plunge please go ahead.

Thanks for picking that up. AMW isn't yet contracted for 2024...error on my part. Will fix on next version.

Where can I find the others in the series?

A random selection of their thoughts: I feel like people are putting way too much stock in that King's Birthday game and completely ignoring/forgetting that Melbourne have only beaten us like, twice in 7 or 8 years Melbourne are a good team with a strong midfield which if allowed to dominate the clearances will tear apart our zone defence. It's probably the team I'd least like to meet in a final. In the last 3 games since Petty went down Melbourne have scored 56, 87 & 77 points. Melksham kicked 5 goals in the last two rounds. The absence of these two will be a big advantage for us. But they have a readymade goalkicking KPF just waiting to show off his natural flair in the role he was born to play. Craig McRae likes playing both rucks Darcy Cameron and Mason Cox, but it’s hard to see both playing alongside Dan McStay and Brody Mihocek. The sticking point will be whether the Pies think they have enough aerial power against Demon intercept aces Steven May and Jake Lever. Bottom line for me is that we can shift magnets to match them at contest, but they can’t match our speed. I couldn’t believe they played him after he was limping so badly, when the game was a dead rubber for them. But this is the same team that had Petracca play with a broken shin bone last year. I am saying we can beat them. But their record against us has been solid over two seasons under fly. My point is that so far we haven't demonstrated that we can beat them on system alone They seem to have only about 5 posters? Tumbleweeds are blowing through their board. Last week of the snow season so not entirely unexpected. They have w***ers that post s**t on main board game day thread...mostly non Melbourne Demons games. Pretty sure they lost against Carlton too a couple weeks ago Did they though? Was a goal to Petracca. Carlton are so lucky Yeah I think Melbourne are being really overestimated and Port really underestimated. Melbourne have some great components but big holes and play stodgy footy. They have no forward line and their only means of winning is keeping good opposition to under 70 points. They dominated the game for 3 quarters and because they're conservative and have ordinary forwards - that dominance was nearly all undone on the scoreboard in a 5 minute patch. They'll have to control so much of the match to win. I like our chances of having enough bursts to topple them How much weight do you put in a performance v VFL standard opposition against the totality of a season 🤔 (Ref to Ess game for Ginnivan) Melbourne Controlled the game last time and took our run away whether it was illness through the club or having a bad day this week we need to bring Game A for 4 qtrs. do this and we win. On the ruckman: A few concerns playing Cameron - he isn't a first ruck, Gawn will maul him if he tries to out body him, his form of late has been a shadow of who he was however in saying this seems the coach has a preference of going in with two rucks. Just cannot face Melbourne with Darcy Cameron on his own. That's a truly terrifying thought. If he starts dominating Cameron the way Hickey did in the prelim final without the option of Cox going into the centre bounces (which changed the momentum of that final) then we are making it an even harder task than it already is. The reality is that Coxy should be the centre square ruckman v Gawn. … Unfortunately DC can't get off the ground, probably due to his injury and he'd be better off rucking against Van Rooyen or whoever Melbourne decide is their back up ruckman. There is absolutely no chance that Collingwood goes into a final against Melbourne with one ruckman; Gawn would tear us apart. Cox is safe. Favourites: Look its great to have a lots of guns if you are a tank, but we are a lamborghini built for speed… Certainly weakened by the loss of the Steakhouse Puncheur. He was doing plenty for them in the last half of this year. 7 days til game time. Going to be a long week. I reckon it might be 8 days He'll be right in a few hours. A man ahead of his time. Yeah I wouldn't drop our Ruckman unless we were trying to lose. Massive week coming up and i am already on edge Let the bourbon run free :) So, what are we going to do for the next 2 weeks. I'm tipping a BF pillow fight at some stage About two weeks of reading posters tell other posters that they are idiots and wrong when it comes to team selection ideas is infinitely more likely. We will win by about 3 goals but always nervous when Elliot plays. Hoping there are no magpies feasting in my garden next week!!

OK, here is the thread many have been waiting for. It seems that neither sub during my absence has taken up the mantle again😢. I greatly thank @Bitter but optimistic and @DeelightfulPlay for entertaining you. They both did a far better job than I do. Their efforts and the posters in those threads really made me laugh. I quite liked how the North thread was side tracked by street art and whisky!! It is with great trepidation that I have waded into the Pies bigfooty but shortly I will post their waffle!!

Have long thought he is our next captain. Looks like he is being groomed for it. He may not fill Max's 'Big Shoes' but will be a wonderful successor to the great man.

Thanks, hadn't seen that. It still would have been with the club's blessing, in full view of the public, so I am ok with it.

Did he actually meet with Port face to face? It could have been via video. Either way he would have had the club's blessing and all part of facilitating a trade.. It isn't something to criticise him for.

Updated for the one year extension to Kyah Farris-White. I've also prepared the chart to track list and draft pick changes. Regarding draft picks: I have assumed Grundy and JJ are gone. Other incoming picks could be if Harmes, Tomlison etc choose to go. We need to take only 3 draftees: Promote Turner using ND89. Draft Brown with a later pick. I doubt he will go as high as ND34 so my guess is we will use a pick from a player trade or more likely the JJ AFL comp possibly a 3rd round. One (or maybe two) elite players in the top 5 or top 10 by trading up whatever draft picks we need to to get the player(s)we want. We have a draft hand which is as good as any of our golden draft years (2013 to 2015 and 2019). A huge opportunity that will set us up for the rest of this decade.

They can take over his whole salary and give us a commensurate pick. They can trade in picks. They have all their future picks. Our draft picks are: 5, 15, 24, 34, 89 plus a full hand of future picks. We only need a pick that will help us trade up the draft for the one or two elite players we are targetting. Freeing up about $650k in our sal cap is a bit of a bonanza. Help us reward and keep the next gen players. TL isn't going to become Bell or Dodoro who want to win every trade and lose sight of the big picture. A deal will get done that benefits us in a broader sense but it may not look like a trade win.

Thanks, had a great holiday! Generally, I agree with your comments that our supporter attendance is very good for our size and the teams we play. --------------------------- Re this: If you read BBO's question I believe he could be more asking about MFC % of fans in our figures to detract rather than highlight our very credible attendance figures in 2023. I reread the question and didn't interpret it as negatively asking about or detracting from very good supporter attendances. I saw no hidden meaning. Interpretations vary so maybe we move on.

Good observation as we do have a skewed age profile. That and our long term contracts, there is a risk that in 4/5 years we are the Geelong equivalent of 'Dad's Army' in recent years. But I am confident that JT, TL et al will keep refreshing out list as and when needed to ensure the age profile doesn't impact our performance

I don't see where there was any intention to start an argument. He made a reasonable observation for comparisons to other clubs (especially the 'Big 4'). We play a lot of Home games vs i/state teams or smaller Vic clubs at which we would have a higher % of supporters. Whereas the 'Big 4' have a lot of 'double up' games against each other. Their % of supporters would be lower albeit with much larger crowds. Without the actual figures, it is fair to say we would have an excellent Home game ratio of dees supporters vs the opps. At this year's ANZAC Eve we outnumbered the Tiger fans and were close to 50/50 for the KB game. Everyone would agree and be delighted at mfc being a bigger club each season.

In the recent interview, Max referred to 'Melksham's return' so a good chance he gets a new contract. 🙂. He could be back at next year's mid season bye, in about 10 months.

Update for Schache's one year contract extension.

This is why the AFL should bring back the 'draft picks cannot exceed list spots' rule. Or eliminate draft points for pics >ND40 instead of stretching them out to ND69 as it would force clubs to use 1st or 2nd round picks. While I'm on a roll, eliminate the 20% discount!! It is a joke that they can draft 3-4 elite/A level players with such rubbish picks and they will have more after trading out ND4. Something like 15-20 players will be taken as Academy, NGA or F/S in this draft (mostly in the top 3-25 range). It has been reported that the draft thins out after the top 20 and no more than 50 players will be drafted this year which leaves about 30 to 35 available players. All that makes for a compelling case to for clubs to cash in their chips and get as high up the order as possible. We only need to use 3 draft picks: a late one to promote Turner, a mid to late one to draft Brown. So I can see us taking just one or two picks to the draft. Picks 4 and 5 will do very nicely!! Or convert them to ND1 or ND2 if those are gettable.

I and it seemed others received the Sunday email which would also have been a mass mail out. Whatever the cause I hope the club/AFL sort it out before the next Final.

I was thinking more about supporting them for with medical, physio and other rehab activities and costs than the role they might play...

Wouldn't the club do the right thing by Melksham and give him another year to support him thru his ACL recovery, even if we put him on the Inactive list? Edit: Similarly for Dunstan. Seems a bit rough to just cut them loose.

The club's response to my email: Sorry to hear you didn't get the email. I can see you were opted in for all emails as per the attachment below. Your barcodes will remain the same for the length of the Finals series and Grand Final. We will look into this further ahead of our next onsale. Appreciate you raising this issue. Regards

Yes, I use bigpond. So, their system has take a sudden dislike to bigpond!!!! Assuming it is an AFL wide system I wonder how many Pies fans were caught out...not that I have any sympathy for them...the fewer there the better😀