Lucifers Hero

Never fear, DeeZ they numbers should bounce back. In May last year (and I think 2022) the club had 3-game specials at a discounted price. Last year it was to celebrate Kozzie re-signing and membership iirc was $36, his playing number. I bought a few and they came in handy when buying extra finals tickets. I assume the club will soon have another special to boost numbers. Well, I hope they do. 🤞

imv we will struggle to consistently be near the top until we get/develop a tall forward. JvR will get there but we really need one soonish. Petty maybe. Jefferson maybe. Not sure if it will all come together this year. But as we know KPF don't grow on trees. Sadly we missed our chance when Peter Wright was traded from GCS to Ess in 2020 for Ess future 4th round pick and just $500k pa for 3 year contract. In 2020 we traded in BBB which undoubtedly helped us get our flag. So no probs there. But, could we have had both? I don't recall if there was competition for Wright in 2020 - seemed to be on the outer at GCS. Going on the trade value it seems unlikely. JT was reportedly keen on him in his draft year (described as Fwd/Ruck). Maybe we didn't go after him as we had BBB and TMc but their fragile bodies were well known at the time and aging. Prior to BBB's short lived best years with us Jesse was our true forward and we haven't replaced him. BBB is a different type of forward and recent recruits are still raw. The rest have been defenders/ruckman turned forwards. TMc, Turner, Petty, Smith, Grundy, Jackson etc. I guess we pinned our hopes on Jackson staying. I don't think we can win a premiership without a true KPF.

If they don't make finals it will be even more fun than them not winning one. 🤣 ... I would resurrect my 'Special Edition, What they are saying thread...' !!!

The round 24 games vs my other most hated team would be a good time to wear the 'Gus helmet'. @WalkingCivilWar I assume no problems with the cheer squad donning such helmets this time?

So Ess bblessed with no 5-day break between games for the whole season🙄. Hope they crash and burn. It would be fun if they lost their first final! 🤣

We don't need a big score to improve our %, knock their % down and boot them out of the 8 !!! 85 to 60 will do all those.

Re umpires: Not a lot of change (see post above for the changes). Stevic is a very good umpire. Had a quick look at Bigfooty and they share our feelings about Williamson: Who are we going to tag #22 Williamson with, he is brutal in our games #22. Gives us grief every game. They made me chuckle!!

Not sure of the mood in this thread but if anyone needs convincing that we will win and win well lets compare the teams from the 2023 Semi and this week: The major reasons we will win: Our fwd line of Turner, Petty, van Rooyen is far superior to 2023: Smith, McDonald, Schache (who was the unused sub). Our overall line up is far better than theirs. Their best defender Weitering suffered a corked thigh then played the next week on a 6 day break and he could barely run ... very slow. This week he is on a 5 day break. McGovern is a lazy footballer. There defence struggled to contain our depleted line in 2023, they will do no better this year. Superior tactics and what was learnt from the Geelong game. Their field defence is poor. TMc to follow McKay up field as he did Cameron, May to take Curnow as he did Hawkins, leaving Lever to do his thing. I could go on but you get my drift. Dees by 3 goals, 5-6 if we decide to inflict some pain rather than close the game down.

Its at the bottom of the AFL website 'Match Report' page for each game. eg Port vs Crows round 8 https://www.afl.com.au/afl/matches/5958#match-report Dees vs Geelong round 8 https://www.afl.com.au/afl/matches/5959#match-report

I have a different view for us kicking the ball around the f50m arc. Usually the positioning of our zone defence in the formation in the diagram (thanks @Chook ) below is to lock the ball inside our f50. Geelong have started using the old 'flooding' opps fwd line trick then running it out thru the opp weak defensive structures. Note there are about 16 Geelong players flooding our f50. I reckon kicking the ball around the arc was to let Geelong flood in our f50, set up our 7 player defensive formation around the arc thereby trapping Geelong players in our F50 and stopping them running anywhere toward their goal, rather than a strategy to run them ragged. They had nowhere to run! We didn't need to outrun them as we were on their goal side. tbh I didn't particularly notice times when they ran aggressively or where we out ran them. What I saw was them having to stop if they escaped the trap as there was hardly anyone forward for them. If any of their players ran out of the trap one of our players picked them up allowing Lever and May to go back closer to goal. I reckon few stoppages was simply a by product of us centering the ball, our good marking i50 and poor kicking by both sides. To me it looked like both sides ran the game out well so not sure we had a noticeable fitness advantage. ps. I haven't heard the podcast. Just my thoughts on what I saw.

Thanks. Much more stylish than the AFL example. But still a bit of a 'knuckleduster' Out of interest, how many men on here would wear a 'knuckleduster' type ring?

My calendar says today is 8th May ... 😉

Is there an image of our ring available?

Interview 'transcript' windsor-change-next-gen-talent-leading-demons-evolution He received a TV for the nomination so I love this little anecdote: "I've been getting into golf recently, and I've been practicing in the lounge room, and I was trying to [hit a ball] into a cupholder in the couch, and it didn't come off that well," Windsor said. "I hit the tv and completely smashed it, so it wasn't very fun, but I think this makes up for it now. "Mum just said, 'awesome, this is going in the living room straight away', she was a lot happier than when I smashed it." Begging question: Why on earth is he practicing in the lounge room 🙄🤷‍♀️

That they should even consider calling it the 'Barassi' ring to honour his legacy offends. He was a down to earth, no fuss person. This grotesque and ostentatious token is imv not approriate and I suspect the last thing he would want. He deserves better and something more public. Give them a ring but don't name it after the mighty #31.

At $50,000, $2.2m just for players!!! Plus some for staff. Its a ridiculously indulgent way to spend approx $3.0m. It will be closer to $6.0m if they add AFLW premiership rings ... Sure recognise all involved but $50,000 apiece?. If they really want “The ability to recognise all staff and make them feel special for all the hard work and to have something on their shelf is a good thing." Give them a small replica of the Premiership Cup. Perhaps personalise it with the recipients name etched onto it. so, spend less per person and put the rest into junior or country AFL.

I would agree the GF teams are likely to be higher in defence. Which makes Freo interesting, making up the top 4 on the chart for defence with Syd, Geel and Dees. In fact they rank higher than Syd and Geelong. Our 2 games vs Freo will be very interesting. Not their year but Freo are building.

That is what I said: The ‘window’ simply reflects each team’s %, derived by ranking then plotting each team’s pts for/against. ( I knew what the horizontal and vertical axes were. But looking more closely the axes names on the chart are very blurred). I think it true that the top 2 at round 8 play off in the GF . It was even true in 2021. While the WBD came from 5th at the end of H&A games they were 2nd at round 8. Reckon we would both agree the teams in the GF will come from the top 4 at seasons end (or even the top 3) - 2016 being the outlier.

I chuckled when I saw that as they all looked so chuffed!! The ‘window’ simply reflects each team’s %, derived by ranking then plotting each team’s pts for/against. And there is a small affect for the number of wins/losses. So is it any wonder Geelong and Sydney sit in that quadrant. The chart is saying the top 2 teams at Round 8 play off in the grand final. The chart makes it look clever but it is hardly an earth shattering observation. The year that didn’t hold true is 2022. The top 2 teams at round 8 were Geelong and Melbourne. I am confident the top 2 teams won’t play off in this year’s GF. Melbourne will be one of those teams.

That fixture looks much better after adding our two other double games: Eagles and Bulldogs. So, there are nine of the double games left: Lions x 1, (G) Pies x 2 (MCG), Port x 1 (MCG), WBD x 1 (MS), Freo x 2 (Alice/OO), Eagles x 2 (MCG/OO). All 9 very winnable but wouldn't be surprised or fussed if we drop one or two. The good news is we do not play Syd or Geelong again. Yet to play GWS and Ess of the current top 8. We will drop games here or there but I'm quite optimistic of a top 2 finish.

For some inexplicable reason most of the media downplay our achievements. eg Foxfooty three word summary for us this week was: Regained some respect. Ha? eg When we beat Port, we didn't really win because Port won 'expected score'. No mention this week of how the Cats lost on expected score as well as the real score. I see most of them as media hacks and just laugh at all the stuff they write. And, I'll take great pleasure when we hold up the Premiership Cup. I will enjoy watching them eat their words.

Goodwin has been appropriately praised for the coaching in this game. imv, McQualter's impact on our 2024 game style and this week's tactics is being terribly under rated.

If Scott thought that he would be delusioinal. Every coach will go to town on what we did to also exploit the Cats game as we did, the only team to beat them this year. Scott may be arrogant but he isn't delusional. He was talking to the fans. He and the players know it was more than an off day. Afterall, the only team in the top 8 they have beaten is Carlton who are just hanging in their. I thought it was arrogant and disrespectful of him to 'manage' players and bring in some that were underdone. It backfired!

One of the best sights: Oliver with no bandaging or protection on his hand. Bodes well 😊

You don't sound it 🤣