Lucifers Hero

OMG, Yuk! What a terrible dilemma!! Has to be the Pies. Anyone, to keep the AFL anointed/umpire assisted cheats out of the finals!

Are the wheels falling off at Pie-land? An undisciplined lot: Stephenson bets on himself and his team. Beams reportedly deep into gambling problems. Now De Goey is fined for using-phone-while-driving. Their is talk of unrest among young players over the club treatment of Stephenson. Coach is frazzled. Players look disinterested. Suspect their poor recent form is much more than a few injured good players. It will be bitter sweet if their season implodes: Sweet that they fall. Bitter that ours is worse.

If we beat an undermanned Carlton I do not want to see the OTT euphoria from coaches that followed the 4 wins so far against mediocre teams. We have achieved nothing. We are 4/11. There is work to be done. Respect and pride to be restored from the games to come. If we win, yes be happy but the OTT celebrations are out of step with our performances.

The blowtorch will come when Collingwood play better and there are no big club woes for click bait. All other Vic clubs are up and about; only the Saints and Demons left to create dramatic headlines. Then the media will not hold back: soft, unreliable, inconsistent, awful skills, poor game plan etc etc. Even if we don't win many more games, I hope we play well enough for the blowtorch to not be too scathing. I don't want our club to be 'burned' in the media as we don't need the negative exposure. It feeds on itself then extends to members, fans, sponsors, TV etc. Prefer we go under the radar externally but Pert and Bartlett turn up the heat internally. I have little doubt they already have. In one interview Pert said the mid year changes were a whole of club project and that 'Mahoney will own the outcomes'. The spotlight is shining squarely on the whole football department, as it should. Patience - we will hear more in 4-6 weeks when assistant coaches need to be told if they are being retained.

Adelaide kicked themselves out of the game in the first half with 4.11 Second half scores Port 9.9 vs Adel 0.2. A shellacking. Gee, we bemoan the lack of on-field leadership of our captains but at least they put their bodies on the line and go for it. Tex shows neither leadership nor courage. Would have to be the worst AFL captain.

The Age's description of the Pies last night: "Fumble after fumble was followed by turnover after turnover. Any type of structure was absent, with connectivity forward of centre often replaced by rushed dumped kicks forward". Sounds like the 2019 Demons!!? Doubt the Pies will make the top 4 ??

I think this year is an aberration so lets use our top picks this year and future trade 2020 1st round pick for that 21-25 year old skillful outside runner. I think we will be bottom half of the 8 next year so it will be a very good pick for whoever gives up that player. Best of both worlds.

If we put the cue in the rack I will be really angry. It is 'loser mentality' and we have suffered from it for too long. Time to exorcise that demon from the club. Play to win every game. Play with the 2018 ferocity, regardless of who is selected. Sure experiment with game plan. But please no setting out to lose. The teams above us will win more than we do so we will end up bottom 3. Nothing to gain. We don't need to add 'giving up' to the poor attitude and hubris of last preseason.

Oh, the ole AFL trick of making up rules as they go! Rules aside, I prefer we use a 2019 1st round pick or it will be 4 years since we drafted a young top 20 player. It looks like our recent #25 to #40 draft picks will be B grade players at best. So, trading out of the 2019 1st round will hurt our young talent profile. Also, this year is a 1 in 5 year opportunity to get some elite talent with picks #2 to #3 and #18 to #20. Would rather we keep those and trade out our 2020 1st pick which (if me make finals) will be in the the low to mid teens. Back to Brad Hill. Geelong seems keen on him so if Kelly goes West they will be in the box seat.

Thanks. The article was written before the 2018 Draft so has some ambiguity. I'm reading it as: 1) In 2018 we could do what we wanted with our 2019 pick. We kept it. 2) Need to trade in an extra 1st round 'this' (2018) or 'next' (2019) year. We didn't trade one in, in 2018. So it reads like we need to trade in another 1st round in 2019 if we want to trade out 2020 1st round pick. It looks like we need to use a 1st round pick in 2019. That doesn't mean we can't trade down our allotted pick to a lower 1st rounder. Of course, my interpretation of the article could well be wrong.

@Moonshadow was subtle but loaded with innuendo. I also thought it was very clever. Right up there with his #gettherabbit post re Coniglio.

How does that compute? We last used a 1st rnd pick in 2015 (Oliver and Weideman) which makes 2019 the 4th year?

Cripps is still out which should help our cause. McKay and C. Curnow are out so they have only 1 tall forward. Those outs were known yesterday so am baffled why we have 3 tall backs in the starting 18. They will have a short fwd line and not many talls around the ground so will be planning to play with speed. Worrying.

If Gawn and Jones don't play that is 4 changes. So much for developing cohesion among the team. Maybe we want a top 1 or 2 draft pick so are Tanking! ?

Delete.

Can't believe Baker and Smith have been dropped. Not even emergencies. They weren't our worst! Jones and Gawn selected. Expect some late changes.

Bone bruising in itself shouldn't cause a player to go back to VFL after just a few weeks out. Its worth remembering he didn't even play a full VFL game. His first was for about 2 qtrs and in the second he sustained an ankle injury. Hardly ideal prep for a full on AFL game. I wasn't taking a shot at the Club. Listen to Goodwin's press conf. He says Lever has had a long time out of footy and they want him to get VFL form. It sounds like he wasn't ready for AFL be that for match fitness or form reasons.

Have mixed feelings about Bolton at the Dees. He is a Clarkson protege which on paper looks good. But he had the Blues playing a woeful defense only game. An example: This year he had all the tall fwds simultaneously playing up the ground so they struggled to score. Interestingly, their fwd coach was Teague, the current stand in coach. He has put the fwds back where they belong - near to goal and they are kicking reasonable scores. This suggests Bolton wasn't giving line coaches much latitude in how the team plays. It has oft been reported that he is a control freak, has too many meetings and makes things complex and detailed. From the outside, not sure that the Goodwin style and Bolton style would make for good synergy.

Just for info: The only difference between a rookie and a full-list player is the length of the contract and the size of the pay packet. Rookies can play AFL from day 1 without waiting to be upgraded for a LTI. We have a 'combined' list of 47 players. 39 full-list (are allowed 40) and 8 rookies (have forgotten how many are allowed). I feel we have the depth in numbers just not sure the depth of ability is there. Other clubs have as long a list of injuries as ours but suspect they have better quality depth eg Richmond, Pies.

Gawn still in doubt. https://www.afl.com.au/news/2019-07-04/star-demon-still-in-doubt-as-final-fitness-test-looms Ankle still very swollen. Will be tested again on Saturday. Lever will play VFL. Goodwin: "We just want to ease him back into it." Should have done that a month ago rather than bring him into AFL on barely a full game in over a year.

It never occurred to me that players will not play out the season as if we were in the finals race. In 2019 they have taken the respect for our beloved demons back several years. They have 8 weeks to get some of it back. They can shape the final 8, play for pride and their own self respect. I just can't digest the thought that they will not do their best in every game. If they just put the cue in the rack it will be a poor way to enter the 2020 preseason. Where will the hunger come from in 2020?

If some things don't change it is unlikely the results will. I don't mind too much if we don't win but the club most show it has improved in this year and what better way to do that than these four return games. If some things don't change we will miss the opportunity to test different coaching ideas against teams that in recent years have generally had the wood on us and are successful teams. To me it is now all about preparation for 2020 so I expect the club to play to win but not to squander the opportunity the rest of the season provides for experimenting and show that we have learnt and improved.

Rounds 18 to 21 should show what we have learnt and how far we have progressed this year. We have return games vs Eagles, Saints, Tigers, Pies. They beat us this year with better game plans or better tactics or straighter kicking. But we will have most of the preseason/early season injured players back. We have had 2-3 months to apply lessons learnt and a new coaching structure. So we should perform better this time round. Hoping for a few wins! A benefit of the return matches is coaches can test different tactics/plans. If they work against arguably 3 of the best 4-5 teams then we can be optimistic of a successful 2020. If they don't it is back to the drawing board. I'm looking forward to these games to see how we have adjusted and what 2020 may bring.

I haven't had that info. There are several posters that have 'lucifer' in their moniker.

He recently said he wanted to play for a few years. So, if he doesn't have something else lined up post playing, be it studies/ventures etc he won't take kindly to being tapped on the shoulder. Last year Clarkson told his captain he could see out the last year of his contract and take his chances on senior selection. Roughy relinquished the captaincy and is playing VFL with good grace and professionalism. That is what needs to happen with Jones. A one year contract and games based on form and what is best for the team. Getting to 300 games is irrelevant.