Lucifers Hero

Yes, it had more meaning in context of MB's comment. Quite funny, I thought.

I liked the popcorn gif that disappeared too quickly ??

Crows gave him a 4 year contract and gave up picks #10 and #16 +/- later picks to Carlton. At this stage it looks a disastrous trade. But there may be some solace. Crows hold Carlton's 2019 1st and 2nd round picks! ? Some weird dealing going on between those clubs especially when last year's McGovern, McAdam and live-pick trades are factored in. On topic. Gibbs? No way! He is 30 with 2 years to go on his contract and can't get a game. A club would have to pay the Crows 'overs' to break the contract. After the Crows pigheadedness on the Lever trade don't want to deal with them again.

Delighted to update this for Weideman's 2 year contract extension until 2021! Oskar Baker next!!

A very open, frank interview with Sam. It is really sad he went thru all this The dark side of AFL About his early form drop off: Weideman’s form, or lack thereof, came as media associated an enormous price tag with the former first-round draft pick. “There was a point where I didn’t really want to leave the house too much because I was probably thinking about what other people were thinking of me,” he said. He wasn't our worst in the first month but he took a lot of heat and I think largely because mainstream media went burko over his supposed contract claims. About Social media and some supporters: “I think there’s a lot of passion coming out in their comments and I don’t think they understand the power it can have on the players and how much effect it can have,” Weideman said. “We don’t go searching for these sorts of comments­­­­ but sometimes they’re quite direct and unavoidable. It explains why he deleted his twitter and instagram accounts a month ago. To some extent I blame mainstream media for kicking up a frenzy about a vague report of what his manager supposedly wanted for this next contract. Then social media 'heroes' went to work. We have already lost Tom Boyd from the game. Sam seems to be made of stern stuff but would hate for him to be engulfed by the dark forces that made him 'not want to leave the house'.

From our newsbreaker @Dee Zephyr Fantastic news. Weight off my shoulders From Sam: “I’m a Demon through and through now,” he said. “I love the club, I love the players and I love the supporters, so it’s a team that I’m going to be barracking for the rest of my life, so I can’t wait for the years to come.” Hope that Eddie reads that! It sounds like the contract negotiations have taken a real toll which might explain why his form has dropped off this year. Now that the load is lifted he can just focus on footy! Really look forward to his development and being a major cog in our team. Time to get behind him!

This deserves its own thread. Would you like to do the honours or shall I?

Fanastic! More details please! Can't find it anywhere on line!

I know that teams rarely line up as selected but I do like Salem and Baker on the wings. Both have nice kicks, have composure and aim at targets rather random bombs. And add Fristch as the attacking defender and we should see a marked improvement in delivery i50 from all three.

I think he is just very emotionally invested in the club eg In yesterday's video his voice gets shaky when asked about Lever's return. A few weeks ago it became shaky when asked about the return of key players. Both times it sounded like relief. His emotional reaction to the Sydney win (choked up a little) and (iirc) the Hawks win which is uncharacteristic (in a good way) of the usual calm persona. He said after the 'dizzy' spell a few weeks ago that the people around him advised to take it easy and look after himself. Maybe he has just been working too hard, too selflessly. Last week Mahoney and Chaplin took the pregame radio interviews in SA. Pure speculation but it looked to me the club was trying to spread the workload. It is not unusual for clubs to do this. Thompson at Geelong and Hardwick at Richmond come to mind. He will be fine. I'm sure the bye will be a welcome break, especially if we are really competitive vs the pies.

I noticed that at the beginning then it settled a bit. iirc, he usually does his mid week presser standing up. Hope he is well.

Buckley knows Viney can only play on his left side so he always parks a player there and takes him out of the game. They then get the ball out on his side of the ground and run it forward to an open fwd line. In many respects Viney is our weakest link vs the pies. Perhaps we should put Viney on the wing and Brayshaw back in the middle to counteract Buckley's plan and put Gus back where he belongs.

I'm happy with Sam and Tom. When May and Lever are back it will free Max up to rest/play fwd more instead as the intercept defender he has regularly played. The only reason I would go after another tall fwd is if Tom's toe is a ongoing issue: atm he can't jump, chase, bring the ball to ground or kick more than 40m. That cannot continue into next year. We really do need him to be 100% fit and effective for the best part of 22-26 games a season. If we went shopping I would go for two-metre-Pete at GCS. Yet to renew his contract and iirc we were very, very keen on him in his draft year. Played 60 games, soon to be 23 and at 203cm yet to reach his prime.

And Jeanie Pratt.

Generally I agree. But Tom didn't have surgery (his ankles were the previous year) and iirc from training reports he wasn't reported as being in rehab nor did he appear on an mfc injury list. He had a slight knee issue that kept him out of the AFLX by which time he had completed the preseason. In the following weeks he in both JLT's. Unlike many others his preseason wasn't 'interrupted' albeit it was shorter than prior years. So for mine any fitness issues should have been overcome long before now. So I don't see that as the reason for his form slump. My comments about Tom being disappointing were related to not doing the typical tall fwd things effectively rather than not scoring goals or cohesion with other fwds so training together wasn't relevant to my post.

With at least two (and at times 5) 1st choice defenders out injured in each game and poor midfield defence early in the season makes it tough to pressure the ops into errors: there have been quite a few clean snaps and relatively few rushed behinds. Both a sign of low pressure close to goal. Having said that it is not a good look and must improve with the key defenders coming back. It will be quite exciting when Lever, May, Hibberd, Jetta, Salem, Hore, Frost are on the field together!

TMac has played some of his best games when Hogan was not in the team even tho he got the best defender. Hogan injury in 2017 was the reason Tom went forward. His support in 2017 (iirc) was Pederson as Watts was also injured. Weid was his support last year when Hogan was absent. imv the absence of an experienced side kick doesn't explain Tom's alarming half season long form slump. If Tom is injured he should be rested. If not we should play him and Sam for the rest of the season so they get experience playing together. They both need to be up and about for our 2020 campaign.

That is bound to bring out all haters for their favourite whipping boy. For me it is TomMc. Lack of preseason fitness should have been overcome by now. The odd poor game is understandable but he has played one good game in 11 (vs GCS). We needed him to stand up this year but he has been ineffective in virtually every aspect of a tall fwd play.

Lewis on Retirement “I’m going to leave the game at the end of the year feeling really fulfilled in what I’ve achieved". He seems happy to finish in the the VFL. He will keep teaching the young guys. He seems genuine in this: “We’re going through a bit of a tough period at the moment, so I need to be there support these young kids and hopefully prolong their careers and make sure they understand the learnings you can get through the bad times can obviously help during the good times as well.” I'm very happy he came to the Dees. He has taught our players a lot. He kept them hungry after the first final last year. They have a better understanding of how to be a professional player. Gave us leadership when sorely needed. He may get to play off against his best mate Roughy, in the VFL. One to watch!

Malthouse looks more like Colonel Sanders these days

This has had almost no media exposure. Apparently 6-8 will be admitted to the HOF tonight. Any likely Dees? A quick search shows Neale Daniher is not in the HOF. Could be wrong. Would be a very, very worthy inductee: Champion player, club captain, Grand Final runner-up coach. Great champion of the very worthy MND cause. Inspiration to so many.

Dees missed shots Typical Max: Gawn tried to cheer Weideman up with a joke in the moments after the game ended, but it didn’t go down too well. "I did tell him, ‘Thanks for missing it’, because I was in a bit of pressure myself," he laughed. Max showed good leadership and care for a young teammate contacting Sam the next day: "I had a good chat to 'Weids' yesterday and we’re both feeling the same and it’s actually good for us to feel that we did cost the team because against Geelong last year [when Gawn missed a set shot to win the game] I used it as a driver for the next four or five weeks and played some really good footy. And on a spray from Goodwin: Gawn wanted to receive a spray from coach Simon Goodwin after their second-half capitulation, but it wasn’t forthcoming. Everyone could see they worked their butts off all game. Even in the last quarter - those missed shot opportunities weren't gifts they came from hard work. I don't doubt Goodwin can give players a decent spray when he has a mind to but he is smart enough to pick his moments and pick his targets. Spare the rod, they say! As an aside, empathetic coaches was discussed on FC last night. They were very strong on coaches developing a style to suit gen X and showed how even hardened coaches like Longmire and Lyon have really softened up, especially now they have really young teams. BT has little understanding of how clubs function these days and how to motivate players. He likes to make himself the news!

Sam had played a very good game so he has a lot to be proud of, especially for a first game back after injury and being dropped. As a result his confidence would not have been top notch. He was shattered to miss that shot. Leaving him emotionally stranded with the camera focused on him was far worse than being empathetic.

Carlton got Stocker (pick #19 in 2018 from Crows) plus Crows' 2019 first round pick, currently # 11 in return for this years 1st round (currently #1). So they still have a 1st round pick this year. They effectively had two extra picks last year by selecting then trading out pre-listed players (Kreuger to Geelong and McAdam to Crows (plus some 2nd round picks) as part of the McGovern deal). They did very well from the extra help last year. So, no way they get a pp anywhere in the draft this year! As an aside: Ess is the other club that gambled badly with future picks: they traded last year's first pick (pick #8) and 2019 first pick (currently #9) to GWS for Shiel, expecting they would win some finals. Don't think the penny has yet dropped with their fans! Shows the danger of future trading. At least when we did it we ended up 4th on the ladder.

Who cares?