Hello 2025, and the furthest I've felt out of the loop at the start of a season since forgetting a pre-season game was on 20 years ago. Let's be clear, this isn't self-defence in case the season goes tits up, I've just run out of time to monitor the off-season content conveyor belt. Especially now that 99% of it is just dickhead amateurs and professionals alike trying to drive clicks. In our 21st season Demonblog remains proudly clickbait free because I'm not all that worried if anyone's reading or not. It gets this stuff out of my head, and I appreciate anyone who dips in and out as they like.
My grip on club news wasn't helped by three months of flouncing off Twitter (never, ever X) for vague political reasons/Temu ad fatigue. While Bluesky had its positives, AFL clubs and journalists alike refused to get involved so it was deader than Kelsey's nuts for footy content and I had my own "Simpsons predicted it moment" and shamefully crawled back to the NQR evil billionaire.
Most of the important stuff still got through, especially speculation about players who happily signed long-term contracts now trying to flee over the Berlin Brunton Wall to freedom. Unfortunately for Oliver, Petracca, Pickett etc... it's not the signing of the contract, it's the fulfilling of the contract, and thankfully we held firm (for now anyway) and refused to cave in. Mind you, when next year's first round pick was traded my first thought was "oh well, we'll be getting a few back from other clubs". Maybe it's a loud false alarm and they'll all realise that there's joy in being a big fish in a small pond but we'll do well to keep the lot. I'll say 2/3, and you can decide who the odd man out will be.
Ironically, Alex Neal-Bullen was the one player we did set free and it sounds like he didn't really want to go. Otherwise it was reasonably smooth sailing off-field compared to previous years, and the best case scenario is that 2024 was the blip that accidentally propels us to a glorious future. Or we'll all be in therapy by Round 10 and the financial windfalls of 2021 will be lost in a dodgy investment scheme.
The news wasn't so good on field. Once upon a time you didn't need fireworks to announce the new year, just wait for the first Melbourne player to suffer a crippling injury. This time we went early, with Gawn suffering a broken larynx that made anybody over the age of 40 instantly reference Gareth John. Didn't sound pleasant, but he seems to have survived without any physical scars, or damage to his voice that could stuff up a glittering future of media appearances and sportsman's nights.
Not everyone survived to be in place for Round 1 (no need for Round 1A/B shenanigans this time, we've been turfed from 'Opening Round' after regularly boring viewers to death last year). Judd McVee Midfield Mania is delayed as he deals with a burst hamstring, while Tholstrup will miss half the year with a sinister-sounding case of 'bone stress' which will probably end with experimental stem cell therapy from an unregistered doctor in Zagreb. The injury list isn't as bad as last year (though there's still time for an enforced retirement and provisional suspension to leave us two players short for half the year), but I'm still surprised that the media event to celebrate a new sponsorship with Grill'd didn't end in somebody suffering third degree burns.
Then there's the Achilles committee, chaired for a second year by Charlie Spargo. He has now reached 'chronic' stage, while Shane McAdam qualified from the other end of the spectrum when his foot exploded mid-training as if he'd stepped on a landmine. Now we'll never find out if he could kick over 40 metres, but at least it happened early enough to sign a replacement. Enter some bloke from Werribee who we swiped from so closely under West Coast's nose that he'd just played in their first practice match. Oddly, the club celebrated by releasing footage of the recruiters talking about him like the second coming at the end of last year, just before they didn't draft him.
This all leads to a hot February Saturday morning at Arden Street. There was also something about Steven May allegedly being in the vicinity of an alleged pub belting, but plod can sort that out while we concern ourselves with whether he can still defend. This question (and many more) remained unanswered as we started the year with what you might call an 'experimental' lineup. Rather than go through who was missing it's easier just to say that Bowey, Oliver, Lever, Pickett, Rivers, Sparrow, and van Rooyen were playing and the rest of the automatic selections weren't. Still plenty of talent on offer though, even if we were jibbed out of a promised appearance by Ricky Mentha Jr, who has a name that implies he was busy driving in the Daytona 500.
On the other side was a North team that seemed to be about 40% exciting youngsters, 40% veterans trying to keep things afloat while the kids develop, 15% filler, and 5% somebody called Finbar. I missed the bit where Jack Darling became the latest experienced ring-in to run out his time on their payroll. The concept is sound, and you can't complain about the value for money we got from Cross, Lewis and Vince, but North has elevated Scrapheap Fever to a new level. Maybe it'll be an outstanding success, and as long as they stay out of our way good luck to them.
Even with North signing everyone short of Jonathan Giles and Derek Kickett, the gap between the sides feels closer than any time in recent years. Yes, we did nearly lose to them in farcical circumstances last time, but that was more the early symptoms of our Seasonus Collapsus than anything they did. You would still expect our best side to beat theirs, but sending out half a side who I respectfully submit will spend time in the VFL this season was our 'get out of jail free' card in case of disaster. It wasn't required, but next week we're playing a side that dismantled us by about 160 points combined last year so don't throw it out yet.
In the end, we withstood 2.5 quarters of resistance before easing away to win, but it's hard to know how seriously you were supposed to take a game it. Talk about tweaks to game style is a bit useless when half the players won't be there in Round 1, and the teams playing in training tops felt like some sort of liability rort so lawyers can claim it wasn't a real game if there was a scandal. For reasons that were never explained but added to the "you're not really supposed to be watching this" atmosphere, Daniel Turner turned up wearing Fritsch's number.
This feeling was confirmed by the unique promise of stopping the game at the end of each half for three minutes of 'match simulation'. Sadly this was just the sides trying to defend an eight point lead (and why eight, when surely anything 1-7 would have made more sense?) and not the coaches moving players around like a game of Test Match so they could practice trick plays and fancy overhead taps at boundary throw-ins. Sadly the only person who got anything out of either simulation was Andy Moniz-Wakefield, who might not have gone down clutching his knee in the last couple of minutes if they'd just played the game out properly.
Against all odds, I appreciated the basic "some bloke having a chat with Ben Brown" commentary - even if he did uncomfortably try to upgrade "selling candy" to "candy commerce" twice. Now that Foxtel is providing their own call over the top of Channel 7 games, how about a separate 'casual conversations' audio feed so we don't have to listen to Dwayne Russell treating mid-season slopfests like the 1989 Grand Final.
There was a golden era of having nothing better to do when I went to pre-season games in exotic locations like Ballarat, Bendigo, and Cranbourne. Just when I ran out of free time they started broadcasting every game, now matter how flimsly. So after driving past Arden Street twice a day several times a week I was content to watch this from the very outer metropolitan Demonblog Towers couch. Kayo Sports had other ideas, though they're not entirely at fault when I only tried to restart my subscription two minutes before the bounce.
I've got no problem paying whatever monopoly price they're asking for the chance to play alternative noise over Brian Taylor, but did expect this to be in the free section. So after logging into the website via phone to reactivate I foolishly started the stream via the app, then got told to GAGF when switching to TV and couldn't do anything to convince them I was only watching one stream until about 30 seconds into the second quarter. It was enough to make you think fondly of the quaint, and soon to be extinct, Foxtel through a cable in the wall method.
For all the hanging of shit on North for plugging gaps with experienced players, our first goal came from the combination of four club ultimate journeyman Tom Campbell and Harry Sharp, bought on the cheap from Brisbane. Even if Sharp retires and joins an apocalyptic death cult tomorrow, kicking four in any game already has him in front of Poor Old Tom Fullarton in our list of all-time recruits from the Lions. No sign of POTF here, but the revelation that the ruckman we recruited then decided he couldn't ruck is now playing as a backman is about as grim a career prognosis as you'll get.
It really was a glorified training session, but the key learning from the first quarter is that you'll miss Kysaiah Pickett when he's gone - either to another club or during one of his regular suspensions. If you believe what's in the media - and some major countries are run on this basis so you may as well - he's biding his timing with us while merrily texting away to Freo chums about legging it due west at the first opportunity. Doesn't say much for the quality of your friends when private messages are leaked, but it's hard to take the moral highground when everything Petracca has said to a teammate since August 2024 has been reported in the press.
As a lifelong crumb fanatic I wasn't convinced about playing him further up the ground, but he was (cliche alert) electric here. Adjust for quality of opposition and time of year, but it suggests that if he does go it won't be without giving us his best on the way out. He was here, there, and everywhere, including bobbing up for two well-taken set shot goals. With his family connections I don't think there's any point showing him bulk episodes of Air Crash Investigations to try and make flying back and forth across the country every two weeks look less attractive, so here's to a miracle that convinces him to stay and/or us pulling off some behind-the-scenes shenanigans to put Freo off the scent. Alternatively they could just tell him he's contracted until the end of 2027 and we can get on with the business of winning footy games for (at least) another three seasons.
It's a shame we're not still in the era when players could run down their suspensions in the pre-season. I'm not shameless enough to claim that game would've counted, but between the Indigenous All-Stars and the 'official' practice match we could have worked his ban down to one game. Now he's going to be sitting with thumb in fundament until Round 4 while we're putting unrealistic expectations on Harry Sharp to pluck goals from thin air in real games.
For want of anywhere else to mention this, what's with the Arden Street countdown clock including fractions of seconds? I refuse to believe that even a wacky thinker like Clarko would be running drills broken down that far. It was a bit silly that the Kayo Klock was counting up while you could see this in the background, but it came in handy when their on-screen graphics freaked out and disappeared halfway through the quarter. It was a bad time for timekeeping all-round, in the second quarter the local clock stopped for a while, which should have been the cue for "you're not supposed to be taking this seriously" to appear on your screen in bold letters. Just as the first clock fiasco happened, old Resting Terrified Face himself Jack Billings bobbed up for a goal and to be honest I'd forgotten he still played for us. Now that I think about, between him, Hunter, Schache and this year's imports we've had a fair crack at the discard pile ourselves.
Anyway, I'll regret it in 10 years when I want to know something that happened in this game but in-depth coverage is not required. The good news was Oliver looking back to his best, including the usual sixth sense handballs to a teammate, and the traditional pinging for a 'throw' because the umpire wasn't entirely sure whether hand met ball so he just guessed. For wacky decisions, see also Turner being front-on violated in front of goal for no reward.
Otherwise, all the interest was in how the fringe players went. I was keen to see Jefferson outside of Casey, and was happy when he took a nice mark on the lead. Then he dinked it OOF with no obvious target. I assume one was just outside the camera zoom, because otherwise it was the worst kick since Petracca booted it out at right angles on King's Birthday when his guts were about to explode like Alien. Jefferson did get the next goal after that, which was nice, but van Rooyen doesn't have to worry about the competition yet. JVR was very good considering he was doing a lot of the tall forward stuff on his own, taking a couple of solid contested marks and looking like he could do some damage if a) we put players next to him who know what they're doing, and b) don't kick the ball down there as if drunk.
For Demonwiki purposes I'm treating this like a real game, which means ignoring the bit where they pulled up just before half time, set the score to 8-0 and we practiced holding a lead. Which we did, even after conceding a goal after the siren. Somehow this was included in the overall score, but to be fair we were lucky to even be getting an overall score and it made sod all difference. That reduced a nine point lead to three, but I was comfortable enough with how things were going.
Nothing says pre-season like Kayo filling half time with a segment from Bounce that is as funny as a fart in an elevator. I'm still scarred by last year's one where they ate found smell food and had a spew, so wasn't hanging around to actual sensible analyst of the game Jason Dunstall dumbing himself down in the company of buffoons. God knows who the target market for that show is but I reckon there'd be a crossover with people who DM players to whinge about blown multis.
For weird (probably unrepeatable) pre-season hauls go, Sharp's four is up there with James Sellar kicking five in country South Australia or the day John Meesen, Isaac Weetra, and Trent Zomer all hit the scoreboard at Kardinia Park. Sharp looks like the drummer for Duran Duran, but when he got the first after half time I was ready to go well over the top and play him in Round 1 based on no other evidence and the fact that he got as many goals here as his entire career to date.
Speaking of people who should be ramraided directly into our best 22, hello Harvey Langford. I refuse to get excited based on this game alone but he appears to be a natural at this stuff. Fellow top draftee Lindsay did some nice things too, but people will be queuing to have Langford highlights hooked to their veins before long.
We looked like running away with it for a bit in the third quarter, but North wouldn't go away and we sensibly didn't go too far over the top trying to put the boots in. Petty did celebrate his return to playing in defence by spoiling an opponent's face off but that was as over the top as it got. He's exactly where he should be now, but if Billings has a resting terror face, Petty has resting miserable body language. He always comes across as somebody who is out there because his family is being held hostage until the final siren. I'm still all-in, staking whatever sliver of reputation I've got, that he's Steven May's long term replacement, so let's see how well that prediction fares.
Strangely, it only turned into a walkover in the last quarter when we'd withdrawn several players and the ruck duels became The Guy We Got From the VFL Who Isn't A Ruckman vs Finbar. Even I was starting to think I must have had something better to do by this point, but there was a fun goal when JVR tapped the ball to himself at a ball up then toe-poked it through the empty goal. At that point I was pretty sure North had given up. We got a bit of Kynan Brown at this stage, but sadly still no Mentha Jr who was in the carpark adjusting his carburetor.
Unlike the first half, there was no siren to let you know when the game had switched to simulation mode. They just waited for a goal and started it at an arbitrary time, and just as I was thinking we had absolutely nothing to complain about from this game down went poor AMW in the most 'torn ACL' fashion possible. He limped off but nobody's fooled by that these days, and I presume that by the time you read this he'll have received all sorts of bad news but for now I live in hope of a miracle.
That unpleasantness marred the finale a little bit, but otherwise I'm more than happy to take a 47 point win and head for the hills. Doesn't change my mind that we're a fringe finals team who will live and die on injuries. There's as much of a case for being in the flag mix and previously unhappy superstars embracing one-club player status as finishing 15th, sacking the coach, and watching everyone of value run for the door like a fire alarm has gone off. If there was ever a year for a fly-on-the-wall documentary this could be it.
Even if you pretend the blessed events of 25/09/2021 didn't happen (play Chris Scott and carry on like Geelong would've won the Prelim if they didn't all have the mystery shits), it's still hard to know what to think after three good seasons were followed by a relative dud. We should have some life left in us, but I've never been a situation like this where things could literally go in any direction so god only knows what's going to happen next. Either way, we are living in interesting times and we've just got to wait and find out whether that's good interesting or bad interesting.
2025 Paul Prymke Plate for Pre-Season Performance
This award continues to be a farce while it only covers two games, but I like the name so we're going with it.
5 - Kysaiah Pickett
4 - Clayton Oliver
3 - Jacob van Rooyen
2 - Harry Sharp
1 - Harvey Langford
Apologies to Bowey, Campbell, Lever, Rivers, and Sparrow.
Next week
It's Freo in Mandurah, and judging by what they did to us last time we played in rural and regional Australia then batten down the hatches for a reality check before Round 1. There should be a raft of big hitters returning, possibly even Petracca for his first outing post near-death experience. I'd be tempted to put invest more emotion in this game, but then you remember despite the Dockers double dicking us last year they still missed finals. Now that the season is absurdly stretched out it's never been more of a marathon than a sprint, so let's hope for good signs and a lack of last minute injury/suspension. Then we can get on with fretting about Round 1.
Final thoughts
Let the madness begin.
