Welcome back for another year!
Footy is approaching, which means regular posts are about to resume on The Shinboner.
This year’s mission statement: To have this blog as a place where people learn a bit more about their team (or others!) from a voice on an eye-to-eye level, not an, ‘I’m an expert and you’re not so what I’m saying is right’ level, which we see play out elsewhere all the time. With everything else getting more and more polarised by the second, social media algorithms promoting dissension, surely we can have one place largely immune from it.
Running a Patreon plug immediately after that paragraph broke earnestness records feels strange, but the Patreon will indeed be up and running once again, which you can find and subscribe to here.
A scroll through this year’s features, what to expect between now and Opening Round, along with the regular posting cadence:
Team Structures ($10 tier): This was by far the most popular of the extra features last year, so I’m doubling down and spending even more time on it this year.
In addition to the same layout as 2024, there’ll be extra columns detailing mid-game moves that could pay off down the track. The example that always sits at front of mind calls back to 2020, when Adelaide were getting pummelled by North Melbourne (no, seriously).
At half time Rory Laird was thrown into the midfield as almost a last resort, desperately throwing something at the wall to see if it stuck. Four years of basically full-time midfield play later, here we are*. That sort of thing wouldn’t have showed up instantly in last year’s graphics, but this year it will.
(*I’m aware he’s moved back this pre-season)
It’s another couple of hours per week to add to the couple of hours it currently takes, but all worth it for what I (and hopefully people reading) learn.
List Management Suite (now $5 tier): The create your own depth chart tool has been put under this general umbrella, because let’s be honest, it didn’t make much sense as a standalone feature.
The Depth Charts have been updated with 2025 lists, bar some of the late SSP stragglers, for subscribers to play around with through match sim and pre-season games.
What it means is there’s now four tools under the list management suite. In addition to the depth chart, there are the ongoing player contracts, list demographics, and minutes played by age.
It’s also now a $5 feature instead of a $10 feature; for those who count this as their main feature for subscribing, it could be a useful reason to downgrade and save yourself a few dollars.
The Notebook ($5 tier): The old faithful returns for another year. It’ll largely be similar to previous years, with the only change, at least to start, being a conscious effort to follow up on themes and trends rather than sporadic check ins around the league.
North Melbourne match analysis pieces (always free): It goes without saying, but nothing changes with these. Well … hopefully there’s a few more wins to talk about. That would actually be a nice change this year.
The Look Ahead: Last year, feedback said the two best sections were the big-picture style question, along with figuring out what success looks like.
This year the general vibes about success will be in with the over/unders, because that seems like the logical move. And the big-picture style section will be what The Look Ahead focuses on.
It’ll be streamlined into three parts, covering six teams per day (minus North Melbourne for obvious reasons). As for when everything drops…
Minimum schedule before the season starts (there’ll be another North post in there somewhere)
| Post | Patreon access | Public access |
| General 2025 announcement | Weeks ago | Today |
| Over/under win total | 17th Feb | 18th Feb |
| Look Ahead, Part 1 | 18th Feb | 19th Feb |
| Look Ahead, Part 2 | 19th Feb | 20th Feb |
| Look Ahead, Part 3 | 20th Feb | 21st Feb |
| NMFC Match Sim Analysis | 23rd Feb | |
| The Notebook, Match Sim | 24th Feb | 25th Feb |
| Continuity Rankings | 26th Feb | 27th Feb |
| NMFC v West Coast Analysis | 2nd Mar | |
| The Notebook, Pre-Season | 3rd Mar | 4th Mar |
| Team Tiers, Version 1 | 5th Mar | 6th Mar |
And then we get underway on March 6th with Brisbane v Geelong.
After that it’ll settle into a usual routine, with a regular week looking like so:
– Sunday night/when a round finishes: Team Structure updates
– The morning after a North Melbourne game: Usual in-depth analysis
– Tuesday night/Wednesday morning: The weekly Notebook
Always ongoing will be all the updates in the list management suite, along with the monthly minutes played by age graphs.
From time to time there’ll be extra posts to the above. Whether they’re league wide, about North, or a specific club, Patreon subscribers will always have early or exclusive access.