14 hours ago, willmoy said:

 I think that Mitchell is overrated, and O'meara can damage us more. But we have the advantage of a lot of inside information that will be well utilised.

Pretty much spot on Willmoy. Mitchell is overrated insofar as his numbers of possessions -v- their impact on the result of games. There is no doubt he is a ball magnet and I admire his see-ball-get-ball mentality but O’Meara is the class act and with a few games under his belt will be a danger. 

As another poster inferred, Max and any support ruckmen need to be aware of Mitchell’s location at centre bounces and stoppages (where he gets a lot of his possessions) and make a concerted effort to direct the ball away from him. A hard  tag on O’Meara would be my call. Interesting that a friend of mine who is a coaching staff member (not MFC) speculates that Mitchell tends to lose a bit of focus after a bit of early physical attention.

Langford did a good job on Dustin Martin and will get the job on Oliver. To counter that somewhat, Petracca and Oliver rotating through the middle via a forward pocket would create massive headaches for Clarkson and worry the hell out of Hawks defenders. None of this will happen on Saturday but it’s fun to guess!

 

I predicted we'd beat North by 10 goals, and we damn well should have. IMO we were a 10-goal better side after quarter time. Kick some sitters and remove Brown's goals and we're there.

I'm predicting a similar result for Sunday.

Anyone else in Bangkok to watch the game with from a Sports Bar?

If the team is “on” we will win, don’t care about the margin

I think we will struggle with Hawks forward line. Too many cheap off the pack and out the back goals from players like Bruest, Puopolo, Riolo will hurt us.

58 minutes ago, praha said:

I predicted we'd beat North by 10 goals, and we damn well should have. IMO we were a 10-goal better side after quarter time. Kick some sitters and remove Brown's goals and we're there.

I'm predicting a similar result for Sunday.

 

LOve your confidence but Hawks are a much better side than Norf. Yes, we should have won by 10 but I fear this game will be an arm wrestle and be a close one with Bugg kicking straight on the siren to clinch it.

First 4 quarter performance and we win by 45 points

Our customary one quarter no-show will occur in the first quarter with us down by five goals at quarter time and me losing my $h!t a number of times over our failure to man up or over-possess.

We'll slowly chip away at it over the next two quarters before both teams go goal for goal in the last and me losing my $h!t a number of times due to dodgy freekicks given to the likes of Roughead and Breust.

Gawn/Clarry/Jones will combine to win the last couple of centre clearances though, resulting in the Dees kicking the last two and winning by 10.  I'll then lose my $h!t again, this time for good reasons.

The Hawk I'm most worried about is Clarkson. I think he's a clever game day coach, while Goodwin is still learning. Clarkson might have a few tricks up his sleeve for first bounce and throughout the game.

I went to the Hawks v Toigs game on Sunday, and if they play like they did then, we will hammer them. Sure they'll have Sicily back, but even he couldn't have saved them on Sunday.  I'm looking forward to this game and have a feeling we may win reasonably comfortably.

18 hours ago, No10 said:

I hope it was a turning point and he continues that form.

That would be fantastic if Jones focussed on this in his delivery.

My tip is severe negativity in the match day thread, with Clint Biz and Praha leading the charge.

Other predictions:

- We will win by 15 points in a tight fought contest played at a slightly lower standard than we all hoped for

- The conclusions drawn will vary widely between "real deal" and "xxx will flog us in yy weeks time in this form", which won't happen

- Hawthorn will get a run of four goals which will get so much airtime it breaks the Demonland server. We will get a run on of five goals which will go unmentioned 

- OMac will be held responsible for every goal, Tyson for every turnover, and our payment for Lever referred to

- Hogan, Trac and Oliver to dominate.

1 minute ago, Nasher said:

Other predictions:

- We will win by 15 points in a tight fought contest played at a slightly lower standard than we all hoped for

- The conclusions drawn will vary widely between "real deal" and "xxx will [censored] us in yy weeks time in this form", which won't happen

- Hawthorn will get a run of four goals which will get so much airtime it breaks the Demonland server. We will get a run on of goals which will go unmentioned 

- OMac will be held responsible for every goal, Tyson for every turnover, and our payment for Lever referred to

- Hogan, Trac and Oliver to dominate.

Sometimes I worry that you read too much demonland Nasher, such is your uncanny ability to predict our behaviours.

I can't imagine what a toll that would take on a person.

R U OK?

1 minute ago, Choke said:

Sometimes I worry that you read too much demonland Nasher, such is your uncanny ability to predict our behaviours.

I can't imagine what a toll that would take on a person.

R U OK?

I'm pretty confident I haven't read any new content on this site for years Choke, and I'm not even kidding. It's amazing how we're all suckers for the footy merry-go-round.

2 minutes ago, Nasher said:

I'm pretty confident I haven't read any new content on this site for years Choke, and I'm not even kidding. It's amazing how we're all suckers for the footy merry-go-round.

I don't know what you mean.

I haven't read about Toumpas v Wines in at least an hour. What more do you want?

28 minutes ago, Choke said:

I don't know what you mean.

I haven't read about Toumpas v Wines in at least an hour. What more do you want?

We should have picked Wines. 

Hawks for mine by two goals.

I think where we will fall short is in three areas.

Firstly, I'm not convinced of our ability to enter the forward fifty efficiently yet. I understand we are still balancing out the need to get it in there quickly vs finding the right option but I don't think we are there yet.

Secondly, Tom Mitchell is my second concern. Who do we get to tag him? Bernie and Melksham come to mind but can they keep him under 30 possessions?

Lastly, I'm worried about the big Rough. He often pinch hits in the ruck and it seems that the Bear will not be a starter. Furthermore, who do we play on him in the forward line? 

He is different from Sideshow Brown in that he gets swung into the midfield as a ruckman as opposed to just being one who does it in the forward line.

Question: last time they beat us by less than a goal , where both Gawn & Hogan not playing?

19 minutes ago, loges said:

Question: last time they beat us by less than a goal , where both Gawn & Hogan not playing?

Hogan played and kicked 3. Gawn didn’t play.

18 hours ago, Cranky Franky said:

Nothing bizarre about it.  The last 3 times we played them we have had their measure but only managed to win 1 of those mainly due to lack of composure & experience.  We have improved from 2017 more than they have. 

Plus we didn't have Gawn or Hogan last time we played and Burgoyne killed us from memory. Not saying we'll [censored] it in (I'm actually tipping us to lose this and bounce back against the Tigers) but there are reasons to be optimistic.

2 hours ago, leave it to deever said:

LOve your confidence but Hawks are a much better side than Norf. Yes, we should have won by 10 but I fear this game will be an arm wrestle and be a close one with Bugg kicking straight on the siren to clinch it.

Love you confidence but Bugg isn't as good a set shot as you think. Yes, he kicked 4 goals on the weekend but I fear he won't be as accurate on the weekend and we'll miss those goals. 

17 hours ago, BigFez said:

Hawks were rubbish early last year and still beat us. Really hopefully of a win but would be very surprised if it wasn’t close. 

They were rubbish early but had a few premiership players back for our game and were one of the form teams in the second half of the season.

4 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Plus we didn't have Gawn or Hogan last time we played 

 

19 minutes ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

Hogan played and kicked 3. Gawn didn’t play.

Well there ya go

interesting comments, seems most are confident.  I see it as 50-50. i think the odds are more based on hype in the media. but in reality we have beaten 2 weak teams.

imo if we play like we have been, missing easy shots at goal, not being switched on for 4 quarters - we will lose by a goal or two.  With hawks forwards they dont need many inside 50s to win

if we improve which I think we will, we should win. no passengers, kick more goals than points and crack in for 4 quarters

28 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Plus we didn't have Gawn or Hogan last time we played and Burgoyne killed us from memory. Not saying we'll [censored] it in (I'm actually tipping us to lose this and bounce back against the Tigers) but there are reasons to be optimistic.

Explain your logic.

It really doesn't make sense.