9 hours ago, JimmyGadson said:

Last week's loss and incident has given Goody a golden opportunity to galvanise this group, harness all of that emotion from players and supporters alike and attack the rest of this finals series as if we have a point to prove. 

The question is whether or not Goody and our leaders have what it takes to go there and be fuelled by it. 

Now if we really are club with a strong and changed culture and a team stacked with competitive beasts, then we will see that come Thursday night. 

I think this game is one of the most important in defining us as a club going forward. We're up against another juggernaut of a supporter base. Do we have the resolve to overcome their raucous crowd and execute? Reputations are made this time of year. 

If people want to play the 'woe is us' injury card, then you may as well pack up bags now. I'm sick of that rhetoric. Every side has experienced injuries and both Collingwood and Carlton were able to persevere and win games despite the fact. Injury will not define this game. Our attitude will be the only thing. 

If we win this, we have a shackles off free hit against Brisbane and we can carry this emotional wave through to a grand final. Clearly not the easy or desired path but gold is to be found in the places you least want to look. 

I just really hope Goody and co are using all of what has occurred this past week as motivation. 

Because if we make a Grand Final against Collingwood in a couple of weeks' time, they will be absolutely [censored] themselves. 

Agree with all this. 

I've no doubt we'll be galvanised and extremely motivated this Friday. My bigger concern is whether this can be balanced with being focussed and composed. 

I think we lost to the Pies due to lack of composure; didn't handle the Pies early intensity, blazed away going into F50 and some shanks on goal when the game was to be won. 

The emotion of the week needs to be channeled into playing the best football of their lives not just coming out breathing fire. 

1 hour ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Perhaps he thinks that only a Collingwood V Carlton grand final will sell out, and that if Carlton don't make it, the ground will only be 75% full??

Collingwood V  GWS GF will get 100k sellout crowd. Doesnt matter who plays in GF unless its two interstate sides. Lions v GWS is a high possibility this year.  

 

1 hour ago, old55 said:

Nice tin foil hat Clint. Whether Carlton or Melbourne win the PF in Brisbane and the GF will be sell outs. There's no extra revenue in a Carlton flag.

But that doesn’t fit the “woe is us”, the “AFL cleared Maynard, because they want Collingwood to win the flag”, agendas.

This comes from people who I can’t believe actually hold down jobs.

The grand final will sell out no matter who gets through and the corporate packages are already paid for

The PF’s are all set for very large hosting bias in crowd support with interstate teams up against it.

Imagine the hype and narrative around a Collingwood vs Melbourne GF and a rematch in this year’s finals series.

Chance for the Dees to avenge the QF loss

What reception will the Dees players give Maynard

Will Melbourne’s midfield regroup after lowering their colours when the game was on the line in week 1 of the finals

Can Collingwood win the flag

2 traditional rivals

The talk around Carlton vs Collingwood GF in the media is a romanticism from our youth when these two clubs played in many memorable matches, it is nothing more

Edited September 13, 20231 yr by Pennant St Dee

Out: JVR, Brayshaw and Laurie

In: Grundy, Tomlinson and AMW

Carlton are a strong and physical side so I would be bringing stronger bodies in. Play Grundy as big body midfielder to go with Cripps. Tomlinson in will also allow Rivers to have more midfield minutes. AMZ to come in as sub to bring some energy and run in the final quarter. 

 

 

6 minutes ago, sydneydee said:

Out: JVR, Brayshaw and Laurie

In: Grundy, Tomlinson and AMW

Carlton are a strong and physical side so I would be bringing stronger bodies in. Play Grundy as big body midfielder to go with Cripps. Tomlinson in will also allow Rivers to have more midfield minutes. AMZ to come in as sub to bring some energy and run in the final quarter. 

 

 

Don't mind this....

1 hour ago, Clint Bizkit said:

Out: JVR, Brayshaw, Laurie

In: Grundy, Spargo, Tomlinson

 

Despite all the players out, I still had trouble fitting everyone in.

This is a team that can beat Carlton:

 

FB: Hibberd May Bowey

HB: Rivers Lever Salem

C: Langdon Sparrow Hunter

HF: Chandler Gawn ANB

FF: McDonald Fritsch Petracca

Foll: Grundy Oliver Viney

Int: Spargo Smith Pickett McVee

Sub: Tomlinson

Agree big time.  Grundy to ruck, Max to go behind or forward of the ball depending on the state of the game, Spargo at least will hit up someone 3-4 times.  Every goal to count.

14 minutes ago, Diamond Tim said:

Don't mind this....

Make Smith the Sub and add JJ 

1 hour ago, Deebauched said:

Collingwood V  GWS GF will get 100k sellout crowd. Doesnt matter who plays in GF unless its two interstate sides. Lions v GWS is a high possibility this year.  

 

Any grand final, even GWS V GC would sell out.

2 hours ago, old55 said:

So for a percentage of incremental merchandise sales the AFL is going to engineer a Carlton-Collingwood GF? OK, all I can say is it must be hard going if that's your model of reality.

I don't agree with clint that it's all engineered (I mean seriously is Fritsch in on it and that's why he missed those set shots?) but it's also about eyes on the product. Media engagement and therefore sponsors getting eyes on their ads through the course of the finals, GF ratings numbers etc

If we can't be in it, I'm hoping for a Brisbane GWS grand final ( if that works out in the draw - too [censored] off to look it up).

38 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Any grand final, even GWS V GC would sell out.

2004 GF  Port v Lions  77,000

11 hours ago, JimmyGadson said:

Last week's loss and incident has given Goody a golden opportunity to galvanise this group, harness all of that emotion from players and supporters alike and attack the rest of this finals series as if we have a point to prove. 

The question is whether or not Goody and our leaders have what it takes to go there and be fuelled by it. 

Now if we really are club with a strong and changed culture and a team stacked with competitive beasts, then we will see that come Thursday night. 

I think this game is one of the most important in defining us as a club going forward. We're up against another juggernaut of a supporter base. Do we have the resolve to overcome their raucous crowd and execute? Reputations are made this time of year. 

If people want to play the 'woe is us' injury card, then you may as well pack up bags now. I'm sick of that rhetoric. Every side has experienced injuries and both Collingwood and Carlton were able to persevere and win games despite the fact. Injury will not define this game. Our attitude will be the only thing. 

If we win this, we have a shackles off free hit against Brisbane and we can carry this emotional wave through to a grand final. Clearly not the easy or desired path but gold is to be found in the places you least want to look. 

I just really hope Goody and co are using all of what has occurred this past week as motivation. 

Because if we make a Grand Final against Collingwood in a couple of weeks' time, they will be absolutely [censored] themselves. 

The injury dilemma has never really impacted us. We've gone chunks of the season without Gawn and Oliver, missed Fritsch for a third, JVR has been in and out of the squad, and we are still amonst the leaders in the league in most stats. It might have been the difference in our losses but we were still on top in all of them except Essendon and most of the Gabba game. Composure has definitely hurt us and even at full strength we struggled at times with this.

I'll be so disappointed and disheartened if we don't win on Friday. Carlton is good but we are objectively better across the board. Not to understate the Blues at all but this goes beyond just being a "must win" for us. It has to be a formality on the way to at least a Prelim. 

Not winning this week marks the season a failure in my mind. Statistically, it would be a huge anomaly for us to not at least make a Prelim over the past two seasons.

Edited September 13, 20231 yr by praha

34 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I don't agree with clint that it's all engineered (I mean seriously is Fritsch in on it and that's why he missed those set shots?) but it's also about eyes on the product. Media engagement and therefore sponsors getting eyes on their ads through the course of the finals, GF ratings numbers etc

As it should be, but the AFL is not fixing the match results. 

With the AFL's confirmation that it won't appeal the Maynard decision, we need to:

- Care for Gus. Make sure he is OK. This is #1, for me anyway. 

- FOCUS ON WINNING OUR GAME AGAINST THE BLUES. No other noise. No fugazi, whatever. Our sole and best form of avenging this BS will be to beat the Blues, the Lions... then ANNIHALATE the Pies. Simple. 3 games. 3 winnable games. Every game is winnable, which is a positive and negative. We can't let our guard down, even for a minute - the other teams are looking to do the exact same thing as us. We need 12 quarters from here. That's it, then the boys can put up their feet, many of them with 2 premiership titles to their name. 

I know this moment, and probably the last week will have galvanised the group - but I really hope it has not been too much of a distraction. We, by rights, even with a non-existent forward line, should beat the Blues, but it won't be easy. They are buoyed by the momentum of the last few months and the excitement of returning to dreaming of a premiership after 20+ years in the wilderness. 

We can do this, I just hope we see the right Dees (there have been a few versions of us this year) from the first bounce on Friday.

2 hours ago, sydneydee said:

Out: JVR, Brayshaw and Laurie

In: Grundy, Tomlinson and AMW

Carlton are a strong and physical side so I would be bringing stronger bodies in. Play Grundy as big body midfielder to go with Cripps. Tomlinson in will also allow Rivers to have more midfield minutes. AMZ to come in as sub to bring some energy and run in the final quarter. 

 

 

So no one replaces one of our best midfielders.. great changes 👍🏻

If this club has any back bone and wants to be respected by the greater football public. 
 

We win Friday night. We come out, we take the game by the scruff of the neck and F’ing and win.

Otherwise you can guarantee, everyone including the media will put an asterisk (not me) on our 21 flag. Label us pretenders and say we can’t get it done in front of real crowds with big pressure. 
 

My changes would be.

OUT Gus, Roo, Laurie, Chandler 

IN JJ, Grundy, Spargo, Woey (as sub)

Edited September 13, 20231 yr by Doug Reemer

OUT - Brayshaw, JVR

IN - Jordon, Tomlinson

The undefeated combination of Tomo, May and Lever to be reunited

Smith to play fwd with Fristch and T Mac giving us more flexibility than Grundy or Gawn would offer. Gawn is in the form of his life and must play his Number 1 ruck role. We can't afford not to have our skippers influence around the ball. Trac to play 80% fwd also.

I’ve been hearing a lot of Smith plays forward. But did he not play forward all of last week, or am I remembering that wrong?

I reckon we’ll bring a midfielder (JJ) in, because we need Tracc forward. After the GWS game we played the Saints at Marvel and Tracc was the difference in the game. I think that was the plan against Collingwood too, before the ‘human frisbee’ bended space and time and forced him onto the ball.

6 minutes ago, DubDee said:

The undefeated combination of Tomo, May and Lever to be reunited

It's beyond my footballing knowledge as to why you would continually not play a defensive combination that hasn't lost a game since the year 1 of the pandemic.

The early season wins over Bulldogs and Sydney were our most complete performances of the year. None of this conceding big first half leads, none of this going to sleep for 25 minutes. Just rock solid exciting Melbourne wins.

In the Dogs win (on a warm dry night like this week), our forward line was missing Petty, Fritsch and JVR while Melk only came on in the last quarter, and yet we still managed 17 goals. BBB and Kozzie kicked 4 goals each and Spargo and Grundy hit the scoreboard too. T Mac had a stinker.

Maybe we take a bit of inspiration from that game and play Grundy, Brown (If at least 75% fit), Spargo and drop T Mac. In a perfect world we could sub out BBB or Grundy for some run in the last quarter.

The Dogs game also showed that we can win with key outs. That night we were missing Viney, Fritta and May and yet still won by 50 points.

 

 

If we lose on Friday we will have 2 straights sets finals exits sitting on our shoulders for 12 months

this game is huge

2 hours ago, Deebauched said:

2004 GF  Port v Lions  77,000

The MCG was under reconstruction in 2004

1 hour ago, Doug Reemer said:

So no one replaces one of our best midfielders.. great changes 👍🏻

Rivers replaces Gus’s midfield minutes which IMO is our best option. 

Will be a close game, but if our boys are able to execute the Flying Smother Bump flawlessly, we will emerge victorious.

31 minutes ago, sydneydee said:

Rivers replaces Gus’s midfield minutes which IMO is our best option. 

I think JJ covers Brayshaw almost like for like just 80% of true value, which is fine.