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rAdelaide here I come! Go Dees!

Wow not sure why everyone is piling in on May, he’s our leading possession getter and the ball is coming in hot every time. Reckon he’s been one of our best. Our midfield though has stunk it up badly! We are leading hit outs 20 to 8. Take the midfield out of it by belting it forward occasionally to stop them sharking it off us at every single bounce.

No Dixon, Marshall, Georgiades, Rioli or Fantasia. They’re good, but this is an opportunity.

We have a car load of dees supporters hitting the road in Mildura at 1pm to get there and cannot wait! Saw us play the power at Adelaide Oval under lights a couple years back and the atmosphere was amazing. We didn't get the chocolates but it's still an amazing place to watch football from. We'll be perched up with the commoners in the GA standing area under the scoreboard knocking back frothies in our dees kit..... please pray for our safety

Pressure needs to go on our midfield. With Clarry, Trac and Viney getting service from Gawn and Grundy, we should never get belted around the stoppages. To lose clearances 10-0 in the second quarter should be career ending stuff. Heat needs to come on Yze as the midfield coach. We’ve been beaten up around the stoppages consistently this year and it’s become a problem for us being that our game is built off contest and our stats are around the ball.

Well done. Yes, some things ARE bigger than footy. Truly tragic situation. Everyone’s thoughts are with the family.

Sydney were not ordinary when we beat them. They were equal first on the ladder and hadn’t lost a game at that point. They’ve dropped off significantly since copping a mountain of injuries to all their key position players.

Has anyone mentioned the Gawn non free kick when he was trying to mark and lycett collected him front on, with no eyes on the ball and it’s called play on????

Kossie, front and centre is your role, no forward pressure and half hearted efforts at several ground ball contests for a lot of tonight. Really poor

First 10 minutes will tell the tale.

I hope T Mac has a ripper tonight WCW, I feel he doesn't get the respect he deserves from some. He has given fantastic service to this footy club over a long period of time. I'm thinking there's some fight still left in him.

Quite disappointed with the beer options...good view however.

GREAT NEWS !!!!! The Manor's central heating is back in action. I can enjoy the Dees inevitable victory in comfort !!!!

got to say Trent Rivers deserve some serious credit, tried so hard all night. He's got some serious dare and run which at times can be sorely lacking from our transition out of d50.

Another game ruined by umpiring. How many will it take, and affecting which clubs, will it take to force an improvement? Because that was truly disgraceful. On another matter, having let Noah Anderson and now Zak Butters make us look ridiculous, can only imagine what Nick Daicos is gonna do.

We lost it. We won it. We lost it again. Credit to Port. They’re a very good team. Butters had a great game Disappointing last quarter. We should have seen it home. Salem very good on his return. Great to have him back. Rivers fantastic as well. I hate BT with a passion. Dust ourselves down and go against Freo next week. Go Dees

I hope we rise to the occasion. Big Friday night game against a top performing team. Soft games are good, but too many of them can see complacency kick in. A big contest is just what we need to spark a really strong 4 quarter effort.

Well done WCW and the Demon Army, that's an exceptional display of empathy transcending football.

I do not want a cracking game, I want us to put 7 through them in the opening quarter and open up a commanding lead. Do not enjoy close games on the TV. Hope T Mac plays a blinder.

I was chatting to Shane at the WCE game and he stated “Taj was a lock for round one had he not dislocated his finger”

Looks like this weekly thread hasn't been started yet. There's some difficult games to tip. But I really just wanted an excuse to post this picture of a young Harry Sheezel with one of his childhood heroes. They'll be playing against each other this weekend!

You’re kidding right? We didn’t lose to a top 8 side in 2021. We were the best that year by far, but this competition moves so fast that you need to continuously innovate.

Rivers' rebounding has been elite

In a crossover from the puppy thread, I'm led to believe that the pooch on the left is named "Yartapuulti".

3 of our last 5 games were over by half time. Of course those pressure and contest stats are down. When a game is finished at half time, you naturally taper off. We’ve rested our mids considerably over the past 5 weeks, especially when you considering the amount of travel and short breaks we’ve had. I expect that to change tonight.

Hibberd on Powell Pepper should be fun to watch Good old fashioned footballers going at it!

This is a genuine 50/50 game. If we stand up and win it, I think the media will start to really talk us up. If we lose, I think we are rightly back in the pack, with Pies and Brisbane ahead of the rest. We need a strong midfield game tonight. I bet we won't see as many rotations as we have seen until now, with Clarry, Viney and Trac to play their usual heavy midfield minutes. The ruck situation will be fascinating. I think Grundy will actually be a better matchup for Lycett in the ruck, who is a big boy. Grundy's athleticism might challenge him, which means Gawn could play more minutes up forward, and that means Aliir Aliir can't just peel back, because you can't leave Gawn one on one in the square. He will tower over Jonas. Also exciting and nerve wrecking to see how Salo goes. I just hope his body holds up!

We have a great bloc of games to look forward to starting with tonight. We've taken care of the easy beats without too much trouble, but Port will be a much sterner test. It won't be easy but our recent record against them is pretty good, and we play Adelaide Oval well. The tap brothers I feel will have a big influence on this one. He hasn't performed against decent opposition for a while so would love to see TMac clunk and kick a few. His 2021 form was a long time ago. Great having Salem back as well. He's pure class. It'll be tight but the Dees to prevail by 15 points. Go Narrm!

The game is becoming a poor spectacle. Four field umpires all gunning for their 15 seconds of fame by blowing the whistle on the most flaky and dubious decisions of the year. Am I biased? Hell yeah! But the sport is quickly losing its appeal to me. I pride myself on not losing control of my emotions but tonight I cussed and yelled like never before. Disgusting display of umpiring with the final boundary throw in clearly favouring Port but not being pulled up by the field umps. It was a wet game being adjudicated like a dry game. Decisions like the JHF tripping free was absolutely [censored] ludicrous! These umpires are seriously out of their depth. Something needs to change because I’ve lost the loving feeling for the sport of Aussie rules.

I just can’t get past that double 50 not paid to Lever!!!! The inconsistency of umpiring - whether it’s dissent, the stand rule, holding the ball or obstructing a 50m penalty - does my bloody head in!!!!

Harmes may have been handy for butters

Honestly happy we didn’t steal it. The quicker we reassess this side and attempt to fix the flaws with lack of run, poor balance around the contest. ordinary forward pressure and way way too much boundary play the better. 2021 isn’t coming back guys. We need to evolve and get better rather than fall back in to bad habits.

We need to sort out our clearance game ASAP I understand the discussion around post-clearance possession being more important than clearances - which, it is - but you can’t lose clearances at the rate we did tonight and expect to win games against the best sides We won a Premiership with clearance dominance for goodness sake!

Gawn? My goodness. We were watching different games.

Anyone who will blame the umpiring for this loss is simple papering over the very obvious cracks. You don’t play an insipid and soft first half against a top 4 side on their home ground and win.

What a trio of Fwits - Richo, Hodge and Roo

You can’t lose clearances 0-10 against a very good midfield and then pile it on the defenders. It’s like shooting Bambi.

Ive said it before and I’ll say it again. Why are we so putrid in clearances??

Kossie never gets that Horne Francis free paid to him

McDonald playing the weiderman role. In that he nearly marks it

We’re winning this

Normal service resumes? 😇

He slipped while trying to kick a ball off the deck in the wet. Your hyperbole is not necessary.

You can’t blame the umpires when you’re going 0-10 in clearances and letting damaging opponents rack up 40 touches. You can’t blame the umpires for JVR hitting Finlayson high or giving away a high free kick in a tackle. You can’t blame the umpires for May kicking out to the same spot every time, nobody taking the mark, and yet nobody staying down to contest the ground ball. No umpire is to blame for that. We lost because they were better for longer. One good quarter of football isn’t enough to win games against quality sides.

He made 2 absolutely horrible errors.

By my reckoning our midfield has been beaten 70% of game time this year. Out hunted, our worked.

Our coaches cost us that game. Nkt tagging Butters after half time is inexcusable. And frankly idiotic. May kicking in to the same f’ing spot every f’ing time is f’ing dumb. And Yze has been outclassed by other midfield coaches most games this year, sheer talent of Trac and Clarrie paper over this, we get spanked for clearances and like the May kick ins nothing changes. Goodwin, have a look ya nonce, Butters had 40 million touches, you can put someone near him! Tmac, go away. JVR, your over zealous at the player cost us goals. May, never kick in again.

I think there’s actually 5 legitimate top four sides this year. As ridiculous as that sounds lol. lions, cats, pies, dees and power. So this is one of those 8 point games we def don’t want to drop. Big game!

like every game, will be won and lost in the midfield and on turnover if we control the ball in post-clearance as we have when we've been at our best, we'll limit their opportunities to utilise their small forward line approach and hit the scoreboard it should be a cracking game between two top four sides