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The thing is this game is one of the very modern great rivalries. And the AFL are disrespecting our standing in the game and the rivalry by playing the game at KP. 2021 we showed them up and it was one of the reasons for Geelong's change of game plan and man-management systems. Chris Scott hates losing and although I dislike him and half the Geelong team, he plotted and planned to take us down in 2022. We were soundly beaten, looked like we didn't even see what was coming and were totally out coached. It was a cornerstone game for Geelong's assault on the flag and our meek finish to the year. So ...1. Why are the two past premiers only playing once this year and 2. Why down at the cattery? The AFL are totally disrespectful to our club and should be asked to explain. Don't think this won't be a cracking game of football. If we don't understand how important it is to get the ascendancy over Geelong we don't understand the gang mentality of footy. If we are to win the flag this is a must win game. If we enter the game like last year just thinking we'll win, even though they are down this year, they will have plans and be super switched on. We have to beat them and kill off their 2023 campaign. This is nothing to do with whos out there but the attitude of every player to win. If we don't we are kidding ourselves.

Is it correct that Geelong is the second oldest club in the AFL? If so, why aren't Geelong and Melbourne finding a way to create a blockbuster game built on that rivalry? If there's one thing we should have learned over the last 30 years, blockbusters don't just happen. They need two clubs to work together to build a reason for people to attend. ANZAC Day and ANZAC Day eve are good examples. The time to do so is now, while the teams are the two most recent Premiers and regularly in contention for finals over the last 5 years (admittedly, even longer for Geelong).

Sadly footy has moved on from being a game, a competition to just another big business. Fairness and even handed justice has very little role, unless it makes a few bucks.

Of all the contentious decisions of late, this maybe the silliest yet!!!

Re the comments about the short break over the bye. While the number of days of our bye is the same as last year there is no comparison to 2022. In 2022 we were blindsided by the AFL's progressive fixture roll out and we had only weeks to prepare for a shorter break. The club's 2022 preseason and early season training would have assumed a 12-14 day break at the bye. It is no coincidence that this year the AFL released rounds 1 -15 straight up so all clubs could plan their training schedules to incorporate their byes. Also, last year our players got a second 4 day break away from the club and I would be surprised if they didn't again this year. I mentioned in The Run Home thread we will have plenty of opportunity to rest/manage players in the last month while other competing top 4 clubs are fighting to maintain their position. Our fitness and medical staff are much better prepared this year. Fully trust that they will have the training/managing of players right. imv we do not have a disadvantage to other clubs in terms of days break.

Working on those set shots.

I for one am glad we were unable to match any bid for Mac Andrews. As we wouldn't have JVR.

Definitely one of the great modern rivalries but also the oldest rivalry. I do wish that was publicised a bit more.

That may be the case JM but I have total faith in the AFL system. I'm sure in next year's fixture, we will get the Sunday game following the bye and Collingwood will be heading down the highway to Kardinia Park for the Thursday night game against Geelong. The Pies won't have any issue with it either. Even if the seating capacity is still at 21,000, they won't have a problem with their 200-seat allocation.

Goody only mentioned four times in his presser that we didn't get a 14 day break so let's hope somebody at AFLHQ was watching. Why do reporters ask the same dumbass questions every week. Q. How important is it that ...yada yada yada....

Interesting. Forcing the player to kick straight instead of snapping around the corner. I like it.

Currently visiting Geelong and drove past Kitty Litter stadium. What a God forsaken hole it looks.

Sounds like a good job for Joel Selwood...

Due to the hugely popular MRO/tribunal process, the AFL plans to have tribunal appeals every week in 2024 will your favourite player be suspended for a good tackle? tune in to find out!

i am less concerned about this than i am around how they structure around anzac day eve in 2024, which falls on a wednesday in 2024 in an ideal world we'd play the thursday 18 april vs peptides, have a 6 day break leading into weds 24 april, then an 8 / 9 day break into thursday 2 may or friday 3 may

Your insight here is a really interesting read Coach. Just to be clear none of my frustration about our ‘bye’ has anything to do with training loads, or winning games. It’s to do with the fact that more than half our list have family interstate, and at best they could have visited them for 2.5 days. This is the second year that’s happened. It’s frustration about the quality of their lives. This is their only chance for 8 months to see them, and a lot of these players are very young.

Just like his father. Jeff was a brilliant high leaping athletic ruckman. The change to the centre bounce ruck rules really removed one of his greatest assets in his huge leap. If Kalani winds up even close to player Jeff was then we’ve got our ruck sorted for after Gawn and Grundy are long gone.

We beat the Cats 3 times in 2021 but all three times were at different venues. MCG, KP and OS.

I would hate to be the coach that tells Clarry he isn’t ready to play Thursday

A very fair point RE Family interstate and one which definitely has to be a consideration. I think we both agree that the AFL is very comfortable in creating an unfair and un-level playing field across the comp and we seem to be at the [censored] end of every crummy decision! What you have described is a form of Fartlek training, which means speed play and for those who have tried it will attest to it being quite difficult if done right. The human body gets very efficient at doing things at one pace if you let it, but in doing so it becomes less efficient at other paces. By changing up your stimulus you can often get better bang for your buck overall. For example, anaerobic (with out oxygen) capacity and power will only improve to a point if you don't further improve aerobic (with oxygen) capacity and power, because the aerobic system is critical to recovery from anaerobic exercise. They don't operate in isolation unless you are dealing with a one off effort of short duration (which a footy game is not). The image gives a bit of a guide to this. The yellow and red lines are anaerobic energy supply durations and the green one aerobic. If you imagine a footy game where the guys are running 15km, in bouts of various intensity, you can quickly see how important aerobic training is to these guys because facilitates recovery from each bout of high intensity by removing the by products of anaerobic metabolism and replenishing nutrient and glycogen stores. Sorry got a bit of track but its a fascinating subject!

What a weird, stupid place. Like the coach and half the players

I got the definite feeling from listening to Goody's press conference that he actually prefers the 10-day break (with 4 days off) because it is less impactful on their continuity than a 14-day break, and the fact they are training a few times before the Thursday match (including at GMHBA) will be better than losing training time. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I thought it was against the Geneva Convention to place someone in an Ibis hotel?

Unfortunately it has really started to flag the lack of football nous shown by those running the AFLand the impact it is having on the game that we love, simple things like Fixture, Umpiring, MRO, favouritism, inexplicable decisions regarding the future of the game, it’s all about the Money.!!! Why did Brad Scott leave the inner sanctum to take up coaching again??

goodwin has said in his presser this morning that neither oliver nor petty are guaranteed for thursday - need to tick off some boxes in the lead-in to thursday sounds like oliver lost a fair bit of conditioning with the hospital stay

If Oliver, Petty and Bowey are all fit to play it will be one of the most interesting selection nights for a while.

I thinks that's the key THBTS - only having four days away from the club, and all that entails, means mentally refreshing must be so much harder, particularly as you say for the interstate boys (we have lots of WA boys - a four day break is not much time to get there and back seeing its a 7 hour round trip juts in the air). After having already had six months of going hard at this point, a huge part of the challenge to get the players physically prepared and motivated to keep pushing super hard must be the psychological aspect. And having a decent break to mentally refresh must help most players (a caveat on that - i wonder if the poor record of many clubs post bye is at all related to some players losing their mental edge a bit with say 7 days completely away from their club) By contrast, the Pies players had the same compulsory four days off we had but also had the weekend off. So not back to the club till this morning. Meaning for interstaters (or players who wanted to get decent break at say Noosa etc), if they flew out of Melbourne Monday night after the game and back on Sunday, they get a decent break.

Just going to throw a thought out there in relation to the lack of proper bye week for us. From a point of view of increasing aerobic training load which is something Selwyn said in the podcast they would be looking to do, the three games with 10 day breaks would actually be pretty ideal to do this as you have plenty of recovery time post game AND can fit in your extra aerobic work AND can fit in the main session which would contain a fair chunk of intensity. This may actually prove to be a more ideal way to do it than having one long break and regular 6-7 day breaks between the others. A blessing in disguise if you will. We will only know how it went in the last month of footy, but hopefully amazingly well!

I hope our players go to the AFLPA and complain about this joke of a bye two years running. While at it, I also hope they complain about having to play in Geelong 😂

So to run a massive multimillion dollar entertainment brand you need to have been able to kick a football in the 90’s? The people who run record labels usually don’t come from being drummers in great bands. I find this an outdated argument. Bad decision making is bad decision making - personal history won’t change that. Thinking that ‘if only we could get David King or Luke Hodge involved it’ll all make sense’ is weird. Maybe Hirdy? He’ll solve it. Worked so well last time.

Lots of Python fans on DL. We're a bunch with good taste!

Might be a good opportunity for the boys to get together post bye with a night away. Geelong isn’t far but I doubt it’s ideal preparation for someone like Gawn to drive 2+ hours on game day (Geelong is not an hour away if you don’t live in the western suburbs which most of our players don’t). I know the guys from the peninsula way can catch the ferry across but it’s still a long journey. Every 1% helps!

God no. I’d describe the executive as the ‘heart of the game’ antithesis. Grass roots footy and club supporters, there’s your heart.

Ima start a “That’s sh!tt For Footy” group. Anyone want to join?

The hospital stay didn't help Oliver but he'll lose a lot more conditioning if he enters next week without a game in 5 weeks. If he's good to go, he's good to go.

AFL announces gather round dates and the hotels decide to [censored] over anyone who wants to come. $600 night for an Ibis what a joke. $500 for the Hilton which is normally $220 per night. Can't get a brand name hotel for under $450 a night unless you want to stay in Port Adelaide for the night. What is the point of the ACCC if hotels can rob 30,000 people who want to go across for the weekend.

The old boys club continues.

The reality is that now the AFL should be considered as a cultural sports entertainment industry. Creates revenue for media, tourism, employment, airlines, caterers, other ancillary services as well as a public distraction to genuine problems in society. Just another successful business and quasi political tool. The equivalent of Roman circuses hence run by qualified elites.

This could end up being a 4 hour show.

Don't know what's so "hugely popular" about 80% of the regular match going AFL public around the country not being able to go and watch their team play live.

SEN's tweet says, "the hugely popular Gather Round". Was it hugely popular? I didn't get the sense that it was at all popular, let alone "hugely" popular, at least, outside SA. Or is that just my bias coming through?

interesting - treating it like an interstate game; we're heading down there on wednesday, training on the ground that day, then staying in a hotel in geelong that evening

Totally concur with your thinking here. It had occurred to me you'd be able to change the pace a little over those weeks whilst still maintaining some form of cadence..A longer break might break that... About the only way I can think to describe it is if you were going for a run (game).........and along the way slow to a purposeful jog(break )...then back to running ( game )...back to jogging...then running.. The point being at no time do you slow to a walk. ....Which a longer break would do. Interesting thinking Coach

I don't mind us playing at Geelong, I would just like more equity in home fixtures and away fixtures across seasons. Biggest fixturing howler this year, I thought, was one fixture v Essendon in Adelaide. Could have had a blockbuster game at the G and instead we were a curtain raiser for Port Adelaide

35 matches vs Geelong this century. 18 games at that cesspool of a stadium since 2000. Collingwood has played there 18 times....since 1972! 0 times this century.

I had the pleasure of being at the OS game where Max got 5 or 6 goals (too lazy to fact check). Not sure if it could be picked up in the televised game, but mid way through the game the crowd started chanting ‘Gawny’. It was a real party atmosphere. Loved it.

I’ve got a ticket to the game Thursday night and I can’t wait for us to finish off their finals hopes!

Have no fear. Carolyn Wilson will be right onto it