DemonWheels

The St Kilda team looks very ‘vanilla’ on paper - we just have to beat them if we’re serious about taking the next step and making finals this year.

Love seeing Essendon play like shite. Goalless quarter coming up - keep going Hawks.

100% Yes you can.

Wow what a shizen game on a Friday night. Hope we get the Giants when they’re playing like this - they are woeful. And Geelong aren’t actually playing all that well themselves.

Hoping for a GWS win tonight - got a nice little multi on and they’re paying good money when you consider they’re 3rd on the ladder vs 9th. Would love to pass them on the ladder at the end of the weekend if we can get up.

I had Brayshaw a couple of years ago on my card and he barely got on the ground with all the concussion issues he had that year. I’ve since decided it was all my fault and I jinxed him so I go with the generic card these days.

Isaac Smith ran riot last week against the ‘Aints last week and it was beautiful to watch. It’s time for Jayden Hunt to do the same and take the game on again as we know he can, lots of running bounces - get a step or two outside of the 50 arch and launch for home. Don’t worry about bombing ‘into’ the forward line - just go straight over the top - we know he can do it.

Would normally attend this game but the stress of the last few weeks has forced me to take a week off and actually enjoy my weekend. Definitely not confident but hoping the Bombers woes continue as whoever loses will cop it in the media this week. Go Dees

Cats V Geelong turning into a ripper game. 10 mins to go and Sydney are back in front after trailing by about 5 goals.

Petracca happened to be at a café I was at this morning and he had his whole arm in a sling with his hand wrapped in bandage. It looked really serious but he was chatting to the owner of the café (and of course I was listening in) and he said he was expecting to still play on Sunday. Obviously he's been told that it won't be happening now that he's had the surgery – but we'll see once the teams come out I guess.

More niggles / injuries for Essendon on a short break please (nothing major of course) - we need to win next week.

If you've got a General Admission MFC membership and want a confirmed seat, call the club and ask to purchase a 'Guest Pass' for the 'Demons Seats'. You can sit anywhere within the M14 Bay on Level 1 Great Southern Stand once you have the pass and only costs $18 (on top of the cost of your GA membership or GA ticket). Bought one for my folks yesterday avo. Note: sometimes people manage to sneak in and sit there as it's never even 25% full – so give that a go as well.

If Weid can get enough of a run up when the ball comes inside F50 his job is to make a contest and bring it to ground - something we’ve missed since Rd 1. I hope he’s given a license to run through whoever is in his way because he’s a pretty big unit and he’ll make the Tigers think twice next time. Get the ball to ground and we’ve got a stack of small forward options who need to position themselves correctly to rove off the packs and put the score on the scoreboard.

Quite enjoying North playing well against the Hawks. North playing with intensity and aggression. Ben Brown is a ripper. Frawley also not having a great day which is enjoyable to watch.

How could you possibly train all summer with the same game plan and not have someone (like maybe one of the MANY coaches on our payroll!) test it out aggressively in opposition to try and break through it? (He could actually test it out himself - he’s had 6 months with 40 players at his disposal). If this had been done it would be clear once the game plan has been ‘defeated’ (to an extent) you move on to Plan B. It took 1 hour to implement any real change on Sunday - way too long, game was already over. Goodwin is either super arrogant AND stubborn believing no one will penetrate his cunning plan (Think ‘Gargamel’ from The Smurfs) OR he’s ridiculously naive (which I fail to believe given his playing history and ability to reach a top AFL job). Very nervous for this week (and what follows if we have a repeat performance).

It’s raining non-stop here now at the G. Hope we can play with that in mind and just move the ball forward. Let’s be clever Dees!

Adelaide were terrible. Weren’t willing to tackle all night and as many commentators suggested pre-match they went in too tall with their forward line. I watched a fair bit of the game and the ball hardly ever got past Adelaide’s half forward line. Good on Collingwood for taking the win. Will be interesting to watch over the next few weeks how they go and how we both measure up by the time we meet on Queens Birthday Monday.

We can’t afford to give them a sniff today - we need to jump them in the first quarter and apply intense pressure for four full quarters. If we let them in the game or they get in front at any point they know we’ll be battling against them as well as our own heads.

Terrible game to watch. Still can’t believe these two teams trouble us - we look a lot better than them - shouldn’t be getting Friday nights. We’re 10 goals better than both of them.

Thanks Lewis and Wagner

3 more quarters of this please

Goodwin better be making some changes this week. We may have only lost by a few points but the reality is we need to focus on how the team functions and not just the result. There are a number of areas we can improve in from the Geelong game and some of them can be instantly improved by bringing in the right players.

I tend to think a very important part of our game plan went out the window – switching and changing angles. Based on pre-season training and when we were at our best last year we used to broaden our vision and switch. Even just a short kick slightly backwards and out of congestion from the back flank and we'd be away. That was where we could run with a few players and handball to link up and get a much cleaner forward 50 entry on the 'fat' side. Not sure if it was Geelong's setup that stopped us from doing it or if it was our players taking the conservative approach but we consistently kicked it to a contest within an already congested area.

Hope the rain stays away - would love a clean game where we can utilize our improved kicking skills. Feeling pretty nervous about this one as we’ve got some questions about our squad still to be answered: - Can Pedersen continue his good form from late last year and fill TMac’s role? - Will we look a little slow with Vince, Lewis and Jones all seemingly lined up across the half-back and centre lines? - Is Clarry 100%? - And the big one - Has the group matured and grown from last year enough so that we don’t have patches or whole quarters where the opposition gets a run on? And if it starts to happen do we have the leadership to stand up and do something about it? We have had a very positive summer so I hope we see a huge effort from the boys today and take home a win. Go Dees!

Geeez Collingwood are very rusty. They’re doing what we used to do and produce such low quality football that the opposition team starts nuffing it up too. Good to see Jeremy Howe still loves bombing it to no one off one step from the back line in a panic - only to see it come straight back!