Bang Bang Bang

Shame about Daicos. He’s actually a really likable player and carries himself well for a young guy. Not his fault he’s so damn good and the media obsess over him. Will it hurt Collingwood much? Time will tell. I remember thinking the sky was falling when Clarry went down and that was before it was 12+ weeks! But we found a way. I suspect Collingwood will be similar.

I saw Jon Ralph grade the Luke Jackson trade as an A+ for Fremantle. Absolutely ludicrous. Dogga is an absolute gun, no qualms about that, but virtually no player in the league is worth pick 4, 15 and 23. You could trade for two stars and an excellent role player with that draft capital!

No Cunnington for them is a plus! Always tears us a new one.

I would hate to think of the reaction on here if Goody actually implemented some of the changes being mooted, and we went on to lose. North are a poor side, but beating them in Tassie is never as easy as everyone expects. Even in 2021 they did a number on us down there before some Bayley Fritsch brilliance got us out of jail. Clarko is back too, just to complicate things even further. Of course I still fully expect to win but I don’t advocate resting multiple players at all. Viney (shoulder) maybe, but only if he really needs it and only if Clarry is back. Otherwise, we should take this game seriously and play our best side. Percentage is another crucial factor. Fortunately Goody has never really been into resting players, even our pre season hit outs are normally best available. With all that said and done, I’d like to see Harmes out for Sparrow. JJ can make way for Clarry the following week. Taj will probably get caught by Spargo at some stage. And then Fritsch will squeeze in. That’s about it.

How does a game of rugby union at the MCG get 84,000? I don’t know anyone in this city that cares about it.

I will never understand why people melt after wins on here when we have rounds like this. Felt guilty barracking for Freo today, but it couldn’t have worked out any better.

Melbourne week 1 with the prospect of Geelong in week 2 would surely make you nervous.

Hunter seems to be quite unpopular on here. I personally feel like he has been an excellent outlet for us all season and has changed the way we play for the better, we actually use both wings to attack now. Very important player for our structure even if he can be a bit cute at times. We’re 8-0 at the MCG with Hunter playing this year and 0-1 without him. We were a poor MCG side up until this year too. Now I am not suggesting he’s THAT integral to our fortunes, but I’d be absolutely staggered if he was dropped. Tomlinson on exposed form has had a better season than Petty, but I get the feeling the coaches see it differently. We have conceded a lot of scoring shots in the past two games, so it seems like a no brainer to slot Hibbo back in there. For who? I’m not so sure. Grundy for BBB seems like a given in the next few games too.

That was a stressful last quarter, but an otherwise enjoyable game of footy with the Dees faithful. Glad the rain went away and 33,000 was a strong showing IMO, particularly with very few Crows fans at the City End. Don’t care how we win them at this time of year. That’s 8 incredibly value points in our last two outings when it could easily have been 0. Collingwood and Port have made winning close ones an art form this season, why can’t we? Kosi was the difference between the two sides and for all the “LoSt At SeLeCtIoN” comments I’ve read over the years, can we say this match was WON AT SELECTION? Tomlinson was excellent and we don’t win without Chandler. Brown off for Smith was genius too. Onya Goody.

I think it’s highly likely we go for it and certainly possible West Coast agree to it. It’s almost an identical play to what we tried last year with Essendon’s pick and Humphrey. Something like: pick 4, pick 15 and our future first For pick 1 and a future third Is mutually beneficial IMO. Eagles get to take Curtin and also get two bonus first rounders to strengthen their rebuild. And we get to draft the heir apparent to Petracca and Oliver. He will be hitting his prime just as they are slowing down / retiring. Yes, there’s no guarantees of Reid becoming a star. But the inside bulls have a MUCH higher probability of making it than anyone else.

So Clarry has gone from 3-4 a fortnight ago, to 4 last week, to 3-4 again today. Hope he can actually get back this season.

There are lots of possibilities, but here are the two I see most likely: 1. Trade up for pick 1 i.e Harley Reid. West Coast might go for it if we get pick 4 and package it up with two of our other assets (our own first rounder this year or next, or Freo’s second pick). West Coast might prefer going for Curtin anyway and using the other picks to strengthen their rebuild. As for us, the Petracca/Oliver/Viney era has been amazing and still has a few years left in it, but we need to bring a genuine A-grade talent in to take over the midfield in five years. Reid is perfect IMO and I’d be happy to go down this path despite the cost. 2. Keep Freo’s pick. My money would be on taking Zane Duursma - from memory he trained with us over summer and played a bit at Casey. I’m sure that works in his favor somewhat and there’s a fair chance he will be best available at Freo’s pick and he fits a need.

I can’t see them catching us. They have Brisbane away, Port, Collingwood, Saints (at Marvel) and the Dogs to come. They will lose at least two of them, surely. If we go 5-1 or even 4-2 from here, then we should have them covered. They’ll be dangerous in September though.

So… you’ll be…. going for…. Geelong… tonight? Never thought I’d see the day.

Went to the game tonight, I actually don’t mind Marvel like everyone else seems to. It’s definitely not as good as the G but it’s always pretty easy to get to on the train and a solid spot to watch a game of footy. 30k was a pretty good turn out, even if we were outnumbered. Was just a “so-so” win at best, but also no worse than our win over them in 2021. And the 4 points were as crucial as they’ll be all season. Puts us in a very good position now. May was masterful, it looked like maybe age was finally catching up to him, but now… perhaps not? We will be in every game of footy as long as May is fit and in form. Beast. Goody will probably be pleased with how the midget forward line worked in tandem. I thought Melksham was very good, Trac was clinical and BB tried hard and did enough. I still feel like we were lacking one tall player down there. Forget Grundy playing forward, he has his strengths but marking and forward craft aren’t it. Gawn too. On that note… I think Gawndy is actually going the way a lot of us predicted it would last October. Just doesn’t seem to work and it’s made Gawn a shell of the player he once was. It’s not really Grundy’s fault either but surely Goody gives thought to replacing him with JVR (or Schache) just to see how it looks.

Give Ben another week or two to show his worth, he was never going to impact in today’s rubbish conditions and should have been a late out if anything. I’d be happy for any of ANB, Kosi and Chandler to be dropped, but this is Goodyball, none will be. As for Harmes, what a poor selection, no hindsight needed, just bizarre to drop JJ for him.

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David King is paid to analyze the game and had Freo as his 4th seed twelve days ago. Someone needs Champion Data to go and audit his continual [censored] calls.

Joey Montagna is a much better analyst than Kingy. Joey jumped on the FlagDees before anyone else in the media (very early in 2021) - at a time when it was still VERY uncool to take Melbourne seriously. Kingy has no idea really, he'll probably have Essendon in his power rankings tomorrow. I do like him taking Kane Cornes to task every Friday though.

Not enough love for Lachie Hunter's hit on Hoskin-Elliot (3.54 left in the first quarter). Was awesome. Too bad Grundy couldn't finish the work off.

Jack Viney what a man! Not sure what was a bigger disgrace, the umpiring at the end there or Hamish going with "Bang Bang Bang" at the start of the game. [censored] off.

Anyone who thought Schache was going to be John Coleman for us were always going to be disappointed. We only got him on the cheap as insurance which thankfully we haven’t had to tap into much so far. Exactly the same as what Weideman was bringing us.

Delist Jefferson though.

Gunston is an interesting one - he was still an excellent player in 2022 and I was actually disappointed we didn’t go after him. But he has fallen off the cliff now. Not totally unexpected (he’s 32 this year) but just very sudden. Hopefully our plus 30s have a couple of good years left yet.

Umpire 22 is the worst in the business. There’s a reason he’s been around for years but never pops up in the finals. Dogs easily could have won that if it weren’t for him. Port are a bunch of [censored] but they’d have to trip over their own shoelaces to miss top 2 from here. And that gives them a huge chance of a GF spot. They have Geelong next week, I’m honestly not sure what to do for that game. Two despicable teams who are both dangers to us for different reasons. I might watch paint dry.