At the break of Gawn

Gawn also leading the AFLCA award at the moment on 29 votes. He's ahead of the Bont, Butters, Daicos. He received a minimum of 6 votes for every game so far. Absolutely remarkable.

Got the 10 coaches votes. Nice to see that Hardwick and King both gave the same votes. They see the game as good as anyone.

The Suns biggest weakness is their backline. Collins is a hard nose but unimaginative defender, Mac Andrew can have enormous brain fades. It's probably their smallish and rebound defenders that worry me. Perfect conditions for JvR and Miocek I reckon. Having said all that, I think if the scores can be close to level at 3qtr time but we go down by 3-4 goals I'll be happy with that. A bye can do funny things for some clubs. So you never know...

His lack of awareness to get caught HTB before was pretty awful. Will need a fair bit of time I think.

Considering Melksham had 11 scoring shots and kicked 5 goals against the Suns last time, I reckon he's a pretty good 'In'. Turner in for Jiath is an upgrade. I'm not sure what we do with Kolt. When he went out of the centre bounce/stoppage we dominated with Sparrow, Steele and Pickett in there. I absolutely hate that Rowell is back, but I'm clinging onto hope that he's underdone.

Where did you see this?

Considering he got 13 clearance (9 centre clearances) against us last time at the G we're stuffed if he's back.

They've also played a Geelong outfit who clearly weren't ready for OR, a West Coast side which struggled against a side with OR already under their belt, and also a Richmond side who only had 3 on the bench. The Suns do look really good, but I think people are overestimating their opposition so far. We might not beat them, but I'm fairly confident we will challenge them within 4-5 goals.

Nice to see Lever get recognised by the coaches - had a terrific game.

Interesting tactic by Gawn and the coaches. Didn't notice this at first but seems very obvious now. https://www.instagram.com/p/DWdriipmfGh/?img_index=1&igsh=bHZ2dHg1Z3J2dm5i

What an unbelievable turn-around! I wasn't able to make the game due to a family commitment, but I was checking the scores up until half time where it looked like we were toast. I had a feeling we would come back but ultimately fall short which had been a pattern under Goodwin (Melb v Blues Rd 9, 2024 is a good example). I couldn't believe my eyes when I checked the scores at 6pm to see us win that (and win it comfortably). I watched the replay on Fox last night and Huddo calling a Melbourne comeback against Carlton just like in the 2000 QF brought a bit of nostalgia to the game. His call was excellent by the way, much better than BT's I'm sure. A few things I noticed: JVR rucked in the second half which surprised me (given Max's pledge to not use him as a back-up ruck). I assume this was because CJ went down and Petty needed to stay back? I thought Lever and McDonald were terrific. They had great communication between the two of them. Tmac will definitely hold his spot. I actually think Petty might be in danger of losing his spot once Disco comes back. Some of Petty's turn-overs and poor decisions are really costing us. He's had two poor games in a row now. The only issue with that is we don't have a back-up ruck unless they want to use JVR again. I'm glad King swiftly moved Koltyn off Cripps. That just wasn't working. Steele did a much better job. I still want to see Langford more in the middle. He's a good user of the ball and I think he can be a high impact player. The only thing not on his side seems to be his fitness. It just always looks like he's labouring whenever he runs.

Toss of the coin this game. We can't defend and Carlton can't score. I'm hoping Gawn and Tmac's milestone provides an extra edge for the boys.

I'd prefer Culley goes to the wing and Langford gets more time in the middle. Langford looks completely lost out on the wing.

Nic Newman also ruled out which is handy. I assume Saad will play though.

Saad and Cerra likely to return this week for Carlton. They're basically full strength apart from Motlop who's done his knee (arguably not even in their best 23).

Won't play against Melbourne thankfully.

Omac was awful. He was keeping us in it early.

Thought it was a bit ironic that they killed us through their handball chains, which under Goodwin last year, we did the same thing to them and how we beat them last year. They're a fast side who know how to link up. That looked like bottom 4 slop to me from us. I thought the Serong tag was unnecessary. Brayshaw got completely off the chain, as did Bolton. I'm not sure if that was a Nate Jones or a King call, but unless the player is a top 3 player in the comp, then we shouldn't be doing it. It wastes our opportunity to win clearance when you've got Tholstrup in the middle as opposed to a Langford/Windsor etc Speaking of Langford, it just seems to me he hasn't done the work over the off-season and he's lacking confidence. He's not running hard enough to get handball receives either. Getting him to attend more CBAs may help his confidence - I think King should abandon the wing role for him and use that for just Culley and Langdon.

I still can't believe Omac is in the side (Ryan is either out of favor or still needs to build fitness). David King said after our 2018 prelim "Oscar McDonald is not the guy". He was right. In 2026, now 8 years later and now 30yo, King showed vision of him continuously being beaten by Neale and he also said he's "Not the guy". I hope he continues to show he's "not the guy" and JvR kicks 7 on him. Freo's defence is now their biggest weakness. If King has a plan for Pearce I think we can get a hold of them.

Dogs had 60 less marks than Adelaide and still won. Similar stat with us (Saints had well over 100 marks). King clearly knows where the game is headed.

The Saints are lucky that a lot of the members auto-renewed after their Nas $7 membership drive. If they tumble this year, watch that number plummet next year for them. You could tell just from Sunday's game where we dwarfed them in supporters that there's no substance behind their 65k number.

I just can't see how we not play Heath based on Freos talls. Petty will have to take Treacy, Turner on Voss, and Lever on Amiss with Heath giving the chop out for Max instead of Petty. There's also rumblings that Cox will get selected for Darcy who we know can go forward.

It's probably already been mentioned, but Max Hall is some sort of player. Watching the game live, he's got a level of toughness and skill that is rare. I'd argue he's almost the Saints 3rd or 4th best player but he's probably on peanuts. It's a pity he's contracted until the end of 2027, but if his trajectory continues, he could demand a decent pay packet the Saints might not be able to afford.

Besides from our cohesion in defence as an issue, one other negative was probably Langford. I'd like to see what his GPS numbers were because it looked like he was just jogging for most of the day. Only 9 disposals, 9 pressure acts, 1 tackle for 94 mins of game time.

I'm a bit perplexed with Lever's game. He had an awesome preseason looked good in the practice matches but looked lost today. I think he really struggles against dangerous small forwards.