At the break of Gawn

So, if Melbourne had come back and got this within 6 pts or something, they would still call it a win for Brisbane? The AFL needs to change this rule. Melbourne isn’t coming back but the way the modern game is played, if this was only a goal or two, it’d be a great injustice.

2019 had a heap worse than this.

I don’t know what holding the ball is anymore.

Why fly him up then?

Is it going to be slippery tonight? If I recall correctly, the round 23 game was quite a dry deck. I’m hoping the humidity isn’t too bad again.

Even though we were all on our last legs, I swear to this day we would have won that game if he had played. The small forward set up won it for them.

Out: Tomlinson (stiff because he was good), Pickett In: May, Fritsch

Just a win with our new brand on show will be good enough for me. We’re missing 4 of our best 22 so I’m not expecting anything spectacular. Let the media froth over the Pies for the next month.

I think he’s an upgrade on Weid. He reads the play better (can also go down back), he’s a much better set shot and a longer kick. Tmac JvR Schache That’s my starting tall forwards (Ben Brown is done in my opinion)

West Coast at the MCG. We haven’t played them there since 2014.

So you’re happy to discount one of Melbourne’s best on-field performance in 60 years and just chalk it up to the opposition being under the weather?

I’ve seen at least 3 journos cite the illness that ran through the Geelong camp in the days prior to the 2021 prelim final as a reason they lost that match. It honestly makes me angry about the amount of disrespect they’ve shown towards Melbourne and how good we were that night. What annoys me most is that several Geelong players have brushed off the excuse but the media keeps bringing it up and they almost use Geelong’s 2022 form as a form of validation. Here is another article on it written by Daniel Cherney who I consider one of the better ones out there. The tweet accompanying this article reads “Last year, illness halted Geelong’s Grand Final hopes. 12 months on, they have made up for that misfortune “. https://www.codesports.com.au/afl/geelong/geelong-poised-to-overcome-lingering-pain-of-last-years-83point-preliminary-final-defeat-to-melbourne/news-story/9fdd557b12b3fbed77dafcf16ed5a9e9

I’m glad Cripps won it over Neale. There’s no way Neale is as good as everyone says he is. He was pulling votes in almost every Brisbane game where he had no right to (rnd 23 in particular). Neale has a real nice guy attitude which is why I think the umps love him so much. Honestly can’t fathom how Miocek got 3 votes against us. I thought Cox maybe, but that was just bizarre. This happens year on year with the umpires. We really need to peg down the Brownlow to a middle tier award but the whole ceremony and red carpet just inflates the importance of it.

If he loses by a vote this game will be heavily discussed. Mihocek had just an average forward game.

How did Scott get 1 vote against us in round 10?

Bucks’ ego is too big for an assistant coach. It’s head coach or nothing for him.

Watching this game just makes me realise how last week everything just went perfectly for the Lions. They had an unbelievably lucky night and barely made a mistake.

Boys club.

Tmac has re-injured his foot. Wrap him in cotton wool and let’s hope he can still get a full pre-season in.

I took two things out of that: 1. The players were cooked and barely got a break between 2021 and 2022. 2. The players are expecting a new game plan from Goody and the coaches.

I don't think I've seen it in this thread, but I wonder how much did the Entrecôte incident effect the rest of our year? There's no denying that there is some fractures amongst the playing group, so I wonder if this was put to bed in round 12 or if it did simmer away in the background.

Would love to hear Goodwin or someone in the FD actually articulate the reason. All I’ve heard is some vague “bit of everything” answer.

I’m a firm believer that the game has shifted to a complete system based game. The teams with the best system win. It’s less about talent, it’s less about fitness, and it’s less about culture. It’s all about how you can execute your role in that system. Perhaps some players did take it easy over the off-season and hence couldn’t execute their role to the level that was required, which you could point to culture/standards, however, I think in our case, it was a mixture of a system that has been worked out by the opposition , and players just 2-3% off their role execution which exposes flaws. We need a new system for 2023 and we also need a system that can still stand up when players are a few % off their usual output. More on-field success will improve the culture. People never talked about the Geelong culture until they started winning multiple premierships. Ironically, no one talks about the Hawthorn culture anymore as their on-field success has deserted them with a large scale re-build - but who would know if their culture isn’t just as strong as it was in their 3-peat era?

Are you going to do a season one @joeboy?