At the break of Gawn

I almost feel we can’t lose today. We have a full strength side that’s currently keeping a club champion out and the most promising young key forward on our list. North on the other hand has one of their weakest sides in about 20 years, with even LDU (one of their best young players) also out. If we lose today the media will go with that old rhetoric “Just when you thought you could trust them, they let you down”. But really this would be one of our worse losses in 20 years if we lost today, so I just can’t see it happening.

Ah that’s true. Geez that forward line was something special.

Experienced Demonlanders, is this the best team we’ve put on the park since 1994? Maybe even older?

Saints also the biggest downhill skiers going around.

Can’t see Mitch Brown playing for Casey?

This is from the Tassie gov Covid website: The Director of Public Health has advised that provided no evidence emerges of unmanaged community risk in the Perth and Peel Regions in the next two days, these two regions may be reclassified as low risk from midnight Wednesday 28 April 2021. This will restore quarantine-free travel to Tasmania for most people in and recently in Western Australia

If the game is in Hobart, surely we play BB? He has dominated on that ground for years and knows how to play it. If it’s at Marvel, I wouldn’t play BB. I’m a bit nervous if this goes ahead in Hobart. We’ve never beaten them there and it’s grounds like these (like in Cairns) that can sometimes cause us trouble. I know North are absolutely terrible, but they’re bound to get a win some time.

You do realise we’ve never beaten them there, right?

King’s MO is to make a bold early prediction and gloat about it later if he gets it right. I heard him in rnd 1say that Essendon could be a bolter this year. He also said a couple of weeks ago that the Saints had more “weapons” than us. I doubt he watched the Melbourne game because the North v Freo game was on at the same time. I wonder if he changes his tune a bit more after we belt his beloved Roos. Montagna is a good analyst FWIW. He picked up on us very early.

I reckon we started to see it the end of last year. The thumping by Port was a real come to Jesus moment for the group and I think the group gathered together and started to make inroads.The two losses in Cairns were mainly due to unexpected conditions and Covid restrictions (travelling up the day of while Freo and Swans were there days beforehand), so I think if you exclude them we’ve been good for a while - we’ve won 12 of our last 15 games which is amazing.

He was at the game apparently, saw a tweet from someone that he gave a bunch a Dees fans the finger after they said something to him.

His articles are decently written (certainly not the best out there) but he uses a lot of emotion in his writing which suits the HS. His footy knowledge is really poor though which surprises me. I’ve been watching 360 for years and he just always uses phrases such as “they’re just not showing heart”, or “x team has to make a stand” while completely ignoring any technical reasons.

Agree with this also. It’s crazy to think he won’t even be regarded as the best person in his draft year as there’s a guy in there who’s won 3 norm smiths.

AnB fought back really well in the second half. Did some nice things.

Thought Jetta had been pretty good, not fantastic but still really solid. Don’t particularly like 3 changes to a team who has been so settled. I suppose 2 are forced though.

100% agree, although David King reckons the Saints have more “weapons” than Melbourne this year ?

That is really poor. I signed up my daughter at the start of March and have also received nothing.

Surely there’s no excuse now for our supporters not to sign up!?

I’m happy with his running and getting to multiple contests. I’m sure BB will kick more goals but I still think Tmac has a place.

Will be too difficult in these conditions. It’ll be a territory battle today. We need to smash them in clearances and contested possessions then lock it in our forward 50.

I think the rest of the footy world believes the Cats deserve, and are due, for a loss which I’m happy for us to deliver. I’m predicting a smallish winning margin - 10 to 20pts which will see us gain a bit of respect but not too much media hype to give us big heads against the Hawks the week after.

Goody and the coaches have been pretty spot on with the team selection so far so I’m happy to take their judgment on this one. Apparently Melbourne is the no.1 defensive side in the comp without the ball according to champion data, so we must be doing something right, and I can’t seeing Melky stuffing that up.

Sparrow adds midfield depth, so I’d take him ahead of Melksham at this stage. Hibberd for Jetta only if the matchup is right, but Jetta was excellent round 1 and blanketed Lonie last week.

Harsh on a couple here. Brayshaw was our only winning mid early. Fritsch kicked 3 up against an AA defender